Billy hid his smile. Lane was always talking about how he was going to “deck” his dad or “beat his ass.” Last week, when they’d found a lottery ticket on the ground, Lane had said that if they had the winning numbers he was going to leave home and send a truckload of dogshit to be dropped on his father’s car. Lane’s plans and pronouncements were always funny, but there was something sad about them too, and Billy was thankful that he didn’t have his friend’s parents.

Lane looked around the drive. “Where’s your bike?”

Billy nodded toward the edge of the road. “I left it back there. I thought maybe your brother was sleeping. I didn’t want to wake him up.” The last time he’d come over, he’d called out for Lane instead of knocking on the door or ringing the bell, and Lane’s mother, smiling as always, had come out and told him in a polite voice edged with steel that he had awakened the baby.

Lane laughed. “You think your bike was going to wake him up? The doorbell’s louder than that.”

“Did I wake him up again?”

“No. He’s fine. Stop being such a pussy. What do you think my mom’s going to do? Beat you?”

It was possible, Billy thought, but he said nothing. He walked down the drive to the bush where he’d stashed his bike while Lane got his own wheels, and soon the two of them were speeding down the road.

Although the land at the top of the hill had been open for development for over two years, few of the acre lots had sold and even fewer had been built upon. There was the Chapmans’ house; Dr. Koslowski’s house; the house of Al Houghton, who owned Pine Top Acres; and a few expensive vacation homes built by people who never used them. Other than that, the flattened hilltop was home to only trees and rocks and bushes.

Billy and Lane pedaled down the paved road past the dark wood and stone of the doctor’s rustic residence. The view from here was spectacular. To the left was the town, white wooden buildings and brown shake roofs peeking up from between summer green trees, and the rugged ridge beyond. To the right was the forest, stretching toward the horizon in an alternating pattern of hill and valley, hill and valley, broken only by the cleared spaces and tiny jumbled patterns of increasingly far-off towns.

They sped along the road. Their plan today was to check out the Indian ruins at the bottom of the hill. A team of archaeology students from ASU had arrived yesterday for their annual summer workshop, and they hoped to be invited to join the exploration.