“Yeah. I called Mark Pettigrew, and he’s going to meet us there. I tried calling the coach and Donovan, but neither of them was home. I think they’re on vacation. I heard Donovan say something about going up to Durango.”

“All right, let’s get it over with, then.” Doug stepped into the hall and knocked on the bathroom door. “Hobie’s here. I’m going.”

“Okay,” Tritia said through the closed door. “Good luck. I hope you get your books.”

“I’m not holding my breath.” He returned through the kitchen into the living room. Hobie opened the screen door and stepped outside. Doug turned to his son, still on the couch. “I’ll be back around lunch. Mind your mother.”

“I always do.”

Doug laughed. “That’ll be the day.” He followed Hobie onto the porch and the two of them walked out to the auto teacher’s truck.

“Speaking of water and electricity, I didn’t get my utilities bill this month,” Hobie said.

“We haven’t gotten any bills at all.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t either. Ain’t that weird? I shouldn’t say anything bad about this new guy—I mean, he’s just getting started, just learning the ropes and all—but I think he’s losing a lot of mail. I usually get a ton of mail every day. Lately, though, I’ve been getting two or three letters at the most, some days nothing at all.”

Doug climbed into the cab and slammed the door, digging his safety belt out of the crack of the seat. “Bills and junk mail, right? You’re missing bills and junk mail.”

“Yeah.” Hobie seemed surprised. “You too, huh? Maybe I should go in and talk to Crowell and bitch about this, find out what’s going on.” He started the truck and backed up the drive, swinging around on the road.

They took off, a spray of gravel shooting up behind them. Doug held on to the dashboard with one hand for support. Although he taught driver’s ed, Hobie himself was a scary driver and Doug needed as much reassurance as possible whenever he went someplace in his friend’s truck.

As they drove through the trees toward town, he told Hobie of their picnic at the creek, of the dumped and scattered letters. He reported the facts objectively. He didn’t come out and say that he thought the mailman had been stealing and dumping mail, that he thought the mailman had sent the fake letters to the telephone company and department of water and power, but the implication was unmistakable. The other teacher’s face became more serious and more set as he spoke.

Hobie was silent as they drove past the trailer park and turned left onto the highway. “There’s a lot of weird things going on,” he said finally. “A lot of weird things.”