I could hear him talking to the scanner under his breath, the way he used to talk to the old clipboard.

Then the printer coughed out a strip, and he held it up in the window with two fingers.

“Number’s on it now, Sergeant.

Camera matches.”

“Write it down.”

He wrote it down with the brass clip within reach and the pen cap in his teeth.

I walked back to the paint mark and set my heels on it, and I adjusted my cap until the brim sat level over my eyes and the sun came in under it warm instead of hot.

The road running out of Fort Ansel went straight to a line of mesquite and then out of sight, and the barrier arm rested at the top of its arc where everybody could see it.

“The gate is clear, Sergeant,” Dewitt said as the barrier lifted smoothly.