Reed said.

“He needs to hear his father’s voice before we move him upstairs.”

The silver pay phone in the hall smelled of industrial floor wax and rubbing alcohol.

I dialed the eleven digits for the field office up in Williston, North Dakota.

It took the desk clerk forty seconds to put me through to the generator shed where Clay was working his shift.

“Mom?” Clay’s deep voice came down the line over the heavy clatter of a diesel engine.