Same spot as always.”

“Brad said that to you.”

“He sure did,” Kurt said.

He pulled his glove back on, drawing the leather tight across his knuckles.

“He said the two of you had the same deal worked out as before.”

I twisted the gas cap until it clicked three times and slowly closed the little door on the side of my truck.

“Have a nice weekend, Kurt,” I said.

I drove the three miles home to the farm without switching on the radio.

The eighty acres sat high on the ridge over the highway, the white farmhouse perched by the gravel drive the way it had been since my grandfather Arvid built the porch in 1962.

The house was silent inside.

I hung my coat on the brass hook by the back door and went into the kitchen.

The bottom drawer of the oak hutch stuck on the left, the way it always did when the air got damp.

I tugged it open and reached in behind the piles of old canning jar rings until my fingers found heavy cloth.

I set Arvid’s green canvas ledger down flat on the kitchen table.