She'd be back, Dale was sure. He changed the subject. "So what are you sending to Canada tonight?"

"The last forty cases in the bas.e.m.e.nt, most of it Jack Daniels. I appreciate the help, but I figured you got more than being a helping hand on your mind."

Dale took the dolly from Gordy, went into the storeroom, worked the dolly under a stack of cases, tipped the cases back, and wheeled them outside. "Well," he said, "I did talk to Ace, and he ain't real pleased about the meth traffic. Especially if there's cops snooping around. Maybe you could hold off till we're outta here."

"For sure. The guys up north say there's some kind of squeeze going on. And Ace says I got to be extra careful tonight. Play some hide-and-seek, keep the lights out," Gordy said.

Dale forced a grin. "Like in high school, drinking beer. Dodging the sheriff." He wheeled the load into the truck and eased it off the dolly.

They worked in silence as they finished up the load. Gordy pulled a tarp and a cargo net over the cases, fastened it down, and then they sat on the loading dock and waited as the real dark inked over the fields. Dale watched the lights come on brighter in town, peered at every car that went by.

"So, they could be watching us?" he said.

"Yeah, and they they could be anybody-deputies, state guys, who knows? But we'll lose them in the dark." He cuffed Dale on the shoulder. "Be fun, huh?" could be anybody-deputies, state guys, who knows? But we'll lose them in the dark." He cuffed Dale on the shoulder. "Be fun, huh?"

"Yeah," Dale said, trying to cover how b.u.mmed he was inside. What if she was really gone? He had trouble seeing his way through what lay ahead without taking her along.

The traffic quieted down, and after nothing went by for fifteen minutes, Gordy decided it was time to go. "It ain't like we're breaking any laws," he said. "Just unloading this stuff in Phil Lute's old garage, on the U.S. side."

Dale insisted on taking his bike, so he hooked it in the back of the truck, in the webbing of the net. Then they drove slowly across the highway and headed north until the lights of the town receded and they were the only set of beams poking through the fields.

The way ahead was all black except for two faint farmyard lights. Gordy aimed at the solid blackness between them. When his tires left the asphalt and hit gravel he pulled over, killed his headlights, and parked. The smell of damp, ripening wheat and canola rolled in through the open windows.

"f.u.c.kin' mosquitoes," Gordy said, swatting his cheek. He leaned over, popped the glove compartment, took out a can of insect spray, and ga.s.sed the interior of the cab.

Dale held his breath and didn't protest. He'd grown up with this, sitting by his dad. They needed to keep the windows open to listen.

They waited and listened for half an hour. When nothing unusual happened, Gordy eased the truck over the gravel road-no lights, methodically working off tenths of miles on his odometer. Then he finally turned and followed the skeletal gravel trace of a prairie road into the wheat. He had whole sections of the road grid memorized, and he counted as he drove-"...eight-one-thousand, nine-one-thousand, bang. There it is, right up there."

Dale got out and helped Gordy back up. He could just make out the ma.s.s of Lute's swayback garage, backlit by a trickle of moonlight-all that remained of the old farmstead. They were sitting in the middle of a field, within fifty yards of the border. The Canadian pickup crew would creep down from the north along the same prairie road and load the booze later that night.

Gordy came around from the cab and dropped his tailgate, then suddenly hissed," Don't move...freeze." But Dale was already still, motionless. He saw the headlights knife the dark. But a good two miles away.

"Cops?" Dale said.

"Don't know." They waited until the lights went out. Then, ten minutes later, the lights came on again, this time headed back toward town.

"Probably somebody just shopping in Canada," Gordy said. He opened the garage door.

Dale took a step inside, feeling his way, and knocked into a pile of light cardboard boxes. "Hey, what's this?"

Gordy flashed a tiny pencil light. "Boxes," he said.

Unmarked boxes. Dale hefted one. Light. A rattle of cellophane and tinfoil.

"Okay. So it's cold medicine. Ephedra," Gordy said. "C'mon, ten measly boxes."

"This could get us all sent to jail."

"Get off it. Everybody from here on down through Montana to Idaho is cooking meth. Home brew, private use. A few boxes. C'mon, it'll just take me a minute to stash it."

"Where you gonna put it?"

"I thought maybe Irv's old house."

Dale grinned. He liked that idea a lot.

They worked quickly, Gordy handing down the whiskey, Dale stacking it. Then Dale pa.s.sed up the flimsy cardboard boxes. They were light, practically empty, but Dale began to gush sweat. The night smothered him in green humidity rising off the dewy field.

It was nerves made him sweat so bad, so he unb.u.t.toned his shirt, took it off, carefully folded it, set it aside, and worked bare-belly in the dark.

"You all right?" Gordy asked, a little alarmed to see the normally modest Dale throwing around his beefy white gut.

"Fine," Dale wheezed, using his hand to mop sweat off his face and sodden chest. Swat the bugs.

When they'd tossed the flimsy boxes in the back of the truck, they waited and listened again. Dale put his shirt back on, making sure his Epipen was still secure in the pocket. Then they got back in the truck and drove slowly in the dark till they came to an intersection. Gordy cruised blind for a few minutes, then he pulled up a driveway.

Dale began to smile, and with the smile came a flash of hesitation. He was remembering how, back during the missile time, they played here as kids. He pointed to a thick apple tree in the front yard. "Remember we used to climb that sucker, hide in the upper branches from Irv's mother?"

"Back when you could still climb, huh, Needle-d.i.c.k?" Gordy said, jabbing Dale in the side.

You could always count on Gordy to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. His smart-a.s.s remark wiped away the last quiver of doubt. Dale patted the Epipen in his pocket and stared at Gordy. "I told you, a.s.shole."

"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, we'll throw them in the root cellar."

They each grabbed two of the bulky cartons and walked toward the house. Gordy had a battery-powered light bar hooked over his thumb. He put down his boxes, opened the slanted door to the root cellar, and peered in.

"What?" Dale said.

"Stinks."

"Probably gonna get worse, too," Dale said. He reached in his pocket and slid out a pair of Latex surgical gloves, slipped them on.

Gordy went into the musty cellar. Horror-show cobwebs; wiring in the joists dating back to 1910. He poked around and stamped his feet in the sediment. He rested the light bar on a ledge in the uneven stone wall. Then, energetically, he put together a rough platform out of rock debris and old lumber, so the boxes would sit up off the damp floor. Then he waved a hand at Dale.

"Dale?" he wondered aloud. "How come you're wearing gloves?"

Dale ignored the question and handed one of the boxes to Gordy, then paused and selected a board from a pile of loose lumber stacked on the rickety stairs next to the fieldstone foundation.

"Lookit this old piece of oak. Bet this is a hundred years old."

"Yeah, yeah, gimme another box."

Dale turned the board in the pale light. "Got a big-a.s.s spike in here. But it's bent." Dale studied the problem then hooked the bent spike on a ledge of rock and grabbed a piece of debris that had fallen from the wall. Holding the rock like a hand hatchet, he banged down on the top of the board.

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing?"

"Straightening out this nail."

"Very cool, Dale, except that ain't no nail. That's a pole-barn spike. How about you hand me the boxes."

"Coming right up." Dale whacked the board again and inspected the result: the rusty nine-inch spike was mostly perpendicular to the board. While Gordy shook his head, Dale set the board aside and picked up one of the boxes and pa.s.sed it down.

"By the way, what's got Joe all p.i.s.sed off?" Gordy asked.

Dale smiled. "He's done with you. Especially after that Sioux City business."

"Ah s.h.i.t, I'll make it up to him," Gordy said. But he looked glum. "Sioux City was a b.u.mmer."

"Whole trailer packed with crates of full-capacity toilets down from Winnipeg. He runs the border, drives like crazy down to outside Sioux City. And then n.o.body's there to unload them. He has to unload them himself and hide them in a barn. Not the ideal job for an eight-fingered Indian. Those toilets are heavy..."

"Yeah, yeah. I owe him."

"Ah, I don't know. You were right about Joe being sneaky. I did catch him in a lie once."

"f.u.c.kin' Indian, don't surprise me."

"Yeah," Dale said as he turned away and removed the Epipen from his pocket. He twisted the top, felt the needle engage, tucked it in his cupped hand, and turned back around. "Last April, Joe was loading cases in the storeroom at the Missile Park. He didn't hear me come up on the dock. Thought he was all alone. He's in a hurry and he tips the dolly and dumps these cases on his foot..."

"Dale, c'mon. c'mon."

"...Starts swearing like I never heard. Whole string of words, only a couple I could remember. One I sounded out: nik-o-mack. nik-o-mack. Another was Another was zarba zarba."

"Nikomak? Sounds kinda Indian," Gordy said.

"I thought so too, so, for kicks, I checked around on the Internet, and you know what?"

"What?"

"This was a surprise to me. I couldn't find anything on Ojibwa, but I did get into a site about a Cree dialect that's close to Ojibwa, and you know what? They got no cuss words. Got about twenty words for f.u.c.kin' snow. But no profanity."

Gordy stared at Dale, clearly exasperated.

"Took me all night surfing all these websites about swearing in foreign languages, but I finally found nikomak nikomak." Dale grinned slowly, his whole face lighting up.

"Good for you," Gordy said, starting up the steps to get the other boxes.

Dale turned, sweeping his hand forward at mid-thigh level and jabbed the injector into Gordy's thigh. "f.u.c.k your mother," Dale said contemptuously as he tossed the used injector in the dirt between them.

"Oh s.h.i.t!" Gordy grabbed at his punctured thigh, shook his head. "What the-?" He stared at the fat yellow dispenser lying at his feet. Anger came fast after surprise, and he swatted at Dale. Tried to grab him.

But Dale fended off Gordy's hand. "f.u.c.k your mother-that's what nikomak nikomak means. Don't you wanna know in what language?" means. Don't you wanna know in what language?"

"I about had it with you. What'd you stick me with-some nail?" Gordy, angry now, balled his fists.

"One question at a time. Get this: it was Arabic Arabic," Dale said.

Gordy blinked, stared. His knees wobbled slightly and he began to sweat.

"You ever notice how Joe never hangs out with other Indians? That's 'cause they could tell he was a fake. See, Joe was born in Beirut. He ain't no Indian. In fact, his mom was Italian. He grew up watching reruns of American TV westerns. He said the Indians in them were always played by Italians. So he figured he could pa.s.s for an Indian. Then his folks sent him to stay with relatives in Detroit, 'cause of all the fighting over there. He graduated high school here, in the States. That's why his English is so good. But he went back over there, was in the Syrian army for a while, but mainly he got into the family business, which was growing dope and hating Jews. The downside to messing with Jews over there is, they come back on you, big time. At some point, they shot him up pretty good."

Gordy shook his head, took several breaths, staggered back against the wall. Suddenly it felt like this bag of ice cubes was leaking through his chest. And his fingers were falling asleep. He tried to focus on this new information coming from weird Dale. Then the cellar started a slow spin, like a scary carnival ride.

Dale extended his thick arm, placed the flat of his hand on Gordy's chest, and shoved him hard against the wall. "You gotta pay attention. There's two Joes, okay? Joe Reed Reed was some Indian guy from Turtle Mountain. Our Joe, who ain't the real Joe-his real name is Joseph Khari..." was some Indian guy from Turtle Mountain. Our Joe, who ain't the real Joe-his real name is Joseph Khari..."

Gordy put out his hand on the wall for support, squinted. "That's George's..."

"Yeah, they're relatives. He ripped off some Indian's ident.i.ty, up in Alberta. I guess they kinda looked alike. Any rate, he killed the guy, had new ID made. He knows people that do all that s.h.i.t in Winnipeg-false IDs, counterfeiting, this incredible computer s.h.i.t," Dale said, c.o.c.king his head to the side. "The thing about Joe and George is, they kill people if they have to. h.e.l.l, they almost killed me 'cause I heard Joe cussing in Arab."

"I don't feel so hot," Gordy said. For the first time his voice caught in his throat. He had a sensation that something very big now loomed over him, and he could almost hear the crack of fear start to break his night apart. His arms weighed a ton each. Couldn't lift them.

"Woulda killed me, too, if I hadn't pointed out a few things." Dale drew himself up and tucked in his shirt, which had been hanging out since they unloaded the whiskey at Lute's garage. He smoothed his hand down his sloping chest and stomach. "They say killing the first one is the hardest. The second one is easier, they say. You think that's true?"

"Please," Gordy mouthed weakly as his eyes rolled up, showing a lot of white.

"Man, you're sad. Ginny, at least she put up a fight," Dale said. And then he kicked one of the boxes and sent it flying into Gordy's face. It bounced away in the dark. "They been using us. You, Ace, me. Before us my dad. To study the border." Dale slipped the board under his arm and smiled. "George has been doing a huge business in meth precursor. Joe handles the Canadian side...and the people they're in with are way heavier than the biker clubs up north. s.h.i.t, man, they're running dope to finance those suicide bombers over there."

Gordy pitched forward and dropped to his knees and Dale saw he was losing his audience. He talked faster to get it all in.

"But then they met me and now they're onto something a lot bigger than boxes full of cold pills. Oh, yeah, and zarba zarba-that means s.h.i.t. Just thought you should know."

Dale could see the wheels turning slower and slower in Gordy's mind. See him struggling to connect the dots.

"He's an...Arab?" Gordy was drooling all over his chest as the ketamine really hit him. He fell forward on all fours. Blinking and shivering like a dog, he watched Dale lean over and pick up the yellow thing...

Dale weighed the Epipen in his palm. "I stuck you with ketamine. It's slowly paralyzing you. Some people say it feels like dying. Any comments?"

Dale yanked the board up off the wall, wrapped his big hands around it, planted his stance, and drew it back.

"s.h.i.t," Dale said, "you'd think I'd be good at baseball, since Ace had such a good swing. But I always struck out."

Putting all his bulk into the move, he swung the heavy board like a Louisville Slugger. Gordy, bent over on his hands and knees, stared straight ahead through dull, uncomprehending, heavy-lidded eyes. Didn't even see the pole-barn spike before it hit him in the center of his forehead.

The spasm erupted out of Gordy's head, an electric jolt that Dale felt momentarily in his own hands. Dale expected more blood than just the red masklike pool around the one eye that was filming over. The breath a deep rattle. The ketamine probably eased the pain a bit. Merciful almost.

Dale squatted and held the light bar close to Gordy's trembling face and studied the life growing dimmer in his eyes. "Told you. Shouldn't call me Needle-d.i.c.k. But you wouldn't listen." He took a handful of Gordy's hair and tipped his head back and up. With his other hand, he scooped up a fistful of the loamy sediment from the floor of the root cellar. Slowly he released his fingers so a stream of the sandy soil filled both of Gordy's nostrils. Some involuntary reflex forced a deep cough, his tongue protruded as he struggled for breath.

Handful after handful, Dale slowly poured sand down Gordy's gagging throat until his entire mouth was full and his chest eventually became ma.s.sively still.

Dale took off the rubber gloves, reached down, peeled up one of Gordy's eyelids, exposing the opaque iris. Touched it. Made a face. It felt like a grape. "In case you haven't noticed, a.s.shole, I've changed."

Dale stood up, dusted off his jeans, marched up the stairs, and closed the door to the cellar. He stood, taking deep breaths of the thick night air. d.a.m.n. I'm getting good at this. d.a.m.n. I'm getting good at this. This was the first one he'd done all by himself. This was the first one he'd done all by himself.

He went to Gordy's truck, took out his bike, and then drove the truck into the empty barn behind the house. He closed that door, too. Then he got on his bike and pedaled slowly down the empty road, the long fields ticking with cicadas on either side. The orange dome of light glowing against the horizon guided him.

And lots and lots of stars above. That meant the clouds were finally clearing out.

Half an hour later he pumped up the driveway to his folks' house, and there was Joe's brown van. Joe was sitting on the front porch steps, smoking one of those French cigarettes.