Chapter 9: The Feed

Jed's POV

I drove to the sale barn in Buffalo before dawn.

The men who knew things in Johnson County drank their coffee there.

I hadn't planned to ask anyone anything.

I took a stool at the end of the counter and listened.

Two ranchers argued about hay.

A third complained about the county.

"They ran the delinquent list in the paper again," the third one said. "Half the Clear Creek road is on it."

"Always is."

"Not like this year. Somebody's buying the tax certificates up, whole parcels at a time."

I turned my cup a quarter turn on the counter.

"Who?"

The man shrugged.

"An outfit with a mesa in the name. The clerk won't say. They buy cheap and sit on them."

I paid for my coffee and left it half drunk.

I sat in my truck with the engine off.

For twelve years I had told myself the Dunning place was none of my business.

I said it every time I mended the north fence.

I said it when I cleaned the cabin where the old man died.

I said it when I wrote three letters, and when they came back, and when I put them in a boot box instead of burning them.

I was a man who kept a promise to a dead friend because I had nothing else to put my hands on.

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