Chapter 6: The Ring

Anton's POV

The card was lying face down in the mail on the Chair's kitchen table when I came in from the sale barn on Saturday night.

It had a picture of a hotel on the back, with a postmark that said Marathon.

I turned it over and read the square capitals.

ASK FRANK WHERE MY RING IS.

I would have known that handwriting in the dark.

For three months it had left notes on my kitchen table that said OUT OF MILK and BACK BY SIX.

I stood in the doorway with my hat on, staring at the ink.

Then I sat down, because my knees had decided it for me.

I read people by their hands.

I got used to it.

A hand tells you what a face is working to hide, and in the sale ring it is the only thing that matters.

A man who means to bid scratches his ear before he lifts a finger.

So I did not wonder for long about the card.

I thought about Frank's hand on the burial loaf, and about his voice saying gone to the river, son.

Then I drove to his place.

Frank's house is a yellow farmhouse behind the gin with a porch light that has burned since 1989.

He was in the den in his stocking feet with the Aggie game on and a plate of sausage on his knee.

He turned the volume down when he saw my face.

"Son," Frank said. "Sit. You've got no color."

"I need to see your desk," I said.

He smiled, and set the plate on the arm of the chair.

I watched his right hand.

The thumb rubbed twice across the first finger, which is what Frank does when he holds a bid he does not want to call.

"What's in my desk, Anton?"

"Her ring."

The game murmured on the screen.

Frank laughed, short and warm.

"Son, you're grieving. The river took that ring."

"She wore it Sunday," I said. "I saw it on the table."

I let him wait.

"The Jeep sat in the river a week. You leaned into that cab for a good while before the deputy got there."

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