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remind you that this is private property.”
    Madeleine turned to Dodge. “Do you mind if I take a picture?”
    Dodge met her gaze. He thought of all the things he would say to her if he could, and if he thought it would do any good. But he just lifted one hand and let it drop on the open car door to show it was all right.
    While Madeleine took pictures, Mackenzie drilled a stare so hard into Coltrane that the man looked up from his boots. “Drive me home,” Mackenzie said, and threw him the Range Rover keys. Then he turned to the crowd. “As soon as Dodge is finished with you,” he called to the loggers, “go home and take the day off.” He turned to leave and then turned back. “With pay.” He didn’t pause to see if any signs of gratitude flashed across their faces. He didn’t want their gratitude now. He would claim it at some later date. It was like paying insurance, and given for the same reason he handed out free turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas trees at Christmas, and paid for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. Everyone in town owed Jonah Mackenzie something, even if it was just gratitude. And in return he owed them nothing, which was as he wanted it. Everyone except Madeleine, anyway.
    A storm was coming. Rain from the north in a gray stampede. Its dampness sifted through the air.
    Coltrane drove Mackenzie down the hill. “Now then,” said Mackenzie, “what the hell happened up there?”
    “We could talk about this later, if you want.”
    So it’s as bad as that, thought Mackenzie. He slapped his thigh pocket and felt the squared-off edges of his notebook. He pulled it out and removed a tiny pencil from its spine. On one of the delicate blue pages he wrote “James Pfeiffer.” He always carried his notebook with him, and always in the same pocket. Several times a day, he would slap his thigh pocket to see that the notebook was there, then the left chest pocket of his coat to check his wallet and finally a gentler tap across his right shirt pocket, where he kept his glasses until the moment when, every night, he set them on his bedside table. It gave him peace of mind to know what belonged where, the same for people as for things. “Just go ahead and tell me,” he said.
    “Well, it was an accident …”
    Mackenzie didn’t let Coltrane finish the sentence. “So that’s all there is to it?” Mackenzie kept his pencil poised above the notepaper.
    “No, sir. The chain bust because the saw was no good. It was one of those old saws that should have been replaced at the end of last year’s cutting season.”
    “So why wasn’t it?” Mackenzie noticed the clot of mud that had fallen from Coltrane’s boots onto the seat-well carpeting.
    “You told me not to, sir. I still have the memorandum. You told me to string out the machinery until it fell apart. Which it just did. Sir.”
    Mackenzie sat back. His lips puckered as he sucked at his teeth, deep in thought. “Fuck,” he said, after a minute, as if it had taken him this long just to choose the right word.
    “If Dodge has the chain saw analyzed by an expert, he’ll be told that it was unsafe equipment. And if Pfeiffer’s family finds out about that …”
    “They’ll sue me.”
    “They’ll want some kind of restitution, anyway.” Coltrane wiped his hand across his stubbled chin, trying to find a gentle way of agreeing. He could think of other families in town, who, if they heard that one of their own had been killed by unsafe equipment, would load up their guns and come hunting for Jonah Mackenzie. He didn’t knowabout Pfeiffer’s family. They were from the coast and he had no idea about those people.
    At that moment, Madeleine’s red Volkswagen overtook them on their way into town. Mackenzie looked down at her pale hands gripping the steering wheel. She had undone her ponytail and her hair streamed behind her in the breeze.
    Mackenzie would regret closing down Madeleine’s newspaper. He admired her stubbornness,