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with age. Coltrane hadn’t sounded sleepy when Mackenzie called. He knew I would call, thought Mackenzie. Knew I wouldn’t leave this mess to sort itself out. That this wouldn’t be a night for dreaming.
    “Coffee?” asked Mackenzie.
    Coltrane shook his head. There was no time for small talk and caffeine.
    “Mr. Coltrane,” he said. Mackenzie always used last names at the mill. The fact that the workday was over made no difference to him. The mill itself demanded such formality. “Go ahead and sit.” Mackenzie waved at a chair.
    “I’ll stay on my feet.” Coltrane’s windburned forehead reflected the lights in the office.
    “Chances are that it will come out about the chain saw being—being—” He didn’t want to say “defective.”
    “Worn out,” Coltrane said. “In need of replacement.” He was poker-faced, all emotion hidden somewhere behind the Maginot Line of his skull.
    “Exactly. It could destroy the whole company.” This was the first time he had actually said the words, and hearing them now made him realize how true they were. “I’m way in debt from buying the Algonquin rights. I couldn’t handle a lawsuit. Not the kind that could come from a man dying.”
    “I don’t know how the money works that far up the ladder.”
    “Well, I’m telling you. And I’m telling you this, too. If this company goes down, the whole town goes with it. The mill is the town and everything else is servicing the people who work for the mill. Can you imagine what this place would look like if all those jobs suddenly vanished?” Mackenzie didn’t pause. It wasn’t a question to answer. “We have to do something to take people’s minds off the condition of the chain saws.”
    “How are you going to do that without breaking the law?”
    “Whose law?” Mackenzie raised his hands and let them slap down on the blotter. “Look, this was an accident. That’s all it was. And I’ll take care of Pfeiffer’s family. But I don’t want some lawyer getting fat off what was only an unfortunate mistake.”
    “So what are you going to do?”
    Now Mackenzie slid open the drawer of his desk, slowly, ceremoniously. He took out a finger-thick, ten-inch bridging nail. There had been a whole case of them down in the basement, left over from some repairs done to the mill five years before. “All you have to do is hammer this into the tree at the place where Pfeiffer’s chainsawing ended. Make sure the metal is gashed with a file or something and people will blame it on that. They’ll call it somebody’s prank. Or terrorism. Or the work of one of those radical, environmental, dirt-eating, tree-kissing druids that Madeleine wishes we’d all turn into. And in return you save the lifeblood of this town.”
    “I’m not doing that, Mr. Mackenzie.” There was no hesitation in his voice.
    “It would only take you ten minutes!” Mackenzie rolled the nail between his palms. It was cold and dull and gray.
    “Time isn’t what it’s about.” Mackenzie honestly believes what he’s saying, thought Coltrane and shook his head slowly in amazement.
    “You’d be an unsung hero, Coltrane. It requires courage.” Mackenzie set the nail down within the man’s reach. “Not to do this—well, it’s almost the opposite of courage, isn’t it? A person could almost call it cowardice.” He knew he had to be careful with this word. It carried the same power to insult as the abrupt shoves he had seen start fights in bars.
    “The cowardice, sir, is that I’m not quitting the company.” Coltrane ran his hand over the smoothness of his head. His sled-dog eyes blinked shut for a moment and he whispered, “Christ.”
    “If you don’t want to do it, Coltrane, then don’t. I don’t need you to quit. I won’t fire you, either. I just need you to keep your mouth shut. Can you do that much?” Mackenzie waited long enough to breathe in once, then said again, “Can you?”
    “I think I’m going home now, Mr. Mackenzie. Pretend