“There’s a man outside taking pictures of your truck,” she added.
Owen moved to the window. A stranger in a baseball cap stood on the sidewalk with a phone raised. Owen could not see a weapon, could not tell whether the man was curious, angry, or simply lost. His old habits began sorting details into categories before he reminded himself that the healthiest thing to do was close the blinds.
“I’ll talk to him,” Ruth announced.
“No, you won’t.”
“He doesn’t own the sidewalk.”
“Neither do we. Let him get bored.”
The man eventually left. Ruth poured coffee, sat at the table, and asked whether Owen had slept. He said he had.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“That’s not a number.”
“Ruth.”
“Don’t Ruth me. Ellen put me in charge of telling you when you’re being impossible.”
The memory made him look down at his mug.
When she left, he called the number on a business card Harmon had given him. The park ranger answered after three rings.
“Briggs. You all right?”
“Somebody put my name online.”
“I heard.”
“Anything I ought to be doing?”
“Save messages that contain threats. Don’t argue with strangers. If anyone comes onto your property or threatens you, call the sheriff’s office. A detective has been assigned to the case. She’ll want another interview.”
“Is the young man all right?”
There was a pause.
“He was evaluated at the hospital. I can’t give you his medical information. But he was conscious when they took him away.”
“Good.”
Harmon waited. “You don’t sound pleased with any of this.”
“Someone could have been badly hurt.”
“Someone was hurt.”
“Yes,” Owen said. “I know.”
After the call, Owen walked into the garage. For years he had repaired lawn equipment and done small carpentry jobs for neighbors, partly for money and mostly because work gave his hands something to do. Along one wall hung photographs from different stages of his life: Megan as a child on a red bicycle; Ellen holding a fish she insisted was larger than it actually was; Owen standing in fatigues beside a dusty truck in a place he rarely named.
He took down the last photograph. In it, six men smiled at the camera, squinting into bright sun. One had his arm around Owen’s shoulders. The photograph was taken months before the roadside explosion that cost Owen two fingers and changed the course of his life.
He sat on a stool with the picture in his lap.
There was a time when he had believed competence could prevent almost anything. Preparation, discipline, calm thinking, enough practice — if a man did all those things, the world would make sense. War had corrected him. There were good men who did everything right and still died. There were children injured because adults guessed wrong. There were moments when the bravest choice was refusing to move.
