Well, I didn’t know what to think. It gave me a picture of Waltzer kneeling streamside taking soundings with string and lead. Yet here we sat in the frozen core of winter. Entirely beyond my depth, I asked next how he knew Davy.

“Here is what happened. I went into Amidon for breakfast. It isn’t far and there’s a not-bad cafe there. The owner is Williams. I sat at a front table and ordered the steak and eggs and sat looking out the window. Have you been to Amidon?”

“No, Mr. Waltzer.”

“The last town I know of with hitching posts. No one uses them.”

“Don’t you?”

He leaned forward. “Do I look like an eccentric to you?”

You should’ve seen his brows—they were pointing right at me! I shook no.

“Nor to proprietor Williams nor anyone else,” he said. “My eccentricity can be our secret; mine, yours, and Davy’s.”

I nodded with ardor.

“The telephone rang in the cafe; Williams answered. He’s a good fry cook but an unpleasant man. I heard the word Studebaker. Williams hung up and approached my table. There was a car parked out front, and he asked was that my car. No sir, it is not. Then he went back and I heard him on the phone again.

“Not long and my breakfast arrived. It’s hard to do better than steak and eggs. When I looked out again a county deputy was parked down the block. Reuben,” Waltzer said confidentially, “are you amused by trouble?”

I must’ve looked blank.

“You’re in school, correct?”

“Not now.”

“When you were in school,” he said, lowering his voice patiently, “how did a person most often get in trouble?”

“Talking in class.”

“Talking in class. Reuben, were boys ever sent to the principal’s office for a paddling when they were caught, once too often, talking in class?”

Actually, in Roofing they got sent to the superintendent, Mr. Holgren, whose paddle hung on a wall under his diplomas. Varnished to a high gloss, it had the golden demeanor of prized decor.

“Yes sir.”

“Did you ever see them sent away thus?”

I nodded.

“How did you think of it, as it was happening?”

I had no answer for him.

He said, “You were glad it was happening to that other boy. Not to you.”

I did recognize some truth here.

“Maybe you smirked a little. Happy the principal was going to thump someone else, though you had whispered in class many times yourself. Don’t be offended. I can stand your unwholesomeness because in this way we are blood relatives. I sat in Williams’s cafe, looking out at the deputy parked waiting for whoever owned the Studebaker. I was pleased enough to smirk, Reuben, although I didn’t. A smirk looks terrible on the adult of the species. Yet I was pleased because someone was in trouble and it was not me. Don’t mistake this for regret; I have none. It pleased me to think the person in trouble didn’t know it yet. He was in the same cafe, having breakfast, not knowing his day was almost over. Daughter,” he called, “Davy will be in. See about our dinner.”

She emerged from her little room again. I heard tin plates, the kettle lid, other rattles. I’d have liked to help or at least watch her work, but Waltzer talked on.

“Most pleasing to me was that no matter the deputy’s charge that day, he was surely waiting for the wrong person. Do you understand that, Reuben?”

“No sir.”

“He should’ve been after the bearded fellow he could see through the front window eating steak and eggs,” Waltzer said gleefully. “But he looked straight past me, you see. He was quite blind. In sight of wolf, he was hunting squirrel!”

At this, praise be, the door whuffed open and Davy stepped in, knocking snow off his boots. He looked at Waltzer, then at me, as if to ensure I was still myself. He asked, “Sara, you need some help with that?”

It was hard to miss the smile she gave him.

Waltzer beamed. “Davy, my squirrel! Your brother’s curious how we met. I’m just to the moment you rose from your table at Williams’s. Come finish the story!”

Davy sat, sipped the coffee Sara had poured earlier. “I’ll just listen. You tell it, Jape.”

So he finished it out: how Davy’d gone up and paid his bill, how he’d stopped beside Waltzer’s table to observe the street, then returned to the counter and inquired of Williams the whereabouts of the rest room, Williams pointing to the rear of the cafe. Seeing this, Waltzer laid money beside his plate and left by the front door. He walked past the Studebaker, nodded to the deputy, rounded the corner and entered the alley where behind the cafe Davy stood hunched in calculations. Talk ensued during which Waltzer was stirred by the boy’s assurance under stress. Waltzer believed in invented destiny and invented some then and there. A quarter hour later the pair of them were riding an overladen Fry into the hills above Amidon. It was too bad about the Studebaker, but a recently burst gasket had it leaking oil all over the place; perhaps it was for the best.

During this summation Sara had laid in that shack a feast of medieval plenty. She removed the stones atop the Dutch oven, setting them on the earth under the stove. The oven she carried to the table and unlidded before us, stepping back from the steam to show a knoll of sweet potatoes glazed with brown sugar encircled by sausages. She did this entirely without production, as though expecting no praise. Sure enough Waltzer talked right along. She produced half a round of black-crust bread, baked no doubt in that same oven, and broke the bread in six pieces which she laid on a checked cloth. Through all this Waltzer talked animatedly. I wondered how long she’d lived out here. What could she think of such a father? Though he wasn’t without appeal—I looked at him, eyebrows rocketing now at the part where grumpy Fry carried both men into the hills—it was clear he was a difficult fellow to please. She refilled our cups and arranged our plates and tinware, receiving, I noticed, a long and thankful glance from Davy.

“Now, Reuben,” said Waltzer, reaching for the yams, “your story. Was Davy dropping bread crumbs behind him, that you followed so efficiently?”

I lowered my head in panic. Not for a moment had I believed my narrative would be required. Also, the lateness of the hour suddenly landed on my shoulders. It had to be two in the morning. I guess I shut my eyes a moment.

“Reuben, what are you doing?”

I looked at him through twisting steam from the Dutch oven. He’d frozen as if detecting betrayal.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Are you praying over this meal I’ve provided?”

“No, Mr. Waltzer.” I’d forgotten to pray, though you may believe I felt like doing so now.

“You are thanking God for the food,” he said, “when He did not give it to you. I gave it to you and did so freely. Thank me.”

I nodded. Call me craven—you weren’t there.

“Thank me then!”

I looked at Davy, who was watching his plate. I said, “Thank you, Mr. Waltzer. It looks like a good meal.”

“Absolutely it does,” Waltzer agreed. He leaned toward me, congenial again; two fingers, I noted, were missing from his left hand. “There’s no need to wet your pants, Reuben. I forgive your impolite habit. Tell us how you came here.”

“We just came,” I said. I wished he hadn’t said that, about wetting my pants. I never had a predisposition toward pants-wetting, but suddenly it seemed quite possible.

“A long trip?” he prompted, ladling yams.

“Oh, yes. Real long. We got a new Airstream trailer,” I said, thinking he might find that interesting.

“Been traveling awhile, then. Looking for Davy. Gone all over the place.”

Well—“No, we pretty much came straight here.”

He looked at Davy, who shrugged. “Straight to us, Reuben? Tell me how you happened to do that.”

I saw he suspected Davy—that he might’ve given them away. I said, “We didn’t even mean to stop here. Our car broke down and we got snowed in.”

“So no one led you here,” he said.