"Well," he said. "Come on back."
It took most of the morning. Danny told it first, from the beginning, the let-down wire and the borrowed trailer and the man named Curt in the parking lot at the Roundup sale barn, and Tom wrote it down and asked his questions in a flat, unhurried voice, and when the boy got to the part about his sisters' shoes, Tom stopped writing for a moment and looked at the wall. Then Claire told her part. She did not soften any of it. Tom heard her out with his jaw working, and when she got to the part about June, about the surprise for Daddy, he set his pen down altogether.
"Claire Ann," he said, "you know better."
"I know I do, Tommy."
"You know what you put me in the middle of, coming in here with this."
"I know that too. I'm sorry."
He looked at her a long time, and then he looked at Wade. "And what is it you want, Wade? Because last June I seem to remember you wanted this young man in Deer Lodge."