FRED KIRBY WAS SQUATTING in his front yard next to the watertap where he used to sit all the time when Ballard came by. Ballard stood in the road and looked up at him. He said: Hey Fred.

Kirby lifted his hand and nodded. Come up, Lester, he said.

Ballard came to the edge of the cutbank and looked up to where Kirby was sitting. He said: You got any whiskey?

Might have some.

Why don’t you let me have a jar.

Kirby stood up. Ballard said: I can pay ye next week on it. Kirby squatted back down again.

I can pay ye tomorrow, Ballard said.

Kirby turned his head to one side and gripped his nose between his thumb and forefinger and sneezed a gout of yellow snot into the grass and wiped his fingers on the knee of his jeans. He looked out over the fields. I cain’t do it, Lester, he said.

Ballard half turned to see what he was looking at out there but there was nothing but the same mountains. He shifted his feet and reached into his pocket. You want to trade it out? he said.

Might do. What ye got?

Got this here pocketknife.

Let’s see it.

Ballard opened the knife and pitched it up the bank at Kirby. It stuck up in the ground near his shoe. Kirby looked at it a minute and then reached down and got it and wiped the blade on his knee and looked at the name on it. He closed it and opened it again and he pared a thin peeling from the sole of his shoe. All right, he said.

He stood up and put the knife in his pocket and crossed the road toward the creek.

Ballard watched him scout along the edge of the field, kicking at the bushes and honeysuckle. Once or twice he looked back. Ballard was watching off toward the blue hills.

After a while Kirby came back but he didn’t have any whiskey. He handed Ballard his knife back. I cain’t find it, he said.

Cain’t find it?

No.

Well shit fire.

I’ll hunt some more later on. I think I was drunk when I hid it.

Where’d ye hide it at?

I don’t know. I thought I could go straight to it but I must not of put it where I thought it was.

Well goddamn.

If I cain’t find it I’ll get some more.

Ballard put the knife in his pocket and turned and went back up the road.