BALLARD WAS WALKING THE road near the top of the mountain when the sheriff pulled up behind him in the car. The sheriff told Ballard to put the rifle down but Ballard didn’t move. He stood there by the side of the road straight up and down with the rifle in one hand and he didn’t even turn around to see who’d spoke. The sheriff reached his pistol out the window and cocked it. You could hear very clearly in the cold air the click of the hammer and the click of the hand dropping into the cylinder locking notch. Boy, you better stick it in the ground, the sheriff said.

Ballard stood the butt of the rifle in the road and let go of it. It fell into the roadside bushes.

Turn around.

Now come over here.

Now just stand there a minute.

Now get in here.

Now hold your hands out.

If you leave my rifle there somebody’s goin to get it.

I’ll worry about your goddamned rifle.

THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK had folded his hands in front of him as if about to pray. He gazed at Ballard across the tips of his fingers. Well, he said, if you hadn’t done anything wrong what were you scoutin the bushes for that nobody could find you?

I know how they do ye, Ballard muttered. Thow ye in jail and beat the shit out of ye.

This man ever been mistreated down here, Sheriff?

He knows better than that.

They tell me you cussed deputy Walker.

Well did you?

What are you lookin over there for?

I was just lookin.

Mr Walker’s not goin to tell you what to say.

He might tell me what not to.

Is it true that you burned down Mr Waldrop’s house?

No.

You were living in it at the time that it burned.

That’s a … I wasn’t done it. I’d left out of there a long time fore that.

It was quiet in the room. After a while the man behind the desk lowered his hands and folded them in his lap. Mr Ballard, he said. You are either going to have to find some other way to live or some other place in the world to do it in.