He did something so unexpected that he surprised even himself: he went out for a beer. All weekend long he had been driving past the old Stonefield Brewery, a blazing red-sandstone building in downtown Nishnabotna that might have passed for a fortress if it hadn’t been so ornate and Victorian. Jack Carlson, a descendant of one of the less august branches of the Stonefield family, had bought the place ten years ago after it had gone out of business trying to make the same sort of thin yellow swill that came out of the big Milwaukee breweries. All the old copper vessels were still intact. He had begun brewing darker, heavier stuff and had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
Jack Carlson and Clyde Banks had known each other since they’d been kids, and Jack was always urging Clyde to stop by and have a beer. Clyde rarely did, but tonight he was tired and dirty and lonesome and thirsty and felt that he could consume a beer without being racked by guilt.
Besides, he could always claim it was a campaign appearance.
He sat at the bar, a nice mahogany one that Jack had scavenged from a failed tavern in Chicago, and ordered a pint of bitter.
After a few minutes Jack Carlson himself came out from the office in back and made a fuss over Clyde. He drew himself a beer, reasoning that this was a special occasion, and then the two went to a booth and sat down to catch up with each other. Clyde had to explain why he was covered with Sheetrock dust, and this led him to the subject of Tab Templeton.
“Saw him a couple of times last month,” Jack said.
“He was here?”
“A few times,” Jack said, savoring Clyde’s astonishment.
“Heard he was working for someone. Wouldn’t think he’d earn enough to drink here.”
“He wasn’t drinking,” Jack said. Then, seeing the look on Clyde’s face, he corrected himself. “Well, he was, of course, in the general sense. But he didn’t come here to drink beer. He came to pick up yeast.”
“He came to pick up yeast,” Clyde repeated.
“Brewer’s yeast,” Jack said. “Forms quite a thick layer of sludge down there in the bottoms of our fermentation vessels. We clean it out and try to find something to do with it besides just throwing it away and polluting the water. Lot of times we sell it to health-food companies—it’s full of vitamins. Last month we sold some to Tab.”
“How much?”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe half a dozen steel drums full.” Jack grinned at the memory. “You should see Tab sling a drum around. He’s like a human forklift.”
“Well, what the heck would Tab want with that much brewer’s yeast?”
“Seemed clear from the way he was talking that he was moving the stuff for his employer.”
“And who was that, do you suppose?”
Jack shrugged. “Someone who needed yeast and didn’t have the muscle to hump the drums around town.”
“Did they pay for it?”
“Yeah. We charge a nominal fee.”
“Whose name was on the checks?”
“Tab paid cash.”
Clyde slumped back in his seat and tried to imagine such a thing: someone entrusting Tab with a wad of bills.
“Maybe someone’s doing an experiment with the stuff up at the university,” Jack said, nodding toward the bluffs. “Or maybe some vegetarians up there are trying to start up their own health-food company.”
“What was he driving?”
“A big old van.”
“Can you describe the van to me?”
“Dark and old. Probably a Chevy.”
“Could it have been a black van?”
“Could’ve. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Yeah,” Jack Carlson said, “and I’m just brewing beer for a hobby.”
Lots of mail came the next day, including a few letters from Desiree. They’d done a mass-casualty drill that weekend, so she hadn’t been able to come home and Clyde hadn’t been able to visit her. She was dealing with the guilt by writing every day and calling at bedtime to coo into Maggie’s ear over the phone.
_Still sticking needles into butts like mad. Lots of nice diseases over there in the Gulf. Many of the reservists not up to snuff physically—can’t believe some of them got into the service in the first place. Had a young man in here with a scar up his chest like a zipper—he’d had open-heart surgery as a boy and somehow got into the Army anyway._
_Getting geared up for the mass-casualty drill this weekend. Lots of triage tags floating around—one is enclosed._
She had enclosed a cardboard tag on a loop of string, apparently made to go around a patient’s neck. The tag was about three by six inches and bore lines for the patient’s name and notes on his condition. At the bottom were three colored strips attached by perforations, so that they could easily be torn off. The strip on the bottom was green and bore a cartoon of a tortoise.
_If we leave the bottom (green) strip attached, it means the patient is basically okay, there’s no big rush. If we tear it off, what’s left is the yellow strip with the picture of the hare on it—that means better hurry and get this one some attention. If we tear that off, what’s left is the red strip with the picture of the speeding ambulance on it._