Danny Ortiz came through the side door just as the back door swung shut.
He was thirty-four, broad through the shoulders, with a Mike Sorensen Heating and Electric jacket and rain on his ball cap. He looked at the empty chair, the half-eaten biscuit, and the napkin folded into a perfect square.
"That was him," Danny said. "Wasn't it? Nate Ruiz."
Sam nodded.
"I got a voicemail from him three days ago. Said he was coming through Ohio. Then nothing."
Danny rubbed his face. "He was my best driver. Kid could back a seven-ton into a space you wouldn't park a Buick."
"Go after him," Dot said.
"No," Sam said.
They all looked at him.
Sam walked to the back door and opened it. The rain had eased to a drizzle.
Down the alley behind the church, an old green pickup with Texas plates sat with its hood up. Nate stood in front of it, staring at the engine, both hands flat on the fender.
The truck wasn't going anywhere. It had died in that alley sometime in the night, which was probably how its driver had ended up in a pew.
"If you chase a Marine, he runs farther," Sam said. "If you give him a job, he comes back to finish it."
He went to the program, took a pen from his shirt pocket, and wrote something on the back. Then he handed it to Danny.
Danny read it and almost laughed. "You sure?"
"I've been sure of fewer things."
Danny walked down the alley with his hands in his jacket pockets. He didn't hurry. He stopped at the front bumper of the pickup and looked at the engine for a while without saying anything.
"Fuel pump," Nate finally said, without looking up. "I think."
"Could be the relay."
"It's not the relay."
"It's usually the relay."
Nate turned around. His eyes were red, and he was angry about it.
"I didn't come here to ask you for anything," he said. "I want you to know that. I had a job driving for an outfit in San Antonio. They closed in August. Lost the apartment in October. I had your voicemail from two years ago, the one where you said if I ever needed anything, Pine Hollow, Ohio. So I drove. And then I got here and I sat outside your house at two in the morning and I couldn't knock."
"Why not?"
"Because you're the one who told the lieutenant I was worth keeping. And look at me."
Danny didn't argue with him. He handed him the folded program.
Nate opened it. Under Danny's name, in Sam's neat block letters, it said: Corporal Ruiz has the furnace. Report to Sgt. Ortiz for further orders.
Nate read it twice. "That's not a real order."
"It's from a sergeant," Danny said. "That's real enough. Mike Sorensen's been looking for a helper since September. Furnaces, mostly. Pays every Friday. You'd ride with me."
He shrugged. "And my couch is lumpy, but it's dry."
Nate looked up the alley at the open church door. Sam was standing in it with his coffee, not waving, not calling, just there.
"He did this on purpose," Nate said.
"Pastors are sneaky," Danny said. "Marine pastors are worse."
They towed the pickup to Hank Doyle's barn that afternoon. Hank listened to it crank for about four seconds and said, "Fuel pump." Nate didn't say anything, but Danny saw him stand up a little straighter.
On Monday, Nate rode with Danny to a farmhouse outside Marietta where an old woman's furnace had quit in the night. Mike Sorensen watched him work for an hour and then walked back to his own truck without a word. That evening he called Danny.
"Where'd you find him?"
"Church pew."
"Find me two more," Mike said.
On Tuesday, Nate came by Grace Methodist with a new flame sensor in a little box and installed it himself. Sam paid him with a check from the church's repair fund, and Nate looked at the check a long time before he folded it into his wallet.
"I'm going to call my mom tonight," Nate said, not quite to Sam.
"Good," Sam said, and went back to sorting hymnals.
November 10 is the Marine Corps birthday. Every Marine knows it, and most of them find a cake somewhere.
Dot found one. It was a sheet cake from the grocery in Marietta with a crooked eagle, globe, and anchor in red and gold icing, and she put it on the counter at the diner after the supper rush.
Danny brought Nate. Lloyd came anyway, because he said the Army had to keep an eye on things.
There's a tradition with the cake. The first piece goes to the guest of honor. The next goes to the oldest Marine in the room, who passes it to the youngest, the old ones handing it down to the new ones the way it's always been done.
Sam was the oldest Marine at Dot's that night. Nate was the youngest.
The breakfast was the next morning, and the furnace would hum through every minute of it. Nate already had a seat saved by the door, where a man could see who came and went. He'd asked for it himself.
Dot cut the piece and set it on a saucer. Sam picked it up and turned toward the young man at the end of the counter.
Nate stood, squared his shoulders, and took it with both hands.