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The beer was cold enough to ache against my teeth.

“You looking for work, Earl?”

“I asked who you got producing it.”

“You volunteering?”

“No.”

“Then you’re a critic. Different pay scale.”

A laugh came from the far side of the room, thin and brief.

Earl didn’t look toward it. He kept looking at me.

He wasn’t mean.

That was inconvenient.

If he’d been mean, I could have cut him up cleanly and had the room thanking me for the show. But Earl Hansen had known us since before I could see over a horse’s back. He’d brought gate panels when Dad’s north corrals went down in a windstorm. He’d bought Carrow Creek bulls in fat years and lean ones, then complained with perfect consistency.

He wasn’t trying to embarrass me.

He was trying to find the missing board before I stepped through the floor.

“You need a licensed producer named on the filing,” he said.

“I’m aware.”

I was broadly aware.

Broad awareness was a beautiful thing. It covered a lot of country and very few useful details.

“Licensed in Montana,” Earl continued. “Not a fella you rode with who ran slack once in Wyoming.”

“I know people in both states.”

“That ain’t a license.”

“No, Earl, that’s geography.”

The room laughed because I’d told it to.

Earl took a pull from the beer I’d bought him.

“You need the certificate too.”

I looked at the condensation moving down my bottle.

“What certificate would that be?”

There were moments in a man’s life when pretending ignorance became more embarrassing than admitting it.

This was apparently one.

“Liability,” Earl said. “Million dollars.”

The laughter stopped entirely.