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“The red one.”

“They’re all red.”

“That one had a tractor.”

“They all have tractors.”

“These are terrible directions.”

“You volunteered.”

“I was told there would be records and I might find something new.”

“There will be records.”

“You sound like a man selling swamp land in Florida.”

I laughed and turned at the next road because the name sort of matched something written on the back of the seller’s directions.

Ten minutes later, the pavement ended.

Lorrie looked at me. “There’s a goat in the road.”

A brown goat stood directly in front of the truck, staring at us as if we’d interrupted its morning schedule.

Otis noticed at the same time and launched himself halfway out of the window with a bark loud enough to make me hit the brakes.

“Otis!”

The goat didn’t move.

Lorrie held onto Otis while laughing so hard she snorted.

Otis barked again and the goat turned its head slightly, unimpressed with all of us.

Lorrie managed to move him back between us while I leaned on the horn. The goat stood there in the road, chewing on weeds.

“Excellent,” she said. “We’re being held hostage.”

“By livestock.”

“I’ve had worse Saturdays.”

I looked at her. Her hair had started coming loose from the ponytail, and she was laughing with one hand pressed near her mouth while Otis tried to climb back into her lap.

By the time the goat finally stepped out of the road and into the weeds, I was laughing too.

We found the house ten minutes later and the collection was better than I’d expected.

The dead brother had known music. Miles Davis. Muddy Waters. Coltrane. Howlin’ Wolf. ABBA. Early Dylan. A first pressing of Kind of Blue in better condition than anything I’d seen come through Side A all year. The seller, an older man named Frank with a plaid shirt and nicotine-stained fingers, hovered nearby while Lorrie crouched beside one of the boxes.

“You know what you’re looking at?” Frank asked her.

“Enough to know Dean’s going to pretend this one isn’t worth much so you don’t raise the price.”

Frank laughed.

She held up the Miles Davis album and Frank looked at me with sudden interest.