And then, abrupt and unmistakable, a flurry of shots rang out, a flat, ominous staccato that penetrated the closed window. Lee Roy, sharing my apprehension, started to whimper.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Quillet said with a superior smile.

“It sounded like rifle fire.”

“Deer season,” he explained. “They’re hunters, not assassins. They shoot for the pot.”

Another volley rang out, uncomfortably closer this time. Now that malodorous, flop-eared dog was wailing like a wolf. Using my shoulder as a springboard, he hurled himself into Quillet’s lap. The Dodge swerved, weaving from lane to lane, dancing madly to the tortured orchestration of tires, torque, and the trumpeting Klaxons of the jehus around us who apparently were under the impression that their impulsive blasts might soothe our pickup’s frenzy. For a terrible moment I was sure Jesus had tapped the three of us for sunbeams. I managed to grab Lee Roy and toss him like a sack of shaggy cement over my shoulder while Quillet skillfully brought the rig under control on the runaway vehicle ramp. “Fucking dog,” Quillet said, and the fucking dog belched again and again until Quillet had to turn on the wipers to clear the windshield.

“You made Lee Roy nervous,” Quillet told me. “He’s got a nervous stomach.”

“So have I.”

“I told you—there’s nothing to worry about.”

Easy for him to talk, dressed as he was to make sure deer hunters saw him, but I thought it would be prudent not to remark on it.

“You’ve got to realize,” he said, “that out here hunting is a way of life. Out here we go back to basics. Where you come from,” he added accusingly, “the cities crumble, standards deteriorate, morality declines. But here,” he glanced out the window across a field where a dead cow oozed stiffly into a snowy quagmire, “out here there are constant and salutary reminders that we are of the earth—a legitimate concern not only of ecology but of our very ethical fiber as a people.”

“Do you hunt?”

“Wish I had the time.” He smiled wistfully. “But I’m too busy with the Morgans.”

“Who are the Morgans?”

“Morgan horses. You’ll love them.”

“I will?”

“Your mother does. They’re the first American breed of horse, developed by Justin Morgan, a Vermont music teacher, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They’re proud and swift, although,” he added reflectively, “our Morgans seem to run without vanity or ambition. Actually,” he went on, “they’re not as smart as old Lee Roy here.”

God forbid. Lee Roy, that pus-hound, barked a couple of times, as if to asseverate the master.