Hank helped fill in the grave, and thought about Duncan’s body in the sun-bleached wet suit on the bank. His arms ached from shoveling, then stopped aching, and when the grave was filled, there were blisters starting on his hands.

Demeter was waiting in the gravel parking lot. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her. “Duncan,” he finally said.

“He’s gone now,” Demeter said.

It seemed important to know how long it had been, but it also seemed important not to hear the number of weeks or months or years, not always to have that number in his head. He cleared his throat, but said nothing.

“I just want to get stoned,” Demeter said.

“That’s my girl,” he said, then wished he hadn’t. Talking with Demeter had been hard for a while, and now it was going to be harder. Whatever he had felt toward her during the singing was gone.

“I want to get stoned and I want to go home and then I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I want to go back to Texas.”

“There’s nothing for you in Texas,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if that was true. He looked up at the sky, all the rain clouds blown out of it. The hawk was gone.

He said, “He was my best friend,” and he didn’t know what he was talking about, Duncan’s sleeping with his wife or his sleeping with Duncan’s, or Duncan’s drowning on his watch. He thought again of Duncan’s pale face, the sickening feeling of his friend’s cold, still mouth under his.

“That didn’t make him yours,” she said.

Hank shook his head. “Oh, Demeter,” he said.

The road wound down into the valley, and there was a thunderstorm coming from the east that might not make it to town: it might hit the mountains and move on, with the wind blowing like it was.