He drove back out of town the way he had come in and spotted the house and kept on going. He drove as far as the railroad trestle and pulled off underneath where the ground was packed dark and bare. There was a ring of fire-blackened stones and bits of trash: empty soda bottles and pieces of cork painted red for fishing bobbers and tangles of fishing line and several flat-sided pint liquor bottles. He let the dogs out and they went down to the river and drank, wading in up to their bellies. He called Glow back when she started to swim out. He did not like water he couldn’t see into. When the dogs had cooled themselves he put them in the car and without letting himself think about it turned around and drove back into town and parked under shade just down from the house he’d spied out.

“Someone has misled you. You have the wrong house.” The old man stood with his bad arm leaning against the screen door to open it partway. His cane-tip poked out through the opening as a weapon. With his stoop as tall as Foster, in tan trousers and a white shirt, the sleeve of his missing arm folded up square and pinned under the elbow. The pin a little crooked as if done quickly, with long practice. Thin hair ragged over the dome of his skull. He added, “I can’t help you. I don’t know any woman name of Lee. There’s no Lees around here that I know of. No family, that is. Now, there’s plenty of boys called Lee. I wouldn’t know them all. And there might even be a girl called that. It’s a popular name. But I don’t know of any. I can tell you this though. Whatever girl you’re chasing is not here, not at this house. Someone has misled you.”

Foster studied him. The old man was dry and cool in the heat of the day. The hand gripping the cane handle shook slightly with the effort of keeping the tip free for any sudden use. His eyes were wide with a taint of wildness to them, square upon Foster. Those eyes someway at odds with the speech just delivered. His lips were dry, cracked open over broad age-stained teeth. The teeth with gaps between them where the gums had shrunk back.

Foster looked down at the warped porch boards, then back to the old man. He said, “She thought you were dead. She thought she killed you. Brained you with a flatiron, was what she did. I’d guess that little ridge up over your ear there is what’s left of that try. Her name was Leah. Not Lee.”

The man said nothing. Rocking back and forth slightly. Then settled the cane tip and stepped squarely into the door. Not out of the house but with the door pushed open so he stood in it. Resting the cane before him with his one palm flat on the curved handle. Fresh-shaved, the scent of bay rum.