Too fast. Impossibly fast. Like Anders’s fingers on the guitar strings.

I fly through the new green leaves, weaving past twigs that lash at my eyes, ducking the branches that want to rip out my hair. My tires barely touch the ground.

I hit the pavement again at the west edge of town. I ride, slower now, along Main, past Franconia and Jackson and Pierce Streets, past offices locked up for the weekend, past the Laundromat and the library, past Oak and Pine and Maple Streets, back into narrowing streets and thickening trees. I keep my eyes sharp for him. For the white car.

Almost no one is out this early. One little girl is sitting on the uneven cement of a driveway, busy with two big lumps of chalk. My shadow glides over her as I ride past. She’s drawing a bird. Its blue and pink chalk wings open wide. I would tell her that it’s pretty, but she doesn’t look up.

The houses begin to dwindle. Trees push up between them, forcing them even farther apart.

I ride on, past Founders Park Road.

Founders Park is huge, more than fifty acres. It slides away from the edge of town, plunges into a ravine, and trails away like a knife slash into the woods, dragging the river with it. The river gets wider and deeper in another mile, where Main Street turns back into the highway and crosses the water at Miniska Bridge.

The woods don’t like the river.

The river moves and shifts and swells and shrinks. It nibbles at banks. It unravels roots. It swallows trees whole. From the side of the bridge, you can spot the trees about to fall, huge trunks leaning farther and farther over the water until they are nearly horizontal, hanging on by a single stubborn foot. Death in slow motion.

Woods hide things. They keep things forever. Rivers carry things away.

I ride along the narrow margin of the bridge, past the patches of wild raspberries and grapevine and sumac, past a slough already greening with duckweed. The Wheelhouse, a tumbledown bar and liquor store, hunches here, in a scrubby grove of box elder trees. I leave my bike behind the store, where the few passing cars won’t see.

It’s barely noon. No one is inside. Only Martin, who has just unlocked the doors, still holding the ring of keys in his hand. He looks up at me.

Martin’s hair is like steel wool. One of his eyes droops. His smile is warm.

He doesn’t say good morning. He gives the shop a quick once-over, checking the door and out the windows. Then he heads behind the counter, drops something that thuds into a narrow brown paper bag, and twists the top of the bag shut.

“How’s she doing?” he asks, handing the package to me.

“Not so good,” I say. “Bad nights.” I put the wrapped bottle in the canvas bag. I reach into my pocket, but Martin backs away, holding up both hands.