Creek and Connor sat together, hunched in the shade of the truck with Rasta panting beside them. Connor looked excited and frightened, all at the same time. Creek, who had a talent for looking inscrutable, was doing an especially fine job. Chuy took Joe a beer, which he drank in four gulps. While the Rev continued his solitary prayer, Olivia crouched by Bobo, who had gotten out of the truck to squat out in the open, staring into the distance. Every now and then a tear would roll down his cheek.

Each tear made Fiji more miserable. She fell into silence. Manfred got up to roam around. He went over to the big white boulder to read all the graffiti; he climbed down the steep slope upstream to look at the dinosaur footprints clearly visible below the running water. Since he’d never known Aubrey, he had the right to fidget.

After a few minutes, Olivia seemed to tire of the role of grief counselor. She gave Bobo a small package of tissues from her backpack, and she stood effortlessly to walk over to Fiji.

“I don’t know what cracked her chest bone, but she didn’t just have a heart attack.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Fiji replied. “But she did walk and run. She did like to exercise. Maybe she came out here and fell? Broke her ankle?”

“Then what was to stop her crawling up the slope? It’s not that steep. And why didn’t she use her cell phone? You can’t tell me she took a step without that phone in her pocket.”

“That’s true.” Fiji pressed her lips together. “Well, maybe she got snakebit.”

“And crawled down the slope, rather than back toward Midnight?” Olivia said. She didn’t pooh-pooh the idea that Aubrey had been bitten; this was a place where you had to be aware or take the consequences.

“That is weird,” Fiji conceded. “But I hope they can find some clear reason.” There was a lot unspoken in that hope.

“You saw her after Bobo left, right? Didn’t you tell the sheriff’s deputy that?”

Fiji turned her head so that her eyes met Olivia’s. “Of course I saw her after Bobo left,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

“Sure,” Olivia said, after a moment. “Sure, I saw her.”

Fiji nodded. “Well, then.”

“The law’s here.”

From the west came two white cars, driving carefully. They both had lightbars on the top.