Over at the white dwellings they could forget America almost, except they like their small conveniences, not electricity, which they do not have, not even running water, for they still want the fresh spring in the rock, but having their laundry done would be nice. They need their propane stoves on cold days, their umbrellas on the warm days, but even though they are great thinkers, they believe in, live in, the world of matter. The Great Something lives in matter, the trees with their mysterious fluid, their force, the green fuse of light, the orange with its inner crystals, the stones and their great and small beginnings. For centuries, maybe a millennium, their own ancestors carved stones, no small labor, with spirals. Then, over by the spring is the carved whale, mother of humans.

One day in the moss-covered stones Thomas finds other carvings. Not wanting to harm the mosses, he only traces these by feel, the sea creatures. All things with more of a handle on the world than a single, simple man.

Thomas, who has always loved consulting maps, now maps their land by story and event and the old names. “We want you to record all this on paper.” They bring out a notebook and pencils, but they have stories woven into sea grass, baskets, and cloths. They take him from place to place, over rocks and across streams. He wonders at the agility of the people.

One day of blue and calm ocean, he takes up the paddles for the painted canoe and he has the muscle to pull himself through the water. He goes to Ruth’s Marco Pollo and up the side and knocks on wood as if there is a door he can enter.

Dick Russell is there helping Ruth and she is smiling, looking youthful, and even as feminine as she looks, she is still working ropes and twines and has broken nails, no gloves, when her father always told her to wear gloves. She has filled out in a way he hasn’t seen before, but her hands are worn hard and have aged and cracked in places. Still, he has never seen anyone so beautiful. He stands and looks. The boat is badly in need of painting.

Ruth has seen him but thinks he is a ghost, so at first she looks at him, then looks away and goes back to her labor at coiling the ropes and pulling over nets, heavier than you’d think, no longer smiling. Her arms are sore. Then she stops and turns and looks at him. “Thomas.”

“They said you were dead.” She is crying now, but looking at him. His arms are strong and his body agile, more now than hers, tired of her labor. He looks like an older version of their son, Marco. She embraces him. Dick Russell at first feels jealousy of this man, their relationship, but Ruth says, “Let’s all have coffee.”

“Shame on you,” she says to Thomas, as she puts the coffee in the filter, “for letting us think you were dead.”