She looked up at him with her mouth in a tight, sad little line.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Horace.”

“Horace?”

“One of those terrible creatures killed him.”

“Our rooster?”

She nodded.

“What sort of terrible creature?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I guess what Bruce said the other night when he was here. A weasel? A possum? I don’t know. He warned us. I should have listened.” She bit her lower lip.

“When did it happen?”

“This afternoon. When I got home, I let them out of the barn for some air. It was such a nice day. I had some cracked corn, which they love, so they followed me up to the house. They were right out here. Running around. Pecking in the grass. I went into the house for … something, I don’t even know what. I just …” She stopped for a moment, shaking her head. “He was only four months old. He was just learning to crow. He looked so proud. Poor little Horace. Bruce warned us … he warned us … about what could happen.”

“You buried him?”

“Yes.” She reached over and smoothed the soil by the stones. “I couldn’t let his little body just lie there.” She sniffled, cleared her throat. “He was probably trying to protect the hens from the weasel. Don’t you think?”

Gurney had no idea what to think. “I guess so.”

After patting down the soil a few more times, she got up from the grass and they went into the house. The sun had already started to slide down behind the western ridge. The slope of the opposite hill was bathed in that ruddy-gold light that only ever lasted a minute or two.

It was a strange evening. After they had a brief, quiet dinner of leftovers, Madeleine settled into one of the armchairs by the big empty fireplace at the far end of the long room, abstractedly holding one of her perennial knitting projects in her lap.

Gurney asked if she’d like him to turn on the floor lamp behind her chair. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. As he was about to ask if she had a revised timetable for going to the Winklers’ farm, she asked about his meeting that morning with Malcolm Claret.

That morning?

So much had intervened, his trip to the Bronx felt like something that had happened a week ago. He was having a hard time focusing on it, fitting it into his grasp of the day. He began with the first aspect of it that came to mind.

“When you made my appointment, did Malcolm tell you he was dying?”

“Dying?”

“Yes. He’s in the end stages of a fatal cancer.”

“And he’s still … Oh, God.”

“What?”