“The sooner the better. Lee wants a thousand to fifteen hundred words. If you don’t mind, I may let you drive so I can work on it going back.”

“Sure.”

“You want to aim for nine?”

“That sounds good,” I said.

A breeze rose up off the river. Only the sun’s rim showed above Whiteside Mountain. The temperature would fall quickly now. No matter how warm the day had been, it would be blanket weather tonight. For a few minutes the only sound was the river rubbing against rocks. Then from the deep woods near Chestnut Ridge came something else, a sound like a crying child.

“What’s that?” Allen asked.

“A bobcat would be my guess, though Billy might argue it’s his cougar.”

“You want me to go get my tape recorder?” Allen asked.

“If it comes closer. Right now it’s too far away to pick up.”

“When were cougars last here—I mean, verified?”

“One was killed with its two kittens in 1908.”

“Do you think Billy really saw one?”

“I don’t know. When you’re a kid you can see most anything, I suppose. Billy believes he saw it, I don’t doubt that.”

The day’s last light momentarily settled on Sassafras Mountain before its slide down the mountain’s west slope. We listened until that light was extinguished, but what had cried out in the deep woods stayed silent.

This is as good a time as you may get, I told myself, then spoke. “I did an Internet search on you this morning. I hadn’t known what had happened.”

I couldn’t see Allen’s reaction, but he paused a few seconds before speaking. “Nobody at the paper knew except Hudson. I wanted it that way.”

“Why?”

“Because other people don’t know how to deal with it. They’ll be talking about children or spouses and suddenly switch the subject as soon as you show up. Everybody in the office sees family pictures but you. If that’s not happening it’s the opposite, which is worse. They believe you need to spill your guts to somebody, usually themselves, but if not them some psychiatrist or therapy group they know of. Either way, it just makes things worse.”

“I won’t do that to you,” I said.

“Good. I do want us to be open about it. I almost said something at supper.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m still not sure what I feel—what I should feel—about Claire. That and I wasn’t sure how you would react.”

“How so?”

“It might make you leery of me.”

“I don’t scare easy,” I said, trying to sound surer than I perhaps was.

“Good.”

Below, a trout snatched something off the surface. Another splash came from farther downstream, a sure sign mayflies or caddis flies were hatching.

“And what about you?” Allen asked. “Have you been married?”

“No.”

“Come close?”