It was clear he didn’t want to explain further. I was reminded of the audio file Hudson had sent out after Allen had been hired, an interview with NPR the year of his Pulitzer nomination. Despite a decade out of the South, Allen’s voice was pure Carolina midlands, but his manner was brisk, his answers almost sharp. At one point, when the interviewer asked if he ever questioned his ability to continue covering a particularly tough story, he seemed on the verge of losing his patience. No, he replied. Though any significant story had an emotional component, it was the reporter’s job to redirect that emotional energy into the service of clarity. Then the interviewer asked if he planned to continue working overseas, and the tension seemed to dissolve as Allen laughed and said something to the effect that he probably would, though his wife was trying to get his passport revoked.

Evidently she, or they, had decided to get their marriage revoked instead. I wondered if it was the long overseas assignments that had ended the marriage. Or, perhaps, problems with the “emotional component.” I glanced at his wedding ring and remembered a poem from my British Lit class where a woman wore a necklace engraved with the words Noli me tangere. Touch me not.

The blacktop curved a final time. WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB proclaimed a graying piece of wood nailed to a tree. A few yards beyond was another wooden sign with DAMASCUS PENTECOSTAL CHURCH and an arrow pointing left. Once the two-lane straightened, apple orchards lined the road and then a wide-porched building with WHITEWATER RAFTING TOURS painted on the slanting roof came into view. Thirty yards beyond was Billy Watson’s service station and general store.

“We’re low on gas,” I said, nodding at the fuel gauge. “This is the only place to get some this side of the river.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Allen said, and flicked on the blinker with his left hand.

MINNOWS AND REDWORMS FOR SALE, the hand-printed placard beside the pumps read.

“The pumps aren’t on,” I said. “You have to pay first.”

Though it was still too early for many tourists, Billy sat in a rocking chair on his store’s rickety porch, a book in his hand and a brown Labrador retriever at his feet. He wore a torn flannel shirt and faded overalls. A black beard draped off his chin like Spanish moss. All his costume lacked was a corncob pipe. Billy had a degree in agriculture from Clemson University, and his family owned the biggest apple orchard in the valley, but he’d decided after college that his true calling was playing Snuffy Smith to fleece tourists. He swore if he could find a cross-eyed boy who could play banjo, he’d stick that kid on the porch and increase his business 25 percent.