The snowshoer and I knew that Geronimo’s skull, hidden in the Bonesmen’s clubhouse—a stolen trophy, squirreled away in the tomb—would not have quieted Matthew Zimmermann’s moral barometer. “I’m sure those Yalies stole someone’s skull,” the snowshoer always said, “but I’ll bet it wasn’t Geronimo’s. How would those Yalies know whose head they stole?”

In later years, it seemed small consolation that Zim never knew what became of Prescott Bush’s son and grandson. It might have caused mortal damage to Matthew Zimmermann’s moral barometer if he had known that a couple of Bonesmen, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, would both be presidents of the United States. Zim never knew that President George W. Bush won a second term by beating another Bonesman, Massachusetts senator John Kerry. I can’t help wondering if Zim would have agreed with me—I thought John Kerry was a good Bonesman. We’ll never know; what bothered Zimmer about being a Bonesman would remain a secret.

In the ski season of 1965, I was packing for the trip to Vermont, when I overheard the snowshoer accept a collect call from New York. “Yes, of course I can hear you, Zim—you’re shouting!” I heard Elliot Barlow say. “You’re in a zoo?” Mr. Barlow then asked. We were in the apartment in Amen Hall; my bedroom door was open.

“He must be in Penn Station—Zim thinks Penn Station is a zoo!” I called to Mr. Barlow from my bedroom.

“What’s her name?” I heard the snowshoer ask Zim. “Buddy,” Elliot then said. “She’s your girlfriend?” Mr. Barlow immediately asked. When I finished packing and came out of my bedroom, the snowshoer was still on the phone. “Oh, here’s Adam—do you want to talk to Adam?” Elliot asked Zim.

“Just tell him everything!” I heard Zim shouting, all the way from Penn Station.

“Zim has a girlfriend—he’s bringing her to Vermont?” I asked Mr. Barlow, when he hung up the phone.

“Not exactly—it sounds more complicated than that,” the snowshoer said.

“She’s not his girlfriend?” I asked.

“Zim said he was bringing a girl—he didn’t say she was his,” Elliot explained.

“He’s bringing a random girl to Vermont?” I asked.

“She’s someone Zim ran into at Penn Station—maybe they were in elementary school together, an old friend,” the snowshoer speculated.

“I heard you describing the size of the futon in the TV room,” I told the little English teacher.

“I thought Zim should understand that the three of you would be sleeping together, but Zim assured me that Buddy is really small,” Mr. Barlow said.

“How small?” I asked.