Notwithstanding the father’s estrangement and Emory’s sense of abandonment, Emory Trowbridge had been provided for by his parents; he’d been completely supported by his divorced mom and dad since the backup heavyweight’s time at Exeter. He spent four years at the academy, but Trowbridge didn’t graduate; he’d made so few friends among his fellow students, and was so unmemorable to his teachers, no one noticed the absence of his unsmiling face at commencement. He’d always been borderline antisocial, but in the spring term of his senior year, he’d stopped going to classes and he wouldn’t speak when spoken to; he was sent home for nonperformance and psychiatric evaluation. His teachers, the dean, the school psychiatrist, the faculty who had dorm duty in Emory Trowbridge’s dormitory—they knew that Emory left school before graduation. The rest of us never noticed his absence. How would we know that the backup heavyweight had just pretended to apply to college, or that his only job had been befriending cows?

Trowbridge had tried to enlist in the army, but he was rejected. Like me, he was reclassified 4-F. He’d not tried to enroll in another branch of the armed services. More surprising to the snowshoer and me was that Trowbridge had lived (for almost thirty years) in a trailer on a piece of land his parents purchased from a dairy farmer in Stratham—on the outskirts of Exeter. The dairy farmer said Trowbridge had been a good neighbor, on the grounds that he was considerate of the cows. Emory’s thoughtfulness on behalf of the cows was demonstrated when he constructed a firing range on his property. Not wanting to disturb the cows, Trowbridge had asked the dairy farmer first about where the gravel pit should go, and in which direction he should shoot.