Lew, still crying, showed his pop where Sal had thrown Roh into the river. They scrambled down. His pop splashed out a little way, but the river was high and moving fast, and there was tree debris everywhere. Helplessly his pop shouted over the water, “Roh, Roh!” Then he turned back toward the house and started to run, ignoring Lew, who called and couldn’t keep up. When Lew got back, his pop wasn’t home. He figured he must have gone to Otto Kitchen’s. When he got there, his pop was on the phone. Shannon was sitting at the kitchen table. She seemed ordinary now, and not so simple, though her eyes were heavy and sad. She told them Otto was out coon hunting with Bennet Burger and the boys.

A half hour later Sheriff Judd arrived, together with Bennet, Otto, and Finn. Bennet, as ever, was in charge, and said that Lew should stay with Shannon while they all went out to look for Rohan.

Shannon made Lew some hot milk. He sat in her lap, still crying, and she combed her fingers through his hair. He told her what he had seen, but she kept quiet. There didn’t seem anything strange about her at all, just a few teeth missing on one side and her sad eyes. This nice lady had been raped, and Lew was ashamed for how he had been thinking about her, which he knew was sinful, and now, his body convulsing with the dregs of his tears, he felt himself falling back against her neck, sinking, with his brother, beneath the muddy waters of the Missouri.

Lew was woken by his dad the next morning. In a strange bed, he was confused for a moment, and then entered his nightmare.

Siggy Judd dropped them back at the farm.

While Lew was frying eggs, his pop, sitting at the kitchen table, said, “They told me Sal was with them coon hunting up at Sharp Top.”

Lew turned around. “No, I saw him. I saw him do it. I—”

His pop put his hand up. “All right…all right.” He massaged his temples with his thumbs as if trying to work something through his mind. “I told them I’s going to take it to the state sheriff.”

At the sound of a car in the driveway, they both looked at the door, in which Bennet Burger shortly appeared, taking off his hat as he came in.

“You find him, Mr. B?” his pop said, standing.

“Not yet, Clyde. Some boys are dragging the river down there.”

Mr. Burger pulled the second chair out from the table. Settling his hulking body into it, he made a gesture for Lew’s pop to sit. Mr. B awed Lew: those stern gray eyes beneath exploded eyebrows, a lantern jaw that pressed his thin lips together, not cruelly exactly, but like to warn that if you ever wronged him he would never forgive you.

He looked at Lew. “Son, I’d like to have a private word with your father.”