“What the principal said. He was by here a little earlier, right after they’d brought the boy’s body up and sent it on to the funeral parlor. Howard said no. Said they was too much already done for it, too many people coming in from other places.”

“He’s got a point.”

“Maybe it’d be a help to everybody to go on and do it. Take their mind off things.”

“That’s right.”

Taylor watched Noah during the talk of the fishing, saw him looking away, knew the talk made him uncomfortable.

“I was thinking we might be a help to Howard if some of us could cut the grass in his yard,” Taylor said to change the direction of the talk. “He can’t do it, and there’s bound to be a lot of people coming by when word gets out about Matthew.”

The men eagerly agreed, made offers of equipment and time. Worked it out among themselves to cut the grass and clean up around the barn and to wash and wax Howard’s car.

“He’ll need it clean for the funeral,” Moody said.

“We better check out his oil and battery,” Peavo added. “That old car can’t hardly get up enough power to run down a hill, much less up one. It don’t need to be stopping on the road during the funeral drive.”

“Lord, I feel for them,” one of the men said in a sigh. “That boy was pretty much their life.”

“Yes, he was,” another said. “Yes, he was.”

TWENTY-ONE

He walked in an easy stride, making his way up a hill that led away from Howard Reynolds’s home, going in the direction of the Chatuge, and with each step he felt the freedom of being alone.

The feeling was good.

He had been in the Valley of Light for one week, exactly. And in that week, he had been pulled into the goings-on of more people than he had ever met in his travels. It was like a leaf floating on water, being caught suddenly in the swirl of a suck-hole and being snatched beneath the surface. Still, he could not blame the people. The people had been friendly, going out of their way to make him feel welcome. What had happened was of his own doing.

It was time to leave, he thought, stopping for a moment to rest near a small stand of sassafras trees. His body knew it. His body tugged at him, quarreled with him, saying to him that he had spent more time than he needed to spend in the Valley of Light, and he knew his body was right. Still, he could not go, things being the way they were. He had made a bargain with Taylor Bowers to paint his store. And leaving so soon after the drowning of Matthew Reynolds would make it appear he did not care about the death.

He had offered to go to the store and start on the painting, but Taylor had decided against it, saying it would not look right after what had happened, and he had agreed. Start back on Monday, Taylor had said, or if he wanted to do some early morning work on Saturday, before the fishing, he could do so. The store wouldn’t be open, but that wouldn’t matter. Noah knew where the paint was and there was a key to the store hidden under the steps of the side porch, Taylor had said, though why he considered it hidden was a joke; half the people in the valley knew about it. And then he had offered to drive Noah back to the pull-off leading to the lake, but Noah had declined, saying he felt the need for a walk.