Hook looked down at Parnelli. “He crashed down below.”

Parnelli did not care. He was trying to see his hands in the darkness, the blood on them from his chest. “Oh Jesus,” he gasped. “Oh Jesus. A priest? Do I need a priest?”

Hook looked first at his car lying on its side and then he gazed up where the monastery was. All he could see was darkness. But he knew how far up it was. It would probably take him an hour to carry Parnelli that far, and at the rate the man was losing blood, Hook doubted that he would make it alive. Also there was no way of knowing what they would find up there even if they did make it, perhaps only what he had seen earlier, only darkness and silence. But even as he was thinking this, he knew he had no choice; they were much closer to the monastery than to the houses down in the foothills. And he could not stay where he was, not just stand there and watch the man die.

“Could you take it, being carried?” Hook asked.

“I’m getting weak.”

“Your nephew wiped out my car. I’ll have to carry you.”

But Parnelli did not hear. He was crying. “Oh Christ, I’m not ready. Oh please, God. Please.” He coughed and again blood came out of him like vomit.

Hook tried to roll him onto his side, but he resisted, rolled onto his back again.

“Oh Jesus Mary,” he moaned. “Mother of God.”

Hook told him he was going to pick him up now and carry him to the monastery. “You’re going to be all right. We’ll get help there.”

Parnelli struck feebly at him, resisting. “No. First, my confession. You tell it to a priest, hear?”

Hook looked down at the massive face, gray in the single beam of light coming from Hook’s car. He nodded. “All right. Hurry.”

Tears welled out of Parnelli’s eyes. And he spoke slowly now, softly, fighting for every word. “It was me, shitkicker. Only me. When he kicked me, I blew. I picked him up and … It was me, no one else. You tell that to priest, hear? Tell him I’m sorry. For this too. For all my sins.”

Tell him I’m sorry. Hook heard the words as though from a great distance, for he was as much on the sea cliff now as on the mountain road. He stared down at this huge dying animal and saw it alive and raging, saw it tear his son off the ground and toss him like so much garbage over the edge of a cliff, and Hook felt his body begin to shake with the effort to hold his fists at his side. Slowly he stood up.

“You hear?” Parnelli got out. “Tell him I confess all my … tell him …”

His voice died. But Hook would not have listened to it anyway, for his attention had locked on a car turning into the monastery road far below. He watched the beams of its headlights sweep the first curve and then come to the second, the wooded one where the pickup had crashed. There the car stopped. Because of the distance and the trees bordering the road, Hook could see nothing but the lights of the car. And he could still hear the pickup’s horn, fainter now. He looked down at Parnelli. The man was unconscious; his mouth was open; blood gurgled softly in his throat. Hook waited, expecting the car to come on at any time, for the headlight of his own car was still burning and he knew it had to be brightly visible against the blackness of the mountainside. But the car down below stayed where it was.