“Yes. It would.”

“All I wish is he’d never gone out there,” Bobby got out.

They walked on. The distant elms were still distant, still miniature. The sky was overcast, and the air—Hook could not feel the air at all. He was not sure whether it was warm or cold.

“How are we so sure there’s no afterlife?” Bobby asked.

“We’re not.”

“But we are. I know you are. I remember how you were after Mom.”

Hook had no answer.

“If I could only see him,” Bobby said. “Just once more.”

Suddenly Hook’s eyes were not dry. And for some reason Bobby chose that moment to look at him. Through his tears Hook saw the boy react, saw his first look of shock, as if he had been struck in the face, and then the whole surface seemed to give way, crumpling from the force of the blow, and he took off running. Hook followed, trying desperately to catch him and hold him, keep him from doing whatever it was he felt he had to do. But it was no contest. The boy flew across the snow-dusted turf, effortlessly increasing the distance between them. Yet Hook would not let himself quit, and kept puffing along after him, running as fast as he could in his heavy coat and boots over the slippery ground. And even when it felt as if his heart was about to chop through his chest he kept on, until finally he saw Bobby slip and fall up ahead, not far from the row of elms. Trying to get up, the boy slipped again, and Hook drove himself even harder, sprinting the last few yards till he had his hands on him finally, holding him, dragging him down into the snow. For a few moments the boy fought him, and fought the earth too, raining his fists on both in a rage of impotence. Then Hook got his arms around him.

“Let it out, son,” he told him. “It’s all right. Let it out.”

And Bobby did. “I loved him, Dad!” he sobbed. “I loved him! I loved him so much!”

“Me too,” was all Hook could say. “I loved him too, son.”

Hook sat there on the ground holding the boy for a while, hugging his quaking body, and in time the cattle began leaving the fence row one by one and came toward them, gathering a safe distance away to observe this curious ceremony in the snow.

At two in the morning, after lying awake for three hours, Hook dressed and went outside. He would just walk down the farm road and back, he told himself. He would smoke a cigarette, and he would try not to think about it all, Chris and the funeral and California.

As he closed the door behind him and started across the lawn toward the gravel drive, the dogs heard him and came barking from their post in the implement building. Hook silenced them with a word and then they began jumping at each other, nipping and wriggling and talking in celebration of this rare event, a moonlight walk with the chief himself. There were two of them: Mickey, a spayed boxer-collie cross, all sweetness and femininity, and a huge black German shepherd male Bobby had named King six years before, only to have Uncle Arnie and the times rename him Martin Luther, which in turn the years had shortened to Marty. Like most shepherds, Marty was a one-man dog. And Hook was that man.