“There’s a remark by Daniel Boone I like a lot,” she said, driving the minibus toward a parking lot. “I don’t remember where I read it, but he said, ‘Sometimes I feel like a leaf in a whirlwind. It may spin and swirl and turn but it keeps moving ahead.’”

Jack said nothing. When she had parked the Volks and turned off the ignition, he told the girl he would rather go into the airport by himself.

“There’s going to be a big empty space in the Volkswagen,” she said.

The man petted the top of the cat’s head, then behind his ears and under his chin.

“You’ll probably meet someone,” he said.

“Generally I’d rather be alone.”

“Me too.”

He turned toward her. “But we spent the whole summer together.”

“You can’t always be logical!” she said.

Then they hugged each other, sitting on the edge of their seat, knees tangled, and sat there motionless for a long moment, embracing tightly as if they were a single person. After that Jack took the little suitcase he had packed and left the Volks, and the girl started the engine. When he turned around to wave, she said, “May the gods protect you!”

He waved until the Volks had disappeared, and when he walked into the airport alone, he was smiling in spite of everything at the thought that somewhere in the vastness of America, there was a secret place where the gods of the Indians and the other gods were meeting together in order to watch over him and light his way.