The girl drove to the end of the dirt road, where they spent a moment gazing at the rocky column; there was a fence around it, with a notice: visitors who entered the area to get a closer look at the chimney did so at their own risk, because there were rattlesnakes.

“You know,” said the girl, “when I said I had a premonition . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, I was making that up: it wasn’t a premonition at all.”

“No?”

“No. In fact it was something I’ve known for a while now. Since Kansas City, to be precise. And I didn’t tell you about it.”

“That doesn’t seem very clear to me,” said the man.

“Let me explain,” she said. “Remember the journalist I met in Independence, outside Kansas City? Well, just before we left he told me something amazing. He said that if you and I decided to take the Oregon Trail, we had to stop at Chimney Rock and talk with the woman in charge of tourist information. He told me she was a bull rider’s wife, that she was very special and that if Théo had passed by and he was the kind of man we imagine he is, the woman would remember him.”

“That really is amazing! Twenty years later?”

“Not necessarily twenty years. It could be that Théo spent some time in jail after that business at the museum. Let’s say the old guard had died, for instance. Anyway, that’s what the journalist said.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You weren’t in any shape . . . The deep-sea diver’s complex, remember?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I understand.”

He took off his sunglasses, blew on the lenses and wiped them with his T-shirt. Then he asked, “Did you see the chimney? The top part looks as if it’s been broken.”

“It’s made of clay and sandstone,” said the girl. “The wind and rain make it crumble a little every day. Apparently pieces of rock come loose now and then and fall to the prairie.”

“It makes me think of a big broken phallus,” said the man.

They got out of the Volkswagen to walk a little. The black cat got out, too, slid under the fence and walked along a winding path that led to the base of the rocky column.

“I hope he won’t be eaten by a rattlesnake,” said the girl. “Poor little kitty!”

“He’s getting bigger now,” said the man. “He can’t sleep in the glove compartment anymore, have you noticed?”

“No.”

“You know,” he said, “I think I’ve changed, too. What you said about my brother didn’t affect me the way it would have before. I mean, it affected me, but it didn’t destroy me.”

“Is that true?”

“No,” he sighed. “It isn’t true, but I feel as if . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe it’s coming very slowly.”