A man in an overcoat stood at the center of the field, smoking. He controlled a small dark schnauzer mix on a retractable leash in his left hand. The dog described an ever-widening circle, snout focused industriously upon the earth. The man was in his late sixties; medium built under the bulky coat. Wool newsboy cap and glasses.

“This is Franz.” He reeled in the dog as I approached. His wedding band appeared to match June Pruitt’s. The dog cautiously snuffled my pants and shoes.

“Franz Ferdinand?”

“Boas.”

“Ah, the other notorious Franz.” I patted the dog. He shied away.

“Alex Pruitt. You’re Isaiah Coleridge.” The smoke from his cigarette blended with a pleasantly stark cologne.

“I am.”

Dr. Pruitt freelanced for several private organizations and traveled frequently overseas. He’d moiled in the dirt as a biologist, transitioned to an office job, and retired with every honor due an overachieving genius. His essays and papers were collected at Elmira College. I’d skimmed the plum examples. One essay snagged my whole attention—his harrowing account of an expedition to a mangrove delta in southern Bangladesh in the ’80s. Killer tigers, killer snakes, killer bees, killer everything in that gigantic saltwater swamp. The kind of place a warrior might go to seek a spectacularly gruesome death. It had certainly claimed the lives of woodcutters and poachers. In English, its name translated loosely to the Beautiful Forest, but was referred to by relatives of the aforementioned woodcutters and poachers as the Forest That Eats Men. Which is what Dr. Pruitt titled his essay. Drs. Howard Campbell and Toshi Ryoko, the now-infamous scientists who’d founded the expedition, went on to reap the glory while Dr. Alex Pruitt settled into a more humble and obscure role in the scheme of academia.

I told him I’d read the essay and asked why he hadn’t cashed in on a big fat New York book deal. The story was loaded with the good shit American readers crave: sex, violence, and exoticism six ways from Sunday.

“Idealistic, ambitious, stupid. We signed waivers stipulating that Toshi Ryoko and Howard Campbell owned every iota of that expedition. Those raconteurs kept an iron grip on the rights.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Ever catch the documentaries of the mission?” he said. “The original film is raw and honest, although you’d be surprised how much the camera omits.”

“Or a director,” I said. I’d screened the cult classic documentary and a more recent, family-friendly retrospective. “Yeah, I saw it. By the way, ever hear of Anvil Mountain?”

He paused before answering.

“Some in my circle call it the Black Mountain. Why do you ask?”

“Part of a case I worked on recently. This talk of expeditions from days of yore made me curious to see how small the world is after all.” In the Small World After All category, Zircon, via a subsidiary, funded multiple research projects conducted by Campbell and Ryoko, beginning with their trip to Bangladesh. More recently, Campbell appeared as a consultant on the Jeffers Project in the fine print section of the credits.