Appleton, we didn’t see so much of my dad. Maybe like once a week. So they put on perfume and lipstick and had plenty of boyfriends. That was okay with my mom. She’s a lot like them, someways. She likes to fuss with herself and look pretty. But my dad is real strict. He won’t let my sisters have any boyfriends. Or wear lipstick. One time some of their old boyfriends drove over from Appleton, and my dad met them at the door with a shotgun; he told them, said the next time he saw them on his property he’d blow their heads off. Wow, did those guys scoot! The girls cried themselves sick. But the whole thing gives me the biggest laugh.

See that fork in the road? Stop there.
(I stopped the car; we both got out. She pointed to an opening in the trees: a dark, leafy, downward-sloping path.)
Just follow that.
TC (suddenly afraid to be alone): You’re not coming with me?

NANCY QUINN: My dad don’t like anybody around when he talks business.
TC: Well, thanks again.
NANCY QUINN: My pleasure!
SHE WALKED AWAY WHISTLING.

Parts of the path were so overgrown that I had to bend branches, shield my face against brushing leaves. Briars, strange thorns caught at my trousers; high in the trees, crows cawed, screamed. I saw an owl; it’s odd to see an owl in daylight; he blinked, but did not stir. Once, I almost stumbled into a beehive—an old hollow tree-stump swarming with wild black bees. Always I could hear the river, a slow soft churning roar; then, at a curve in the path, I saw it; and saw Quinn, too.

He was wearing a rubber suit, and holding aloft, as though it were a conductor’s baton, a supple fishing rod. He stood waist-deep, his hatless head in profile; his hair was no longer flecked with grey—it was white as the water-foam circling his hips. I wanted to turn and run, for the scene was so strongly reminiscent of that other day, that long-ago time when Quinn’s look-alike, the Reverend Billy Joe Snow, had waited for me in waist-high water. Suddenly I heard my name; Quinn was calling it, and beckoning to me as he waded toward shore.

I thought of the young bulls I had seen parading in the golden pastures; Quinn, glistening in his rubber suit, reminded me of them—vital, powerful, dangerous; except for his whiter hair, he hadn’t aged an iota; indeed, he seemed years younger, a man of fifty in perfect health.

Smiling, he squatted on a rock, and motioned for me to join him. He displayed some trout he’d caught. “Kinda puny. But they’ll eat good.”
I mentioned Nancy. He grinned and said: “Nancy. Oh, yeah. She’s a good kid.” He left it at that. He didn’t refer to his wife’s death, or the fact that he had remarried: he assumed I was aware of his recent history.

He said: “I was surprised when you called me.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know. Just surprised. Where you staying?”
“At the Prairie Motel. Where else?”

After a silence, and almost shyly, he asked: “Jake Pepper with you?”
I nodded.
“Somebody told me he was leaving the Bureau.”
“Yes. He’s going to live in Oregon.”

“Well, I don’t guess I’ll ever see the old bastard again. Too bad. We could’ve been real friends. If he hadn’t had all those suspicions. Damn his soul, he even thought I drowned poor Addie Mason!” He laughed; then scowled. “The way I look at it is: it was the hand of God.” He raised his own hand, and the river, viewed between his spread fingers, seemed to weave between them like a dark ribbon. “God’s work. His will.”

The End