miles of rough private road now, up over a series of sand hills and then dropping down toward the lake. The last time I’d been in they were cutting timber back in here somewhere and logging trucks were using the first three or four miles of the road. I could see the tread marks of their big tires in the ruts now. There was no way to tell whether any other cars had been in or not.

I pushed it hard. In about ten minutes we came to the fork where the logging trucks swung off to the right. I went left. As soon as we were around the next bend I stopped and got out and looked at the ruts in the headlights. There hadn’t been a car through since the last time it had rained, probably weeks ago. We had it all to ourselves.

Dawn was breaking as we came down the last grade. I caught glimpses of the arm of the lake ahead, dark and oily smooth, like blued steel, with patches of mist rising here and there in the timber. It was intensely quiet, and beautiful. For a minute I wished I were only going fishing. Then I brushed it off.

We went through the meadow and crossed a wooden culvert at the edge of the trees along the lake shore. I stopped and got out. The key was hanging on a nail just inside one end of the culvert.

The cabin faced the meadow rather than the lake. It was large for a fishing or duck-hunting camp, more like a deserted old farmhouse backed up among the big trees at the lake’s edge. It was still half dark back in here, and I left the lights on as I stopped by the overhang of the front porch.

The lock grated in the early-morning hush. I pushed the door open and went in. Striking a match, I located one of the kerosene lamps and lit it. This was the main room, with a wood-burning kitchen stove and some cupboards in the rear and a cot and some chairs and a table up front. The door on the right led into a storeroom that was cluttered with a hundred or so old beat-up duck decoys, parts of outboard motors, some oars, and a welter of fishing tackle.

The other one, on the left, was closed. I pushed it open and carried the lamp in. It was the bedroom. It held two built-in bunks, one above the other, and a double bed against the front wall. The bed was spread with an Army blanket. I put the lamp down on a small table and went back out to the car.

I carried her in and put her on the bed. Her face was waxen white in the lamplight and her hair was a dark mist across the pillow. She must have been at least thirty, she was a passed-out drunk, but she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I stood looking down at her for a minute. The whole thing was a lousy mess. Then I shrugged and picked up the lamp. I wasn’t her mother. And it was a rough world, any way you looked at it.

I built a fire in the cookstove and went up to the spring for a couple of buckets of water. It was full light now, and lovely, with bluish-gray smoke curling out of the stovepipe above the old shake roof and going off into the sky through the trees. I moved the car into the old shed on the far side of the house and closed the doors. Then I took an inventory of the food supply. Bill always kept the kitchen well stocked. There were a couple of boxes of canned stuff in the storeroom and some flour and miscellaneous staples in the cupboards. I opened a fresh can of coffee and put on the coffeepot.

I sat down and smoked a cigarette, listening to the crackle of the fire and realizing I felt tired after being on the run all night. Drawing a hand across my face, I felt the rasp of beard stubble, and went over to the mirror hanging on the rear wall. I looked like a thug. My eyebrows and hair are blond, but when the beard comes out it’s ginger-colored and dirty.

I rooted around in the storeroom until I found somebody’s duffel bag with a toilet kit in it. It held a safety razor and some blades, but no shaving