More pesky dog flies had appeared and, as we talked, Michael pulled out his pocketknife to cut us some leafy twigs so we could brush them away from our heads.

Suddenly, from back up on the crest of the slope, we heard a car engine crank up with a loud racing of the motor, then a screech of brakes and a glimpse of the rear of the maroon Volvo as it shot out of its parking spot and almost slammed into the weeping willow beside the rail fence. There was another angry clash of gears before it dug out of the farmyard in a great cloud of dust.

A muscle jumped in Michael’s clenched jaw, but his voice was steady as he went on describing to Gayle that long-ago May morning-how the two workmen had followed the sound of her crying down along this very path. I lagged behind a moment, noticing that from this angle down below, the rose stakes nailed to the fence up there made an odd pattern against the sky.

Then, brushing at flies, I caught up with the others, and we retraced those workmen’s steps till we were opposite the abandoned gristmill. The creek was even lower this afternoon than it’d been back then, and we were able to cross on big flat rocks near the old dam without getting our shoes wet.

Lily beat us across and was waiting to shake water from her brindle coat all over our legs.

“One of them stayed here, the other hiked out and met me at the road as I was returning with their snacks.” Michael pushed the dog aside and it ran off up the bank. “The phone hadn’t been hooked up yet, so we had to drive back to the store. I called the sheriff myself and then drove on around and through the lane to wait for them.”

The mill yard was badly overgrown now. Pokeweeds were head high and beginning to put out flower stems. Poison ivy grew even more lushly. The trees around the stone walls were wrapped in vines as thick and hairy as a man’s arm, with rampant green leaves. Beneath the leaves were clouds of greenish-white blossoms. It seemed incongruous that anything so noxious could smell so sweet, but the air was permeated with a cloying fragrance I couldn’t quite trust.

The heavy wooden door had long since fallen off its hinges and we entered uneasily.

“As soon as I switched off my truck I heard your cries,” said Michael. “The sheriff had told me not to disturb anything, but I couldn’t just stand down here and listen. Besides, those two boys had already been up.”

The lower chamber felt pleasantly cool after the hot afternoon sun outside. Even better, we could discard our twig fly brushes. An end wall had half broken away and more vines had grown up through the opening where the paddle wheel had once turned. Sunlight off the water reflected light onto the stone stairwell.

“We came up these steps,” said Michael, “and I warned them to keep their hands in their pockets so we wouldn’t leave any extra fingerprints.”

The upper level was almost completely open to the elements now. Only a small section of the roof remained. Michael gestured to a spot near a sheet of fallen tin roofing. “Your mother was there. When we found her, she was on her back with her arms by her side.”

“The papers said it was like she’d been laid out for burial,” Gayle said in a small voice.

“Yes.”

There must have been bloodstains once, but eighteen years of sun and rain had scrubbed the stones clean.

Michael gestured to a spot further from the stairs. “You were over here, buckled into one of those portable plastic baskets that sit up on a metal frame. It was pink, like your blanket.”

Gayle pushed her sunglasses up as if the tinted lenses were keeping her from seeing what Michael seemed to be seeing all over again. Her eyes glistened as he described the scene.

“The sheriff said leave everything, but your voice was hoarse. Not like a baby at all. I unbuckled you and carried you downstairs and tried to get you to stop crying. You were so tiny…”

He took a deep breath, and Gayle put out her small hand and touched his arm.

Even then the Dancy in him, if that’s what it was, couldn’t let him sustain her touch. Not that he flinched dramatically or anything-I doubt if Gayle even noticed-but he shrugged self-deprecatingly and walked away from her hand, over to the edge of the floor where the dilapidated wooden paddle wheel had almost completely rotted away.

“She must have been so frightened,” said Gayle, looking around the ruins.

“No,” I said. At least I could add that much. “She never knew she was here, honey.”

I repeated what Scotty Underhill had told me about Janie’s head wound, though not his theory that she’d been put down like a sick and dying animal.

“As far as your mother was concerned, it was all over immediately. Her brain was so damaged that she can’t have known a thing after the moment she was first injured.”

From across the wide loft, Michael said, “So even if she hadn’t been shot, she would have died?”

“Not necessarily. And maybe not very soon. Modern medicine, and all that,” I reminded him. “But she would have been a vegetable.”

Gayle flinched at the thought.

“Yes,” Michael agreed. “There are some things worse than-”

Ka-pingg!

Suddenly the wall above his head seemed to explode, sending sharp chips of stone flying every which way. A split second later we heard the actual crack of a rifle.

Michael’s hand flew up to his face and came away bloody just as a second bullet hit the tin roof with an explosive clatter.

Instinctively, we all ducked down behind what was left of the wall.

“Hey! Hold your fire!” roared Michael. “There’re people here! Hey!”

Silence.

After a few minutes, we stood up warily. I expected to hear shouts of apology through the thick trees, but none came.

“Goddamn poachers!” Michael growled.

He mopped at the cut on his cheek with his handkerchief and his face was pale beneath his tan. It was just a scratch from where one of the stone chips had hit and the bleeding wasn’t serious, but the nearness of the bullets had shaken all three of us.

“You could have been killed,” Gayle said.

It was bad enough that someone should be out hunting this time of year. “Someone that careless with where his bullets go needs to be reported,” I said, more shaken than I wanted to admit.

“Nothing’s in season now, is it?” Michael asked, still dabbing at his face.

“Nothing I know of. Which is probably why they’re halfway back to the highway by now. I’ll bet they think you’re the game warden.”

Sure enough, from far in the distance, we heard someone crashing away from us through the underbrush towards Old Forty-Eight. Michael whistled for the dog, but she didn’t respond.

The mood was as shattered as the mortar and stone where the bullet had struck. Gayle had seen all there was to see anyway, and Michael seemed to have nothing else to add, but I hesitated after they started for the steps.

“Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Was there anything else of Janie’s when you got here?”

“What do you mean?” He looked blank. “Like a purse or car keys or something?”

“Or a scarf or sweater or a baby bottle?” I’d promised Scotty Underhill I wouldn’t mention Janie’s red vinyl slicker to anyone.

Michael shook his head. “Nothing.”

“It was in the paper,” said Gayle. “My empty bottle and extra diapers were in a diaper bag with her purse on the backseat of the car when they found it parked at Grandaddy’s on Thursday morning. Her keys were still in the ignition.”

There wasn’t much conversation on the way back across Possum Creek. As we went up the slope to Michael’s place, I said, “The way you’ve nailed those posts and crossbars up for the roses, they look almost like crosses.”

“Yes.”

His quiet concurrence effectively silenced me. I never know quite what to say when I’m confronted with unexpected religiosity.

“No place should be unexpected,” my internal preacher scolded. “Is God not everywhere?”