"No," said Barley, his hand reaching down to hold the dog back and to cover its bared breast. "Please, not my dog."

I felt bad threatening his dog, and the feeling made me wonder if this old man could possibly be Caleb Kyle, if he could have some hidden reserve of strength that might have made him a match for Stritch. I thought that I would know Caleb when I found him, that I would sense his true nature. All I got from John Barley was fear: fear of me and, I suspected, fear of something else.

"Tell me the truth," I said softly. "Tell me where you got those boots. You tried to get rid of them after we spoke. I want to know why."

He blinked hard and swallowed once, his teeth worrying his bottom lip until he seemed to reach a decision within himself, and spoke.

"I took 'em from the boy's body. I dug him up, took the boots, then covered him again." He shrugged once more. "Took me his pack too. He didn't have no need for 'em anyways."

I resisted pistol-whipping him, but only just. "And the girl?"

The old man twice shook his head, as if trying to dislodge an insect from his hair. "I didn't kill 'em," he said, and I thought for a moment that he might cry. "I wouldn't hurt nobody. I just wanted the boots."

I felt sick inside. I thought of Lee and Walter, of times spent with them, with Ellen. I did not want to have to tell them that their daughter was dead. I once again doubted that this raggedy old man, this scavenger, could be Caleb Kyle.

"Where is she?" I asked.

He was rubbing the dog's body methodically now, hard sweeps from the head almost to its rump. "I only know where the boy is. The girl, I don't rightly know where she might be."

In the light from the window, the old man's face glowed a dim yellow. It made him look sickly and ill. His eyes were damp, the pupils barely pinholes. He was trembling gently as the fear took over his body. I lowered the gun and said: "I'm not going to hurt you."

The old man shook his head and what he said next made my skin crawl. "Mister," he whispered, "it ain't you I'm afraid of."

He saw them near the Little Briar Creek, he said, the girl and the boy in front and a figure, almost a shadow, in the backseat. He was walking with his dog, on his way home from hunting rabbits, when he saw the car pull in below him, harsh noises like stones grinding coming from the engine. It was not yet evening, but darkness had already fallen. He caught a glimpse of the two young people as they passed before the headlights of the car, the girl in blue jeans and a bright red parka, the boy in black, wearing a leather jacket that hung open despite the cold.

The boy lifted the hood of the car and peered inside, using a pocket flashlight to illuminate the engine. He could see him shake his head, heard him say something indistinguishable to the girl, then swear loudly in the silence of the forest.

The rear door of the car opened and the third passenger stepped out. He was tall, and something told John Barley that he was old, older even than Barley himself. And for reasons that, even now, he did not fully understand, he felt a chill cross him and, from close by, he heard the dog give a low whine. Beside the car, the figure stopped and seemed to scan the woods, as if to ascertain the source of the unexpected noise. Barley patted the dog lightly: "Hush, boy, hush." But he could see the dog's nostrils working quickly, and felt the animal shivering beside him. Whatever he scented, it spooked him badly and the dog's unease communicated itself to his owner.

The tall man leaned into the driver's side of the car and the headlights died. "Hey," said the boy. "What're you doing? You killed the lights." His flashlight beam moved and illuminated first the face of the man approaching and then the gleam of something in his hand.

"Hey," said the boy again, softer now. He moved in front of the girl, forcing her back, protecting her from the blade. "Don't do this," he said.

The knife slashed and the flashlight fell. The boy stumbled back and Barley heard him say, "Run, Ellen, run." Then the old man was upon him like a long, dark cloud and Barley saw the knife rise and fall, rise and fall, and heard the sound of its cutting against the noise of the trees gently swaying.

And then the figure moved after the girl. He could hear her stumbling, awkward progress through the woods. She did not get far. There was a scream, followed by a sound as of a blow heavily falling, and then all was silent. Beside him, the dog shifted on the ground, and gave a low, soft keen.

It was some time before the tall figure returned. The girl was not with him. He lifted the boy beneath the arms and hauled him to the rear of the car, where he bundled him into the trunk. He opened the driver's door and slowly, surely, began to push the car down the dirt road that led to Ragged Lake.

Barley tied his dog to a tree and gently wrapped his pocket handkerchief around its muzzle, patting it once and assuring it that he would be back. Then he followed the sound of the car as its wheels crunched on the trail ahead.

About half a mile down the road, just before Ragged Lake, he came upon a clearing next to a patch of beaver bog, dead trees fallen and twisted in the dark water. In the clearing, a pit had been dug and newly excavated earth lay in piles like funeral mounds. There was a slope at one end of the pit, and the old man used it to push the car into the earth. It came to rest almost level, the right rear wheel slightly raised. Then the figure climbed onto the roof and, from there, made its way to the lip of the hole. There was the sound of a spade being removed from the earth and then the soft shifting as it plunged deep once again, followed by a scraping as the first load hit the roof of the car.

It took the old man two hours, all told, to bury the car. Soon, snow would cover the ground and the drifts would hide any subsidence in the earth beneath. He lifted and threw methodically, his pace never varying, never once stopping to take a breath, and, despite all that he had seen, John Barley envied him his strength.

But just as the old man had finished circling the area to make sure that he had done his job well, Barley heard a bark from nearby followed by a long howl and he knew that Jess had managed to remove the binding from his muzzle. Below him, the figure stopped and cocked its head, then swung the spade hard into the beaver bog and began to move, his long legs eating up the incline, heading toward the sound of the dog.

But Barley was already moving, quickly and silently. He picked his way over fallen logs, following deer paths and moose trails so that he might avoid alerting the man behind by breaking new branches. He reached the dog to find it pulling from the rope, its tail wagging, emitting gentle yips of joy and relief. It struggled a little as he restored the binding, then he untied it, took it in his arms and ran for home. He stopped once to look back, certain almost that he had heard sounds of pursuit from close behind, but he could see nothing. When he got back to his cabin, he locked his door, reloaded his shotgun with lethal number-one shot and sat in a chair, never resting until dawn broke, when he fell into a bad, fitful sleep, punctuated by dreams of earth falling into his open mouth.

"Why didn't you tell someone what you saw?" I asked him. Even then, I was not sure whether or not to believe him. How could I believe that he was who he said he was, that such a story could be true? But when I looked in his eyes there was no trace of guile, only an old man's fear of approaching death. The dog now lay beside him, not asleep, its eyes open, sometimes casting glances at me to make sure that I had not moved during the telling of the old man's tale.

"I didn't want no trouble," he replied. "But I went back to see if there was any trace of the girl, and for those boots. They were fine boots and maybe, maybe I wanted to be sure that I hadn't imagined what I saw. I'm an old man, and the mind plays tricks. But I didn't imagine nothing, even though the girl was gone and there wasn't even blood on the ground to tell where she might have been. I knew that I hadn't imagined it as soon as I saw the dip in the ground and the spade hit metal. I was going to keep the boots and the pack, maybe had half a notion to take them to the police so they wouldn't think I was crazy when I told them the story. But…" He stopped. I waited.