The Coachman smiled down at me

When he saw I was behind him.

He said, "Your brother Raven lives,

But I think you'll never find him."

"RAVEN, OWL, AND I"

"Is that what I think it is?" said Daniel.The Coachman looked up at the green-clad gypsy,who had just come back from walking around the city,and smiled.

The brothers looked somewhat alike, the Coachman decided, and some would say he looked similar,although he knew of no gypsy blood in himself. Daniel was thinner and his mustaches longer and his hair shorter, yet they could have been brothers. The Coachman strained his memory to when he had last seen the three brothers together. They had been young, then, but still the one now called Daniel had been thinner, frailer. The youngest brother was as pale as his yellow shirt, and the other brother, who wore red, was the largest. They had all the same pointed chin, though, and the same deep, dark eyes,and brows that met over the nose. The same hooked nose, for that matter, even as young men.

The Coachman nodded. "It is, indeed. Help yourself. I'm not drinking just at the moment." He passed the brandy over and Daniel took a healthy swallow,grimaced.

"You didn't pay too much for it, I hope."

The Coachman shrugged. "Didn't have much to pay. Is that a fiddle case?"

"Yes."

"Ah. The same fiddle as when we first met?"

Daniel nodded. "I've had work done on it. A new bridge, mechanical pegs, and I had a chin rest added. But it was good work. Sandi would have approved."

"Sandi?"

"He taught me to play. Back before-" Daniel's voice caught, then he turned away.

"Play something for me," said the Coachman.

Daniel hesitated. "The neighbors-"

"Can go hang." He looked around at the cheap plaster walls, the single, narrow bed, and the plywood chest of drawers. "In a place like this, one doesn't have neighbors."

Daniel shrugged, took the fiddle from its wooden case and set it to his chin. He drew forth a low, tentative, hollow sound, with just a hint of vibrato, then began one of the simplest dance tunes- The Coachman smiled and wished for a tambourine player. These gypsies, whatever else one thought of them,could play.

Daniel began another pass through the melody, this time more boldly, with surprising grace notes, and sometimes holding back the melody for a beat longer than expected. The Coachman sat back and nodded,and Daniel played through it once more, this time accenting the high, piercing notes, sometimes nearly leaving the melody behind altogether, in the improvisations of gypsy dance steps, of gypsy life, of travels through lands foreign and mundane, meeting people dangerous and friendly, harmless and cold. The Coachman wasn't aware of when the original melody had been entirely left behind, save for faint hints and echoes of phrasing; by this time he was seeing colors swirl before his eyes: Hard blue in the rumbling low notes, yellows and greens in the slow,mournful passages, vibrant reds and violets in staccato high notes.

Then it was no longer colors, but scenes and faces he saw: The roads in the Old Country he had traveled a thousand times before he had met the three gypsy boys, the passage from There to Here, the old man in the gutter asking for coins, the walls and ceiling of the hotels he had stayed in, drunk, night after night.

Then he saw that which he knew had not happened, yet might happen soon, and he sat transfixed,watching it unfold with horror and fascination, until he became aware at last that Daniel had returned,somehow, to the original, simple dance melody; the music trailed off into silence.

"Did you show me that on purpose?" he asked.

Daniel seemed startled. "I showed you something?No, I wasn't aware of it. Perhaps it was your-"

The Coachman stood. "I must go."

"Huh?"

"That you have no notion of what you said makes it no less true, my friend. If I don't return-" He shrugged. "Learn to drive a coach."

Daniel started to speak, but the Coachman was already gone, his feet fairly flying down the stairs. He took the stairs three at a time, then out the door, into the street, and through the early morning mist.

"… And Owl still watches all around

And listens more than speaks.

But he'll never understand

That it isn't you he seeks."

"RAVEN, OWL, AND I"

A lonely, middle-aged salesman had driven Raymond all the way through Ohio, and had left him off in Ashtabula County, just an hour after sunrise, less than fifty miles from his destination. They had gone through twenty-eight small towns along the lake on I-90, and seen three Highway Patrol cars.

He hadn't expected to get this far this quickly. He set down his pack, and his tambourine wrapped in an old towel, and waited for another ride. After half an hour, sixty-one trucks, and more cars than he felt like counting, a big, new Peterbilt stopped and give him a lift into Lakota.

He studied the city disinterestedly as the truck driver,an old wiry man with a few strands of grey hair sticking out from beneath his baseball cap, made conversation.

Raymond rather liked the ships he saw as they passed near the docks. The driver turned south on I-79 toward Youngstown. Raymond was pleased with the number of parks (nine), though he wished there were more trees in them.

As they passed one, near what the truck driver said was downtown, Raymond noticed a horse-drawn carriage making its way around it. He asked the driver to let him off there, and they exchanged polite goodbyes.

He walked over to one of the concrete benches and sat. In spite of his first impression, he found he wasn't comfortable in the park. It was exactly two city blocks square, with concrete walks and trees arranged just so, and it seemed as if the soil under the grass was hardly a foot deep, carefully built up for the lawn. He closed his eyes and thought of the mountain above Boulder, hard and rocky, yet thick with pines. He listened to conversations of the few birds (six) that remained this late in the season. It was growing cold.He pulled his heavy wool coat of red and black squares closer around him and wondered what to do next.

Mr. DeCruz won't you shake my hand?

Do I look too much better than what you had planned?

I been back since late last fall,

Now who you gonna call?

"BACK IN TOWN"

Nothing was going right today. He hadn't been able to fall asleep, and when he finally had, he tossed through fragmented dreams like clips from cheap horror movies. Giant chickens were scratching on his door. There was a dead dove on his coffee table and he was trying to resuscitate it. Cynthia Kacmarcik dropped in for tea, and his kettle wasn't big enough.When he finally sank deeper into a dreamless sleep,he'd overslept and still awakened with a headache worse than a hangover. Traffic had been awful, and he'd gotten to work before he remembered that he'd given Madam Moria all his cash the night before, so he didn't have a dime on him and no time to go to the bank. And now he was hurrying down the hall,trying to catch the last ten minutes of the morning's roll call, when someone behind him called out, "Oh,Step!"

He turned, feeling at once weary and impatient,Seemed like the whole precinct was calling him Step now. Fuck you very much, Durand. He tried to summon up a smile for the woman pushing a brown envelope into his hands. He couldn't even remember her name. He took the envelope numbly.