“You could say this is unexpected.”

Tyler nodded. “That’s more or less the way your dad put it.”

“Oh?”

“We spoke a bit on the phone the other day.”

“I see.”

“Guess they were thinking of coming out to surprise you. Your mom thought you might use some help settling in.”

Tom sighed. It was a six-hour drive from Lincoln; he’d already told them not to bother. “I should have called.”

Tyler now wore a small, humane smile. Tom knew what was next.

“Son, I can’t say how sorry I was to hear about your little girl.”

“Thank you.”

“I have a niece in Dallas. She and her husband lost a boy the same way.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tom said. “I truly am.”

“It’s an awful thing.”

“Is there anything else I need to sign?”

Tyler lingered a moment and shook his head. “Nope, we’re done. One last thing.” He picked up a plain white envelope and handed it across. “Your granddad left instructions to pass this along when the time came. Guess that’s now.”

Tom held the sealed envelope to the light. He tore off an end and slipped a single sheet of lined notebook paper from inside. The paper still had an edge of fuzz where it had been ripped from a spiral binding. He unfolded the page and saw lines of spiky blue ink, one running bulk of a paragraph. The man had written it just over a year ago.

Thomas,

You’re burying your little one today. Expect your heart is broke and I’m goddamn sorry as hell. Like to say I wish I was there but I don’t. Older I get the less I can stand people. Guess this river is probably the best place for an old rain dog like me. Maybe you don’t want a goddamn thing to do with it. Anyway, you get the land and the buildings and the truck, do what you want. I’m in the ground either way. Don’t have much else to say. Good luck to you, boy.

PC

He read the note a couple of times. When he was finished, he didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. He looked up and found George Tyler Jr. watching him.

Tom said, “Truck?”

“Sorry?”

“There’s a truck?”

“Your granddad’s pickup. Didn’t I mention it?”

Tom couldn’t remember if Tyler had or hadn’t.

“Well, there’s a truck. Can’t promise it’s much of a truck, but there’s a truck.”

“Oh.”

After a few moments of silence, the attorney rose. He opened a drawer, took out another ring of keys, and said, “Guess you’re probably anxious to go have a look at the place.”

There wasn’t much to look at for most of the drive.

Tom followed George Tyler Jr. almost twenty miles along the tar-patched stretch of highway leading east out of town. They finally turned south at a town called Sparks. Tom saw the sign, but he didn’t see the town.

Tyler took a county road through an open gate, bouncing over a handful of iron bars set parallel over a trench in the ground. Tom remembered his grandfather calling them autogates; they were designed to keep livestock from crossing. Ranchers installed them all over this area where fence lines paused for road.

The road turned to gravel, then bare dry sand, narrowing as it curled through pasture toward lower ground. Grazed scrub turned to taller grass.

Then trees. They entered a tunnel of elms and oaks and hackberries, all beginning to bud with new leaves. Within the next couple of miles, Tom saw paper birch growing next to tall fir and pine.

According to the brochure he’d taken from a wire rack in the front office of the motel, this leg of the Niobrara flowed twenty-eight miles through a state park and a federal wildlife refuge. Ecosystems jumbled in the river valley, from western to eastern forest and prairie between.

According to the brochure, if you liked getting away outdoors, the Scenic Niobrara River was for you. Wildlife abounded. Waterfalls cascaded. A child could navigate the diciest of the rapids between the put-in below Cornell Dam and his grandfather’s place at the end of the run.

The wildlife Tom had spotted from the car consisted of polled steers and a rabbit. A smashed turtle. A few birds. He hadn’t really been looking. Every mile or two now, they passed a weather-beaten shingle for one of the other outfitters along the bank.

Tyler took a cut off the main road, and they came to a pine rail arch. A big splintered sign welcomed them to Coleman’s Landing. An arrow labeled CAMPGROUND pointed toward a right fork; the arrow pointing left said ARRIVAL CENTER—CANOE/KAYAK/TUBE RENTAL * FIREWOOD * CONCESSIONS * GEAR & GIFTS.

Tom heard the river, and then he saw it, flat water tumbling over a ford of jagged bedrock and driftwood limbs. They followed a bend around a curtain of trees to a parking lot topped with crushed rock. Tom could smell the water when he got out of the car.

“I’ve never been here,” he said. “Pretty.”

“Water’s low,” Tyler said. “Awful drought, last few years. Folks were hoping for a big snow this winter. Didn’t get one.”

“Oh.”

“Not sure who belongs to that one.” Tyler indicated a third car parked in the lot: a rusted Subaru Brat with a camper shell and no hubcaps, IN TRANSIT tags instead of plates. The Sube sat near what appeared to be a mini school bus that had been painted silver, hitched to pull an aluminum trailer.

“Which one’s the truck?”

“Truck ain’t as nice as either of those.” Tyler nodded at the bus. “And that’s the only one belongs here. Take a load off if you want. I’ll go see what’s what.”

Tom didn’t feel like waiting around in the parking lot. He went with Tyler up a cedar chip path.

The main building sat back on a small rise overlooking the ford; it looked to Tom like a cross between a farmhouse and a ski lodge with a long covered deck added on. He saw a couple of sheds and what looked like a small bunkhouse farther back in the trees.

He also saw a row of canoes turned up on the ground outside one of the sheds, aluminum keels glinting in the sun. The shed’s sliding door had been rolled open; loud classic rock drifted from inside.

A guy in cutoffs emerged with a coil of rope in the crook of his elbow. He wore flip-flop sandals and a red bandana pirate-style on his head. He saw them coming and stopped what he was doing.

“Afternoon,” Tyler called.

The guy raised a hand. Up close, he aged a decade from Tom’s initial guess. His eyes looked pink, slightly shot.

“You work here, son?”

“Little as possible.” A grin. “What can I do for you guys?”

Tyler glanced at Tom. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m Duane.”

“Duane who again?”

“Foster. If you’re looking for the owner, he’s not here right now. I just got here myself.”

“Just got here from where?”

Foster narrowed his eyes. “Omaha. Is there a problem?”

Tom didn’t know why he felt like he should jump in. “I’m Tom Coleman.”

“Hi.”

“Your boss was my grandfather.”

“Was?”

“Heart attack,” Tyler said. “Three weeks ago. I’m sorry, son, I thought Park’s employees had been notified.”

Foster looked at the loop of rope on his arm. He looked out at the river. He looked at Tom.

“Damn,” he said.

Before dark, Tom left Foster at the bunkhouse smoking a joint in a hammock strung between two old elms.

His new truck was an old F-150 with creaky suspension, rust holes in the fenders, and a red paint job long faded pink by the sun. They’d found it parked at one of the campgrounds, weeds already growing up around the tires. The truck looked like hell but seemed to run fine. At least it started on the first try.