It was almost dark when they got going again, passing through Polson and heading north along the lake. Here the view east toward the high peaks was especially beautiful—Dale’s ranch was across the lake here, near the U. of M. biological research station—but he was determined to mention it only if Clare said something about the view or the hills. She didn’t, so neither did he.

They had dinner in Tiebecker’s Pub in Somers, on the north end of the lake. Clare ate only salad and paid for her own meal, despite Dale’s offers. After dinner, they drove a few miles east to a good campground that Dale knew right on the water at Wayfarer State Park. They were almost two hours behind the schedule he’d planned, so they set up their camp in the dark, using flashlights and the Cruiser’s headlights. Clare did not seem to mind.

Outdoors people can tell a lot about other outdoors people by the gear they use. Dale was wearing quality old boots, but he had brought an expensive North Face backpacking tent in his Gregory expedition backpack, a top-of-the-line L. L. Bean goose-down sleeping bag, and a high-tech gas backpacking stove for cooking, with lots of freeze-dried packets of food. Clare had brought only an old Swiss canvas military rucksack. Her camping gear consisted of only a tarp—which she pitched in little more than a minute, using a hiking stick for a center pole and rocks bunched in the nylon for grommets—and an old military-spec down bag that literally looked as if it had been left behind in Italy after World War II by the 10th Mountain Division. Her food supplies consisted of a water bottle, some fruit, and crackers.

Dale suggested that they build a campfire—the evening wind had turned cold—but Clare said that she was tired and disappeared under her tarp. Dale had stayed outside to watch the stars for a while, but soon he crawled into his seven-hundred-dollar tent and tried to get some sleep.

The next morning—cold and clear—they made coffee at the campsite, had a real breakfast at a cafe near the summer playhouse in Bigfork, and drove north to West Glacier.

Their plan had been to cut through Glacier Park to the Blackfeet Reservation and then head south along the Bob and the Front Range to the little reservation town of Heart Butte where Clare’s mother had been born. On Saturday they planned to head straight back to Missoula on Highway 2, turning south again along Flathead Lake. Dale had argued for the side trip through Glacier—it was part of his annual late-autumn outing—but mostly he wanted to show off Montana to this young visitor.

The fifty-two-mile-long Going-to-the-Sun Road was famous, but one had to see the incredible scenery to understand how spectacular it really was. Heading east, they drove along the narrow but very deep Lake McDonald for eight miles or so, then started curving and climbing toward Logan Pass. Dale kept glancing at Clare. The young woman was attentive but did not appear to be enraptured by the incredible view.

About four miles beyond the lake, Dale pulled into the Avalanche Campground turnoff. “Want to walk for a few minutes?” he asked. “I know a nice little loop trail up the road here.”

“Sure.”

The Trail of Cedars was a tourist walk—partially built on a boardwalk to protect the delicate undergrowth of ferns and moss—and it wound through a forest of 200-foot-high hemlock and red cedar. There were no other visitors on this beautiful October morning. A soft wind stirred the branches high above them, creating a regular sighing that Dale found as calming as the susurration of ocean surf. Patches of light filtering down through greenery above filled the air with the scent of sun-warmed pine needles and decaying humus. Where the boardwalk crossed Avalanche Creek, water tumbled over moss-covered rocks into the steep and narrow gorge.

“Don’t you wish we’d brought a camera?” said Dale.

“No,” said Clare Hart.

“No?”

She shook her head. “I never travel with a camera. Occasionally a sketch book, but never a camera. It always makes me sad to see tourists snapping away with their cameras and staring through video viewfinders—waiting to get home to see what they didn’t really see when they were there.”

Dale nodded, pretending to understand. “But you have to admit that this is some of the most beautiful country in the world.”

Clare shrugged. “It’s spectacular.”

Dale smiled. “Isn’t that the same as beautiful?”

“Not really,” said Clare. “Spectacle is just more accessible to the dulled sensibility. At least that’s the way I think of it. This kind of country is hard to ignore. Rather like a Wagnerian aria.”

Dale frowned at that. “So you don’t find Glacier Park beautiful?”

“I don’t find it subtle.”

“Is subtlety that important?”

“Sometimes,” said Clare, “it’s necessary for something to be subtle to be truly beautiful.”

“Name a subtly beautiful place,” challenged Dale.

“Tuscany,” said Clare without hesitation.

Dale had never been to Tuscany, so he had no response. After a moment, moving onto the trail beyond the boardwalk, he said, “Your people considered these mountains to be sacred.”

Clare smiled at the “your people” but said nothing. As they came back toward the campground, she said, “Can you think of any mountains anywhere in the world that some primitive people did not consider sacred?”

Dale was silent, thinking.

“Mountains have all the attributes of the gods, of the Jehovah God, don’t they?” continued Clare. “Distant, unapproachable, dangerous. . . the place whence cometh the cold winds and violent storms of rebuke. . . always present and visible, looming over everything, but never really friendly. Tribal peoples worship them but have the sense to stay away from them. Western types climb them and die of hypothermia and asphyxia.”

“Whoa,” said Dale, rolling his eyes a bit. “Theology. Social commentary.”

“Sorry,” said Clare.

They continued the drive across the incredible Logan Pass. Dale told Clare that the pass was usually closed even this early in the autumn, but that the snows were coming late this year. She had nodded, her eyes on a mountain goat hundreds of yards above them on the rock.

Going west to east, Dale had saved the most spectacular scenery for last— St. Mary Lake with the high peaks to the west, little Wild Goose Island in the foreground. He realized, looking at the scene, that if he had a dime for every photograph taken from precisely this spot, he’d never have to teach or write again. Clare said nothing as the view receded behind them. They reached the east portal to the park before lunchtime.

Passing out of the park and through the little reservation town of St. Mary, they headed south into the flatter, sadder belly of the reservation, driving toward Heart Butte. Dale found himself irritated at his passenger—at her arrogance, at her refusal to be amazed by the amazing scenery, at her dismissal of her own heritage. He was sorry that they had another night of camping and day of driving ahead of them before he could get back to Anne and the girls and his work. He was sorry that he’d invited this spoiled little diva’s daughter on a trip that usually made him calm and happy to be living in Montana. He was sorry that he’d ever spoken to Clare Two Hearts about her real name.

He was only hours away from becoming Clare Hart’s lover and, much worse, from falling in love with her.

Dale?”

He looked over the top of his wine glass at Michelle Staffney.

“You still here, Dale?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just gathering wool.”

“You were going to tell me what’s upstairs behind the plastic and how you know.”

He nodded and set his wine glass down on the wine-stained tablecloth. “The Jolly Corner,” he said.

Michelle’s expression showed no recognition.

“When we were kids, I remember Duane calling this house ‘The Jolly Corner,’ “continued Dale. “It’s a story by Henry James. A sort of ghost story.”