"I know where the bridge is," the Old Man interrupted. "Art and I used to swim there." His eyes gained some focus and he turned toward Duane as if he were going to say something, do something. Instead, he turned back to the sheriff. "Where is he?"

"They were removing the body when I left," said the sheriff. "I'll take you there if you like."

The. Old Man nodded and got into the passenger seat of the sheriff's car. Duane rushed to jump in the back.

This isn't real, he thought as they roared past Uncle Henry's and Aunt Lena's, hit the first hill doing at least seventy, and roared up past the cemetery. Duane's head almost banged the ceiling as they dove down into the woods again. He's going to kill us too. The speeding sheriff's car threw dust and gravel thirty feet into the woods. All along the roadside as they climbed toward the Black Tree, trees, weeds, shrubs, and branches were gray-white, as if they were covered with powdered chalk. Duane knew that it was just dust from previous vehicles, but the gray foliage and the gray sky made him think of Hades, of the shades of the dead waiting there in gray nothingness, of the scene Uncle Art had read to him when he was very little about Odysseus descending into Hades and braving those gray mists to meet the shade of his dead mother and former allies.

The sheriff didn't slow for the stop sign at the intersection of County Six and Jubilee College Road, but turned in a controlled broadslide onto the harder-packed gravel. Duane realized that the light above them was flashing, although tb"'t was no siren sound. He wondered what the rush was. Ahead of him, the Old Man's back was perfectly straight. Lead forward, moving only to the turns of the car.

They roared the two miles east. Duane looked across fields to his left to see where the long stretch of woods began where Gypsy Lane lay hidden. Then there were cornfields on either side except for the patches of timber at the bottom of the hills.

Duane counted dips, knowing that the fourth small valley held Stone Creek.

They dipped the fourth time, braked hard, and the sheriff pulled to the left side of the road, parking faced toward oncoming traffic. There was no traffic. The bottomland and sparsely wooded hillside was silent with a Sunday-morning hush.

Duane noticed the other vehicles parked along the shoulder near the concrete bridge: a tow truck, J. P. Congden's ugly black Chevy, a dark station wagon he didn't recognize, another wrecker from Ernie's Texaco station on the east end of Elm Haven. No ambulance.' No sign of Uncle Art's car! Maybe it was a mistake.

Duane noticed the damage to the bridge railing first. The old concrete had been set forty or fifty years earlier with balustrade-like gaps beneath the three-foot-high shelf. Now a four-foot chunk of that concrete had been broken off on the east end. Duane could see rusted iron reinforcement bars trailing from the concrete like some weird sculptured hand pointing down the embankment.

Duane stood next to the Old Man and looked over the railing. Ernie from Ernie's Texaco was down there, along with three or four other men including the rat-faced justice of the peace. So was Uncle Art's Cadillac.

Duane saw at once what had happened. Art had been forced far enough right while barreling across the single-lane bridge that the concrete railing had struck the left front of the big car, smashing the engine back through the driver's side and sending the Caddy spinning out over Stone Creek like a twisted toy. Then two tons of automobile had hit the trees on the other side, shearing off the saplings and a ten-inch oak, before being bashed around by the larger elm on the hillside.

Duane could see the deep gash there, the three-foot scar in the bark, still bleeding sap. He wondered idly if the elm would live.

After having the right rear door and quarter panel caved in by the second impact, the Caddy had rolled uphill thirty or forty feet, taking out shrubs and small trees and bounding over a boulder-the windshield had popped out at this point and lay shattered just beyond the rock-before gravity and/ or collision with another large tree had sent the wreck rolling back down the hillside into the creek.

It lay there now, upside down. The left front wheel was missing, but the other three seemed strangely exposed, almost indecent. Duane noticed that there was plenty of tread left; Uncle Art worried about worn tires. The exposed undercarriage looked clean and new except where part of the transaxle had been torn away.

One door of the Caddy was open and bent almost in half. The passenger compartment was not submerged, although it lay in a foot or so of water. Bits and pieces of metal, chrome, and glass glinted across the hillside despite the lack of bright sunlight. Duane saw other things: an argyle sock lying on the grass, a pack of cigarettes near the boulder, road maps fluttering in the bushes.

"They took the body away, Bob," called Ernie, barely glancing up from where he was attaching a cable to the front axle. "Donnie and Mr. Mercer rode in with the ... oh, hello there, Mr. McBride." Ernie looked back at his work.

The Old Man licked his lips and spoke to the sheriff without turning his head. "Was he dead when you got here?"

Duane saw the woods and ridgeline reflected in the sheriff's glasses. "Yessir. He was dead when Mr. Carter drove by and saw something down the hill 'bout half an hour before I got here. Mr. Mercer . . . he's the county coroner, you know ... he said that Mr. McBr-ah, your brother . . . died instantly upon impact."

J. P. Congden came puffing up the slope, stood wheezing whiskey fumes on them, and hitched up his baggy overalls. "Real sorry about your ..."

The Old Man ignored the justice of the peace and started down the steep slope, sliding where the hillside was muddy, hanging on to branches to get to the bottom. Duane followed.

The sheriff picked his way down cautiously, careful not to get burrs or mud on his pressed brown slacks.

The Old Man crouched at the edge of the stream, staring into the wrecked Caddy. The roof had been caved in and water rose to the upsidedown dashboard. Duane saw that the ray-gun automatic-dimming device had been torn free. The passenger's side was relatively unbattered, even the collapsed roof had spared it, but the seat-bench on the driver's had been driven back through the backseat cushions. There was no steering wheel, but the shaft still hung there, dripping into the water two feet below. In front, where the driver would have been, a mass of twisted engine metal and torn firewall filled the space like the corpse of a murdered robot.

The sheriff hitched up his pants and crouched, keeping his shined boots out of the mud and murky water. He cleared his throat. "After he lost control, your brother hit the guardrail on the bridge and ... ah ... as you can see, the impact must have killed him right off."

The Old Man gave the same nod as before. He was squatting with his feet and ankles in the stream and his wrists on his knees. He looked down at his own fingers and stared at them as if they were alien things. "Where is he?"

"Mr. Mercer took him into Taylor Funeral Home," said the sheriff. "He has ... uh ... a few things to finish up, then you can make arrangements with Mr. Taylor."

The Old Man shook his head gently. "Art never wanted a funeral. And definitely not at Taylor's."

The sheriff adjusted his glasses. "Mr. McBride, was your brother a drinking man?"

The Old Man turned and looked at the sheriff for the first time. "Not on Sunday morning he wasn't." His voice held the perfectly flat, calm tone that Duane knew threatened fury.

"Yessir," said the sheriff. They all had to back out of the way as Ernie began cranking up the cable with the winch on the wrecker. The front of the Caddy rose, dripped water from the windows, and began turning slowly toward the embankment. "Well, maybe he had a heart attack or a bee got into the car. Lotta people lose control because of insects in the car with 'em. You'd be surprised how many people ..."