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home having your own supper now. You hungry? Maybe I can find something
     for you.”
    He went in, and from the fridge retrieved a deli-pack of smoked turkey. Peeling off a slice, he tore it in little pieces,
     put it on a saucer, and went back out.
    The cat was gone. He put the saucer on the ground in front of the poinciana tree and waited. It was pitch black by the time
     he gave up and went inside.
    On the little, half-folded dining table next to the brown easy chair was a clipboard with a legal pad—his so-called spiritual
     journal. He’d not written a dozen lines since he’d arrived. Tired as he was, it was too early to go to bed. Sitting down in
     the chair, he took up the clipboard and stared at it.
    Then he wrote:
    Why haven’t I opened up a dialogue with God?
    Because—I don’t have much to say to Him.
    And don’t imagine He has much to say to me.
    Or if He does, I’m not sure I want to hear it.
    Because—I’ve got to do whatever He tells me.
    I’m a monk, aren’t I? His obedient servant.
    He scratched that out and put:
    His sometimes-obedient servant.
    He sighed and put the pen down, then picked it up again. This journal was for his most honest thoughts. Ergo, he would pursue
     this, no matter how painful or where it led. He wrote:
    I loved Him once.
    I must have, to have taken such a vow.
    And He must have loved me,
    or He wouldn’t have let me take it.
    Unless He really is a sadist,
    as some would like to believe.
    “Well, that’s enough of that!” he exclaimed aloud, setting the clipboard aside.

    Every afternoon at four, he would knock off work, shower, pull on his black running shoes, and go for a long walk, five or
     six miles. He preferred cycling, as he did at home. But walking was not so bad, once you got into it. Cycling, you had to
     pay attention, but walking, you could let your mind go anywhere it wanted or just dome out. Kind of pleasant. And it certainly
     taught patience. You might not get where you were going quickly, but you’d get there eventually. So—relax and enjoy the trip.
    There was a paved-over railway right-of-way adjacent to the property, and it quickly became one of his favorite routes. Built
     in the 1920s, the railroad had run the 21 miles, from one end to the other. But “Old Rattle & Shake,” as the locals called
     it, had been a disaster from the beginning, and with the coming of World War II, automobiles became a fixture on the island.
     The railroad was doomed, eventually becoming too expensive for the government to support.
    The war ended another grand era, with the building of an airbase on St. George’s known as Kindley Field. Before the war, the
     great flying boats of BOAC and Pan American used to land here on their way across the Atlantic or up to New York. The ultimate
     in luxurious travel, the Pan American Clippers boasted separatelounges for dining and cocktails, gourmet meals prepared on board, and private, Pullman-style sleeping berths for forty passengers.
    Speaking of luxurious travel, Bartholomew had begun to find that the Cunard Line’s famous slogan was right: Getting there
     (wherever “there” happened to be) was indeed half the fun.
    It could be most of the fun, if you took the time to savor the medley of fragrances of the wildflowers growing along the way.
     Or note the amazing symmetry of a perfect spider web, diamondized by the early morning dew. Or engage a mockingbird in a dueling
     dialogue by imitating each of his calls. Or fill a mental photo album with images from the trip—close-ups and vistas, cloud-scapes
     and color clusters, sun shafts and shape-shifting shadow play….
    This afternoon he had walked to the beach at Daniel’s Head. It was deserted, the sand glistening in the late sun. Taking off
     his shoes to enjoy its warmth between his toes, he strolled down to where the surf ran up. The foaming slide of blue water
     shooed a pair of sandpipers ahead of it; then the fast-walkers became the pursuers, as the wave