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into the night.
    â€œI never would have thought of that,” he said with a glint in his eye. “After all, it’s just a question we ask, how to see inside without breaking? No one ever expects an answer!”
    And then the two men chuckled, the sound echoing in their shelter, so even the rocks themselves seemed to smile. Their laughter died and quiet returned.
    Eden laid down her head and slept her master’s hand upon her soft ears. Deep in the night she opened her eyes once more; master’s hand was gone. The two men sat by the embers of the fire and spoke in whispers. To Eden they seemed to be speaking only to the stone walls of the shelter, and to the emptiness beyond, but if either the rocks or emptiness heard them Eden did not know. The words themselves she did not fully understand, but she listened carefully just as when she had listened to the man of the desert outside the temple with her master and the women who were not allowed inside.
    â€œA new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
    The man of the desert held a handful of sand in his palm and throughout the rest of the night the two men stared into the cup of his hand as if to count each grain, as they would the souls of men. Eden touched her nose to the man of the desert’s palm and snuffed, blowing the grains away.
    But neither man seemed upset, her master saying, “So it will be with us.”
    Eden lay down and closed her eyes, nothing to do but wait out the night. The last thing she heard before falling asleep once more was her master’s voice asking:
    â€œIs he still at the river?”
    Who might he be? Eden wondered. Who knew?
    â€œMore gather every day,” the man of the desert replied. Then fell silent.
    Ah, Eden understood, someone important.
    When the sun rose that morning, the dog peeked from the warmth of her master’s cloak to find the man of the desert nowhere at hand. The man of no scent had returned to the wilderness leaving behind only the grains of sand once held in his palm, now scattered about the fire pit, back on the ground from whence they came, each grain indistinguishable from the next.

    That day’s march began in hunger; the stony hills on either side giving neither shelter nor food. The twisted stumps of trees reached for the sky with bare branches, too early in the season for any fruit. As the day lengthened a few pilgrims appeared out of nowhere and many ways seemed to join as one. Their march became a ragged troop, faithful travelers treading a path into the valley of a river. The newcomers gave master and Eden what little food they had brought: a crust of dry bread, a slip of meat, a swallow of water. Another hour passed and the number of pilgrims increased by scores, sending up waves of dust from their tramping feet.
    When they reached the river a chill wind blew in from the north under a gray sky. Handfuls of men and women lined the steep, rocky slope along the bank, while those closest to the water’s edge gathered together in shivering knots, tugging at their cloaks. Some squatted on boulders while others clung to twisted bushes and the trunks of thin trees whose roots snaked into the water’s edge—anything to keep from slipping into the cold current.
    The thread of pilgrims, once noisy and talkative on the road, became hushed as they approached the dark, curling water. Even the children among the crowd, always happy to see a dog, were strangely quiet and subdued and refrained from petting Eden. Indeed the whole crowd retreated to frowning silence as newcomers shuffled through breaks in the thickets and closer to the unwelcoming water beyond.
    Eden noticed many beggars, the sick, and the hungry. Some wore thin homespun, while the wealthier pilgrims wore thick cloaks. But no matter whether clad in rags or fine wool, heavy care weighed down