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boating accident,” Rainy said. “That’s what I read in the papers when Harris disappeared.”
    Cork shrugged. “There were things the papers missed, back then and now.”
    â€œSo what really happened?”
    â€œThey discovered his empty boat run aground,” Cork said.“They searched the whole of Iron Lake but couldn’t find him. Dad was sheriff then. He finally pulled the plug, but he didn’t give up looking. A week or so later, he located the body. It was tangled in the anchor rope of Harris’s boat in ten feet of water off Little Bear Island. He’d most probably killed himself, but that part never made it into the papers. Not then, not now.”
    â€œAnd you’re going to find John Harris, just like your father found his father?”
    â€œI can try.”
    â€œI thought they searched every inch of Raspberry Lake. Used divers, right?”
    â€œMaybe his body’s not in the lake. Maybe there is no body. Maybe he’s still out there wandering around in those woods. Or maybe there’s an explanation that will reveal itself to me.”
    It was clear his mind was made up, and she didn’t want to argue, so she said, “What have you come for?”
    Cork looked at the old man. “Henry’s advice. And yours, Rainy. What do you think about Trevor Harris’s vision?”
    Henry said nothing and looked instead to Rainy.
    She said, “Are you wondering if it’s real? How can we say? Stephen’s in the middle of the Arizona desert. Is it possible that his spirit communicated with Trevor Harris? Your son’s remarkable in many ways, so maybe. Have you asked him?”
    â€œHe’s incommunicado,” Cork said. “No cell phone out there while he’s seeking whatever he’s seeking.”
    Nearly two years earlier, when Stephen was seventeen, a madman had put two bullets into him. One of them had damaged his spinal cord, and whether he’d ever walk again had been a serious concern. He’d spent a long time in rehabilitation, and the work of his therapists and his own determination had yielded great results. He did, indeed, walk. With crutches at first, then a cane, and finally with nothing except a very noticeable residual limp. He would never be an Olympic runner, he was fond of saying, but he’d never wanted to be one anyway. He was supposed to have entered college in September, but he’d put that on hold, and instead had decidedon a kind of pilgrimage, a solitary sojourn in the emptiness of the Arizona desert.
    â€œHe isn’t seeking, Cork. Nothing has been lost to him. He’s just trying to open himself to what’s always been inside him. His own strength, his own knowledge.”
    â€œOkay, so let’s leave Stephen out of the equation. What if Harris’s vision is real, how should it be interpreted?”
    â€œThat’s up to the dreamer, Cork.”
    â€œThe dream seems pretty clear to me.”
    â€œSeems, yes.”
    â€œYou sound skeptical.”
    â€œDoes it really matter what I think or Uncle Henry? You’ve already decided to go. So what is it you really want?”
    He looked from her to the old man. “I want to know what we missed. I want to know what I’m looking for. How can a man just disappear and leave no trace, not even his scent for a dog to find?”
    â€œWhy do you ask me, Corcoran O’Connor?” Henry said. “I was not a part of your search for this man.”
    â€œYou understand more about hunting in those woods than anyone I know.”
    The old man lapsed again into silence, and the whole of that tiny cabin seemed consumed by it. Rainy could feel, just as Henry had said, the wariness in Cork and could plainly see how rigidly he held himself. She wanted very much to be able to offer him something that would help.
    â€œDo not look for an answer out there, Corcoran O’Connor,” her great-uncle finally said.