The Second Coming

do,” she said, uttering one word after another. The sentence sounded flat but she finished it and her voice did not go up into a question. “I don’t know where I’ll be staying tonight.”
    Though her voice sounded flat to her, like a person recovering from a stroke, like Rip coming down from the mountain and speaking to a villager, he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he drew closer, crowding the knapsack, and crossed one thin leg over the other toward her. As his eyes dropped, showing the damp bluish skin of his eyelids, she seemed to remember something from her girlhood. It was the way her mother had of talking to her about “a boy” and “a girl,” “when a boy does such-and-such” or “leading a boy on.” Perhaps something she had said had led him on, because he yawned, laced his fingers together, and bent them backwards in a way that seemed familiar to her.
    â€œLook,” he said, stretching out his laced-together hands. “I know a shelter on an unused spur of the trail, the spur to Sourwood Mountain. In fact, it’s closed, the spur, that is. In fact, that’s where I stayed last night. It’s not used at all. It’s clean and when the clouds break there’s a lovely view through the pines. Would you like to crash there tonight? You’d be welcome.”
    Though she had not heard the expression “crash” before, she could tell that he was using it in a way that was not natural to him. Suddenly she saw that he thought it was the sort of expression she would use. “Lovely” in “lovely view” sounded natural in him, though she couldn’t remember a young man saying “lovely.”
    â€œThank you,” she said. “It sounds good. But I have a great many things to do. For example, I have to locate and take possession of a house. I had planned to go to a motel but I don’t think I will. I have here a set of instructions on how to locate the house, things to buy, and so forth.”
    Her words sounded strange and formal to her, as if she were reciting them from memory. She found herself taking out notebook and wallet as if to prove something to him.
    â€œLike a treasure hunt,” he said, sounding disappointed.
    â€œTreasure hunt,” she repeated.
    â€œRichard Rountree,” he said again, unlacing his fingers and holding out his hand. She took it again. He gave her a strong grip. His hand was as fibrous as a monkey’s. Had he forgotten he had shaken hands already, or did she only imagine he had shaken hands before? It occurred to her that he was more uneasy than she.
    Maybe he had been running too much. They seemed to have something in common, having been alone in the mountains too long and feeling strange in the village. Then why wasn’t she attracted to him?
    At that moment she was looking down at her driver’s license in her open wallet.
    â€œI’m Allison,” she read, then remembered something. “Allie,” she said suddenly and smiled, looking up at him.
    â€œAllie,” he said. He let her hand go. “Will you be coming back here, Allie? I mean to the bench.”
    â€œVery likely.”
    â€œThis time of day?”
    â€œProbably.” Something else her mother told about “boys” came back to her. Don’t ever turn down a boy completely. Keep your options open. You never know. Her mother called this “keeping a boy on your string.”
    But he did not look much like a “boy” with his dry crinkled hair coming forward in the middle to make a W-shaped hairline, and his dry narrow fibrous hands.
    â€œI’ll see you, Allie.”
    As he walked quickly away, the broad white stripes on his running pants flashed like scissors. His back looked as if he knew she was watching him.
    The sun was high. She felt warm and drowsy. Perhaps it was noon. For some time, perhaps five minutes, perhaps twenty minutes, she had been watching the column of ants. They traveled past the toe of her boot. Most but not all carried cutout pieces of green leaves. They followed the same path, climbing over the same granules of concrete, then descending into a crack at the same place, then climbing out of the crack at the same place.
    The ants were headed toward the curb at the corner where the policeman stood. His thick yellow-gray hair was creased at the back from wearing a hat or cap. Did his not wearing a hat or cap mean he was off duty?