"Aud!"

Aud rhymes with shroud. After a moment I said, "Dornan."

"I was beginning to think.... But here you are."

There were dark circles around his usually bright eyes but I didn't want to see them. "What do you want?"

"Would you sit down at least? I brought a drink." He held up the bottle.

"Say what you have to say."

"For the love of god, Aud, just sit for one minute and have a drink. Please."

I didn't move. "It's almost dark."

"We'd best make a fire then." He stood, tried to look cheerful. "Well, now, hmm, I'm no expert but that looks like a fire pit, and this, over here, is no doubt firewood. If I put this in here, then--"

I took the hickory log from him. "Kindling first."

"And where would I find that?"

"You make it."

"I see. And how do I go about doing that?"

His forehead glistened. He knew me, what I might do if he pushed too hard. Something was so important to him that he thought it worth the risk; I would have to hurt him or listen. Briefly, I hated him. "Bring the bottle."

Inside the trailer, I turned on lights and opened cupboards.

"Well, would you look at this! You do yourself proud." He ventured in, patted the oak cabinets and admired the Italian leather upholstery, then stepped through the galley to the dining area. "A satellite television!" He pushed buttons. "It doesn't work." I had never bothered to connect it. "And a real bathroom." The trailer, a fifth-wheel rig, was a treasure trove of hidden, high-tech delights. I let him wander about while I assembled plates, bowls, cutlery. "I had no idea these things could be such little palaces," he said when he came back. "There's even a queen bed."

After five months of solitude, his prattle was almost unbearable. I handed him a chopping board and knife, and he frowned.

"So where's the food?"

I picked up a cast-iron pot. "Bring that flashlight."

"There's no electricity?"

Only when I run the generator, and I preferred the peace and quiet. He followed me to the water pump where I handed him the pot. "Fill this. Less than a third."

While he pumped inexpertly I jerked the hatchet from the chopping stump, split the hickory into kindling, and carried it to the fire pit. Beneath the ash, the embers were sluggish. I blew them to a glow. When the kindling caught I added a couple of logs and went to the bearproof hogpen to get the food. The sky was now bloody, the trees behind us to the north and east a soft black wall.

Dornan handed me the pot and I hung it over the fire.

"Pumping's thirsty work," he said, and uncorked the bottle. He drank and gave it to me. The poteen smoked in my mouth and burned my gullet. I shuddered. We passed the bottle back and forth until the water came to a boil. My forebrain felt strange, as though someone were squeezing it. I added rice, and opened plastic tubs of sun-dried tomatoes, green olives, olive oil, and cashew nuts.

"No meat I see."

"You're the café owner. Next time call ahead."

"I tried. Do you even know where your phone is?"

It was around somewhere, battery long dead. The fire burned hotter. I drank more whiskey. When the rice was done I handed him the slotted spoon. "Scoop the rice into the big bowl. Don't throw away the water. It's good to drink cold."

He gave me a sideways look but spooned in silence. Sudden squealing from under the trees made him jump. "Mother of god!"

"Wild pigs," I said. The rice he had spilt in the fire hissed and popped.

"Would they be dangerous?"

"Not to us."

He handed me a bowl of rice. I added the dried ingredients and olives, a little oil, and salt and pepper.

We sat on the log side by side and ate quietly while the sky darkened from dull red to indigo. Firelight gleamed on my fork and, later, when we set the plates aside, on the bottle as we passed it back and forth. I rubbed the scar that ran from my left shoulder blade and along the underside of my arm to the elbow.

"Still hurt?"

Only inside. "Tell me why you came, Dornan."

He turned the bottle in his hands, around and around. "It's Tammy. She's missing. I want you to find her."

He had disturbed me for this. Tammy. "Maybe she doesn't want to be found."

"I think she's in trouble."

Overhead, the first star popped out, as though someone had poked a hole in a screen.

"Now, look, I'm not a fool. I know you're hiding up here, eating this, this rabbit food, because you want to be left alone. But I've tried everything, phoned everyone: police, family, her friends" --Tammy didn't have friends, only male lovers and female competition-- "and I've nowhere else to turn."

His face was drawn, with deep lines etched on either side of his mouth, but I turned away. I didn't want to know, didn't want to care. Stay in the world, Aud, Julia had said from that metal bed in that white room.

"It started in July. Tammy changed jobs, left those engineers she was doing business development for and joined some new outfit. Something to do with shopping complexes."

Stay alive inside. Promise me. And I had promised, but I didn't know how.