Most of an evening had been spent with his topos, the topographical maps put out by the U.S. Geological Survey, before he finally settled on the Funeral Mountains and the Chloride Cliffs area. The Funerals formed one of the eastern boundaries, and their foothills and crests were laden not only with a variety of canyons but with the ruins of the Keane Wonder Mill and Mine and the gold boomtown of Chloride City.

He left the Jeep north of Scotty’s Castle near Hells Gate, packed in, and stayed for three days and two nights. The first day was a little rough; even though regular gym workouts had kept him in good shape, it takes a while to refamiliarize yourself with desert mountain terrain after a year away. The second day was easier. He spent that one exploring Echo Canyon, then tramping among the thick-timbered tramways of the Keane and the decaying mill a mile below, where twenty stamps had processed eighteen hundred tons of ore a month in the 1890s. On the third day he climbed to the Funerals’ sheer heights and Chloride City-no strain at all by then.

It was a good three days. He saw no other people except at a distance. Much of the tension and restless dissatisfaction slowly bled out of him. He could feel his spirits lifting again.

Geena was on his mind only once in those three days. Eleven years of marriage, all they’d shared and suffered through, and now she seemed almost a stranger. He didn’t blame her for the long-running affair she’d finally admitted to, or leaving him to be with the other man; he hadn’t been there for her, any more than she’d been there for him, in three long years. Maybe things would have been different if they’d had another child, but she wouldn’t consider it, kept insisting she couldn’t bear another loss after Timmy and the earlier miscarriage. There was a time when he’d thought so, but that was long past. The simple truth was, their life together had died when Timmy died. Now that they’d finally admitted it to each other, the only emotions he felt, and was sure she felt, were sadness and relief.