We had reached the dry goods store that I was going to, located with a few other small businesses right at the top of the hill that sloped downwards towards the river. "Would you like a ride the rest of the way?" I asked as an afterthought.

He shook his head, pointed down the hill, "I'm meeting Jenny right under the cliff there."

We both got out of the car and stood by my door. Another car went by me and pulled over fifty yards farther down the hill, parking right in front of Tom's butcher shop. Probably vacationers from one of the cabins down the road, I decided, seeing the trailer hitch and extra-large sideview mirrors. A man and woman got out and went into the shop, leaving a one- or two-year-old kid in a car seat in the front. I hoped they had set their parking brake; the hill was pretty steep.

"Sounds like everybody else in town is down there already," Ernie commented.

"Yeah," I agreed. Even from here the soft roar of a crowd was easy to hear. "Better hope Jenny's got a place staked out." I looked down the hill, but I couldn't see anyone, of course. The way the engineers had built the road, it followed the hill for a few hundred yards and then made a sharp turn to the left. It was to make the grade safer, I guess, because right after the road turned the hill got suddenly steeper all the way down to the riverbank: the "cliff" Ernie had mentioned. It wasn't really much of a cliff, as cliffs go, but it was the closest thing to one for a hundred miles and everyone called it that. But because of the slope it wasn't possible to see the riverbank from here.

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you, Coach," Ernie said after an awkward silence.

"Look, think it over, will you?" I urged. "I don't want you to think you have to cut out of the team completely just because of me."

"It's okay, I'll—"

He broke off suddenly, gripping my arm tightly, his eyes wide as he stared down