"But no way of knowing if it was one of the Wallace horses."
"Perhaps not," said Lewis. "But I found part of the mower as well. Not much left of it, but enough to identify."
"Let's get back to the history," suggested Hardwicke. "After the father's death, Enoch stayed on at the farm. He never left it?"
Lewis shook his head. "He lives in the same house. Not a thing's been changed. And the house apparently has aged no more than the man."
"You've been in the house?"
"Not in it. At it. I will tell you how it was."
3
He had an hour. He knew he had an hour, for he had timed Enoch Wallace during the last ten days. And from the time he left the house until he got back with his mail, it had never been less than an hour. Sometimes a little longer, when the mailman might be late, or they got to talking. But an hour, Lewis told himself, was all that he could count on.
Wallace had disappeared down the slope of ridge, heading for the point of rocks that towered above the bluff face, with the Wisconsin River running there below. He would climb the rocks and stand there, with the rifle tucked beneath his arm, to gaze across the wilderness of the river valley. Then he would go back down the rocks again and trudge along the wooded path to where, in proper season, the pink lady's-slippers grew, and from there up the hill again to the spring that gushed out of the hillside just below the ancient field that had lain fallow for a century or more, and then along the slope until he hit the almost overgrown road and so down to the mailbox.
In the ten days that Lewis had watched him, his route had never varied.
It was likely, Lewis told himself, that it had not varied through the years.