I NEVER left Illinois during my eleven years of life, but from what I’ve seen of Montana through Dale’s eyes, it is an incredible place. The mountains and rivers are unlike anything in the Midwest—my uncle Art and I used to enjoy fishing in the Spoon River not far from Elm Haven, but it hardly qualifies as “river” compared to the wide, fast, rippling rivers like the Bitterroot and the Flathead and the Missouri and the Yellowstone. And our lazy sitting on a bank and watching bobbers while we chatted hardly qualifies as “fishing” compared to the energetic fly-fishing mystique in Montana. I’ve never tried fly-fishing, of course, but I suspect that I would prefer our quiet, sit-in-the-shade, conversational creekside approach to catching fish. I’m always suspicious of sports or recreational activities that begin to sound like religion when you hear their adherents preaching about them. Besides, I doubt if there are any catfish in those Montana rivers.

Dale’s corner office on the campus of the University of Montana, his former family home in the old section of Missoula, and his ranch near Flathead Lake are all alien to me but fascinating. Missoula—for a city of only about 50,000 people—seems cordial to the things I probably would have loved had I lived to be an adult: bookstores, bakeries, good restaurants, lots of live music, a very decent university, movie and live drama theaters, a vibrant downtown section.

Dale’s psychiatrist, a man named Charles Hall, had his office over one of these older used bookstores. Dale had been seeing Dr. Hall for the last ten months before his trip back here. Dale had first visited the psychiatrist two days after he had set the muzzle of the loaded Savage over-and-under shotgun against his temple and pulled the trigger.