“What’s it, son?” asked the driver. He was Tim Motherwell, of the Soil Conservation Service. He squatted down before Madison and began to chew on a match, not looking at him, but musing in his presence as though they were two men with all the time in the world to decide or exchange something important. He had notice blood on the boy’s field jacket. What might have put it there he was already imagining, when Madison managed to tell him what lay up the sandy road by the river.