I began pacing about five minutes after, looking anxiously up the road in the direction I expected him to appear. He didn’t appear. My watch said eight-ten the next time I looked. I stopped and scanned River Road in both directions, worried, afraid I’d asked too much of him. He was more than sixty years of age, overweight, and big in the butt from years of pushing that patrol car over the highways and backroads of Kerry County, not really in good physical shape at all. By eight-fifteen I had about decided that it was time for me to jump in my car and backtrack along the route into town. I might find him with his thumb out, or worse, collapsed along the side of the road. But before I climbed into my Chrysler, I went to the curb and took one last look for Dominic, and then I saw him, just about a city block away. He was limping and staggering along, apparently exhausted totally from his long hike. As he drew closer, he appeared to me for the first time since I’d known him to be dressed in civilian clothes.
