Exley sat on the porch as the sun set across the early spring marsh, wet and green, the light stretching a few minutes later than the day before, the sky clear, and just across the marsh the river's dark blue strength resonating as the tide gathered strength for its retreat. On days like the one ending he would sit and stare waiting to see if the birds would come back, having been scared downriver by the dull pop of the gun club on the other end of the island. A shrimper turned the corner of the bluff and headed out toward the south. A certain type of character can withstand the cicadas and the humid, marsh-salty thickness in the air, pushing back the loneliness even as the weariness from the struggle seeps into his bones. Most like Exley can only sit beneath the choral hum drawing down from the pines pressed by the weight of the struggle, never wondering how it is that at such a sublime moment as this, to be in this place, to have lived in so protected a time with such freedom, the light could only seem to poison everything upon which it set in all its glory.