William Royden

I had some trouble following him while keeping him in the camera frame.

He seemed to be looking for something.

He did not enter any stores or go onto anyone's property or seem very interested in the faces or the traffic that went by us.

From Schickel Road, I remember we went toward Allen Street, then Rosanda, cutting across Mabry Road to Dovetail Lane.

After five minutes or so on the Cotton Branch Trail, which is a bike and footpath that runs for eight miles toward Goldman, Cording left it and walked over into a small thatch of trees that seemed to have no particular meaning.

He stood there, seeming to concentrate, for such a long time that I was about to ask him why we had stopped completely.

Before I could, he said, sort of testily, I need to just listen.

I need to just listen.

and he closed his eyes for a full two minutes.

I pointed the camera up the trail, having nothing better to shoot.

When he opened his eyes again, he shook his head, angry for some reason.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, we'll never find her today, I know it.

He had me stop taping for a

and to play them on the display screen while the sound came through a tiny speaker on the side of the camera.

I wondered why he would want to watch himself standing there with his eyes closed.

But while the video showed nothing but that, and my occasional bored panning shots, the audio was different.

The sounds of the breeze and faraway traffic were still there, but something else was on the audio track too.

It was completely clear.

It was the voice of an old woman singing what sounded to me like a sad folk song in a thick African dialect.

She sang weakly and faintly.