Slate is the community Burke Devore sets out to find while conducting nighttime reconnaissance on Upton “Ralph” Fallon. Reached by a winding road and first identified through a phone-book abbreviation, it is introduced not through a visit to its center but through the uncertain approach to Fallon’s roadside property. That indirect arrival makes Slate a landscape of clues: a map, a direction from a filling-station attendant, village signs, scattered lights, and finally a mailbox bearing the name FALLON.

Location and approach

Burke’s search begins with a practical problem: he has seen Fallon once, in a luncheonette, and wants to learn where he lives. He is not expecting to accomplish much on this first visit; he describes the purpose as reconnaissance, an effort to get an idea of the situation. The route toward Slate is therefore a preliminary search rather than a direct journey to a known address.

The Voyager has just under half a tank of gas. Burke drives down a slope, crosses a bridge on a dam, climbs the opposite slope, and stops at a Getty station to refuel. There he asks for a phone book. The attendant produces a thin, tattered volume from beneath the counter, and Burke finds Fallon listed on County Route 92, with Slate abbreviated as “Slt.” The listing gives him a lead, but not yet a precise understanding of the place or the road.

Burke checks the map printed on the phone book’s back cover and concludes that “Slt” probably means Slate, which appears to be nearby. When he asks where County Route 92 is, the attendant points up the road and says it is six miles away. Burke answers that he is going to Slate, receives directions to take the left, and returns to the Voyager. The discovery of Slate is assembled from ordinary, incomplete aids: an abbreviated directory entry, a small map, and a brief exchange at a gas station.

The road and its surroundings

After driving six miles and a little farther, Burke reaches the county road. Green signs with cream lettering point toward several villages; Slate is the third destination on the sign pointing left. This sign confirms that the name on the map corresponds to a place along the route, but the road itself offers little visual certainty. It winds through hills, and Burke can make out little beside it beyond the occasional illuminated house window and, once, the brightly lit interior of a barn set well back from the road.

The darkness shapes the search. Burke thinks he may not find Fallon’s house that night unless Fallon’s name appears on a mailbox. At the same time, he considers returning in daylight on a weekend. He imagines doing so while Marjorie is working as a cashier at the New Variety on Saturday afternoon, or during the time they usually spend lying around with a newspaper on Sunday. The contrast between those familiar domestic routines and the covert drive gives Slate a double role: it is both a rural route to be surveyed and the place where Burke’s private plans intrude upon the habits of family life. He also thinks his new acquaintance, Upton “Ralph” Fallon, may prove useful in getting back there.

The Fallon mailbox

Burke nearly misses the decisive clue. Having seen no house lights for a while, he is not watching for a mailbox when one suddenly appears on the right side of the road. It is shaped like a fake log cabin, with a red metal band above the roof and the name FALLON in white letters. Burke brakes hard, then reverses to look again. A blacktop driveway leads from the mailbox into darkness, and, after he squints toward it, he can make out a dim light farther back.

The mailbox gives Burke a likely identification, not an unobstructed view of the house. He still wonders whether this is the right Fallon and drives onward while looking for a place to stop. A short distance farther along, he finds a broad metal cattle gate opening onto a field, with a blacktop strip connecting the gate to the road. He turns around, leaves the Voyager there, and walks back. The sequence brings him closer to the property while preserving the uncertainty that defined the approach: the name is visible, the driveway disappears into darkness, and the house remains only dimly discernible.

Narrative significance

Slate enters the story as a place Burke reads from signs and objects before he can see it clearly. The phone-book abbreviation narrows his search; the map suggests the destination; the road sign directs him onward; and the mailbox supplies the crucial surname. Each step converts an abstract lead into a more concrete location, but none makes the approach feel fully secure. Even after finding FALLON, Burke proceeds by backing up, checking, driving on, turning around, and walking back.

That measured progression makes the landscape part of the reconnaissance. The gas station and its phone book offer the information Burke needs, while the hilly road, scattered lights, and dark driveway limit what he can observe. Slate is thus introduced through the gap between knowing where to go and knowing what awaits there. Its first narrative significance lies in this act of locating: a place found gradually, at night, through a chain of small indications that brings Burke to Fallon’s property without yet resolving everything he wants to know.