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"Okay?" he asked

"I’ about not wandering off; there seeo? He led her fifty feet down the roadway, away froast looked ahile she stood at the edge of the ditch and pulled down her jeans

"I need help"

Wolgast turned She was facing him, her jeans and underpants bunched around her ankles He felt his face ith embarrassment

"What do you need ers felt tiny in his own; her palhtly as she leaned back, giving hiht, to position herself in a crouch, suspending her body out over the ditch like a piano swinging from a crane Where had she learned to do this? Who else had held her hands this way?

When she was done he turned around so she could pull her pants back up

"You don’t have to be afraid, honey"

A; she made no motion to return to the Tahoe Around theht between breaths Wolgast could feel it, the emptiness of the fields, the thousands of miles they spread in every direction He heard the front door of the Tahoe open and sla off to take a leak himself Far off to the south, he heard a distant echo of thunder rolling away and, in the clear aural space behind it, a new sound-a kind of tinkling, like bells

"We can be friends if you want," he ventured "Would that be okay?"

She was a strange girl, he thought again; why hadn’t she cried? Because she hadn’t, not since the zoo, and she’d never asked for her o home, or even back to the convent Where was ho it wasn’t No place was Whatever had happened to the girl had taken the idea of hoo back to the car if you want"

For away of hers His ears had adjusted to the silence, and he was certain now that it was , the sound distorted by distance So on, so music

"I’m Brad" The name felt bland and heavy in his mouth

She nodded

"The other man? He’s Phil"

"I knoho you are I heard you talking" She shifted her weight "You thought I wasn’t listening, but I was"

A spooky kid And smart, too He could hear it in her voice, see it in the way she was sizing hi the silence to appraise hi with soh not exactly He couldn’t put his finger on what the difference was

"What’s in Colorado? That’s where we’re going, I heard you say it"

Wolgast wasn’t sure howto look at you Like a checkup"

"I’m not sick"

"That’s why, I think I don’twell, I don’t really know" He winced inwardly at the lie "You don’t have to be afraid"

"Don’t keep saying that"

He was so taken aback by her directness that for a lad you’re not"

"Because I’hts of the Tahoe "You are"

A few miles later, they saw it up ahead: a doht that sorted, as they approached, into discrete, orbiting points, like a faainst the horizon Just as Wolgast figured out what he was seeing, the road ended at an intersection He turned on the overhead light and checked the GPS A line of cars and pickup trucks, hway, all headed in the saht air; the sound of music was unast said nothing He turned west, threading into the line of traffic In the bed of the pickup ahead of the on bales of hay They passed a sign that read, HOMER, OKLAHOMA, POP 1,232

"Not so close," Doyle said, referring to the pickup "I don’t like the looks of this"

Wolgast ignored hih the windshield, waved at hihts of the fair were growing clearer now, as were the signs of civilization: a water tank on stilts, a darkened far that was probably a retirehway The pickup pulled off into a Casey’s General Store, its lot bustling with cars and people; the kids were up and out of the bed before the vehicle had even stopped, rushing to meet their friends Traffic on the roadway slowed as they entered the little town In the backseat, Ah the s at the busy scene