Donald just looked at him.

"Better for you," Pete said.

Donald hugged himself. He was shaking. "You don't have to say all that," he told Pete. "I don't blame you."

"Blame me? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? Blame me for what?"

"For anything," Donald said.

"I want to know what you mean by blame me."

"Nothing. Nothing, Pete. You'd better get going. G.o.d bless you."

"That's it," Pete said. He dropped to one knee, searching the packed dirt with his hands. He didn't know what he was looking for, his hands would know when they found it.

Donald touched Pete's shoulder. "You'd better go," he said.

Somewhere in the trees Pete heard a branch snap. He stood up. He looked at Donald, then went back to the car and drove away. He drove fast, hunched over the wheel, conscious of the way he was hunched and the shallowness of his breathing, refusing to look in the mirror above his head until there was nothing behind him but darkness.

Then he said, "A hundred dollars," as if there were someone to hear.

The trees gave way to fields. Metal fences ran beside the road, plastered with windblown sc.r.a.ps of paper. Tule fog hung above the ditches, spilling into the road, dimming the ghostly halogen lights that burned in the yards of the farms Pete pa.s.sed. The fog left beads of water rolling up the windshield.

Pete rummaged among his ca.s.settes. He found Pachelbel's Canon and pushed it into the tape deck. When the violins began to play he leaned back and a.s.sumed an attentive expression as if he were really listening to them. He smiled to himself like a man at liberty to enjoy music, a man who has finished his work and settled his debts, done all things meet and due.

And in this way, smiling, nodding to the music, he went another mile or so and pretended that he was not already slowing down, that he was not going to turn back, that he would be able to drive on like this, alone, and have the right answer when his wife stood before him in the doorway of his home and asked, Where is he? Where is your brother?

TOBIAS WOLFF.

Tobias Wolff lives in Northern California and teaches at Stanford University. He has received the Rea Award for excellence in the short story, the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Books by Tobias Wolff

Our Story Begins

Old School

The Night in Question

In Pharaoh's Army

This Boy's Life

Back in the World

The Barracks Thief

In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

BOOKS BY T TOBIAS W WOLFF.

BACK IN THE WORLD.

Here are ten pungent and wonderfully skewed stories of exhilarating grace and lucidity. A gentle, ineffectual priest finds himself stranded in a Vegas hotel room with a hysterical, sunburned stranger. A show-biz hopeful undergoes a dubious audition in a hea.r.s.e speeding across the California desert. As Tobias Wolff moves among these unfortunates, he observes with a compa.s.sionate eye the disparity between their realities and their dreams.

Fiction/Short Stories/978-0-679-76796-1

IN PHARAOH'S ARMY In In Pharaoh's Army In Pharaoh's Army Tobias Wolff gives us a precisely and sometimes pitilessly remembered account of his young manhood-a young manhood that became entangled in the tragic adventure that was Vietnam. Traversing an arc that leads from paratroopers' jump school to the carnage of the Tet offensive, Wolff re-creates a war where survival depends less on skill than it does on blind luck and the ability to look inoffensive. The Americans are pitiable in their innocence and terrifying in their capacity for uncomprehending destruction. The allies are malicious practical jokers. And a successful mission is one that nets Wolff a stolen color television set-the better to watch Tobias Wolff gives us a precisely and sometimes pitilessly remembered account of his young manhood-a young manhood that became entangled in the tragic adventure that was Vietnam. Traversing an arc that leads from paratroopers' jump school to the carnage of the Tet offensive, Wolff re-creates a war where survival depends less on skill than it does on blind luck and the ability to look inoffensive. The Americans are pitiable in their innocence and terrifying in their capacity for uncomprehending destruction. The allies are malicious practical jokers. And a successful mission is one that nets Wolff a stolen color television set-the better to watch Bonanza Bonanza on Thanksgiving Day. on Thanksgiving Day.

Memoir/978-0-679-76023-8

THE NIGHT IN QUESTION.

A young reporter writes an obituary only to be fired when its subject walks into his office, very much alive. A soldier in Vietnam goads his lieutenant into sending him on increasingly dangerous missions. An impecunious mother and son go window-shopping for a domesticity that is forever beyond their grasp. Seamless, ironic, dizzying in their emotional aptness, these fifteen stories deliver small, exquisite shocks that leave us feeling invigorated and intensely alive.

Fiction/Short Stories/978-0-679-78155-4 OLD SCHOOL.

The protagonist of Tobias Wolff's shrewdly-and at times devastatingly-observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged cla.s.smates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself. The climax of his quest becomes intimately entangled with the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of the compet.i.tion infects the boy and his cla.s.smates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master. explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.

Fiction/978-0-375-70149-8

OUR STORY BEGINS.

New and Selected Stories This collection of stories-twenty-one cla.s.sics followed by ten potent new stories-displays Tobias Wolff's exquisite gifts over a quarter century.

Fiction/Short Stories/978-1-4000-9597-1

ALSO AVAILABLE.

The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, Edited by Tobias Wolff, 978-0-679-74513-6 Edited by Tobias Wolff, 978-0-679-74513-6