By jove, Sergeant, you're right. I'm going to write you up for a promotion.

He took the crowbar and rubber hose back around to the plate covering the tank.

"Joe, can you come here for a minute and help me?"

The boy looked up from the cheese and crackers he was eating and gazed distrustfully at Larry.

"Go on, now, that's all right," Nadine said quietly.

Joe came over, his feet dragging a little.

Larry slipped the crowbar into the plate's slot. "Throw your weight on that and let's see if we can get it up," he said.

For a moment he thought the boy either didn't understand him or didn't want to do it. Then he grasped the far end of the crowbar and pushed on it. His arms were thin but belted with a scrawny sort of muscle, the kind of muscle that working men from poor families always seem to have. The plate tilted a little but didn't come up enough for Larry to get his fingers under.

"Lay over it," he said.

Those half-savage, uptilted eyes studied him coolly for a moment and then Joe balanced on the crowbar, his feet coming off the ground as his whole weight was thrown onto the lever.

The plate came up a little farther than before, enough so that Larry could squirm his fingers under it. While he was struggling for purchase he happened to think that if the boy still didn't like him, this was the best chance he could have to show it. If Joe took his weight off the crowbar the plate would come down with a crash and he'd lose everything on his hands but the thumbs. Nadine had realized this, Larry saw. She had been peering at one of the bikes but now had turned to watch, her body angled into a posture of tension. Her dark eyes went from Larry, down on one knee, to Joe, who was watching Larry as he leaned his weight on the bar. Those seawater eyes were inscrutable. And still Larry couldn't find purchase.

"Need help?" Nadine asked, her normally calm voice now just a little highpitched.

Sweat ran into one eye and he blinked it away. Still no joy. He could smell gasoline.

"I think we can handle it," Larry said, looking directly at her.

A moment later his fingers slipped into a short groove on the underside of the plate. He threw his shoulders into it and the plate came up and crashed over on the tarmac with a dull clang. He heard Nadine sigh, and the crowbar fall to the pavement. He wiped his perspiring brow and looked back at the boy.

"That's good work, Joe," he said. "If you'd let that thing slip, I would've spent the rest of my life zipping my fly with my teeth. Thank you."

He expected no response (except perhaps an uninterpretable hoot as Joe walked back to inspect the motorcycles again), but Joe said in a rusty, struggling voice: "Week-come."

Larry flashed a glance at Nadine, who stared back at him and then at Joe. Her face was surprised and pleased, yet somehow she looked-he couldn't have said just how-as if she had expected this. It was an expression he had seen before, but not one he could put his finger on right away.

"Joe," he said, "did you say 'welcome'?"

Joe nodded vigorously. "Weck-come. You weck-come."

Nadine was holding her arms out, smiling. "That's good, Joe. Very, very good." Joe trotted to her and allowed himself to be hugged for a moment or two. Then he began to peer at the bikes again, hooting and chuckling to himself.

"He can talk," Larry said.

"I knew he wasn't mute," Nadine answered. "But it's wonderful to know he can recover. I think he needed two of us. Two halves. He ... oh, I don't know."

He saw that she was blushing and thought he knew why. He began to slip the length of rubber hose into the hole in the cement, and suddenly realized that what he was doing could easily be interpreted as a symbolic (and rather crude) bit of dumbshow. He looked up at her, sharply. She turned away quickly, but not before he had seen how intently she was watching what he was doing, and the high color in her cheeks.

The nasty fear rose in his chest and he called: "For Chrissake, Nadine, look out!" look out!" She was concentrating on the hand controls, not looking where she was going, and she was going to drive the Honda directly into a pine tree at a wobbling five miles an hour. She was concentrating on the hand controls, not looking where she was going, and she was going to drive the Honda directly into a pine tree at a wobbling five miles an hour.

She looked up and he heard her say "Oh!" in a startled voice. Then she swerved, much too sharply, and fell off the bike. The Honda stalled.

He ran to her, his heart in his throat. "Are you all right? Nadine? Are you-"

Then she was picking herself up shakily, looking at her scraped hands. "Yes, I'm fine. Stupid me, not looking where I was going. Did I hurt the motorcycle?"

"Never mind the goddam motorcycle, let me take a look at your hands."

She held them out and he took a plastic bottle of Bactine from his pants pocket and sprayed them.

"You're shaking," she said.

"Never mind that either," Larry answered, more roughly than he had intended. "Listen, maybe we had better just stick to the bicycles. This is dangerous-"

"So is breathing," she answered calmly. "And I think Joe should ride with you, at least at first."

"He won't-"

"I think he will," Nadine said, looking into his face. "And so do you."

"Well, let's stop for tonight. It's almost too dark to see."

"Once more. Haven't I read that if your horse throws you, you should get right back on?"

Joe strolled by, munching blueberries from a motorcycle helmet. He had found a number of wild blueberry bushes behind the dealership and had been picking them while Nadine had her first lesson.

"I guess so," Larry said, defeated. "But will you please watch where you're going?"

"Yes, sir. Right, sir." She saluted and then smiled at him. She had a beautiful slow smile that lit up her whole face. Larry smiled back; there was nothing else to do. When Nadine smiled, even Joe smiled back.

This time she putted around the lot twice and then turned out into the road, swinging over too sharply, bringing Larry's heart into his mouth again. But she brought her foot down smartly as he had shown her, and went up the hill and out of sight. He saw her switch carefully up to second gear, and heard her switch to third as she dropped behind the first rise. Then the bike's engine faded to a drone that melted away to nothing. He stood anxiously in the twilight, absently slapping at an occasional mosquito.

Joe strolled by again, his mouth blue. "Week-come," he said, and grinned. Larry managed a strained smile in return. If she didn't come back soon, he would go after her. Visions of finding her lying in a ditch with a broken neck danced blackly in his head.

He was just walking over to the other cycle, debating whether or not to take Joe with him, when the droning hum came to his ears again and swelled to the sound of the Honda's engine, clocking smoothly along in fourth. He relaxed ... a little. Dismally he realized he would never be able to relax completely while she was riding that thing.

She came back into sight, the cycle's headlamp now on, and pulled up beside him.

"Pretty good, huh?" She switched off.

"I was getting ready to come after you. I thought you'd had an accident."

"I sort of did." She saw the way he stiffened and added, "I went too slow turning around and forgot to push the clutch in. I stalled."

"Oh. Enough for tonight, huh?"

"Yes," she said. "My tailbone hurts."

He lay in his blankets that night wondering if she might come to him when Joe was asleep, or if he should go to her. He wanted her and thought, from the way she had looked at the absurd little pantomime with the rubber hose earlier, that she wanted him. At last he fell asleep.

He dreamed he was in a field of corn, lost there. But there was music, guitar music. Joe playing the guitar. If he found Joe he would be all right. So he followed the sound, breaking through one row of corn to the next when he had to, at last coming out in a ragged clearing. There was a small house there, more of a shack really, the porch held up with rusty old jacklifters. It wasn't Joe playing the guitar, how could it have been? Joe was holding his left hand and Nadine his right. They were with him. An old woman was playing the guitar, a jazzy sort of spiritual that had Joe smiling. The old woman was black, and she was sitting on the porch, and Larry guessed she was just about the oldest woman he had ever seen in his life. But there was something about her that made him feel good ... good in the way his mother had once made him feel good when he was very little and she would suddenly hug him and say, Here's the best boy, here's Alice Underwood's all-time best boy. Here's the best boy, here's Alice Underwood's all-time best boy.

The old woman stopped playing and looked up at them.

Well say, I got me comp'ny. Step on out where I can see you, my peepers ain't what they once was.

So they came closer, the three of them hand in hand, and Joe reached out and set a bald old tire swing to slow pendulum movement as they passed it. The tire's doughnut-shaped shadow slipped back and forth on the weedy ground. They were in a small clearing, an island in a sea of corn. To the north, a dirt road stretched away to a point.

You like to have a swing on this old box o mine? she asked Joe, and Joe came forward eagerly and took the old guitar from her gnarled hands. He began to play the tune they had followed through the corn, but better and faster than the old woman. she asked Joe, and Joe came forward eagerly and took the old guitar from her gnarled hands. He began to play the tune they had followed through the corn, but better and faster than the old woman.

Bless im, he plays good. Me, I'm too old. Cain't make my fingers go that fast now. It's the rheumatiz. But in 1902 I played at the County Hall. I was the first Negro to ever play there, the very first.

Nadine asked who she was. They were in a kind of forever place where the sun seemed to stand still one hour from darkness and the shadow of the swing Joe had set in motion would always travel back and forth across the weedy yard. Larry wished he could stay here forever, he and his family. This was a good good place. The man with no face could never get him here, or Joe, or Nadine. place. The man with no face could never get him here, or Joe, or Nadine.

Mother Abagail is what they call me. I'm the oldest woman in eastern Nebraska, I guess, and I still make my own biscuits. You come see me as quick as you can. We got to go before he gets wind of us.

A cloud came over the sun. The swing's arc had decreased to nothing. Joe stopped playing with a jangling rattle of strings, and Larry felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. The old woman seemed not to notice.

Before who gets wind of us? Nadine asked, and Larry wished he could speak, cry out for her to take the question back before it could leap free and hurt them. Nadine asked, and Larry wished he could speak, cry out for her to take the question back before it could leap free and hurt them.

That black man. That servant of the devil. We got the Rockies between us n him, praise God, but they won't keep him back. That's why we got to knit together. In Colorado. God come to me in a dream and showed me where. But we got to be quick, quick as we can, anyway. So you come see me. There's others coming, too.

No, Nadine said in a cold and fearful voice. Nadine said in a cold and fearful voice. We're going to Vermont, that's all. Only to Vermont-just a short trip. We're going to Vermont, that's all. Only to Vermont-just a short trip.

Your trip will be longer than ours, if'n you don't fight off his power, the old woman in Larry's dream replied. She was looking at Nadine with great sadness. the old woman in Larry's dream replied. She was looking at Nadine with great sadness. This could be a good man you got here, woman. He wants to make something out of himself. Why don't you cleave to him instead of using him? This could be a good man you got here, woman. He wants to make something out of himself. Why don't you cleave to him instead of using him?

No! We're going to Vermont, to VERMONT! VERMONT!

The old woman looked at Nadine pityingly. You'll go straight to hell if you don't watch close, daughter of Eve. And when you get there, you are gonna find that hell is cold. You'll go straight to hell if you don't watch close, daughter of Eve. And when you get there, you are gonna find that hell is cold.

The dream broke up then, splitting into cracks of darkness that swallowed him. But something in that darkness was stalking him. It was cold and merciless, and soon he would see its grinning teeth.

But before that could happen he was awake. It was half an hour after dawn, and the world was swaddled in a thick white ground fog that would burn off when the sun got up a little more. Now the motorcycle dealership rose out of it like some strange ship's prow constructed of cinderblock instead of wood.

Someone was next to him, and he saw that it wasn't Nadine who had joined him in the night, but Joe. The boy lay next to him, thumb corked in his mouth, shivering in his sleep, as if his own nightmare had gripped him. Larry wondered if Joe's dreams were so different from his own ... and he lay on his back, staring up into the white fog and thinking about that until the others woke up an hour later.

The fog had burned off enough to travel by the time they had finished breakfast and packed their things on the cycles. As Nadine had said, Joe showed no qualms about riding behind Larry; in fact, he climbed on Larry's cycle without having to be asked.

"Slow," Larry said for the fourth time. "We're not going to hurry and have an accident."

"Fine," Nadine said. "I'm really excited. It's like being on a quest!"

She smiled at him, but Larry could not smile back. Rita Blakemoor had said something very much like that when they were leaving New York City. Two days before she died, she had said it.

They stopped for lunch in Epsom, eating fried ham from a can and drinking orange soda under the tree where Larry had fallen asleep and Joe had stood over him with the knife. Larry was relieved to find that riding the motorcycles wasn't as bad as he had thought it would be; in most of the places they could make fairly decent time, and even going through the villages it was only necessary to putt along the sidewalks at walking speed. Nadine was being extremely careful about slowing down on blind curves, and even on the open road she did not urge Larry to go any faster than the steady thirty-five-miles-an-hour pace he was setting. He thought that, barring bad weather, they could be in Stovington by the nineteenth.

They stopped for supper west of Concord, where Nadine said they could save time on Lauder and Goldsmith's route by going directly northwest on the thruway, I-89.

"There will be a lot of stalled traffic," Larry said doubtfully.

"We can weave in and out," she said with confidence, "and use the breakdown lane when we have to. The worst that can happen is we'll have to backtrack to an exit and go around on a secondary road."

They tried it for two hours after supper, and did indeed come upon a blockage from one side of the northbound lanes to the other. Just beyond Warner a car-and-housetrailer combo had jackknifed; the driver and his wife, weeks dead, lay like grainsacks in the front seat of their Electra.

The three of them, working together, were able to hoist the bikes over the buckled hitch between the car and the trailer. Afterward they were too tired to go any farther, and that night Larry didn't ponder whether or not to go to Nadine, who had taken her blankets ten feet farther down from where he had spread his (the boy was between them). That night he was too tired to do anything but fall asleep.

The next afternoon they came upon a block they couldn't get around. A trailer truck had overturned and half a dozen cars had crashed behind it. Luckily, they were only two miles beyond the Enfield exit. They went back, took the exit ramp, and then, feeling tired and discouraged, stopped in the Enfield town park for a twenty-minute rest.

"What did you do before, Nadine?" Larry asked. He had been thinking about the expression in her eyes when Joe had finally spoken (the boy had added "Larry, Nadine, fanks," and "Go baffroom" to his working vocabulary), and now he made a guess based on that. "Were you a teacher?"

She looked at him with surprise. "Yes. That's a good guess."

"Little kids?"

"That's right. First and second graders."

That explained something about her complete unwillingness to leave Joe behind. In mind at least, the boy had regressed to a seven-year-old age level.

"How did did you guess?" you guess?"

"A long time ago I used to date a speech therapist from Long Island," Larry said. "I know that sounds like the start of one of those involved New York jokes, but it's the truth. She worked for the Ocean View school system. Younger grades. Kids with speech impediments, cleft palates, harelips, deaf kids. She used to say that correcting speech defects in children was just showing them an alternative way of getting the right sounds. Show them, say the word. Show them, say the word. Over and over until something in the kid's head clicked. And when she talked about that click happening, she looked the way you did when Joe said 'You're welcome.' "

"Did I?" She smiled a little wistfully. "I loved the little ones. Some of them were bruised, but none of them at that age are irrevocably spoiled. The little ones are the only good human beings."

"Kind of a romantic idea, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "Children are are good. And if you work with them, you get to be a romantic. That's not so bad. Wasn't your speech therapist friend happy in her work?" good. And if you work with them, you get to be a romantic. That's not so bad. Wasn't your speech therapist friend happy in her work?"

"Yeah, she liked it," Larry agreed. "Were you married? Before?" There it was again-that simple, ubiquitous word. Before. Before. It was only two syllables, but it had become all-encompassing. It was only two syllables, but it had become all-encompassing.

"Married? No. Never married." She began to look nervous again. "I'm the original old maid schoolteacher, younger than I look but older than I feel. Thirty-seven." His eyes had moved to her hair before he could stop them and she nodded as if he had spoken out loud. "It's premature," she said matter-of-factly. "My grandmother's hair was totally white by the time she was forty. I think I'm going to last at least five years longer."

"Where did you teach?"

"A small private school in Pittsfield. Very exclusive. Ivy-covered walls, all the newest playground equipment. Damn the recession, full speed ahead. The car pool consisted of two Thunderbirds, three Mercedes -Benzes, a couple of Lincolns, and a Chrysler Imperial."

"You must have been very good."

"Yes, I think I was," she said artlessly, then smiled. "Doesn't matter much now."