it, giving it for a brief moment a whiskered, ancient appearance. After a long pause she said in what was almost a whisper, “I’m afraid.”
“I know,” Lennox said. “I know.”
“And thirsty. I’ve never been this thirsty in my life.”
“Don’t think about it. It only makes it worse if you think about it.”
“What are we going to do?” softly, plaintively. “How long can we keep running away from them?”
“As long as we have to.”
“I don’t know how much further I can go.”
“You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Will I? Will the thirst and the fear be gone then?”
“I’m sorry,” Lennox said again.
“You’re sorry, oh God, you’re sorry.”
She sat rigidly, her face in profile and soft in the moonlight. Lennox felt strangely drawn to her in that moment, to this woman about whom he knew nothing but to whom he was bonded by a bitter quirk of fate. Since his discovery of the kind of cold and calculating bitch Phyllis was, he had mistrusted women; except for a plump divorcee he had picked up in a bar outside of Reno, and a waitress in a hash joint he had worked in Utah—two biologically initiated liaisons which had left him depressed and unfulfilled on both occasions—he had had little to do with them since the night he had begun running in earnest. But it was not a physical thing, this attraction he felt for the girl named Jana Hennessey. It was, instead, an innate recognition deep within himself that their common bond was far more basic than the immediacy of their plight, that they shared a kind of kinship; he saw something of himself in her, something dark and lonely and empty, and he could not explain what it was.
Impulsively he said, “Tell me about yourself, Jana.”
Her head moved slowly until she was facing him again. “Why?”
“I’d like to know.”
“What difference does it make, now?”
“You come from New York, don’t you?” he said.
She did not answer.
“Jana?”
“Yes, I come from New York,” she said wearily.
“What do you do there?”
“I write books.”
“What kind of books?”
“Children’s books.”
“Is that why you’re out here?”
“I ... yes. Yes.”
“What were you doing all alone today? Research?”
“I was making some sketches.”
“You do your own illustrating?”
“Yes.”
“It must be a fine thing to have artistic talents.”
“It’s a lot of hard work.”
“Where do you live in New York? Greenwich Village?”
“I don’t live in New York any more.”
“Well, where do you live? Out here? This state, I mean?”
“Oh God,” she said, “what difference does it make? We’re going to die on this desert, you know that, don’t you?”
“We’re not going to die,” Lennox said.
“How are we going to get away?”
“I don’t know. We’ll get away.”
“No,” she said, “no, we won’t.”
He had a sudden thought, and hope touched him faintly, clinging. “Are you living here? Or are you just staying in the area—with friends, maybe?”
“In a hotel,” Jana answered. “Why?”
“In Cuenca Seco?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone know you came out here today?”
She frowned. “The desk clerk. He showed me how to get here on a map.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did the clerk seem interested in you?”
“His eyes were all over me, if that’s what you mean. What are you getting at?”
“I was thinking that when you didn’t come back tonight, he might have gone to the police and reported you missing. And that they might send out some men to look for you.”
“Why should he go to the police if I don’t come back right away? He’d be a fool to do that.”
“It’s a chance, that’s all.”
“Is it the only chance we have?”
“No. No, not the only one.”
“What will we do when we leave here? Keep running the way we did today?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to think what to do.”
The wind whistled in a gentle monotone between the rocks and stroked Jana with chill intimacy; she hugged herself again, shivering. “God, it’s cold. I had no idea it got this cold on the desert at night.”
Lennox watched her rocking slightly and he felt very sorry for her. He crawled stiffly across to her, raised himself up on his knees. “We’d better huddle together for warmth,” he said softly, and put a tentative arm about her shoulders. “If we don‘t—”
She pulled away from him viciously, pushing him off balance, so that he fell on his right elbow. Her eyes, in the moonshine, were wide, flickering pools. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “Damn you, don’t you touch me!”
He stared at her. “I was only thinking—”
“I don’t care what you were thinking.”
“For God’s sake,” Lennox said, “I only wanted to make it a little easier for you, for both of us.”
“Leave me alone, just leave me alone.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“Just keep your hands off me, that’s all. I don’t like to be touched. I don’t want you to touch me.”
“All right.”
“All right.”
She lay down in the sand, facing toward him but not looking at him, her body pulled into a fetal position, her arms folded tautly over her breasts. He stared at her for a long time, but she did not move and her eyes did not close; finally he rolled onto his back and covered his own eyes with his arm, shielding out the moonlight, embracing the darkness.
What’s the matter with her? he thought. I only wanted to make her warm.
And then he thought: I wonder if I can sleep?
And slept.
The Third Day...
One
It had been this way for Brackeen in San Francisco:
A patrolman with an impressive record in his four years on the force, one soft step from a promotion to plain
