a shared dream that changed us all, in ways we could not understand. Something deep was happening to us, but what it was we did not know.

Our daily routine was simple enough. We slept together, although I kept my personal suitcase in the small bedroom. I rumpled the bed, scattered toilet articles about, left cigarette butts in ashtrays, gave the room what I fancied to be a lived-in appearance. All this to mislead Mrs Pearl in case she made an unexpected climb to the second floor, and to fool the cleaning lady when she appeared.

But ‘we slept together. Every night but one.

We rose before 8:00, dressed, went downstairs to have breakfast with Mrs Pearl in the big kitchen. And the size of the breakfasts matched that room: orange juice; oatmeal; eggs; bacon, ham, or pork sausages; pancakes; grits; corn muffins, blueberry muffins, toast; waffles; sweet butter; jams, jellies, and homemade preserves; milk or coffee.

Mrs Pearl bustled about, talking in a blue streak, and seemingly delighted with our appetites and praise for her cooking. She told us (three times) that her quince jelly had won a blue ribbon at the county fair. I could believe it; it was nectar.

After breakfast we usually drove into Whittier to shop. We knew what those gargantuan breakfasts were costing Mrs Pearl, so we took her shopping list into town and paid for the milk, coffee, pancake flour, ham, and all the other goodies. We also loaded her refrigerator with beer, cola, and tonic water, and put two quarts of vodka in the freezer.

By the second day of our stay, practically everyone in Whittier knew us, and we exchanged ‘Howdy’ and ‘Have a nice day’ a dozen times as we went from general store to liquor store to gas station to Hoxey’s.

At Hoxey’s Rose would have a bag of sandwiches made for us. Really dreadful sandwiches: processed cheese on dry white bread, pressed ham on stale rye. But we didn’t care. Everyone was just so nice, it would have been cruel to suggest to them that a luncheon of Twinkies and Yoo-Hoo wasn’t really the best food American agriculture could offer.

Then back to Mrs Pearl’s with our purchases, usually including a special treat for her. (She doted on licorice- filled mints.) Then, around noon, we took our sandwiches and six-pack of beer across the fields. We dunked naked in the muddy stream (even Dick and I were calling it the ‘crick’ by then), and ate our sandwiches and drank our beer, kept cold by immersing the cans in the running water.

On one of those trips Donohue carried our lunch in the emptied, bullet-riddled suitcase that had provided no shield for Hymie Gore. Jack and Dick scooped out a hole under one of the oak trees near the stream and buried the case.

In the afternoon, back at Mrs Pearl’s, I worked on my manuscript, and wrote enough so that I was up-to-date and describing current events. The men washed down the

Buick, then cleaned up Mrs Pearl’s seven-year-old Plymouth. They also consolidated all our gear into four suitcases and three canvas carryalls.

One afternoon they left me at Mrs Pearl’s and drove away, ostensibly to have the Buick gassed, oiled, and tuned. But when they returned, Jack had extra ammunition for all our guns and a complete cleaning kit. He and Dick spent hours stripping down the guns, cleaning them, and reloading. Donohue said Dick was very good at it and could become an expert if he applied himself.

Something else they brought back from their trip were two unlabeled pint bottles of colorless liquid which, Jack assured me, was the finest white lightning in the State of Georgia. I tried a sip and it felt like my vocal cords had been given a shot of Novocain, while sweat ran down from my armpits. I said, when I recovered my voice, that I’d stick to eighty-proof vodka.

But that night, after we returned from Hoxey’s and had a beer with Mrs Pearl on the porch, we retired to our bedroom, and the two men demolished the pints of alky. Fortunately, they were sitting on the edge of the bed as they drank, and all they had to do was fall back.

I lifted up their legs and left the louts, fully clothed, to their groaning unconsciousness. Then I went into the smaller bedroom. It was the only night I slept alone. In the morning they were full of that crazy macho boasting about which one had the worst hangover. I wasn’t sore at them — just amused, and amazed at the way Dick Fleming was acting.

Because, of the three of us, he had changed, was changing, the most. Some of it was physical. He was leaner and harder. The sun was burning his pale, freckled skin a bronzed tan. His hair was bleached to the color of wheat, and his blue eyes seemed deeper, steadier, more knowing. I saw the looks he got from the women in Hoxey’s and on the streets of Whittier.

But less obvious were the changes within. He took a more active role in our sexual shenanigans, frequently as initiator. He insisted on driving the car more often, ordered for us at Hoxey’s, offered his opinions on a multitude of matters in a firm, decisive manner.

I looked at him with astonishment: a new man. When, alone with Donohue, I mentioned something of this, Black Jack flashed me one of his wise grins and said, ‘He’s found his balls.’ Whatever had happened, was happening, I knew Dick and I would never again indulge in those tickle-and-squirm games. The pistonless and stamenless man had become more than a neuter. I was glad for him, I suppose. I wasn’t certain about my own reaction.

So the days passed in a dream, peaceful, golden, and each hour separated us further from what had gone before. We sniffed security like cocaine, certain that the chase had cooled, pursuit had ended, and we could leisurely accomplish all that we had set out to do.

Christmas was on a Sunday that year, and on the preceding Friday we bought a sad, lopsided tree in the gas station lot in Whittier. We brought it home” to Mrs Pearl, lashed on the roof of the Buick. We were certain she would have all the ornaments and tinsel necessary. Women like Mrs Pearl Sniffins don’t throw away Christmas tree ornaments. She didn’t disappoint us.

So on Friday evening, after our return from Hoxey’s, we gathered in what Mrs Pearl called the ‘sitting room’ and decorated our tree. It was, I suppose, a kind of party. We all drank a bottle of port wine. There were jokes, laughter, remembrances of past holidays. It seemed strange to me to be celebrating Christmas in such a warm climate. How can you lie naked on a muddy crick bed on Christmas day? But that wine made everything seem quite normal. I think we sang some carols, more for Mrs Pearl’s sake than ours. She surely was partial to ‘Silent Night.’

Later, in bed together, Mrs Sniffins snoring peacefully downstairs, we talked quietly of our plans. We decided to spend Christmas day with Mrs Pearl (she had invited us, promising a roast turkey ‘with all the trimmings’), and maybe even go to church with her. Then we would take off on the following Monday. We still had plenty of cash, and Black Jack said we could take back and secondary roads all the way down to Miami, just to play it cool. We’d probably arrive Wednesday or Thursday.

It all sounded good to us. After those glittering days and perfumed nights, it was impossible that anything could turn sour.

On Saturday morning, after breakfast, we drove into Whittier to buy Christmas gifts for Mrs Pearl. There wasn’t much choice. In the general store I found a quilted bed-jacket I thought she might like, and the men bought her perfume, a five-pound box of chocolates, and two palm-leaf plants.

We decided to forego our afternoon swim, so we didn’t stop at Hoxey’s for sandwiches and beer. We drove directly to Mrs Pearl’s, planning to spend the afternoon wrapping our gifts and getting a gentle buzz on in honor of Christ’s birth.

And that’s exactly what we did, until about 2:00 that afternoon, Christmas Eve. Then we heard Mrs Pearl calling from downstairs. Donohue opened the door and went to the top of the stair.

‘Mr Morrison,’ we heard her say, ‘you got a phone call. It’s Ben Lufkin at Hoxey’s.’

Jack went down the stairs.

Dick Fleming turned to look at me with bleak eyes.

‘Start packing,’ he said harshly.

We heard Donohue come up the stairs. He stalked into the room. He took two guns from a canvas carryall, a revolver and a pistol. He pulled back the slide of the pistol, let it snap forward. He put the revolver in his belt, the pistol in the side pocket of his jacket. Then he started helping us with the packing.

‘Two guys came into Hoxey’s looking for us,’ he reported. ‘Ben Lufkin says one was wearing a gray suit, vest, hat. Young, clean, fresh-shaved. Doesn’t sound like one of Rossi’s boys. Sounds like a Fed. The other guy was

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