We could make it a picnic.”

“That’s fine. I’ll get the restaurant to make us a lunch to take along.”

“No. Let me do that,” she said. “It’s no trouble.”

“What time can I pick you up?”

“About twelve would be all right.”

“Great,” I said. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

I started out and then paused, when I reached the doorway, to look back at her. She was still watching me, and had just started to turn back to the desk.

It was awkward, somehow. Both of us were a little confused. “Was—I mean, is there anything else?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said. “No. I guess not.” I turned and went on out into the street.

When I got over to the lot the two deputies were gone and Gulick didn’t say anything about them.

9

I DROVE OVER AROUND NOON. It was a blazing, still day of white sunlight, and the shadows under the trees were like pools of ink. She was sitting on the front porch waiting for me, dressed in white shorts and a blue T-shirt, and surrounded by painting equipment and the box of lunch. I got out and loaded it all into the back seat. The cocker spaniel was running eagerly up and down the walk.

“Can we take Spunky?” she asked. “He likes to run rabbits.”

I looked at Spunky’s short legs and big paddle feet. “Did he ever catch one?”

She smiled. “No. But he’s still hopeful.”

“Sure,” I said. I lifted him in through the rear window and held the door open for her. As we went down Main Street a few people were clustered in front of the drugstore and the restaurant.

“They’re still talking about the bank robbery,” she said. “Do you think it was somebody around here?”

I didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t know,” I said. “It could have been.”

When we were on the highway going south I cranked the wing windows open and swung them around front to scoop in a little breeze. She sat back in the corner of the seat, facing towards me with one leg doubled under her, and the big violet eyes were happier than I had ever seen them before.

The road was a mile or so beyond the one which went over to Sutton’s oil well. It wasn’t much more than a pair of ruts struggling through the sand and stunted postoak in a generally westerly direction towards the river bottom, and looked as if it hadn’t been used in months.

“Where’s it go?” I asked.

“Nowhere, any more. The bridge isn’t safe and it’s all washed out beyond, on the other side of the bottom. We can get as far as the bridge, though.”

When we got down among the big oaks in the bottom there was more shade and it was a little cooler. The road wound erratically, skirting the dried-up sloughs. Once we almost ran over an old boar which came charging out of some bushes into the road ahead of us.

“That looked like a wild pig,” I said.

“Some of them are,” she said. “They get lost down here and after a while they sort of go native.”

“You’d better warn Spunky they’re not rabbits.