Dale slid the Land Cruiser to a stop, throwing up snow and dirt as he did so. Leaving the headlights on, he stepped onto the running board. “Michelle? You all right?”

The white face nodded. She was wearing a light parka and a scarf and mittens. In the harsh glare of the halogen headlights, Michelle looked simultaneously much older than she had the last time he had seen her and somehow much younger, childlike. Dale thought that perhaps it was the mittens.

He walked over to the slide and held his hand up as she descended. She ignored the hand but touched his arm when she reached solid ground.

“What happened?” said Dale.

Michelle shook her head again. “I don’t know. I was out for a walk. . .”

“This late?” said Dale and realized how silly that sounded. At 10:00P.M. in Beverly Hills she would probably still be at dinner before the late screening of a new film.

“They just. . . appeared,” said Michelle and began shaking.

Dale reached a hand out to reassure her just as an extra pair of headlights swept across the schoolyard and pinned them. A car was driving across the snow toward them.

The car stopped next to Dale’s truck, but the headlights blinded them. The silhouette of a heavyset man emerged from the driver’s side.

“Trouble here?” came C.J. Congden’s phlegmy voice.

Michelle suddenly leaned against Dale. She was shaking very hard now. She turned away from the sheriff’s headlights, almost burying her face in Dale’s coat.

“No trouble,” said Dale.

“You drove up on city land here, Mr. Stewart,” said Congden. Dale could see the headlight glare reflecting off the underside of the sheriff’s Smokey hat, but the big man’s face was still in shadow. “City property. You been drinking, Professor ?”

Dale waited for Michelle to say something, but she kept her face against his chest.

“Ms.. . . Stouffer here was taking a walk,” called Dale, his voice sounding very loud to himself in the cold night. “Some huge dogs appeared and started to attack her. I saw her and drove out here so the truck’s lights would drive them away.” He was irritated at himself for providing such a detailed explanation to this fat slob of an ex-bully.

“Dogs,” said Congden, his tone dismissive and amused. To Michelle, he said, “You’d better come with me, Missy. I’ll drive you home.”

Michelle gripped Dale tightly now, her arms hugging him fiercely through her parka and his jacket. “No,” she whispered to Dale.

“I’m taking her home,” said Dale. He put his arm around her and led her to the passenger side of the Land Cruiser.

The sheriff’s car was at enough of an angle that the vehicle and its driver remained just dark silhouettes against the night. The cheap plastic slide and swingless swing set looked unreal—too bright, too orange and red, too fake—in the twin sets of headlights.

“She should ride with me,” said C.J. Congden from the other side of the police cruiser. His voice was flat, emotionless, but somehow both amused and threatening.

Dale ignored the sheriff, helped Michelle up into the truck, shut the door carefully, and went around to the driver’s side. For an instant he wondered what he would do if Congden came around his own car and tried to stop Dale from driving off. Why would he do that?

Because you questioned his authority, stupid, was Dale’s answer to himself.

Congden did not come around.

Dale backed the Land Cruiser up, turned it around on the snowy field, and drove back to the asphalt line of Second Avenue. Checking in his rearview mirror, Dale could see only the headlights of the sheriff’s car. Congden did not follow.

Dale drove up to the junction of Depot Street, where his old house—dark now—was illuminated in the headlight beams, started to turn left, but paused.

“Do you want to go home or come out to. . . the farm?” he asked.

Michelle was still shaking violently. She hadn’t seemed so frightened of the dogs out at The Jolly Corner. Dale wondered if it was from the cold.

“Home,” she said softly.

Dale dutifully turned left on Depot Street and drove toward Broad and the old Staffney house there.

“I mean home in California,” said Michelle.

Dale laughed. He turned to look at her, to smile reassuringly, but he could see only the pale white oval of her face in the darkness. He had an irrelevant memory of the faceless man in uniform he’d glimpsed twice on his walks past the cemetery.

The Staffney house was absolutely dark. Her own truck was not in the driveway, nor were there tire tracks.

“It’s in the shop in Oak Hill,” said Michelle, her voice more steady now. “It’s some black box screwing up the ignition system. They say it’ll be a few days before they get the part in.”

“You all right for groceries. . . and everything?” said Dale.

Michelle nodded and touched his arm again. “Thanks for saving me.”

He tried to sound light as he said, “I don’t think the dogs meant to hurt you.”

The white oval of her face bobbed up and down, although he could not tell if she was agreeing or signifying that the dogs had meant her harm.

“I’d never get in a car with him,” she said softly and it took Dale a few seconds to realize that she was speaking of Sheriff C.J. Congden.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Shall I come in with you until you get the lights on?”

“No need,” said Michelle. She handed him a square box, and it took him a minute to realize that it was the box of.410 shells he’d bought in Oak Hill earlier that evening. “This was on the passenger seat and I didn’t want to sit on it,” she said.

Dale set the box of shells in the backseat. I could have thrown them at the dogs, he thought.

The overhead lights came on as she opened the passenger door, but her face was turned away so Dale could not see her expression, see if she had thought his invitation to see her inside had been a come-on. Walking around the truck to stand outside his open driver’s-side window, the snow crunching under her feet, she said, “Just watch until I get down the drive, would you? Make sure the hounds don’t get me?” Her voice sounded normal. “The power’s off right now, so I’m using candles and flashlights until it’s fixed. Don’t worry if you don’t see any lights.”

“If the power’s off, do you have heat? No need to stay here in a cold, dark house.” Dale tried to think of where he’d sleep—Duane’s bed in the basement, giving her the daybed in the study, or upstairs while she took the more comfortable bed?

“The furnace works,” said Michelle. He could see starlight reflected in her eyes now. “It’s on a separate circuit. Diane and I blew some fuses when we were messing around with the old wiring. I’ve got a guy coming from Peoria to fix it tomorrow. Good night, Dale. Thanks again for rescuing me.” She reached out and squeezed his bare hand with her mittened one.

“Anytime,” said Dale. He watched as she walked carefully down the snowy lane and disappeared around the back of the house. As advertised, the house stayed dark, but he thought he detected the slight glow of a flashlight through a dark side window.

He backed the Land Cruiser out and headed back down Depot Street toward First Avenue and the road to The Jolly Corner. There was no sign of Congden or his car.

The interior of Duane’s farmhouse, except for the cold draft sliding down from the second floor, seemed warm after the cold night air. Dale went from room to room, turning on lights as he went.

He carried the shotgun shells down into the basement and retrieved the two parts of his Savage over-and-under from where he’d stored them. It was time, he thought, to have a real, loaded weapon on the premises.

Dale was attaching the over-and-under barrel when he saw that there was a shell in the shotgun breech. He removed the red shell carefully, shocked that he would ever store a loaded weapon, even one that was broken down this way. He’d learned better than that at his father’s knee when he was six years old.