Desert Heat

“You’re away from him now,” Dayton Smith said forcefully. “Stay that way. Get a job, get married, have children. In other words, have a real life.”

“I don’t know how,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“I wasn’t born driving this truck, honey,” he told her. “I took lessons, got myself a license. That’s what you’re go

After that, they didn’t talk much more. At o’clock, Dayton Smith helped Tammy Sue Farris check into the last available room in Bisbee’s Copper Queen Hotel. When she stepped away from the desk, Dayton was standing halfway across the lobby with both hands stuffed in his hip pockets. He smiled at her.

“You’ll do fine,” he said. “I’m sure of it.” He reached out, took one of her hands in both his, and shook it warmly. “You be careful the people you meet and keep the jacket. You need it worse than I do. If you ever turn in Dallas give me a call. I’m in the book. The wife and I would like to have you over for di

FIFTEEN

The long, polished hardwood hallway of Greenway School still smelled exactly the way Joa

Nina Evans, the five-foot-nothing fireplug of a woman who was the school principal, met Joa

School principals had never been high on Joa

“What seems to be the problem?” Joa

“Oh, you know how children are,” Nina sins said quickly. “I’m sure the boys didn’t mean any harm.”

“Which boys?”

“Jeffrey Block and Gordon Smith. According to what I’ve been able to learn, they evidently started it. Regardless of provocation, though, I simply can’t allow students to resort violence. That’s no way to teach problem-solving. It’s a short step from that kind of youthful behavior to starting wars.”

Joa

“No doubt Je

With her arms folded smugly across her chest, Nina Evans stood looking up at Joa

Battling to control her temper, Joa

Nina Evans replied with a noncommittal shrug. “At morning recess the boys were evidently teasing Je

“Both of them at once?”

The principal nodded. ‘That’s what I’ve been told. Jeffrey’s parents took him over to the dispensary to have his thumb looked after, Gordon Smith’s mother picked him up about half an hour ago. Je

“I want to see her,” Joa

“In my office. You can go on in if you want.”

In the fifteen years since Joa

On the wall above the bench hung the familiar, but now much more faded, print of George Washington. The print, too, was exactly the same. Joa

Je

Joa

For a time the child sat with her head low-and didn’t answer. Joa

“Tell me,” Joa

Je

“Yes.”

“They said Daddy was a crook,” Je

Joa

“What happened to Daddy didn’t just hap-pen to us, you know,” Joa

“You mean everybody’s talking about it? About us?”

“Pretty much.”

“And they all think Daddy was a crook?”

It was hard enough for Joa

“Not everyone believes that, Je

“But it does,” Je

For a moment they sat side by side without speaking. “But it isn’t true, is it?” Je