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bags into the cabin, while Gloria took off her coat in the second section. A blast of snow-filled wind hit Sam’s back as he closed the door. The sudden warmth felt good and comforting. He took off his coat and hat and tossed them over the bed in the first section. He looked in the second section as Gloria was pulling the blue striped sweater over her head, then slipping off the matador pants.
    She stood, touching her hair, looking at herself in a mirror, wearing only the expensive and brief lingerie Sam had bought her. She was built, Sam thought; she was a lot of things, but one thing she certainly was was built.
    “This is nice, isn’t it?” he said, smiling.
    “Yeah,” she said shortly, and disappeared into the bath. He listened to the shower running, then got out the leather flask of Scotch from his bag. He walked into the second section and arranged two glasses on the bureau. When she came out, he said, “We can have a nightcap together.”
    She had on a short pink nightgown. “All right,” she said, the edge less in her voice.
    “Do you want ice?” he asked. “I can walk up to the office and get some.”
    “No,” she said. “It’s all right.”
    He suddenly felt better; when she looked at him like that and talked to him like that, something got a little tight in his throat. He came out of the bath in pajamas, poured two drinks and carried them over to the bed where she was sitting, legs pulled up under her.
    “Cheers, baby,” he said softly.
    “Blood in your eye.” She suddenly gave him that smile of hers. He could not help laughing.
    “Baby, baby,” he said, putting an arm around her, burying his face against her neck. He put his drink down. He moved his face up and kissed her. He looked into her eyes. All of a sudden he wanted to explain to her about that Carwell kid, so that she would understand perfectly, so that it wouldn’t be in their way.
    “Glory, listen,” he said, whispering, “about that Carwell kid—”
    She suddenly stiffened.
    “See, Glory—”
    “Why couldn’t you have done something, Sam?”
    “Honey, listen—”
    She moved away from him now, enough to make him free her entirely. “I’m tired, Sam.”
    “Glory.”
    “You just didn’t do anything.”
    In a moment, he knew, it was going to be just like it had been in the car. Why did she have this juvenile notion so deep-rooted? He felt himself angering. “Damn it, Glory—”
    She looked at him, anger flaring in her eyes. “I’d like to get some sleep.”
    He stood up, putting her glass down hard on the bureau, carrying his own into the next section. He closed the door behind him. He sat down and finished his drink. He shook his head, sighing, as the anger evaporated.
    He wasn’t thinking about Billy Quirter at that moment, because he’d paid no real attention to that news broadcast. He wasn’t thinking about Ann Burley or Dr. Hugh Stewart or Ted Burley or Bob Saywell, because he didn’t know them.
    He was only thinking about Gloria, realizing with a kind of surprise that, despite everything, he really, honestly, was in love with that kid.

 
chapter five
     
    Reverend John Andrews was driving in the direction of Arrow Junction from the opposite end of the S formed by Route 7. He was not thinking of Billy Quirter any more than Sam Dickens was, because, not having a radio in his ageing Ford, he had not yet heard of Billy Quirter at all. But he was thinking, in a vaguely general way, about Ann Burley, Dr. Hugh Stewart, Ted Burley and Bob Saywell, because all of them were actively or inactively a part of his congregation.
    Specifically Reverend Andrews was thinking desperately about what he was going to say to his flock that next Sunday morning. The trouble was that although Reverend Andrews felt his faith so strongly that the intensity of it often gave him actual physical pain, he could seldom communicate that faith to his flock.
    In the three years that Reverend Andrews had been the minister for the Lutheran