bulk, the lines of his face less deep. He had a tan, and his hair, black and straight, was getting longer.

When the car had stopped sizzling, Catell walked around to the front and lifted the hood.

“Troubles, Buddy?”

Catell jumped around and saw the police car. A lean man in uniform and cowboy hat looked at him.

“Jumpy, ain’t ya?”

“I didn’t hear you come up.”

“Stranger here, ain’t ya?” The man climbed out of his car and stretched his long legs. There was a sheriff’s badge on his blue shirt. “I said, you must be a stranger here, huh?”

Catell didn’t like the man. Not just because he was a cop, but because there was that grinning curiosity on his face, that eager prying of a lean dog scurrying around to find something, anything. The man stuck his neck out, red and wrinkled like a turkey’s, and spat.

“Speak up, stranger.”

“Yeah. I’m a stranger here.”

“Where from?”

“Look at the license.”

The sheriff looked without wanting to. It said Louisiana.

“I’m asking you.”

“New Orleans.”

“City fella, huh?” He stalked around the car and kicked at the loose fender in the rear. “You drive this junker all the way up from the Gulf?”

“Sure. And don’t kick it again.”

The man just laughed. “You know, city feller, we got an ordinance about junkers. We like people comin’ through here to drive a safe car. Don’t want folks around here to get endangered.”

“So stop kicking at it, hear?” Catell’s voice shook with rage and he suddenly felt cold under his wet shirt. That bastard was getting to him.

“How about pullin’ that heap off the pavement some more, city feller? We got an ordinance about highway parking.”

Catell got behind the wheel and kicked at the starter. The gears crashed and the car jumped ahead a few feet, off the paved strip of highway. That bastard, that lousy hick bastard. Catell took a deep breath. What he could do to that raw-necked, rat-faced—Better not think like this. Better think of the big things at stake here, better look like you’re taking it. Got to take it.

“One more thing, city feller. Don’t park where you’re parkin’ there. We got an ordinance.” He laughed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He jumped back in his car and pulled it up even with Catell’s.

“I’ll be by after a spell. Better not be here no more.” He shot away, the wheels spitting gravel at Catell’s windshield.

After a few minutes Catell got out of the car again and slammed the hood shut. It made a nasty sound and something came loose, leaving the hood jammed at an angle. The damn car was corning apart at the seams. First he’d had a pretty good one, but it had Michigan license plates and the car had to be ditched. He hid it in a ravine somewhere in Indiana and buried the license plates. Then he hitchhiked for a hundred miles. Next he bought a prewar job in southern Indiana and drove it as far as Kentucky. That’s where he drove it into an abandoned mine after throwing away the plates. At night he walked to the nearest town, took a train for two hundred miles, and then bought the third car. He drove it to Terryville, Louisiana, left it in a vacant lot, and bought his last car. This was a real junker, but there wasn’t much choice. Selma’s two thousand was almost gone.

Catell started the car and headed it back on the hot pavement. There better be a town close by. The radiator was almost empty and there probably wasn’t much oil left. The old car gathered speed, whining down the white road and shooting thick black clouds out the tailpipe.

A sign flipped by, saying: “You are entering—” and it was gone. After a bend in the road a tree appeared, two trees; then Catell saw the houses. They were gray clapboard and looked old. Some were adobe. The only new-looking place was the filling station, rigged up like a fort, and Catell breathed easier.

When he pulled up to the pumps he heard the gravel crunch on the right. A car stopped sharply and the voice said, “City feller, don’t they got not ordinance about speeding where you come from?”

The sheriff got out of his car and grinned, crackly lips drawn back over his gums.

“Get out,” he said.

“What in hell do you want now?”

“Don’t get porky, stranger. I’m the law around here and you just broke one of our ordinances.”

“What goddamn ordinance?”

“The one about speedin’. You gonna pay up or you gonna spend some time