kitchen to inform Aggie that he had frightened away her student.
  For an awkward moment, he thought that they might remain at this impasse-Maria staring 
at her feet, Joe gazing down at the top of her humbled head-until some angel blew the 
horn of judgment and the dead rose from their graves to glory.
  Then an invisible dog, in the form of a sudden breeze, scampered across the porch, 
lashing Maria with its tall. It sniffed curiously at the threshold and, panting, entered 
the house, bringing the small brown woman after it, as though she held it oil a leash.
  Closing the door, Joe said, "Aggie's in the kitchen."
  Maria inspected the foyer carpet as intently as she had examined the floor of the 
porch. "You please to tell her I am Maria?"
  "Just go oil back to the kitchen. She is waiting for you."
  "The kitchen? On myself?"
  "Excuse me?"
  "To the kitchen on myself?"
  "By yourself," he corrected, smiling as he got her meaning. "Yes, Of Course. You know 
where it is."
  Maria nodded, crossed the foyer to the living-room archway turned, and dared to meet 
his eyes briefly. "Thank You."
  As he watched her move through the living room and disappear into the dining room, Joe 
didn't at first grasp why she had thanked him.
  Then he realized she was grateful that he trusted her not to steal while unaccompanied.
  Evidently, she was accustomed to being an object Of Suspicion, not because she was 
unreliable, but simply because she was Maria Elena Gonzalez, who had traveled north from 
Hermosillo, Mexico, in search of a better life.
  Although saddened by this reminder of the stupidity and meaness of the world, Joe 
refused] to dwell oil negative thoughts. Their firstborn was soon to arrive, and years 
from now, he wanted to be able to recall this day as a shining time, characterized 
entirely by sweet-if nervous anticipation and fly the joy of the birth.
  In the living room, he sat in his favorite armchair and tried to read You Only Live 
Twice, the latest novel about James Bond. He couldn't relate to the story. Bond had 
survived ten thousand threats and vanquished villains by the hundred, but he didn't know 
anything about the complications that could transform ordinary labor into a mortal trial 
for mother and baby.
  
  Chapter 5
  DOWN, DOWN, THROUGH the shadows and the shredded spider webs down through the 
astringent creosote stink and the underlying foulness of black mold, Junior descended the 
tower stairs with utmost caution. If he tripped on a loose tread and fell and broke a 
leg, he might lie here for days, dying of thirst or infection or of exposure if the 
weather turned cooler, tormented by whatever predators found him helpless in the night.
  Hiking into the wilds alone was never wise. He always relied on the buddy system, 
sharing the risk, his buddy had been Naomi, and she wasn't here for him anymore.
  When he was all the way down, when he was out from under the tower, he hurried toward 
the dirt lane. 'The car was hours away by the challenging overland route they had taken 
to get here, but maybe half In hour-at most forty-five minutes-away if he returned by the 
fire road.
  After only a few steps, Junior halted. He dared not bring the authorities back to this 
ridge top only to discover that poor Naomi, though critically injured, was still clinging 
to life.
  One hundred fifty feet, approximately fifteen stories, was not a fall that anyone could 
be expected to Survive. On the other hand, miracles do occasionally happen.
  Not miracles in the sense of gods and angels and saints goofing around in human 
affairs. Junior didn't believe in any such nonsense.
  "But amazing singularities do happen," he muttered, because he had a relentlessly 
mathmatical-scientific view of existence, which allowed for in many astounding anomalies, 
for mysteries of astonishing the mechanical effect, but which provided no room for the 
supernatural.
  
  With more trepidation than seemed reasonable, he circled the base of the tower. The 
grass and weeds tickled his bare calves. At this season, no insects were buzzing, no 
gnats trying to sip at the sweat oil his brow. Slowly, warily, he approached the crumpled 
form of his fallen wife.
  III fourteen months of marriage, Naomi never raised her voice to him, was never cross 
with him. She never looked for a fault in a person if site could find a virtue, and she 
was the type who could find a virtue in everyone but child molesters and ...well, and 
Murderers.
  He dreaded finding her still alive, because for the first time in their relationship, 
she would surely be filled with reproach. She would no doubt have harsh, perhaps bitter, 
words for him, and even if he could quickly silence her, his lovely memories of their 
marriage would be tarnished forever. Henceforth, every time he thought of his golden 
Naomi, he would hear her shrill accusations, see her beautiful face contorted and made 
ugly by anger.
  How sad it would be to have so many cherished recollections spoiled forever.
  He rounded the northwest corner of the tower and saw Naomi lying where he expected her 
to be, not sitting tip and brushing the pine needles out of her hair, just lying twisted 
and still.
  Nevertheless, he halted, reluctant to go closer. He studied her from a safe distance, 
squinting in the bright sunlight, alert for the slightest twitch. In the windless, 
bugless, lifeless silence, he listened, half expecting her to take Lip one of her 
favorite songs-" Some where over the Rainbow" or "What a Wonderful World"-but in a thin, 
crushed, tuneless voice choked with blood and rattling with broken cartilage.
  He was working himself into a state, and for no good reason. She was almost certainly 
dead, but he had to be sure, and to be sure, he had to take a closer look. No way around 
it. A quick look and then away, away, into all eventful and interesting future.
  As soon as he stepped closer, he knew why he had been reluctant to approach Naomi. He 
had been afraid that her beautiful face would be hideously disfigured, torn and crushed.
  Junior was squeamish.
  He didn't like war movies or mystery flicks in which people were shot or stabbed, or 
even discreetly poisoned, because they always had to show you the body, as if you 
couldn't take their word for it that someone had been killed and just get on with the 
plot. He preferred love stories and comedies.
  He'd once picked up a Mickey Spillane thriller and been sickened by the relentless 
violence. He'd almost been unable to finish the book, but he considered it a character 
flaw not to complete a project that one had begun, even if the task was to read a 
repulsively bloody novel.
  In war movies and thrillers, he immensely enjoyed the action. The action didn't trouble 
him. He was disturbed by the aftermath.
  Too many moviemakers and novelists were intent on showing you the aftermath, as if that 
were as important as the story itself. The entertaining part, however, was the movement, 
the action, not the consequences. If you had a runaway train scene, and the train hit a