Before dawn the three of them were awakened by a thumping and grinding and breaking sound, and by the alarm of the chickens. When she went downstairs, after Hub and Dave had run out the back door, she found a couple of inches of dirty water covering the kitchen floor, and seeping into the living room, soaking and darkening the rug. She put on her rain cape and hood and went out into the yellow glare of the dooryard light, thinking that she would tell Hub and Dave to move the good furniture upstairs. There was a huge lake moving relentlessly across their property. It had knocked over the big hen house and rolled it over against the wire fence. She could see some drowned chickens wedged against the wire. More were roosting in the old peach trees. A sawhorse and a barn door from somewhere upstream came floating to jam against the wire, and as she watched, the back of her hand against her lips, the wire broke and the chicken house rolled through, smashing into the pump house and breaking it free of its foundation. She saw a chicken floating and it seemed to be moving, so she ran and grabbed it from a place where the water was up to her knees and she could feel the tug of it. The hen flopped loose in her hands, soaking wet, and something seemed to break inside Annalee. She screamed and, holding the chicken by the dead feet, she swung it against a fence post as hard as she could. Hub came running to her and she eluded him and kept yelling and slamming the chicken into wet feathered pulp, yelling, "I hate these goddamn chickens and this goddamn farm and every goddamn thing on it!"

Hub grabbed her and she dropped the chicken and turned into his arms, sobbing.

"Honey," he said.

"Honey, what's wrong with you! It's not that bad. We've had high water before. What's gone wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know. I just don't know." She pushed herself away from him.

"Come on. It's seeped up into the house. We got to take the television upstairs, and lots of other stuff. You and Dave take the big stuff and I'll gather up the little stuff."

"It won't come any higher."

"That's what you said last night. And look at how much damage we got! Just look at it!" And as she began to cry again, Hub led her, sloshing through high water, toward the back stoop, his arm around her waist.

When the silence awakened Jenny Albritton, and she realized the rain had finally stopped, she did not move for fear of awakening Jenny MacBeth. They were together like spoons, both on their left sides, and she was curled against Jenny MacBeth's back, her face near the nape of Jenny's neck, with Jenny's hair tickling her forehead. Jenny and Jenny, she thought, sometimes so entangled one forgot what belonged to who. And the name murmured with love could be hers or your own.

She thought about the quarrel. It had been the worst one they had ever had. It had come about because Jenny MacBeth had finally told her about the strange conversation with Efflander. She had been furious about not being told sooner.

Jenny MacBeth said she didn't think it important enough.

Jenny Albritton said that obviously Efflander knew of their relationship. Jenny MacBeth said that was a lot of nonsense, that nobody knew or needed to know. And Jenny Albritton said that was the trouble with their relationship, they had to keep it hidden from the world forever if they stayed here, and they should have the courage to quit their jobs and move to some place where they'd have more freedom. And Jenny MacBeth said she should make up her mind. She couldn't have it both ways. And they had good jobs and were well paid.

They had said ugly things to each other, things that brought tears, and then they had fallen into each other's arms, had slowly and tenderly undressed, and had made sweet, quiet, forgiving love for hours and hours.

Jenny MacBeth, who had begun this way of life long before she met Jenny Albritton, had told her that even though Jenny MacBeth, as the aggressor, would probably never change, she, Jenny Albritton, inasmuch as this was her first affair of this kind, could very probably, if she wished, resume her heterosexuality should she meet the right man. And it was this assurance by her older friend and lover that had made Jenny Albritton willing to continue the lesbian affair after the first seduction, with its accompanying remorse and guilt, and her aversion to the more intimate aspects of it, even though at times it made her feel as if her heart would leap out of her chest.

But now, with sweet Jenny MacBeth breathing deeply and steadily beside her, Jenny Albritton thought back to the events of the day, back to her irritation at that dreary little dirty mouthed journalist who tried to look like some sort of urchin or combat veteran, and had acted as if Jenny Albritton was some sort of jolly cretin, amusing to a certain extent but definitely unimportant.

Such a ridiculous public image to create deliberately, she thought. Those little braless breasts waffling around under that ragamuffin blouse. Fatty hips and thighs in the brown army pants. That untended tangle of dark brown hair with that little-boy face looking out through those huge tinted glasses. A dreadful little person, she thought, needing some kind of discipline. She thought of the throat of Carolyn Pennymark, and she thought of those pale and puffy little lips, and quite unexpectedly she thought of what it would be like to kiss those insolent lips and rub the hidden nipples into erection, and she had such a sudden flash of what the love books call giddiness that it seemed to hollow her out with need and wanting.

Well now, she said to herself. Who would have thought it?

Who would have guessed? So what would have happened to me if Jenny MacB. had told me after that first time that after a few months of it I would never be able to change back again? I would never have let it keep on, would I? No. Because, more idiot me, I wanted to hang on to all my hangups. She knew that. Smart old sly Jenny MacB. She's got me now, right where I want her. And this is how I am and how I will forever be and I can, thank God, stop being nervous about getting too old to have kids.

She smiled and kissed the nape of Jenny MacBeth's neck, too gently to awaken her.

The radio said on Thursday morning that the Central School was closed, as some of the rural roads were still under water, and two bridges had been closed for inspection by the state engineers. School had opened early, on the fifteenth, because of time lost in the spring during the teacher strike. Damage in the southwestern part of the state, two hundred miles from Lakemore, was so widespread and heavy the Governor along with the Governors of three other states had asked to have their states declared disaster areas. In the southwestern part of the state, thousands were homeless. Bruce Swain's mother brought her coffee over to the kitchen table and sat across from him as he picked listlessly at his eggs.

When she asked him what his plans were for the day, he looked at her in surprise and said, "Go hunt for Baron!"

"Honey, he's been gone now for ten days."

"This is eleven."

"Okay. Eleven days, and it strikes me that if he could have made it home, that storm would have driven him home. I was discussing that with your father last night."

"I heard you."

"Were you eavesdropping?"

"I was listening. What you said was a lot of crap."

"Brucie!"

"He's out there, Mom, and I'm going to keep on looking for him until I find him." He tried to stare her down, but his eyes filled. She got up and took her empty cup to the sink. She came back and bent and kissed the side of his forehead.

"Okay. Keep looking, then, if that makes you feel better. Got to go to work, pal. Don't forget to lock up. And... good luck."

They had bought Baron for him for his third birthday, a small red hairy puppy that charged into his legs, knocked him down and licked his face. From small wriggling pup to big red setter they had grown up together. His father said the house was no place for a dog. But Baron had always slept at the foot of Bruce's bed. Always. It was the established order of things.

2-17.

What if a nightmare woke you up and he wasn't there? And who was always waiting for the school bus, and knew exactly when it would arrive?

He dumped out what was left of the eggs and rinsed his plate off and put it in the dishwasher with his milk glass. He checked the doors to be sure they were locked and went into the carport. The front wheel of his bike looked mushy and he checked and found it was down to forty-five pounds. He pumped it back up to sixty-five. It was going to be one hot day.

The sky was glassy gray without a distinct cloud, and the sun seemed to fill half of it. He had divided his known world into sectors, each big enough to take a full day to search.

Today he would cover one of the furthest-away areas, over the other side of Lakemore, out toward the county line, chain-locking the bike to trees when he went out across the fields, looking on every side, counting his steps, stopping and yelling, "BARR RUN, BARR RUN, BARR RUN," three times after each fifty steps, then listening to see if he heard an answering yelp. The dog could be caught up on something and wasting away, dying of thirst, broken leg, some terrible thing.

By noon according to his Hagar wristwatch, Bruce Swain was walking along a muddy dirt road that ran parallel to the state road. His bicycle was chained to a curve-warning sign not far beyond the County Line Motel. He thought he probably ought to go back home and make sandwiches, but it seemed like a very long way there and back again, maybe more than twelve miles in the heat. Anyway, he hadn't been very hungry lately. When you had turned ten you weren't like some little kid that starts whining when he doesn't eat on time.

He came to a place where a house had burned down a long time before. The stone foundation was falling into where the cellar had been, and there were trees growing in the cellar as big around as his leg. The old barn was still standing, most of it. Part of the roof had fallen in. First he searched the cellar area, calling the dog every few minutes. Then he thought he should try the barn, because a sick or injured dog might seek shelter in there. It was a shadowy place, a home for bats and rats and things that slithered and skittered. No luck. He went out behind the barn and in a few moments he became aware of a very faint but sickening smell.

He began moving this way and that, tracking it down. There was a fitful breeze. At times he could not smell it at all. But then it got stronger and stronger as it led him to a small open structure with a warped shingled roof. It seemed to have a floor too small for it, and then he realized that it was the old well for the farm, and somebody had put old boards across the low stone combing, and the storm had blown a couple of them off.

There was room for a dog to fall in. He leaned over and snuffed the smell that came up from the black depth, and it drove him back with an almost physical impact. He coughed and gagged, and went away to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree, thirty feet upwind from the well. He knew it was the smell of something long dead. Eleven days was enough time. Baron had never roamed this far from home.

"It isn't Baron," he said aloud, and his voice sounded small and unsure in the silence of the dead farm. The dog could have chased something which darted into the well. A barn rat. The dog would fall to the bottom and die and the damn rat would run away, squealing its rat-laugh.

"Damn bastard rat," he said, feeling the tickle of a tear on his face, a shameful weakness.

He knew he was going to have to see down there. So, holding his breath, he took away one board at a time. But when he tried to see the bottom, there wasn't enough light. The well roof overhead kept it too shaded. He found a stone the size of a peach and tossed it in. As he listened for the sound, he forgot to keep breathing through his mouth. He breathed once through his nose and nearly threw up. The noise puzzled him. It wasn't the ka-plunk sound of falling into water, and it wasn't a stone-on-stone sound, and it wasn't a damp kind of thud. It was a metallic sound. In two parts. Bang-clatter.

So there had to be some way to get some light down there.

He looked around, thought for a while and then went trotting through the heat, across the fields, to the motel.

A tall man was sitting on his heels in the shade of the roof over the motel walkway, using a small noisy compressor to operate a spray gun. He had newspapers spread out, and he was spraying some old wicker furniture a new bright brave blue. When he noticed Bruce he reached and turned off the compressor and smiled and said, "Rent you a nice room, buddy?"

"No, thanks. I'm Bruce Swain. We live over next to the Center. What I'm doing, I'm looking for Baron, my red setter.

He's been gone eleven days."

The man stood up, wincing as he straightened his long legs.

He shook hands and said, "I'm Fred Moon. Eleven days makes it pretty serious, huh? You walk here?"