The fragments came together. Jake and Kitty, Kitty and Jake. Of course. Kitty loved horses and they often rode together when he was out working a horse, if that was what he was really doing, all those mornings when he was gone for hours and left Emaline to look after the farm.

She backed cautiously down the ladder until her feet were on solid ground, then whirled and ran. She could not go back to the party, that was the last place she wanted to be. She ran the quarter mile to the county road, one hand on her belly, supporting the weight with her good left arm, used her right for balance. The moon was full, a fat yellow moon. A moon pregnant as she was. It was in the light of that moon she had seen them, light spilling through the upper hatch in the barn where they pitched the hay.

The first vehicle she saw on the road was a farm truck, running without headlights, grinding along with a heavy load. She stepped into the center of the road, directly in front of the truck. She waved her arms frantically to flag him down. When she realized that he hadn’t seen her, it was too late. She tried to spin out of his way, but the right front fender caught her in the belly with a sickening whump! She cartwheeled through the air, flew head over heels into the barrow pit, landed face first in fetid water.

The truck fishtailed to a halt, its brakes groaning. The driver in his panic forgot to hit the clutch and killed the ignition. A lean, long-geared farmer with the legs of a stork came scrambling down the bank after her.

“Oh migawd, miss, I’m sorry, but what on earth was you doin in the road like that? Aw hell, I didn’t mean to do a thing like that, miss. Are ya all right? Are ya all right at all, missy?”

He grabbed her forearm, heaved her up out of the muck without pausing to see if anything was broken. She came up onto her knees, gasping for breath, and vomited everything she had eaten all over his brogans. The man was Alf Muzzy, a farmer who used to drop by the Arrowhead Diner when he was flush, which wasn’t often.

“Migawd, Miss Emaline, it’s you. Oh, gawd, I am sorry. I shore am so sorry. What a awful thing to have done to you, Miss Emaline.”

She was still fighting for breath. “It’s all right, Alf. Not your fault. I shouldn’t have jumped in front of your truck. I thought you saw me.”