Season looked at her daughter – at their daughter – with a gentleness that misted her eyes. I mustn’t start crying, she thought. Not now, when I’m supposed to be strong. Not now, when Sally’s expecting me to reassure her. And yet Sally had put into words the flittering, irrational hope which Season had been holding out for all of these days of fright and uncertainty. Maybe Ed’s coming to save us. He must be coming to save us. He knows what things are like in Los Angeles. No matter what happened between us, he must be thinking of us now. He can’t still be in Kansas, looking after the farm. He’s not that kind of a guy. He’s boring, sometimes; and pretty often he doesn’t recognise what a woman needs out of her life. But he knows when she needs protection, and care. He knows when she really needs help.

And now, God damn it, God damn it all to hell, she started crying. She couldn’t stop the hot tears from springing into her eyes, from blurring her picture of the little girl that she and Ed had conceived between them, pretty and serious and patient And as she wept, she touched Sally’s hair, and told her, ‘Of course Daddy’s coming to save us. He’s coming right now. Of course he’s coming to save us.’

*

They had waited under a dense blue sky for three hours, their convoy drawn to the side of Route 66 by Topock, where the highway crosses Havasu Lake. In the western distance, five small clouds had stayed suspended close to the horizon for the whole three horns, not moving, unstirred by any wind.

The landscape was as hot and limpid as a painting by Dali, with the Sacramento Mountains up ahead, and the Hualapai Mountains behind. Arizona, on a Saturday in August. A country of heat-ripples and mirages and strange illusions.

Eventually, Ed walked back to the Chevy wagon, opened the door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. His passengers said nothing, but all of them looked at him with sweat-glistened faces, and expressions that pleaded: Please – move on.

‘All right,’ he said, with a dry mouth. ‘We’re pulling out.’

‘Thank the Lord,’ intoned Shearson. ‘Half an hour more, and I’d have been melted to butter.’

Ed started up the wagon’s engine, and the first warm blast surged out of the air-conditioning vents. He blew his horn three times, and the convoy coughed and whinnied and slowly pulled away from the roadside. They crossed the Colorado River, and then wound their way slowly northwest through the Sacramento Mountains, with the peaks of the Dead Mountains over on their left. The sky remained the same relentless blue.

‘Last lap,’ said Ed, as he drove. ‘We’re in California now.’

‘Three cheers,’ said Shearson. ‘Do you want to try that radio again now, see if we can’t pick up some news?’