Karen felt almost dizzied by this crazy story which seemed to have no connection with the facts as she knew them. Eddie had made a frightening mistake in going back. Probably he was in the hands of the police right now. As the paper dropped from her fingers, the black-boxed description of herself seemed to boom almost audibly from the page: seventeen years old, five feet three to four, slender build, dark brown hair, blue eyes, attractive appearance. It never occurred to Karen that the items listed in the box could apply to thousands of other young girls. She felt picked out, spotlighted. She felt as if a million eyes, a million pointing fingers, searched out her shrinking body. She was convinced that the next customer to walk into Mrs. Mosby’s café would recognize her instantly.

The place was empty temporarily. It was chance, perhaps her only one. She ran to the cash register, punched a key, removed a handful of bills, half dollars, quarters. She rushed around the counter and out the front door. Beyond the parking lot the highway hummed with traffic.

She walked, turning whenever she heard a car coming, trying not to look guilty and scared, trying to look like an ordinary girl out for a walk, needing a ride. She was in the outskirts of Oxnard now, among orange-packing plants, lots selling farming equipment, truck lots.

The big tanker began slowing some distance behind her. By the time Karen looked around, she could see that it was going to stop. The big tires spun gravel off into the roadside ditch, the brakes whooshed with a sound like a giant sigh. Then from the cab the driver was leaning across to look down at her. He had a heavy face, black eyebrows, signs of a beard beneath his skin. “Hey, kiddo. You going someplace? Want a ride?”

She nodded swiftly. “Yes, I want a ride. Please.”

“Where you headed?” He smiled now, the lips drew back from his teeth, his heavy chin widened.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t care, huh?” He put an elbow on the rim of the cab window. “I’m headed for Salinas; from Salinas I’m taking a load north. Eureka. Know where that is?” He smiled, waited; but Karen was struck dumb, and he added, watching her curiously, “Three hundred miles north of San Francisco.”

She said from a dry mouth, “That’s fine.”

She took a step toward the cab door and he put his hand down inside as if about to touch the door latch there. Then he sized her up a little more closely. Perhaps something young and inexperienced about her warned him off. His look clouded and he said, “Well, now, wait a minute.” After a pause he added, “That’s a hell of a long trip. Sure you want to go so far?”