“Go on then,” Fannin said. “Get out of here before you stir them up. Go on out.” I fled down the back stairs and got into the car and started driving. The streets of Dunleith were fragrant and cool. It would be another hour before the heat took over and maligned the day. I drove steadily down the highway to Fairfields. I had not been on the road since the day Daddy and I had driven home from Clay Morgan’s funeral. In the light of early morning the road seemed benign and healed. Cotton grew to the very edges of the road. There had been plenty of rain and the plants were tall and full, a dark rich green, with here and there the small bright flowers that precede the bolls. Everything grows and changes, I was thinking. Cotton comes up from nothing, from sun and rain and red earth, and we turn it into gold, into houses and cars and money. There is nothing to fear on this road. It was an old accident. It happened a long time ago. I’ll make up for it now. I’ll save Klane and that will make up for it. Nobody’s putting Klane into a jail. I won’t let them do it to her. I don’t care what she did. She doesn’t deserve to be locked up in a jail.