Strangers

only mildly frightened by the night out there. Perhaps his real fear, his deep fear, was of the darkness of the Nevada plains. Could a phobia be that narrowly focused, that localized?
        Surely not. Yet he looked at his watch.
        Sandy parked in front of the motel office, and when they got out of the truck and went around to the tailgate to get the luggage, she hugged both Faye and Ernie. "I'm glad you're back. I missed you both. Now I'd better get over to the diner and help Ned. Lunch hour's started."
        Ernie and Faye watched Sandy as she hurried away, and Faye said, "What on earth do you suppose happened to her?"
        "Damned if I know," Ernie said.
        Her breath steaming in the cold air, Faye said, "At first, I thought she must've learned she's pregnant. But now I don't think so. If she was pregnant and overjoyed about it, she'd have told us. She'd have been bursting with the news. I think it's something… else."
        Ernie pulled two of the four suitcases out of the back of the truck and stood them on the ground, surreptitiously glancing at his watch as he put the bags down. Sundown was five minutes closer.
        Faye sighed. "Well, whatever the cause, I'm sure happy for her."
        "Me, too," Ernie said, lifting the other two bags out of the truck.
        "Me too,' " Faye said, affectionately mimicking him as she picked up the two lightest suitcases. "Don't play cool with me, you big softy. I know you've worried about her almost like you used to worry about our own Lucy. When you first saw the change in Sandy back at the airport, I was watching you, and I thought your heart was going to melt."
        He followed her with the two heavier bags. "Do they have a medical term for a calamity like that, for a melting heart?"
        "Sure. Cardio-liquefaction."
        He laughed in spite of the tension that knotted his stomach. Faye was always able to make him laugh - usually when he needed it most. When they got inside; he would put his arms around her, kiss her, and convey her straight upstairs and into bed. Nothing else would be as certain to chase away the fear that had popped up in him like a jack-in-the-box. Time spent with Faye was always the best medicine.
        She put her two bags down by the office door and fished her keys out of her purse.
        When it had become clear, early on, that Ernie was likely to have an exceptionally swift recovery and that they would not need to stay in Milwaukee for months, Faye had decided against flying home to search for a motel manager. They simply kept the place closed. Now they needed to unlock, turn up the thermostat, clean away the accumulated dust.
        A lot of work to be done… but still enough time for a little horizontal dancing first, Ernie thought with a grin.
        He was standing behind Faye as she put the key in the office door, so fortunately she did not see him twitch and jump in surprise when the bright day was suddenly claimed by shadows. They were not actually plunged into darkness; a large cloud merely moved across the sun; the level of light dropped by no more than twenty percent. Yet even that was sufficient to startle and unnerve him.
        He looked at his watch.
        He looked toward the east, from whence the night would come.
        I'll be all right, he thought. I'm cured.
        
        On the road: Reno to Elko County.
        Following the paranormal experience in Lomack's house on Tuesday, when countless paper moons took orbit around him, Dominick Corvaisis spent a few days in Reno. On his previous journey from Portland to Mountainview, he had stayed over to research a series of short stories about gambling. Re-creating that trip, he passed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in "The Biggest Little City in the World."
        Dom wandered from casino to casino, watching gamblers. There were young couples, retirees, pretty young women, middle-aged women in stretch pants and cardigans, leather-faced cowboys fresh from the range and soft-faced rich men on junkets from far cities, secretaries, truckers, executives, doctors, ex-cons and off-duty cops, hustlers and dreamers, escapees from every social background, drawn together by the hope and thrill of organized games of chance, surely the most democratizing industry on earth.
        As during his previous visit, Dom gambled only enough to be part of the scene, for his primary purpose was to observe. After the storm of paper