Free A wasteland of strangers by Bill Pronzini Page B

usual jostling, noisy rush. I was arranging my notes for my next class when a tentative voice spoke my name.
    Trisha Marx, alone and looking nervous. A bright girl, Trisha; if she applied herself, her grades would be much better and she'd have a more promising future than most kids in Pomo. But she'd fallen under Anthony Munoz's spell, begun hanging out with him and his brother and their crowd, skirting the edges of real trouble. She needed the same thing Anthony did: a settling purpose in her life. I liked her and I hoped for her. In some ways she reminded me of myself at her age.
    "Yes, Trisha?"
    "You suppose I could ... well..."
    "Yes?"
    "... Like, talk to you about something?"
    "Class work?"
    "No. It's, you know, personal."
    "Important?"
    "Kind of, yeah."
    "Of course we can talk. But I have another class ..."
    "I don't mean now. Later. I've got something to do first."
    "Well, I'm thinking of playing hooky this afternoon. And you know where I live. Why don't you come by my house and we can talk there?"
    "Um, when?"
    "After school. Say around four?"
    "I don't know," she said, "maybe it'd be better if I do what I have to tonight, instead of. .. um, yeah, it would be." She nibbled dark-red lipstick off her lower lip. "Would it be okay . . . tomorrow morning? Could I come by then?"
    "If it's early, by nine. I have a tribal council meeting at the Elem rancheria at eleven."
    "I'll be there before nine. I . . . thanks, Ms. Sixkiller." And she hurried out, clutching her books.
    Now, what was that all about?
    But even as other kids began to drift in for my next class, my mind shifted back to Dick's absence last night. I wanted to believe he wouldn't be foolish enough to take up with Storm Carey again, but I knew men well enough to understand that once bitten, twice shy was an axiom that didn't always apply. If she crooked her finger in the right way, waggled her tail on a night when he was feeling lonesome . . . yes, it was very possible he'd go running to her. If he was seeing her again, how could I hope to compete? I could be just as good in bed, but a man couldn't tell it by looking at me. One sideways glance at Storm Carey and he'd know it instantly.
    I thought wryly of the old Pomo stories about the bear people, men and women who had the power to transform themselves and to go prowling at night in their hides and cloaks of feathers. They were fierce defenders of their territory; when they encountered interlopers, others like them or spooks such as the walepurg tremendous battles were fought using magic powers, great leaps into the air, bellows so loud they caused landslides, eardrum-shattering shrieks and whistles—whatever it took to intimidate and then to vanquish or destroy their rivals.
    Too bad I couldn't be one of the bear people and have their powers for just one night. . .

    Zenna Wilson
    NO MORE THAN a minute after Stephanie and Kitty Waylon left for school I happened to walk out onto the front porch, to trim the hanging fern as I'd been meaning to do for days. If I hadn't gone out there . . . well, I don't dare let myself think about that. Thank the Lord I did go out.
    He was there on the street, the bogey who'd scared me half to death in Treynor's Hardware. Driving by our house in a disreputable old sports car, the window rolled down, inching along with his ugly face turned my way, staring first at the house, and then, as he passed it, staring at the girls skipping along the sidewalk, Steffie bundled in her cute fur-trimmed parka and Kitty wearing that tattered old brown thing her mother lets her out in public in. And the smile on his dirty mouth was nothing short of lewd.
    I nearly had a seizure. By the time I raced down the steps and across the lawn I was gasping for breath and all I could manage was a weak shout that not even the girls heard. I don't know if he saw me or not. He probably did, because he kept on going into the next block, though he didn't bother to speed up so much as a hair. And he was still