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Show as 135. XXI Spring that year gave way to summer with a great sigh, much the last days of October had succumbed to the long and ravaging Wyoming winter. JD marvelled at how the ruthless seasons shoved the gentler ones aside. Here, away from home, where he could no longer smell the spring coming in the succulent sage or gauge its departure by the length of the wheat , he found himself straining to read the seasons. But tonight, JD's first on the early shift, he was remembering clearly what a warm June night was like in Red Butte. Even the smell of exhaust and the roar of engines didn't interfere. "Anything else, sir? Can I check your oil?" JD asked his customer. "Nope. I'm in a hurry." Everyone is, JD thought. Everybody in Denver's in a hurry to get some place. Then they hurry to get back again. JD slid the credit card into the machine and hustled out for the man's signature, hurrying like everyone else. "Thank you. Come again," he called as the brown compact pulled ahead. JD walked wearily back to the station office and zippered out of his uniform. A glance at the clock told him the diner would be closed in an hour, though his stomach, making noises, had already reminded him. "Noon tomorrow," his boss called as JD got his billfold out of the drawer. "Don't forget." "How could I forget?" JD said under his breath, walking up 16th Street toward the shopping center where he ate at night. That was his trouble. He couldn't forget anything. He'd tried. The way Chic's mouth twisted under the bandages . . . how could you forget a thing like that? Each night, trying to put his head in order so sleep would come, he'd see them-his mom and dad, Stephanie, Chic. Their faces were always sad and Chic was always blind. But what could he have done except run away and keep on running? The city was sure the right place for it. Here everyone was running. He fit in perfectly. Sometimes, though, the shadowy figures of those he loved overtook and confronted him, brought him up short. He'd taken a walk one Saturday, trying to pass time by looking in the shop windows, when he came up on a group of guys his age, standing there talking and laughing. Suddenly |