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along his leg with the muzzle pointed at the road. He looked right and left again, then walked over to Ralph’s window. The driver’s position in the Wayfarer was much higher than a car’s seat would have been, but the cop was so tall—six-seven, at least—that he was still able to look down on Ralph as he sat behind the wheel in his captain’s chair.
    The cop made a cranking gesture with his empty hand. Ralph rolled his window halfway down. “What’s the trouble, Officer?”
    â€œHow many are you?” the cop asked.
    â€œWhat’s wr—”
    â€œSir, how many are you?”
    â€œFour,” Ralph said, beginning to feel really frightened now. “My wife, my two kids, me. We have a couple of flats—”
    â€œNo, sir, all your tires are flat. You ran over a piece of highway carpet.”
    â€œI don’t—”
    â€œIt’s a strip of mesh embedded with hundreds of short nails,” the cop said. “We use it to stop speeders whenever we can—it beats the hell out of hot pursuit.”
    â€œWhat was a thing like that doing in the road?” Ellie asked indignantly.
    The cop said, “I’m going to open the rear door of my car, the one closest to your RV. When you see that, I want you to exit your vehicle and get into the back of mine. And quickly.”
    He craned his neck, saw Kirsten—she was now holding onto her mother’s leg and peering cautiously around it—and gave her a smile. “Hi, girly-o.”
    Kirstie smiled back at him.
    The cop shifted his eyes briefly to David. He nodded, and David nodded back noncommittally. “Who’s out there, sir?” David asked.
    â€œA bad guy,” the cop said. “That’s all you need to know for now, son. A very bad guy. Tak! ”
    â€œOfficer—” Ralph began.
    â€œSir, with all due respect, I feel like a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery. There’s a dangerous man out here, he’s good with a rifle, and that piece of highway carpet suggests he’s nearby. Further discussion of the situation must wait until our position has been improved, do you understand?”
    Tak? Ralph wondered. Was that the bad guy’s name? “Yes, but—”
    â€œYou first, sir. Carry your little girl. The boy next. Your wife last. You’ll have to cram, but you can all fit into the car.”
    Ralph unbelted and stood up. “Where are we going?” he asked.
    â€œDesperation. Mining town. Eight miles or so from here.”
    Ralph nodded, rolled up his window, then picked up Kirsten. She looked at him with troubled eyes that were not far from tears.
    â€œDaddy, is it Mr. Big Boogeyman?” she asked. Mr. Big Boogeyman was a monster she had brought home from school one day. Ralph didn’t know which of the kids had described this shadowy closet-dweller to his gentle seven-year-old daughter, but he thought if he could have found him (he simply assumed it was a boy, it seemed to him that the care and feeding of the monsters in the schoolyards of America always fell to the boys), he would have cheerfully strangled the bugger. It had taken two months to get Kirstie more or less soothed down about Mr. Big Boogeyman. Now this.
    â€œNo, not Mr. Big Boogeyman,” Ralph said. “Probably just a postal worker having a bad day.”
    â€œDaddy, you work for the post office,” she said as he carried her back toward the door in the middle of the Wayfarer’s cabin.
    â€œYup,” he said, aware that Ellie had put David in front of her and was walking with her hands on his shoulders. “It’s sort of a joke, see?”
    â€œLike a knock-knock without the knocking?”
    â€œYup,” he said again. He looked out the window in the RV’s cabin door and saw the cop had opened the back door of the police cruiser. He also saw that when he opened the Wayfarer’s door, it would overlap the car door, making a