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gray clouds that produced a steady summer downpour
     as though the sky were draining onto the earth. T he pair walked all day in soaked clothing. They were cold at the start, and kept telling
     each other the rain would end in the afternoon. In the afternoon the rain was heavier.
     They both agreed that rainstorms in Western New York blew through from somewhere on
     the Canadian plains across the lakes and eastward, and since they were walking south,
     the rain clouds shouldn’t stay with them this long. They should just pass over them
     to the east and be gone. But the rain went on all day, and as night fell, the rain
     picked up strength.
    They trudged along the edge of an alfalfa field where a farmer’s ancestors had left
     a windbreak of chestnuts and maples that had long ago grown too tall to stop the wind.
     A more recent owner had planted a set of six-foot-tall evergreens as a hedge, so if
     they stayed beside it they didn’t feel the full force of the northwest wind. They
     were approaching the second major highway, the Southern Tier Expressway, just as the
     dim glow from the invisible sun gave out.
    To them the expressway looked almost exactly like the much-older New York State Thruway.
     It was illegal to climb over the fence to the margin of the big road, and dangerous
     to cross the lanes to the other side. Now that it was dark, the traffic seemed to
     be mostly giant tractor trailers carrying cargo across the southern edge of the state.
     Commuters had already made it to safe, dry homes, and vacationers were somewhere waiting
     for the weather to improve. Jane and Jimmy watched a few high, long trucks coming
     along the highway like trains, their headlights appearing in the near lanes somewhere
     a mile or so to the left, where the road curved gradually, and their taillights blinking
     out a few miles to the right at the crest of a low ridge. The map in Jane’s pack told
     them they were near the exit for the Seneca Nation Allegany Reservation.
    Jane said, “See across on the other side?”
    “It’s a rest stop,” said Jimmy. “The building might be closed at night. I don’t see
     a lot of cars.”
    “It won’t hurt to check,” Jane said.
    As Jane remembered their conversation now, she’d had no sense of concern, no reluctance
     or foreboding. The rest stop was just an unoccupied place that might be dry inside.
    They got a sense of the speed of the trucks, the average distance between them, and
     a measure of how far in front the beams of their headlights extended. They clambered
     over the chain link fence, moved closer, and waited for the right moment.
    It came. They scooped up their packs, ran hard, and came across to the wooded center
     strip before the next truck’s headlights could reach them. They squatted in a thicket
     for a few minutes before they chose a time to run again, and this run was successful,
     too. They made it all the way to the opposite fence before the glare of the next set
     of headlights appeared.
    They used the next period of darkness to climb the fence and trot into the long parking
     lot of the rest stop. Jane remembered that she felt hopeful for the first time in
     hours. Her sneakers were so wet they squished as she walked on the pavement. She said,
     “I only see two cars, and they’re way down there by the entrance. That building is
     probably bathrooms, and this one too.” She pointed to a low building like a cinderblock
     box with a roof.
    As they approached she saw a small sign that said MEN and let Jimmy peer inside while she walked around the building to the door that said WOMEN . She held her breath as she reached out to the doorknob. It turned and she breathed
     again.
    She slipped into the restroom and felt the rain stop pounding on her head and shoulders.
     Suddenly the water was reduced to a thrumming sound on the roof, and a noise as it
     trickled down off the eaves. The room was a single ­ concrete-and-cinderblock box with three toilets in small