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feeling that she hadn’t grown up fast enough to do things
     with her father that she would never do now.
    “Can I see it?”
    She could tell he was reluctant, but he knew he had to acquiesce because Jane was
     his friend, and he could hardly bring out a gun and then refuse her. As he held the
     revolver out, he turned the barrel downward toward the concrete floor and left the
     cylinder open. “See?” he said. “You always look to be sure the cylinder is empty.”
     His right to state the rules was all he insisted on keeping for himself.
    Jane took the pistol. Engraved on the barrel was EUREKA SPORTSMAN MODEL 196. She swung the cylinder in and aimed the gun at the Tampax dispenser mounted
     on the wall across the room. Then she slowly turned the cylinder and appreciated the
     clicks as it reseated each of its chambers between the hammer and barrel. “It’s cool,”
     she said. “If my mother knew you had this, she wouldn’t have let me out of the house.”
     She gave the gun back to him, her carefulness displayed as respect for its powerful
     magic.
    “I wasn’t planning to take my gun out, so nobody would ever know unless I needed it.”
    “For what? Are you suddenly afraid of bears?”
    “This wouldn’t kill a bear,” he said. “But it might sting him enough to make him leave
     us alone.”
    Jane smiled. “Or maybe you could just bravely hold him off while I run two or three
     miles to the next town.”
    Jimmy laughed. He finished wiping the gun down, used a separate rag from a plastic
     sandwich bag that smelled like oil, and then reloaded it and put it into its own pocket
     inside his pack. Jane couldn’t help memorizing its exact position, because knowing
     was power too.
    They sat in the dim light, listening to the rain.
    Jane couldn’t remember when she first became aware that there was trouble. Afterward
     she thought that she had heard trouble in the sound of the car coasting off the highway
     into the rest area. The engine was too loud, a burbling sound that meant it had a
     rusted-through muffler. There were deep puddles in the rest stop lot, and when the
     car went through them she could hear the spray whishing up against the thin sheet
     metal, and an occasional squeak of springs. The headlights were bright, stabbing through
     the small, high window and lighting the women’s restroom.
    They saw the light go out, then heard the car door creak as it opened and then slammed,
     and then a man’s footsteps splashing a few steps to the shelter. They heard him enter
     the men’s room, and then there was silence for a time as he was, she imagined, relieving
     himself.
    Jane and Jimmy didn’t need to tell each other to remain still and silent. There had
     been only one set of footsteps heading into the men’s room. That was good. In a minute
     or two maybe they would hear him leave. They listened, but it didn’t happen. Instead,
     the door of the women’s restroom swung open, and the spring pulled it shut.
    “Well, well.” A man’s voice, not young. It sounded slightly raspy and cracked, and
     they could smell cigarettes. There was a slightly Southern elongation of the two words
     that told Jane he was from the Pennsylvania side of the road, a few miles south. “Where
     did you two come from?”
    Jimmy said, “If you need to use the bathroom, we can go next door and give you privacy.”
    “Me?” The man laughed. “No. I just did that, and I’m not shy.” He took out a cigarette
     and flicked his lighter. The flame cast an eerie wavering light like a weak candle,
     but the glow made his eyes gleam. He was about forty, but he had long hair that was
     longer in the back, and a tattoo on his left hand. “Oh, my Lord,” he said. “A girl
     too. And you’re both all wet.” His lighter snapped shut, throwing the room back into
     darkness. “You two run away from home?”
    “No,” said Jane. “We were just walking and the rain got worse. We don’t live too far
     from here.”
    The man