Read Into the Valley for Free Online Page B

for her cheeseburger. The window was shut, the teenager gone.
    She saw the man glance at her ring finger. “That your car?” He flicked his chin at the Mustang. He had seen her park it.
    â€œLooks new,” he said.
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œGive you a good run, I bet.”
    â€œYes.”
    Her cheeseburger came up then. She excused herself to the counter and thanked the boy again, who blushed and mumbled something back. He had forgotten the Coke; she could not bring herself to ask for it. She pretended to start eating and the man went back to his friends, his smell of gasoline and sweat lingering. She ate a part of the bun and a few bites of meat but lost her appetite and folded the wrapper. The man came back.
    â€œYou travelin’ alone?” A look of amusement crossed his broad face. He leaned against the counter and looked directly at her.
    She noticed the narrowness of his hips in his leather belt. She wondered if the narrowness made him feel light, easy to move. She did not want to look him in the eye. “Yes, I am.”
    â€œWell, I can give you directions if you like.”
    â€œI don’t need any directions, thank you.”
    The deep lines at his mouth made him seem as if he was smirking at all times. “Well, I just thought . . . Well, a pretty lady like you might need some assistance.”
    â€œNo thank you.”
    The smirk remained. He tipped his cap. “Well then, safe travels.”
    She gathered her purse and walked past him back to her car, feeling his eyes on her. She fumbled for the keys and started the engine and as she was about to back out she saw the men watching her still. Without thinking, she killed the engine. She exited the car and walked up to the man.
    â€œI know exactly where I’m going, actually. I don’t need any directions.”
    She could hear sniggering. “You said that.” The man tipped his cap again. “Didn’t mean to offend, miss.” She went back to the car and sat behind the wheel and stared at them. She stared, losing track of time, until they began kicking the ground self-consciously. Then she started the engine again and backed out of the parking lot.
    Back at the levee road, she crossed a metal drawbridge to the other side of the river, running beside hundreds of trees with endless ghostly pods (she drove into the orchard itself and decided they were almonds). She came on a town the length of two blocks, with brick façades and an old hotel. Then farther down the levee beyond hunched old walnut trees, a dry feed store, a meat market, an old stone church.
    And a bank.
    She brought her focus back to the river. It was low, barely grazing the middle of the levees, still and brown as earth.
    She followed the walnut trees along the road until she got too close to the capital, then veered away from the river and back out into the fields.

10.
    â€œHow do you act?” she’d asked him. “When you do it?”
    â€œLook,” he said, “the truth is, shopkeepers, tellers—chicks especially, I hate to tell you, baby—they ain’t expecting them to be fake. They’re thinking about the transaction, about getting their cut or doing their job, and fake money looks like real money, and fake checks look like real checks, so why would they think any different? Why would they suspect anything unless you gave them a reason to?” As he spoke an excitement and urgency grew in his voice, as if he were teaching a young boy the fundamentals of a ball game. “You gotta remember: you’re the one who’ll give it away, not the paper. I don’t go in when I’m nervous. Only when I’m feeling cool. Today, normally, I would have junked it. But you were waiting in the car and I had the trip planned and that was that. You’re shaky, you’re sweating, you look funny, you don’t do it. This should be the most obvious thing, but people are stupid.”
    â€œWhat if they