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might say, “Hope they don’t eat people much.” And Sonny’s, “Got’ny more of that syrup?”

    The Junction School sat six miles distant, next to the main road that led to West Table. The bus was like a big bus but cut short, not half the size. It was yellow with black warnings painted front and back and carried maybe a dozen or a few more kids each day. It stopped at rut roads, skinny rock lanes, certain open spaces between trees. A lot of the kids were cousins to some vague degree, but that didn’t keep them from roughhousing, name-calling, and all the rest. A couple times a week it seemed the bus ride got out of control and Mr. Egan would pull over and swat somebody.

    Harold said, “Could be we should set food out, Ree.”

    “For them coyotes? Nah. Don’t fret. Not much chance they’ll eat you.”

    “Wouldn’t be no chance if we set food out.”

    Sonny said, “Just shoot ’em. They come sniffin’ close, just shoot ’em ’tween the eyes.”

    “But they look like dogs,” Harold said. “Dogs are okay by me even if they’re hungry.”

    Ree said, “Settin’ out food’ll draw ’em close—that’s likely how they’ll come too close and get shot, Harold. Don’t set no goddam food out. It looks like you’re doin’ nice, but you ain’t. You’re just bringin’ ’em into range, is all.”

    “But you can hear how hungry they are.”

    The bus broke the horizon above the next ridge and rolled downhill toward them faster on the blacktop than looked safe. Mr. Egan stopped beside them, flipped the door open, said, “Quick. Quick.”

    The boys stepped up and got on and Ree followed.

    “Can I ride today?”

    Mr. Egan was about fifty years old, a settling heap of flesh with extra chins loose below heavy gray face stubble and thin pale hair. He had a bad leg, a leg he had to drag, and when asked about it he’d say, “If ol’ Four-Eyes Orrick ever up’n asks you to go jackin’ deer with him,
don’t go.
”He smiled at Ree and pulled the door closed.

    “Startin’ back to school?”

    “Nope. I could just use a ride.”

    “Okey-doke. I miss havin’ you on here.”

    “You do?”

    “Yup. Damn near quit drivin’ when you quit ridin’.”

    “Applesauce.”

    “No applesauce, princess. There just about ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone.”

    Ree sat behind Mr. Egan. She grinned at the boys across the aisle. She pointed a finger at her head and made circles near her ear. The bus lunged along the blacktop at a good clip. She said, “Are you hopin’ to get in my britches, man?”

    “Don’t be disgustin’, Ree.”

    “Oh. Kind of sorry to hear you say it all final that way.”

    “I’ve hauled you since you were six years old.” The bus rushed past the forest so fast the woods seemed to be streaming. The long morning shadows from the tall trees spoked the light to spin vision from dark to bright, dark to bright, dazzling the eyes on the bus. “I’m a happily divorced man with a shaky pump. Don’t tease me all around tryin’ to mix me up.”

    “Okay, but thanks, though.”

    “Well, princess, I know damn well how just about everywhere is too far to walk to from out here.”

    The school area consisted of two buildings and both resembled automobile-repair garages of a giant sort, prefab metal sheds divided into several classrooms and offices. The larger shed was the Junction School, painted off-white with a black roof, and it held the grades below high school. The Rathlin Valley High School sat across the schoolyard, with its own parking lot, and had russet walls with a white roof. The sports name for all grades was the Fighting Bobcats, and a large picture of several toothy cats with extended claws raking red slashes into a blue sky was painted on a billboard set beside the blacktop. The bus stopped next to the other buses just past the billboard.

    Ree said, “Don’t fight if you can help it. But if one of you gets whipped by somebody
both
of you best come home