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She blushed, except for around the scar. The flesh there remained white and shiny. “Absolutely
feelthy, señor.”
“The sooner the better, then.”
8
It wasn’t actually a dirty weekend, unless you believe—as the Jessica Caltrops of the world seem to—
that lovemaking is dirty. It’s true that we spent a lot of it in bed. But we also spent a fair amount
outside. Sadie was a tireless walker, and there was a vast open field on the flank of a hill behind the
Candlewood. It was rioting with late-summer wildflowers. We spent most of Saturday afternoon
there. Sadie could name some of the blooms—Spanish dagger, prickly poppy, something called yucca
birdweed—but at others she could only shake her head, then bend over to smell whatever aromas there
were to be smelled. We walked hand in hand, with high grass brushing against our jeans and big
clouds with fluffed-out tops sailing the high Texas sky. Long shutters of light and shadow slipped
across the field. There was a cool breeze that day, and no refinery smell in the air. At the top of the
hill we turned and looked back. The bungalows were small and insignificant on the tree-dotted sweep
of the prairie. The road was a ribbon.
Sadie sat down, drew her knees to her chest, and clasped her arms around her shins. I sat down
beside her.
“I want to ask you something,” she said.
“All right.”
“It’s not about the . . . you know, where you come from . . . that’s more than I want to think about
just now. It’s about the man you came to stop. The one you say is going to kill the president.”
I considered this. “Delicate subject, hon. Do you remember me telling you that I’m close to a big
machine full of sharp teeth?”
“Yes—”
“I said I wouldn’t let you stand next to me while I was fooling with it. I’ve already said more than I
meant to, and probably more than I should have. Because the past doesn’t want to be changed. It
fights back when you try. And the bigger the potential change, the harder it fights. I don’t want you
to be hurt.”
“I already have been,” she said quietly.
“Are you asking if that was my fault?”
“No, honey.” She put a hand on my cheek. “No.”
“Well, it may have been, at least partially. There’s a thing called the butterfly effect—” There were
hundreds of them fluttering on the slope before us, as if to illustrate that very fact.
“I know what that is,” she said. “There’s a Ray Bradbury story about it.”
“Really?”
“It’s called ‘A Sound of Thunder.’ It’s very beautiful and very disturbing. But Jake—Johnny was
crazy long before you came on the scene. I left him long before you came on the scene. And if you
hadn’t come along, some other man might have. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been as nice as you, but I
wouldn’t have known that, would I? Time is a tree with many branches.”
“What do you want to know about the guy, Sadie?”
“Mostly why you don’t just call the police—anonymously, of course—and report him.”
I pulled a stem of grass to chew while I thought about that. The first thing to cross my mind was
something de Mohrenschildt had said in the Montgomery Ward parking lot: He’s a semi-educated
hillbilly, but he’s surprisingly crafty.