A shadow rose, danced on the propped-open door, and then a large man in khaki suntans walked into the corridor. He was wearing a Sam Browne belt and a big pistol. He hooked his thumbs into his pants pockets and looked at Nick for almost a full minute without speaking.

What does he want with me? I didn't do anything wrong...

Then he said. "When I was a boy we caught ourselves a mountan lion up in the hills and shot it and then drug it twenty miles back to town over dirt hardpan. What was left of that creature when we got home was the sorriest-lookin sight I ever saw. You the second-sorriest, boy."

Nick thought it had the feel of prepared speech, carefully honed and treasured, saved for our-of-towners and vags that occupied the barred Saltine boxes from time to time.

"You got a name, Babalugah?"

Nick put a finger to his swelled and lacerated lips and shook his head. He put a hand over his mouth, then cut the air with it in a soft diagonal hashmark and shook his head again.

"What? Cain't talk? What's this happy horseshit?" The words were amiable enough, but Nick couldn't follow tones or inflections. He plucked an invisible pen from the air and wrote with it.

"You want a pencil?"

Nick nodded.

"If you're mute, how come you don't have none of those cards?"

Nick shrugged. He turned out his empty pockets. He balled his fists and shadowboxed the air, which sent another bolt of pain through his head and another wave of nausea through his stomach. He finished up by tapping his own temples lightly with his fists, rolling his eyes up, and sagging on the bars. Then he pointed to his empty pockets.

"You were robbed."

Nick nodded.

The man in khaki turned away and went back to his office. A moment later he returned with a dull pencil and a notepad. He thrust them through the bars.

Moments later, deep in their conversation...

"I've been traveling around but I'm not a vagabond. I was with a woman named Angie Galvan for a while, but she went to Arnette to visit someone. Spent today working for a named named Rich Ellerton around 6 miles west of here. I cleaned his barn & put up a load of hay in his loft. Last week I was in Watts, Okla. with Angie, running fence. The men who beat me up got my week's pay." Nick wrote.

"You sure it was Rich Ellerton you was working for? And who's this Angie? Your girlfriend?" Baker had torn off Nick's explanation, folded it to wallet-photo size and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

Nick blushed, but nodded to the first question, then he began to write on the pad of paper.

"Angie's not my girlfriend...yet. I do love her, though." Baker smiled at Nick when he read that.

"You see Rich's dog?"

Nick nodded.

"What kind was it?"

Nick gestured for the pad. "Big Doberman," he wrote. "But nice. Not mean."

Baker nodded, turned away, and went back into his office. Nick stood at the bars, thinking of Angie and watching anxiously.

A moment later, Baker returned with a big keyring, unlocked the holding cell, and pushed it back on its track.

I'm free, Nick thought.

"Tell me about this Angie, I'm curious how a guy like you'd get a girl. No offense, though." Baker asked, curiously.

Nick shook his head, smiling, as if to indicate "Non taken."

He reached for the notepad as they both walked into John's office.

"Angie's a wonderful girl, we've been friends for as long as I remember. She met this guy named Stu Redman, and they stayed penpals for a while. She went to go see him while we were traveling around. I miss her a lot..." Nick wrote, seeming sad.

"Well, kid, I bet she's wonderful if she's picked you." John said, showing him a plate of breakfast. Nick shook his head, but then made pouring and drinking motions.

"Coffee? Got that. You take coffee and sugar?"

Nick shook his head.

"Take it like a man, huh?" Baker laughed. "Come on."

Nick grabbed the notepad again, and started writing about his girl once more.

"Angie's the same way, but she doesn't drink coffee anymore. She told me, she wasn't allowed to once her doctor told her she had a heart condition." He wrote, smiling down.

"Heart condition? Woahh, that bad enough to not drink coffee? Sounds rough..." Baker said and smiled at him.

Nick nodded.

"I've got insomnia, but I don't think it's anything bad. My wife's been nagging for me to go to a real hot-shot doctor. I don't think it'll do me any good."

Nick gave him a sympathetic smile, and shrugged.

I wonder if she's alright, I just can't stop thinking about her.