As Sam waited for Andi, he found he was having trouble with his emotions. He was obviously glad he had found her, and very glad that she would be with him another day - and hopefully, maybe, all the way home. But for now, they were going to be sitting within an arm's length of one another - this young woman who hadn't been just a friend, but felt pretty much like his and Maud's own daughter - and they could only converse as people who were establishing a kind of friendship, but had been complete strangers just 24 hours before. The things he wanted to share! But he couldn't, because she wouldn't understand - almost certainly wouldn't believe - and also he didn't know how her amnesia might react to a sudden disclosure of facts from her past. No, he knew he had to take things cautiously slow, and just let them "get to know one another." He felt like he wanted to cry.
He was brought out of his reverie by Andi opening the passenger door. She stowed her pack on the floor by her feet, put just her bed roll on the seat between them, climbed into the cab, and fastened her seat belt.
The broad smile he flashed at her was completely spontaneous. "I am really glad you decided to come along with me - partly so you can be protected from any evil weather gods, but mostly because I really have enjoyed talking with you."
All she said was "likewise," but her return smile was as good as she had been given.
"Okay, if we're both ready to go, I guess we should go. Just one thing to decide, and that's where are we going? As I think I said, I'm headed home - headed East - but there are a couple ways to go. I don't think I care which way we go, as long as I'm headed generally toward home. So, if you have a preference...?"
She looked at him for a few moments before she spoke. "Well, as I said yesterday, my feet seem to be taking me east, but I don't really know what that means."
"Maybe you're getting ready to get to Long Island?" He wondered how she'd reply to that, since they both knew her "family" on Long Island was fictional.
"I don't know about that, yet. Maybe, for today, why don't you just point us east, and see where we get."
"Fair enough, but how we start out might make a difference to you, if you decide to leave me at some point, and go off on your own, again. I think we have two basic choices. One is to continue straight east from here, across Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then south to Detroit. The other is to start diagonally southeast, through Minneapolis, Madison, Chicago, and eventually Toledo. The weather system we're dealing with will probably pose the same risks, either direction. The northern route misses most big towns, so is a lot like the country you've been traveling through in North Dakota. The southeast way has big cities much of the way. That probably doesn't make a difference if you're riding, but if you're on foot, the northern way would probably be a lot nicer. Either way would probably end up about the same place, around Detroit and Toledo."
She gave her head a little shake. "Let's go north. That seems to have the better options."
"North, it is."
They rode in silence for some time. "How were your accommodations last night?" Sam asked, finally.
"They were nice. Mrs. Boston runs her home as a bed-and-breakfast in summer, but she wasn't really open for business, yet. She took me in because the sheriff had sent me to her. I liked her a lot, and I think she would have let me stay longer, if I'd wanted to."
"Did you think about it?"
"A little bit, maybe. It seems like a nice town, but - as I think I said - usually I only stay some place if I need to work to replenish my money, or there's something that particularly interests me. I don't need the money, right now."
"What kinds of things have interested you, in the past?"
"The last place, there was a nice man at the livery stable, who let me help him a bit. Another man hired me to look after his horses, when he was away from his ranch.
"Sounds like you enjoy working with animals."
"I do." She paused. "But besides needing to work, or wanting to do something specific, I think maybe I need to change the way I've been operating."
"Change, how?"
"Well, you know we were joking about vision quests. That may not be far from the real truth of what I've been doing. My wandering over the past two years has been kind of aimless, but I think I've been using the time to look at my past life - to see if I could figure out anything more about how things got to be the way they are. I'm beginning to think that I've learned all I'm going to learn, and that it's time to just settle down to a new kind of existence - put the past behind me, and get on with living with the way things are."
It was Sam's turn to pause for a moment. "Does that mean forgetting about life on Long Island?"
"I won't go there. I won't live there. I think I'll find an entirely new place, and really start over."
"Any place in particular?"
"Maybe. I was thinking about New Mexico. Santa Fe is where I guess you'd say I started this vision quest. I liked it there, and made a few friends. Maybe that would be a good place to settle."
"Poor Emma," Sam muttered, to himself.
"Poor Emma?"
"What?"
"You called me Emma, again."
Sam looked confused. "Oh no, Andi, I wasn't talking about you. I guess I didn't realize I'd even said that out loud. I was just thinking of Emma because of something you said. Well, I told you about her."
Now, Andi looked confused. "No, you didn't. You just called me Emma, by mistake."
"Didn't we...? No, you're right. It was Jim, the sheriff, that I was telling about her. Sorry. Do you want to hear about her?"
"Yes, very much. She really seems to be on your mind."
"She is, and I guess it's partly because you're like her, in some ways. Well, anyway, Emma Graham is from the place in far western Maryland, where I'm sheriff. She's about your age - maybe a little younger - but I've known her since she was ten or eleven. Maud and I have kind of adopted her, or she adopted us."
"She didn't have any family?"
That stopped Sam for a moment. "Oh, I didn't mean we'd adopted her, legally. She had a mother and a brother. Her mom ran the old Hotel Paradise - not Paradise, a place, but the family name. The Paradise family had started the hotel back in the days when our area was a summer resort location - kind of like the Catskills are for New Yorkers. Emma's father was a Paradise - well, he was on the Paradise family tree, but he was several generations separated from the name. Anyway, I'm getting off the subject. The hotel wasn't really supporting itself, anymore, so Emma's mother had taken on a partner who had some money to invest. That woman and her daughter lived at the hotel with Emma, her mother, and her brother.
"Boy, I don't know how I got into all that! What I really wanted to say about Emma's mother was that she was a nice enough person, but she just let her two children run kind of wild... No, I don't mean that they got in trouble, or anything. She just kind of left them alone to do whatever they wanted. Emma's brother was usually nearby, and as long as Emma showed up to do her work at the hotel, that seemed to be all her mom required. I guess that's the original reason that Emma ended up in town regularly, spending so much time with Maud and me.
"Well, I could go on and on about Emma, but the important part of this particular story is that Emma's mother died two years ago, and they had to sell the hotel. It wasn't worth much as a hotel, but it had a lot of land with it, so the real estate was pretty valuable. The partner never had an ownership interest in the hotel. The will leaving the property to Emma's dad was quite complicated, and her mother didn't actually own it outright, either. What the woman had was just a guarantee that Emma's mother's estate would pay her back for her investment, with an additional stated legacy. When the will was finally figured out, and the property sold, Emma and her brother received most of the money. Her brother pocketed his share, and went off with a friend to New York City. Emma put her share in the bank.
"I guess it had to be pretty traumatic for a 16-year old girl to lose her mother, her brother, and her home all at one time. She had no family of any sort in the area, and Maude and I were the closest friends she had. We got her settled temporarily with Maud, and she seemed to be doing okay. But when it came time for the hotel to actually be demolished, she just couldn't stand to see it happen. She wanted to get away for a while.
"After her mother died, and the estate went through probate, Emma found she had an aunt in southern California - an aunt she never knew about. Apparently, there had been some estrangement in the family around the time that Emma's parents had married, and there had been almost no contact with that part of the family afterward. The aunt has two daughters about Emma's age, and when Emma contacted her, the aunt invited her to come to California to stay with them for a while. Even though it was midwinter, and she was only 16, Emma decided to accept the offer, and made plans to take the bus. We didn't try to dissuade her - I mean, we had no right to, anyway. Personally, Maud and I thought she was young to be traveling alone for that long, but we knew her to be pretty level-headed, and with her looks, she could easily pass for several years older than she was. (I suppose that could be either bad or good, in different circumstances.) We took her to the bus station, and watched as the bus rolled away."
That seemed to be the end of Sam's story. "So, why was she 'poor Emma?'" Andi asked.
Sam looked like he might cry. "Because she disappeared."
Andi was too surprised to speak. She waited for Sam to say more. "She seemed to be enjoying her trip. She sent several postcards, telling where she was, talking about people she'd met, things she'd seen. Then, the postcards stopped, and we never heard from her, again. About the time we started to get really anxious, her aunt called to tell us she'd never arrived in California. That was just too much to bear! I'm sure she wouldn't have stopped contacting us on purpose, and she probably had our names and addresses with her as her emergency contact, in case someone needed to be notified. The only things that seemed possible is that she was sick or injured - or dead! But if somebody had found her in any of those conditions, why hadn't we heard anything? I've been in law enforcement long enough to know that people sometimes do disappear forever - often, young women - but it's fairly unusual. People are often fascinated by tales of missing women - particularly young White women - so the stories can stay alive a long time, or come back to life if anything unusual presents itself. We kind of hoped that not hearing anything meant she was still alive.
"There wasn't a lot we could do from western Maryland. I used some police contacts I have to ask if there had been any unidentified women reported, or any traffic accidents that a bus had been in, but there were 1,000 miles between her last postcard and California. We had few ideas where, in all those miles, to even start looking, so my enquiries were just stabs in the dark. But, knowing how quickly a trail can grow cold, I couldn't just stay home. I took a plane west, got a rental car, and went to the last place we had a postcard from. I wandered around for a couple of days, repeated all the contacts I'd made by telephone, but came up completely empty. I felt guilty as hell, but returned home without one clue as to what had happened.
"All that winter, I kept contacting police stations, hospitals, and such, just to keep people interested. We didn't hear anything until late spring, and then one of the contacts paid off. It was a good enough lead that I took a leave of absence from the sheriff's office, flew west again, and spent two months talking to people, going to hospitals and police stations, and reading local papers in local libraries. With winter approaching, I had to return home.
"This year, I found I still couldn't let it go. Emma means too much to us, so I came west for a third time, to follow up on a couple of clues. That's why I'm here - just giving it one last shot."
Andi didn't respond verbally to Sam's story, but her internal reactions were very strong, and very confusing. She felt compassion for Sam; she could sense how much he was hurting. She was sad for Emma, whatever had happened to her. Surprisingly, she felt something very much like jealousy. Wherever she was, Emma had a past. She had a family - two families, really! Most of all - and hardest, for Andi - is that she had people who loved her so much - who missed her so much - that they were still out looking for her, two years later. She didn't have any of those things. All she had was Andi, and Andi wasn't real. If she lost her made-up Andi, she wouldn't exist.
The rest of the morning passed pretty quietly. Andi slept on and off, and Sam seemed lost in his own thoughts. They passed out of North Dakota into Minnesota, had lunch at a diner near Duluth, then followed U. S. 2 into Michigan at Ironwood. The countryside had become more wooded, and there were many small lakes and ponds. Traffic wasn't as bad as it probably would be in another month, and the weather had been favorable. They passed through several thunderstorms, with rain heavy enough for Sam to pull off the road for a few minutes each time, but it was mostly fair and dry.
Later in the afternoon, Sam opened up the conversation, again. "Tell me more about your travels. You've covered a lot of ground since New Mexico. What have you been doing? Well, if you don't mind. I'm just interested."
Andi considered for a moment. "No, I don't mind. I've never had any particular plan - no special destination - in mind. I just wanted to go somewhere. We started going north into Colorado. It was barely spring, so the mountains were still pretty snowy, but we made one trip into Cripple Creek, which I guess is quite a tourist destination in summer. Then, we headed north, again..."
'Scuse me for interrupting. You said 'we?'"
"Yeah, when I started out, I had another girl with me, and she had a car. We kept going north through Colorado to Wyoming, and then crossed over into Idaho."
"What did you do along the way?"
"Nothing, really. We were just seeing the sights. Mary had to go home shortly after we got to Idaho, so she took the car. I wasn't ready to go back yet, but I was running short of money. I got a job as a waitress in Idaho Falls for a while, then later took a bus to Billings, Montana."
"So, that's kind of how you started heading east, I guess. Did you have some reason to go to Billings?"
"No, not really. From Idaho Falls, the choices seemed to be either south or north. I'd been south so... Well, anyway, it was getting pretty late in the year, and I thought maybe I needed to find a place to spend the winter. I didn't really need the money, but I got another waitress job in Billings, and stayed there a couple months. I got restless as winter really started to settle in - Billings is kind of a dreary place - so I quit my job, and took a bus to Miles City. It was only about 150 miles from Billings, but I liked the town better. I got another job there as a waitress, and stayed the rest of the winter. When it looked like spring was coming, I hopped another bus to Medora, North Dakota. I only stayed there overnight. I was tired of buses, and had all my camping gear, so I just started walking. I eventually got to the town of Kingdom - did you come through there?"
"Yeah, I did. Nice place, I thought."
"So did I. I met a bunch of nice people, got a job tending horses - I think I mentioned that before. It was in Kingdom. I settled in there for quite a while. Eventually, I started out again - and here we are."
"Yeah, here we are. That's been quite an adventure for you." He was quiet for a few minutes. "So, you're still headed east, but you're thinking maybe your 'vision quest' is about over, and you might start heading west?"
"Yeah, I think maybe I've got as much out of this journey as I'm going to get."
Sam seemed to be thinking about that. "Maybe we're coming to an obvious place to make your decision. Tomorrow, the route will be south through Michigan, all the way to Interstate 80. That would be a very logical point at which to decide. East would be to Long Island. I'd be pleased to have you ride along with me one more day, if you chose that direction. But it would be very easy from there to catch a bus west to New Mexico. That would be a pretty straight, uncomplicated trip. From here, you'd have a full day and a half to decide what seemed right."
"Okay," she said. "That does sound logical."
"For today, I suggest we go on another hour or so, then find a motel for the night. Is that okay with you? If you're short of cash, I can pay for both rooms, and you can pay me back, later."
"No, I'm okay with money, and I think a nice room, rather than camping out, would be a good idea. It'll give me time to relax, and think a little bit about tomorrow, too."
***
They drove on. Andi seemed to be dozing, again. Sam was thinking about Andi's story of her travels, and comparing it with what he knew. It was a close fit. She had filled in a couple of gaps he was uncertain about, and she had left out - understandably - some important events that he was aware of.
Finding out where her odyssey had started should have been easy. Emma's last postcard had come from Santa Fe, and she had written that she planned to spend a day there to look around. However, when he got there on his first trip, Sam couldn't find anybody who knew anything. His "sheriff skills" weren't working very well, and he didn't do what should have been obvious - he didn't check at the bus station. When he got the call from the Santa Fe police, and made his second trip west, he immediately found Emma's suitcase among the bus station's unclaimed luggage. That didn't tell him where she was then, but did suggest she hadn't continued her trip west. That was confirmed when Sam met with Sergeant Oñate, and heard the details of his story. Just a couple of weeks earlier, Oñate got a call from a friend, Dr. Nils Anders, who had asked him if there were any recent inquiries about women reported missing in Colorado or Idaho. Anders hadn't supplied many details about why he was asking, just something about a family traveling through the area, he thought. It was shortly after Oñate told Anders he couldn't find any records, that Sam's call had come in.
Sam found Dr. Anders with no trouble, and heard his story. A young friend of his, Mary Dark Hope, had come to his office with another girl, called Andi. Sam showed Anders his photo of Emma, and Anders thought it was certainly "like her."
Mary had presented a "hypothetical" case about a girl who had amnesia, and had been abducted about three months earlier. (Dr. Anders thought rape was probably involved, but he didn't think the word had actually been said.) Obviously, the "hypothetical" was about Andi. Anders was worried that the girl had been kept a prisoner for three months, but it turned out that she had escaped her captor not long after being kidnapped, and had been hiding at a cabin in the mountains. He wondered if Andi had notified the police. She hadn't, because she really couldn't tell them anything, and she was worried that her abductor might still be looking for her. He suggested that she contact them now, but her answer was the same. Anders was obviously concerned, but was running out of ideas. He suggested that, if they hadn't already done so, they go back to the motel where Andi had been held, and see if the owner remembered anything else.
Next, Sam had gone to find Mary Dark Hope. She lived at Tesuque, a community a few miles north of Santa Fe. Sam guessed she was about 14 years old. Both her parents and her older sister were deceased, and she was living with Rosella, a woman who had cared for both Mary and her sister after their parents died.
At first, Mary was reluctant to talk to him, and maybe more so because he was a policeman. (He found out later why that was a special problem.) He showed her the photograph of Emma - not really recent, but only two or three years old - and also postcards that Emma had sent. Mary thought the photo looked quite a lot like Andi, but she didn't hesitate in saying that the handwriting on the postcards was definitely Andi's. Sam had found Emma - at least knew where she had been recently, and that she was still alive.
Mary had them go outside to talk, as there were some things she didn't want Rosella to know. (It turned out that Rosella didn't even know Mary and Andi had gone on a trip!) Once away from the house, Mary talked freely. She had met Andi in Santa Fe, when Andi came to town from her mountain cabin, to replenish supplies. The "supplies" turned out to be medicine to take care of coyotes caught in steel traps! Mary convinced her to come home with her, and Andi eventually talked about her amnesia. Andi's mind wasn't a complete blank - she remembered songs, books, animal names, and such - but she had absolutely no memory of anything personal - who she was, where she came from, people or places from her past life. The very first thing she remembered was waking up in the motel in Santa Fe, alone but in a room that obviously had been occupied by a man. She was fully clothed, and was lying on a made-up bed, but the aches in her body made her pretty positive that she had been molested.
The manager of the motel had welcomed her for breakfast, and said that her "daddy" had gone to a meeting in town, but would return in a few hours. Andi had been confused about why her captor would have left her free to say and do anything she wanted. At first, she thought that he had misjudged the length of time that she would remain unconscious. As her hostess talked about her "daddy" - who she had found very handsome, with blue eyes and curly dark hair, and who was very charming - Andi thought she saw another reason. She was apparently "of age," and seemed completely free. Maybe the manager would realize she had misjudged the "father-daughter" relationship - such things happen in motels - but there would certainly be no grounds to suspect any captive or coercive situation. Andi began to realize that she wouldn't have any help getting out of danger, and had even less reason to go to the police.
As expansive as her talkative "father" had seemed, he hadn't given out much information about himself. He had signed the guestbook "C. R Crick, and daughter," of Idaho Falls, Idaho. In conversation, he had said that he lived in Idaho, and that he had something to do with boats. He had come to Santa Fe through Colorado, and had stopped to gamble at Cripple Creek. His car - at the motel because he had walked into town - had Idaho license plates. He had dark curly hair, a great smile, and a winning personality.
Andi had no idea who he was, who she was, or how they had come to be together. She did realize that she probably only had an hour or two to make an escape, and that she'd have to do it all on her own. She packed her few belongings in her knapsack, took a man's coat that was in the room, and also took several hundred dollars that she found in his belongings. She checked his car for anything informative or useful. She found a pistol and ammunition, which she took with her. (Sam wondered why she hadn't checked the glove compartment for the auto registration, a quick way to get the owner's name. She hadn't, probably she was mostly concerned about escape - not information - at that point.)
Andi walked away to the distant mountains, where she spent three snowy months living in an unused cabin. In that time, she began to invent a new person, to take the place of her missing identity and past. Her name was suggested by the initials "AO" on her backpack. She took "Andi" from the name of the Sandia Mountains. The "Olivier" was just a name starting with "O" that came to mind.
Mary didn't know how much Andi had thought about her kidnapper during her three months in the mountains, but now she was obsessed with finding him. Mary didn't think it was so much about the man himself at that point, but about what he could tell Andi about her past. When Rosella went off for two weeks to visit at her pueblo - leaving Mary in the doubtful "care" of another woman in Santa Fe - Andi convinced Mary to go looking with her. Mary had a car that had belonged to her sister, and she could drive a little (she was 14, obviously with no license). Andi gave little indication that she had ever driven before, so she learned the (very!) basics as they went along. With that "skill" level, they began their trip. The full extent of their knowledge was that they were looking for a handsome, curly haired, blue-eyed, personable man who had connections to Colorado (Cripple Creek), Idaho (Idaho Falls), gambling, and "something" about boats. Andi was determined; Mary was barely hopeful.
They drove into the mountains to Cripple Creek, Colorado, famous for its casinos. Although it had been three months since he would have been there, January was a pretty quiet time. People remembered the handsome, personable, big winner. Nobody remembered Andi. They gleaned a little new information - that he ran the rapids on rivers, including the Salmon in Idaho. Also, Andi noticed that the locals pronounced "creek" as "crick" - reminding her that he had signed the guest book as "C. R. Crick!"
They continued north through Colorado into Wyoming, and eventually into Idaho, without discovering anything new. Idaho Falls - the town named in the guest book - was too big to offer any immediate information, but on their map, they located the town of Salmon, in the mountains to the northwest. They headed there.
Salmon was a tourist town, but the actual number off residents was fairly small. If Andi had lived there, it seemed like someone would recognize her. They went to a number of stores and businesses, but nobody showed any sign of recognition. A man named Reuel had befriending them, and helped them with their search. They found Harry Wine, the owner of a river running business, and Andi was sure they had found her kidnapper. (He later admitted it.) They had a number of interactions with him, the last one being when Andi shot and killed him!
Sam had certainly not expected that. Mary was quick to explain that it had nothing to do with Andi's captivity, or any kind of revenge on her part. They had discovered Wine taking pornographic photos of a little boy, and in a scuffle that followed, Andi had shot him. There was nothing to tie them to the happening, but Andi was concerned that something might get Mary or Reuel noticed, and she left the area alone. Neither Mary nor Reuel knew where she'd gone. Reuel helped Mary get back home to New Mexico.
Sam left Mary, promising to keep in touch with any developments, and headed for Salmon, Idaho. He went directly north through Utah, not seeing any reason to go to Colorado. It was clear that Harry Wine had been there, but Sam was convinced that Harry hadn't had contact with Andi until he got to New Mexico.
Sam didn't plan to make any inquiries at Salmon. He didn't want to draw any new attention to the girls. Besides, there really wasn't anything to learn there, except to check with Reuel about any recent happenings or possible contacts with Andi. Reuel was glad to meet him, glad for word from Mary, and very glad that Andi now had a real name and a real background. However, he couldn't even guess where she might have gone from Salmon.
At that point, Andi and Sam were in similar circumstances. Andi knew who had kidnapped her, but he was now dead without revealing anything about her past. She didn't have any clues to follow. Sam had found Emma, and probably wasn't too far behind her. But he had absolutely no way to know where to go next. He had to start home. With winter not too far away, he thought (or at least hoped) that Emma would find someplace to stay put for the next couple of months. If she did that - and if he discovered anything new over the winter - he might not be far behind her when spring came.
***
Andi was awake now, so Sam put aside his reminiscing for later. There was quite a bit of tourist traffic, and Sam suggested it might be a good idea to find a motel sooner, than later. Andi agreed. They were just coming to the town of Wakefield, Michigan. The entrance sign said the population was about 2,000, but there were obviously a lot more people, at present. They found a smaller motel with an adjacent coffee shop, and stopped for the night. They had an early meal, then walked around a little bit. It was pleasant, but both felt extra tired and ready to retire. They said goodbye until breakfast.
As he was getting ready for sleep, Sam picked up on his mental recap of his trips to date. He had gone home to Maryland, and spent the winter there. He continued to make regular contacts in the West, particularly with law enforcement offices in eastern Idaho. He had no reason to believe that Emma was still there, but he had no other logical places to keep in touch with.
His perseverance paid off in late winter, when a police precinct at the north end of Idaho Falls reported that some of their staff used to see a very striking young blond woman waitress at a local diner. They went back to check, and were told that "Andi" had worked there for a couple of months, but had moved on to Billings, Montana, in early winter. Not long after, one of the other waitresses had received a postcard from Andi, saying that she had gone on to Miles City, and thought she would stay there until spring. That was the last that Idaho Falls had heard from her. At least, Sam had a place to start a new search.
He was late getting started west in the spring. As there was probably nothing to look for in the 2,000 miles between Maryland and New Mexico, he flew to Salt Lake City, Utah, and rented a pickup truck to drive to Idaho Falls. Perhaps he could have bypassed Idaho, and gone straight to Montana, but he had so little to work with, he wanted to be sure he knew everything there was to know at Idaho Falls.
He had one of the local police officers go with him to the diner where Andi had worked, just so his enquiry looked legitimate. It didn't matter, because the cafe employees had told everything they knew. Andi had appeared near the end of summer, and had worked there a couple of months. She was "nice," nice to work with, and the customers liked her. They knew very little about her, except she had come from New Mexico. It wasn't a complete surprise when she left. As there were few tourists left around, and hunting season was almost over, she probably would have been laid off during the quiet winter period, anyway. She hadn't said why she was going to Montana. Nobody remembered the names of the places she worked in Billings or in Miles City.
Sam continued to Montana. He decided not to enquire at Billings. The way the town was set up, there were dozens of diners close to highways that she could have worked at, and he already knew that she had moved on to Miles City fairly quickly. The main part of Miles City was some distance from the Interstate, but there was an interchange and small business area with a busy truck stop. It looked a logical spot to need help all winter.
The manager was reluctant to give out information about employees, but Sam's badge and credentials (although meaningless in Montana) were enough to convince him, otherwise. Yes, Andi had worked there all winter. In fact, she had only left a few weeks before. She was a good worker, everybody liked her, but nobody knew much about her. She left on a bus to North Dakota, but that was the extent of their information.
Sam followed the Interstate into North Dakota, but realized he knew absolutely nothing that would help him locate Andi, again. He drove another two hours to Bismarck, got a motel room, ate lunch, and tried to think about what to do next. He couldn't think of anything. He picked up a local paper, and went back to his room.
The front page of the paper had what was apparently a follow-up story of an event of a week earlier. The sheriff of Kingdom was still trying to piece together the cause of a murder at the ranch of Jim Purley. A stranger to the area, a man known only as "Waylans" was shot from a great distance by an unknown assailant, while Waylans was talking to Andi Oliver, a ranch employee. Miss Oliver was unhurt.
Sam had caught up with Emma.
On his map, Sam located the town of Kingdom, perhaps an hour's drive north of Bismarck. He was eager to go there, but it was late afternoon, and he decided to first visit the local library to read the original story. He found several articles, but little that was new. Apparently, "Miss Oliver" had seen the man who was shot once previously, but didn't know him, nor did anyone else in the area. The motive for the shooting was undetermined, and the identity of the dead man - other than "Waylans" - was unknown.
The following morning, Sam had driven to Kingdom, found Sheriff Harry McKibbon, and told him most of the Andi/Emma story (leaving out the Harry Wine part). Sam found that Harry had learned fairly recently about Andi's amnesia. Harry was fascinated with the Emma accounts, and spent much of the day telling Sam what he knew about Andi/Emma. Before he left the next day, Sam had talked to most of Andi's friends in the area.
Two days later, as he was driving east on a North Dakota backroad, Sam saw her walking ahead of him.
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