Foreword
It was mid-morning the next day when Ace returned. The white girl, naked as usual, was sitting on the small porch. The big Negro told her to go bathe in the creek. When she returned, Ace got up and motioned for her to follow him.
"We're going to see a fellow," he said.
"Should I get my shirt?" The white girl asked.
"No, no need," Ace told her. "Nobody's around, and besides, it's so ragged it don't hide anything, anyway." He grinned. "And, you'll just have to take it off when we get there."
The white girl followed him obediently down the path through the woods toward the abandoned coal town of Slateville. The woods were silent except for the muffled sounds of insects and birds. The summer air was warm, heavy.
"This fellow we're going to see," Ace said. "If he happens to ask any questions - and I don't think he will - just tell him you're from Carleton and let it go at that. Don't tell him anything else. Tell him to ask me."
The naked white girl shrugged slightly and kept following the black man along the path.
They came to the edge of the woods and stopped. Ace went into the former coal mining town and looked up and down the dusty, deserted street that ran between two rows of crumbling frame houses. His eyes searched among the houses and shacks.
Satisfied that no one was around, he motioned for the white girl to come on. She followed him to where Greenie's old black Chevrolet was parked beside one of the old houses. Knowing what was expected of her, she waited until he opened the trunk lid.
He helped her in and she curled up on an old piece of blanket that had been spread in the trunk. Ace shut the lid. Holes, eaten through by rust and weather, allowed hot dusty air and some light into the trunk, but still it was stifling and hot. After a while she heard the car start and felt it begin to move.