A covey of Fred's female acquaintances weekended to Vegas, dampening his social schedule so he spent his Saturday and Sunday downtime plotting election strategy. Printed brochures, gratis from Myrtle Somebody whose brother-in-law was a printer, were placed about town by tiny Tonya, an eight-year-old Latina waif hired by Fred for five bucks. While the pretty young thing was only slightly more linguistically proficient than Maria, her enthusiasm equaled the older woman's and the town was duly blanketed with election literature. For ten bucks more, she was to cover Ridgway's four hundred citizens in the county's only other town, if you didn't count minuscule Colona, which most people didn't. Dean was directed to spend all available weekend time on a door to door smiling and handshaking crusade, the first of many Fred had mapped out for his full-court press for making David Dean the sheriff of Ouray County, Colorado. This duty was about as pleasant as a stick in the eye in Dean's mind, but the interrupted householders were uniformly pleasant to him, making the necessary ordeal nearly tolerable.

Dean bumped into Seymour Fitzgerald coming out of a five-room ranch in Whispering Pines. He was performing the same function, but meeting him didn't darken Dean's mood appreciably. Big deal that Seymour's brochures were four-color to Dean's black and white, and the bastard wore full uniform. It seemed to say "why bother with a newcomer when you can just continue with good ol' Fitz?" The two campaigners nodded to each other, with neither wishing to antagonize the family of four smiling in the driveway.

Dean was happy at a little time away from Bird Song. The day had arrived with more bumps and grinds than a burlesque matron. The bumps occurred as an interruption of Dean's otherwise peaceful dream of Cynthia bathing in a misplaced Colorado lagoon, complete with palm trees-altering the vision to something involving a Volkswagen driving down Bird Song's stairs. While sleep was only partially suspended and Dean's fantasy returned, morning brought the news that the noise had been real-Pumpkin Green had left in the night, bumping his shopping cart down the stairs to a clandestine exit.

Dean was as much disappointed as angry at the skip. He'd always known Pumpkin was a flake, but he honestly liked the young man and flakiness wasn't the worst trait carried by the young and the restless.

"He could be arrested for skipping like that," Cynthia said. But neither seriously considered contacting the law, especially because the law was Acting Sheriff Fitzgerald. "You could catch up to him," Cynthia had said. "Pushing that stupid cart, he's probably not even to Ridgway yet." But Dean declined. If the truth were known, except for the larceny, he felt a pang of envy. The open road, absent all responsibilities, looked inviting-if the rules allowed him to take Cynthia along in the cart.

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