“I’m glad he walked by when he did,”Daisysaid.
“I didn’t like the way that guy was looking at you,” Andygrumbled.
“Every guy looks at her like that,” Meadow said. “Your sister’s hot. If I was into girls, I’dballher.”
“Girls can’tballother girls,” River said. “You don’t haveballs.”
“Since when are you so picky about balling things?” Meadow asked with anarchedbrow.
“It’s the summer of love, anything can happen.” Daisy laughed as she twisted to look at them in thebackseat.
“Are we finally going to have our own love-in?” River asked while waggling his bushyeyebrows.
“In your dreams,”Daisysaid.
“Stop hitting on my sister and help me look for the turnoff,”Andysaid.
“You’re such a buzzkill,” Rivergrumbled.
Daisy laughed as they turned onto the narrow, unpaved road. As they followed the tight trail through the forest, she looked out into the darkness. A hint of remaining light painted the night skyindigo.
She rolled down the window and inhaled the piney scent of the forest. It smelled nothing like San Francisco. The fresh air soothed her restless soul. If they weren’t in such a rush to get Andy over the border, she would have wanted to stay for a week. As it was, they only planned on staying the night. Tomorrow they’d drive through Yellowstone National Park and then take the north entrance toGardner.
“I think I see the lake,” Andy said with more excitement in his voice than she’d heardindays.
Through a break in the tree line, she spotted a flat expanse of still water. It stretched on into the darkness beyond what she could see. It had tobehuge.
“I can’t wait to go skinny dipping,”Meadowsaid.
“Me too,”Daisysaid.
“Me three,” River added with alaugh.
“Let’s get camp set up first,”Andysaid.
“You’re always so practical,” Meadowjoked.
“I’m draft-dodging to Canada,” he replied. “I don’t know howpracticalthatmakesme.”
“You don’t want to get killed, right?” Riverasked.
“Hellno.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing,” River said. “It’s the country that’s wrong. We shouldn’t be sending our men over there to get slaughtered. It makesmesick.”
“Kennedy and Johnson were wrong to send us over there,”Meadowsaid.
“I can’t stand watching the news anymore,”Daisysaid.
Her stomach churned as images of napalm-burned children flashed through her mind. She still had nightmares about the news coverage she’d seen a few years earlier of Marines lighting the thatched roofs of the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters. She couldn’t imagine her brother in that hellish jungle fighting an unjust war. Sheshivered.
“You okay?” Andy asked as he pulled into a small clearing on the lake side oftheroad.
“Yeah.”
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Andy said. He put the bus in park and reached over to squeeze her hand. “I’ll be in Canada in a couple of days. Dad won’t be able tostopme.”
“I can’t understand why he wants you to turn yourself in,”shesaid.
