`` I'm a mess '', she said, and suddenly she was alarmed.

You see, he lied to us when he said he was leavin alone ''.

`` That was a terrible thing to do '', I said to Oso.

The War Department wrote Mr. Manuel a letter and said he was a hero.

`` But that was war '', I said.

What else he said was lost in the rattle of gunfire on all sides.

She said, and her tone had softened until it was almost friendly.

`` Oh, no '', he said, and he was without humor now.

Normally Hague wasted no words, but now he found himself unable to stop their flow although he knew Kodyke was aware of all he said.

When they reached their neighbor's house, Pamela said a few polite words to Grace and kissed Melissa lightly on the forehead, the impulse prompted by a stray thought -- of the type to which she was frequently subject these days -- that they might never see one another again.

An Ah coudn ansuh him an so Ah said ' Aw right, Ah gay-ess, an his fathuh didn uttuh one wohd an aftuh Huhmun was gone, the majuh laughed an tole me thet he an the bawh had been hevin an occasional drink t'gethuh f'ovuh a yeah, onleh an occasional one, but just the same it was behahn mah back, an Ah doan think thet's nahce at all, d'you ''??

She was still hugging the stained coat around her, so I said, `` Relax, let me take your things.

That was all she said.

This was the worst thing I could have said.

The girl took a couple of steps toward the man in shorts when Benson, in that barefoot courtliness Ramey could never decide was real, said, `` You don't want to go around there, Ma'am ''.

There was no doubt that Herr Schaffner meant every word of what he said.

But they never said anything, so he figured it was all right.

He said, lapsing into the profanity he often used when away from his parents and especially when he was with Charles.

While she was struggling to get her skirt down and get on her feet again, Jack ran over, offered her his hand and said, `` Gosh, I'm sorry, Miss Langford.

That should do it, he thought, because Miss Langford had said she was going to be strict about school work.

`` I only said I was hungry.

`` No, I don't think so '', said the big man, and it was the final clincher for Ernie.

`` I'd wind up full of bullet holes '', he said, and there was no question that he was talking about bullets fired by his coworkers.

The easiest thing would be to sell out to Al Budd and leave the country, but there was a stubborn streak in him that wouldn't allow it.

He didn't think it was possible for this couple to be pretending.

Evidently this was a precaution so that mounts would be available in an emergency.

He might tell her how sorry a spectacle she was making of herself, pretending to be blind to the way Julia Fortune had taken Dean's affections from her.

It was pitiful to see the thin ranks of warriors, old and young, wheeling and twisting their ponies frantically from side to side only to be tumbled bleeding from their saddles by the relentless slam, slam of the cruelly efficient Hawkinses.

The coyote was calling again, and he hoped that this time there would be no other sounds to interrupt it.

Its front was windowless, but irregularities in the masonry might be an indication that windows, now blinded, had once looked out upon the street.

She regarded them as signs that she was nearing the glen she sought, and she was glad to at last be doing something positive in her unenunciated, undefined struggle with the mountain and its darkling inhabitants.

Having persisted too long in deliberate ignorance and denial of the forces that threatened her, Pamela was relieved now to admit their potency and to be taking definite steps toward grappling with them.

she must be poised and proud and unafraid in order to prove to the mountain that she was in earnest.

There was a peculiar density about it, a thick substance that could be sensed but never identified, never actually perceived.

The herd was watered and then thrown onto a broad grass flat which was to be the first night's bedground.

It was to be nothing more than that.

There was to be no gunplay.

If you don't leave this country within 3 days, your life will be taken the same as Powell's was.

Probably his horse would be close to where he was hiding.

Carmer himself was nowhere to be seen.

There was a feeling that this mission would be canceled like all the others and that this muddy wet dark world of combat would go on forever.

Visibility continued to be limited, and Greg was never able to get above a thousand feet.

It was going to be dangerous.

Forced to realize that this was the end of a very short line I scanned a road marker and discovered what the end of a slightly longer line would be for the old Mexican: Moriarty, New Mexico.

Over the rapidly-diminishing outline of a jump seat piled high with luggage Herry's black brushcut was just discernible, near, or enviably near that spot where -- hidden -- more delicately-textured, most beautifully tinted hair must still be streaming back in cool, oh cool wind sweetly perfumed with sagebrush and yucca flowers and engine fumes.

Mrs. Roebuck thought Johnson was a `` sweet bawh t'lah lahk thet '', but her Herman was getting to be a man, there was no getting around it.