The bullet had torn through the flesh just above the knee, inflicting an ugly gash that was forming a pool of blood on the floor.

She glanced around the clearing, taking in the wagon and the load of supplies and trappings scattered over the ground, the two kids, the whiteface bull that was chewing its cud just within the far reaches of the firelight.

He took the reins just below the bit and held them firmly, and it was his turn to smile now.

There was an artificial lake just out of sight in the first stand of trees, fed by a half dozen springs that popped out of the ground above the hillside orchard.

I was at once disappointed, although just what I had expected him to look like I could not have explained.

I was just doing my job, just following orders, and for that he's going to kill me.

The valley was only a few hundred yards wide with just about room enough for a properly performed hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

Greg's airspeed indicator was over 350 when he leveled off just above the trees.

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.

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 ''??

I seized the rack and made a western-style flying-mount just in time, one of my knees mercifully landing on my duffel bag -- and merely wrecking my camera, I was to discover later -- my other knee landing on the slivery truck floor boards and -- but this is no medical report.

The car was just about to us, its driver's fat, solemn face intent on the road ahead, on business, on a family in Sante Fe -- on anything but an old pick-up truck in which two human beings desperately needed rescue.

There was a blur just under my focus of vision, a crash ; ;

I was so scared well, I just ran to my car and came here ''.

I didn't get a good look at him at all, his back was to me, and I was so scared It was just somebody in a man's suit.

Now, he was just in the late poems of Holderlin and therefore had most of the nineteenth century before him -- plus next semester's class preparation.

She was just not able to break the spell.

So if all these beers was to get me in bed, man, you just spent a lot of money ''.

She was telling herself that this might just be her reward at the end of a long meaningful search for truth.

There was no real sign of the river now, just a roiling, oily ribbon of liquid movement through muddy waters that reached everywhere.

He had his voice under control again: no one became aware that he was terrified by what had just happened to him.

Gavin's stallion was in the barn and he tightened the cinches over the saddle blanket, working by touch in the darkness, comforting the animal with easy words.

The silence oppressed him, made him bend low over the horse's neck as if to hide from a wind that had begun to blow far away and was twisting slowly through the darkness in its slow search.

The land over which he sped was the land he had created and lived in: his valley.

He had looked over my forms and was impressed by what he had seen there ; ;

It was over an hour before their escape was discovered, but still the news that Barton was free flashed across the central portion of the state.

If, when this was all over, she found the words to tell him about it, she wondered if he would ever understand.

I found a trooper once the Apache had spread-eagled on an ant hill, and another time we ran across some teamsters they'd caught, tied upside down on their own wagon wheels over little fires until their brains was exploded right out o' their skulls.

Then, with a glory that almost wiped out the deep, downward sags in her careworn face, Matilda leaned over the wheel and shouted to Hez, who was stumbling along in the heat and the dust on the opposite side of the wagon `` Pa!!

Stevens was grunting over the last empty pocket when Russ abruptly rose and lunged toward Carmer's hat, which had tumbled half-a-dozen feet away when he first fell.

Miraculously, the bottle was still in my hand, foam still geysering over my ( luckily ) waterproof watch.

They were married over the week-end, though he was easily sixty and she could not have been even thirty.

He let down the tailgate and was knocked over by the sluice of water.

He looked as if he was going to keel over.

Keith Sterling had looked down on the Brahmaputra more times than he could remember, during the war days when he flew over the Hump of the world, thinking it high adventure in those times before man was guiding himself through outer space.

The Nazis knew this, of course, and while their chief quarry was the industrial centers, they let a few drop every time they went over, hoping for a lucky hit.

Now, the next morning, they were anchored at The Elbow and the boat was riding directly over the underwater ledge where the green water turned to deepest blue and the cliff dropped straight down 600 fathoms, with the weighted line beside it ; ;

Matsuo puzzled and grew anxious over the complete passiveness, concluding that he was the butt of a devilish joke.

Citizens took the view that a lawman was expected to risk his life on the odd occasion anyway, but this fighting fury of a man risked it regularly over a period of half a century.

Then when Miss Langford was on the end of the line of girls, Jack, in the middle of the line, gave an extra hard pull and the young teacher sprawled backwards, sitting down hard, her dress flying over her head.

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.

Madame Lalaurie gestured with her riding crop toward the 20-year-old youth who was stomping and writhing with the king snake still draped over his bare shoulders.