Mrs. Goudeket cried out and clutched his arm. "Look! Four hundred dollars worth of topsoil!" But it wasn't four hundred dollars worth of topsoil any more; it was a lake. She looked at it incredulously. She remembered distinctly what it had looked like when she and Mr. Goudeket had taken possession of Goudeket's Green Acres, formerly known as Holiday Hacienda: It had been a muddy cow pasture, rutted and gullied. It had taken three days with a bulldozer before they could start putting the topsoil on-- Mrs. Goudeket swallowed, as she considered where the four hundred dollars for the next batch of topsoil might be coming from. From the back seat Sharon Froman called sharply: "Watch yourself, Dick!" "I see him," McCue said, slowing down. A battered pickup truck was wallowing around their entrance road, trying to turn around. The driver was being meticulously careful about staying off the shoulders, which made it a long process, but finally he got turned around and pulled over. As the station wagon drew close he leaned out and yelled: "This ain't the road to Hebertown, is it?" Dick McCue leaned over his employer to roll the window down and yell back: "No! You have to turn left at the road, then the second right, left at the bridge--Look, just follow me." He barely got his head out of the window before Mrs. Goudeket rolled it up again. * * * * * "Follow him! Jeez, I ought to have an airplane!" Mickey Groff said, "We ought to be nearly there by now. Does it look familiar?" "Nothing looks familiar," Sam Zehedi complained, trying to keep the lights of the station wagon in sight. He stole a look at the dashboard. Forty-two miles they'd come! Backtracking where the bridge was washed out, taking a shortcut that had turned out impassable, getting lost on the country roads down toward the river--forty-two miles, and they'd started out three miles from town. There was a mile marker right in front of the store.... No, not any more there wasn't. Sam Zehedi got a sudden cramp in his belly thinking about it. The important thing was whether the insurance covered it or not. He had the impression that he was covered for everything from artillery fire by the Argentine army to glacier damage; but that was a long time ago when he signed that check for the policy, and he couldn't remember what it said about floods. Of course, he told himself valiantly, that guy in the car was nuts; the store couldn't have been just washed away. It was just that it was so dark and you couldn't see through the rain from as close as you dared to get in the car. Probably there was water in it, sure--but was that so bad? Look at those people in Missouri and places like that, they go through this every year. He thought of the new freezer, not yet paid for, and moaned. Mickey Groff snapped: "Are you sick? Want me to drive?"