When the bus started again, he fell on his side and lay still. He made retching sounds for a time, then rested, snoring softly. The bus driver woke him again at Caine's junction, retrieved his gin bottle from behind the seat, and helped him down the aisle and out of the bus. Big Hogey stumbled about for a moment, then sat down hard in the gravel at the shoulder of the road. The driver paused with one foot on the step, looking around. There was not even a store at the road junction, but only a freight building next to the railroad track, a couple of farmhouses at the edge of a side-road, and, just across the way, a deserted filling station with a sagging roof. The land was Great Plains country, treeless, barren, and rolling. Big Hogey got up and staggered around in front of the bus, clutching at it for support, losing his duffle bag. "Hey, watch the traffic!" The driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome compassion he trotted around after his troublesome passenger, taking his arm as he sagged again. "You crossing?" "Yah," Hogey muttered. "Lemme alone, I'm okay." The driver started across the highway with him. The traffic was sparse, but fast and dangerous in the central ninety-mile lane. "I'm okay," Hogey kept protesting. "I'm a tumbler, ya know? Gravity's got me. Damn gravity. I'm not used to gravity, ya know? I used to be a tumbler--_huk!_--only now I gotta be a hoofer. 'Count of li'l Hogey. You know about li'l Hogey?" "Yeah. Your son. Come on." "Say, you gotta son? I bet you gotta son." "Two kids," said the driver, catching Hogey's bag as it slipped from his shoulder. "Both girls." "Say, you oughta be home with them kids. Man oughta stick with his family. You oughta get another job." Hogey eyed him owlishly, waggled a moralistic finger, skidded on the gravel as they stepped onto the opposite shoulder, and sprawled again. The driver blew a weary breath, looked down at him, and shook his head. Maybe it'd be kinder to find a constable after all. This guy could get himself killed, wandering around loose. "Somebody supposed to meet you?" he asked, squinting around at the dusty hills. "_Huk!_--who, me?" Hogey giggled, belched, and shook his head. "Nope. Nobody knows I'm coming. S'prise. I'm supposed to be here a week ago." He looked up at the driver with a pained expression. "Week late, ya know? Marie's gonna be sore--woo-_hoo_!--is she gonna be sore!" He waggled his head severely at the ground. "Which way are you going?" the driver grunted impatiently. Hogey pointed down the side-road that led back into the hills. "Marie's pop's place. You know where? 'Bout three miles from here. Gotta walk, I guess." "Don't," the driver warned. "You sit there by the culvert till you get a ride. Okay?" Hogey nodded forlornly. "Now stay out of the road," the driver warned, then hurried back across the highway. Moments later, the atomic battery-driven motors droned mournfully, and the bus pulled away.