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fu17gitivt RicHARD CoRTEZ DAY Richard Cortez Day was born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1926. He grew up in Michigan and attended the University of Michigan, where he received a B.S. in mathematics and chemistry and an M.A. in English. After serving four years in the United States Navy, he attended the University oflowa, where he earned a Ph.D. in literature. He was a professor of English at Humbolt State University in Arcata, California, until his recent retirement. Day has come later to the literary front than have many ofhis contemporaries, but his work displays a sophistication and timeliness that suggest his mastery ofthe craft offiction. When In Florence (1986), his first and to date onlypublished collection, features fifteen interrelated stories and sketches. These stories portray the depth of sensitivity to the human condition that characterizes all of his work. His short fiction has appeared in New Mexico Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Kenyon Review, Redbook, Quarterly Wt-st, Carolina Quarterly, New England Review, Proza Americana (Romania), Damernas Varld (Sweden), Storiesfor the Sixties, Imagining Worlds, and The Pushcart Prize. First published in 1984, "The Fugitive" is representative of a cultural period that finds individuals frustrated both by their compulsion to identify with their own cultural history and with the difficulties they experience in complying with this need. Having escaped or been exiled from his ancestral self, Day's protagonist is confounded by his instinctive response to an interloper with whom he shares common roots; his resulting inner conflict advances this story beyond the scope of a simple narrative into a fine example of the modern short story. • Matthew Furman wore the look of a man whose house has been taken over by skunks. He sat in his pickup, glaring through the rain at the cabin. His neck hurt. Thirst pinched his throat. "Dammit," he said, and started the engine. He backed around in the clearing, pointed the truck toward town, and said, "Dammit to hell." He raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror. In the matted hair, the cheeks caved in and bristly with three days' stubble-in the eyes red-rimmed and with a network of veins in the whites-he saw the face of a man who had outsmarted himsel£ "Goddammit," he said and, thirsty though he was for whiskey, 238 RicHARD CORTEZ DAY drove forward and stopped over the same dry spot. The dice swung back and forth from the mirror. It wasn't skunks in the cabin. Her name was Annie Reardon. In town last Saturday night, after a few drinks at Toby and Jack's, he had jumped into the truck for the short drive to El Rancho Remuda, where he planned to do some dancing, spread himself among the divorcees, then choose a mount. But he never got to the Remuda. Within two blocks he spotted this one parked at the curb, gripping the steering wheel and jerking back and forth like a child on a stuck trike. The green Ford had Kentucky plates. He swerved in ahead of it, got out, and ambled back. "What's wrong, sweetness? Won't she run?" "It's out of gas," she said. "Would you fetch me a can?" Her voice was pure music. For years he hadn't heard that sweet Kentucky speech from a woman's mouth. It reminded him ofcool well water in a beechwood bucket, ofthe breeze in the willows byTroublesome Creek, back home in Hindman. She had wavy hair to her shoulders and eyes whose color he couldn't determine in that light, but shining like stones in a streambed. "Don't be too sure," he said. "Just pop the hood-I'll have a look." He opened it, thumbed the fan belt, jiggled the distributor wires. He closed the lid and put on a woeful face. "It's the fuel pump," he said, "or maybe a plug in the gas line." He glanced around inside. She was loaded to the roofwith suitcases, cardboard boxes, and pillowcases stuffed full. "The gauge says empty," she said. "Then it's the fuel pump. It ain't pumping gas to the gauge." He let out a sigh. "I reckon I could call a tow truck to haul you to the Exxon up the street. Then I could run you to a motel." In his experience, if you threw enough troubles in a woman's way, she was yours. He watched her mouth firm up, her face tighten. She swallowed her fate and...

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