I tossed the bottle. High, so it would only bounce harmlessly but loudly off the car's steel roof. Too high. On unoccupied roadway the bottle shattered into a small amber flash.

``Aye-yah-ah-ah!''

The Indian was again raising his bottle, but to my astonished relief -- probably only a fraction of Johnson's -- the bottle this time went to the Indian's lips.

Another car was coming, a tiny, dark shape on a far hill. I started looking on the splintery truck bed for a piece of board, a dirt clod -- anything I could throw and with better aim than I had thrown the beer bottle.

We were slowing. In the ditch sand was white and soft looking, only an occasional pebble discernible, faintly gleaming. But Johnson couldn't quickly unwire the truck door, and if I escaped, he might suffer.

The car was approaching fast. On the truck bed there was nothing smaller than a piece of rusty machinery; with more time I could have loosened a small burr or cotter pin --

Suddenly and not a second too soon I thought of the coins in my pocket. There was no time to pick out a penny; I got a coin between my thumb and forefinger, leaned my elbows in a very natural and casual manner on top of the truck cab and flipped my little missile.

There was a blur just under my focus of vision, a crash; the car's far windshield panel turned into a silver web with a dark hole in the center.

I heard the screech of brakes behind me, an insane burst of laughter beneath me. Looking back I saw a gray-haired man getting out of his halted car and trying to read our license number.