The hitchhiker never got a chance to question whether he would have killed a Paula who had already lost her once-intense passion for living. As the doubt was dawning, she had turned around to face her attacker and the hitchhiker found himself caught in the moment he had fantasized about for so long.

Her look was one of startled relief. The hitchhiker was surprised himself: had she been waiting for this -his release from prison, him hunting her down, and the eventual settling of scores- all along? Her face gave away the vague suggestion that in loosing her life, she thought of herself as finally free.

Free? That was the last thing the hitchhiker was expecting. During those sleepless nights, first at Berta Breck, and then at San Quentin, the hitchhiker imagined every reaction: horror, surprise, pleading; and his cool reaction to each. That’s why he was thoroughly thrown by the way she met his gleaming .38 (how sickeningly bright that moon was) with an unnerving mix of expectation and disbelief. It was as if she had been waiting so long for her end –this ending- that she was startled only by how suddenly it arrived. It was only five years –the hitchhiker had been released early for good behavior- but that is long enough when she knew that someone, in a prison cell somewhere, was plotting her death every day of each year. That’s why when it finally came, it was Paula, not the hitchhiker, who felt relieved.

The hitchhiker was so shocked to see her expectant expression, he pulled the trigger without thinking. It’s not that he wouldn’t have done it otherwise. He just never imagined that he would be the one to be surprised. That, in itself, was jarring enough to give him pause. The gun lowered, unwittingly, from the spot it was aiming at in the middle of her forehead. If Paula had wanted, she could have seized that brief moment to rush the hitchhiker. He would have overpowered her in the end, but it was a last chance for her to put up a fight. She didn’t. She gazed to the ground and lowered her head.