Nevada

Nevada is a way station in Jenny and Pauline’s flight, not a destination where they settle. Its motels and road towns mark a change in the journey: the women have spent Jenny’s money and now use stolen bills sparingly, while the question of where they can safely go gives way to the pull of returning home.

The westward journey

By the time Jenny and Pauline are traveling farther west, they move more often by day. Jenny’s money is gone, so they spend the stolen bills one at a time, at long intervals; each expenditure feels like a burden being lifted. They are not in a hurry, and their route zigzags north and south rather than following a straight line. Nevada belongs to this unsettled geography of flight: a stretch to pass through while they decide where, if anywhere, they might safely stop.

Winnemucca and their pact

In a motel in Winnemucca, Pauline returns to a promise she made during an earlier rainstorm: if the authorities caught her, she would not tell them about Jenny. She adds that Jenny did not have to remain with her and that she would understand if Jenny told on her. Jenny says she will not, and Pauline answers that she knows this is the kind of person Jenny is. The exchange makes the fugitive journey a test of loyalty as well as a problem of movement; even with capture in view, Pauline treats Jenny’s choice to stay as voluntary, and Jenny confirms that the bond between them is not simply an accident of being on the run.

Stateline and the turn toward home

Before leaving Nevada, the two pause in a town called Stateline, just short of the mountains. They discuss trying Oregon or finding a small inland town, weighing where it might be safest to touch down. Yet their deliberations carry them, almost without their admitting it, closer to the route back. As the road rises through the coast range and the blue gleam of San Pablo Bay appears, they shout; by then, their decision seems to have been made long before they voiced it. They will go home. The Nevada stop therefore sits at a hinge in the escape: the women talk as if choosing a new refuge, while the journey is already bending toward return.

Narrative significance

Nevada’s importance lies in the contrast between the practical uncertainty of flight and the emotional certainty that emerges from it. Winnemucca gives Jenny and Pauline a place to articulate trust; Stateline gives them a pause in which to name possible destinations. Neither stop resolves their danger, but together they frame the westward journey as a gradual return rather than a clean break. After they reach the San Francisco Bay Area, Jenny goes to Sandy’s North Berkeley porch in a disguise, carrying a Bible and asking whether Sandy has heard the Good News.