The Cat, The Devil, And Lee Fontana. The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

15

Lee’s first sight of Lucita nearly undid him, he was driving a loaded truck in from the fields, the men clinging to the sides cutting up as usual, when he saw a cloud of dust a long way off coming up the dirt road toward the ranch. As it drew near he recognized the green Chevy station wagon that Jake said he’d bought Lucita last Christmas. “Got it just in time,” Jake had said, laughing, “before her old Ford fell apart.” Lee watched her park before the house, step out, and open the tailgate. He’d expected that after so many years she’d be changed some, maybe a bit faded, maybe having gained a bit of weight. He hadn’t thought she’d be even more beautiful, still slim and long waisted, her sleek black hair wound into something complicated, her pale, silky shirt open low at the throat, her breasts high and firm, her jeans just as narrow and smooth-fitting as when she was a girl. He was so intent, watching her haul out packages and a small suitcase, that he nearly ran the truck into a toolshed; behind him the men exploded shouting and laughing. He braked fast and they leaped off, heading for the mess hall.

Killing the engine, he sat in the truck watching her carry a load of groceries into the house, balancing the bags, swinging the door open with her foot. He wanted to go over and help her, to talk to her, but instead he moved on into the mess hall behind the pickers. He loaded his plate at the long counter, found an empty seat alone at the end of a long table where he could see the ranch house, see her unloading the last packages. He ate his meal quietly, and then followed his crew out to the truck again and headed back to the fields. Seeing Lucita had put him off his game so badly that twice he let the truck swing too close to the edge and almost went off the levee. Trying to pay attention to his driving, he thought about dinner tonight with Lucita and Jake, feeling as nervous as a lovesick boy, felt so unsettled he had half a mind to beg off, to say he didn’t feel well.

But that would hurt her feelings, and would make Jake wonder. He sweated nervously through the afternoon. Evening came too soon, and not soon enough. Hurrying in from the fields, parking and crossing to his cabin, he showered, cleaned and polished his boots, put on the one clean shirt that he had washed the night before, spreading it out on his towel to ease the wrinkles before straightening it onto a hanger to dry. He should have gotten off the train in San Bernardino if only to buy himself some new clothes.

Leaving the cabin, walking across the yard, he was foolishly aware he was getting his boots dusty again. He’d started up the porch, was reaching to knock when she flung the door wide and threw her arms around him, startling and embarrassing him. She smelled like roses and she was so warm, her cheek soft against his, her kiss on his cheek sisterly and tender, and then she held him away, looking him over.

Her golden skin was without a wrinkle, except for the laugh creases that had deepened around her dark eyes and that made her seem somehow easier and more comfortable. She still wore her black hair long, pinned up with a silver clasp, but now it was touched with streaks of white, a bright touch that added a new charm. Her low white Mexican blouse and flowered skirt clung in a way that made him want to pull her close again, to keep on holding her. Seeing his look, she backed away, her dark eyes laughing. She took his hand and led him on inside, closed the door behind them. No dog greeted them, though she and Jake had always had a dog or two around the place, Lucita’s own dog close and protective of her. She saw him glance around and knew exactly what he was thinking.

“My Aussie was poisoned, last fall,” she said. “I can’t bear to get another dog, to have that happen again. Someone poisoning coyotes,” she said, her voice breaking, “and my dog found the bait.”

She led him into the living room where Jake was setting down a tray before the leather couch, she pulled Lee to the couch and sat down beside him.“Nearly twenty years, Lee,” she said easily, as Jake passed him a beer in a chilled glass. Lee would have been more comfortable drinking from the bottle, would have felt easier, too, if Lucita would move away a little, and if she hadn’t dressed up for him. But she had always loved a party, loved any excuse to get dressed up. In the old days she served her party meals on cracked pottery, not the fine china and expensive silver that now graced the Ellson table. Beside him, her sweet scent mixed sharply with the spicy smells of a Mexican dinner, a combination that brought back long-ago evenings, brought back so many times for the three of them, when he and Jake had sparred good-naturedly over her. A flowered plate sat on the table, piled with miniature tamales served before dinner with the beer. It took two days to make tamales properly, and Lee was more than flattered.

“From the freezer,” she said, laughing. “I made a big batch at Christmas. Do you remember, Lee, that Christmas in Flagstaff, ten feet of snow, and the young horses all playing and bucking, where we’d cleared the road, chasing each other like kids? And when the truck broke down and we couldn’t get into town, all we had to eat, all that week, was the oats for the horses, until you and Jake shot that big buck?”

Lee smiled, remembering how good that venison stew had tasted, after a week of oat porridge. They’d lived on oats and venison until they’d got the truck fixed, had finally jerry-rigged the broken part with bailing wire.

When she led them in to dinner, he watched Jake seat her at the table, gently pushing in her chair; and the meal she served, concoctions of chiles and cumin, of onions and garlic and lean, roasted meat, would entice the angels right down from heaven. She talked nonstop, and that was unusual for Lucita. Was she as uncomfortable as he, afraid of the silence between them? Or maybe she didn’t want to mention his prison years, bring up a painful subject. They talked about the cowponies Jake used to break, on that five barren acres she and Jake had rented, with the one-room squatter’s shack. Jake had broke some good colts that year. Lee remembered Lucita’s gentleness with a wild new colt, always patient but never backing off when the youngster needed to be worked, never stopping until the colt had finished his lesson.

He remembered how Lucita had found four baby rabbits in the hay barn, and had shut the dogs out, wouldn’t let anyone fork hay from that part of the barn until the rabbits were grown and gone. Sitting with her and Jake remembering the old times, the good times, he remembered, too, the times when their skuzzy friends had shown up, had stayed for maybe a week or two holing up from the law, rememberedhow irritable Lucita would grow, angry at Jake for letting them stay, for ever running with them—angry at them both for attracting what she considered scum, the dregs of humanity. And that thought turned him quiet. If he lifted the Delgado payroll, and destroyed Jake’s job, he was no better thanthose others.

He told himself Delgado had more money than any man had a right to, told himself he could pull this off without ever hurting Jake or Lucita, but he knew that wasn’t true. One way or another, such a theft would spill over and hurt them, bad. The truth was, when he looked at it squarely, whatever wealth Ramon Delgado had, he had earned with hard work and sweat and he had every right to it. Lee might rob a man, but he had never before fooled himself that he had a right to what he stole. What he took by force was just that, robbery. That was the game he’d played, steal and get out, vanish where the cops couldn’t find him. Now, taking an honest look at himself, he didn’t much like what he saw. And that night, leaving Jake and Lucita, leaving the nearness of her—but still thinking about crossing her and Jake—he lay on his bunk confused, badly conflicted, tossing and unable to sleep.

He’d never felt this kind of uncertainty. In the old days he’d known exactly what he wanted and had gone for it. Had made his plan, carried it out, and, more times than not, had got away clean, with a nice haul. But now he tossed all night, drifting in and out of sleep, thinking with shame of betraying the two people he valued most in the world, but then his thoughts drowning in darkness as he coveted the Delgado money, so near, so easy to lift for his own.

He came awake before dawn to the clanging bell from the mess hall. He looked out at the stars, rolled over, and wanted to sleep again, he was worn out, so tired that even his mind felt bruised. In sleep and in wakefulness he had fought himself, and fought the insistent urgings of the dark spirit. And as he twisted and turned, as the dark voice whispered to him, the ghost cat pressed close, sometimes rising to pace across the blanket, standing bold against the invasion that sought to mold Lee to its design.

Now, this morning, even as Lee woke more fully to the second clang of the breakfast bell, the yellow cat sat at the foot of the bed looking hard at him. This time, the cat didn’t have to speak, Lee knew exactly what he was thinking: Lee had wonthis battle, he had awakened knowing he would not betray Jake and Lucita, and the cat was pleased.

Rising, hastily washing and dressing, he thought about choosing a new mark for his retirement stash, about surveying the ranches and businesses in the area until he found one that kept sufficient cash on hand to be of use. The gypsum plant, maybe. Or one of the big cotton or alfalfa farms. These were places he knew nothing about, he didn’t know how they were run, he would have a lot to learn about their operations, a lot to catch up on. You didn’t just walk into an office, wave your gun, and expect to walk away with a haul. He’d have to know the layout, see where and when the workers moved about, have to know what they did in their jobs, as best he could find out. Needed to know how the staff was paid. In cash? If they were paid by check, that put them out of the running. If by cash, he had to know who transported the money and when, where it was dealt out, and on what day. He’d have to work out the timing, have to know the whole drill, and that would take time. Time, and a degree of energy and stamina that he wasn’t sure he could still muster. He had already blown one job because of poor planning. That had sent him to McNeil, he wasn’t doing that again.

The local motels and restaurants wouldn’t have the kind of cash he needed, not there on the premises. And if he hit a bank, pulled a federal crime and got caught, he’d spend the rest of his life, for sure, in the federal pen, would most likely die there, breathe his last gasp on some hard prison cot with no one to give a damn. The minute he got stressed trying to work out a plan, his breathing got worse; he knew that only part of his coughing and lack of breath was the dust. Why he had thought the blowing desert sand wouldn’t irritate his lungs, he had no idea. And the Federal Bureau of Prisons wouldn’t care, why the hell would they? He’d agreed when they said the heat would help him, and he’d thought it would be easy work, driving the truck back and forth, he hadn’t thought any further than that. But now, with a new robbery to plan, he could feel the pressure constricting his lungs again, and he knew he’d better get on with it, better figure out what he wanted to do before the emphysema took a turn for the worse and he wouldn’t have the strength to even hold a gun steady.

16

The harder Satan pressed Lee, the stronger the cat seemed to grow. No matter how Lucifer tried to manipulate Fontana, either the cat or Lee himself found a way to best him. Misto’s exuberance for life, even when he traveled between lives, the ghost cat’s love for the living human spirit was poison to Satan, Misto generated a joy so willful and strong, so stubborn, that the dark spirit at last backed away—for the moment. Repulsed and defeated, Satan melted from Lee’s cabin out into the night where he restlessly wandered the ranch yard looking for lighter entertainment, seeking some mindless diversion to cool his seething rage.

At last, smiling, he took the form of a coyote, rank and mangy and flea-ridden. Slipping in through the walls of the nearest bunkhouse, he amused himself for a while weaving terrifying dreams among the sleeping workers, bloody nightmares that stirred memories of childhood hunger and beatings in the tired men, of adolescent atrocities, the pain from knives and attacks with broken bottles. He rekindled terrors that made the dreaming men shudder and cry out and made the shaggy carnivore smile, yellow toothed, grinning with the lusty evil that was so easy to press into the simple minds of these otherwise happy-go-lucky men.

When he grew bored with these mind games, he wandered across the ranch yard leaving no tracks in the sand, and in through the locked door of the Ellsons’ house, into Jake and Lucita’s bedroom. They slept twined together, dreaming, after a long and easy lovemaking, and here again he sought to drive fear into his quarry, to shatter their happy slumber.

But in the cloying atmosphere of happiness, his attempt at nightmares failed. The two slept undisturbed and peaceful except for Lucita’s occasional soft moan, her hand brushing Jake’s cheek but then pulling away again, tucking her hand under her own cheek. Her dream was a scenario Lucifer couldn’t read or seem in any way to alter, and that, too, maddened him. The night had not gone well. If he were a human trespasser, armedand in a killing mood, if he had entered the room to shoot them in their sleep it would have gone better, though even then he thought he might have had a battle, eyeing the pistol Jake kept beside his bed.

Annoyed with the recalcitrant attitude of those in the upper world, Satan left the Ellsons’ at last and quit the Delgado Ranch, abandoning this world for the moment in a swirl of wind to vanish down through packed sand and desert rock, through miles of stone and undersea rivers and molten beds of plasma. Fast as the wind he fled down and down into the hot and fiery regions where he could nurse his frustrations in his own surroundings. There, taking his ease among the familiar fires, gathering strength from hell’s searing flames, he laid out plans for his imminent return.

The devil is not one entity. Like the hundred eyes of the fly multiplied ten trillion times, he is everywhere he chooses to be, everywhere at once, growing stronger where he is welcomed, fading and weakening when he is willfully rebuffed. Now down among the flames and comfortable once more, he thought that when he returned to the world above he would attend once again to the events in Georgia, to the Blake family where the scenario he had set in place was developing nicely, to the little family that was so interestingly connected to Lee Fontana. Though he would continue to haze Fontana, too, of course, searching for weaker elements in Lee’s nature. The pieces were coming together very well, the results of his work were gathering in myriad ways toward an explosion of satisfying destruction. With the help of Brad Falon, that lustfully eager pawn, a final retribution was building, a last determination for the heirs of Russell Dobbs,a crushing conclusion to the lives of the final descendants of this one distasteful enemy. Soon he would destroy the last trace of Dobbs, would turn to dust all that Dobbs had begotten in his defiant human life.

The cat, having faced off the devil with a power that seemed to Misto greater than he alone could have mustered, smiled with pleasure at Lucifer’s departure. Whatever had happened tonight, Lee and the cat together had bested the dark one with a triumph that made Misto feel he could whip immense tigers, could defeat blood-hungry carnivores from far crueler ages, long past.

Once the devil was gone, Misto waited on Lee’s bed only long enough to see that Lee slept soundly for the few hours remaining of the night, then he left the old convict and faded out into the cool dark. Above, on the roof of the building, digging his claws into the heat-softened shingles, he was still smiling a sly cat smile at the dark wraith’s retreat, at knowing that he and Lee, armed with a fierce anger born of love, could weaken the prince of malevolence. From the rooftop he watched the coyote enter the bunkhouses, watched the devil’s cold manipulation of the work-tired men, watched Satan’s failure to reach or make any impression on Jake and Lucita Ellson. Above Misto the stars sparked and gleamed, and a low moon hung over the desert hills, its thin curve picking out mirrored reflections in the black and glassy surface of the great Colorado River that flowed away beyond the ranch. Happily twitching his tail, the ghost cat immersed himself in the glory of the earthly world, a world so intricate, so complicated, so dazzling a panorama with its billions of living forms all so cleverly designed, all unique and all so freely given. To the cat, this world was a great and ever-changing wonder, he felt now the same joyhe had indulged in while riding atop the southbound passenger train down the coast, a giddy madness of pure pleasure. And now again he let his thoughts turn back in time, let his vision sweep back into a past when this whole vast valley lay deep beneath the sea, when these fields and low hills werepart of the sea floor, grazed by fishes instead of sheep, the undersea hilltops scoured by schools of Pleistocene sharks hunting their fishy prey. And then his vision leaped ahead to see the earth heave up and the sea floor violently lift, mountains rising as the earth’s plates buckled, the wrinkled coastal range pushing up and up and the sea draining away from the newly emerged land, sucked away in foaming rivers.

Sitting on the cabin roof, the cat reveled in those vast changes over eons of time. He knew a heady amazement that he, one small and insignificant cat spirit, could be privileged to witness such miracles, that he, in this time between his various lives, could look out upon whatever aspect of existence he chose, on huge events and small, all come together into the endless sum that formed life’s unfathomable tapestry.

Thus, on the roof, Misto waited out the night contemplating the earth’s richness but looking down often, too, beneath his paws through the cabin roof to make sure that Lee rested peacefully, praying that Lee wouldn’t falter, in the future, in his defiance of the dark one.

Only in the matter of Lucita was Misto uncertain, wondering how Lee’s resolve would endure—and well the cat should wonder, for in the days that followed, Lee found any excuse to be near her, any pretense to stop by the house at noon on some trumped-up errand, a need for clean towels, a request to borrow a broom. Or he would stop by the stable as she groomed orworked with the horses, or in the evening he would have an excuse to speak with Jake. Lee was more convinced each day that Lucita welcomed his attention and that she returned his feelings. The cat watched, lashing his tail, but for the moment he kept his remarks to himself; he only knew that Luciferwas not finished yet, as Lucita’s slightest smile, her smallest glance heated Lee’s blood. And though Lee stuck to his commitment regarding the Delgado money, Satan was busy honing Lee’s resentment that Jake stood in his way with the woman he wanted; Lee didn’t like seeing the two together,often so wrapped up in each other that they were aware of no one else.

Lucita kept her Appaloosa mare turned out in a half-acre paddock with Jake’s big sorrel gelding, and they often rode in the evenings, out along the levees. Lee would watch from his porch as she went off with Jake, sitting the mare easy, sleek in a Western shirt, her shining black hair tied in a knot at her neck beneath a white Stetson, and as Lee watched and coveted her, Misto sensed the dark wraith easing in to make his move.

If Satan couldn’t force Lee into the robbery that was against Lee’s deepest instincts, then he would see that Lucita was the cause of Lee’s downfall, he would stir Lee’s lust for her until Lee, one way or another, moved to destroy the Ellson family and so destroy himself.

On a Sunday night when Lucita had made a pot of chili and invited Lee over, the ghost cat followed him. Wanting to see how Lucita responded to him now, he trotted invisibly on Lee’s heels into the Ellson house. The smell of chili and of chopped cilantro filled the cozy rooms, making Misto lick his chops as he gravitated unseen to the top of the refrigerator, as he looked down on the three where they sat at the kitchen table drinking beer, laughing about old times. Misto could as well have made himself visible, could have walked right on in as he had done often these past days as he worked at befriending Lucita, as he sought to establish a bond with her, to gain an inside look at the little, easily missed moments that might arise between her and Lee.

The tomcat found Lucita just as charming as Lee did, just as pleasant to be near, beautiful, tender, soft-voiced. He would come to the back door to beg for handouts, would rub against her ankles, purring when she stroked him, and she always had a kind word. But tonight he remained unseen where he could observe the mood and preoccupation of the three players more closely, could listen and perceive without Lee’s wondering why this sudden, intent observation.

As they served up their bowls in the kitchen and moved into the dining room, where the rest of the meal was laid out, the cilantro and onions and salsa, the rice and beans, the ghost cat drifted to the top of the carved china closet. There he sat tall and bold and invisible looking down at the three, offering no telltale shadow, no hint of a purr to give himself away. He watched them sprinkle cilantro and onions onto their chili, sip their beer, watched the interaction between the three of them: Lee longing for her, Lucita aware but ignoring his glances just as, when they were alone, she did her best to ignore his heated looks though she was indeed drawn to him. Jake remained as unresponsive as if he sat at a high-stakes poker table, no clue to what he was thinking, even when Lucita tried to breach an uncomfortable silence recalling a cattle drive the three of them had made over in Kingman that, for some reason, brought color to her cheeks. She was passing the bowl of chili when they heard, from the nearby pasture, a horse squealing with fear, the Appaloosa mare’s shrill cry. Lucita bolted from her chair and was out the door. Jake grabbed his forty-five and was on her heels. Lee followed wondering if coyotes were prowling outside the paddock, or possibly a cougar, which were seen occasionally. Or maybe a stranger wandering in bothering the horses. Lucita’s leopard Appaloosa was showy and worth stealing, and the sorrel gelding was a registered Thoroughbred worth good money.

Only Misto, following them to the paddock, knew what was there. A dog would have known, would have barked wildly—if Lucita had seen fit to have another dog. In the paddock the mare and gelding were circling and wheeling at a frenzied gallop, white eyed and crazy with fear, rearing, spinning, and ducking as if attacked by hornets, so terrified they were ready to jump the fence or crash through.

Jake, as he passed the tack room, had grabbed his lariat. He managed to rope the gelding, and now he stood quieting him. Lee moved beside the mare as Lucita fought to halter her. When she’d buckled the halter on at last, trying to calm the mare, she led her rearing and snorting through the gate and toward the stable. Jake had quieted the gelding. He brought him to lead beside the mare, helping to steady her. Lucita got her into her stall, still white eyed and fighting. Jake nodded to Lee to stay with her, threw a saddle on the gelding and bridled him, and headed out—hunting a varmint that Lee knew he would never see, and could never kill.

As Lucita tried to soothe the mare, Lee moved quietly into the stall. The Appaloosa seemed to accept him, she didn’t shy away as he stood beside Lucita smoothing her mane. They talked softly to her, and at last the mare eased into Lucita, her shivering calmed, she didn’t flinch when Lee found a soft brush and began to brush her neck, to softly brush her face. Lucita rubbed her ears, and scratched a favorite spot on her withers. Slowly, slowly the mare calmed. If Lucita was aware of Lee’s closeness, she gave no sign. Only when the mare had settled enough to snatch a bite of grain, only when Lucita turned to look directly at Lee, did he see the fear in her eyes.

“What was that, Lee? What’s out there? That was no animal. Where is Jake, is Jake all right?”

Lee knew there was a shotgun in the kitchen, that he could pretend to go looking, but he wouldn’t go out there in the dark when Jake didn’t know he was there. And what was the point? What Jake hunted couldn’t be shot. Lucita looked at him, so shaken; they stood close together, the mare crowded against them for reassurance. “That was no man,” Lucita said. “You saw it, Lee. A shadow, a man-shadow. But not a man.” She turned, pressed her face against the mare’s neck. The mare turned, nuzzling her.

“Something moving,” Lucita said, “something … transparent. You saw it.” She turned to him, reached to touch his cheek. At once his arms were around her, holding her. “You saw it, Lee. That wasn’t anything living,” and she was trembling in his arms.

“Lucita …”

She lifted her face to him, he held her close and kissed her, a long kiss, felt the heat of her, they remained as close as one being, the mare pushing into them, pressing her nose to them, the three of them needing each other, until they heard the sound of hooves, the gelding coming into the barn. Lee turned away, letting her go. When he looked back, her eyes searched his for a moment, still frightened, still needful. She started to speak but then she, too, turned away, burying her face against the mare’s mane.

“I don’t know what frightened them,” Lee lied. Jake was coming, his footsteps in the alleyway.

Lee knew that this moment with her would lead nowhere, that it was fear that had done this, that she would not have touched him otherwise, would not have clung to him. The dark spirit had done this, and silently he cursed the haunt—and yet he would not have missed this one perfect moment even if he burned forever in Satan’s hell.

It was now that the cat appeared beside Lee’s boot and then leaped to the manger and into the partially filled grain box. He didn’t startle the mare, in fact only then did the Appaloosa settle down completely, nose in beside the cat, and begin carefully to nibble up her oats. The cat rubbed against her then he slipped out of the manger again and down into the stall. Wading across the straw bedding, he rubbed against Lucita’s ankles, his purrs calming the three of them as Jake opened the stall door and stepped in.

“I found nothing.” He looked pale; he looked at the mare, so quiet now, and reached to stroke her neck. “They’re both calm now. Whatever was there, it’s gone.” He looked at Lee, at Lucita. “Whatever that was—a cougar or whatever thehell it was, I hope it doesn’t come back. I took the electric torch, looked for tracks, couldn’t find anything. I’ll try again, at first light.” He touched Lucita’s cheek, took her in his arms as Lee turned away and moved out of the stall.

17

Lee had been at work for nearly two weeks when he discovered the perfect escape from whatever crime he ultimately planned, a foolproof way to vanish from Blythe, to slip from the cops’ grasp without a clue for them to trace. It was midmorning, he was inching the truck along beside the field below the levee keeping pace with the pickers, when above him atop the levee an unfamiliar truck came rattling along fast. It passed him and, some distance beyond, turned down the side of the levee onto an open dirt strip, stopping in a swirl of dust. Two men got out, began dragging heavily loaded burlap bags out of the truck bed. He was trying to make out the lettering on the truck’s door when a buzzing sound made him look up, the racket grew to a deafening roar and a yellow biplane flashed so low over him that he ducked.

The plane banked steeply, flying treacherously low as it swung back toward the strip. The engine cut to an idle, the left wing dropped, the plane side-slipped at such a steep angle Lee was certain it would crash. The pilot in the open, rear cockpit looked down unconcerned. At the last minute he straightened the plane, touched down, and rolled lightly to a stop just beside the truck.

Lee put his own truck in neutral, got out, and walked over to take a look, watching the truck driver and his partner as they began to empty their bags, one after another, into a hopper in the front cockpit, releasing a heavy white powder that smelled like the bug poison they used in prison to keep the roaches down, or like the white cricket bait scattered like snow on the streets of Blythe. The name on the truck was Valley Dusters. The pilot slid out of the rear cockpit, pulled off his helmet and goggles releasing a tangle of brown curly hair. A young man, fancy white scarf tucked into the collar of his black windbreaker, clean tan slacks, black boots. He looked at Lee questioningly, not quite belligerent but with a lopsided half-smile.

“I thought,” Lee said, “you were going to drive that booger straight into the ground.”

The young man smiled.“I guess you’re not a pilot. These babies are handy as hell, you can outfly a hawk in one of these.” He looked Lee over. “You look like a horseman. You ever been up higher than a bronc’s back?”

“Never have, never intend to.” In prison he’d watched pilots buzz the walls once in a while, that always brought men out into the yard, staring up, wishing they could grab on, catch a lift out of there. Some guys claimed that in the future huge planes would fly all over the country, more and bigger even than the planes that had helped win the war, planes that would carry hundreds of passengers clear around the world. Already there were a few such flights, out of San Francisco and L.A. But this little yellow plane seemed a different breed, so small and handy it was free to land anywhere,in a pasture, an open field, the pilot could come and go as he pleased.

“It’s a war surplus trainer, a Stearman,” the young man said. “I’m Mark Triple.”

Lee put out his hand.“Lee Fontana. I work for Delgado.”

Triple nodded.“Come take a look.”

Lee moved around to study the big radial engine, then stared into the open cockpit at the worn canvas seat cushion, the black instrument panel with its cluster of dials that looked only confusing to him. He couldn’t imagine leaving the earth in this little machine, a man would have to be crazy. Yet the idea, the freedom such a plane offered, deeply excited him.

“I put a bigger engine on it,” Triple said. “Four hundred and fifty horse. Carries a good load, but I’m going to get a new plane that will carry more dust, handle more fields without reloading. There’s a growing demand for crop dusting.”

Jake had talked about how much this method of distributing insecticides saved in produce, about the higher yield to the fields when the crops weren’t ruined by insects. It looked like a good business, all right. It would have to be, if this young a man, who couldn’t have been in business long, was already buying a new and bigger plane. How much, Lee wondered, would that set him back? Compared to a car or truck, a plane had to cost a fortune. He smiled at the kid, encouraging him. “Looks like you’re doing all right.”

Triple laughed.“Just getting started. Going back to Wichita in a few weeks, there’s an aircraft plant there, and there’s a guy back there wants to buy the Stearman.”

Lee studied the pilot.“Which way will you go to Wichita?”

“Up through Vegas, to say good-bye to a girl there. Then on direct to Kansas.”

“Saying good-bye’s kind of final.”

“I’m going on to Florida, hook up with a friend. Tired of working for others, we plan to start up our own dusting business.”

“You won’t be coming back to California?” Lee asked with interest. “How long would a trip like that take?”

“Here to Vegas, a little over an hour. Vegas to Wichita, given good weather, maybe nine or ten hours.”

“Nice,” Lee said. “Time was, it took folks months to make that journey. I guess, the way you work, on your own and all, you don’t keep time schedules like an airline would, you’re not beholden to anyone?”

Triple smiled, studying him.“I don’t keep any schedules, and I work my own hours. As long as I do the work, my time’s pretty much my own. I have my own hangar, I work when and where I’m needed. I check in with the home office once a week and send them a bill, and that’s about it.”

Lee nodded.“Your hangar … You keep your plane nearby?”

“The abandoned military airfield—that flat stretch west of town up on the butte. I contract to Valley Dusters out of San Bernardino. I’m pretty free now, I guess, but I want my own operation, I want to do things my way.” He glanced up at the two men, who had finished the loading. “Have toget moving,” he said, swinging up into the cockpit. “Nice meeting you, Fontana.”

“Will you be back this way?”

“Next week,” Mark shouted, revving the engine. “Dust again next week.”

Lee wanted to ask him more but Triple was on his way, the engine roaring. Lee stepped back beside his truck, watched the yellow plane taxi, gaining speed, watched it lift at the far end of the field like a great bird leaping up, even with the weight it carried. He watched it bank sharply, heading back low, dropping its nose along the far side of the levee, where acres of young bean plants stretched away.

With its wheels just above the green rows it spat a white cloud of dust that settled quickly down on the long lines of bright leaves. At the other end of the field, Triple flew under a power line then climbed and turned, came back under the same line to make another pass. Lee stood with his hand over his nose and mouth, choking on the insecticide—but deep in thought, thinking where that plane could go without any record of takeoff time or destination. Soon he was coughing hard, but the idea that gripped him was more urgent than his sick lungs—a crazy idea, but he thought it might work, and a hot excitement surged through him. Mark Triple and his yellow plane could be, Lee thought, his one sure ticket to freedom.

All the way back to the sheds, driving the straining truck with its load of melons and pickers, and all the rest of that day driving back and forth he thought about Mark Triple, about the airplane that could put him over the mountains clear to Vegas in an hour or so, a four-hour trip or better by car. Looking off toward the hills, where the plane could so quickly vanish, he started counting the days until Triple would return, until he could bring Mark Triple innocently into the scheme he was building. He needed to get into Blythe, he needed to look the town over with more care, and to study the surrounding area. It had been many years since he’d spent any time there, things change, new and different businesses opening up. Now, with the anticipation of a perfect getaway, he found his excitement growing; this heist would not involve Jake Ellson, and that made him feel lighter, easier in spirit. Even his lust for Lucita settled into a dull ache as his common sense kicked in and his thoughts rallied to a more sensible robbery.

In the next days there were fewer times when he couldn’t get his mind off Lucita, fewer nights when his dreams were filled with her, when he tossed and fought his pillow—or when the dark presence returned to wake and hassle him and urge him in his lust. If he did lie wakeful, he would instead sort through various schemes, ever impatient to get into town and take a look, get the lay of the place and pick out a new mark, now that he had an inspired and, he hoped, reliable getaway. And then, on the nights when the dark presence came stronger, pushing him to pursue Lucita more forcefully and to follow the more certain path to the Delgado payroll, the ghost cat would crowd close to Lee. Then, Misto seemed almost to become one with Lee, fighting the dark force, hissing and snarling and even seeming to grow in stature as he sought to ward off the evil that would crush Lee. The power of the cat beside Lee strengthened him so much that some nights he would scoff and laugh at Satan; and as the dark and angry spirit drew back, Lee would stroke the cat’s rough coat, and smile at Misto’s rumbling challenge.

But Lee feared, and perhaps rightly so, that there would be times ahead when his own strength wouldn’t hold, when, alone perhaps, he would be overwhelmed, when he must watch Satan take the lead and, try as he might, Lee would be unable to best him, when it would be too easy to let the dark wraith bully and intimidate him into following the devil’s plan.

18

When Morgan Blake was mustered out of the navy, the minute he got home he had floated a loan to make the down payment on the old Wilson gas station. Working from early dawn through the evenings, it didn’t take him long to convert the building into a spacious automotive shop. He kept one gas pump, removed the other three, turned the remainder of the open, roofed area into parking for his repair customers. The shop itself was a white frame building with two bays and two hydraulic lifts. There wasan office attached, a storeroom behind that, and a small bathroom. The little office, with its plate-glass window looking out under the overhang held an old metal desk, three wooden chairs, and a small wooden table cluttered with automotive catalogs. Both the shop and the office smelled comfortablyof grease, metal, and the sharp scent left by the arc-welding equipment.

Now as he moved away from the raised lift where he had been greasing a forty-two Plymouth, a white delivery van pulled into the drive and parked to the left of the bay entrance, emitting the scent of fresh bread and pastries that traveled with it. He watched his motherin-law step out of the cab, waving and smiling in at him. He grinned and waved, and lowered the Plymouth to the concrete, as she went on into the office. Caroline Tanner was a handsome woman, tall like Becky, her dark hair peppered with white, her Levi’s fitting her lean body easily, her white shirt freshly starched. She carried a white bakery box, she set it on the table, balanced on a stack of papers. It was just noon, she had obviously come to share lunch, and he wondered why. She was more than welcome, but she didn’t do this often. He stepped into the little bathroom to wash up, and retrieved his lunch bag from a shelf among boxes of small automotive parts.

In the office he spread some paper towels on the desk as Caroline drew up another chair. They had exchanged no word, nor needed to. He laid his sandwiches out on the paper towels, one roast beef, one tomato and bacon. Caroline accepted half a roast beef sandwich, and poured coffee from his thermos into the two mugs he had rinsed out. He watched her with apprehension, and when she looked up at him, her gray eyes were filled with something so unpleasant that before she could speak he reached out, put this hand over hers.“Caroline, I already know.”

“Brad Falon’s back in town,” she said softly.

He nodded.“I heard he was out on the West Coast. L.A., I think. I wish he’d stayed there.”

“You haven’t told Becky?”

“No.” He sat looking at her, remembering the pain he had caused Caroline when he and Becky were going together in high school and he ran with Falon. In those days he wouldn’t listen to Caroline, any more than he’d listen to his own parents.

She looked at him steadily.“Brad’s mother was in the bakery yesterday, we sat back in the kitchen, had a cup of coffee. I don’t like the woman much, she’s so …”

“Righteous,” Morgan said.

Caroline smiled.“But she’s been through hell with Brad. And now, knowing Brad, it’ll start all over again.”

The Falon house stood three blocks from the house where Morgan had grown up, Morgan and his parents had gone to the same church as the Falons. Morgan’s mother had lost many nights’ sleep over his friendship with Brad, over the scrapes they got into, and there was a lot his parents had never known, the stolen car radios and batteries they had fenced outside of town. When Morgan went in the navy, Falon was already in jail, he had been in and out of jail ever since.

For Morgan, the trouble they got into had all been boyhood pranks. When he joined the navy, he was done with that. But for Falon, that early beginning had added up to more than pranks. Long before Falon went to jail as an adult for the first time, he did a hitch in Juvenile Hall for trying to kill a little girl’s puppy. He was stopped only just in time, but the judge said the intent was there. With Falon’s previous juvenile record, he wasn’t cut much slack.

That was when Morgan took his first honest look at Falon, saw Brad for what he was—and saw himself mirrored there. But even then, even in high school, he wouldn’t stop running with Falon.

Now he watched Caroline cut her homemade pie, the blueberries oozing juice. She had brought a container of whipped cream, which she spooned liberally onto the pie as he refilled their coffee mugs. Caroline had spent plenty of sleepless nights when he and Becky were kids. Becky wouldn’t stop seeing Morgan, and he wouldn’t stop associating with Falon. Caroline had told him, long before he would admit it to himself, that Brad Falon was an emotional cripple, that Falon had no conscience. Morgan hadn’t believed her, then, but of course she’d been right. Whatever it was inside a normal person that made them care about others, whatever it was that made them separate right from wrong, was missing in Brad Falon. Whatever made Morgan love Becky and Sammie so much he would die for them in an instant, had no meaning at all for Falon, love was a word without context, Falon could only pretend to love, just as he pretended to separate right from evil.

Caroline finished her pie and sat looking at Morgan, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. She didn’t believe he would go back with Falon, yet she was sick with fear that he might. She was thinking,Don’t start again. Please don’t let it start,and Morgan was ashamed that even now, even after all these years, Caroline had to assess him all over again.

“What you’re thinking hurts,” he said. “But I guess I have it coming.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll send him packing, you know I won’t hurt Becky and Sammie. I don’t want Falon around here, any more than you do.” But even as he said it, embarrassment twisted his gut almost as if he were sixteen again trying to con Caroline, and he felt his face burning.

When Brad Falon flew out of L.A., escaping before the law fingered him on a land scam, he was nicely set up to put into motion events that would destroy Morgan Blake and his family. Pleased with this scenario, already planning the moves, he had no notion that he would, as well, entrap in his web a second enemy, that he would find himself in the perfect position to bring down Lee Fontana. As far as Falon knew, Fontana wasn’t anywhere near Georgia or the East Coast, he knew no reason for Fontana to be there. After boarding a DC–4 in L.A., in his roomy seat Falon was soon enjoying the champagne and carefully prepared snacks including smoked salmon from Seattle and shrimp from Mexico. As he ate and drank, acceptingseconds from the stewardess, he entertained himself by mentally undressing and imaginatively using the tall blonde in a variety of creative ways.

The stewardess didn’t like his looks. Even when her back was turned, tending to other passengers, she could feel him watching her. He was a wiry, sour man who looked as if he’d never been young, there was no hint anywhere in that grim countenance of the shadow of a happy youth, his muddy eyes were set too close together, his face unnaturally narrow, everything about him seemed somehow wrong, she didn’t like waiting on him, she drew back her hand when he touched her.

He had boarded the flight wearing Levi’s, in a day when Levi’s were worn only by cattlemen and horsemen, men easy in their wrinkled jeans and jackets that were softened by work and age. She was a Montana girl, she knew the difference, Falon’s stiff new Levi’s jacket still smelled of sizing, still sported the store creases. His snakeskin boots with red and blue flowers had never seen, or ever would see, honest cow or horse manure.

Falon watched the stewardess, wondering what she was thinking with that closed expression when she glanced at him; but then he put the hussy aside and he turned his thoughts to the action ahead, to his long-overdue homecoming. He intended, when home in Georgia again, to take care of the Blake family once and for all, in a way that would not only make Morgan suffer but would provide a lifetime of bitter payback for Becky’s disdain of him, as she well deserved.

He hadn’t seen Morgan since Blake went in the navy. But he’d seen Becky, all right. He’d see her again, and this time he’d make her glad to see him, real glad. Even if Morganwas home, Becky would need some excitement, Morgan was dull as mud, what could he offer a woman? By the time the plane touched ground at Chattanooga, the cabin was stifling hot. When the boarding door opened Falon pushed on through to the head of the line, he was the first to step out onto the rolling metal stair—into waves of heat radiating up from the steel grid and from the black macadam below. He’d forgotten how heavily the Southern heat pressed down on a person. Even a summer in L.A. could not be this oppressive, and it was still only spring. Ignoring the passengers crowding impatiently behind him, he stood looking down at the hot black tarmac and beyond at the three-story concrete terminal building, its outlines quivering with heat. Did those behind him have to fidget and grumble? What was their hurry? Some broad started carping about making a hurried connection, so it was all he could do not to turn and swing at her. He stood trying to get used to the heat, so damn hot he couldn’t tolerate the fidgeting and nagging. Another woman was going on about her family waiting for her in the hot sun. He didn’t move until the stewardess slipped by her passengers out onto the landing and puta gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned, scowling, then licked his lips at her. Anger blazed in her eyes, but she said nothing. He turned away again and descended the hot metal steps, frowning back at the passengers pushing close behind him, then he crossed the tarmac and into the cooler terminal.

The stewardess watched Falon turn to survey the passengers crowding down behind him, an amused smile lifting the corner of his mouth. She was deeply relieved to see the last of the sour, thin man. There was something unhealthy and cold about him, she couldn’t really understand the fear he instilled in her. She turned back into the cabin feeling as violated as if he had physically assaulted her; she hoped he never flew with her again.

Falon carried his only piece of luggage, the leather valise containing an extra shirt, two pairs of shorts, two pairs of socks and a razor, stuffed in on top of ten packets of hundred-dollar bills, money he’d stashed long before the feds ever got on his tail, money they didn’t know he had. The afternoon time was 3:35 by the airport clock. Chattanooga temperature was ninety-seven degrees, the humidity 91 percent. As he crossed the hot paving, his hair felt sticky, his shirt and Levi’s were already clinging to him. He moved quickly through the terminal and out to the front sidewalk. He took the first cab in line, stepping in front of three old women dragging their bulky luggage. Pushing one of their suitcases out of the way, he stepped into the backseat, directed the driver to the center oftown where the car lots would be lined up like Vegas gambling joints waiting for the suckers.

He left the cab, tipping exactly 5 percent, and wandered among the shiny vehicles, checking them out, moving from one car to the next, looking them over, then moving on up to the next lot. In the Ford lot he found a 1945 black Mustang that suited him just fine. He paid cash, peeling off twenties and fifties from a roll that he drew from his pocket. He filled out the registration certificate under the name of Lemuel Simms. When he had completed the deal he laid his suitcase in the passenger seat, drove six blocks to a gun shop he’d spotted from the taxi. He bought a Colt .45 automatic with an extra clip and eight boxes of ammunition. In the car, loading the clips, he shoved one into the gun. Dropping gun and extra clip in his pocket, he pushed the boxes of ammo under the seat, and drove three blocks to the Merchant’s Bank.

Removing a fourth of the cash from the valise, he deposited half under the name of James Halyer, opened a safe deposit box and put the rest in there. He repeated this operation at three more banks, using a different name for each, supplying the required identification for each. He finished with a thousand dollars on him. He hid the bankbooks in the double lining of his valise. As he headed the Mustang for the main highway that ran south toward Rome and his parents’ place, he knew he would do well with what he planned, as he always did when under pressure. He didn’t mean to stay in Rome long, just until he pulled this job and got what he wanted. Growing up in that hick town had been a downer, he’d thought he’d never get out of there. Nothing to do but boost hubcaps, steal auto parts and batteries. No bars, no liquor, no dance halls, and most of the girls were straight as nuns, only a couple that would give out, and they were used by most of the male population in high school. Morgan Blake was his only buddy, though Morgan left the girls alone. Morgan had eyes only for Becky Tanner, the snotty little bitch, too good for anyone but Morgan.

He had to laugh remembering when he was in eighth grade, remembering the white dog, even if he had been sent to reform school for that little bit of fun. He’d been walking down the empty hall while school was in session, passing the front door of the second-grade room and then glancing through the half glass of the back door, looking up to the front watching the little kids at their show-and-tell, some brat standing in front of the class holding up his pet hamster.

Just inside the back door stood a line of cardboard boxes and a wire mesh animal carrier awaiting their turn. He could see movement in the carrier, something white and fluffy, and he’d heard a beseeching whine. He had stood a moment feeling excited and hard, his hunger intense. Then he spun away, around the corner past the boys’ restroom to the tool room where the custodian kept his cleaning and repair equipment.

The room was usually unlocked, he had often prowled in there, and among the hanging tools was a large pair of hedge clippers, he’d watched the janitor use them on the box hedges that surrounded the school yard. Lifting them down, he’d released the catch letting the blades spring open sharp and gleaming in the glaring light from the hall.

Returning to the second-grade room, he’d slipped the back door open and pulled out the carrier with the fluffy white puppy inside. The class was so intent on a big dog doing simple tricks that no one noticed when he slid the cage to him. The puppy whined and licked his fingers through the wire, so touching. Kneeling, he opened the latch and let the puppy charge out licking and wriggling. He was rolling the pup over, rubbing its stomach to keep it still, holding its one leg up and holding the clippers ready when hands grabbed him from behind, jerked the clippers away and flung him backward. The man forced him to the floor, he looked up at the brawny school custodian, the big man’s face contorted with rage. Falon had laughed at him, had kept laughing when the guy hit him, laughing, thinking about what he might have done, what he’d wanted to do, what that bastard had stopped him from doing.

Even when he was sent away to reform school, the first kid in his class to go there, that hadn’t impressed Becky. The last time he saw her she’d scowled and turned away, hadn’t even spoken to him. All through school, all those years, all she cared about was Morgan, she never would give him, Falon, a tumble—and a tumble was all he thought about. Lord, he could have used her. But he knew if he ever touched her, Morgan would beat the hell out of him, could be furious enough to kill him. He might have wanted Becky real bad, but he valued his own neck more.

After he left Rome, headed for California, he’d pulled a couple of nice heists; and he’d stayed in touch with his mother now and then, getting all the dull town news. She told him when Morgan married Becky and settled down in a rented house, and the next year they had a baby. Some years later when the war heated up, Morgan the patriot joined the navy and went off to fight, all that crappy flag waving. About that time, he, Falon, headed back to Rome. The army didn’t want him, flat feet and a bad heart, they told him. What a crock, but that was fine with him. With Blake gone, he could hardly wait to claim what he wanted, he’d thought he’d have Becky then, easy. But the little bitch, even with Morgan gone she wouldn’t let him near her, wouldn’t speak to him on the street. Well, she’d talk to him now. He knew Morgan was home, but he’d soon take care of that. Morgan would be out of the picture soon enough and this time for good. Brad Falon wasn’t one to give up, to turn away from the wrongs that were done to him, not without a payback.

19

On the night of Becky and Morgan’s tenth anniversary, their little girl experienced a nightmare so violent yet so very real, a shocking prediction of a change in their lives that was beyond comprehension. If such a vision were to come true, nothing for the Blake family would ever again be the same, their very lives would be shattered.

It was heavy dusk when Sammie and her parents returned home with their empty picnic basket after a day in the woods celebrating“their” anniversary. Morgan and Becky were laughing, holding hands, Sammie running ahead in the darkening evening past their neighbors’ lighted windows, beneath the reaching arms of the maple and oak trees that shadowed the sidewalks of the small Georgia town.

Arriving home, they gave Sammie a quick bath and a bowl of soup and tucked her into bed, then Morgan put some records on: Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw, the music that had been theirs when they were courting. They rolled back the hooked rug, danced to the music that had made Becky so lonely during the war when Morgan was at sea. But now the war was history, the world was at peace or nearly so. Morgan had done his time, now there was nothing to part them. They danced with their arms around each other, held in a nest of security and love. He had come home safe, they had Sammie and were hoping for more children; the business he had built from nothing was growing; they were a solid family now and would not be parted again. It was near to midnight, they were dancing slowly, touching each other, mellowing into rising passion when Sammie’s scream tore them apart, racing for her room, scream after scream, shock waves of terror.

Afraid to wake her suddenly, to jerk her from sleep, Becky flicked on the hall light, leaving Sammie’s room in the half dark. The little girl was sound asleep but kneeling on her bed in a tangle of covers, hitting and fighting at the air, screaming, “No! No! Leave my daddy alone! Let my daddy go!” Fists clenched, she jerked and pulled at the empty air. “No! You can’t take my daddy! No!” Her high, terrified cries shook her small body. Hugging her between them, they spoke softly to her.

“It’s all right,” Morgan whispered. “I’m here, I’m all right, I’m right here beside you, I’m not going anywhere. It’s all right, baby, I’m right here with you.”

They had no comprehension of what she was seeing, or of where such nightmares came from. No one on either side of the family had ever had anything remotely like Sammie’s visions, which so often turned out to be true, and there was nothing in their family life to create this kind of disturbance, no fighting, no cruelty, not even any overly frightening stories read to her. Long after the child woke, Morgan continued to hold her. “It’s all right, honey. No one has hurt Daddy, no one is going to hurt your daddy.”

“Those menwanted to hurt you, theytried to hurt you.”

Puzzled and deeply uneasy, Morgan held her and talked and sang to her, trying to make her understand that he was safe, that they were all three safe, but Sammie couldn’t stop shivering. Her pajamas were soaked with sweat, her long pale hair clung damply to her cheeks and forehead. She burrowed into his shoulder, her face white, and when he tilted her chin up, looking into her brown eyes that were so like Becky’s eyes, they were nearly black with terror.

“Policemen,” she whispered, pressing harder against him. “Policemen we know, pushing you into a cage. Don’t go there, Daddy. Don’t ever go there again to the police station, don’t let them put you in the cage. Fight them, Daddy, and don’t go there!”

“Not policemen? Not Jimson? Not Trevis or Leonard?”

Silently, she nodded.

“Sammie, I went to school with those guys, I’ve known them all my life. What kind of cage, honey?” Neither Becky nor Morgan made light of Sammie’s dreams, but this one was beyond understanding. “What kind of cage did you dream?”

“Bars. A room with bars.” She pulled away, looking helplessly up at him, then clutched him again, digging her fingers into his shoulders, holding on to him as if he would vanish.

It took Morgan and Becky nearly two hours to calm her sufficiently to get her back to sleep. When Sammie wouldn’t let go of her daddy, they took her into bed with them, and Becky brought her Ovaltine and half an aspirin. But even in the double bed cuddled between them, the child remained rigid, unable to escape her fear. She slept only when she was totally exhausted, Becky and Morgan holding hands across her, remembering too sharply her previous dreams that had, in real life, turned out to be accurate and powerful predictions.

Morgan slept at last, still cuddling Sammie and holding Becky’s hand, but Becky couldn’t sleep. Whathad Sammie seen, tonight, what terrible threat? What were these visions, where did they come from? She couldn’t understand the dreams’ source, she had ceased long ago to wonder how their little girl could see a future that no one should be able to know. She only knew that Sammie saw truly, her earlier dreams had proven that.

Becky and Morgan hadn’t made too much of Sammie’s visions in front of the child, but the dreams terrified them both. They had hoped that as Sammie grew older, the crippling experiences would fade and disappear, that she would outgrow them. Yet it seemed, recently, that just the opposite was happening. Becky had to believe there was more in the world than they could know. Sammie had proven that, somehow their daughter was able to touch an element of the future that was hidden to most people. She lay hugging Sammie and holding Morgan’s hand, believing their child’s prediction, and terrified for Morgan. He woke once, whispered, “Probably in her dream I was going into the jail to see about fixing Jimson’s old Ford. It’s always breaking down. You can see the cell bars from the office.”

Becky didn’t say,Then who was shoving you behind the bars? Who was forcing you into a cell?She couldn’t rid herself of the vision, it burned in her mind as clearly as ifshe had seen it happen, she lay awake all night trying to think of logical explanations and finding none at all, she lay holding on to her husband and their child, on to the life they shared, and though she was strong on faith and love and prayed that would keep them steady, she was equally certain that soon their life would be cruelly torn apart.

In the days that followed, Becky tried to counteract the dream and to reassure Sammie, she spent more time with Sammie after school, she invented fun things to do in the evenings, she cooked special meals. She told herself it was stupid to think this nightmare would come true, to keep dwelling on that barred room, to keep hearing Sammie’s screams.

But what about the courthouse steeple struck by lightning, the bricks falling exactly as Sammie had seen? What about the kittens? The broken car?

She knew no way to shelter Sammie. She wanted Sammie to live her life with vigor, not in fear. When Sammie got that preoccupied, worried look, Becky tried to think of a new adventure to divert her, and some afternoons after school she would send Sammie off the two blocks to the shop, to be with her daddy. This afternoon, Becky hugged Sammie and watched her run down the steps hurrying toward town to the shop, wearing old, frayed jeans and carrying her small cotton work gloves and her cap. Sammie had only one side street to cross and she was a careful child. In a little over two hours Morgan would close up shop and bring her home again, a hungry little girl tired and dirty and deeply satisfied.

Sammie glanced back once at Mama then hurried on pretending to watch the birds and trees but thinking about her daddy and still afraid for him. No matter what else she dreamed, her thoughts always returned to the barred cage, to Daddy being pushed in there, and the men pushing him were policemen. But she had dreamed of another man too, the one who tried to hurt Mama, and who killed Misto. Now as she stepped over the sidewalk cracks and into the deepest shade, the shop was half a block ahead. Her gaze was fixed on its white roof shining in the sunlight when a black car came around the corner and slowed beside her.

Mama said to stay away from strange cars so she ran into a backyard but she would have run anyway when she saw the man driving, that same man with the close-together eyes. She stayed behind the tall gray house in the bushes until she heard the car drive away, then she ran as fast as she could all the way to the shop, and when Daddy picked her up she hugged him so hard he looked surprised, then hugged her back, harder.

“You all right? Something frightened you?”

“Fine,” she said. “A dog … The Lewises’ dog barked at me.”

Morgan looked hard at her.“Is that all?” He looked like he didn’t believe her.

“That’s all,” she lied, and grinned at him, then slipped down out of his arms and got to work beside him, handing him his tools from the black bag, and after a while the fear went away, as she worked close to her daddy, and she felt better.

20

The first time Lee left the ranch, first time he set foot off Delgado property since he arrived, was the day his parole officer showed up unannounced, as was the way of the U.S. Federal Probation and Parole system. George Raygor was waiting for him when he got in from the fields at noon with a truckload of melons and his noisy crew. Even in the hundred-and-ten-degree heat, Raygor wore a dark gray business suit, a red necktie closing the stiff collar of his starched white shirt. He was a young man, maybe thirty, his reined-in look as ungiving as that of any cop. Crisp brown hair cut short, rangy body, a deep tan, he looked as if maybe he played basketball. He stood on the porch of the mess hall as Lee headed there from the truck. Lee knew at once who he was, and from the way he looked Lee over, Lee guessed he was going to miss the noon meal.

Raygor introduced himself, gave Lee hell for not getting off the train at San Bernardino, and accompanied him over to his cabin where Lee toweled off the sweat and changed his shirt. As Lee bent over to wipe off his dusty boots, Raygor said,“Sit down a minute, Fontana. We’re going into town on an errand, but first I want to read you your parole instructions. Here’s a copy, and here are the forms you’re to fill out and send in, the first day of every month.” All business, stiff and cold and full of authority. These guys didn’t warm up until they got some years of experience on them; even then, some of them never did. Raygor sat in the straight-backed wooden chair, watching Lee button his shirt, patronizing and impatient.

The last PO he’d had looked more like a lumberman, they’d got along just fine, even shared a swallow of moonshine now and again. But this one—Lee would like to punch him out, shake him up a little.

Well, hell, he’d felt cranky all morning, the pickers too loud, their hot tempers getting on his nerves, and twice the truck had broke down and he had to get Tony to fix it. Tony said it needed a new fuel pump, and Raygor had to pick today to come down on him. Hell, he’d done his time, or most of it. Parole board had no right to send some snotty-nosed kid still wet behind the ears to hassle and annoy him, kid probably just out of school with his fancy paper degree, thought he was big stuff driving back and forth across the desert hassling his federal caseload, pretending to help guys who didn’t want his help. PO living fat off a good salary, looking forward to a secure retirement twenty years down the line, a nice nest egg for the rest of their worthless lives, courtesy the U.S. taxpayer.

Raygor, sighing patiently, began to read to him from the printed instruction form:“Your travel is restricted, you’re not to leave Riverside County. You are not to change your job, or your address, without notifying me and getting permission. You are not to violate any law. You are not to own or possess a firearm of any kind. You are to fill out one of these reports each month, have it to me by the fifth, listing your present address, where you are working at that time, and what kind of work you’re doing.”

“Even if I’m still here at Delgado Farms, doing the same job?”

“Same job, same address. Fill it all in, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Besides the monthly report, I’ll be seeing you once a month, every month. In your report, you are to give me a detailed account of all monies you have received, and all monies you have spent.”

“I buy a candy bar, I have to write it down?”

Raygor nodded.“Right now, we’re going into town where you’ll put your prison earnings in the bank. Every week you’ll deposit your earnings into the account. Mr. Ellson will see you get into town or will do it for you.”

“What the hell do I want with a bank, I don’t trust banks. Why is it your business where I keep my money?”

“It’s my business because you’re on parole. You can keep out a little for spending money but make sure you account for it.”

Lee said no more, he swallowed back what he’d like to say. Silently he took off his boot, removed and unfolded the brown paper fitted along the inside, removed his prison-earned money and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. He didn’t reveal to Raygor the seven hundred dollars he’d had when he entered McNeil, it was in his other boot.

Raygor stared at Lee’s makeshift safe. “That’ll be a nice start on a savings account, with your wages to build it up. I talked with your boss. Mr. Ellson’s going into town later, on business. He’ll pick you up, bring you back to the ranch. You can have a look around Blythe, Fontana, but stay out of trouble. You were inside for ten years, this is your first time on your own except for the train trip down here. Take it easy, watch your step, you don’t want to end up behind bars, locked up on the island again.”

Lee stared at him coldly.“What the hell do you think I’m going to do in Blythe, hold up some mom-and-pop candy store in the middle of the day, rip off some old couple for forty, fifty bucks?”

Raygor looked back at him, and said nothing, his lean tanned face drawn into long, sour lines. Lee knew he was being unreasonable. The guy was just doing his job, doing what the authorities told him to do—but did he have to be so officious about it? His urge to pound Raygor didn’t cool down until they were on the road, until he had slipped into the hot seat of Raygor’s dusty Plymouth and they were headed away from the ranch, up the dirt road toward Blythe, bumping along between fanning rows of melons and string beans. Looking away over the rich green carpets of crops to the dry desert beyond where the sand stretched pale and virgin, Lee told himself that his anger at Raygor was a stupid waste of time, but he knew that what he’d felt back there wasn’t all his own rage, that some of it came from the dark haunt like a residue of grease rubbed off on his hands and staining deep.

The cat, sitting on the paddock fence, had watched Lee and Raygor leave the ranch in the officer’s tan Plymouth, the four-door vehicle so thick with dirt it could have just been dug out of a nearby sand hill. As they drove away, and Misto felt Lee’s anger at Raygor, he knew it was magnified by the heavy spirit that still sought to manipulate Lee; but the cat had to smile, too. Lee’s eagerness to look Blythe over, with thoughts to an alternate plan, greatly pleased the tomcat; and as the Plymouth disappeared in a rising cloud of dust, as Misto watched it turn onto the highway heading for Blythe, he lashed his tail once, disappeared from the fencepost, and joined the two men, stretching out unseen on the mohair seat between them.

Lee glanced down, aware of the faintest breeze and then of the cat’s warmth, and he smiled just a little. The cat, settling in for the ride, pressed his head against Lee’s leg. Lee’s Levi’s smelled of cantaloupes and mud. But it was Lee’s thoughts that held the tomcat, the various businesses he wanted to look over as he sought a plan that would not touch Jake, that would direct Lee’s thieving onto a new path not so severely damning to Lee, as well. In this world of men, certain crimes stink of evil. Other crimes, though not strictly moral, do not burn so caustically into the fabric of the human soul.

Have to make your savings deposit at the post office,” Raygor said. “Bank had a fire just a few weeks back. Moved their operation next door until they can rebuild.”

“In thepost office? You’re asking me to give all my money, all I have in the world to some post office clerk for safekeeping?”

Raygor gave him a patronizing smile.“They have the biggest safe in town, big old walk-in number, walls a foot thick. No one’s going to pry your few hundred dollars out of there, Fontana.”

As Raygor pulled up in front of the post office, Lee eyed the burned-out bank building next door, its windows shattered, smoke-blackened glass swept into a heap on the sidewalk mixed with dead crickets. Two of the burned walls had already been torn away, and a tractor and bucket sat beside the gaping hole. Big Dumpster was parked behind that, half full of blackened wood and debris. The stink of burned, water-soaked wood rivaled the smell of white poison and dead crickets.“How’d the fire start?”

“Electrical,” Raygor said. “Fire marshal said it was a short in the lighting, sparks started a box of papers burning.” Lee could see blackened file cabinets inside, their drawers pulled open, nothing but ashes within.

“Burned a lot of their paperwork,” Raygor said, “and some hundred thousand in cash.”

Lee stared at the man.“And now they’re camping out in the back room of a post office. They can’t keep their papers or money from burning, and you want me to put everything I own in there.”

“All the deposits and remaining records are in the safe. Bank is negotiating with the post office to buy the building and the safe, underwrite new quarters for them.”

Sounded dicey to Lee. What made those bank people think they could do business timely with the federal government? That transaction would probably take a decade to complete. How could you depend on bankers who were that gullible and trusting, themselves? Getting out of the car, he moved inside the one-story adobe building beside Raygor. A half-dozen wanted posters hung on the wall to his left, surly, vicious-looking men, and Lee stopped to study them; he always took a good look to see who was roaming loose out there, you never knew when a heads-up might be useful.

Knowing none of them, he committed their faces to memory, then took a good look at the layout of the post office. The activity at the postal counter made his pulse quicken. As a pudgy bank officer met them and led them past the counter, Lee saw that the clerks were not only selling stamps, they were counting out stacks of money, big money.

The clerk, broad of girth in his dark suit, his hair thinning on top and combed to the side above his protruding ears, ushered them into a back room, a combination storeroom and office. Raygor made sure to come in with Lee, to see that he opened the account all proper, that he filled out all the papers. The two of them sat crowded at a small desk beside the pudgy banker, jammed in among rows of metal file cabinets, bookshelves stacked with black binders, and a narrow cot pushed in between with a pillow and rumpled blankets.

“Night man,” the banker said, seeing Lee’s interest. “Because of maybe another fire, you know,” he said, gesturing vaguely, “because, it’s just a post office building and all.” Lee looked at the man as if bored, his heart lifting with another surge of interest. Beyond the bunk and bookshelves, a safe occupied the rest of the wall, a big iron walk-in door that must lead into an iron-clad room nearly as big as the office itself. Big old combination lock that, Lee thought, would take a skilled craftsman to finesse open, if you didn’t have the combination handy.

Behind the desk was a back door maybe to the alley, set between two barred windows. It had a simple spring lock, but below that a heavy hasp with a big padlock that hung open now, during business hours. The inner door through which they’d entered was solid-looking, too. It stood open, and he could see the counter and the line of waiting customers; his interest settled on two men standing just outside, each carrying a zippered canvas cash bag, both bags bulging invitingly. Glancing in at Lee and Raygor, they seemed to be waitingfor their turn with the lone banker.

Lee, focused on them, hardly heard Raygor ramble on about how much interest Lee would earn on his prison-earned money. Some piddly sum that would make a goat laugh. In the end, all he got for his cash was a dinky little savings book filled out by the flabby-faced clerk—Lee’s prison money and ranch wages gone as completely as if sucked up by the desert wind, commingled with everyone else’s cash, sucked into a mass of bookkeeping that, with a few strokes of the pen, could be lost forever. As they left the office, moving out through the post office lobby, thetwo waiting men had been joined by five more, each in possession of a fat canvas money bag. Lee looked them over good, then glanced at Raygor, scowled, and pretended to study his new bank book.

Outside again, standing on the sidewalk, Raygor gave him a dozen more instructions that Lee didn’t listen to and then at last, having fulfilled his federal duty, he departed, leaving Lee on his own with a final admonition to stay out of trouble. Lee watched him pull away in his dirty Plymouth to head back across the empty desert, to harass some other unfortunate parolee. He’d been surprised when Raygor allowed him to keep part of his prison earnings. Lee had told him he needed to buy clothes, which the officer seemed to understand.

Now, alone at last, he wandered up the main street looking in the shop windows but his thoughts remained on the post office as the new job began to take shape. Yet at the same time, dark misgivings pushed at him, a fear of failure that wasn’t his doing, a dark and unrelenting message that this was not the right path to take. Angrily he shook away the invasive thoughts. Walking the wide main street, he passed a small grocery, an ice cream parlor, a drugstore, the broad windows of a dime store. He finally located a shoe repair shop about as wide as a tie stall. In the dim interior, he took a seat on the shoeshine chair. He removed his boots, sat in his stocking feet reading the local paper as the thin, bearded old cobbler put on new heels. He read about the 4H winners at the local fair, studied the picture of a pair of dark-haired sisters with their two fine, chunky Hereford steers. He read about the latest episode in the eternal battle over water rights, with statements by the mayors of four nearby towns, which Lee skipped. A local man had been assaulted by his wife, shot in the foot after he beat their two children. Thelocal sheriff had made him move out and issued a restraining order. The wife was not charged.

He watched the cobbler polish his boots, then pulled them on and paid him, asking for directions to the saddlery. He found it two blocks down, the storefront set back behind thick adobe pillars, the sidewalk in front piled with heaps of dead crickets. Stepping carefully to avoid staining his clean boots, he moved on inside.

The dim interior seemed almost cool, and smelled pleasantly of leather. Wandering toward the back, he found a table of Levi’s, found a pair that fit him. He picked out two cotton frontier shirts, and bought some shorts and socks. Elbowing among the saddles and harness, he picked out a good, wide-brimmed straw Stetson. The saddles, and the headstalls hanging behind them, smelled so sweetly of good leather they made him homesick. He looked with speculation at a couple of used saddles, their wool saddle blankets matted with horsehair and smelling comfortably of sweat. He looked, but didn’t buy. Not here in town, where he might be remembered later.

Leaving the saddlery, he had a good Mexican lunch at the same little caf? where he and Jake had eaten when he first arrived in Blythe, enchiladas rancheros, beans, tortillas, an ice-cold beer in a frosted glass. Then, with the afternoon to kill, he strolled the town letting his plan ease slowly together. Working out the details, he didn’t sense the cat padding alongbehind him.

Trotting invisibly up the sidewalk, the cat flicked his ears, lashed his tail, and kept his attention focused on Lee as the old convict thought about the post office, smiling at his foolproof getaway that would leave no possible trail. The cat had no notion whether this plan would work, but to try to prevent Lee from any future criminal activity at all would be futile. The cat, silent and unseen, was caught up with keen curiosity in Lee’s subsequent moves as the old convict put this one together.

Soon the faded storefronts gave way to small wooden cottages set on the bare sand as forlorn as empty packing crates. Some of the sand yards were picked out by low wooden or wire fences. The metal box of a swamp cooler was attached to each house, chugging asthmatically, their ever-dripping water cutting little rivers through the sand. In one small yard two husky little Mexican boys were hollering and jumping up and down throwing each other off a tattered mattress attached to rusted springs. A little girl, younger than the two boys, looked up from where she was playing in the dirt and caught Lee’s eye. She pushed herself up and toddled toward him, gray powder dust falling from her hair and torn dress. She stopped just short of the sagging picket fence that separated them, stared up at him, screamed, squatted, and urinated a little puddle in the dirt. Lee’s eyes flicked from the child to the porch where a black-haired woman sat on the steps holding a naked baby to her hanging breast. Her huge belly stretched her polka dot dress. Their eyes caught, she gave him a tired smile, then he moved on.

Beyond the houses rose the white wooden steeple of the Catholic church. The small sand cemetery next to it was, for the most part, raked and cared for, the individual plots cleared of weeds and debris, and decorated with pots of fading artificial flowers. A few graves were neglected, hidden by dry tumbleweeds and tall dead grass. A low, wrought-iron fence surrounded these, its curlicues woven with dry weeds. Five graves inside, the lettering on the stone markers worn nearly flat by age and by the desert wind. Lee stood at the rusty iron gate glancing around, looking toward the white Catholic church to be sure no one stood at a window looking back at him. When he was sure he was alone he swung open the squeaking gate and stepped on in, stood looking at the headstones choked with weeds, the neglected graves with, it seemed, no one to remember or claim them or to care. He studied the headstone of a child, and of a young man whose epitaph said he had left this world too soon. He paused at a grave marked James Dawson.

Dawson had been born September 10, 1871, the same year Lee was born. He died on November 3, 1945, nearly a year and a half ago. The lettering on this marker was sharp and clear, but from the looks of the grave, it had had no attention since Dawson was laid to rest. Maybe there was no one left, at least in this part of the country, to care or maybe even to remember him. Lee stepped close to the granite headstone, speaking softly.

“It won’t be long, Mr. Dawson, and it’ll be your birthday. You can’t really celebrate it anymore, can you? What did you do with your life? What places did you see?” Lee smiled. “Would you like to come out of there, leave your grave and live a little while longer?”

Lee pulled a weed from the mounded earth.“Would you like to step out now, and live part of your life over again? How would you like, Mr. Dawson, to walk around in my shoes for a while?”

Fishing the field tally pad from his pocket, he found the stub of pencil and copied the dates of Dawson’s birth and death. Slipping the pad back in his pocket, he stood a few minutes thinking, then he turned away, leaving the company of the dead man.

The cat watched him from atop a cluster of angels that guarded a family plot, his striped yellow tail hanging down over a stone wing, twitching impatiently. When Lee headed back for the center of town, again Misto followed trotting invisibly behind him, but once in town he gravitated to the roofs above and became clearly seen, stretched out in full view on the flat rooftop of the Surplus Department Store as he waited for Lee. Just another town cat taking his ease, letting the hot desert sun cook into his fur as cats so like to do. He watched Lee stop along the sidewalk beneath a spindly palm tree where he approached a pedestrian, a thin woman in a white dress, and asked for directions. She nodded and pointed, and Lee turned away smiling.

Lee found the library two blocks over, and pushed into its dim interior, the smell of the chugging swamp cooler wet and sour. Despite the damp air, the woman at the desk looked dried out, wrinkled from the desert sun. Her flowered cotton dress was limp with the breath of the cooler and with too many washings. When he asked for back issues of the local newspaper, she brushed her gray hair away from her glasses and gave him a tired stare.“What date you looking for?”

“November fourth or fifth, 1945.”

When she found the oversized, bound volume for him, he carried the heavy book to a table and sat down in the hard wooden chair. Opening it out, he turned the yellowed pages with care until he had the dates he wanted. He checked carefully through the obituaries until he found James Dawson, complete with his most recent address.

Dawson had been a retired mining engineer, he died on a Tuesday night of sudden, massive heart failure. His father, Neal Dawson, had been a prominent lawyer in San Francisco. His mother, Claire Dawson, n?e Patterson, had been well known in San Francisco for her civic work for crippled children. Both were long dead. James Dawson, born in San Diego, California, had one surviving relative, a son, Robert Dawson, a practicing lawyer in New York. Lee jotted down the particulars, returned the book to the desk, and asked for two more sets of newspapers.“I didn’t find what I wanted, I guess I wasn’t so sure of the year.”

He dawdled over the other two volumes for some time before he returned them and headed for the door. Before he pushed out into the hot street he turned back to thank the librarian. She smiled at him as if grateful for his courtesy.“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“There is one other thing, I almost forgot. Somewhere I’ve lost my birth certificate. Would you know how to go about getting it replaced?”

“Where were you born? What county?

“I was born in San Diego.”

“That would be San Diego County.” She fetched a directory from the shelf above her, thumbed through and copied down an address. “Send your name and date of birth to this address, along with your father’s name and your mother’s maiden name. You’ll need to send one dollar, and include a stamped, self-addressed envelope.” She studied him with more interest than Lee liked. Maybe the old doll was lonely. Reaching into her desk drawer, she handed him a clean sheet of paper. “Post office will have stamped envelopes.”

He thanked her in a way that brought a flush to her sallow cheeks, and sat down at a nearby table. He wrote out his request and information, folded a dollar bill inside, and placed it carefully into his pants pocket. He gave her a big smile, thanked her again, bringing another blush, and quickly left the library. Stepping out into the late afternoon heat he headed fast for the post office. He opened a post office box in Dawson’s name, using Dawson’s last address, thanking his good luck they were busy as hell and that was all the information they wanted. He bought two stamped envelopes, addressed one to the new post office box. He put that and his birth certificate application in the other envelope, addressed and mailed it, then headed for the train station to meet Jake. Scanning the street ahead, he didn’t see Jake’s truck—but he saw the yellow cat standing in plain sight on the roof of the train station, the big yellow tom looking down at him as if he could see clear through him, see Lee’s every thought and intention.

Though Lee knew the nature of the cat, though they talked together when Misto felt the need, the cat’s sudden appearances where Lee didn’t expect him could still unnerve him. Lee was standing on the sidewalk looking up at the cat when a little girl raced by laughing at a flock of kids behind her. She didn’t see Lee, she ran into his leg and half fell. He grabbed her shoulder lightly to helpher right herself. Pausing, she looked up into his eyes still laughing—then stopped laughing, and turned pale.

She saw something in Lee’s eyes that made her go white and still. Then she spun around and ran, her face frightened and grim. Lee stood looking until she disappeared. Pedestrians moved around him, glancing back at him puzzled and then moving on.

What had the child seen? Something of his own nature? Or had she seen that other presence, seen a hint of the dark spirit looking back at her?

But it was the child herself that unnerved him. She looked so familiar, almost like the picture he carried of Mae. She had dimples, long blond hair, so like his little sister. Except this child’s eyes were light blue, not dark, not like Mae’s eyes in the faded photograph that he had carried all these years and didn’t know why, only knew he couldn’t throw it away. Only knew, or thought he knew, that somewhere down the road he’d know why he kept it. But this child, she had seen something in his face that had scared her and, as tough as the old cowboy was, or thought he was, that hurt him. Whatever had frightened her had upset Lee, too, made him turn away uncertain in himself, badly shaken.

21

Outside Morgan Blake’s automotive shop the Georgia sun beat on the pavement, glaring up into the work bay where Morgan was replacing the fuel pump in a 1932 Chevy. It was just noon. He had pulled the Chevy onto one of the two lifts, but the lift was not raised. He was bent over the engine, his sandy hair tucked under a black cotton baseball cap, his lean, tanned face smeared with grease. He was priming the carburetor with gas when, from the other side of the upright hood, a man laughed. There was a long pause, as Morgan rose up. He stood unmoving, at the man’s unwelcome voice.

“Hey there, Morgy. Long time no see, Morgy boy.”

He hadn’t heard Brad Falon come in, that was Falon’s way, walking silently on soft shoes so you didn’t know he was there. At the first sound of his voice, Morgan’s whole being went wary. Falon used to practice that silent walk when they were kids, slipping up on him—or slipping up on Becky, which neither she nor Morgan had liked. Even when they were only little kids, that had given him the creeps. He looked across the Chevy engine at Falon. There was no smile on the man’s narrow face or in his close-set eyes. Across in the other bay, the farther one from the office, the new mechanic kepton working, paying no attention to the visitor, the tall, rail-lean, towheaded young man cleaning the plugs of a Ford truck, as oblivious of Falon as if he’d been invisible.

“What do you want?” Morgan said. “I heard you were in town, that you were out of prison again.” He stood silently looking the man over. Everything about Falon stirred up a part of Morgan’s life that he wanted only to forget. “I don’t want you around here, Brad. What do you want?” herepeated.

Falon’s narrow smile was no more than a grimace. His voice was hoarse, thin, and rough as he tried to make it jovial. “Hey, Morgy boy! Don’t say you’re not glad to see me, that’s not good Southern manners! It’s me! Falon, your old buddy!” He moved around the Chevy and slapped Morgan on theshoulder, his grin no more than an animal sneer. Morgan stepped back away from him, turned back to the engine, and set the last mixture screw onto the carburetor.

“Hey, I just got out of bed, Morgy. Couldn’t get my car started, had to leave it at my girlfriend’s.” He yawned hugely, and pushed back his ruffled hair. “Car sounds like something broke off, loose and clattering. I’m afraid to try it again, it sounds like hell.”

Morgan said nothing.

“You know I don’t know anything about motors. I had to walk the seven blocks over here, and this humidity’s got me, I’m not used to this weather anymore, I feel like a ton of lead weighing me down. Can you run me back over there, and have a look? I know you can fix it. I ain’t even had breakfast yet. Come on, Morgy, I’ll buy you breakfast. Or lunch, we’ll go out to Sparky’s for ribs, we can do that before you fix my car.”

“I don’t leave the shop at noon, Falon. Albert can run over there, Weiss is a better mechanic than I am.” He looked across to Albert. Albert straightened up then, laid down his tools, and pulled off his canvas apron.

But Falon shook his head and took Morgan by the arm.“Come on, Morgy. Everyone has to take a lunch break. We’ll just run out to Sparky’s, be back in half an hour. Your car parked close, here?”

“Can’t do it, Falon. If you want your car fixed, Albert will take a look at it. No one can eat at Sparky’s in half an hour.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Falon said agreeably. “Well, then, just run me over to get my car, I haven’t seen you in a long time. I don’t know Albert Weiss, here, but I know you’re tops with a Ford. Just for old times’ sake?”

“Sorry,” Morgan said, and turned away. When, in high school, he’d finally distanced himself from Falon, much of the reason was that Falon kept coming on to Becky. Becky hated him. She had kept away from him then, and while Morgan was overseas. According to Becky, Falon had made no trouble forher, while he was gone, but still Morgan’s distrust of Falon ran deep.

“Come on,” Falon repeated. “For old times. I’ve got something to tell you, Morgy. Something I think you’ll want to hear.”

“I’m done with that crap,” Morgan said, and began wiping off his tools, slipping each into its slot in their black cloth case.

“This isn’t anything like that,” Falon said. “This is …” He was silent until Morgan turned to look at him. “This is about Becky,” Falon said. “About Becky and that property outside of town that Becky’s mother owns and maybe about your little girl.”

Morgan began cleaning his hands with paper towels.“You’re giving me a bunch of crap.”

“That land next to Grant’s farm?” Falon said. “Along beside the Dixie Highway?”

“What has that to do with Becky? What are you trying to pull?”

“Not a thing,” Falon said easily. “Just a bit of information I thought might interest you. I was in the courthouse yesterday looking up the old deeds on my parents’ house. I ran across a piece of information I thought you’d like to know about.”

“So, what is it?”

“Come take a look at my car, and I’ll explain it.”

Morgan stared at Falon.“Have youseen Becky, or called her?” But then he wished he hadn’t said that, hadn’t let Falon know that it would even concern him. Not long before Falon was sent to prison, he came on to Becky real strong. She blew him off, told him to leave her alone, but that had hardly fazed Falon. Now, Falon glanced toward Albert as if he didn’t want Albert to overhear.

“Whatever you have to say, Albert’s welcome to listen,” Morgan said.

Falon just looked at him, his stare pinched and stubborn.“What I have to tell you is about Becky and Sammie.”

“So?”

“It’s private.”

Despite how Falon lied, his words stirred a cold chill in Morgan. Uneasily, and knowing better, he fished his car keys from his pocket.“I’ll take a quick look. Then maybe I’ll send Albert over, he might have to tow it in.”

Falon turned, slid some change into the Coke machine, and fished out two bottles of Coke. Opening them, he handed one to Morgan and then headed out through the big shop doors.

Morgan’s ’38 Dodge was parked half a block down, under a shade tree where it wouldn’t take up space in the shop’s small parking area. He had bought it pretty badly wrecked, had done the body work himself, had put in a new block, had had it painted and upholstered in exchange for automotive work. Now it was almost like new, and it ran like new. He hoped no one saw him with Falon, after all the trouble they’d been in together in high school and then Falon’s subsequent arrests. In a small town, everyone knew your business. If anyone saw him with Falon, they’d be sure to pass the word.

But what could just a few minutes hurt? Drive a few blocks, look at a stalled car right out in public? Auto repair was what he did for a living. And who knew, maybe what Falon had to tell him would be worth hearing, maybe something he’d be glad later to know about. Falon had worked in real estate for a while, years back, somewhere south of Atlanta. He knew Becky’s mother bought and sold land from time to time, always with a little profit. Caroline had bought that property out on the Dixie Highway some four years ago, with an eye to rising land prices. She had leased the land to John Truet, who farmed it and the adjoining ten acres. Caroline’s will left the land to Morgan and Becky, or in a trust for Sammie if they were gone.

Morgan didn’t know what papers Falon might have seen in the courthouse, but there were stories in town of land swindles where tax records had been falsified and land bought out from under the legal owners. He had heard rumors, as well, about some kind of land development along the Dixie Highway, stories that had stirred idle talk around town. He supposed he could go on over to the courthouse himself, or Becky could, and find out what Falon was getting at. But it might take a lot of searching to come up with what Falon already knew, if there was any truth in his words. If therewas something afoot aboutthat property, Caroline needed to know.

But still he was edgy, his common sense telling him to take care.

Morgan’s Dodge was burning hot inside, even under the shade of the oak and with the windows down. He let Falon talk him into a quick sandwich, just a few blocks up the street. But they’d barely pulled away from the curb when Falon, reaching down to straighten his cuffs, spilled his Coke all over Morgan’s new upholstery.

Morgan shoved his own Coke at Falon to hold, grabbed a towel from the backseat, and began wiping up the spill. He scrubbed the stain as best he could, swearing to himself. He drove on quickly to the next gas station to rinse out the towel and scrub the seat better, and dried it with paper towels.

When he got back in the driver’s seat, hot and angry, Falon handed him his Coke, and he drained it. “Skip the sandwich, Falon. Let’s look at your car, I have to get back. What’s this information you’re so eager to tell me?”

“Tell you after we look at the car,” Falon said. Of course he didn’t apologize about the Coke. He was quiet as Morgan turned down Laurel, heading for the Graystone Apartments where Falon said his car was parked.

They were several blocks from the Graystone when Morgan began to feel uncertain of distances. Puzzled, he eased off the gas and went on more slowly, driving with care. The spaces around him seemed out of kilter, the distance from one corner to the next seemed all wrong. What was the matter with him? Other cars on the street appeared foggy, they were too near to him and then unnaturally far away. He nearly sideswiped an oncoming truck, and the driver blasted his horn angrily. When driving became too difficult, he pulled over, was surprised to see he was pulling up in front of the Graystone. He felt sick and dizzy, he was so confused he couldn’t remember how to turn off the engine. He managed at last, clinging to the steering wheel.

“That’s it,” Falon said, watching him, “that black Ford.”

Morgan looked blearily across the street at the uncertain line of cars. Light shimmered off them as if from giant heat waves. He guessed one of them was black, and maybe it was a Ford. He wasn’t sure he had killed his engine, but when he looked down at the key, trying to figure it out, trying to hear if the engine was running, the dashboard heaved up at him, blackness swept him, and he knew no more.

Days later, trying to reconstruct those moments, Morgan would not be able to remember arriving at the apartments, would not be able to bring back anything after pulling away from the curb near the automotive shop and then Falon spilling his Coke. Everything after that was a dizzy blurr. But later, sitting on his cot in the jail cell as slowly his mind cleared, he would remember Sammie’s nightmare, of him being shoved behind bars by men he knew and trusted, and he knew Sammie would suffer the most. He worried far more over his little girl than over what would happen to him, even if, as the cops said, he could go to prison for the rest of his life. He had no idea what had occurred to put him here. None of it made sense, and no one would tell him anything more. What he didn’t understand was why Sammie had been sucked into this pain. What kind of fate was this, after they had been parted so long during his years in the Pacific, what fate so cruel it would seek to destroy them now?

22

Lee was back in Blythe four days later, another welcome break from the long hours in the fields, the dust choking him so he coughed up phlegm every night. Riding in the pickup beside Jake, he knew Jake’s pocket bulged with cash, money to buy a drilling rig, a pretty expensive proposition. Ramon Delgado had heard there were a few jerry-built rigs for sale and they were headed for the farm auction, ready to buy if Jake found what Ramon wanted. Looking out at the green fields and the harsh glare of the desert beyond, Lee thought about the information he’d already picked up on some of the local businesses, and what more he meant to accomplish today. He felt good, things were coming together. The way the plan was shaping up, he wouldn’t head for Mexico right away. He meant to lay a circuitous path that would put him back in the slammer for a short time before he moved on across the border. The degree of risk hinged on how dependable Mark Triple would be, in getting him out of Blythe when he needed to disappear. But the robbery itself was still nebulous, his mark still uncertain, andeven as he considered the possibilities, still the dark shadow whispered to him that this wasn’t the smart way. That whatever alternate plan he chose would surely fail and he’d be back behind bars for more years than Lee could count. The relentless prodding stirred in Lee a deep anger at the devil’s persistent invasion of his free will, he wished to hell Russell Dobbs had foundsome way, that half century ago, to keep from dragging his future descendants into his unholy bargain. Stubbornly Lee willed the shadow away, while beside him on the seat of the truck the cat rolled over, silently purring, his unseen smile heartened by his friend’s growing resolve. Lee, sensing Misto’s pleasure, hid a grin.

The truck rode like an edgy bronc, bucking through each dry wash, through the deep gullies that, though the sky might be clear overhead, could flood suddenly from a fast, heavy runoff pouring down from the far mountains. Sudden walls of frothing water boiling down faster than a horse could run, racing so hard across the desert and roads that it would roll a truck over and sweep it away. Lee, well aware of the danger, looked up toward the mountains where heavy clouds were gathering, where rain must surely fall soon. But Jake drove relaxed and unconcerned, listening to the softly tuned weather report on the radio.“If it starts to rain,” Jake said, “we’ll stay over in town, wait until the gullies dry up again.”

Lee nodded.“You think you’ll find the rig you want, that Delgado wants?”

Jake shrugged.“They’re all home-built jobs, but with luck we’ll find a good one. Ramon has planned this for a long time, drill some wells of his own, step out of the battle over water. The water table’s high all over Blythe.” Lee had always thought it strange that, even with water so close to the surface, the cotton and alfalfa and vegetable farms had to run irrigation canals from Blythe’s complicated aqueduct system.

“Water table so high,” Jake said, “that, come winter, the whole land will flood, destroy a man’s crops, wash away tons of good topsoil. But then in dry weather we still need the aqueducts—or wells,” he said, “to bring the water up.”

According to Jake, back in the twenties before the weir and aqueducts were built, Delgado was one of only a handful of men who dreamed of making the dry, barren desert produce any food crops at all. Most people said they were crazy, but the men had stuck with what they believed, and Lee had to admire that.

He looked at Jake, thinking about the complications of his job, envying what Jake had made of his life, his and Lucita’s lives. Lee knew he couldn’t have given her this much, that he would have ended up running off, following the only life that seemed to suit him. He thought about this noon, how she had reached to touch his hand as she’d brought fresh towels and linens over to his cabin. He had just been changing his shirt, discarding his ripe work shirt, ready to head for Jake’s truck, leaving Tony to handle the men, hoping the kid would act like a man and not like a snotty-nosed boy. He was buckling his belt when Lucita appeared at the half-open door, calling out to him.

She stood on the porch, but made no move to enter. Taking a step closer, she handed him a stack of clean sheets and towels. When he asked her in, she shook her head, but her eyes said something different. As she handed him the linens her hand brushed his and remained there, still and warm, for a long moment, her eyes on his generating a shock of desire.

Then she shoved the linens at him and was gone, down the steps again heading for the ranch house. He had stood looking after her, his pulse beating too fast, and then feeling let down and angry.

Turning back inside, he’d dropped the linens on the dresser, stripped his bed, wadded the sheets and used towels into the clean lard bucket she left in the room for laundry, pulled on his jacket and headed out to Jake’s truck. But there had been one other incident, two evenings before, that had left Lee even more shaken.

The horses had been spooky ever since their panic when the dark spirit lurked in their paddock—for what exact purpose the wraith had come there, Lee wasn’t sure. Simply to frighten Lee himself, to show his power? Some kind of promise of what hemight do, what he was capable of doing? Whatever the devil’s purpose, the horses hadn’t really settled down, even days later. Lucita rode hermare every morning, to try to get her over her nervousness. The Appaloosa was pretty good in the daytime, but Jake said that on their evening rides both horses were spooky as hell. Having to be gone overnight upto Hemet where Delgado wanted him to look at some land, Jake had asked Lee to ride with her. He wanted to keep the horses on a steady schedule, wanted to keep working them, and he didn’t want Lucita riding alone.

Lee was wary of being alone that long with Lucita. And he was eager as hell for the opportunity. When he headed on over to the stable, he found she’d already saddled both horses, and had strapped on scabbards. She handed Lee a loaded rifle, stowed her own rifle, and mounted matter-of-factly. She moved on ahead of him out of the ranch yard, the mare always liking to lead, and the good-natured gelding giving in to her. As the evening light softened around them, both horses were steady, nothing bothered them. Moving up the northbound trail between the verdant fields, Lucita didn’t talk, she gave him no heated glances, they rode in a comfortable silence between the green crops and then, before the evening darkened, they gave the horses a gallop on a hard, narrow path in between the dry desert hills, where the trail was less apt to offer chuckholes. Lee wanted to stop there among the hills, out of sight of the ranch, and let the horses rest. He wanted to swing down out of the saddle and hold her close, wanted this night to lead where he dreamed it should lead. He wanted not to turn home again discouraged, knowing this was never going to happen. But that was how they did turn back, with nothing else between them, both paying attention to their horses and to the trail ahead as the evening darkened around them. He knew she felt what he felt, her little movements, her small glances; but he knew just as clearly that she would do nothing about it, that she belonged to Jake, that he was Jake’s friend, and that that was how their lives would remain, no matter how his hunger for her stayed with him.

It was two-thirty when Lee and Jake pulled into Blythe. The thermometer on Jake’s dashboard said a hundred and fifteen, and that was with the windows open and a middling breeze blowing in. They’d passed a few trucks on the narrow desert road, all headed for the sale, same as they were, some with empty trailers rattling along and most likely those drivers carrying a wad ofcash, too. They’d passed a number of trucks already coming back pulling loaded trailers. When Jake parked in the auction yard, Lee left him to wander the grounds.

The loud staccato of the auctioneer’s voice followed him, its hammering rhythm soon making his head ache, the fast gibberish pounding unrelieved, mixed with the voices and laughter of crowds of people pushing and jostling around him. He walked through the lines of trucks for sale and then stepped into the barns where it was quieter. The narrow pens were nearly empty, only a few motley farm horses and half a dozen saddle horses left unsold. The morning auction had been livestock, the afternoon sales had begun with small vehicles and would work up to the big trucks and the heavy machinery that Jake was waiting for. Lee lingered over the saddle horses, speaking quietly, smoothing a rump, watching their ears swivel around at him. None of the horses impressed him much; but hell, for what he wanted, most any crowbait would do. Fellow could pick up one of these leftover nags real cheap.

But he wasn’t ready to make a purchase. He stood looking, and then left the auction area, heading for the center of town, the rattle of the auctioneer following him a long way, only slowly fading. In the center of Blythe he crossed the wide main street, its baking heat reflecting up at him like an open oven, and he moved off in the direction of the post office.

Along the curb, cars were angled in solid, not a parking space to be seen. Auction was a big day in town. The little grocery was crowded, women and children carrying out wooden boxes loaded with staples, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and lard. An occasional horseman threaded through the street traffic; two farm horses stood hitched to an open wagon in front of the drugstore, heads down, sweat drying on their necks and shoulders. He could smell heat-softened tar from the roofs above him, the flat roofs of the one-story buildings that had to be retarred every few years to keep from leaking. The tall, spindly palm trees that had been planted here and there in front of the stores looked like oversized, upside-down floor mops stuck in the sidewalks and streets, their drooping fronds ragged from the desert winds.

The crickets were mostly gone, at least the live ones, not crawling up every wall, but piles of dead crickets were still heaped in the gutters, their dark rotting bodies not yet shoveled up into some refuse truck, their stink so sour he could taste it as he approached the burned bank next to the post office. Heavy equipment was still at work there, a backhoe with a bucket, cleaning up the last of the black, sodden refuse.

Moving on to the post office, he’d meant to check his P.O. box; though there was no way they could have his new birth certificate to him yet, he burned to have a look. But the line snaking out the front door made him draw back, pausing in a shadowed doorway. Standing in the entrance to a small sandwich shop, he watched the longpost office queue that trailed away down the sidewalk. Men in work clothes, a few men in suits, a few women, all in housedresses, half a dozen cowmen in faded Levi’s and worn Western boots. His gaze paused on two men carrying heavy money bags, the canvas bulging beneath their zippers. Lee, his pulse beating quick with interest, tailed onto the line trying to look bored and patient.

Most of the patrons were buying money orders. As he edged nearer, then was finally inside the door, he watched amazed the amount of money passing across the counter. Stacks of fifty-and hundred-dollar bills being counted out, some bundles handed across to the patrons, some put over into the care of the two postal clerks. Behind the clerks on a long oak table stood tall piles of greenbacks that, he supposed, had all come out of the safe. That made him smile, guessing that the meager wad of his creased tens and twenties from prison was mingled in with all that wealth. Shyly Lee glanced at the man behind him.“I thought it would only take me a minute. Is there always such a crowd?”

The soft, florid man hooked his thumbs in his suspenders, laughing.“You’re a newcomer, all right. There’s no bank in town, since the bank next door burned. Otherwise, you’d see these lines over there. Since the bank burned they do their business here. But even so, the post office is always busy, a lot of us pay our bills and make catalog purchases with money orders.”

This was better than Lee had guessed, there was more money here than he’d ever dreamed. If he could bring off a heist like this, he’d be set real nice for wherever he wanted to travel.

“Won’t be this crowded for long,” the pudgy man was saying, “just until the new building’s up.” He shifted his weight as if his feet hurt. “Right now, you’d have to drive across into Arizona for the nearest bank. Not far, just to Parker. But it’s easier to do business this way.”

The line edged forward and they moved with it, Lee trying not to show his excitement.“That’s a bummer, you have to go into Arizona to cash your paycheck.”

“Oh, no. Folk here don’t get paychecks. The pay, everything we do in this town, is pretty much on a cash basis. Most of the farmworkers are paid with cash. Same with the mining company. Payroll comes in by mail on the last train. Fridays, this place is like Fort Knox. They shut the front doors but the small operators come in that way. Foremen from the big outfits, most of them come around the back, from ranches and mines from all over, to pick up their cash so they can pay their men the next morning.” The man seemed innocent enough in imparting the information. And why not, it was obviously common knowledge. Lee watched man after man, likely local businessmen and independent ranchers, approach the counter pulling out fat rolls of bills. The man ahead of him, dark hair slicked back, peeled off three one-hundred-dollar bills and two fifties as casually as Lee would flip out a quarter for a beer. When it was Lee’s turn at the counter, he had to grin as he asked for four more stamped envelopes, thinking that in some way he might need them—and giving him time for a closer look at the stacks of money behind the counter, money he coveted.

Leaving the post office, he strolled along the outside of the building, looking more closely at the layout. The burned-out bank was on his left, facing the street. Beyond that was a vacant lot, then a cheap two-story apartment house. On the other side of the post office, a small hardware store, boxed in by adjoining stores, dry goods, a dime store, used furniture. When he walked around behind the solid row of buildings he found a narrow dirt alley running their length, with access to half a dozen back doors, including the heavy post office door with its barred window on each side. Just the simple snap lock on the outside, giving no indication of the big padlock concealed within. Across the alley stood an old wooden building that he thought might be storage for the hardware store, a stack of empty wooden nail boxes was piled by the back step. Behind that were more vacant lots, then a line of willows, then the empty desert stretching away.

He returned to the main street thinking about the moves it would take to bring off a robbery here, and about Mark Triple and his duster plane. He had seen Mark again on Saturday, loading up to dust another run of melon fields, and Mark had kidded him about trying a flight. The young pilot was flying up to L.A. in a few days, before he headed for the East Coast, he said he needed to get some work done on the prop. He had invited Lee to go along, and Lee, with the same flash of certainty that had led him to James Dawson, had eagerly accepted. Strange how things fell into place. Seemed like all his life, he’d fallen into situations which, most of the time, turned to his benefit, fitting right in with the plans he’d already started putting together.

Thinking of his possible moves in L.A., he paced the length of Blythe again. Even here in the center of town the desert wind brought the stink of the big cattle-feeding yards that lay outside of Blythe, with their modern feed mills and storage tanks. Thinking about that wealth, the wealth he knew lay in the big farms, and the cash he had seen in the post office, he stopped in a small grocery for a pack of gum, stood unwrapping a piece of Doublemint, smiling at the white-haired old man behind the counter. Old, Lee thought. Older than me but still working all day every day for a two-bit living.

“Someone told me there was some kind of airstrip here, just outside town. Not the commercial airport, some little dirt landing strip, they thought. Said they saw a little plane land somewhere on the other side of town,” he said, pointing. “I thought that was kind of strange.”

The old man laughed.“Could of seen a plane, all right. There’s an emergency airstrip some eighteen miles east of town. Lies just where the road runs in from Jamesfarm. Sometimes a rancher or the gypsum mining company use it.” He jerked a thumb to the east. “Out on Furnace Road. Old, fallen-down barn near it, migrants camp there some.”

Lee made small talk for a few minutes, then touched the brim of his hat and left. Walking back out to the auction site, he felt almost good enough to do a jig. His scenario was shaping up real well. The sun was settling low, casting the mountains’ shadows long across the bare desert. The temperature, though evening was nearing, had dropped maybe all of two degrees.

He found Jake looking at the tires of a big drilling truck. From his grin, Lee figured he’d bought it. “They threw in a bunch of drilling rods,” Jake said, “and I didn’t have to bid as much as I thought. Come on, I’m dry as dust.”

They headed for the same small Mexican restaurant, the jukebox playing loud and brassy, the tables crowded with groups of men talking and arguing, drinking cold beer and tying into their early suppers. Lee and Jake wedged into the last table, in the far corner, soon easing the heat with icy beer as they ordered a good hot Mexican dinner. Outside the windows the light continued to soften; but the noisy din in the small room, the loud conversations, half Spanish, half English, mixed with the loud Mexican brass from a record player, soon began to pound in their heads. They didn’t talk much, they could only half hear each other, and they were glad at last to be out on the street again ready to head home. At the red pickup, Lee eased into the driver’s seat, watching Jake step into the drilling rig. He followed Jake’s taillights at a good distance as they headed away up the narrow, bumpy road.

23

It was the same afternoon that Brad Falon came to Morgan’s shop asking him to look at his stalled Mustang, that Sammie became sick at school. She grew lethargic and cranky in class, and when she started falling asleep at her desk, the school nurse called Becky. When Becky picked her up, Sammie crawled into the car yawning and dull. Becky felt her facefor fever but Sammie was ice-cold, her skin pale and clammy. “Does your head hurt?”

“No,” Sammie said drowsily.

“Do you hurt anywhere?”

“No.” Sammie sighed and snuggled closer. By the time they got home she was sound asleep. Becky managed to wake her, and half carried her inside. She got her settled on the couch, pulled off Sammie’s skirt and blouse, and examined her carefully all over for spider bites or bee or wasp stings. She could find no blemish. She parted Sammie’s hair with her fingers, searching for a bite there, feeling for any painful area. Sammie complained of the cold, her whole body was chilled through, though the day was hot. When Becky took her temperature, it was lower than it had been at school, a full degree below normal. She covered Sammie with a warm blanket, thinking she’d wait just a little while before calling the doctor, to see what developed. The nurse had said they had five children out with the flu. She made a glass of hot lemonade, and went to fetch the aspirin. When she returned, Sammie was asleep again.

But it seemed to be a normal sleep, she was breathing easily. Becky set the glass on the coffee table, stood watching Sammie for a few minutes and then, straightening the cover over her, she left her sleeping. She stayed near to Sammie, working at the dining table on the dry-goods books, looking up often at Sammie, and rising to feel her face. The child slept deeply; Becky woke her at suppertime but she wasn’t hungry or thirsty. She didn’t want to eat, didn’t want the thermometer in her mouth again but Becky managed to persuade her. Her temperature was lower, 96.4. Sammie was still so groggy she turned away from Becky’s hug and was asleep again. It was then, turning away to the phone, that Becky called the doctor. When she gave Dr. Bates Sammie’s symptoms and temperature, he said it sounded like the bug that was going around. He said to keep her warm, not to give her any more aspirin, to get plenty of liquids down her, and to call him back in an hour.

In less than an hour she woke Sammie. She had to cajole her to hold the thermometer between closed lips. The minute she removed the little glass vial, Sammie was asleep again. The gauge read 96.0. When she finally reached Dr. Bates he was at the hospital with an urgent stroke case, he said he’d be there as soon as he could.

James Bates had been their family physician for three generations, he still took care of Becky’s mother, took care of all of them. He listened again to Sammie’s symptoms, said again that there was some kind of summer flu going around, said if Sammie got worse, to bring her to him at the hospital.

Looking at the clock, Becky realized it was way past time for Morgan to be home. Usually he called when he was late, so she figured he’d be along soon. She set the chicken and rice casserole on the back of the stove, and examined Sammie again for insect bites, even more carefully this time. The child didn’t want to wake, didn’t want to be bothered. When she did speak, her voice was so blurred it was nearly incoherent. The time was past seven, and still Morgan wasn’t home.

Morgan did sometimes work late when a customer was in a hurry for his car, but he always called to let her know. Sharply concerned now, she phoned the shop. The phone rang eight times, ten, but no answer. Ten minutes later she called again, in between pacing with worry. Again, no answer. When it was fully dark and Morgan still wasn’t home, she phoned again, let it ring and ring and then she borrowed her neighbors’ car, bundled Sammie up, called Dr. Bates to tell him where she’d be. Sammie was only half conscious as she carried her to the car, covered her well, and drove first to the shop.

The office and bays were dark, the bay doors closed and locked tight, the parking area dark and empty, both Morgan and Albert Weiss, the new mechanic, were gone. She cruised a ten-block area looking for Morgan’s car. When she didn’t find it she drove home again but Morgan wasn’t there. She carried Sammie inside, tucked her up on the couch again, and looked in the phone book for Albert’s number.

There was no Albert Weiss listed. She called the operator, told her it was an emergency, but she had no listing for him, either. Becky sat at the dining table, her hands trembling. She phoned her neighbors. They said they wouldn’t need the car until morning, that she could keep it all night if she needed to. The Parkers were an elderly couple, both in ill health, and she couldn’t ask them to keep Sammie. She bundled Sammie back in the car and headed for her mother’s, she meant to leave Sammie with Caroline, the doctor could see her there. Or if Sammie got worse, Caroline would take her to the hospital. Both Becky and Caroline preferred to keep her at home, both were a little wary of hospitals, though for no particular reason. Once Sammie was settled, Becky intended to go look for Morgan, to drive every street in Rome and every surrounding farm road until she found his car. She didn’t imagine that he was out drinking or with another woman, she knew him better than that. Something had happened to him, and when she thought about Brad Falon newly back in town, a sick, almost prophetic fear touched her.

Approaching her mother’s sprawling white house, she was eased by Caroline’s welcoming lights. Maybe Morgan was here, maybe he had stopped by for something. Her own birthday was only a few weeks away, maybe they were planning a surprise and had lost track of the time.

But Morgan’s car wasn’t there. She parked in the drive, got out, carried Sammie across the lawn and up the front steps. When Caroline answered the bell and saw Becky’s face, she took Sammie from her. Settling the child on the couch, she sat close beside her easing Sammie onto her lap as Becky describedSammie’s sleepiness, her low temperature, and then her worry over Morgan. Caroline took charge as she always did, and soon Becky was out the door again, shaky with concern for Sammie, and frightened for Morgan, driving the dark streets of the small town looking for him, looking for their old blueDodge.

Lee, alone in the pickup following the drilling truck, was pleased by the silence after the noisy, busy day. The sun was gone behind the western hills, the glaring desert softened, now, into deeper shades, the dry gulches and low mountains catching streaks of gold in the last light. He spotted a coyote slipping along a wash, just its ears, a flash of its back, and the tip of its tail, maybe hunting alone, or maybe not. In the quiet he thought about James Dawson, and smiled. Both Lee and Dawson born the same year, Dawson with no one nearby to tend his grave or to care about him, maybe no one to know he was dead, a lonely old man lying in that little cemetery just waiting for someone to come along and take notice of him, to revive and resurrect him.

When, ahead, he saw Ellson’s truck buck into low gear for a long incline, Lee slowed to keep the distance, noting the gravel road that led off to the right following the slope of the rock-strewn mountain, marked with a faded wooden sign that read JAMESFARM. Somewhere down that road, not too far, should be the airstrip. Beyond a scraggly patch of tamarisk trees, he glimpsed an old barn, lopsided and about ready to collapse; but maybe it would hold up for a while longer.

He was going to need a car or truck and, as he scanned the upper slopes of the mountain, he knew he’d need a horse; that meant a trailer, too. And he sure as hell needed a gun. Easing his foot on the pedal, he swallowed back a tickle in his chest. He’d better not screw up this time or they’d lock the door on him for good. He followed Ellson’s taillights, heated with the growing excitement that a new job always stirred.

As evening settled in around them, Jake’s headlights came on and Lee switched on his own lights, their beams driving the last desert shadows into falling night, then soon into blackness. And, in the shadowed cab of the truck, Lee knew suddenly that he was not alone, he felt a cold presence nothing like the comforting nearness of the ghost cat. In the dark cab he turned to look at the seat beside him, and his hands tensed on the wheel. A woman sat beside him, her full, dark skirt swirled around silk-clad ankles, her black hair blending into the shadows, her face unseen. For an instant he thought it was Lucita, then knew that it was not. This was a thin-faced woman, a hard and lethal beauty. Watching her, Lee swerved the truck so badly that he had to fight frantically to right it, jerking the wheel, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“Relax, Fontana,” she said softly, “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“What the hell did you think you’d do?” The timbre of that voice, even in the tones of a woman, resonated with the cold chill Lee knew too well. “Why would you appear as a woman? How do you do that, turn yourself into a woman?” If the dark spirit had to torment him he’d rather it did soas a man, or what would pass for a man.

She smiled.“You have a new project, Fontana, and that is good. Very good.”

“What the hell do you want? Get out and leave me alone.”

When she touched his arm, he shivered.“But in choosing this new plan, Lee, you have abandoned the Delgado undertaking.” She waited, watching him. “Think about this. Why not take on both challenges? That would be a real triumph.”

“Get the hell out of here, go haunt someone else.”

“You could do that, Lee, you could lift both the post office money and the Delgado payroll. Think of what they’d add up to. A real fortune, a success that would make you famous across the country, you’d be in more history books than your grandpappy.”

“Why the hell would I want to be famous, and have every cop in the U.S. after me?” The truck went into a rut again, too near the edge, and he gave his attention to his driving.

“It would be so easy, Lee,” she said, rubbing his thigh with an elegant, thin hand. “So easy to pull off both jobs, to make a really big splash in the world.”

But then as she spoke, suddenly he knew the cat was there, he could feel Misto rubbing against his neck, winding back and forth along the back of his seat, could hear him hissing softly. When Lee looked for the ghost cat in his rearview mirror he saw only the black empty glass of the back window, there was no moving reflection, nothing visible—but the woman was visible enough, her pale, long face cold and evil. And the wraith knew the cat was there and she drew back.

Lee said,“What do you want from me?”

She laughed.“I want the same thing from you, Fontana, that I wanted from Russell Dobbs.” She reached out her slim hand and began again to stroke his thigh. When he knocked her hand away, she laughed. “I admire the way you go about your work, Fontana. You never have to build yourself up to a job as some men do. You lay it all out, you are all courage and you do what is needed.”

Well, that was a lot of bull.

“You’re quick, Fontana, and efficient—most of the time. But now—I don’t like to see you turn fearful, as you have with the Delgado payroll, I expected better of you.”

He said nothing.

“You could take down the payroll and then double back for the post office money, you’re famous for your timing. You could pull off a smart, sophisticated operation that would totally confuse the feds.” Again she laid her hand on his leg, again he brushed it away, gripping the wheel tighter.

“Why go to all the trouble of two jobs,” he said, “when one haul is enough. I only have so many years to spend the damn money.”

“For the fame, Lee, for the prestige. For the challenge,” she said softly. “The biggest job you ever accomplished, bigger than anything Russell ever pulled off.”

Lee wondered what would happen if he stopped the truck, opened her door, and shoved her out of there, wondered if hecould do that. But of course she would only vanish, turn to smoke in his hands, disappear laughing at him.

“Your time on earth is so fleeting, Lee, you should really plan further than that, you should plan not just for this short mortal life. In a few more moments, asImeasure time, all of this world that you see around you now will be dust and forgotten, and you will be forgotten, too—unless,” shesaid softly, “unless you grasp the eternity I offer you. Unless you’re bold enough to let yourself live forever.

“It would be so easy,” she said, “to go on forever creating new … enterprises with your special talent, so easy to work with me, to step into eternity beside me carrying out plans bigger and more rewarding than any you can even imagine.”

Lee stared ahead at Jake’s twin taillights.

“This is your last job on earth, Lee, it should be the wildest and most audacious, the biggest haul you’ve ever made, should leave behind you fame and admiration.”

Behind him the cat had begun to growl. The woman didn’t turn, she made no sign. “I can guarantee the success of both jobs, the entire farming and mining payrolls of this whole area, all the cash in the post office on that particular evening,and the full Delgado payroll. Enough cash to buy you a whole state in Mexico, to buy you the most beautifulwomen, the finest home, the most elegant horses.”

“And what the hell do you get out of that?” But he knew what she’d get, she’d own his soul, and he wanted no part of it.

“Under my guidance, Lee, when you die at a venerable age you will possess powers you never dreamed of, you will know eternal life, eternal adventure, you will never be bored or sick or old again, your every moment will be an even more … prurient and visceral challenge than you have ever yetknown.”

He wanted to stop the truck and haul her ass out of there.

“My proposition appeals to you,” she said softly. She ran her hand too close between his legs, then reached to touch his cheek, drew her finger across his lips. He flinched at her touch, let the truck hit a rut that sent it skidding sideways toward the soft desert sand, he spun the wheel, got it straightened out just before it hit the sucking dunes. Screeching the brakes, he pulled over.

“Get out! Get the hell out! If I burn in hell for what I do, I’ll get there on my own, not because of you.”

But already she had vanished, the seat beside him was empty.

Shaken, he jammed his foot hard on the accelerator, racing to catch up with Jake. He wished he was up there riding beside Jake and not alone on the dark, empty road. Even the cat seemed to be gone, he spoke to it and felt around the seat and behind him but could feel nothing. Had the cat helped drive her off, with its snarling anger? But then where had he gone, where was Misto now?

Could the devil have hurt the cat?

But that couldn’t happen—something in Lee believed in the power of that good spirit, even more than he believed in Satan’s evil force. Maybe he and the cat together had driven away the dark wraith, maybe their combined rage had liberated them both for the moment—and even as that thought brought a smile toLee, Misto appeared beside him, smiling, too. Sitting tall beside him, twitching the tip of his yellow tail, laying a big, possessive paw on Lee’s arm, Misto smiled up at him highly amused at their combined power against the eternal and destructive forces, against the despair that roamed, like slavering beasts, the vast and endless universe.

24

Morgan woke dizzy and sick, jammed in a dark, cramped space, his face pushed up against something rough that, when he felt it with his unsteady hand, he thought was automotive upholstery, rough fabric almost like the mohair with which he’d upholstered the Dodge. Even moving his hand that few inches sent a sharp pain through his head, a shock so severe that his stomach went sick and he thought he was going to throw up. He remained still for some time, then gingerly he tried to ease out of his confinement, to straighten his legs, but when he tried to sit up, the effort made his head pound and throb. Gingerly he fingered his forehead expecting to find blood, but he could find no wound. Moving slowly, he eased onto his side, the pain jabbing through his skull. The back of a car seat rose in front of him, the map pocket with a familiar silver flashlight sticking up, and under the driver’s seat a child’s blue jacket wadded up, Sammie’s jacket with the bunny on the pocket that had gone missing weeks ago. He was in his own car, lying doubled up on the floor of the backseat, his legs bent under him twisted and stiff. Slowly he rose up clutching at the back of the seat, pulling himself painfully off the floor until he was able at last to kneel and could see out the window.

Low sun shot between a tangle of trees, its rays blinding him. How could the sun be setting? He thought, when he could think at all, that it should be around noon, he had a hazy memory of someone coming into the shop at lunchtime, of someone in the car with him.

Falon? Brad Falon? Wanting him to go somewhere? Why would he go anywhere with Falon, he had nothing to do with him anymore.

The low sun was so harsh that when he closed his eyes, the red afterimage of overhanging tree branches swam painfully. He realized he was parked in a dense woods, he had to be somewhere outside of town. Why would he be hunched down in the backseat of his car, alone, parked somewhere in the woods? Shielding his eyes, he could make nothing of the location, there were woods all around Rome. And if the sun was setting, how could he have slept all afternoon? He felt so heavy, thick limbed, even his tongue felt thick and the taste in his mouth was sour. If he had gotten sick suddenly, why hadn’t he gone home? Why would he have come out here, into the woods, alone?

And when he looked at the sun again it had lifted higher. That wasn’t right. He squinted at it, puzzled. The sun wasn’t setting, it was rising. How could that be? It wasn’t evening, it was morning. Slowly he reached for the window handle. With effort, he rolled down the glass. Cool, fresh air caressed his face. Morning air, not the stifling heat of a Georgiadusk.

Trying to clear his head, trying to think back, he was sure he’d left the shop around noon. Yes, he had left with Brad Falon, something about Falon’s car breaking down. He couldn’t remember where they had gone, but he was sure it was lunchtime. So how could it be morning, now? If he’d gotten sick, he would have left Falon and driven home, not come outhere into the country. When he tried to get up and shift onto the seat, the pain in his head brought tears, and again his stomach heaved, dry heaves that sent pain shocking through him.

Had he gone somewhere with Falon and there’d been an accident? And Falon slipped away from impending trouble, leaving him alone? That would be like Falon. Through the open window the sun rose slowly higher between the trees. He didn’t have his watch. He thought it might be around seven o’clock. He didn’t wear his watch working, it got beat up too bad. A little breeze blew in, stirring a sour smell within the car, the same as the sour taste in his mouth, a taste and stink that it took him a while to recognize.

Whiskey, he thought. The sour smell of bootleg whiskey, same as when a few of the boys got together with a half-gallon jug out in the woods or at someone’s house, you could smell it on them four hours afterward. Why would whiskey be in his car? You couldn’t just walk into a store and buy liquor, even beer, this was a dry county. And neither he nor Becky bought bootleg, neither of them drank. With unsteady fingers he searched again for a head wound, feeling for blood, knowing he had done this just moments before. His mouth tasted like he’d swallowed something dead. The inability to remember, to know why he was here or how he had gotten here, struck fear through him. He had turned away from the blinding sun, pressing his face into his hands trying to think, trying to remember, when behind him the door was jerked open. He was pulled out onto the ground stumbling and falling. Trying to get his balance he spun around hitting out at his assailant, scraping his knee painfully on the metal doorsill.

Strong hands forced him upright, he struck at the man, still trying to get his footing, and then he saw the uniform. Cop’s uniform. Morgan dropped his fists, stared into the round face of Richard Jimson, the youngest member of the Rome police force. Light brown hair, the cowlick that wanted to hang over his forehead pushed back beneath his cap, light brown eyes that usually were smiling. Jimson wasn’t smiling now. What was this, why the anger? He and Jimson had gone through grammar school together, were on the baseball team, went squirrel hunting together when they were kids, had always been easy with each other, even in high school when Morgan was still running with Falon. Jimson watched him coldly, the officer tense with rage. Jimson was a stranger, now. His eyes hard on Morgan, he slipped the handcuffs from his belt, pulled Morgan’s hands behind him, and snapped them on, the metal chill around his wrists.

“Move it, Morgan.” Jimson’s round face was hard with anger. He forced Morgan across the narrow dirt road toward his patrol unit. Morgan could see, beyond the police car, a white farmhouse with a red barn. The old Crawford place, the narrow dirt road leading back to it lined with sourwoods andmaples. Jimson opened the back door of the black-and-white, silent and remote. He put his hand on Morgan’s head so he wouldn’t bump it, getting in. Pushed him into the backseat behind the wire barrier and slammed the car door. Morgan didn’t fight him, he didn’t resist. Sitting handcuffed inthe backseat, knowing he was locked in and feeling dizzy and sick, he realized that the stink of whiskey wasn’t just inside his own car, it was coming from his clothes, his shirt and jeans.

He looked out through the side window toward his car. It was pulled so deep in the woods that from the road it was hardly visible. He could see just beyond it the twisted oak that marked lovers’ hollow; he guessed every small town had such a hideaway, a tree-sheltered clearing scattered with empty bottles, Coke bottles, unmarked bootleg bottles. He hadn’t been out here since high school when he and Becky used to come out and park.

Jimson stood by the open driver’s door, the radio in his hand, calling for assistance. Why would he need assistance? Morgan couldn’t see enough of his own car to tell if it had been wrecked. At the thought of a wreck, fear iced along his back, brought him up alert. “Becky and Sammie,” he shouted at Jimson, “was there awreck, are they hurt? Where are Becky and Sammie?” He couldn’t remember them being in the car, couldn’t remember bringing them out here. Pressing his face into the wire barrier, he shouted crazily at Jimson. “Where’s Becky? Where’s my little girl? Were we in an accident? Are they hurt? Are they all right?”

“They’re all right,” Jimson said dryly. “As right as they can be.”

“What does that mean? Are they hurt? Tell me.”

Jimson was silent, staring in the mirror at him.

“Was there an accident?” Morgan repeated. “Is that why my car—why I’m out here? Where are they?” Becky’s face filled his vision, her brown eyes steady on him, Sammie’s elfin face so close to him he thought he had only to reach out and touch her soft cheek, reach out and hug her. “Where are they?” he repeated. “What’s this about?Was there an accident?”

“They’re at home,” Jimson said. “Youknow there was noaccident.” Why was he so enraged? Morgan started to press him, to ask what he meant, when another patrol car came barreling down the road and pulled up beside Jimson’s unit.

Sergeant Leonard stepped out. Morgan had known the brindle-haired police veteran since he was a kid, had an easy friendship with the older man, but now Leonard was as hard-faced and angry as Jimson. Morgan watched a young trainee get out the other side, a blond-haired young college type who, Morgan had heard, was good at cataloging evidence. Leonard stood looking into the backseat at Morgan.“Give me your car keys.”

Handcuffed, Morgan dug clumsily in his pocket for the keys and handed them over. Jimson slipped in behind the wheel of the black-and-white, as Leonard moved away toward Morgan’s car. Jimson started the engine, spun a U-turn on the narrow, empty road. Morgan hunched down in the moving car aching and sick, trying to figure out what was happening, whathad happened, trying to put the scattered pieces together—and worrying about Sammie and Becky, still terrified for them. And ashamed, because somehow he had failed them, because he had suddenly and inexplicably lost control of his life, had failed the two people in the world whowere his life.

“What was it, Jimson? What did I do, what happened?” He didn’t expect an answer, as closemouthed as Jimson had been. The woods swept by, the familiar farms, the long, stinking rows of metal chicken houses. As they neared town and turned onto Main Street, Jimson glanced in the mirror again at Morgan, his brown eyes flickering between rage and puzzlement; for an instant a touch of their friendship showed through, conflicted and uncertain.

And now, nearing the jail, all Morgan could think of was Sammie’s nightmare where he was locked behind bars, her terrified screaming that his friends were locking him in a cage. He wanted to fight his way out of the squad car and get home, find Sammie, tell her everything was all right, he wanted to hold her safe and tell her Daddy was all right.

But he wasn’t all right: he was coming more awake now, and as Jimson circled the block to park behind the police station, slowly Morgan began, with effort, to put events together. He had gotten into the car at noon, he was certain of that. Falonhad come into the shop, urging him real pushy as was Falon’s way. He remembered he’d been working on John Graham’s Chevy, replacing the fuel pump, remembered hearing Falon’s voice, looking up to see Falon there on the other side of the raised hood. He was sure, now, that he’d left the shop with Falon. They’d gone to look at Falon’s car? He thoughtFalon had wanted to tell him something, but he couldn’t remember what.

But that had to be yesterday, he’d apparently spent the afternoon and night in the car, and he could remember nothing of those hours. A whole afternoon and night wiped from his memory. He knew he hadn’t been drinking, no matter how he smelled or what he tasted. Had he been drugged with something worse than bootleg? And then left there in the woods alone, passed out cold, abandoned by Falon?

He remembered wiping up Falon’s spilled Coke, but didn’t remember much at all, after that. He looked into the rearview mirror at Jimson, wanting to ask if this was Friday, wanting to know if it had been just yesterday that he and Falon had gotten in his car, wanting to ask Jimson why he couldn’t remember anything after pulling away from the curb where he’d parked, driving just a few blocks, and then growing so dizzy and confused. He thought there was something about the Graystone Apartments. Was that where they were headed? He couldn’t remember arriving there.

“Jimson, I have to call Becky.” When he hadn’t been home all night, she’d be frantic. What had happened after Falon spilled the Coke? Those hours between yesterday and this morning had been taken from him as if they never existed, the whole night had been stolen from him. What had he done during those lost hours, those vanished and terrifying hours?

Jimson pulled around behind the impressive stone courthouse to the basement area below at the back, the entrance to the jail. Morgan watched his own car pull in behind them, to a fenced, locked area. He supposed the car would be held as evidence. Morgan knew, from walking through the lockup area, that the cells were small and dirty and they stank. Jimson parked the patrol car just at the back door of the jail, killed the engine, and got out. He opened the back door and motioned Morgan out, Morgan awkward with his hands cuffed behind him. Morgan stumbled up the steps ahead of the officer, herded along by the man who should be his friend, who now was as cold as if they’d never met. Jimson opened the big steel door, pushed him inside, forced him along the hall, on past the cells and up to the front, to the booking desk.

Morgan was booked into Rome City Jail at ten-fifteen that morning. Reeking of whiskey, he drew sharp, surprised looks from the staff and the other officers. At the front desk, Jimson fingerprinted him and filled out the forms, asking Morgan coldly for the answer to every printed question though he already knew the answers, he knew Morgan’s personal history as well as Morgan himself did. It was the charges that Jimson wrote down, that left him shocked.

Bank robbery?Murder? He looked at Jimson, feeling sick, looked at what Jimson had written. That couldn’t be right, not murder. He couldn’t have killed anyone. Nothing that could have happened to him, a hit on the head, some kind of drug, could make him kill someone. Nothing would allow him toforgetkilling someone.It was hard enough to forget what he had done during the war. Now, he wanted an explanation, he wanted to shout at Jimson and shake him until he found out what this was about.

But to make a fuss now might only make the situation worse. When Jimson finished filling in the report, he marched Morgan down the hall, shoved him in through a cell door so brutally that he fell sprawling across the concrete.

“Jimson?”

The officer turned, watched him as he struggled up.

He tried to talk to Jimson, tried to tell him he thought he’d been drugged, tried to reconstruct what little hecould remember: Falon showing up at the shop, his leaving with Falon, Falon spilling the Coke, Morgan turning to wipe it up.

Jimson said,“There was no Coke, no Coke bottles, no bottles of any kind except the empty moonshine bottle.”

“I didn’t have any moonshine. You know I don’t drink—no matter how I smell,” he said sheepishly. “Yousearched the car, and found nothing else? There were two Cokes, Falon bought them at the shop, from the machine. Ask Albert, he was there, working at the other lift.”

Jimson’s face softened, but just a little. “There was something sticky spilled on the seat.” He shrugged. “It might be Coke. We’ll look into it.”

Morgan looked back at him, deflated. What could a detective find in a stain of spilled Coke? Maybe a trace of some drug? Or maybe nothing. And Falon could have ditched the bottles anywhere. Easy to toss them back in the woods in lovers’ hollow, two more empty bottles rolled in dirt and buried among years of collected trash.

He watched Jimson lock his barred door, drop the key into his uniform pocket, watched his retreating back, watched the heavy outer door close. He was locked in a cell by himself—at least for that he was grateful, thankful for the privacy. Maybe Jimson had taken pity on him. Or maybe Jimson thought Morgan had turned too dangerous to share space with the town’s three drunks. All he knew was, this wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening. There was no way he could have killed someone, and no way he could have forgotten such a horrible act as if it had never happened.

When Jimson had gone, Morgan sat down on the stained bunk. The cell wasn’t as big as their small bathroom at home, but this cubicle wasn’t blue and white and sweet smelling, it was scarred with the filth of generations, that the janitor had tried repeatedly to scrub away, he could see the paler but still visible scour marks. Walls scarred with the shadows of old graffiti, newer smears of dirt, and stains of urine behind the toilet. He read the scribbled messages that were still legible, repeated the four-letter words to himself as if they might help him hang on to his sanity. Two inscriptions begged God’s mercy, penned by someone lying on the iron cot writing at a forty-five-degree angle. The cot’s striped mattress was grimy along the edges and sported three long brown smears. A threadbare blanket and a worn sheet were folded at the foot of the cot beside a grimy pillow. The washbasin was streaked brown with years of iron-rich water. Above the basinhung a ragged, torn towel. Across the corridor a drunk was singing dirty words to “Down in the Valley.” He used the toilet, washed his hands and face with the tepid water but avoided the towel. He smoothed his hair with his wet hands, cupped water in his hands, rinsed his mouth again and again but couldn’t get rid of the dead taste. What had Falon put in his Coke? This had to be something stronger, even, than moonshine. There was no other explanation for the way he felt and for his loss of memory. Whiskey wouldn’t do that, and how could Falon have forced that much whiskey down him? No,the liquor was soaked into his clothes; even his boots, when he pulled them off, smelled of booze, and the leather was still faintly damp.

But as he sat there in the cell alone, his sense of innocence began to fade. Whatmight have happened during those long hours he couldn’t remember? Whatmight Falon have made him do, what would he have beenwilling to do, drugged, that he wouldn’t do while sober?

He spread the sheet over the cot and lay down. The corridor light in his face made his head throb. From the moment Jimson had jerked him out of his car, scenes from yesterday and detached snatches of conversation had swum through his head in a muddle, none of it making sense, Falon’s voice urging him to leave the shop, Falon trying to get him to go somewhere … He remembered telling Falon he never left the shop for lunch. Well, it was too late now to change whatever had happened. What he didn’t understand was why? Falon was mean, had always been mean, but why this horror just now, when he and Becky and Sammie were finally together again?

But that would be exactly Falon’s way: hit them when they were happiest—out of sadism, out of a hunger for Becky that she had never encouraged and that, for all these years, could have festered, could have left Falon waiting for just the right moment, the cruelest moment. But was fate—certainly not the good Lord himself—so cruel that Falon’s evil would at last be allowed to destroy them?

25

The plane burst out of the clouds with a buzzing roar banking directly over Lee, it dropped straight at him, its shadow swallowed him, then the dark silhouette swept on by, raking the field below the lowering plane; at the far end of the rough, unplowed land the yellow Stearman touched down. Wheels kicking up dust, it swung around and circled back toward him, its propeller ticking over slowly as the plane taxied. Lee stepped aside as it rolled up to him. The front cockpit was empty. In the rear cockpit, young Mark Triple pushed back his goggles, but didn’t kill the engine. “Hop in, Fontana.”

Reaching for the struts, Lee made the long step up onto the wingwalk. Pausing, he looked down into the open metal hopper where Mark had bolted in a makeshift seat for him. Not much to hold him in there, only that little leather strap screwed into the sides of the plane. He glanced back at Mark.

“Climb on in, it’s safe as a baby carriage.” Leaning forward, Mark handed him a pair of goggles. “They’ll keep the bugs out of your eyes. Make sure your seat belt’s fastened.”

Warily Lee stepped in, groping for the seat belt. He got the ends together, pulled the belt so tight he nearly cut himself in half. He wasn’t half settled when the engine roared again and they were moving, Lee gripping the sides of the hopper hard, the ground racing by in a brown blur. He was lifted, weightless, as the tail came up, then a belly-grabbing leap, forcing him to hang on tighter than he had ever clung to a bucking cayuse. Ahead, a flock of birds exploded away in panic. Looking gingerly over the side, he hung on with both hands as the plane banked, tipping sideways. They swept low over the rusty tin roofs of the packing sheds, not a soul stirring in the ranch yard. In the paddock, Lucita’s spotted mare crowded nervously against the rail fence, staring up at the rising plane. In Lucita and Jake’s yard Lee glimpsed a tiny flash of white, Lucita’s little Madonna. Then they were out over the green fields, the melons and vegetables, the cotton and alfalfa broken by irrigation ditches thin as snakes, then the sharp line where the green stopped and the pale desert stretched away to the low Chuckawalla Mountains, brown and barren and wind carved. He’d feel more secure if he were riding behind Mark instead of up here in front where he felt like he should have control but didn’t—but hell, if this bird took a dive he wouldn’t know what to do anyway.

Forcing himself to settle back, he concentrated on the panorama below, so different than what you could ever see from the ground. He told himself this was a good feeling, floating high above the earth with nothing to hold him up there, and he tried to set his mind on the job ahead, patting the traveler’s check folder in his shirt pocket, making sure it was safe. He’d never pulled a scam like this one. The excitement of it made his stomach twitch, but also made him smile. Yesterday he’d skipped lunch, borrowed Jake’s pickup and headed for town, first for his post office box—and his birth certificate was there waiting for him. Smiling, he’d headed for the Department of Motor Vehicles where he applied for a driver’s license in the name of James Dawson, hoping to hell the clerk hadn’t known Dawson. Hoping the DMV wouldn’t check past the P.O. address, wouldn’t start digging around in the birth certificates. There must be a lot of Dawsons in the world, but he had to have some kind of ID. He told the clerk he was a mining consultant moving down from San Francisco, would be doing some work for Placer Mining Company. Said he hadn’t had a driver’s license in years because the last company he worked for furnished a driver, he said that when he was in the city he preferred to take the cable car or walk. He’d had to take a driver’s test, a piece of cake on the open desert roads, and he had aced the written test.

Fifteen minutes after he received his temporary license he had returned to the post office, parking around on the next street out of sight. Entering the lobby, standing in line before the window with the temporary cardboard sign reading BANKING BUSINESS, he was encouraged by the long line. A busy teller, hurrying through her transactions, was just what he wanted. A teller making quick decisions wouldn’t want to linger over unnecessary questions. When his turn came he gave the young redhead a grandfatherly smile, asked her for seven hundred dollars in traveler’s checks, in hundred-dollar denominations. He had stood admiring the young smooth look of her as she recorded the check numbers in the customer’s transaction folder, which was printed with the logo of the bank. He told her conversationally that he was on his way to San Francisco. She said she loved San Francisco, that the fee would be two dollars, and she had counted out the traveler’s checks to put into the folder. As he reached to his hip pocket, he picked up the folder. He dug convincingly in his pocket for his billfold, then looked surprised, looked up at her, frowning. “Oh, shaw. I’m sorry, miss. I left my wallet in the car.”

She smiled at him understandingly, and paper-clipped the checks together, glancing past him at the long line of customers.“That’s all right, sir. I’ll hold them until you get back. Just come to the window, you needn’t stand in that long line again.”

The customer behind him pushed impatiently closer as Lee slipped away pocketing the folder, leaving the young clerk cashing a paycheck.

Outside the post office, moving away around the corner out of sight of the post office windows, he swung into the truck and left, heading back for the ranch, the empty folder safe in his Levi’s pocket. That had been yesterday. Now he was on his way to complete the rest of the transaction.

His stomach dropped as the plane lifted higher yet, to clear the rising mountains, and he tried to ease more comfortably into the sense of flight, into the sudden lift, the speed, the throb of the engines. The wind scoured his face, sharp and cold. Below him the deep, dry washes dropping down from the mountains and across the desert floor looked ancient. Washes that during a heavy rain would belch out enough water to flood the whole desert, flood the highway deep and fast enough to overturn a car and drown an unwary driver. Maybe, Lee thought, every place in the world had its own kind of downside, unexpected and treacherous. Soon they were over San Bernardino, sailing smoothly over miles of orange and avocado groves, the lines of trees as straight as if drawn by a ruler. A few small farms, fenced pastures where horses and cattle grazed, a few small towns surrounded by green hills—and then the square grids of L.A. streets, neighborhoods of little boxy houses, and the main thoroughfares choked with traffic. Blue ocean beyond to his left, rivulets of white waves rolling in, and to his right the Hollywood Hills rose up, their pelt of green trees broken by the occasional glimpse of a mansion roof or the blue square of a swimming pool. This was the moneyed Neverland he’d read about, a place he’d never have reason to visit. Beyond the Hollywood Hills, forested mountains towered up, wild enough, by their look, to lose a man back among their rough ridges and gullies, wild enough to hide a man where the feds might never find him.

Lee eased down in his seat as Mark banked and circled, approaching the L.A. airport, the mountains swinging so close to Lee he caught his breath and clutched the seat hard again, staring straight out at what he thought was his last sight of this earth before they crashed into a thrusting peak, and died.

The ghost cat wasn’t frightened, he rode effortlessly on the wing above Lee, needing no support, watching Lee, amused, entertained by Lee’s fear, laughing as only a cat can laugh—though he felt sympathy for the old cowboy, too. If he had been a mortal cat, at that moment, riding in the little plane, he’d be crouched on the floor scared as hell, wild-eyed and out of control.

When Mark had first landed the plane back at Delgado Ranch and Lee stepped aboard, the cat had leaped lightly to the lower wing and then drifted up to the high wing, unseen. He had ridden there weightless as the plane took off, the wind tugging at his invisible fur, flattening his unseen ears without annoying the cat at all. Riding the yellow Stearman filled Misto with feline clownishness, caught him in a delirium of delight that perhaps no other creaturebut a ghost cat could know as vividly. The yellow tom didn’t often give himself to this degree of madness, he was for the most part a serious cat, but now he wanted to laugh out loud; sailing aboard the little manmade craft was more delicious than any binge of catnip, he rode the Stearman balanced without effort, he was one with the wind, he was a wind dancer, so giddy he wanted to yowl with pleasure. He let himself blow away free on the wind and then flipped over to land on the plane again, cavorting and delirious; he played and gamboled until Mark dropped the little craft smoothly down, to the landing strip in L.A., settling to earth once more. There the cat stretched out on the upper wing, lounging and watching to see what would happen next.

Taxiing, Mark quickly moved her off the runway, moved on past the terminal where passengers were boarding a big commercial plane, and headed slowly for the small hangars beyond and a metal building, its tin roof peeling paint. DUKE’S AIR SERVICE. REPAIR. CHARTERS. FLYING LESSONS.There, he cut the engine.

In the cockpit, Lee sat a moment, reorienting himself. At last he dropped his goggles on the seat, undid the seat belt, eased himself out of the hopper and climbed down.

But when he stood again on the ground he felt so small, and the earth felt unsteady beneath him, his balance so changed that for a moment he couldn’t get his footing. He watched Mark greet the mechanic, jerking a thumb at the prop. “It surges in high pitch,” Mark said. “Surges real bad.”

Lee moved closer to get Mark’s attention. “You going to be a while? I’d like to go into town if there’s time.”

Mark laughed.“See the big city. Sure, this will take … maybe three hours or better. You can catch a bus over there in front of the terminal. I’ll stay here and swap lies.”

The bus was nearly empty. When Lee chose a window seat close to the rear door, when he sat down laying his jacket across the other seat, he sensed the cat next to him, and that cheered him. In the plane, where the hell had the cat ridden? Had he needed to hang on for dear life, or had he been free to do as he pleased? Had he been afraid during that bouncing ride, or was such an experience nothing at all to a freewheeling ghost cat?

It was a half-hour ride into downtown L.A. The instant they passed the first bank, Lee rose and pulled the cord. He expected the ghost cat would tag along, but he didn’t sense him near. He had ceased to worry about the little cat, a ghost wasn’t mortal, nothing of this world could harm him, and how secure and amazing was that? Only something otherworldly could touch Misto, and so far as Lee could tell, he had taken care of himself just fine.

Walking back to the bank from the bus stop, he ran his finger into his shirt pocket, again making sure the paper with its record of the traveler’s checks was safe. He was feeling nervous, beginning to wonder if that young inmate, young Randy Sanderford, had given him the straight scoop about this scam.

The bank lobby was crowded, the lines long, and that was good. He picked a young, gentle-looking teller, and tailed onto the end of the line. The nameplate beside her window said Kay Miller. He fidgeted in line and tried to look worried, and as he stepped up for his turn he let his face twist into despair. Leaning into the window clutching the grill, he encouraged his voice to tremble.“Excuse me, ma’am—Miss Miller—I’m just worried sick and my missus is out in the car just crying her eyes out.”

The young woman’s clear green eyes searched his face, she leaned toward him over the counter, the gold heart on her necklace swinging. “What is it, sir? What’s wrong?”

“I’ve lost my traveler’s checks, every one of them, all the money we have. My wife said the money would be safer in traveler’s checks, we’re headed up to Oregon, I have a job there, and now—lost. Just—they’re gone. I don’t know where I could have dropped them …”

Lee clutched his bandana to wipe his eyes. He could feel the stares of people behind him. The teller started to reach out through the cage as though she would take his hand, then drew her hand back, but her face showed real concern. Maybe she had a forgetful father, Lee thought, some gentle, addled old duffer who too often stirred her pity. She said,“Do you have something to identify the lost checks, sir?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” He pulled the little slip of recorded numbers, in their transaction folder, out of his shirt pocket. “Just this.”

Her gentle green eyes brightened when she saw the folder. She took it from him carefully, looking at the name of the issuing bank.“May I see your driver’s license, sir?”

He handed over the temporary license.“Just had it renewed.” He let his unsteady voice carry softly. “It’s my wife’s sister, she—we’re having to move up to Oregon to look after her, we don’t think she has very long, and with the money so short … I just don’t know how I could have lost them. They were so loose inthe folder, one came out accidentally. My wife said they’d be safer in the glove compartment, and I thought I put them there. But then I couldn’t find them. I thought maybe I put them in my pocket when we stopped to get gas, but I paid for the gas with cash and …” He shook his head, clenching his hands together like a little old lady, trying to look shrunken and pitiful. “I could give you our address in Oregon, if there’s any way you could help us?”

Her eyes widened as she glanced at the line behind him, he knew everyone was listening, and she let her soft voice carry.“Mr. Dawson, we like to give our customers personal service. But, you see, our bank manager’s out today.”

Lee swallowed.

“But Miss Lester is here. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get her.” She smiled at the line of waiting customers, and left the window. When Lee turned to look, most of the faces behind him were soft with sympathy. Only two men were scowling, impatient to take care of their business. Lee glanced down shyly, ducking his head, smiling sheepishly; most of the folks smiled back, nodding encouragement. He could see, at a desk at the back of the bank, Miss Miller speaking with a dark-haired older woman. The woman looked up, studying Lee. As the two women talked, the tension behind Lee in the line was like electricity, sympathy and impatience mixed, and Lee’s own nerves were strung tight. He was shaking with anxiety for real; by the time the pretty young teller returned to the cage, he was so nervous he could feel a cough coming. He did his best to swallow it back, but the cough racked him so hard he doubled over. He swallowed back phlegm, at last got himself under control. As he straightened up, another fit of coughing almost took him when he saw the sheaf of traveler’s checks in the young teller’s hand.

“I can reissue the checks, Mr. Dawson,” she said, smiling. Lee heard a pleased murmur of voices behind him. As he let out a breath, shaken and weak, he felt the cat brush against his boot, pressing hard, as if to say,See, everything went just fine. Lee watched Miss Miller count out seven one-hundred-dollar traveler’s checks. She showed Lee where to sign them, recorded the numbers, and clamped them securely into a new folder for him. Lee started to cough again, trying to thank her.

“We’re glad we could help,” she said softly. “Please be careful with them, now. You and Mrs. Dawson have a safe trip up to Oregon, and I hope her sister’s better soon.”

Collecting the folder, he thanked her again, reached through the grid to pat her hand, and then turned away moving slowly, almost feebly out of the bank.

On the street again, pretending to hurry to rejoin his weeping wife, James Dawson picked up his speed and, once he’d rounded the corner, he was moving fast and grinning with smug success. Not a damn thing wrong with that scam.

It took him more than an hour to cash five of the traveler’s checks, walking long distances between stores, buying a few items in each, half a dozen pairs of shorts, a shirt, some work gloves and, in a hardware store a small trenching tool. He saved the last two checks for the pawnshop. And as he moved around the town, every now and then he could feel the cat pressing against his leg, could feel it now as he pushed in through the barred pawnshop door. Why was the cat so interested? Just plain nosiness? Or was the ghost cat bringing him luck? Helping him along, tweaking the sympathy of young Miss Miller and her superior, maybe even weaving a sense of honesty around Lee as he dealt with each clerk and shopkeeper. Could the ghost cat do that? More power to him, then, Lee thought as he pushed in among the crowded counters of the pawnshop.

There were no other customers. Every surface was stacked with binoculars, cameras, musical instruments, jewelry, guns and ammo, all of it familiar and comforting. A pawnshop was always his destination soon after parole or release, a pawnshop was a source of sustenance where he could gather together the supplies to feel whole again, the equipment he needed to feel capable again and master of his own fate. Even the square-faced shopkeeper behind the counter seemed comfortable and familiar, the way he peered up over his horn-rimmed glasses, the way his veined hands stayed very still on the newspaper he had been reading, waiting to see if Lee wanted to sell, or buy, or try to rob him, his hands poised where he could reach, in an instant, the loaded weapon he’d have ready just beneath the counter. The man gave Lee a shopkeeper’s all-purpose smile. “Help you?”

Lee eased down a row of showcases, looking through the glass tops.“Like to see what you have in the way of revolvers.”

“Something for protection?”

“You might say that. Some critter is getting my calves—got home from a trip up north, my wife was pretty upset. I’ve watched for two nights—I don’t know what’s after them but I mean to find out.”

The man slid open a glass door.“Here’s a nice little snub-nose I can let go at a reasonable price.”

Lee looked down at the cheap little handgun.“I don’t want a toy. I want a gun.” He moved on down the showcase. “There. Let me see that one.”

He accepted the heavy revolver, opened and spun the cylinder, and eased it closed. He saw how the bluing had worn off from riding in its holster. He looked down the length of the six-inch barrel, examined the scars on the wooden grips. A forty-five-caliber, double-action no-nonsense handgun designed on the lines of the Paterson Colt. Not so fine or rare a weapon, but it would do for what he wanted.“How much?”

“Hundred dollars. Hundred and thirty with the holster.”

“I’ll take both, and a box of ammunition.”

But when Lee pulled out the traveler’s checks, the man did a double take. He looked at Lee hard for a minute.

“These are the last two. Always carry them when I travel. Hope you don’t mind. Won’t be needing them now, for a while.”

At last, under Lee’s innocent gaze, the clerk cashed the checks. Lee bought a wide roll of gray tape that the shop used for packing; he paid for that, too, and, knowing the guy was wondering if he’d been taken, he mosied on out, paused to look again in the shop window, then walked casually away to the bus stop. Moving on around the corner out of sight, he leaned against the brick building letting his rapid heart slow, waiting for the next bus bound to the airport. The twenty-minute delay made him real nervous before the bus finally appeared, before he was safely aboard and away from the watchful owner of the pawnshop.

Getting off at the air terminal, double-timing across the long stretch of tarmac, he arrived back at the hangar just as the mechanic was pushing his wheeled tool chest away from the yellow biplane. Reaching into the plane, Lee stashed his packages under the makeshift seat, then stood watching Mark approach from the office, where he had gone to pay the bill. As they pushed the plane out away from the hangar, Lee couldn’t help wondering where the cat was now, but knowing that wherever he lingered at the moment was exactly where he wanted to be.

“You heading out next week,” Lee asked. “Headed for Vegas?”

Mark nodded.“Vegas, and then on to Wichita.”

“Don’t know if it would fit in with your plans,” Lee said, “but I’d sure like to see Vegas, play the tables for a day or two.”

Mark grinned.“You getting to like this flying?”

Lee nodded, grinning at him.

“Might arrange it, if you can get the time off.”

“I can get the time off. I’ll be in town next Thursday on some business, I can get a lift in. Don’t suppose you could pick me up there, on your way? I’d pay for your gas to Vegas. Fellow told me there was an emergency landing strip just outside of town, at the junction to Jamesfarm.”

Mark scratched his head.“I was going to leave Wednesday, but what the hell, for the price of gas, I’m flexible. Sure, hell yes, I’ll pick you up, say Thursday evening? Smoother ride over the mountains when the air’s cool. I know the strip, I had a leaky oil line coming back from Vegas one time. That strip saved mefrom burning up the engine. How will you get back from Vegas?”

“I’ll hop a bus. How about six-thirty or seven, Thursday night?”

“Make it eight-thirty, I’ll have some things to clear up, that night. Take us an hour and a half to Vegas. My girlfriend doesn’t get off until nine.” He grinned at Lee. “This thing burns thirty gallons an hour.”

Laughing, Lee crawled up into his seat.“I can make that much in an hour or two at the blackjack table.” He snapped on the goggles, buckled his seat belt, tucked the brown paper packages securely between his legs, patting the forty-five. Wherever the ghost cat was, he wondered if he was in for the ride to Vegas as well, if he’d be with him for the rest of this gig, for the bad time Lee expected to endure before he headed for the border, rich and living free.

26

Two hours after Brad Falon had slipped into Morgan’s blue Dodge, and Morgan pulled away from the tree-shaded curb near the automotive shop, Falon himself sat in the driver’s seat, with Morgan sprawled in the back, passed out cold. Leaving the Graystone, in front of which he had parked, and driving sedately through town, Falon returned to park behind the apartment. Making sure Morgan was still deep under, and seeing that the windows were down partway so the comatose man wouldn’t suffocate, Falon left the car. Walking across the few feet of tarmac, he entered the apartment building through the back door. He didn’t go upstairs to his girlfriend’s place where he’d been living, he’d fill Natalie in later. She’d go along with whatever he said, whatever he told her to say. Crossing the small lobby to the front door, the afternoon sun glittering in through its carved glass panes, he left the building and crossed the street to the little neighborhood market where he liked to buy magazines and sweets. He purchased a pack of gum and a candy bar, and talked idly with the owner, remarking on the time, which was just two-thirty, and setting his watch by the store clock. Leaving the market, he entered the lobby through the frontdoor again as if he were going on up to their apartment. Instead he continued out the back, where he slid into Morgan’s car. He had left his own black Mustang in plain view parked in front of the building.

In the backseat of the Dodge, Morgan hadn’t moved, he was still deep under. Smiling, Falon drove the few blocks to the elementary school and parked in the alley behind the gym. Getting out, he dropped a small metal box into one of the refuse cans, and eased his hand in to pull a tangle of brown, wadded paper towels over it. Getting backin the car, he drove the nine blocks to Shorter Street, its maple trees shading the entries to several small businesses, the barber shop, a sandwich shop, a women’s clothing store, a bank, a dry goods and a five-and-dime, stores supplying most of the necessities of the small town except for livestock feed, lumber, and gardening supplies, which could be acquired just a few blocks over. Parking beneath a large live oak half a block from Rome Southern Bank, again he left the windows cracked open to the hot afternoon. Pocketing his loaded .38, he tossed a light windbreaker over Morgan so he wouldn’t be easily noticed from the sidewalk, and he left the engine running.

Rome Southern wasn’t the biggest bank in town but it was on the quietest street. Paradoxically, it was just two blocks from Morgan Blake’s house. Falon had driven by there just a couple of days ago, had seen the little Blake girl coming down the street, no mistaking her dark eyes, exactly like Becky’s. When heslowed, she’d looked up at him, startled. Becky’s eyes, yes, and even as she ran from his car behind the nearest house, something had twisted in his belly.

All during high school Becky had refused to go out with him—she was Becky Tanner then—using the poor excuse that she was dating Morgan. He told her she could be going with them both, that he’d show her a real good time, better than Morgan ever could, but she’d had a snotty, stuck-up attitude. She wouldn’t date him, wouldn’t give him a tumble—when a tumble was all he wanted. He hadn’t forgotten or forgiven that.

He left Morgan’s car at exactly two forty-five, and approached the bank. He had already changed shirts with Morgan and put on Morgan’s greasy work boots. To make his hands look like Morgan’s he had rubbed black watercolor paint from the child’s paint box into the creases between his fingers and around his nails and the cuticles, wiping off the excess. He had wiped his prints off the tin paint box, and smeared the colors all together in a wet mess. Who would think anything about a ruined paint box that some kid threw away? Earlier, getting Morgan settled in the backseat, he had pulled half a dozen hairs from Morgan’s head and placed them in an envelope, which was now safe in his jacket pocket.

Approaching the bank, he took from his other pocket a blue wool stocking cap, the kind you’d wear in winter, and pulled it on. The street and sidewalk were empty except for three small children bouncing a ball against a storefront a block away, paying no attention to him. Just out of sight of the bank’s glass doors, he pulled the cap down over his face, lining up the two eyeholes hehad cut in the front. Then, with his hand on the revolver in his pocket, the hammer cocked, he shoved in through the bank’s front door.

The portly, uniformed security guard had been looking up at the wall clock checking it against his pocket watch. Adjusting the watch, which was five minutes slow, satisfied it was time to close up, he started across the tile lobby to lock the door and pull the shades. He glanced across to the teller’s window, where Betty Holmes was placing paper collars around packs of tens, putting away the last of her change. She, too, was eager to lock up for the evening. She smiled at the elderly guard, flipping her long, pale hair over her shoulder. She liked Harry Grogan, he had been at this job ever since he retired from the police force fifteen years before, long before she came to work here. She knew he could feel the years weighing on him, just as her father complained about the aches and discomforts of increasing age. She knew Harry meant to quit soon and help his wife, Esther, at home where Esther still took in sewing. Grogan planned to put in a bigger garden and try canning some beans and homemade vegetable soup which was, in every household with a garden, a favorite winter staple. Harry said Esther never had time for canning and she’d sure be glad of the help. Betty watched Grogan ease the heaviness of his service revolver, lifting his belt away from his body as he moved toward the bank’s front door—then everything happened fast, the sudden thrust inward of the heavy glass door, the masked figure exploding in jamming a revolver into Harry’s belly as Harry reached for his gun.

Two shots exploded. Harry’s gun never cleared the holster, the shots dropped him in a dance jig, he fell twisting and lay still. The gunman lunged past him straight at her window and before she could react he grabbed her hair, jerked her into the wrought-iron barrier. Pain exploded in her belly as her ribs cracked against the counter bending her double. He jerked her harder into the metal teller’s cage and rammed the gun in her face, the gun and the navy blue mask filled her vision, and his cold expressionless eyes.

Falon was pretty sure the guard was dead. As he rammed the muzzle of the .38 into the teller’s face, two women appeared from the back. They stopped, frozen, their faces going pale and dumb.

“Get the money,” he shouted. “In the drawers, in the vault. I want all of it. Do itnow, or she’s dead.” The two women remained still with shock. Falon gestured the cocked gun toward a pile of empty canvas bags that lay folded on the back counter. “Move! Put the money in the bags.Now, orI blow the broad’s head off.”

They moved, scuttled like frightened rats to do as they were told. His new voice amused him, he had practiced for a long time to perfect Morgan’s deeper voice, his lower tones. The two tellers were unlocking and jerking open drawers, grabbing out money and dropping it into the bags. The younger, dark-haired one moved quickly but the old, skinny broad was slow and shaking. He’d started to yell at her again when a man, a bank officer, appeared from an inner office down at the end of the lobby. Looking surprised, taking it all in, he lunged for a phone.

“Back off. You touch it, they’re all dead!” Stepping around the end of the counter, Falon stood over the blonde. She was still conscious, holding herself and moaning.

“Get over here,” Falon shouted at the bank officer. “Get over here now behind the counter with the rest of them!” But when he grabbed the limp girl and jerked her up she came to life under his hands, clawing at him trying to jerk the mask off his face, her own face white with rage.

He jerked her off him, pulled her long hair, bending her backward, her face cut by the bars. The other two women had backed away from the cash drawers, they stood dumb and shaking again but the blonde still fought him, kicking at his shins, her fear wild and so exciting he laughed, fear had always thrilled him, as far back as he could remember, other kids’ fear of him, a helpless animal’s fear. Remembering grammar school, the puppy’s white silky hair filling his fist, he twisted the girl’s hair, jerking her up against him, contorting her body so violently that he felt her urine drench his leg. Enraged that she’d do that, he slapped her with the butt of the .38. She swung around, jammed her knee in his crotch. He doubled over. She scratched his arm deep and then went for his face. Hunched with pain, he threw her to the floor and screamed at the two tellers, “Get the rest of the money in the bag or I’ll kill her, kill all of you.” When the girl at his feet tried to get up he kicked her in the face, then in the ribs. “Get the money,” he snarled, “all three of you, all of the money.All of it!” He felt high and he felt good, he was filled with power.

When he had the two loaded money bags, he locked the bank officer and the women in the vault and spun the dial. Before he left the bank carrying the two canvas bags he dropped the hairs from the envelope into the blood on the marble floor. When he hit the door he had already pulled off the stocking cap and shoved it into one of the bags. Quickly he slid into the Dodge, pushed the bags under the seat. He was ten blocks away when he heard sirens; he never had heard a bank alarm, maybe it only sounded at the station and that didn’t seem fair.

The sirens grew louder but he eased on at a leisurely pace, heading north to the outskirts of Rome. He parked Morgan’s car in a patch of woods next to the red pickup he had “borrowed” earlier from a man that he knew would be out of town all week. He crammed the money all into one bag and dropped it into the cab of the pickup, left the other bag with a few scattered bills under the passenger seat of Morgan’s car. He changed shirts and boots with Morgan, hard to do, manipulating a limp body. He emptied the bottle of bootleg whiskey over Morgan’s clothes, smeared some in his mouth, the rest on the driver’s seat. He wiped his prints off the bottle, forced Morgan’s prints onto it in several handholds. Holding the bottle with his handkerchief, he shoved it under the seat with the canvas bag.

Pulling the red pickup out onto the narrow macadam road, he got out and picked up the four wide boards on which he had parked to prevent tire tracks in the raw earth of the shoulder. He scuffed leaves over the indentations the boards had made, threw the boards in the bed of the pickup, and headed around the outskirts of Rome, up toward Turkey Mountain Ridge. The way he figured, taking his time to hide the money in the one place where no one would ever look, he’d have the truck back in his friend’s driveway well before midnight, would be back in Natalie’s apartment in perfect innocence, fondling her in her warm bed. He had no thought for the dead guard or the girl he had hurt, he had no idea of the extent of her suffering nor did he care, his thoughts were on the damage he had done to Morgan Blake, for taking Becky from him, and on Becky for turning her back on him. Soon now Morgan would be hurting bad, as would Becky, and that was only right, that was as it should be, those who crossed him were meant to pay, and he was making it happen.

In Blythe, the ghost cat, as he accompanied Lee in the careful laying of his plans, was aware as well of Falon’s brutal robbery even as the iron door to the vault was slammed and the manager and tellers locked inside. Misto hurt for those who had been beaten, for the guard who had been killed and for his poor wife newly widowed. He hurt for Morgan, who would suffer long and hard, too, for Falon’s cruelty, and he hurt for Becky and Sammie. But at this juncture there was little he could have done. A momentum was building that was beyond the ghost cat’s frantic powers; this shifting of fate was now far too strong for one small and angry feline.

But he knew this: the lust of Brad Falon against the Blakes was inexorably drawing Lee in. Lee would soon become a part of the scenario, as surely as pressures could build beneath the earth toward an explosive cataclysm. The paths of Morgan, and Brad Falon, of Sammie and Lee were tangling ever closer; and the ultimate outcome, the final choice, would be Lee’s to make. Uneasily the cat watched and waited, often giving Lee a gentle nudge, rubbing warm against him, his purring rumble meant to remind the old convict where survival lay: Lee’s ultimate afterlife lay with those who could give of their love, never with that which destroys love and joy. Never with that which would leave nothing of Lee but dust, scattered and gone, swept to nothing by the winds of time.

27

Pausing on the porch of the mess hall, Lee stamped dust from his boots, startling a flock of chickens that flapped up squawking, kicking sand in his face. Beside the tool house the trucks stood idle, and the packing-shed doors were shut tight. Looking in through the wide screens, he could see that the mess hall was empty; but the smell of cooking breakfasts lingered. On Sunday mornings, the men fixed their own meals. Moving on inside the screened room and back between the long tables, he stepped into the kitchen and set about making his breakfast.

The big wire basket on the counter was full of rinsed dishes left to drain and several burners of the oversized commercial stove were still warm. The stove was familiar to Lee, from working in a number of prison kitchens. He found bowls of eggs in the refrigerator alongside rolls of chorizo, and there were packages of tortillas on the counter and a couple of loaves of bread. The big commercial coffeepot was warm but nearly empty and was of a kind he didn’t know. He found a saucepan instead, and made boiled coffee. He fired up the stove’s big gas grill, started the chorizo, and when it was brown he broke three eggs beside it. He dropped two slices of bread in the big commercial toaster, buttered them from a gallon crock, and carried his steaming plate and coffee mug to a table beside the long, east-facing screen, where the edge of the rising sun was just appearing over the sand hills and above the scraggly willows.

The cash from the traveler’s check scam was in his hip pocket. He’d left his new gun and the ammo hidden inside his mattress, had ripped the stitching just enough to slide them in. Not very original, but they wouldn’t be there long. His cabin didn’t offer a lot of options, not even a cupboard under the sink. But no one seemed to have been in there since he’d moved in, his few personal possessions, his clean clothes, Mae’s picture on the dresser, never seemed disturbed.

He had dreamed of Mae again last night. He didn’t dream of her often but when he did the scene was shockingly real. Again she had been in a strange place, lying half asleep on a flowered couch, a blanket tucked around her, and her face very pale. She woke and looked up at him, looked right at him. “Cowboy,” she said, reaching up to him, her thin little hands cold in his hands. She was telling him that he had to come and help her, when Lee woke.

It must have been around midnight, though in his dream it seemed to be morning. Outside his window the moon had already moved up out of sight above the cabin roof. He lay wakeful a long time staring into the dark, seeing Mae so vividly, hearing her voice so clearly—Mae’s voice, and yet not quite her voice. There was something different in the way she spoke, an accent of some kind. Dreams could be so deceiving; but something in her voice left him uncertain and puzzled. The child had to be Mae, but something was different not only in the way she spoke, butsomething in her searching look that wasn’t quite like Mae, something that teased and puzzled him so that when he slept again he worried restlessly. Even as he stirred and tossed in his dreams, part of him knew that Mae would be an old woman now, if she was still alive. Maybe he had dreamed of a time long past, when Mae needed him and he wasn’t there for her?

But he didn’t think so. This child belonged to the present, this child so like his small sister, this little girl was real and alive, now, today, this child reaching out to him, badly needing him.

Trying to settle his puzzled uncertainty, he told himself he’d let last night’s dreams run away with him, that he needed to calm himself, not indulge in crazy fancies. Forking up the last of his eggs, looking out through the screen to the bunkhouses, he watched half a dozen pickers lolling on the long, roofed porches, and he could hear the murmur of Spanish radio stations clashing together in a senseless tangle. In the yard, a ball game had started, loud and energetic, lots of shouting and swearing in Spanish. He watched four young pickers leave their bunkhouse all dressed up in clean shirts, clean jeans, and polished boots, laughing and joking. They piled into an old blue Packard and took off, heading for town. He hoped that wasn’t the last car to go. The next step in his plan depended on a ride into Blythe—but he could still see Tony polishing his car, and that was what he was counting on. Smearing jam on the last of his toast, he crammed it in his mouth, washed it down with the last swallow of coffee. He got up, picking up his plate, thinking about the day ahead.

He hadn’t had much time to get himself organized but so far the moves had been smooth. It was the dreams that unsettled him. When he dreamed of Mae, the devil’s urgings had backed off. But then, when he least expected it, the dark presence would return, pressing him to center his attention on the Delgado payroll, to set Jake up for a long prison term, and to move in on Lucita. He would wake from these encounters angry and fighting back.

No one but Lee himself, the cat, and the dark incubus knew the inner battles of Lee’s sleepless nights, his dreams sometimes so conflicting that he began to think of himself as two people: his own natural self with the code he had known all his life, and the stranger whose hunger and viciousness didn’t really belong to him. He didn’t see Lucita much during the day. When he did, he knew she wouldn’t play his game. But his hunger for her could still turn fierce, wanting her for himself—and too often the devil would reappear, urging Lee on to pursue her.

Last night the cat had waked him from such an encounter, had spoken so angrily that Lee had had to listen. Crouched on the foot of the bed, Misto had awakened Lee hissing and growling, kneading his claws so hard in the blanket, catching Lee’s foot with a claw, that Lee rose up out of sleep staring at him, startled.

Why do you listen to him?the cat hissed. You have grown oldernow, Lee, and you are wiser. But in your resolve, and in your body, you are weaker, while the devil is still strong. He will always be strong. Now, in your declining age, do you plan to let him beat you? Is Satan strong enough, now, to beat you?

Now, leaving the table, still hearing the cat’s words and angry at his own weakness, Lee returned to the kitchen, rinsed his dish and cup and set them to drain, then he headed out toward the bunkhouses.

Beyond the softball game two young Mexicans were tinkering with the engine of a cut-down Ford, the car’s radio blaring its hot music. Near them Tony Valdez, stripped to the waist, was sloshing a last bucket of water over his two-door white Chevy coupe. The car was maybe fifteen years old, but looked in good shape. Lee went on over. “Nice car, Tony.”