Way Down on the High Lonely

7

It was modest at first. They did another shabby cathouse down by Liming, then hit an after-hours card game in Battle Mountain. They found a marijuana runner in Elko and hijacked his truck on a switchback at Antelope Pass. A long weekend in Reno netted them a pimp’s money roll as well as the worldly wealth of a pickpocket whom Neal lured and then followed back to his stash.

They chose victims unlikely to complain too much to the cops and who were themselves engaged in some form of evildoing, at least in the minds of True Identity Christians. They worked fast and clean and used enough force so that they didn’t have to resort to actual violence, a condition Neal enforced because he was “not going to do any more hard time just because any of you guys get scared or trigger-happy.”

As the money came in, Neal’s stock rose. He was becoming what he needed to be to get on the inside: a necessity. He was getting the group hooked on money. What had first seemed like a windfall was becoming an expectation. They were becoming junkies to his pusher.

It wouldn’t be long before he had enough on them to put them all away. Having lured them into committing crimes they never would have thought of, he would then turn state’s evidence, testify, and disappear again. But not yet. He still had to make the crucial connection between Hansen’s boys and C. Wesley Carter. Ed wanted the whole enchilada.

And of course there was Cody. Or there wasn’t Cody, more to the point. Through the weeks of planning, practicing, and carrying out the robberies, Neal had seen no sign of the boy. He could be anywhere. Farmed out to some Identity family in northern Idaho or Washington State or Arkansas someplace, or left in the care of somebody’s loyal woman in a dingy trailer court anywhere west of the Missouri. Or he could be dead.

Neal didn’t want to accept that possibility, although he knew that Strekker and Carlisle, at least, were capable of killing a child to cover up his father’s murder. But it seemed too much, somehow. Too much to deal with, too much to believe and still keep going on. And he had to keep going on.

He knew it was only a matter of time before the boys in the bund brought him into the inner circle. Only a matter of time, and not much time at that before they’d give anything-even their secrets-to keep the money flow coming in. But time was an enemy to young Cody McCall, if he were indeed alive.

And time is certainly an enemy when you’re undercover, and Neal soon came to realize that he was under a kind of double-cover, living one life with the Sons of Seth and another with the Mills and Karen Hawley.

It was a tough thing to juggle, working with Steve then sneaking over to Hansen’s for a training session or a lecture. Going to Brogan’s for a beer and trying to ignore the gang in the corner. Having dinner at Wong’s with Karen, then making some excuse for leaving so he could run with the wolf pack that night.

There were a few close calls, like the time he was in Strekker’s pickup headed to Reno and just saw Peggy’s Volvo coming the other way from a shopping trip to Fallon. Or when Karen had slept over in the cabin for a change and the boys had come to get him at six in the morning for a little dawn training patrol.

Then there was the time he showed up at Phil and Margie’s all bruised, stiff, cut up, and bowlegged from riding that damn horse.

This particular beast’s name was Midnight, and it was black all right, all the way down to its malevolent soul.

“Why do I have to learn to ride?” Neal asked as he sat on a corral rail. Midnight stood in Gandhiesque tranquility next to him.

“Might need to someday,” Bob Hansen answered cryptically. “Besides, Midnight here is the gentlest gelding we have.”

Midnight looked up at Neal and whinnied softly in reassurance. He did look gentle, Neal thought. He was small as horses go, and skinny. And he had soft warm eyes.

Neal lowered himself into the saddle. Midnight turned his head and looked back at him and nuzzled the rein.

“Take him for a spin, Neal,” Billy McCurdy urged as he smiled his cretinous smile at the rest of the gang.

Neal picked up the reins. “Is this the steering wheel?”

Jory swung open the corral gate.

Midnight looked back at Neal with a gentle are-you-ready expression.

Neal gave the horse a slight nudge in the ribs.

The horse took off like he had a rocket up his ass. His soft eyes now burned with a demonic fever as he headed straight for the nearest barbed-wire fence.

Neal wanted to get off, but the horse didn’t feel so small anymore and it seemed like a long way to the ground, especially at this speed. So he just held on as Midnight found the fence, turned left, and galloped alongside the wire, leaning in ever so slightly to graze Neal’s leg on the barbs.

Neal heard the roars of laughter from the corral, and Billy’s proud voice warbling, “Yep, that damn horse is doing it again! You can’t teach that, you know-he comes by it natural!”

“I wish you still had your balls, Midnight!” Neal hollered as he felt his jeans rip on a barb. “So I could cut them off myself!”

Midnight responded by racing beside the wire for another hundred yards or so and then bearing down toward the trees by the creek bed.

Or more accurately, one particular tree. A scraggly old pine with the dead limb sticking out, the limb about as high off the ground as say, a man on horseback.

Not being as smart as the horse, Neal didn’t see it coming until they were about fifty yards away.

He pulled back hard on the reins but Midnight plunged ahead like a New York cabbie at a yellow traffic light.

Neal jerked back harder.

Midnight ignored it and pulled his head down.

“Have you ever heard of Alpo?” Neal yelled.

Midnight was so intimidated that he sped up as he galloped under the limb. Neal managed to get his hands up over his face as he smacked into the tree limb, did a little trapeze dismount, and landed on his back on the ground.

As Neal struggled to get some air back in his lungs, Midnight walked over and gently nudged him with his nose, like Fury trying to wake up Joey.

Then he bit him.

It was just a nip, but it was a nip that hurt, goddammit, and Neal was just pissed enough to get up, dig his foot into the stirrup, and swing back up into the saddle.

Midnight stood still during all of this and then headed out at a tame walk when Neal nudged him. After a while, Neal got brave enough to take the horse to a little trot, and eventually cantered back into the corral as the boys reassembled to watch his triumphant return.

“Just a matter of showing the animal who’s boss,” Neal announced as he brought Midnight to a stop.

That’s when Midnight started whirling in a violent circle, sending Neal spinning off the saddle like a Frisbee and skipping across the ground like a stone on water.

So Neal was a little sore when he met Karen that night, and she had some questions as to why he was learning to ride at Hansen’s.

And, of course, the crime wave was the talk of the town. Over beers at Phil and Margie’s, or coffee at Wong’s, or cheap whiskey at Brogan’s, people talked about the robberies that were starting to become the stuff of legend. It seemed like everyone knew about the holdup at the Filly Ranch, and suddenly it seemed like there was a gang sticking up every drug dealer in the Great Basin, and most folks heartily approved. And there was talk that the police were turning a blind eye to these activities, and there was even talk that it was off-duty cops who were pulling them off. And there was titillated talk that the Mafia down in Las Vegas-which most people considered a colony of California and not part of Nevada of all-was getting a little unhappy and was out hunting the robbers themselves.

And Hansen’s boys heard the talk too. They started walking with that little extra swagger when they came to town and started smiling smug, knowing smiles when the robberies came up in conversations and people started to joke about the James gang and the Daltons. Neal about choked on a green chili when that bone-stupid David Bekke said something about this gang being more like Robin Hood, “robbing from the Jews and giving to the poor.”

Soon the whispering started. A few fingers discreetly pointed at the backs of the boys as they walked through town, and there were murmurs beneath the music at Phil and Margie’s; Neal even imagined he heard his name spoken as he sidled to the bar to get another pitcher for the table. And maybe it was his imagination that Steve looked at him a little funny from time to time, or that Peggy’s “hmms” took on a more serious tone. And maybe it was only in his head that Karen was getting a little reserved, would start to say something and then stop, as if a question was caught in her throat.

Neal thought that his life was like one of those drawings of railroad tracks stretching out over a horizon. The illusion is that the tracks stay separate, but in reality the lines come closer and closer until, at some point over the horizon, they have to meet.

They absolutely collided one cold Saturday night at Phil and Margie’s.

Neal and Karen had gone with Steve and Peggy to drink and dance, to chase away the blues that came with the first snowfall of the season. The snow had hit the valley that morning, not an honest-to-goodness kick-ass storm or anything, but enough of a dusting to let them know that the long winter was on them.

So Neal had crowded into the pickup’s cab with Steve and Peggy and they had no real trouble rattling into Austin. They met Karen at Phil and Margie’s. The place was already crowded with like-minded celebrants, including Cal Strekker, Randy Carlisle, Dave Bekke, and Craig Vetter-the whole gang.

The trouble didn’t start right away. Like a lot of trouble, it needed to get fueled up by alcohol, so for the first couple of hours Neal danced with Karen, Steve spun a few with Peggy, and the boys stayed bellied up to the bar. Steve was refreshing himself liberally between dances though, so the alcohol level rose steadily to the point where all it needed was a spark.

Which happened when Steve and Cal scraped together.

Steve was turning away from the bar with a fresh beer in his hand and he happened to slosh some on Cal’s boots.

“Sorry about that,” Steve said.

“If you can’t hold your liquor, Mills, you shouldn’t be here,” Cal answered.

Cal’s boys turned from the bar to look, other heads turned at that, and then it seemed like the whole crowd was watching.

“What’s going on over there?” Peggy asked as she looked toward the bar.

Neal got up and made his way through the crowd.

“Well, now,” Steve was saying, “I never knew of a cowman who got too upset over a little beer on his boots. Then again, you’re not a cowman, are you? You’re the shithead of security.”

“Let it go, Cal,” Vetter said, seeing the murderous look come into Strekker’s eyes.

But Steve Mills was interested in pouring a little more gas on the fire.

“And I told you before,” he said, “to call me Mr. Mills or Steve. And while you’re at it, you don’t tell me where I should or shouldn’t be, you jailhouse punk.”

Neal grabbed Steve by the elbow and tried to pull him away. “Come on, Steve,” he said.

“You better go with him, old man,” Cal smirked.

Steve tried to yank free of Neal’s grip. “Don’t let age stop you,” he said to Strekker.

“Let him go, Neal,” Cal said.

Steve turned to Neal with a surprised look. “Are you guys buddies now?”

Neal tightened his grip. Steve pulled free easily this time, just to show he hadn’t been trying before. He set the beer back on the bar and then launched a wicked roundhouse right at Strekker’s head. Strekker stepped back easily and the punch whooshed two inches in front of his nose.

Strekker smiled his psycho smile. “You all saw it,” he said. “He swung first.

He brought his hands up and stepped back into a fighting stance.

Strekker will kill him, Neal thought.

“Get out of the way, Neal,” Randy Carlisle said. He was grinning like the sycophantic fool he was, eager for his dominant half to shed somebody’s blood.

Peggy Mills sat frozen at the table. She was helpless. If she let the fight go on, her husband might get hurt bad. If she intervened, she would hurt him worse. When Karen started to get up, Peggy took her wrist and pulled her back down.

The music stopped. The crowd made a circle around Steve, Cal, and Neal. Steve took another swig of beer and put his hands up.

“Get out of the way, Neal,” Randy repeated.

Neal stood for a long second between the two would-be fighters. Then he shrugged, got out of the way, and walked over behind Cal. Randy and Dave slapped him on the back. Karen gave him a look of astonishment and outrage. Neal shrugged again, picked up a barstool, and smashed it over Cal’s head. Strekker dropped like he’d been poleaxed.

“Fight’s over,” Neal announced.

“Whose side are you on?” Carlisle yelled. He grabbed Neal by the front of the shirt.

“My side,” Neal answered.

Carlisle punched him in the eye, threw him to the floor, and hit him twice more in the side of the head. Steve jumped on Carlisle and hit him with a tremendous right uppercut that sent him sprawling unconscious into Vetter’s arms. Vetter set him down, stepped up, and punched Steve in the jaw. Dave Bekke jumped Steve from the side.

Neal got to his knees, saw Bekke hanging from Steve’s back, and tackled Bekke’s legs, pulling the man down on the floor with him. Bekke rolled him over, got on top, and started punching. Neal got a leg between Bekke’s legs and drove his knee up into Bekke’s balls, which discouraged the punching.

Steve and Vetter were holding each other with one hand while exchanging haymakers with the other when Bob Hansen walked through the door.

“Knock it off!” he yelled.

Dave Bekke was rolling on the floor gripping his crotch just as Randy Carlisle got up and charged at Neal. He hit him in the midsection and drove him back to the floor. Craig had Steve bent backward over the bar and was cocking his fist for the coup de grace.

“I said that’s enough!” Hansen hollered.

Steve reached up, grabbed Vetter’s fist, and pulled back like he was flipping a calf to the ground. Both men went over the top of the bar and landed with a crash on the floor. Neal had managed to pull Randy’s denim jacket over his head, trapping his arms. As Steve and Craig got up punching, Hansen pulled a pistol from his belt and shot a hole in the ceiling.

The roar stopped them all in mid-punch, and they looked sheepishly over at the rancher.

Hansen surveyed the damage and said, “You need to leave me with a hand or two, Steve.”

“Then you need to teach ’em some manners, Bob.”

“I expect you’re right about that.”

Hansen looked quizzically at Neal.

“Carey coldcocked Cal from behind, Mr. Hansen,” Carlisle accused.

“That right, Neal?” Hansen asked.

“You bet.”

Hansen holstered his pistol. “Seems we have us a few things we need to get resolved.”

You ain’t kidding, Neal thought.

Cal Strekker pushed himself up onto his knees. He shook his head a few times as Carlisle and Vetter grabbed his arms and helped him to his feet.

“Let’s get going, boys,” Hansen said. “We got work to do tomorrow. Neal Carey, I’ll be talking to you.”

Neal nodded. And I’ll be talking to you, he thought. Because it looks as if we’ll have to speed things up a little bit.

Hansen looked around at the broken glasses and the pool of blood on the floor where Strekker had been taking his nap.

“I’ll take care of the damages,” he said to the bartender.

“No you won’t,” Steve Mills said. “We will-me and Neal Carey.”

“You’re a traitor,” Carlisle snapped to Neal as he walked out.

I wish you hadn’t said diat, Neal thought. I really do.

The band started up again and Steve threw his arm around Neal’s shoulders.

“Goddamn, it’s been a long time since I been in a fight like that!” he whooped. “Goddamn that was fun! But you shouldn’t have hit him with that stool like that. I would’ve held my own with him.”

“Aww, I know. I’ve just been wanting to hit him with a stool for a long time. Seemed like the right moment to do it.”

They were back at the table now and the women were looking them over for damage. There was a lot to look at. Steve had a split lip, a nasty cut over one eye, and a cheek that was swelling up like a squirrel’s in the fall. Neal’s right eye was beginning to close and a lump was starting to rise up from his forehead.

“Barbarians,” Peggy muttered. “Karen, we’re sleeping with barbarians.”

“That has yet to be seen,” Karen answered. She had a severe, schoolteacher frown on her face.

“Which part?” Steve asked. “The barbarian part or the sleeping-with part?”

“I don’t think there’s any question about the barbarian part,” Karen answered.

Steve winked at Neal. “Uh-oh,” he said. “I believe we’re in trouble.”

But Peggy was looking over his shoulder at Neal and mouthing the words “Thank you.”

“Let’s get these barbarians home,” Peggy said aloud. “I’m married to one, but the other is optional.”

“I’ll take him,” Karen said. Then, in a lower tone to Neal, “Besides, I have some questions to ask.”

Uh-oh.

Joe Graham watched as the pretty boy prostitute settled on a price and got into the front seat of the Mercedes. The car sped off, leaving the sidewalk in front of the True Christian Identity Church empty. Graham slipped into the alley and shuffled through the garbage and the stench of stale urine until he came to the fire door.

He looked around once, then pulled a thin metal strip from his coat. The lock gave up without a fight and Joe Graham was inside the building. He listened for a second, heard no human or animal sounds, turned on his flashlight, and headed up the stairs.

He had the place pretty well memorized from weeks of coming to the damn services, drinking the weak coffee, and eating the cake at the social hour afterward. The price you pay, he thought. He’d heard more damn Jewish jokes than he would at a Catskill weekend.

He found Carter’s office with no problem. The door was unlocked, so he walked right in. Trust in the Lord is a wonderful thing, he thought.

There were three horizontal file cabinets plus the vertical files in the desk drawers. None of them were locked, which Graham found discouraging. He was looking for something that Carter had to hide.

There was another door in the back and it opened to a smaller room with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a safe.

That’s more like it, Graham thought. He knelt down beside the combination lock and got to work.

“Why did he call you a traitor?” Karen asked Neal as she placed a cold washcloth on his eye.

“I dunno. He was drunk.”

“He wasn’t that drunk. And why did that one with the beard ask you whose side you were on? And how do you know those guys, anyway?”

Neal took the washcloth from her and held it himself. “Jesus! Are you sure you don’t want to shine a bright lamp in my eyes? Beat me with a rubber hose?”

“Maybe.”

“Lay off.” Because I’m in a tough position here, Karen. By the strict rules of the game I should have let Cal do a number on Steve back there, but something in me couldn’t let that happen. So I stepped in and committed a cardinal sin-I compromised my cover. And I have to figure out how to put that back together again. Then those assholes had to open their big dumb mouths and undermine me on the other side.

“Just tell me the truth,” Karen said.

Which is just the thing I can’t do. To tell you drags you into it, puts us both at risk. “Shit, Karen, they live next door.”

“Two miles next door.”

“It’s still the next door,” Neal said grumpily.

She had made up another ice pack and held it to the lump on his head as she sat down next to him on the sofa.

“Are you hanging out with those guys?”

Never deny what can’t hurt you, Neal thought. There’s nothing worse than getting caught in a lie you don’t have to tell. Save your lies for the important stuff.

“We’ve had a couple of drinks together,” he said. After knocking over a whorehouse or two.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Did you learn that from Peggy?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Bad company.”

You bet. “Anyway,” he said, “they probably won’t be too friendly after tonight.” Which is something of a problem, actually.

“Don’t bet on it,” Karen said. “Out here, little brawls like that don’t get in the way of being men together. Just a little bloodier-than-usual male bonding. You know, shake hands and laugh it off. ‘Boy, you really hit me a good one there, har-har-har.’ That sort of thing.”

“You sound pissed off.”

“I guess I’m just jealous. I want you to do your heavy-duty bonding with me,” she said. She reached down to his lap by way of illustration.

Neal groaned. “Karen, not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but my eye hurts like crazy, my head is throbbing, and my ribs feel like someone took a hammer to them.”

She kept stroking him and said, “Aw, the poor baby. You know, if you’re going to be a rootin’-tootin’, two-fisted drinkin’, barroom-brawlin’ cowboy, you’ll have to learn to climb back in the saddle after you’ve been thrown.”

“Really?”

His voice was strangely high-pitched.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, unbuckling his belt. “Hurt or not, you have responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities?” he asked over the metallic zing of the zipper.

“To me.”

“To you.” He ran a hand through that beautiful hair and touched her neck.

She looked up at him and asked, “How are those ribs now?”

“I don’t feel a thing.”

“Yes you do,” she said, softly laughing.

“Yes, I do.”

And he did. He felt wonderful and guilty at the same time, because he knew that a relationship is based on trust and honesty, and he could never give either.

Jory Hansen was thinking about a woman too, as he guided Cocoa up the slope of the spur. He was thinking about Shelly Mills, how he had left her on the couch in her living room, about her disheveled hair and clothes, and about how it was he who had put a stop to it with the feeble excuse that her parents could walk in any second.

She had wanted to do it, too. She had told him straight out, and he had been shocked and thrilled, but there was something that stopped him. He wanted to tell himself that it was his morals, his concern for her, his fear that she would hate him later when she was more in control, but all of that would be lies.

Truth was, he knew, that he had something laying heavy on him. Something terrible. Something that he had to hide but couldn’t hide from God, from Yahweh.

He knew it was this secret that stopped him. Stopped him even though he loved Shelly, even though she was so beautiful, even though he wanted to spend his life with her.

There wouldn’t be much of a life now. Not with the secret, not with the End Time coming.

But only Yahweh knew when that would be. Yahweh and maybe the old Indian.

The old Indian knew these things. It was the old Indian who had shown him the paintings in the cave, told him what they were and what they meant. Told him how they showed the beginning and the end.

Which is why Jory had done what he had done. Why he had the secret. Why, as he picked his way along the snowy ridge toward the cave, he prayed that he was right. Or that Yahweh would forgive him if he was wrong.

Then he could hear the Indian singing softly. A song older than sin.

Jory got down and slipped the pack off the horse’s rump. He asked Yahweh to forgive him for stealing the meat and canned food. He slipped the strap of the pack over his shoulder and hefted the bundle of firewood. Then he started up for the cave.

To see once more the end and the beginning.

Graham opened the file on the desk, pulled the gooseneck lamp over it, and photographed the file. He took special care to focus on the picture stapled to the top right corner of the first page.

The picture of Cody McCall.

Peggy could tell that her daughter had been crying. Not that she had ever been very good at hiding her feelings, but now her eyes were red and puffy.

“What happened to Dad?” Shelly asked as Steve snuck upstairs with the briefest of greetings.

“Feeling his age,” Peggy answered. “Acting like a colt because he feels like an old horse.”

“Huh?”

“He got into a fight in a bar.”

“Daddy?” Shelly asked. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll feel worse tomorrow. Now, what’s going on with you?”

Shelly turned away and went to sit down on the window box. She stared out in the darkness toward the mountains. “Nothing,” she said.

Peggy sat down beside her and stroked her hair. “Why don’t I believe that?”

“Because it’s not true.”

Peggy put her arm around her daughter and held her quietly.

After awhile Shelly said, “I wanted to make love to him tonight.”

Peggy felt a shot of fear go through her, but she suppressed it. She made her voice as calm as possible when she asked, “Did you?”

“No.”

Thank you, God, Peggy thought.

“But only because he didn’t want to,” Shelly said. “I don’t know whether to feel humiliated, or guilty, or relieved…”

“I’m relieved,” Peggy said, and they both laughed a little. “Why didn’t he want to?” Because there’s no teenage boy I’ve ever known who didn’t want to.

“He was afraid you’d walk in on us.”

“Well, that’s silly. You can only hear the truck coming for half a mile.”

“I know.”

“He was probably scared, honey.”

“So was I.”

“Me too. Mostly because one of these nights it will happen. You’re warm and smart and loving…”

“Pretty?”

“Beautiful. But don’t be in too much of a hurry, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And be careful.”

“Mom!”

“Well, I already have at least one more baby around here than I can handle. Speaking of which…” She rolled her eyes up toward the bedroom.

Shelly hugged her long and hard and then said, “Go see Daddy. Tell him I hope he won.”

Steve was in the upstairs bathroom, looking into the mirror and steeling himself to apply peroxide to the cut over his eye.

“Give me that,” Peggy said. She took the bottle and dabbed a corner of the washcloth with the disinfectant. “Tell me something. Did you pick that fight with that asshole?”

“I suppose I did.”

“You shouldn’t drink at all, you know that.”

“I know.”

She dabbed at the wound. Steve hissed.

“Oh, don’t look so hangdog,” Peggy said. “You didn’t do so badly.”

He walked into the bedroom and plopped down on the bed.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” he said.

She joined him on the bed. “About what?”

“About just who the hell I am.” He smiled sheepishly. “A little late for a mid-life crisis, isn’t it?”

“Just about on time, I’d say. But is this one of those mid-life crisis deals where you leave me for a twenty-year-old cocktail waitress who really understands you?”

He reached for her and pulled her in. “You don’t get that lucky.”

“Good. Because you can be whoever you want, just as long as you’re my husband.”

He kissed her with his split lip and winced. But it didn’t stop him.

Bob Hansen put down his Bible and turned out the light. Sleep didn’t come easily. It hadn’t come easy since… he pushed that out of his mind. There was no use dwelling on it. Yahweh demanded a lot of his chosen people, and the End Time was coming soon. Bob Hansen was sure of that, just as sure as he was that he was Yahweh’s strong arm in the chosen land. Reverend Carter himself had anointed him, and Yahweh’s strong arm needed to get things cleaned up in the valley before the manchild came and the End Time started.

I can’t hide this much longer, he thought, not with the compound getting bigger and more men coming in all the time. Soon we’ll be using this as a base for operations against ZOG, and soon after that we’ll be defending it in the End Time, and I’d better be sure that the base is secure. Steve Mills will have to be with us or against us.

But he’ll be with us. Steve is a good white man with his head screwed on straight. All he needs is a little education. Then the whole valley will be the haven Yahweh meant it to be.

But sleep still wouldn’t come.

Karen lay in bed watching Neal’s troubled sleep and wondering just who this man was, this man whom she was in love with. What was he really doing in Austin? His story about a casual friendship with Hansen’s boys was bullshit-the Neal she thought she knew couldn’t be friends with that trash. What was he hiding? Should she dump him now, before he broke her heart? What snakes twisting in his head gave him such terrible dreams?

In Neal’s nightmare he was chasing the coyote across the sagebrush. The coyote had something in its mouth. Something golden. Neal chased it and chased it until he got close, until the coyote turned around and grinned, and Neal saw that the golden object in its mouth was the blond hair on the head of Cody McCall.

He didn’t let himself sleep after that until the sun came up.