Way Down on the High Lonely

12

Neal held on tightly as Midnight picked his way up the narrow path. Cedar boughs swung back and threw snow across his arms as the horse pushed through. More snow was falling on his head and back, blowing in his face.

He felt the horse stagger up to level ground and then heard what sounded like a chant coming from somewhere up above. It was a sad but oddly tranquil song in the voice of an old angel floating on a cloud.

I wonder if this is what it’s like to die, Neal thought. A slow ride in a tunnel of whiteness with an angel singing you home.

Midnight found his way between two rock walls and they descended down a draw. Then the horse turned sharply right and then left, and suddenly Neal could see.

They were in a box canyon of red rock cliffs with sparse cedars clinging to narrow shelves. The north cliff face blocked the wind and most of the snow. They were isolated from the rest of the mountains and the valley below. They might as well have been in another world.

Now Neal realized that the chanting came from the cliff on the north side. He looked up and saw a small circle of light about fifty feet up on the rocks, and the voice seemed to come from that glowing orb. This is getting really spooky, he thought.

“What am I hearing?” he asked Jory. He pointed to the circle of light that seemed to float on the sheer cliff. “What the hell is that?”

“That’s the angel,” Jory said calmly. “The guardian.”

“Is he guarding Cody?” Neal asked.

“Always.” Jory stopped the horse. “I usually walk from here, but we might need your horse this time. I think we can walk him most of the way up there.”

Neal swung down as Jory hopped off. Jory took the reins and led Midnight as they hiked to the base of the cliff. They jagged west for a few hundred feet and then Neal saw that there was a narrow shelf of rock that led like a ramp up to the light. He got scared as they made their way up the shelf. It seemed like one slip would send him plunging down the sheer rock cliff.

One foot at a time, he told himself. Just think about placing one foot at a time.

Even Midnight seemed edgy, carefully placing his hooves down on the slippery rock. Only Jory didn’t seem concerned. He had his head down and just plodded up the ramp toward the light.

As they got closer Neal saw that the light wasn’t mysterious at all. It came from the mouth of a cave. As they got closer still he recognized the flicker of a small fire.

Jory stopped and listened to the chanting. When he heard a pause he made a sound like a bird.

The singing stopped and a similar birdcall came back.

Jory pressed on until they came to a large fissure that split the rock diagonally. “This is far as we can go with the horse,” he said.

Neal watched as Jory led Midnight about twenty feet into the fissure and tied the reins to a scraggly cedar bow. He came back out and led Neal another thirty yards up the shelf until they came to the cave mouth.

It was a shallow indentation in the rock, maybe four feet high, ten feet wide, and a couple of feet deep.

Neal saw a tiny man sitting perfectly still, backlit by the fire that seemed to be burning from inside the rock. But there was no smoke. The man certainly could be no more than five feet tall, if that, and he looked ancient. He was wrapped in what looked like rabbit skins. His silver hair was long and matted.

Jory pointed behind the old man and then pointed to himself.

The small man shook his head. Then he pointed at Neal.

Then the man got up into a crouch and Neal saw the light burning behind him. The man crawled into the light. Jory followed, and both men suddenly disappeared. Neal got on all fours and crawled into the biggest part of the light.

It was a hole, a small, round tunnel entrance. Neal crawled for about ten feet in total darkness and then he saw the cave.

A fire was burning. Lying beside the small fire, wrapped in wild sheepskin, looking dirty and thin but peacefully asleep, was a small child. His face was turned to the warmth of the fire and his eyes were closed. His thin lips were open slightly and Neal could see them purse as he breathed.

Neal could stand up now-easily, for the chamber was twelve feet high in the center. The air was clear because the smoke from the small, efficient fire was drafting out the back of the cave.

Neal walked to where the child was lying and gently pulled the sheepskin blanket from the boy’s head. He looked at the dirty blond hair and whispered, “Hello, Cody. It’s nice to meet you.”

He pulled the cover back over the boy and looked to Jory for an explanation. Jory just pointed at the cave walls.

Neal looked around him then and suddenly understood.

There was no telling how old the paintings were, but even in the faint, flickering firelight Neal could see that they were beyond ancient. They told stories of a time when men hunted giant animals on foot, and women gathered seeds and roots, and thunder and lightning were the music of God. They spoke of an age when men battled lions, and women hid their children in the safety of the cave, and when God sometimes took the children anyway, took them to the heavens.

And seeing them, Neal understood. Understood how poor, sick Jory, who had been taught what he had been taught and who had seen the horrors he had seen, could come to this prehistoric spot and think he had found the place where the lost tribe of Israel, the Aryan ancestors, had settled in the promised land.

For on those figures where some color survived and faces could be clearly discerned, the color on those faces was immutably, unmistakably, white. Especially on the smallest figure, clearly a child, who was depicted reaching his arms up to the sky toward a large figure that was not quite human but had a head formed by three concentric ovals. The child’s hair was yellow.

“White people,” Jory said. “The sons of Seth, the sons of Jacob. This proves that we were here long before the Indians. The old man here even says so.”

The old man nodded and pointed to the cave paintings. In a combination of his own tongue and sign language he tried to tell Neal his people’s legend about the race of white giants who once walked the earth. They were men of strength and courage, men who had knowledge. And the Sun loved them, so he gave them hair the color of dawn and dusk and eyes the color of the sky. For he meant them to join him in the heavens, and indeed, one day the white giants disappeared. But the legends said they would come again at the end of time, come again to rule the earth, to save it from the new whites, the ones who were everywhere but not quite men. For the new whites had come with their machines and guns and diseases and ruined the earth and most of the people died. The rest ran away and hid in the mountains, found the canyons and the caves, and waited for the white giants to return, waited for the foretold child of the Sun to come back to the sacred place. And the ones who were everywhere but not quite men would try to kill the child, and there would be a terrible battle between the good spirits and the bad, and many would die. But the child of the Sun would live, and the people would be reborn and rise from the earth, which would be clean again. And the child of the Sun would rule and all would be peaceful, as in the days when the white giants strode the earth.

Neal looked at Cody McCall sleeping by the fire and tried to figure out how to get him to safety. He could make a sling from his jacket, perhaps, and tie it in front of him like one of those baby carriers he had seen women wear. It might work.

“The Book of Revelation talks about the same thing, Neal,” Jory said. “It talks about the infant who comes again, and the serpent tries to kill it, and the angels battle the serpent, and…”

“And the child lives and rules the earth with a rod of iron,” Neal interrupted. He’d read Revelation while studying the white supremacist movement.

“And this is the child,” Jory said. “So when they were going to kill him, I knew it was a terrible mistake. So I took him here, to the sacred place, the Place of the Beginning and the End.”

Neal debated what to do. He could wait the storm out in the cave and go in the morning, but that would mean moving in daylight, and who knew where the SOS boys would be. Or he could move now under cover of darkness, but that would mean exposing the child to a dangerous trip at night through a snowstorm.

Just then the old man cocked his head toward the cave mouth. Then he mimed the trotting of horses.

Neal couldn’t hear a thing.

The old man scrambled to the cave mouth and came back moments later. He counted to six on his fingers. Then he stepped over to the fire, wafted his hands through the smoke, and pointed to the ceiling.

Great, Neal thought. They’re coming with guns and this guy’s going to do magic tricks.

The old man reached into the pile of blankets and pulled out a contraption made of sticks, rabbit skin, and strips of hide. He motioned for Neal to turn around and tied it onto his shoulders. Neal realized that it was a backpack for the boy.

The old man picked up Cody and held him to his chest, whispering soft cooing sounds in the boy’s ear. Then he lifted him up and set him into the sack formed by the rabbit skins.

Cody woke up and started to cry.

The old man made shooshing sounds, but Cody kept crying and lifted his arms to the old man. The child was terrified to be on the shoulders of this stranger, and the words he was crying out in his fear were in a language Neal didn’t recognize.

The old man spoke back to him, quietly but firmly, and Cody settled into a miserable whimpering but sat back in his seat. The old man covered him with a sheepskin and tucked it into the seat. Then he picked up his small bow and quiver of arrows and motioned for Neal to follow him.

“I’ll stay here and hold them off,” Jory said.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jory,” Neal answered. “Come on.”

Jory leaned over, pulled the sheepskin aside, and kissed Cody on the cheek. Then he turned his back and crawled into the tunnel toward the cave mouth.

The old man turned around and waved his hand forward impatiently, as if to say, “Come on.” He pointed to his nose and made a show of sniffing the air.

Neal followed the old man deeper into the cave. The old man disappeared into the rocks and Neal found the crack that led into another chamber. It was pitch-black.

Now what? Neal asked himself. I can’t see a damn thing. Ahead of him he could just make out the sound of the old man sniffing the air.

Of course, Neal thought. The smoke must be ventilating out a draft. There was another way out. He reached behind him and put his hands under the backpack to lift it higher on his shoulders. Cody seemed calmer, as if he sensed they were following the old man.

Neal listened to the man’s footsteps and sniffed the air for the scent of smoke.

Ed Levine leaned forward and adjusted Graham’s weight on his shoulders. He was carrying him piggyback now, and Graham had enough strength to hold on with his one good hand.

It was the frigging cold that was the problem. That and the snow that was blowing in their faces and blinding them.

But Ed figured that wasn’t all bad. It was also blinding the guys who were looking for them, and as long as he had his nose pointed into the freezing wind, he knew he was headed north. So the wind was like a sadistic compass, keeping them pointed toward the Mills place. Ed only hoped he could see the house when he got near.

He pointed his face toward the wind until he felt its maximum force, then put his head down and started slogging through the snow.

Strekker skittered back down the shelf of rock.

“The cave’s just up there,” he told Hansen. “There’s only room for one man at a time to get in. They could pick us off one by one.”

“I have to get into that cave!” Carter said.

Hansen ignored him. He was sorry Carter had insisted on coming-the reverend had just slowed them down. He looked to Cal for instructions.

“Billy, watch the horses,” Cal answered. “Mr. Hansen, why don’t you take the reverend and see if you can talk your way in? Craig and John, back him up.”

“Where are you going?” Hansen asked him.

“I’m going to poke around a little more,” Cal answered. Just in case there’s a back way in. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, found a crack in the rock, and began to pull himself up the rocks.

Steve Mills looked out the window at the heavy snow, then pulled on his boots.

“You’re not going out there!” Peggy said. It was more of a question than a statement.

“I just have a couple of things to check,” he answered.

“On the big surprise?” Shelly asked. She and Karen were on the floor by the fireplace, putting in the last few pieces of the chocolate chip cookie puzzle.

“Yep,” he said. He had that smug, quizzical look on his face that Peggy found simultaneously annoying and endearing. “Have that brandy warmed by the time I come in, woman.”

“I’ll warm you,” Peggy answered.

Steve stepped out into the storm and walked over to the corner of the house. He checked a few wires, pulled the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and lit up.

He smoked contentedly, thinking about his big surprise.

“Jory, it’s your father! I’m coming in!”

Hansen lay on his stomach in the mouth of the cave.

No answer came back.

“Jory?”

Nothing.

Hansen shrugged at Carter, who was squatting beside him. The other two men stood just below the cave, waiting with rifles ready.

Carter yelled into the cave, “Jory! Is the boy with you?”

No answer.

“Is the boy alive?”

Silence.

Carter continued, “Jory! You’ve done a great thing! You’ve done Yahweh’s will! Now do it again! Bring us the child!”

“Carey must be holding him,” Hansen said. “I’m going in.”

He pulled his revolver from his belt and slithered into the cave opening.

Jory crouched inside the tunnel. Coiled like a spring, he held Shoshoko’s pointed stick in front of him and waited. As soon as Carter got in range he would finish him.

Hansen saw the stick just as it came stabbing toward his face. He dropped his head behind his arm and pulled the trigger four times. Then he waited for a few seconds and pushed the dead weight of the body in front of him until he felt it drop into the cave chamber.

“Come on in!” he yelled behind him. “I got him!”

He jumped down, shined his flashlight, and saw his son’s body lying on the cave floor.

Cal Strekker reached the top of the cliff. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings. Then he caught a faint whiff of smoke. He followed it to the flat top of a small table of rock. A stream of smoke was rising from the hole and he thought he heard footsteps.

He backed off a few feet from the hole, unslung his rifle, and sat down.

Neal heard the shots and the yelling. Then he felt a sharp blast of cold and the scent of fresh air directly above him. The old man stopped just in front of him and pulled him ahead. He pointed up again, and Neal could feel a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes falling on his head.

Cody started to cry again.

The old man pointed urgently.

It was dark and Neal couldn’t see the cave walls. All he could see-ten, maybe fifteen feet up-were white flecks of snow. “I can’t see,” he whispered to the old man.

The old man started to push Neal toward the rock wall.

But I can’t do it, Neal thought. He felt the rock. It was icy and slick. He couldn’t see to get handholds or footing. He would certainly fall and hurt the boy beneath him. He could hear more yelling and footsteps behind them in the first chamber.

Neal planted a foot on the slick rock and tried to find a grip on the rock.

Cody tried to turn around and grab the old man. The old man held him for a brief moment and then turned to go back. Cody screamed in the pain of abandonment, cried his heartbreak out in a repeated shriek of a single word. For the second time in his young life, he had lost his father.

Neal dug his hands into the ice and started to climb.

“My God, my God, my God,” Carter murmured as he looked at the cave paintings. “Yahweh be thanked that I have lived to see this.”

Vetter called from the back of the chamber, “They’ve gone this way, Reverend! The smoke is drafting out the back!”

Carter stood in the center of the cave chamber, twirling around with his arms open.

“This is the place of our ancestors! This is our home!”

Craig yelled, “Reverend! Come on! We’re going to lose them!”

Then Carter saw the painting of the blond child holding his hand up to a god. “Look! Look! It’s the Son of God! It’s the expected child! He’s holding his arms up to Yahweh!”

Cody’s shrieks echoed back through the cave.

Carter ran to Hansen. “Let’s go! We have to rescue him from the dragon! We must save him from the Jew!”

But Bob Hansen was absorbed in wrapping the body of his dead son up in his coat.

Carter ran to the back of the chamber, pushed Vetter aside, and jammed himself into the fissure that led to the next chamber.

Craig could hear him yelling up ahead.

“The child of God! The child of God! The child of-”

Then the yelling stopped.

Craig eased himself into the crack.

Cal heard the crying right below him.

I’ll be damned, he thought, the little bastard is alive. Crazy little Jory had it tucked away. But who the hell has been taking care of it?

He listened carefully and heard what sounded like feet kicking at the icy wall. He heard someone panting with exertion.

I could just fire down this hole, he thought. But if I hit the kid my ass will really be grass. He slung the rifle over his back and pulled his combat knife.

It might be Jory or it might be Neal, he thought. Dear God above, let it be Neal.

Neal was spread-eagled on the rock wall. He took three more gasps of air and then gingerly reached up with his right hand. His fingers felt along the smooth rock. Nothing… nothing… then a tiny outcrop. He gripped it with sore fingers and pulled himself up. His right foot slipped off the rock and he kicked with it desperately until he felt a small crack in the rock surface. He planted his toe, held on for another second, and then reached up with his left hand. He ran it along the rock until he felt a root. He grabbed it and pulled himself up again. He looked up and snow fell on his face.

Thank God, he thought.

Ed pitched forward face-first into the snow.

The impact sent a bolt of agony searing through Joe Graham’s legs. He bit down on his artificial arm to stifle the scream as the headlights of the truck slowly passed them.

Flashlight beams swept the ground around them, and Graham heard the truck engine and voices yelling, “See anything?”

“No!”

Graham could feel Ed’s labored breathing underneath him. As the snow froze on the back of his neck and his lungs burned with the cold, he tried to remember a prayer from his childhood. He remembered the nuns telling him about a “sincere act of contrition,” and from somewhere the first words came to him. He said them to himself: Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I do detest all my sins…

The flashlight shone right on him.

Craig held the flashlight out in front of him as he trotted through the cave. Finally he saw Carter’s form. The reverend was on his knees, bent in prayer. Craig ran up to him and took him by the shoulder.

“Reverend Carter, what-”

Carter fell backward into his arms. Dave shined his light into Carter’s face. His eyes were wide open and his mouth agape. He was panting for air in small, rapid gulps. A tiny arrow was lodged inside his mouth, its point just sticking out the back of his neck.

Craig flicked off the flashlight, pulled Carter down, and laid his rifle barrel on the reverend’s body. He ducked as another arrow whistled over his head. Then he shouldered the rifle, fired three rounds into the darkness, and started to crawl backward, using the reverend’s body as a shield. Two more arrows thunked into Carter’s chest.

As he shimmied out of the long, narrow passage he yelled, “Get out! Get out! It’s an ambush!”

He pulled Carter back until they were back in the fissure. As Craig worked his way out the other side, he jammed Carter’s body into the crack, then left it there.

Neal’s muscles trembled with strain. He could see the sky now and the top of the hole, but it was a long reach to the next handhold. His legs were quivering too, and he didn’t think he could summon the strength to make the final haul.

He clenched the root with his left hand, dug his feet in again, and reached his right hand up, trying to find something, anything, to hold on to. His hand grabbed at the air, found nothing, and grabbed again. Then his left leg gave out and slipped off the icy rock. The weight of the child on his shoulders pulled him backward and he started to fall. His right hand flailed in the air, the momentum took his left foot off the rock, and he slipped.

Desperately, he threw his right hand up. He stopped falling. It was a human arm, pulling him up from the hole, pulling him up into the cold, open air.

“Okay, everybody, get into your warm clothes. We’re going outside,” Steve Mills announced.

The three women looked at him as if he were crazy.

“What for?” Shelly asked.

“The surprise!” he said. “It’s an outdoor surprise!”

Only my husband, thought Peggy, would plan an outdoor surprise in the middle of winter in the middle of the night. “Now?” she asked.

Steve looked at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes,” he said.

“Do you have this confused with New Year’s Eve?” she asked. Her watch said it was a quarter to twelve.

Karen finished her brandy and got up. It had been a wonderful evening, and a midnight surprise would be just the thing to top it off. She took Shelly by the hand. “Come on, kid! Let’s see what your old man has up his sleeve.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Karen pulled Shelly up and they went off to get their coats.

Ed waited until the truck’s taillights disappeared into the snow and then pushed himself up. “Are you okay?” he asked Graham.

“You think they have any booze at this house?”

Ed hefted Graham up a little higher and looked around. The wind had stopped blowing, the snow was falling straight down now, and he still couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Which way is north?” he asked.

“On a map it’s usually up,” Graham answered.

“Which way is up?”

“You sound like Neal.”

Ed turned left and staggered on.

Neal and Cal stood facing each other on the small table of rock.

“I couldn’t just let you fall, Neal buddy,” Cal said. “We’ve had this date for a long time.”

Cal pulled his knife and held it out in front of him.

“I just want the boy,” Neal answered. He shifted his weight to his back foot and let his shoe dig into the crusty snow.

“That’s the problem. I would just shoot you, but the bullet might go right through you and hit the Son of God there. Besides, I want the pleasure of gutting you, Neal buddy.”

“It’s over, Cal. Get away while you have the chance.”

“Oh, I’ll get away, Neal buddy. And it ain’t over. It ain’t over until we win.”

“You’ve lost! Don’t you understand that?”

There’s no time for this, Neal thought. He kept his eyes on Cal’s face but used his peripheral vision to see the twelve-foot drop off to his left. Then it was a steep slope down into the draw where Jory had left the horse.

Cal inched forward. “You’ll never beat us,” he said. “You’re weak. That’s why you’ve let the niggers run wild in the cities and the Jews take over the government. They know you’re weak. That’s why we’ll win. It’s like tonight, Neal, you just can’t pull the trigger.”

Neal’s left arm slowly moved upward and outward, hand open in the knife position. Obliquely Tame Tiger. Three years of practice on his Chinese knoll and he had never really mastered it.

It’s time I did, he thought.

He slowly raised his right leg and pivoted on his left foot. He spun just as Cal sprang forward, giving him only the boy as a target. Cal pulled up for a split second.

Neal finished a complete revolution and shifted his weight forward as he brought his right foot down, his left hand raised in front of his face, his right hand open behind his head.

He struck like a viper, putting all of the momentum from the spin, all of his weight, and all of his concentration into his right hand as its edge smashed into Cal’s neck.

The blow snapped Cal’s head to the left and took him off his feet just enough to slip on the snow. He kept his balance for half a second and then slipped off the rock.

“Okay, Cody, hold on,” Neal said. He sat down, looked for the flattest spot, and jumped for it. He landed hard but kept his feet, and then skidded, fell, and slid down the slope. He grabbed cedars on the way down to keep his balance and finally landed in the draw. A couple of minutes of scrambling got him to where Midnight was haltered. He untied the reins and the horse started to rear and buck. Cody started to scream again as Neal managed to get a foot in the spinning stirrup and haul himself into the saddle. Midnight reared on his hind legs and Neal almost pitched off backward, but his right foot caught the stirrup and he dug his knees into the horse’s flank.

“Go, you son of a bitch!” Neal yelled. He turned the horse’s head and spurred him down the draw. Right toward the edge of the cliff.

Hansen was carrying Jory’s body and working his way down the diagonal shelf of rock when he heard the hooves coming. He turned to his right and saw a black horse coming straight at him out of the darkness.

“Stop, you son of a bitch!” Neal yelled. He pulled up on the reins and the horse reared again, kicking out his front hooves and slashing them at the man who blocked his path. Neal and Hansen exchanged startled looks, then Neal flipped over the reins and started the horse down the slick rock ramp toward the canyon.

Craig raised his rifle and sighted it on Neal’s back.

Hansen screamed, “Don’t shoot! He has the boy!”

Craig lowered his rifle. Hansen set Jory’s body down in the draw. Then the three men raced down the rock shelf for their horses.

Bill McCurdy heard the yelling. He grabbed his rifle from the back of his horse and positioned himself at the bottom of the shelf.

Neal knew they were going to die. Midnight was galloping full stride down the narrow shelf of rock. The only reason he didn’t slip and plunge off the side was that his hooves never seemed to touch the slick ground. Neal leaned low over the horse’s neck. He gripped the reins in one hand and the saddle horn in the other. Behind him, Cody McCall was screaming. With laughter.

Then Neal saw a human form rise up just below them and raise his rifle.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Billy yelled.

“I can’t stop, you asshole!” Neal yelled back.

Billy took aim.

Midnight saw Billy, turned, and without breaking stride, jumped off the cliff.

They seemed to be in the air for the longest damn time as Neal plunged forward with the horse. His nose was even with Midnight’s shoulder and he felt as if he were looking straight down at the ground. Cody’s weight was about to somersault him over the horse’s neck.

They landed with a heavy thud that knocked Neal back in the saddle. Cody giggled with delight as the horse slowed to a canter and headed down the canyon.

Neal heard the sound of hoofbeats coming after him. He kicked Midnight back into a gallop.

Karen laughed as Steve made a big show of lining them up in the yard.

“Okay,” he yelled. “Ready?”

“Ready!” they all yelled back.

“Are you really ready?”

“Yes!”

Steve paused dramatically, then said, “Close your eyes!”

Karen groaned in rhythm with her two friends. She was having a great time. She closed her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and felt the snowflakes melt.

“I’m going to start the countdown!” Steve yelled.

They all groaned again.

Ed had to rest but knew he couldn’t. Graham was unconscious, maybe in shock. Any delay might kill him. But where the hell were they? Had they passed by the house and not known it? Were they headed in the wrong direction? Walking in circles?

His legs felt like concrete pillars and his arms felt like wood, if wood could ache the way his arms did. His feet were freezing and he was starting to worry about frostbite now.

Where in hell were they?

Lost. Lost in the middle of the middle of nowhere.

Neal reined Midnight to a stop at the western crest of the ridge. The valley below looked like a bowl of steam, all white and swirling and indistinct. He couldn’t figure out where he was and the gang was gaining on him. He could pick out the sound of individual horses now and voices and he had to make the plunge down into the valley. But where? It wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good to go galloping back to the Hansen ranch.

The Mills place should be northeast somewhere, but something that small wouldn’t be easy to find on the vast sagebrush plain below, at night, in the snow.

He couldn’t wait any longer, he had to go. They were right behind him now. A couple more seconds to let Midnight get his breath…

“Five, four, three, two, one,” Steve counted and threw the electric switch.

Karen Hawley looked up and saw the most amazing damn thing…

… A Star of David shining through the snow! Neal blinked in disbelief. Way out there, way down on The High Lonely, a Star of David pierced through the night sky like a beacon. A six-pointed star made up of dozens of lights, a star as big as a house… the Mills house.

Neal jigged the reins and Midnight dove over the crest.

Hansen about fell off his horse when he saw it. It had come out of nowhere. Just all of a sudden a Jewish star appeared in the sky and hung there like one of them UFOs. The three other riders clumped behind him, all of them looking at the damn thing.

Then it hit Hansen. “It’s Mills’ place. He strung them lights on his roof!

“That Jew bastard,” Bill McCurdy spat.

“Carey’s headed there!” Hansen yelled. “Let’s go!”

They pointed their horses at the star and crashed down the slope.

To Ed Levine it was like Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve on Times Square, Mardi Gras, and-what the hell-Christmas all at once. It was a goddamn miracle, that’s what it was, a sign sent from God. And the best thing about it was that it couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards away.

He lifted Graham a little higher and broke into a trot.

“You like it?” Steve asked proudly.

“It’s… big,” Peggy answered.

“I love it, Dad.”

Peggy said, “I’m surprised it didn’t blow every light in the house.”

“I rigged it to the generator.”

Karen put her arm around Steve and said, “I notice you pointed it right at Hansen’s place.”

Steve nodded happily. “That oughta fry his cajones, I’d expect.”

“You’re asking for trouble,” Karen added.

Steve grinned. “Mmm.”

Bob Hansen watched the star as he rode, Jory’s body bouncing behind him with the rocking of the horse.

It was that goddamn Jew Mills, contaminating the whole valley.

Mills was laughing at him, laughing at his defeat, laughing at the destruction of his dream, lording it over him. Mills had been behind it all. Mills knew about the sabotage… Mills knew that Carey was a ZOG agent… Mills knew the robbery was a fake, the arms shipment a setup. It was Mills’ daughter who filled Jory’s head with lies, Mills who sent Neal Carey, Mills who caused the death of his son.

My dreams are over, he thought. But I won’t stop until Mills is dead.

Back up on the mountain slope Cal Strekker licked his wounds and watched the kike star pollute the sky. He cut a sleeve off his shirt, cut that into strips, and wrapped it tightly around his ankle. He didn’t think it was busted, just sprained, but it hurt like all get out. It hurt worse when he pulled his boot back on, but the tight leather helped to keep the ankle from folding.

The side of his neck bore a deep purple splotch where Carey had tried to decapitate him with that sneaky gook shit, and the shoulder he had landed on was bruised up pretty good.

And now that friggin’ star was blinking on and off like some kind of all-night kosher diner for Jewboys.

Well, Steve Mills might just as well wave a red flag in Hansen’s nose, he thought. There’s going to be one hell of a fight over by that star.

He grabbed a cedar limb, lifted himself up, and started working his way down the mountain.

For Neal it had all come down to a horse race.

It was flat out across the sagebrush, his black horse galloping, kicking plumes of snow behind him, cutting through the crisp air like a sleek, sharp ebony knife.

Neal bent low over his neck like he’d seen the jockeys do to cut down on the resistance, his knees high behind the horse’s shoulders, his calves gripping Midnight’s flanks.

It was desperate, terrifying, and lovely. The sounds of the hooves crashing on the snow, and the horse snorting, and his own heart pounding, all in rhythm, all in sync. And the musty horse smell in his nostrils, and the sweet sagebrush, and the snow. And the heat of the horse against the chill air, and his own sweaty skin beneath his clothes, and the damp warmth of the little body clinging to his back, and goddamn, he was alive!

He risked a glance over his shoulder and could see them coming. Bill McCurdy ahead of the rest. The best rider, the most reckless on the fastest horse, and Neal knew, just knew, that Bill was smiling. Then the three others clumped behind. Hansen on that big bay, coming fast but not too fast, steady so his horse would not get blown. And John’s little gelding chopping away with its clipped gait on its short legs, but still coming, coming. And then Craig on that tall roan that cut the cows so well and never let one get around the corner. And they were all coming on, coming on, flying. Wild men on wild horses.

Neal kicked Midnight and leaned farther over his neck. He felt the horse surge a little more, and he would need that little more, because McCurdy was gaining. Heedless of the gopher holes that could snap a horse’s foreleg in an agonizing instant, heedless of the sudden gullies that could pitch him over the horse’s head and break his own neck, heedless of the patches of icy grass that could send the horse rolling over him, crushing his legs and rib cage and bursting his lungs, the cowboy was racing up, just winging on the tops of the rabbit brush, and he was only six, now five, now four horse lengths behind.

And Neal was just trying to hold on, just trying to stay in the saddle on the plunging, surging horse, and he knew that McCurdy was cowboy enough to ride beside him, reach out one arm, and take him off the saddle as if he were a rodeo rider and the buzzer had sounded. And that’s all it would take, because the other three would be on them and Vetter’s strong arms would take Cody from him and that would be the end.

He dug his feet into the stirrups and gripped the reins and kicked again, asking for a little more, please horse, just a little more. I know you don’t have it, but find it. Please, you have to beat this other horse, because it’s all come down to a horse race now and you’re my horse. And Midnight found it somewhere and reached a little farther and pushed a little more, and Neal heard him grunt with pain as flecks of foam flew back from his mouth and Neal felt Midnight’s heart pound at a literally heartbreaking pace.

I know I’m killing you, horse. I know I’m killing you and I’m sorry, but we have this child with us, you see, and you and I don’t matter, and he felt Midnight surge again. Unbelievably to him, the horse took it up another notch, stretched it out, and they were flying. Flying like wild, sweating, heaving, gasping, living angels through the night sky.

Then Neal could see the lights in front of them, the silver lights of a star. He’d never loved an animal before and he’d never loved a child, and now he loved both and they weren’t going to make it. Not any of them, because Bill McCurdy was right behind them now. Right behind them and angling to come up alongside.

Neal kicked Midnight to see if there was anything left, but the horse was smarter. The horse simply shifted to the right and got in front of his pursuer. Billy was a hell of a horseman. Without breaking stride he leaned left and took his pony with him and then started to pull even again. Midnight pulled left on his next stride and blocked that lane too, but this game couldn’t go on forever, because the other horse was younger and faster and had by far the better rider. So when Billy jerked his horse out to the right again he came up so fast that suddenly they were riding side by side, saddle to saddle, boots almost touching, horses in stride.

Neal felt Billy’s hand grab at his sleeve and he flipped the right rein over and tried to pull his horse away, but Midnight leaned in, laying his bulk against the other horse’s shoulder and pushing him away and damn near bouncing Billy off his saddle.

It damn near lost Neal, too, but he managed to hold on with his left hand and keep riding. Then Billy was back again, right at Neal’s side, his right foot out of the stirrup and poised on the saddle. Neal saw he was getting ready to jump, for God’s sake. Jump and pull Neal and the boy off the galloping horse, and the Mills place was so close

… so close… he could see the house now, and the wire fence. Then Billy swung his left foot out of the stirrup, staying on his horse just by the reins, that crazy cowboy look in his eye and his muscles coiled to spring and-

Midnight jumped to clear the fence and Billy slid off his rump and landed hard on the barbed wire. He ripped himself out, though, when the bullets started kicking the ground up around him.

Midnight seemed to sense he had done his job and slowed to a canter as he came into the yard, where Steve Mills stood with his rifle. The horse took two more strides, then his heart finally gave out. Neal swung off the saddle a second before Midnight dropped and rolled onto his side. Neal got down on his knees and cradled the horse’s head. Midnight’s eyes rolled back, his mouth heaved streams of foam, his legs jerked.

For the first time in the whole damn ordeal, Neal started to cry. He felt Steve standing over his shoulder.

“Steve, I-”

“Your friends told me all about it. I’ll take care of your horse. You better get that boy inside.”

Neal staggered through the door into the kitchen. Karen took the pack from his shoulders and cradled Cody in her arms. The last thing Neal heard before he collapsed was a single shot from Steve’s rifle.