"Okay, that's it, stupid," he said to the pale shadow that pointed toward home. "It's getting a little deep here, and I don't have a shovel. In fact-"

you're rockin' the boat He stopped again.

He had been talking primarily for the sound of his voice, to fill the silence. But he didn't like the faint echo he heard, as if he were walking through a small cavern. His imagination, of course, but he still didn't like it.

"Bed," he ordered.

No echo this time.

No wind.

Just the moon.

4.

You sit in your dreamscape with the television on, remote in your hand, surfing the channels for something to watch, a beer on the table beside you, a cigarette hooked behind your left ear.

Outside, in the desert, wolves bay at the full moon.

Outside, in the desert, a woman weeps bitterly at the top of her voice.

Eventually, the bottle at your lips, you find something that looks interesting, until you look closer at the screen and see that the man on the street looks remarkably like you.

You smile a little sheepishly and glance around the empty room, hoping no one will recognize you; then you scoot the chair a little closer so you can see a little better because your eyes aren't quite the way they used to be when you and the world were younger.

It's an amazing show, an incredible achievement of sights and sounds and smells, as if you were really there. Ambling along on Fremont Street. A bit footsore and weary because you've been dragon-fighting all day, building the next stake to take you out of Nevada because you just don't learn, do you; you just don't learn.

And outside, in the desert, wolves bay at the full moon.

Inside, on the screen, you see a bandy-legged cowboy lurch out of a bar, blinking against the flood of neon, trying to focus on the crowds who sweep past him without looking. You're preoccupied with trying to figure out if your luck, or whatever it is, will stand one more try, so you don't hear the cowboy yelling right away.

When you do, you look back, and he's yelling at you.

In his left hand is a knife, its long serrated blade flaring neon as he waves it.

You look around at the others, who are moving away from the cowboy quickly, an uncertain smile on your lips, you can't be sure it's really you the drunken fool wants. Something about running away with his wife.

Something about payback time.

Before you realize what's happening, he charges, and you're too stunned to move until it's too late, and all the dodging and ducking and throwing wild punches of your own doesn't stop the blade from slicing through your shirt, twisting, and taking out a good piece of your waist.

When you yell in pain, grab your waist with both hands, and drop to your kneel, the drunk is so astonished by what he's nearly done that he immediately hands the knife over to the cop chugging up behind him and asks if he's the only one who saw the ghost in the leather jacket.

A man helps you to your feet, saying, "Where's the blood? Where's the blood?" over and over until you check your shirt, pulling open the gap, thinking it must be shock that you don't feel anything anymore.

When you can't find anything, you pull the shirt out of your belt, pull it practically up to your neck, and nearly bend yourself double trying to find the gash the knife left behind.

There isn't one.

Not a gash, not a cut, not a single drop of blood.

The cop tells you you're lucky, and you tell him you don't want to press charges, just make sure the cowboy gets on back to his damn ranch or wherever before he really does hurt someone.

Then you look right at the camera, look right through the screen, look right at yourself sitting on the couch with a bottle of beer in your hand, and you say, while the wolves outside howl at the moon, "You're supposed to be dead, you know. You're supposed to be dead."

Part 2 Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat * * * *

1.

1.

... and he says to tell you that the dragon is dying.

In T-shirt and jeans Trey stood on his porch, sunglasses on, hands in pockets, staring down the street as if daring that son-of-a-bitch old man to show himself again while he was actually around. Paying little attention, other than a perfunctory glance, to the high white clouds that soared over the valley, cutting the sun once in a while, but never the heat.

The air was still.

Emerald City was quiet.

Behind him, through the open door, he could hear local news anchors reading amazement at the storm that had blown through down in Boulder City earlier that morning. One called it a sandstorm, the other a dust-storm, but the results were the same: cars scoured, windows pitted, a few helpless pedestrians cut up and admitted to area hospitals. Their tone, however, was meant to be calm, to be soothing, to make sure the tourists didn't panic because this was, after all, a very rare occurrence.

What they didn't say, what they meant was, be grateful it isn't the Sickness. We've been lucky so far, let's count our blessings.

He stepped off the porch, glaring now.

He had read Moonbow's note right after breakfast, too late to catch either girl before they'd left for school. He'd been tempted to drive over there, drag them out of class, and interrogate the hell out of them. Instead, he decided to be just angry, not stupid, and be thankful that the note had driven away the last of the shakes his nightmare had left behind.

He didn't much believe in dreams, not as much as his mother had, but that particular one had shaken him- because it had really happened, the cowboy and the knife. But in the dream, watching it as if it were a scene in a film, he realized, or admitted, for the first time that what had happened couldn't have happened.

you're supposed to be dead A raucous used-car commercial blared through the front window, startling him, and he turned with a muttered curse, went inside, and shut the television down. A tap of his hand against his leg, and he was outside again. Off the porch, heading up the street, letting his anger flare once again.

The house next to his was empty, as was the one opposite it, but he looked anyway at the blind windows, the sand piling against the doorsills, trying to recall who had lived there and shaking his head when he couldn't. He wasn't sure, but he thought they had been empty when he'd returned to stay.

The next house on the right had all the shades down, Cable and Steph asleep for at least another four or five hours.

He angled left, not sure what he would say, right hand slapping his leg lightly to dispel the anger as much as he could, disperse some of the energy. By the time he reached the porch he was, if not calm, at least in control.

The inner door was open, the screen door locked. He could see straight through the front room into the kitchen, dimly, the back door little more than a rectangular glare. He knocked on the frame and stepped back, glancing up and down the street, pursing his lips in a silent whistle.

He was patient.

At last he smiled, because he knew she was watching.

"Hey," he called softly. "Come on, Jude, it's only me."

The back door's glare vanished as she moved out of the tiny back room where, in a better time, washers and dryers would have been; now she used it as her bedroom, little more than a nunnery cell.

He took another step back as she approached, the screen's mesh keeping her outline indistinct.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself." Her voice was soft, faintly harsh as if speaking were difficult, and slightly muffled by the thin cloth mask that covered her face from below the eyes to her neck. This wasn't the kind, of surgical mask he saw periodically in town, people from outside who weren't used to walking around without some kind of protection no matter how feeble. It was loose, thin, reminding him each time of an Arabian woman's veil.

"You coming out?" he said, another step back so he could lean against the post. "Nobody around, Jude. Get some air for a change."

He didn't push; it all depended on how the night had gone. No sleep, and she'd stay inside, a tall, slender ghost in a place too small to haunt. If she rested, and if there were no strangers, she might, only might, come out to join him.

He had learned fairly quickly, and painfully, not to push.

The door creaked as she unlocked it.

He grinned. "It walks."

"Funny," she said sourly, slipping onto the porch, reaching around to test the latch to be sure she could slip back in. Taller than he, what figure she had was cloaked by a long formless white dress with only the slightest scoop at the neck; no belt or sash, no trim. Long dark brown hair down to her waist, so straight he sometimes wondered if, like kids in the old days, she ironed it once in a while.

Large, round, amazing sable eyes.

"I like the Hollywood look," she said with a nod to his sunglasses. "Very you."

"My action star mode."

She grunted a laugh, then narrowed her eyes. "What's the matter? You didn't sleep well?"

A jerk of his head for a shrug. "Bad dream, no big deal. And . . ." He scratched under his nose with the flat of a finger. "I spooked myself, too."

"How nice."

"Not very. I thought I saw Lil riding up the street last night. On a horse. The whole deal-sight, sound, smell."

She didn't respond for a moment. Then: "Flashbacks, huh? Stuff you took in college?"

"Yeah," he said. "Right." He tapped his leg thoughtfully. "I would have sworn it then, Jude. You put a Bible in my hand last night, I would have sworn I'd really seen her."

But all she said was, "Strange days, action hero. Strange days.-"

Not, he thought, what I want to hear, lady.

They watched the empty street in comfortable silence, until she pushed at her hair and said, "You're going in today." Not a question; a faint whiff of condemnation.

"All day." He shifted to rest his back against the post, cross his feet at the ankles. Face down the street to catch anyone coming in. "You need anything else at the store?"

"You just said you'll be gone all day."

"I can come back, Jude. No big deal, you know that."

"Your karma thanks you."

He almost said, my karma sucks big time in case you hadn't noticed, but he only gave her a noncommittal nod. "Just let me know if you want something."

"What if you meet that man?"

He pushed a hand over his hair, thinking maybe, before the heat finally reached furnace levels, he'd get it trimmed. Buzz cut. Crew cut. Marine cut. Hell, maybe shave it all off and be done with it.

"Did you see him last night?"

She nodded, but offered nothing except, "He frightened the. girls."

"Apparently," he said, feeling anger stir again, "he's been to at least one of the hotels a couple of times. Guy I know told me last night." He grunted. "He, the guy I know, was not very happy. He said . . ." He laughed shortly. "He said the old man was spooky."

"You don't know him?"

"Jude, I don't know anybody."

She didn't respond.

He laughed again. "I thought it was, you know, somebody connected. If you know what I mean. That maybe I'd ticked somebody off for some reason or other. You know, a contract, stuff like that."

Which, when he said it aloud, sounded awfully damn stupid.

"I doubt that," she said, humor in her voice. "You should have seen him, Trey-older than God, for crying out loud, a really bad rhinestone cowboy."

"With a British accent."

"Oh yeah." This time she laughed aloud. "With an English accent." A gesture with a long-fingered hand. "He was very polite, very upper class, but after a while Moonbow didn't like his vibes. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was that crack about the dragon. I-"