Not that he'd say anything smart, but Rick figures just saying the words out loud, letting his doubts hang there in the air, would help him decide if he was being a jerk or not.

He laughs a little.

A jerk? Hell, sure he's being a jerk. They were all being jerks. Thinking what they were thinking, and probably not thinking how much the old woman would charge.

Now, Mr. I'm Too Good For A Regular Job Falkirk would probably laugh. Was probably laughing already . . . if he knew. Now there's a real jerk, and Rick wonders what in hell made him think the guy would even talk to him about this. Man has nothing going for him but a streak of luck, and luck doesn't last, and Rick realizes he's trying to fold the bad hand into a fist, but the fingers only twitch and curl and it looks Like a claw mat's been in salt water too long, and Rick swears and yanks the glove back on.

Bastard, he thinks.

That son-of-a-bitch bastard.

Muriel stands over the stove, stirring a small pan of tomato sauce, her own creation, with a short wooden spoon. She hopes Lillian won't come home before she's finished, but it probably wouldn't matter anyway. The girl wouldn't appreciate it. In the old days she ate pasta like it was going out of style, packing herself with energy, stamina, she claimed, before she went to the hotel to ride in the show.

In the old days Lillian actually called her "Mother."

Without the sneer.

Definitely she'll be angry because she missed Eula, which is all she talks about anymore. Eula, and that awful music, and walking again.

Muriel tastes the sauce, grunts approval, and turns down the heat, wishing she had a gas stove. Like in the old days. Easier to control the heat that way. No guessing. You looked at the flame and you knew what you got.

You looked at her, and you knew what you got.

A bordering on bloated, middle-aged woman stuck with a crippled daughter who was a bastard.

She frowns.

She nods.

Yes. A bastard. Didn't matter the sex, the kid was born without the mother being married, the kid was a bastard.

Sometimes, in more ways than one.

"Now, now, Muriel," she scolds. "Christian charity, remember? Hard times mean hard people. You can't blame her, can you, after all she's been through? Patience is the key. Patience. And a good hot meal."

She wipes her hands on her apron, checks to be sure everything on the burners is cooking the way it ought to, then hurries into the living room, looks out the window, hoping Eula didn't know she'd been lying about Lillian being home, afraid she's missed something important out there.

But there's nothing but blowing sand and dust, and that bum, Trey, is off his porch, didn't even sweep it clean after last night's blow. Once, Eula said in a joke that Falkirk would probably be improved by getting the Sickness. A man like that is nothing but a burden on the rest of the world. Muriel agreed, thinking at the time it wasn't really a joke at all.

She presses her cheek against the glass, the better to see down to the end of the street, but there's no cab there. No Lillian. Some kind of extra therapy, she had said when she'd left that morning. Don't worry about it, it's free.

Like Muriel cares how much she has to pay to get her daughter back on her feet. Although all those bills . . . and all those doctors who tell them over and over again that it isn't ever, ever going to be back the way it was.

Muriel believes it.

Lillian doesn't, not always.

Why, she wonders, sniffing back a tear; why doesn't someone like that bum Falkirk ever get hurt, and someone like Lillian, who lived for those silly shows, get hurt so bad she can't ever ride? Why is that?

She feels a tear slip down her cheek, catch the glass, and slip around her face toward the sill.

Tonight, she thinks.

It's supposed to be tonight. Eula promised it would be the first night she came back, and tonight is it, and that's why everyone was out there, smiling and chatting and ...

She sighs heavily.

Is it really that bad? Is it really so bad that they have to believe a woman like Eula can make things right?

Lord, is it really that bad?

Roger sits upright, stiff on the edge of the love seat cushion. He's wearing his best suit, his skin glows from the scrubbing he gave it, his hair is about as neat as it's ever going to get, his beard is trimmed to within an inch of its life, his nails are cut, his shoes are polished.

He can't move.

He knows he's supposed to go over there, to thank her for doing what she did, but he can't bring himself to get up. He can't do it because he still hasn't figured out why she did it. All the time she lectures him about his drinking, praising him for his education, scolding him because he's wasting it, and all the time he nods with a smirk and assures her with a lie that not even a rock would believe that he would straighten up and fly right, don't you worry about me, Eula, don't you worry, I'm changing the way I live with the next breath I take.

After, that is, I take this next sip. Just a sip.

So he sits there as the sun keeps drifting toward the mountains, and he tries to figure it out. The trouble is, he also keeps imaging the look on old Art's face when the clipboard slams him to his knees, and that makes him giggle, and he has to scowl at his behavior and start all over.

But it was truly a wonderful sight. Truly. Honestly.

Finally, cheeks red from holding in the laughter, he says, "The hell with it." He'll go over later, when the sun is down and it's not so damn hot. If nothing else, he has to do it out of courtesy. A heartfelt, honest thank you without getting all sentimental and sloppy, a solemn, equally heartfelt appreciation of the debt he's incurred because of what she did, and a promise he'll never- "Ah, the hell with that, too."

He bends over and takes off his shoes and socks, sighs, and wonders if sticking his feet in a pan of water with some Epsom salts will take care of those damn cuts and scratches. Not so bad as they were yesterday, but it still feels as if he's walking on needles. Not bad looking, though, as feet go, are they? Not hairy, no toe sticking out from the others, no veins popping out, just smooth skin and a little rough around the edges, the way a foot ought to be. Not bad at all.

"Holy Jesus," he says, "I'm already drunk and I haven't even had a drink."

He laughs, falls back, and kicks his feet in the air. Nearly gives himself multiple cramps when someone knocks on the door and scares him half to death.

"Come on in," he yells. "Damn thing's not locked."

The door opens, and he's on his feet as fast as he can get, too late to do anything about the socks, the shoes.

"Eula," he says, feeling like an idiot. "Hey, I was just coming over to see you."

"Were you?" she says, looking pointedly at his bare feet.

He winces. "Well, not like this, no."

She smiles, an indulgent grandmother's smile, and says, "You sure got yourself a mess of trouble, Roger Freneau." A scolding shake of a finger before she pulls off her gloves. "Now you just sit yourself down again, let this old woman see what she can do to give you a hand."

Embarrassed, he sits. "Eula, look, this isn't necessary. I can't let you-"

"Oh, yes you can," she says, bustling in, putting down her purse, taking off her coat.

Kneeling in front of him, grunting, adjusting her weight, embarrassing him even more.

"Eula, please."

She silences him with a look, grasps his left foot by the heel and lifts it. Dark fingers making his skin look fish-belly white. Lifts it higher, forcing him back, chin against his chest, making him feel a pull at the groin, thinking if she lifts it any higher he's going to slide onto the carpet.

"My, my," she says, shaking her head as she examines his sole. "My, you are something else again, boy, something else again."

She blows on it, runs a finger down it, shakes her head and gently lowers the foot until it's flat on the floor. Then, waving off his hastily offered assistance, she pushes and grunts herself to her feet. "Be right back, got something in my house will take care of that." Peers at him. "You all right?"

"Yes, thanks, but you don't-"

He stops because she's ignoring him. She puts on her coat, pulls on her gloves, picks up her purse, and is out the door without looking at him once.

"Boy," he says to the empty room. "Boy."

A self-conscious laugh, a shrug, and he decides to get himself something to drink before she gets back. Soda, not liquor, maybe iced tea or water. But first he's got to use the John, and he sings wordlessly to himself as he walks into the bathroom, shakes his head, turns on the light and gets a look at himself in the mirror over the sink.

"Oh," he says.

Just before he screams.

The hiss of sand piling up against the foundation.

The keening of the wind as it finds cracks in the eaves.

"Fool," Eula whispers as she stands at her window.

3.

1.

I.

t had occurred to Trey more than once that, since he was still technically, most likely, within the Las Vegas city, limits, the gun Sir John held on him probably wouldn't kill him. Maybe it wouldn't even hurt him. But a probably or two and a maybe didn't equal an absolutely, and for all the rattlesnakes, drunken cowboys, and curb-jumping cars he'd faced, he also couldn't see how the old man could miss.

"Do let me know," Harp said amiably, "when you've decided whether to try to disarm me, would that be all right? I rather think you won't, actually, and this bloody weapon is getting heavy."

Trey sat in the front of their rental car, twisted around against the door, the better to watch both of them without getting dizzy. Beatrice had augmented her outfit of the night before with a gauzy-white scarf tied loosely around her neck, and she fussed with it constantly as she drove. At, he couldn't help noticing, a considerable rate of speed.

"You don't need that thing," he said to the old man, who sat directly behind him.

"You wouldn't come with me without it, I think."

Trey nodded at the truth of it. "And I won't try anything," he promised. "Even if you miss, your wife will probably run off the road and kill us all."

"I doubt that, Mr. Falkirk. She's quite a good driver."

He hadn't even bothered to ask why the gun, the abduction, the need for a fresh change of clothes in an old suitcase, because in the short time he had known them he knew them too well. Every question would be answered with a riddle, or a quotation, or with a silence that was meant to be an answer in itself. Despite his anger, at himself as well as them, he figured they would get to the point soon enough. No sense in getting frustrated; it was all he could do anyway, just to keep his mind from slipping away to safer pastures.

He hadn't even been angry for very long, a measure, he thought, of how far gone he was. In fact, the only thing that did register as Harp hustled him out the back door and over to the car waiting beyond the T, was how nervous the old man was. He kept looking back over his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone there.

Trey hadn't asked; nerves or not, the gun was steady in his hand, his finger steady on the trigger.

They had left the westbound highway ten minutes ago, Beatrice sweeping onto a single-lane dirt road that seemed to lead directly to the Spring Range. Dust kicked up behind them. The sun bore through the windshield as it reddened in setting, turning the inside, and the desert, a pale and unpleasant shade of blood.

"Don't you think you're overdoing this a bit?" he said, drawing one leg up, grasping it around the ankle. "You..." He laughed without a sound. Shook his head. "I said it before, I'll say it again-this is nuts."

"No, Mr. Falkirk," Sir John corrected. "This is a nightmare."

The dirt road ended, and Beatrice drove on, the car jouncing over rocks and hummocks while the mountains, splashed here and there with late spring green, took up more of the sky. She had said not a word since he'd gotten in, and each attempt he made to get her to talk had been countered with a silence and a dead-ahead stare. The old man, too, had not spoken again, and Trey wondered each time he glanced back just how heavy that gun was. It was in Harp's lap now, but his finger was still on the trigger, and Trey doubted the caliber was too small to punch through the back of the seat if he fired.

What amazed him was that all the bouncing and swaying hadn't caused the gun to go off before this. More than once his head rapped against the ceiling or the window glass; more than once he had to thrust a hand against the padded dashboard to keep from sliding into the well. Beatrice didn't seem to care that the car might not last long enough for the trip back. She neither slowed down nor avoided patches of cactus or scrub; she plowed through it all as if she were driving a truck.

Then Harp said, "Here," and she spun the wheel, jammed her foot on the brake, and the car whirled around to face the way they had come. And stopped.

Metal creaked.

A spinning dust cloud covered them, visibility zero, granules scratching across the roof like tiny racing claws.

For the first time since leaving the house, Trey felt a little nervous, less than sure of their intent. He hadn't thought they were out to harm him; they just wanted to push more of their incomprehensible agenda.

But now...

The dust settled; the sun was still red.

"Red sky at night," Harp said wearily. "But alas, no sailors here." He gestured with the gun. "Outside, Mr. Falkirk. Please."