"You know now," Harp said, gulping air for each word.

Trey looked at the chariot, quivering as the engine raced, standing on four full tires.

He nodded, passing a thumb over the chip, the talisman.

The old man shuddered, closed his eyes, opened them again. "I don't know where they are, those men you must meet. I don't...know if-"

"Hush, John," Beatrice said, stroking his brow with one finger.

"My hat."

"Here," and she placed it on his chest.

He grabbed it with both hands, sighed and smiled. "My indulgence. Even now, she grants me my small indulgence."

Trey searched for Jude and found her, standing in the street with her daughters. White dress. White veil. Small and fragile against the sky.

Behind him, the steady scrape and claw of the wind.

No time; no time left.

"John," he said apologetically, shifting to stand.

"Quite all right, Mr. Falkirk, quite all right. We understand. Leave now and you'll be fine."

"No," Trey said. "I, uh...I wanted to thank you."

Harp worked his lips, widened his eyes, pulled the white straw cowboy hat closer to his chin. "Oh, my dear fellow," he said. And closed his eyes. And died.

6.

Trey touched the hat, touched the back of Beatrice's hand, and rocked up to his feet.

You can do it, you know, he said to all his doubts; you can get them into the truck and get the hell out, bury Sir John and take your chances trying to find those men.

But when he looked down at the old man's body, looked into Beatrice's eyes, he knew that wasn't going to happen.

Options.

Choices.

Do one, and Eula carries on, and the man on the boulevard keeps adding new numbers until the sandwich board is too small, until he runs out of fresh paint.

Do the other...

"Mr. Falkirk," Beatrice said, "I can't read your mind, but I know what you're thinking."

He nodded.

No more time.

"Can she take my place? Can Jude do it for me? Whatever it is?"

"Yes, Mr. Falkirk, I believe she can. If she will."

"You'll...you'll..."

"Yes. Any way I can."

He nodded.

No more time.

He trotted down the street, the girls racing toward him and hugging him, weeping silently, almost knocking him over. As if they knew. He lifted his head, and Jude came closer, tentative, unwilling.

"Listen to Lady Beatrice," he told her, "and don't forget the strongbox. You'll need it, every dime." He took the gold casino chip from around his neck, squeezed and rubbed it once for luck, and before she could stop him, he placed it around hers.

And before she could stop him, he lifted the veil and kissed her.

"No," Moonbow whispered when he pulled gently away.

"She'll kill you if I don't," he said.

"I don't care," she answered, and Starshine said, "Me neither."

"Well, I do," he said, and heard the wind and smiled. "Good news," he told them as he turned away. "Damn chariot's a-comin'."

4.

T.

rey grabbed the girls' suitcases from the back and dropped them onto the porch, took the strongbox and set it next to them, got behind the wheel and whispered, "What do you say? Can we go?"

A brief tremor rocked the truck, and he pulled into the street, faced the cloud and gunned the engine, just as the cloud billowed and the wind howled and the sand raked across the windshield and tried to scour the black from the hood.

He took his foot off the brake.

He saw the dark rider, inside wheel and race away.

Funny, he thought as he rode the chariot in after her; funny how it is sometimes * * * *

when you finally think you've got it all figured out, and you finally think you've got yourself pretty well set for the rest of your life, not all that exciting but not all that dull either, and something comes along and someone comes along and the next thing you know you're driving blind in a freak sandstorm, holding the steering wheel so tight your fingers want to cramp, tempted to use the wipers even though you know they won't help, habit making you turn the radio on but there's nothing there but static, and the scratch and scrape and claw of whatever it is you're in trying to get in with you.

You don't know, not really, how fast you're going because the speedometer doesn't work, and you can't see very far because the headlamps only turn the sandstorm cloud a light shade of hell, and the dark rider ahead of you is only that much darker, a shifting rippling shimmering shape that's only vaguely human.

And you can't tell if you're still on the street because the truck's bouncing and slamming, and skidding and dropping and it's all you can do just to keep in your seat.

All you can do just to follow that dark rider, who keeps looking back over her shoulder, probably wondering where it all went wrong, probably trying to figure out how something like this can happen to someone like her, especially when it's someone like you riding hard on her tail.

Funny, but you know there isn't a prayer you can kill her with; you knew that from the start, once you understood what the start was.

But that's all right, because in the here and now, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that John Harp is dead, because of her, because of you, and if you want to keep the others alive, then you do what you do, and hope it's the right thing.

You hope that Jude will find that preacher, maybe he can do something for her; you hope that Beatrice will stick with them, maybe she's stronger than she thinks; you hope with a laugh you didn't think you had in you that this damn truck doesn't run out of gas before . . . whatever . . . whenever . . . however it ends.

Keeping on her tail, swerving when she swerves, speeding up, slowing down, your head and spine aching, your eyes beginning to burn, the screech and howl outside the cab maddening until you turn it into familiar white noise.

Then it's quiet.

Too quiet.

The engine's muffled grumbling, and don't ask how but the hoofbeats outside, an odd combination that somehow finds the same rhythm.

Funny, how it is sometimes * * * *

but when the right front tire climbed and slid off a half-hidden rock the storm wouldn't let him see, tilted and almost tipped the chariot over, he allowed himself a smile, not much humor there, but a smile.

He knew right where she was headed, and he didn't think she did.

For a moment, grunting in exasperation as he wrestled the steering wheel over and swung a little wide to her left, he felt a minor eruption of hope that he might get out of this in one piece.

Or, if not in one piece, being alive would do as well.

All he had to do, all she had to was keep checking on him the way she did, no doubt not understanding why he wasn't directly behind her now and ... he laughed aloud, slapped the wheel, slapped his thigh when she veered sharply to her left and placed herself directly in his figurative crosshairs.

Not long now, then.

No matter what the hell she was, it had been evident from the start that her vision in this cloud wasn't much better than his. An advantage, because now he was leading her from behind.

All he needed was a little luck, and without thinking he touched his chest, and snatched his hand away when it found nothing there but flesh and bone. No big deal. He could do it anyway.

The problem was the timing.

With visibility like a man who refused to wear his thick glasses, he had to rely on memory and instinct to tell him when to make his move.

Soon, he-hoped; soon, before the regret he began to feel tainted his judgment and poked a hole in his resolve.

There it was.

A darker patch of dark unmoved by the wind, its edges blurred by blowing sand.

She hadn't spotted it yet, too busy checking on him, so he half rose from his seat and stomped on the accelerator and the chariot hesitated and charged, and he leaned forward as best he could so he could stare at her and hope she could see his eyes, see his taut mirthless smile, recognize his nod when she did finally see him.

Suddenly she whipped her head around, and he knew that she saw it, the boulder he had marked to mark the boundary of his haven, and he couldn't resist a joyful laugh because it was too late for her to swerve around it, too high for her mount to jump it, but just far enough away that she could stop before she hit it.

She did, but it was too late when she realized she was trapped.

"Thank you, old buddy," he whispered.

The chariot roared and left the ground, and the last thing he saw was Eula's startled laughing face before the world turned white.

Red.

Empty.

5.

S.

tanding beside a car on the shoulder of a highway, two women waiting for someone to stop and help, two young girls who were women too soon.

They had heard the distant explosion, but none of them turned to look. And none of them wept; that would come later.

"Where are we going?" Jude asked, unable to keep her hand off the chip Trey had placed around her neck.

"I'm not quite sure," Lady Beatrice answered. "Sir John . . ." She faltered, and Jude stroked her arm. "Sir John never really told me." A shaky laugh. "Wouldn't you know it. Something about the sea, though. I remember something about the sea." A gesture east. "That way."

Enforced silence as an eighteen-wheeler blasted past them.