Oh, they told her she'd eventually be able to do trails if she was careful; they told her she could hang around corrals on the back of some old nag that could barely put one leg in front of the other.

That didn't count.

The important thing was, she would never be able to really ride again. Take that animal around the ring at speed, bareback, doing backflips and side jumps and handstands and headstands while over five hundred people twice a day screamed their lungs out, pounded their tables, and cheered and whistled when she was finished.

She would never again wear the Hollywood-style medieval clothes with the ruffles and frills and billowing sleeves and rawhide fringe and sequins and rhinestones that flared in the laser light that flashed across the arena; she would never again watch from behind the curtain the hokey King Arthur show, knights jousting and swordfighting and ax-fighting and just plain fighting while the crowd did what the crowd was urged to do- scream and cheer and yell and boo, all while eating a halfway decent meal with their fingers.

Over a year, now.

Over a year.

She had tried to kill herself, twice, and had told no one about it-she didn't need a rubber-wall room to go with the crutches.

Then Eula had moved into the neighborhood, driving everyone nuts with her loud music, and at the same time making most everyone feel just a little better about how things were. Lillian didn't know how the woman did it, but she did. There was no preaching, no proselytizing, no New Age bromides, no Bible quotations, no phony sympathy, no manufactured empathy. She just talked, and played her music, and Lillian just listened.

"Child," Eula had said last month, "you don't have to be that way, you know," pointing to the crutches.

That's all.

Nothing else.

Just; "You don't have to be that way."

Tonight, she had answered, "Show me."

And Eula had said, "You think about it first, dear. Think about it hard. Ain't no free ride in this world."

Lillian had grinned. "Pay the piper, huh?"

"Something like that."

That's all.

Nothing else.

The acres between Eula's house and hers, on a good night, seemed like a mile. Now it seemed like ten.

Ride; never ride.

If it had been anybody else-doctors, shrinks, nurses, therapists, letters from nuts who promised miracle cures-she would have laughed. Somehow, though, Eula was different. Others recognized it too, so she knew she wasn't imagining things that weren't there. A special something, a special caring, a special way of checking out the world to find the right places to be at the right times...with the right words.

She had only said something about it once to Muriel, who had rolled her eyes and said, "What's she going to do, Lillian, cast a voodoo spell on you? Make you bathe in some kind of stinky herbs and mud?" Her voice had softened. "Lillian, this is real, not a dream. Do what the doctors tell you, and you'll soon enough get as good as you'll ever be. Not like you were, you know that, but as close as you can get. No shortcuts, Lil. There are no shortcuts."

Lillian hated it when her mother was right. She knew there were no shortcuts, no spells, no magical herbs. She knew that. But then, Muriel had never sat long enough with Eula to listen to that voice. Really listen to it.

Different; something different.

Ride; never ride.

What, she wondered, did she have to lose?

If it didn't work . . . well, they say the third time's the charm.

6.

The Levin sisters sat on rickety lawn chairs on the concrete slab that was their front porch. Paper plates in their laps held sandwiches; paper cups on the floor held milk. Paper napkins lay unused next to the cups; it was easier to swipe a palm over a knee or thigh than bend over.

Starshine chewed as if she were eating steak. "You think he's coming back?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Momma says it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If means," said Judith Levin from behind the screen door, "that there's always a next time."

Moonbow jumped, scowling at her sister for not warning her. "He's staying."

Her mother's voice, a soft rasping: "How do you know?"

The girl waved vaguely. "They're getting sick out there, and they're not sick here. He won't take the chance."

Starshine snickered for what her sister didn't say, and yelped and almost dropped her plate when the screen door opened slightly and a hand reached out to whack her lightly across the top of her head.

"Don't laugh. It never hurts to have faith."

Moonbow looked up the empty street. Lillian had long since gone inside, and Ricardo had long since driven away to his fancy waiter's job on the Strip. The music was over. Early evening, not yet eight o'clock, and it felt as though she should have been in bed hours ago.

"What do you have faith in, Momma?"

Her mother's shadow, stretched thin across the porch, shifted as if the woman had turned away.

"Momma?"

Starshine pinched her thigh, warning her to shut up.

"Come on, Momma, fair's fair."

A quiet chuckle. "You're right."

"You can come out, Momma," Starshine said over her shoulder. "Nobody's around."

The door remained closed.

"Lillian," Judith said, "had faith in her horse until it threw her. She doesn't really believe she'll ever walk without crutches again. Who knows, maybe she's right."

A distant high roar and a flare of red as a fighter climbed over the mountains.

"Muriel won't diet anymore, she doesn't think she'll ever lose weight again. I even offered to do it with her, but she said no, she was happy the way she was. A walking heart attack begging for a stroke. And Ricardo wears a glove to keep people from staring at his hand. Six operations, I think it's six, and it still looks the same. He won't have another."

Grumbling this time, an invisible jet liner heading for the airport.

When that faded, an outsider would have said the neighborhood was quiet, unable to hear the whisper of the wind across the sand in the yards, in the street.

"Boy," Starshine said into the silence, "that's pretty gloomy, Momma."

Her mother laughed. "Yes, I guess it is."

A glint of light distracted Moonbow. She looked down toward the end of the road and saw headlights approaching slowly, as if the driver didn't know where he was. "Company."

A moment later she heard a table drawer open, and she knew Momma had taken out the gun. Every house but Trey's had one. Everyone on the block knew how to use one.

Most of the time it was someone lost. They'd stop at the first house with lights, ask directions, and get out a whole lot faster than when they came in. Once in a great while it was someone who heard something about Emerald City and came looking for stuff to steal. They never expected the way the people who were left knew what was up; they sure never expected to look at a gun. They never came up slow.

Starshine thought it was exciting, better than television.

Moonbow usually hid in the kitchen until it was over.

Carefully she placed her plate on the floor and stood, dusting her hands on her jeans, reaching around to scratch her back.

The headlights softened, curls of dust rising through the beams.

"Moonbow."

"It's okay, Momma." She deepened her voice, tried to imitate Southern syrup, the way Eula did. "They just be lost travelers, lookin' for a way out."

Starshine snorted, then cursed as milk shot out of her nostrils. "Aw, gross."

"Use the napkin," her mother told her, laughing. "I'll get some paper towels."

Moonbow stepped down to the walk, making sure the driver saw her. Now this was exciting. Strangers. Maybe they were millionaires looking for Wayne Newton's ranch, or some bigshot Mafia guy who took a wrong turn, or a movie star thinking maybe this would be where she would make her next film.

When it was close enough, when the headlight glare no longer obscured it, she sighed a little. An ordinary car, rental plates. A tourist who didn't realize how big the night was.

A shrug, and she moved down to the absent curb, one hand fiddling with a braid, smiling politely as the car pulled abreast.

A woman in the driver's seat, wavy hair and bangs, kind of a small nose. As Moonbow bent down to ask what she could do to help, the passenger door opened and a man got out.

"Holy shit," she heard Starshine whisper from the porch, and heard a harder whack and a louder yelp.

Still, her sister wasn't far from wrong.

The man was old. Really old. Not very tall, and dressed in a white suit with dark piping on the lapels and yoke like country singers wore. A white straw cowboy hat with a red band. A bolo tie. He walked around the front of the car, smiling, wiping his hands with a handkerchief, and she almost said, "Holy shit," herself when she saw the silver snakeskin boots.

"Good evening, child," he said.

She gaped.

There weren't many wrinkles on his face, and when he took off his hat, there wasn't much hair up there either. Combed straight back, most of what was there a glittery silver. He squinted as he examined the house, looked up and down the street, and she had the definite feeling that he could look down his nose at a giant without lifting his head.

"You're English," she blurted.

His smile widened. "As indeed I am, child. Indeed I am."

The voice. Momma made them watch Shakespeare on PBS all the time, and most of the time the actors were English. It sounded weird unless they were.

This man looked and sounded just like every one of them. Except for the hat. And the stupid boots.

"Sir John," the driver said impatiently.

Moonbow backed up a step.

Sir John?

"You a king or something?" Starshine asked.

Moonbow whirled, nearly colliding with her sister who was right behind her.

"No, child," he said, still smiling. "Tonight I am just a tourist. Looking for someone."

"Yeah? Who?"

"Starshine!" Moonbow snapped. "Be nice."

"Starshine?" The man held out his hand. "So very pleased to meet a young woman with such a lovely name."

It wasn't the words; it was the way he said them.

Moonbow gaped again when her sister really, no kidding, blushed and shook the man's hand. For a moment there, she thought the creep would actually curtsy.

"And you, my dear?" he asked.

"Moonbow," she answered shyly, softly, and took the offered hand, and shook it. Lightly. The way she thought a real lady would.

"Delightful," he exclaimed. "Did you hear that, Beatrice? Starshine and Moonbow. Lovely. Absolutely lovely. What a marvelous imagination their mother must have."

The driver only scowled, fingers tapping the steering wheel. "Sir John, it's getting late, and-"

"Yes, of course." He looked at the street again. "My dear young ladies, I am searching for a man I used to know a very long time ago. I..." He inhaled slowly, deeply. "I thought to surprise him, but he is a very difficult man to find."