"Yes ma'am." Stevie walked off a few paces and kept shaking the black ball, but neither the wind-chimes music nor its brilliant blue returned. "Don't be dead!" she told it; there was no response. It was just black through and through; she could see her own face reflected on its glossy surface. Deep down, in the center of the blackness, something might have shifted-a cautious, slow stirring; an ancient thing, contemplating the shine of light that touched it through the murk. Then it was still again, pondering and gathering strength.

Mendoza got the truck hooked to the wrecker. Jessie thanked Tyler and Bess for their help, and she and Stevie climbed into the wrecker with Mendoza. They drove away toward Inferno, the black sphere still clutched firmly between Stevie's hands.

To the southwest and almost out of sight, a single helicopter followed.

7 Nasty in Action

The bell shrilled for change of cla.s.ses, and in another moment the quiet halls of Preston High were tumultuous. The central air conditioning was still broken, the bathrooms reeked of cigarette and marijuana smoke, but the rowdy shouts and laughter underscored a joyful abandon. Much of the laughter, though, had a false ring. All the students knew this was Preston High's final year; even if Inferno was a hot and h.e.l.lish place, it was still home, and home was a hard place to leave. They were walking histories of the struggles that had preceded them, their features a mirror of the tribes and races that had come up from Mexico and down from the heartland to carve a home in the Texas desert: here the sleek black hair and sharp cheekbones of the Navajo; the high forehead and ebony glare of the Apache; the aquiline nose and sculpted profile of the conquistador; there the blond, brown, or red hair of frontiersmen and pioneers, the wiry builds of bronco busters, and the long, confident strides of easterners who'd come to Texas seeking their fortunes long before the first shot had fired at a mission called the Alamo.

It was all there in the faces and bones, in the walks and expressions and speech of the students changing cla.s.ses. A hundred years of showdowns, cattle drives, and saloon brawls moved through the hallways. But their ancestors, even the buckskinned Indian fighters and the warpainted braves who'd sliced off their scalps, might have moaned in their graves if they'd been able to see current fashions from the Happy Hunting Ground. Some of the boys had their heads shaved to a military stubble, some had hair twisted into spikes and tinted with outrageous colors, some wore crewcuts with long tails of hair hanging down their backs. Many of the girls had hair cropped just as severely as the boys' and dyed even more garishly, some wore sleek Princess Di cuts, and some sported manes swept back and frozen with gel, then decorated with feathers in an unconscious tribute to their Indian heritage. They wore a mixed a.s.semblage of jumpsuits, overalls in military camouflage patterns, madras-plaid shirts with buckskin fringe, T-shirts that exalted bands like the Hooters, the Beastie Boys, and the Dead Kennedys, paisley surfer tees in electric hues that slam-danced the eyeb.a.l.l.s, tie-dyed khaki trousers, faded and patched jeans, pegged pants with Day-Glo stripes, combat boots, hand-painted sneakers, penny loafers, gladiator sandals, and plain old flipflops carved out of used tires. There'd been a dress code at the beginning of the year, but the princ.i.p.al of Preston High-a short Hispanic man named Julius Rivera and known as Little Caesar by the student body-had gradually let the code go when it was apparent there would be no reprieve for the school. Students in Presidio County would be bussed thirty miles to the high school in Marfa, and in September Little Caesar would be teaching a soph.o.m.ore geometry cla.s.s at Northbrook High in Houston.

The seconds ticked past on the clocks, and the young descendants of gunfighters, ranch hands, and Indian chiefs continued to their next cla.s.ses.

Ray Hammond was digging his English text from his locker in B Section. His mind was on getting to his next cla.s.s, way at the end of C Section, and he didn't see what was coming up behind him. As he brought the book out, a size-ten foot in a scuffed combat boot suddenly kicked it from his hand. The book opened-notes, page markers, and obscene doodlings sailing into the air-and slammed against the wall, barely missing two girls at the water fountain. Ray looked up, his eyes wide and startled behind his gla.s.ses. He saw then that doom had finally come for him. A hand clenched the front of his shirt and lifted him up on the toes of his sneakers.

"Hey, f.u.c.kmeat," a slurred, thickly accented voice growled, "you're in my way, man." The boy who'd spoken was about sixty pounds heavier than his captive and stood more than four inches taller; he was a junior named Paco LeGrande, and he had bad teeth and acne pocks on a grinning, vulpine face. A tattooed rattlesnake crawled across one thick forearm. Paco's eyes were red and unfocused, and Ray knew the boy had been puffing a little too much weed in the bathroom this morning. He usually timed his visits to the locker so as to miss Paco, who had the one right next door, but the inevitable had caught up with him. Paco was fueled and high and ready to give somebody a nitro lesson.

"Hey, X-Ray!" Another Hispanic boy was standing behind Paco. His name was Ruben Hermosa, and he was shorter and not nearly as heavy as Paco but his eyes were also aflame. "Hey, don't s.h.i.t in your pants, amigo! "

Ray heard his paisley shirt ripping. He was barely balanced on his toes, and his heart was pounding in his skinny chest but he kept his expression s.p.a.ceman cool. Other kids were moving back, getting out of danger's way, and there wasn't a Renegade in sight. Paco balled up a tremendous, scarred fist.

"You don't want to break the rules, Paco," Ray said, as calmly as he could manage. "No trouble in school, man."

"f.u.c.k the rules! And f.u.c.k school! And f.u.c.k you, you little four-eyed piece of-"

A home economics book with a smiling cartoon family on its blue cover whacked into the side of Paco's head with a noise like a gunshot. The blow rocked him, and Ray wrenched free as Paco's grip weakened. He scrabbled across the green linoleum to the base of the water fountain.

"A wetback p.r.i.c.k with no b.a.l.l.s shouldn't talk about f.u.c.kin'," a girl's smoky voice said. "It'll give you ideas you can't do anything about."

Ray knew that voice. Nasty stepped between him and the two Rattlers. She was a senior, and she stood almost six feet tall; her platinum-blond hair was swept back in a Mohawk, the sides shaven to the scalp. Nancy Slattery wore skintight khakis that clung to her rear and her long, strong legs; a hot-pink cotton shirt accentuated the flare of her athletic shoulders. She was lithe and quick, had run track last year for Preston High, and on both wrists she wore a handcuff for a bracelet. Three or four cheap gold chains sparkled around each ankle, above the size-seven bowling shoes she'd swiped from the Bowl-a-Rama in Fort Stockton. Nasty had gotten her name from her initiation into the Renegades, Ray had heard; she'd drunk down what was in a cup the guys had spat their tobacco chews into. And smiled through brown teeth.

"Get up, X-Ray," Nasty told him. "These f.a.gs won't bother you."

"You watch your mouth, b.i.t.c.h!" Paco roared. "I'll knock the p.i.s.s outta you!"

Ray stood up, started gathering his notes together. He saw with a jolt of horror that his idle drawing of a huge p.e.n.i.s attacking an equally huge v.a.g.i.n.a had slid under the right sandal of a blond junior fox named Melanie Paulin.

"I'll p.i.s.s in a gla.s.s for you, Paco f.a.go," Nasty replied, and a few of the onlookers laughed. She just missed being pretty: her chin was a shade too sharp, her two front teeth were chipped, and her nose had been broken when she fell during a track meet. Her dark green eyes glowered under peroxided brows. But Ray thought Nasty, who sat a few seats away from him in study hall, was a smash fox.

"Come on, man!" Ruben urged. "We gotta get to cla.s.s! Forget it!"

"Yeah, Paco f.a.go. Better run 'fore you get spanked." She saw the flare of red in Paco's eyes and knew she'd pushed too far, but she didn't give a s.h.i.t; she thrived on the smell of danger like other girls desired Giorgio. "Come on," she said, beckoning with one finger. Her nails were polished black. "Come and get it, Paco f.a.go."

Paco's face darkened like a storm cloud. He started toward her, both fists clenched. Ruben yelled, "Don't, man!" but it was much too late.

"Fight! Fight!" somebody shouted, and Ray scooped up the incriminating drawing as Melanie Paulin backed away. He gave Nasty room; he'd seen what she had done to a Mexican girl in a wild fight after school, and he had no doubt about what she was going to do now. Nasty waited. Paco was almost upon her. Nasty smiled slightly. Paco took one more step.

One of Nasty's bowling shoes came up in a vicious kick with all of her hundred and sixteen pounds behind it. The shoe connected squarely with Paco's crotch, and afterward no one remembered which was louder: the sound of the shoe smacking home or Paco's garbled scream. Paco bent double, clutching at himself; in no hurry, Nasty grabbed his hair, crunched her knee up into his nose, and then slammed his face into the nearest locker door. Blood splattered, and Paco's knees buckled like wet cardboard. She helped him to the floor by kicking his feet out from under him. He lay stretched out, his nose a purple lump. It was all done in about five seconds. Ruben was already backing away from Nasty, his hands upraised in supplication.

"What's going on here? "

The onlookers scattered like chickens before a Mack truck. Mrs. Geppardo, a white-haired history teacher with c.o.c.ked eyeb.a.l.l.s, advanced on Nasty. "My G.o.d!" She drew up short when she saw the carnage. Paco was stirring now, trying dazedly to sit up. "Who did this? I want an answer right this minute!"

Nasty looked around; her sharp gaze struck everyone with deaf-dumb-and-blind disease, a common ailment at Preston High.

"Did you see this, young man?" Mrs. Geppardo demanded of Ray, who instantly took off his gla.s.ses and began cleaning them on his shirt. "Mr. Hermosa!" she called shrilly, but he took off at a run. Nasty knew that by the end of fourth period every Rattler in school would have heard about this, and they wouldn't like it. Tough s.h.i.t, she thought, and waited for Mrs. Geppardo's c.o.c.k eyes to find her.

"Miss Slattery." She spoke the name as if it were something catching. "I think you're at the bottom of this, young lady! I can read you like a book!"

"Really?" Nasty asked, all innocence. "Then read this." She turned and bent over to show Mrs. Geppardo that her tight trousers had split along the rear seam-and Nasty, as Ray and everyone else saw, wore no underwear.

He almost fainted. A roar of h.e.l.lacious laughter and whooping filled the hallway. Ray fumbled with his gla.s.ses and almost dropped them. When he got them on, he could see the small b.u.t.terfly tattoo on her right cheek.

"Oh... Lord!" Mrs. Geppardo's face reddened like a chili pepper about to pop its pods. "You straighten up this instant!"

Nasty obeyed, swiveling gracefully around like a fashion model. The entire hallway was now in chaos, as more students flooded out of the cla.s.srooms and teachers valiantly tried to stem the tide. Standing with his English book under his arm and his gla.s.ses on crooked, Ray wondered if Nasty would marry him for one night.

"You're going to the office right this minute!" Mrs. Geppardo grabbed for Nasty's arm but the girl dodged her.

"No, I'm not," Nasty said firmly. "I'm goin' home and change pants, that's what I'm gonna do." She stepped over Paco LeGrande with one long stride and walked purposefully to the doors of B Section, her cheeks hanging out and a chorus of howls and laughter following her.

"I'll suspend you! I'll put you on report!" Mrs. Geppardo shook a vengeful finger. But Nasty stopped at the door and fixed the woman with a stare that would've knocked a buzzard dead. "No, you won't. It's too much trouble. Anyhow, all I've done is split my britches." She gave Ray a quick wink that made him feel like he'd just been knighted by Guinevere, though her language was anything but courtly. "Don't get s.h.i.t on your shoes, boy," she told him, and went out the doors and into the light that glowed like molten gold in her Mohawk.

"You'll wind up in women's prison!" Mrs. Geppardo sputtered-but the door was swinging shut, and Nasty was gone. She whirled on the gawkers: "Get back to your rooms! " The windows almost rattled in their frames. A half second later, the tardy bell rang and there was a new stampede. Ray felt drunk with l.u.s.t. The image of Nasty's exposed rear might remain in his mind until he was ninety years old and rears didn't matter anymore. His rod was straining; it was something he had no control over, as if that part of himself held all the brains and the rest was just useless appendage. Sometimes he thought he'd been zapped by an alien s.e.x Beam or something, because he just couldn't get it off his mind-though he was likely to be a virgin forever, judging how most girls reacted to him. Lord, it was a rough life!

"What are you standing there for?" Mrs. Geppardo's face thrust into his. "Are you asleep?"

He didn't know which eye to look into. "No, ma'am."

"Then get to wherever you're going! Now! "

He closed his locker, snapped the lock, and hurried off along the hall. But before he turned the corner he heard Mrs. Geppardo say, "What's wrong with you, you hoodlum? Can't you walk?"

Ray looked back. Paco was on his feet, his face gray; he was still clutching his groin, and he staggered toward the history teacher.

"We're going to see the nurse, young man." She took his arm. "I've never seen such a sight in all my-"

Paco suddenly lurched forward, and belched forth his breakfast onto the front of Mrs. Geppardo's flower-print dress.

Ray ran, instinctively ducking his head as another scream shook the windows.

8 Danny's Question

Danny Chaffin, a somber-faced young man of twenty-two whose father, Vic, owned the Ice House, had just finished telling Sheriff Vance that his calls had turned up nothing about helicopters when they both heard the metallic chattering of rotors.

They ran out of the office and were caught in the teeth of a dust storm. "Christ A'mighty!" Vance shouted-because he'd seen the dark shape of the helicopter descending right in Preston Park. Red Hinton, pa.s.sing by in his pickup truck on Celeste Street, almost swerved into the front window of Ida Younger's House of Beauty. Mavis Lockridge emerged from the Boots 'n Plenty shoestore, shielding her face with a scarf. People peered out the windows of the bank building, and Vance knew the elderly loungers who sat around in front of the Ice House catching breezes were probably running for their lives. He strode toward the park, Danny right behind him. The fierce wind and the whirling dust died down after a few more seconds, but the helicopter's rotors continued to slowly turn. Now more people were coming out of the stores, and Vance figured the unholy racket was going to draw everybody in town. Dogs were barking fit to bust. As the dust settled, Vance could see the gray-green paint job on the helicopter and also pick out some lettering: WEBB AFB.

"I thought you called Webb!" Vance snapped at Danny.

"I did! They said they weren't flyin' any 'copters over this way!"

"Well, they lied through their teeth! Hold on, here comes somebody!" He saw two figures approaching, both of them tall and lean. Vance and Danny met them just shy of the mule's statue. One of them, a young man who looked like he spent all his time indoors, wore a dark blue air-force uniform and a cap with an officer's insignia. The second man, older, with a black crewcut going gray at the temples, was tanned and fit looking, and he was dressed in well-worn jeans and a beige knit shirt. A pilot remained at the helicopter's controls. Vance said to the officer, "What can I do for-"

"We need to talk," the man in blue jeans spoke up. He spoke crisply, accustomed to taking control. He wore aviator-style sungla.s.ses, and behind them his eyes had already noted Vance's badge. "You're the sheriff here, right?"

"That's right. Sheriff Ed Vance." He held out his hand. "Pleased to meet-"

"Sheriff, where can we speak in private?" the young officer asked. The other man did not meet Vance's grip, and Vance blinked with confusion and then let his hand drop.

"Uh... my office. This way." He led them across the park, sweat already surfacing on the back of his shirt and ringing his armpits.

When they were inside the office, the younger air-force man took a notebook from his trouser pocket and flipped it open. "The mayor here is Johnny Brett?"

"Yeah." Vance saw other names written in the notebook too-among them his own. He realized somebody had done a lot of homework on Inferno. "He's the fire chief too."

"He needs to be present. Will you call him, please?"

"Do it," Vance said to Danny, and settled himself in his chair behind his desk. These men were giving him the creeps; their backs were as straight as iron rods, and they looked to be holding themselves at attention just standing there. "Brett's office is in the bank buildin'," Vance offered. "He's probably already seen all the commotion." There was no reaction from either of them. "Mind lettin' me know what this is all about, gents?"

The older man walked to the door that led to the cell block and peered through its gla.s.s inset; there were only three cells, all empty. "We need your help with something, Sheriff." His accent was less Texan than midwestern. He removed his sungla.s.ses, showing deep-set eyes that were a cool, clear pale gray.

"Sorry to make such a dramatic entrance." He smiled, and his face and body relaxed. "Sometimes we air-force folks kind of play it to the hilt and beyond."

"Sure, I understand." He didn't, really. "No harm done."

"Mayor Brett's on his way over," Danny reported, hanging up the phone.

"Sheriff, about how many people live here?" the younger officer asked; he had taken off his cap, revealing close-cropped light brown hair. His eyes were about the same color, and he had a spill of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Vance figured he was no older than twenty-five, while the other man was maybe in his early forties.

"Close to two thousand, I reckon," he answered. "About another five or six hundred in Bordertown. That's across the river."

"Yes sir. No newspaper here?"

"Used to have one. It shut up shop a couple of years ago." He angled around in his chair to watch the older man approach the gla.s.s-fronted gun cabinet, which held two shotguns, a pair of Winchester repeating rifles, a hogleg Colt.45 in a calfskin gunbelt, and a Snubnose.38 in a shoulder holster along with boxes of the appropriate ammunition.

"You've got quite an a.r.s.enal here," the man said. "Do you ever have to use all this firepower?"

"Never can tell when you'll have need of it. One of the shotguns'll pump out tear-gas sh.e.l.ls." His voice swelled with fatherly pride, since he'd fought the town council tooth and nail for the funds to buy it.

"Livin' with Mexicans so close, you got to be ready for anythin'."

"I see," the man said.

Johnny Brett came in, puffing from his sprint. He was a barrel-chested man of forty-nine who had once been a shift foreman on the rock crushers at the copper mine, and he carried with him a sense of harried weariness. He had eyes like those of an often-kicked hound dog, and he was fully aware of Mack Cade's power in the community; he was on Cade's payroll, just as Vance was. He nodded nervously at the two air-force men and, clearly out of his depth, waited for them to speak.

"I'm Colonel Matt Rhodes," the older man told him, "and this is my aide, Captain David Gunniston. I apologize for dropping in as we did, but this can't wait." He looked at his watch. "About three hours ago, a seven-ton meteor entered earth's atmosphere and struck approximately fifteen miles south-southwest of your town. We tracked it down on radar and we thought most of it would burn up. It didn't." He glanced at both the sheriff and mayor in turn. "So we've got a visitor from deep s.p.a.ce lying not too far from here, and that means we have a security problem."

"A meteor!" Vance grinned excitedly. "You're joshin'!"

Colonel Rhodes fixed him with a steady, level gaze. "I never josh," he said coolly. "Here's the kicker: our friend's putting out some heat. It's radioactive, and-"

"Lord!" Brett gasped.

"-and the radiation will probably move across this area," Rhodes continued. "Which is not to say that it poses an immediate threat to anybody, but it'd be best for people to stay indoors as much as possible."

"Day as hot as this is, most folks'll stay indoors for sure," Vance said, and frowned. "Uh... will this stuff cause cancer?"

"I don't think the radiation levels will be critically high in this area. Our weather forecaster says the winds will take most of it to the south, over the Chinati Mountains. But we've got to ask your help in something else, gentlemen. The air force has to get our visitor out of this area and to a secured location. I'll be in charge of the transfer." His gaze ticked to a clock on the wall. "At fourteen hundred hours-that's two o'clock-I'm expecting two tractor-trailer trucks. One of them will be hauling a crane, and the other will be marked 'Allied Van Lines.' They'll have to pa.s.s through your town in order to reach the impact position. Once there, my crew will start the process of breaking up the meteor to get it loaded and moved out. If all goes as planned, we'll be gone by twenty-four hundred hours."

"Twelve midnight," Danny said; he'd wanted to join the army before his father had talked him out of it, and he knew military time.

"Right. So what I have to ask of you gentlemen is to help with the security arrangements," Rhodes went on. "Webb's gotten all sorts of calls from people who saw the meteor pa.s.s over Lubbock, Odessa, and Fort Stockton-but of course it was too high for them to tell what it was, and they're reporting seeing a UFO." He smiled again, and pulled nervous smiles from the deputy, sheriff, and mayor. "Par for the course, isn't it?"

"Sure is!" Vance agreed. "Betcha them flying-saucer nuts are comin' out of the woodwork!"

"Yes." The colonel's smile slipped just a fraction, but none of them noticed. "They are. Anyway, we don't want civilians interfering with the work, and we sure as h.e.l.l don't need the press prowling around. The air force doesn't want to be responsible for any news hound getting a dose of radiation. Sheriff, can you and the mayor keep a tight lid on this situation for us?"

"Yes sir!" Vance said heartily. "Just tell us what we need to do!"

"Firstly, I want you to discourage any sightseers. Of course, we'll have our own security perimeter set up on-site, but I don't want anyone coming out there to gawk. Secondly, I want you to emphasize the radiation danger; not that it's necessarily true, but it wouldn't hurt to scare people a little bit. Keeps them from getting underfoot, right?"

"Right," Vance agreed.

"Thirdly, I don't want any media people anywhere near that site." The colonel's eyes were chilly again. "We'll be patrolling with our 'copters, but if you get any calls from the media I want you to handle them. Webb's not giving out any information. I want you to play dumb too. As I say, we don't need civilians in the area. Clear?"

"Clear as gla.s.s."

"Good. Then I think that does it. Gunny, do you have any questions?"

"Just one, sir." Gunniston turned another page in his notebook. "Sheriff Vance, who owns a light green pickup truck marked 'Inferno Animal Hospital'? The license is Texas six-two-"

"Dr. Jessie," Vance told him. "Jessica Hammond, I mean. She's the vet." Gunniston produced a pen and wrote the name down. "Why?"

"We saw the truck being towed in the area of the meteor's impact," Colonel Rhodes said. "It was taken to the Texaco station a couple of streets over. Dr. Hammond probably saw the object go past, and we wanted to check on her."

"She's real nice. Smart lady too. I'm tellin' you, she's not afraid to do anything a man vet wouldn't-"

"Thanks." Gunniston returned the pen and notebook to his pocket. "We'll take it from here."

"Sure thing. You fellas need some more help, you just ask."