"I'm not saying no," Jack said.

"But?" Caroline asked.

"But the world is filled with horror," Jack said.

Caroline pushed down the sheet.

"Are you ready for some happy-face sex?" she asked. A little too brightly.

She hooked her finger under the crotch of her panties and pulled the cloth aside for him.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE.

1.

Much later, in the dark, Caroline told Jack, "My mother would have liked you. She would have given you a hard time, she gave everyone a hard time, but she would have liked you.

"She was old pioneer stock," Caroline said. "She used to tell us-Nicole and me-the secret of life is to be the gunfighter who's not afraid to die. Maybe she said killer. The killer who's not afraid to die."

2.

Even later, Caroline asked Jack, "What about your mother and father?"

"My mother ran off when Bix and I were little," Jack said.

"And your father?" Caroline asked.

"Worked at the auto seatcover factory," Jack said. "On Front Street. That old building across from the train station. He stood at the assembly line doing six separate actions. Over and over. Eight hours a day. Every day. Five days a week. His whole life."

"Now, it's some kind of experimental theater," Caroline said, "the old seat-cover factory."

Outside the wind howled.

"What happened to your dad?"

"Old age."

"How old was he?" Caroline asked.

"When he died?" Jack said. "Sixty-two. Old age comes sooner to the poor."

3.

Caroline couldn't sleep. She slipped out of bed without waking Jack, who was softly snoring and slightly drooling from the corner of his mouth.

At the end of the dark hall, Caroline looked through the window and saw Bix in the shadow of the large tree across the street.

No. Bix was taller, broader.

In the shadows, this guy smoothed back his hair and fixed a cowboy hat on his head.

Caroline ran back into her bedroom, considered waking Jack, and then decided she'd rather prove she was as tough as he was. The killer who's not afraid to die.

She pulled on jeans and a top and, barefoot, scuffed on sneakers.

From a desk drawer, she took the gun Jack had given her. Solid in her hand. She loaded it as Jack had taught her, made sure the safety was on, and slipped it into her waistband.

She hurried down the stairs and through the kitchen into the mud room, where she grabbed a heavy black Mag-Lite.

Quietly, she opened the kitchen door, the screen door, and edged into the backyard.

The rain was steady. Cold. The wind was loud in the trees.

She crept from one backyard to another. At the end of the block, she slipped across the street and through more backyards until she was next to a garage opposite Dixie's house.

Ahead of her, the man in the cowboy hat stood so close to the tree trunk, he was almost invisible. Rain dripped off his hat brim.

Caroline pulled the gun from her waistband, clicked off the safety, held the gun in two hands-as Jack had demonstrated-crouched, raised the gun, aimed, and was about to squeeze the trigger.

From behind, someone grabbed her in a hug, forcing the gun down.

"You can't kill him," the man who held her whispered in her ear.

Bix.

"We just wait?" Caroline angrily whispered. "Until he kills Jack?"

Ahead of them, the Cowboy turned his head towards them-as Jack, bare-chested, barefoot, just in slacks, burst out of Dixie's front door.

The Cowboy dodged sideways and ran diagonally into the street and then down the middle of the street.

Jack ran after him.

Bix and Caroline ran after Jack.

The rain semiblinded Jack.

Jack smelled wood smoke.

Jack dove, hooking the Cowboy's right leg. The Cowboy spun, freed himself, and kicked Jack in the face. Jack bulled forward, his shoulder against the Cowboy's thigh, and slammed the Cowboy against a tree.

The Cowboy pulled his gun and pressed it against the back of Jack's neck-as Jack pulled his gun and jammed it into the Cowboy's crotch.

Bix plowed into both of them.

The Cowboy tumbled over Jack's body, staggered, and ran up someone's driveway.

Caroline was on his heels. When she got to the end of the driveway, a closed two-door garage, she couldn't see the Cowboy in the yard.

He stepped out from a bush behind her and, grabbing her around the neck, pressed the gun into her head.

She swung her gun around and fired. She didn't hear the shot. She heard the ringing silence after the shot.

She missed, but the Cowboy released her, stepped back, and fired.

She heard that gunshot. And felt something ruffle her hair. The side of her head felt moist. Something trickled down her cheek.

Jack was there-she didn't recall him arriving-touching her head.

"You got creased," he said.

She was dizzy. Suddenly sleepy.

"You'll be okay," Jack said.

"No one wants the cops," Bix said-and melted into the shadows.

Grabbing Caroline's arm, Jack ran her through backyards, across a field, and waited for two patrol cars to pass.

"I woke up," Jack said, "you were gone. Your gun was gone."

They crossed the road and sneaked through more backyards.

When they reached Dixie's house, Jack gave Caroline his gun and said, "When you get inside, put alcohol on the wound. Go!"

Jack vanished around the side of the house.

Afraid someone might see her entering the house, might figure out she had something to do with the ruckus out front, Caroline scrambled up the trellis to the back porch roof, across the roof, and through her bedroom window.

Like Peter Pan. Like Dracula.

She had become the alien creeping into her room she had always feared.

As Caroline stepped though the window she saw a stranger in the mirror. Herself. Unrecognizable. Drying blood striped one cheek. But that wasn't what made her look different to herself. Stepping close to the mirror, she examined her face.

Maybe the difference she saw was in her eyes.

The secret of life is to be the killer who's not afraid to die.

She'd been not just ready but eager to shoot the Cowboy. The same way, when she was a teenager, once she'd decided, she had been not just ready but eager to lose her virginity.

She wished Bix hadn't stopped her.

Grabbing her cell phone, she took a photo of her face and sent it to Jack-with a text, Where R U?

No answer.

She crept out of her bedroom down the hall, into the screened sleeping porch above the front porch.

The trees and bushes, the street, the telephone pole, the people were all flashing red and blue in the rotating patrol-car lights.

Jack, still shirtless and barefoot, came out the front door of the house as if he'd just been awakened and was checking to see what the ruckus was about.

Some uniformed cops were pointing across the street at where the Cowboy had been standing.

A volunteer rescue-squad truck with a red light on its roof and a Chevy with a revolving blue light on its dashboard pulled up.

Jack was talking to a thin man in a suit, a detective, Caroline figured.

The detective shrugged.

Jack turned back to the house and walked over to Dixie-in his maroon bathrobe-and Nicole-in her white terrycloth robe-who had just hurried onto the front porch.

Caroline crept back along the hall-red and blue lights reflecting off the ceiling-to her bedroom, where she took off her blouse and slipped out of her jeans and sent Jack cell photos of herself.

She took and sent him a picture of her breasts. Sent a second, a picture of her cunt, spreading her lips-the labia majora, the labia minora. Her own private constellations. The Big and Little Dipper.

Her cell phone pinged.

Jack texted back, Wanted to make sure Bix got away.

Her phone pinged again-a response to the photograph of her cunt.