Probably not so bad, once you got used to it.

"I think we'll have real trouble with the wives," he said.

"Nothing we can't handle. What do you say, man?"

"I guess we could rent a room for it, or something, if they won't let us keep it around."

"Sure. We'll figure something out. Are you in?"

"Maybe."

"Ah-ha!"

"Let's just play it by ear, okay? We'll have a look at the thing. But I still want to do the jukebox book, so let's take care of that first, and see how it goes."

"Oh, man. Hey, this is the start of something big."

"We ought to have our heads examined."

Fifteen

When the reaching headlights found Babe's Garage at the east end of Sagebrush Flat, Pete killed the beams and eased off the gas pedal.

They entered the town, moving slowly.

Larry studied the moonlit street ahead of them. He felt trapped by their crazy plan, but he held on to a hope that something might intercede to stop it. They needed privacy. If a car were here... if light came from a doorway or window...

But the street looked abandoned. The buildings were dark.

The van rolled to a halt in front of the Sagebrush Flat Hotel. Leaning forward, Pete peered past Larry.

They both stared toward the doors. But the hotel blocked the moonlight, throwing a black shroud of shadow all the way to the sidewalk. The blackness looked solid.

Unable to see the doors, Larry imagined them standing wide open, imagined he was gazing deep into the lobby, pictured the cadaver on her withered feet beside the staircase, staring out at them.

His skin crawled. His scrotum shriveled, tingling as if spiders were scurrying on it.

"Drive on ahead," he whispered.

"Right. The box."

The van moved forward.

He lifted a hand to his chest and fingered a nipple through the fabric of his shirt. It felt like a pebble.

True of guys, too, he thought. You get goose bumps, your nipples get hard.

He remembered the way Barbara had looked as she told her story about the dark church. Focusing his mind on that, he lost the image of the corpse. But he felt guilty about using Barbara that way, so he thought about Jean. Jean on Sunday night after her nightmare. Slipping out of her gown, climbing onto him. But then he was kneeling above her and her slim body looked cadaverous in the shadows, and he was suddenly in the hotel on his knees beside the coffin, staring at the corpse. Dried brown skin, ghastly grin, flat breasts, pubic hair shining like gold in the flashlight's beam.

He shook his head to dislodge the images, and let out a shaky breath. "I don't know if I can hack this," he muttered.

"Never fear, Peter's here."

Pete drove past Holman's, made a U-turn and parked in front of the gasoline pumps. He shut off the engine.

They each took a drink of whiskey.

"Let's take it with us," Pete said.

"Let's not. I want my hands free." Larry capped the bottle and set it on the floor. They climbed out. Leaning against the chilly wind, Larry trudged to the rear of the van. Pete met him there. He had his flashlight but left it dark. Side by side they walked past the corner of Holman's. The desert ahead of them looked gray, as if its rock-littered surface, boulders, and bushes were painted with dirty cream.

They were almost to the rear corner of Holman's when a vague shape darted in front of them. Larry flinched. Pete, gasping, crouched and snatched out his gun. The wind-tossed tumbleweed bounded on by.

"Shit," Pete muttered, holstering his weapon.

"Good going, Quickdraw."

I'm not the only one nervous around here, he thought. It pleased him to know that Pete was also feeling jumpy.

"Maybe you should turn on the flashlight," he suggested.

"It'd give us away."

"To whom?"

"You never know, man. You never know."

They left Holman's behind and headed out into the desert, angling toward the far-off smoke tree that marked the edge of the stream bed. Another tumbleweed crossed their path, but Pete saw this one coming and didn't draw down on it.

Larry studied the landscape ahead. He wished it didn't have so many clumps of rock and brush. Hiding places. Each time he approached one, he tightened with fear. Each time he passed one, he quickly looked behind it, half expecting to find someone crouched and ready to pounce.

Nobody's here except us, he kept telling himself.

But he couldn't convince himself.

At last they reached the rim of the embankment. Larry turned around. He scanned the area they had just finished crossing.

Pete did the same.

Then they faced forward. The area below them lay in shadow. Pete turned on his flashlight. He played its beam over the slope and started down. Larry stayed close to his side. A few times they stopped while Pete waved his light across the bottom of the gully as if to assure himself that no surprises were waiting down there. The stream bed didn't look familiar to Larry. He was sure it hadn't changed since Sunday, but it seemed very different in the darkness. He couldn't even tell for certain which was the rock that Barbara had been sitting on.

We might not be here now, he thought, if she hadn't wandered away from Holman's looking for a place to relieve herself. We wouldn't have found the jukebox. Maybe the corpse, but I never would've started out tonight except for the jukebox.

He realized that he had to urinate, himself.

When they reached the bottom of the embankment, he said, "Hang on a minute. I've gotta take a leak."

"Don't get any on you," Pete said. "Want the light?" "Yeah, thanks." He took the flashlight. Pete waited while he wandered to the left, stepping around blocks of stone. He clamped the light under his arm to free his hands. With his back to Pete, he opened his pants. The wind felt good against his penis. He aimed his stream straight out. The wind flapped it sideways, but not back at him.

When he was done, he zipped up his pants and started to turn around. The pale beam of the flashlight passed across a circle of black surrounded by rocks. "Hey, Pete. Come here."

"I don't want to get my feet wet."

"Come here." He took the flashlight out from under his arm while Pete came up beside him. He pointed it at the circle. "Look at that."

"A campfire."

"Was that here before?"

"I don't know. Might've been, but I didn't see it."

They walked toward it. The center of the fire circle was black with ashes and the charred remains of wood.

And bones. Larry saw half a dozen bones, intact among the dead cinders-gray and knobbed at each end.

"Holy shit," Pete muttered.

"Rabbit, you think?"

Pete squatted. He picked up a bone that was nearly a foot in length. "This sucker didn't come from any rabbit," he said. "A coyote, maybe."

"Who the hell would eat a coyote?"

"The fuckin' Madman of the Desert, that's who." Pete tossed the bone down. "This'll go good in our book."

"Great," Larry muttered.

Pete pressed a hand against one of the sooty rocks. "Still warm."

"Don't give me that."

"It is."

Crouching, Larry touched one of the rocks for himself. It was cold.

"Asshole."

Pete laughed. "Had you going there, huh?"

"Prick."

"Get out of the way. I'm gonna take some pictures."

He backed off but kept the light on the fire circle while Pete removed the lens cap, switched on the camera and its flash attachment.

"What if the guy who did this is still around here?"

"No sweat. He's already eaten."

"A guy who eats coyotes isn't someone I want to meet."

"He's probably long gone." Pete raised the camera to his eye, bent over the remains of the fire for a close-up, and took a shot. The flash strobed, hitting the area with a quick blast of white. He stepped backward. One stride. Two. Then another flash split the darkness.

In that blink of white Larry saw something beyond the fire circle. He found it with the beam of his flashlight. "Oh, my God," he muttered.

Three rocks were stacked up. At the top rested the head of a coyote, its gray fur matted with blood, a bone held crosswise between its teeth. It had bloody holes where its eyes should've been.

Pete lowered his camera and stared. "Wow," he muttered.

"Maybe we ought to get out of here."

Pete flapped a hand at him and stepped closer to the thing. He raised the camera. He took a shot. In the stark flick of light Larry saw into the empty sockets. He started gagging as Pete stepped right up in front of it, crouched, and snapped another picture.

He turned aside and vomited. When he finished, he backed away from the mess. He took out his handkerchief, blew his nose and wiped his lips. He blinked tears from his eyes. He rubbed them with the back of a hand.

"You all right?" Pete asked, coming up behind him.

"Christ," he muttered.

"Feeling a little queasy myself. Bad scene. Guy that did that must be a fuckin' lunatic. You see the way he poked out its eyes? Wonder if he did that before he ate."

Larry shook his head. "Let's do the jukebox and get out of here."

"Give me the light. I want to check around, see what else we can find."

"Are you nuts?" He kept the flashlight and started walking through the gully toward the place where they'd found the jukebox.

"Ah," Pete said. "What the hell. Don't want to lose my supper.

Wouldn't taste half as good on the way out." His head swung around.

A shiver rushed up Larry's back. "What is it?"

"Nothing, I guess."

"Did you hear something?"

"Probably just the wind. Unless it's our crazy fuckin' coyote muncher sneaking up on us."

"Cut it out."

"Wonder if he talked to the thing while he ate. You know? Like put the head up there for a dinner companion. Had a little chat with it.