"Trade heads, you won't think so."

"Could've been a lot worse."

"Yeah, sure. Get the trunk open, huh? Get me a beer."

"I'm not sure you should drink any alcohol. A head injury like that-"

"Who died and made you a neurologist?" Pete slapped the trunk.

"Come on!"

Larry opened it, removed the lid from the cooler and took out two cans of beer. He popped their tops and gave one to Pete. Instead of drinking, Pete poured beer onto his handkerchief and started cleaning the blood off his face.

Larry stepped to the front of the car. The can was wet in his hand.

He took a drink. The beer was cold and good. Squatting, he yanked the arrow from the tire.

"Let's see it," Pete said, tossing the sodden handkerchief to the pavement.

Larry gave the arrow to him.

"Just like I thought, Apache."

"Right." "Nice souvenir."

"Good thing it didn't end up in one of us." Larry drank some more beer. "We're out here playing cowboy and a lunatic starts shooting arrows at us."

"Why don't you take off my hat? You look like a dork. If I laugh, it's gonna hurt."

He plucked Pete's hat off the crown of his own and held it out.

"On this head? You've gotta be kidding. Just toss it in the car."

He sailed it through the open window. It landed on the passenger seat. Taking another drink of beer, he squatted down and started pumping the jack handle.

"You sure we don't have to worry about that bozo jumping us again?" "I shot him three times," Larry said.

"Holy shit."

While he worked on changing the tire, he told Pete about rushing down the embankment after Uriah had thrown the rock, being unable to find him, returning to the top just as the old man was about to hammer a stake into Pete's chest, and putting a bullet through his face. He told about Uriah yelling "Vampire!" and attacking him with the stake. About the bullet that was stopped by the crucifix, about the accidental shot and throwing Uriah down the slope.

When he finished, he looked around. Pete blew softly through pursed lips and muttered, "Are you shitting me?"

"Nope," Larry said. "It got pretty wild there for a minute."

"And I missed it."

"Sorry about that."

"The bastard was really gonna do a Van Helsing on me?"

"That's right."

"Sure glad you're good with that shootin' iron, old hoss."

"Me, too."

Pete tipped his can high and emptied it into his mouth. "I'm having another. How about you?"

Though Larry's can was still half full, he said, "Yeah." He used the lug wrench to tighten the nuts while Pete went for the beers.

Pete set the fresh one down beside him.

Larry started lowering the car.

"Sounds to me like the old buzzard might still be alive," Pete said.

"If he is, he's not feeling too spry. And his bow's busted, so he can't do us any harm."

"Wish you'd polished him off, though."

"I thought about it."

Pulling the jack out from under the car, he waited for Pete to suggest they go back and finish the job.

It didn't happen.

Instead Pete said, "What'll we do about him?"

"Leave him."

"I've got half a mind to go back there and put a bullet in his head.

But the other half hurts too fucking much."

"Let's just get the hell out of here. We can worry about him later."

"Come back in a few days, maybe."

"Maybe," Larry said. He had no intention of returning. But why argue about it now?

He didn't feel like fighting with the hubcap, either. Instead, he took it and the jack to the trunk. Then he rolled the flat tire to the rear of the car and lifted it in.

Pete showed up beside him with the flashlight and arrow. "We're gonna keep this quiet, right?" he asked. "You aren't thinking we should tell the cops?"

"No way," Larry assured him.

"Or the wives."

"What'll we tell them?"

"We went target shooting, right? I tripped and smashed my face on a rock."

"Sounds good to me." He shut the trunk. He returned to the front, picked up his two beers, and climbed in behind the steering wheel. He finished the first can as Larry moved his hat out of the way and lowered himself gingerly onto the passenger seat.

He started the car.

"It's all gotta go in the book, though," Pete said.

He made a U-turn and sped for the end of town.

Pete grinned at him. "It's gonna be great in the book, huh, pardner?"

"Yeah. Great."

"Who would've figured it? We come out here looking for the bastard and we wind up in a fuckin' battle. Fantastic. Gonna have us a best- seller, for sure."

"And a lot of explaining to do."

"Hey, the guy's a homicidal maniac. What's to explain?"

"Plenty, I should imagine. The wives'll find out everything. The cops'll find out everything. We'll be up to our ears in crapola."

"Hey, you're not gonna pussy out on me, are you?" Larry shook his head. He took a drink of beer as he sped past Babe's Garage and out of town. "After all this, nothing in the world could stop me from writing that damn book."

"My man."

Thirty-six

Uriah got slowly to his feet. He stumbled over to a boulder and sat down on it, wincing as his rump met the hard surface.

He knew he'd lost a lot of skin on his way down the slope. But the abrasions were nothing compared to the bullet wounds.

Leaning forward, he spit out some blood and bits of tooth. With his tongue he gently probed the hole in his left cheek. The pain made him cringe. The hole was pretty small, though. A lot smaller than the wound in his right cheek. Not only had the bullet exited there, but so had one of his molars.

Lucky that bloodsucking son of Satan just had a twenty-two, he thought.

Hurt like crazy, though.

Spitting out some more blood, he fingered the furrow in the scalp above his left ear.

I've been hurt worse, he reminded himself.

This was bad, but he figured nothing could ever hurt as much as the time one of the vampires stabbed the stake into his eye. Talk about a world of pain!

Uriah rubbed the bleeding gouge in the middle of his chest.

He saw the crucifix.

The gold-plated body of Jesus was broken in half at the stomach.

He stared at it for a long time.

My Savior, he thought.

You know I still have work to do.

That's why You helped me escape from the booby-hatch. That's why You brought me back home. That's why You saved me today from the hands of the evil ones. You knew I still had work to do.

Confined in the Illinois hospital for the criminally insane, Uriah had thought his mission was over. He hadn't destroyed every vampire, but he'd done his share. He'd whittled the army down some. He'd lost his eye. He'd been caught. Though they didn't know all he'd done, they knew he'd tried to kill that Charleston vampire, which was enough to get him put away. He'd hated to admit it, but he'd been glad it was over.

When he escaped, he'd had no intention of going after any more vampires. All he'd wanted was to make his way back to Sagebrush Flat and live in his hotel where he belonged.

But God was behind it, after all. God had led him back here, knowing in His infinite wisdom that trouble was afoot.

Uriah had been in town no more than a month before those people came and found the hiding place. He'd been out in the desert, hunting up supper. They were gone by the time he returned. When he spotted the broken floor of the landing, he'd prayed that they hadn't discovered the vampire. But his prayer was in vain. The panel enclosing its tomb was loose. The blanket was disarrayed.

He knew, then, that Satan had sent them to undo his work.

But why hadn't they pulled out the stake then and there? It didn't make sense. Had God intervened, somehow, to prevent it?

For days afterward Uriah had kept a vigil. He never left the hotel. At night, instead of retiring to his second-floor room, he'd slept in the lobby. It puzzled him that the intruders didn't return to resurrect the foul thing under the stairs. Perhaps they hadn't been sent by Satan, after all. Maybe pure chance had led them here, and they had no intention of coming back.

But if they were innocents, why hadn't they told the police about finding a corpse?

Day after day Uriah waited and pondered these things. He left the hotel only to relieve himself and to fetch water from the old well out back. He ate jerky from the small supply that he'd set aside for emergencies. When the last of the jerky was gone, he fasted for two days rather than abandon his watch to go hunting.

Finally, gnawed by hunger and knowing he would need all his strength to combat the evil that was sure to come, he'd set out into the desert. Not until after dark did the Lord provide him with a meal.

He'd cooked up the coyote. It had spoken to him as he ate. It told him to beware. While he'd been guarding the vampire under the stairs, the intruders had found the other two and set them free.

He'd been sure it was the voice of God that had warned him.

Terrified that the evil had been unleashed, Uriah had hurried back to the hotel. With candles and a rusty old spade from his room, he ran to the east end of town. The front door of King's Liquor had long since been broken open. Entering, he made his way to the rear of the empty shop. Holding a candle close to the floor, he was able to find the trapdoor.

It had been Ernie King's pride and joy-a secret entrance to the cellar where he kept his most precious bottles of wine. In the old days Ernie used to brag that nobody knew about the trapdoor except for his own family and his best pal, Uriah. They'd spent many fine evenings down there, sampling, before Ernie upped and left town along with nearly everyone else.

It had been Ernie King's pride and joy-a secret entrance to the cellar where he kept his most precious bottles of wine. In the old days Ernie used to brag that nobody knew about the trapdoor except for his own family and his best pal, Uriah. They'd spent many fine evenings down there, sampling, before Ernie upped and left town along with nearly everyone else.

A thin layer of sand blown in from the desert covered the wooden hatch.

Sure didn't look as if anyone had opened it up recently.