Next morning, I woke at sunrise and sat in the door watching the sun come up with one eye and watching Lizzie sleep with the other. Pretty soon I got bored of thinking about how peaceful she looked and how beautiful and all that sort of thing so I put on some coffee as loudly as possible and a pot of oatmeal and laid some bread down to toast on the stove top. Eventually between the noise and the smell of food, she opened her eyes and it was amazing to me how someone who looked like an angel asleep could wake so damn cranky but after a cup of coffee and a smoke she was almost human. I just kept smiling and didn't let on that half the day was already wasted, although I might have mentioned it in the most offhand way to which she reminded me that we were here to relax and to forget about the bad things happening around her.

After breakfast, I generously invited her to take a splash with me in the creek, which I cautioned might be cool but should feel quite invigorating. I went first, and as it turned out it was so invigorating that my testicles damn near shrank away to nothing, but I didn't let on or holler out and told her it was just fine and to come on in, which she did with a jump and quickly found out the lie.

She let out a blood-curdling shriek and sprinted buck naked for the house, narrowly missing Dad's truck as he clattered up over the hill. If she was embarrassed she chose not to show it, just kept on running until she hit the cabin and slammed the door closed behind her.

Dad got out and hitched up his pants. "Bet that water's cold."

I pulled on my pants and boots and nodded my head. "Yep. What the hell are you doing up here?"

"Tucker, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your trailer burned down."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I think I know what a burnt trailer looks like."

"Everything?" I asked, and he nodded.

We walked to the cabin and found Lizzie inside, fully dressed, wrapped in a blanket and sitting by the fire holding a cup of tea.

She looked at me hard. "You said it wasn't cold. Jump in, you said. Invigorating, you said."

"Tucker always did have a strange sense of humor," Dad said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot as I pulled on a flannel shirt.

"I wonder who I got that from?" I asked.

"Tucker's trailer burned down," Dad repeated to Lizzie.

"What?" Lizzie asked.

"Am I that hard to understand? It burned down. Ain't nothing left. Coffee's a tad bitter."

"That's the only coffee I got. Did Roy come out?" Roy was the fire chief in LonePine. He was also the brand inspector, justice of the peace, and sold vitamins mail order. Dad nodded a confirmation.

"What'd he say?" I asked.

"He said it looked like your trailer burned down."

Lizzie snorted, winking at Dad.

"Well I guessed that much." Then I looked back at Dad. "Did he say what caused it?"

"Probably the wiring. I never did trust that wiring."

"Dad, for Christsakes, you put that in."

"I know, and I never did trust it." He put his cup down. "I gotta head back down."

"I hate to belabor the obvious, but all my clothes?" Lizzie asked.

"Gone." He stopped at the door. "But if it means anything, you look fine without 'em." She blushed.

"I reckon we'll stay up here another night," I called after him. "Head back down tomorrow Maybe run over to Jackson and get Lizzie some stuff. Can we stay with you?"

"I guess."

"You guess? Where else would we stay?"

"At the Sleep-o-Rama, I reckon."

"You told me I could stay with you any time I wanted."

"Yeah, well, that was before you didn't have no place to stay." I started to say something else, but he raised his hand. "Forget it.

Stay with me. What's family for?" He climbed in his truck and hollered through the window. "If I ain't home, I'll leave the door unlocked."

We watched him pull out of sight. "I'm really sorry," I said.

"They're just clothes. I can get more."

"Well, if it means anything, you look better in Wranglers and one of my shirts than that drugstore cowgirl getup you had last time."

"I'm learning. I am sorry about your trailer, though."

"Just a trailer. I can get another."

"I don't suppose you have insurance?"

I just rolled my eyes. "C'mon, let's go for a ride."

We walked down to the corral and I filled up a bucket of oats and handed it to her. She looked at it and back at me. "I told you already I don't eat breakfast."

"It's for the horses," I said, leaning on the fence and giving a whistle. "Get on in there and catch 'em."

One of the simplest pleasures in life I know is watching horses come in for goodies. Even though they know they're about to get ridden, it seems the call of the oats cannot be resisted. Even Snort, wiser than most horses I know, is still an absolute fool when it comes to the stuff. With Lizzie, as usual, he first played hard to get, rolling his eyes and stamping his feet and skittering this way and that, but by the third whistle he come galloping up to the fence in a cloud of frosty breath and appetite with Dakota close behind him. He thrust his head into the bucket so hard it almost fell out of Lizzie's hands, but she grabbed on strong and propped it on her knee, laughing.

"Easy, Snort, let Dakota in too," she said, pushing on his forehead. He stepped back slobbering and chomping, and oats fell out of his lips as Dakota took a turn.

It was a peaceful sight watching that scene, especially after the run of bad luck we'd been having. First her friend up and taking his own life, then my trailer burning down. Not to mention all them folks getting killed back in New York City. "Don't forget, you're supposed to be catching 'em," I said, slipping her some twine over the fence.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Catch 'em around the neck."

She looped one piece over Dakota and passed her to me, then caught Snort and set the bucket down. He jerked his head up and back and the twine slipped free. Disappointment clouded her face as he backed up a step, but I caught his eye and shook my head. He was so ashamed that he had caused Lizzie any sort of discomfort that he stepped back up, still dangling the string around his neck to let her fasten it around him.

"What a good boy," she said, stroking his neck, and he lifted his head over her to grin broadly at me. I gave him a nod of approval.

I cinched the saddles on and she groaned as her sore ass hit the leather. We rode hard into the mountains, into the rough country where just being a tree was a struggle. It was cold up high. We were in thick jackets and leaned heavy on the warmth of the horses and the heat they gave off. Maybe it was the thin mountain air or the hunger I'd worked up from the ride, or maybe it was just that she looked so damn beautiful and vulnerable perched up on top of Dakota and looking solemnly out across the bony backs of the mountain peaks, but whatever it was I nudged Snort up close and took Lizzie's hand. She smiled and looked out into the emptiness below.

"My God, it's beautiful up here," she said. "All this granite and solitude." She swept her hand about us. "Reminds me of the church I used to go to with my mother. The Church of the Holy Trinity on 73rd. It was where my father's funeral was. I still go there. It's so quiet, so serene. It makes me feel like now, like I'm up high somewhere looking down."

Her words trailed off and it was then, listening to her, that those words which I'd found so hard to say before came right to me, and I realized they had been there all along. It hadn't been in my brain, but instead had been laying low in my heart, and now they come out of their own volition. "Listen, Lizzie. Look at me a minute, you need to know something. I love you."

"I know," she said. She sat silent in the saddle and looked down below. Finally she twisted around in the saddle. "What does that mean to you?"

That threw me for a loop. I hadn't never really thought about it that much. I always figured that love was just love, easy enough to recognize as such and what else needed to be said? I tried to figure out just what it did mean. "I dunno. A longing, I suspect.

A longing that don't never stop, even after you get what you want."

"Like maybe the way you love this place?" she said.

"Yeah, though I reckon I've taken it for granted. But if I ever had to leave, I'd still love it."

"That's the way you feel for me?"

"Yeah." That didn't seem like quite enough so I added, "Now that I have you here, I can't imagine you ever leaving, but when you do, I still, I don't know..."

"Finish it," she demanded.

"It's just that I don't think I'd ever get tired of being with you."

I took her hand and squeezed it and she squeezed back, and even though we was both wearing gloves it was like I could feel her heart beating all the way through. There wasn't much else to say, so I nudged Snort around and started back, heard her do the same to Dakota. We rode in silence, other than an occasional "watch out for that rock" or "mind that branch." Occasionally, I'd twist around to look at her, just marvelling at the sight of her in that oversized jacket with her hair down and blowing in the wind, all full of the setting sun and looking like something from the movies.

That night we spent in the cabin talked out from not saying nothing all afternoon. It got colder and a wind come up, bringing storm clouds full of lightning and grumbling thunder. "Looks like rain," I said as the first deluge hit like someone was standing outside throwing buckets of water at the window. Lightning lit up the dark and flashed in her eyes, revealing a love like I hadn't never believed in before but now seemed so natural. She smiled and, though it disappeared quick into the shadows, I knew she was seeing the same thing as I was. Even in the dark I could feel that smile. It was like her whole body was smiling and it got deep inside me and grew longer and harder and warmer as I pulled her close and felt the softness of her pressing into my chest, traced the curve of her hips and left my hands resting on either side of her waist. Her breath was sweet and she ran her fingers through what was left of my thinning hair, twining it this way and that.

In the roar of it, in the flash and crackle, we got lost a little ourselves. We made love, the two of us come together and hanging like the last leaf on a tree in the darkness. It was a love of no little sadness, a love that has to do with longing and the realization that it is not better to be alone, not stronger, nor freer, just more alone. That in fact we did need someone, desperately, daily, to make life even worth living at all. And that everything up to this point had been worthless, and between the two of us there had been a whole mess of worthless living. Afterwards, exhausted, I fought the urge to sleep as it is a well-known fact that women like to talk afterwards. "Goddamn," I said at last.

"What?" she asked sweetly.

"Nothing... just goddamn." And then I must have dozed off.

Rex sensed them first. I hadn't been asleep for all that very long when he got up agitated and stood by the door growling, his hackles up. Lizzie stirred and mumbled as he let out a bark.

"What is it, Tucker?"

"Probably nothing. Coyotes, I reckon. Rex, come lay down." His growls got deeper and he started to bark. "All right, all right.

I'm up. Go on out there if you want." I held the door open with one hand. Rain was striking so hard it bounced and the air was thick with it. Rex decided he didn't want out so bad after all but backed up instead, barking furiously. Lizzie set up and clutched the blanket around her.

"I can't see nothing," I said, peering out, then saw something dark slip sideways from shadow to deeper shadow down by the corral. I banged the door shut. "There's something out there."

"What?" Her eyes were wide and dark.

"Can't tell. By the way Rex is acting it could be a bear." Sounded reassuring but there wasn't no bear as tall and skinny as what I thought I'd seen moving. 'Course, in that downpour, it could've been an elephant dancing a jig and I wouldn't have seen it clear.

"Set tight. I better go take a look."

I pulled on some pants, stuck my feet down into my boots without socks and pulled on my battered old Stepson. Then I shouldered on a jacket and rummaged around in the saddlebags until I found my Colt python, a .357 with rosewood handles.

Lizzie watched wide-eyed from the bed as I checked the cylinder to see if it was loaded. "Think that's necessary?"

"Couldn't hurt," I said, slipping it into my waistband.

"Be careful."

I nodded. "C'mon, Rex." Reluctantly, he entered the downpour before me, hackles high and casting his head about. It was raining so hard I couldn't see two foot in front of me, just followed Rex and tried to keep my balance in the mud. The wind was howling, pushing the trees sideways and eventually we stopped and stood, me looking at him and him looking nervously back at me.

"What is it?" I hollered at him, his unease settling down into me enough to warrant pulling the pistol out and thumbing the hammer back. We slipped and staggered our way down toward the creek so I could check on the horses. Lightning flashed through the darkness and a shadow broke away from the fence.

"What the hell?" I broke into a run with Rex howling beside me. I couldn't see nothing of Snort or Dakota, though I could barely make out my own hand in front of me. I unlatched the gate and stepped through whistling for Snort, the wind carrying it away before it even left my lips. Rain was streaming down my face and I was cursing it, the darkness, and Snort for not answering, when I tripped over something hard like a log and went sprawling down to my knees.

Another flash of lightning tore across the sky and, with its brief illumination, I found myself looking right into the wide-open eye of Snort, laid out stiff and dead. It was his foreleg I'd fell over and his neck was dark and open where something had savaged the flesh away.

By the time thunder cracked behind the lightning, I was already up and running for the cabin, screaming at the top of my lungs for Lizzie to for God's sake lock the door, and then there was this man standing before me where a moment before had been only rain. He was soaked through, but smiling a cold and toothy smile. Rex lunged insane at him and I never even hesitated, just fired point blank into his chest, twice and twice again. The muzzle blast lit up his thin face and he staggered and went down to one knee, his bony hand spread across the wounds as I lunged past. Then he reached out before I was past and clamped his hand around my arm, spinning me back as easily as a child. He was still smiling and my mouth was hanging slack at the sight of this man with four holes through him now standing. He hit me so hard it took a second or two for me to realize how hurt I was and that blood was streaming from my nose and eyes and I was falling backwards. I lay in the mud, ears ringing, vaguely aware that there was more people around me and also that I had lost the pistol and that Rex was yelping in pain.

"Get her," a woman said, "and finish him. And someone shut that dog up."

I groaned involuntary as I was stood up. "You heard her," the one I'd shot whispered in my ear. "End of the line, Tex." His grip was like iron and his breath coppery and dry "Nothing personal." Behind him I saw lights flare up from inside the cabin and muffled shouts.

"Reckon not," I mumbled as I fished my folding knife out of my jacket pocket and opened it with numb fingers. He caught a hold of my neck with both hands and started to choke the very life out of me when I jammed the knife blade into him just above his belt, all three and a half inches of it, and yanked it plumb up to his breastbone. He squealed and punched me in the stomach so hard I felt ribs give way and flew backwards like a skipping stone, all arms and legs and losing consciousness. I stopped rolling at the edge of the creek and struggled up to my feet, took a step forward and fell again, this time sliding into the water and gone with one last, desperate call for Lizzie.

It was Rex that saved me. The creek must have carried me down a ways and might've kept me there until I was drowned or frozen or both. I come to with the sunrise on a little washout, Rex curled up on top of me trying to keep me warm, and mostly failing on account of he was so cold himself and shivering so hard I could feel his bones rattling into me. What I meant to say was thanks for saving my life, but what come out was, "Fer Chrissakes, you're gonna shake me to death," and I pushed him off.

Judging by the tracks in the wet sand, he'd tugged me up out of the water and it hadn't been easy. He licked at my face, happy.

I was alive and at the probability he would get a warm place to sleep and something to eat soon.

My ribs hurt something fierce and my head wasn't right on account of my nose being busted. Clawing at the frozen mud, I managed to stand unsteadily. I could see my breath and Rex's too as he cowered beneath me, bearing silent testimony to what had passed the night before. The sun come up over the mountains and in that orange and once-welcome light, I trembled and cried like a child. Eventually, there just wasn't nothing left in me except a numb and terrible rage. I found a branch thick as my arm and leaning on it hobbled up out of the mud and ice and toward the cabin. Past the corral and the frost-lined bodies of Snort and Dakota, I could see the cabin, its door hanging open.

I feared her dead. Laid out like the horses had been, her beautiful eyes open and an empty and accusing shine to them. But the cabin was empty, deserted and cold. The fire had long since gone out and its warmth was replaced by a sense of catastrophe, of a dark and terrible wrong made real. The chairs were overturned, clothes and supplies scattered across the floor, the mirror broken. I fell to my knees in the doorway and begged God she was all right, that somehow she had escaped into the woods and was hiding, cold but unharmed, and so I called for her until my throat was ragged and my ribs screamed out for me to stop. Then I thought of the man, the one I'd shot who hadn't died, and I knew she was gone and that I had failed her. She had come to me seeking safety, and I had failed her. Rex crawled his head into my lap and whined, giving voice to his own sense of failure, and I petted him like he was her and everything was all right.

"We gotta go, Rex. We gotta help her," I said at last. I pulled a blanket over my shoulders and hobbled out into the morning and the warm sun. It was going to be a hell of a walk. I saw the Colt glittering dully in the mud, cleaned and reloaded it, and stuck it in my pants, even though I was unconvinced it would do any good. The day I could no longer have faith in my Colt was a day I never seen coming.

I stood by the corral and looked out over it where Snort lay, looking soft and sleepy in the sun, but dead just the same. We may not have always seen eye to eye, but there wasn't no better horse I knowed of, and now he was dead and it too was my fault.

There was a gaunt look to him as most of his blood had poured out of his ripped throat and washed away with the rain.

Dakota's too. I sat down and held Snort's head in my lap. His hair was dried and stiff, like the flesh beneath. I told him how sorry I was and how I hoped he was in a better place where it was always sunny and the mountains was made out of rolled oats.

And how, with any luck, maybe Dakota was there too and maybe they'd give Snort his balls back at the door and he could spend all eternity raising kids and eating and I promised I'd come visit soon as I was able and he could even ride me for a while.

Plus, I took back all the bad things I'd ever said to him and all the times I'd threatened him with the Alpo factory. Then I told him I wished I could bury him, but seeing as how he was already dead and how fond he'd been of Lizzie, I figured I'd better see about her, but that I would come back in time to bury him proper. Lastly I swore a solemn oath to avenge him. Then I said goodbye.

The way back was not easy. I'm not accustomed to walking in the first place, and especially not with cracked ribs, a busted head, and almost frostbit. The plus side was that, being as mad as I was, it was easy enough to forget about the pain, except for the two or three times I near blacked out and had to kneel in the road until it passed.

By nightfall, I was limping down the drive to Dad's house with my head down and barely able to lift my feet. In that condition it took me a minute to realize that Rex was growling that awful growl again and casting his head from side to side and that Dad's door was standing wide open.

"Dad?" There was a sinking feeling in my heart and stomach. I pulled the Colt free of my pants, although it felt small and useless in my hand.

"Dad?" I stepped through, dropping the blanket off my shoulders. The inside was turned upside down, like the cabin had been, only worse. Dishes broke, clothes scattered, the John Wayne poster lying torn on the floor. I flipped on the light, set my jaw, and held the pistol out in front of me. There was the remains of a fire glowing in the fireplace, which led me to believe that Dad had been here recent and made me fear for him the more.

"Didn't learn your lesson the first time, Tex?" I couldn't see nothing and then he was standing beside me and plucking the gun out of my hand as easy as picking cotton. Then he sent me spinning across the floor with one careless jerk of his arm and into the kitchen wall where I crashed with a groan. "I thought I'd killed you. Oh well, I love loose ends."

"Here we go again," I said. He was standing over me like a pale and stunted oak tree.

"Shouldn't have cut me, Tex," he said, "that hurt."

"Real sorry 'bout that, you ugly son of a bitch."

"You will be," he said, "because I can make this last all night." He lifted me to my feet with one hand and held me suspended.

"Where's Lizzie?" I choked out.

"She's no longer your concern, cowboy," he said, and I knew that meant she was still alive.

"Where's Dad?"

"Your father? We'll find him soon enough." Any sort of relief I might have felt quickly disappeared as he tossed me over the kitchen table. Landing on the counter with a crash, I balanced momentarily there on the edge before falling to the floor, tangled up with a toaster and the coffee pot. "Time to see some blood, Tex." He squatted down over me with a leer. I kicked feebly at him as he reached out toward me.

There was a ratcheting sound of well-machined metal on metal, then a flash and a roar, and his grin disappeared in a mist of teeth and rotten flesh turned to vapor. Surprise and pain filled his eyes and he spun around to face Dad, who was leaning through the doorway trying to decide if he should shoot again as he steadied his .454 against the frame. The .454 Casull is the largest handgun in the world, next to which Dirty Harry's magnum ain't much more than a pop-gun. As such, it ain't particularly easy on the shooter, which is why Dad was hoping maybe one shot was enough. But already my jawless friend was gathering himself to jump and I hollered, "For God's sake, Dad, shoot him again, shoot him again!"

Dad grimaced and squeezed off another round that caught Pale and Ugly right below his breast pocket and knocked him up against the fridge looking down at a hole in his chest big enough to see right through to a picture of a six-point elk Dad had cut out of a hunting magazine and scotch-taped on the wall. That dead son of a bitch still wasn't dead though, only sorely inconvenienced and mighty pissed.

During the ruckus, I crabbed out of the kitchen and was now hunched down near the fire. I grabbed hold of a log end burned down to a point of glowing embers, and as he stood there dripping slime and wordless invectives, I thrust it as hard as I could into the hole that Dad had shot through him.

He clawed at the air and rolled his eyes and squealed a horrible squeal, and then the fire seemed to catch inside him and he went up like with a whoosh and a roar last year's Christmas tree, and there was nothing left but ashes and an awful smell of burnt toast.

"Goddamn," Dad said as he massaged his shooting wrist, "those city folks sure take their own sweet time a-dying."

JACKSON AIRPORT

October 8, 2001, 11:15 P.M.

The plane lurched violently as it sped down the runway, as if uncomfortable with its cargo. Elita grimaced in spite of herself, checking her watch. "We are running half an hour behind schedule." Neither of her companions spoke. She drummed her finger on the armrest. "I said," she raised her voice, "we are running half an hour late."

"We'll make it," one of them said.

"We'd better," she said icily, turning to stare out the window at the darkness rushing by. "I am not particularly anxious to welcome in the dawn from ten thousand feet." She slipped a pack of cigarettes from her breast pocket. "God, I hate flying." She lit up a cigarette and clove smoke filled the cabin. "It seems I have forgotten your name. Again."

"David, Miss Elita. I am David."

"David, I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible for our delay."

"We should make it to LaGuardia by five, and Julius will be waiting. The sun won't be up for another hour. It will be fine, Miss Elita. Don't worry."

She swung her head around. "Make no mistake, I do not worry. I have not lived for three thousand years by worrying. I am a realist. We are late. Much later, and the sun will come up and we shall be stuck in our coffins inside the plane until night returns, during which time we are at the mercy of the unknown, including," she pointed a slender finger at Lizzie slumped in the back seat, handcuffs tight around her wrists, "our Queen." Her sarcasm chilled the air.

"But at least we have her," David said. "Julius will be pleased."

"His little helpers have done well." Either they missed the mockery of her tone or thought it best to ignore it.

They sat in silence as the minutes ticked by with the rushing of night air against the plane's thin hull. Eventually, the two men reached into a stainless steel container between them and withdrew plastic pouches of blood held at body temperature. The bags looked like individually packaged juices made for children's school lunch boxes. They used their teeth to puncture them and fed, slurping greedily. The crimson liquid spilled out, trickling over their lips. Across the way Elita could feel the surge of life flaring inside them and was momentarily tempted herself.

David raised a fresh bag and offered it to her. She smiled thinly and arched an eyebrow "No, thanks, I'm trying to cut down on between-meal snacks." Her mind turned to Desard, gratefully blocking out the gluttony displayed before her. She had been unwilling to leave him behind in such unfamiliar territory, but he had insisted. Julius had said he wanted no loose ends, but she suspected Desard wished to even the score with the cowboy making him suffer if he somehow was miraculously still alive.

Chances were slim, but they had found neither his body nor any sign of that wretched dog.

Desard had been turned in the early part of the seventeenth century, not by Julius but by his long-time rival Lazarus. It had taken very little for Elita to tempt him away into the camp of Julius. In all honesty, she had seduced him almost as much for herself as for her master. There was an immediate attraction, but still she toyed with him for nearly a century, playing hard to get and keeping him at arm's length. When it seemed he could stand it no longer, she had given in to him, taken him as a lover. Theirs had been a brief but tempestuous relationship. After a mere forty years of sensual, blood-drenched passion, they had found one another incompatible for continued intimacy.

They remained very close, however, and leaving him in such a fashion unsettled her. He was prone to overzealousness and had such an utter lack of respect for Adamites. In one sense, of course, she wholeheartedly agreed with him. It is, after all, quite challenging to respect a food source. She continually cautioned Desard that this particular food source had brains, albeit limited, and well-sharpened stakes. Although they were frail, Elita had been forced to conclude over the centuries that an occasional Adamite or two had been extremely cunning and vicious. Luckily, she thought, by and large they tended to focus it on one another.

"She's coming to," David said. Lizzie, Queen-to-be, stirred in her chair, still unconscious, but straining against her manacles.

Elita stood up, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray She crossed to the agitated woman and stooped down. Taking Lizzie's face in her hand, she bent close enough to smell the sweet scent of fear and distress still caked to her skin. As she watched the pulse flicker in Lizzie's neck, Elita felt the hunger seize her and brushed her lips lightly across the exposed softness of her captive's throat. Her lips grazed almost imperceptibly against the skin and she fought the urge to rip her open and drain the life from her, ending the games forever. Her entire body echoed this desire, her cells responding in kind, unwinding and reaching out in unison for the life pulse of Lizzie. Julius' stern face swam into view, loomed in her mind, and fearful of his wrath, she reached inside and found the strength to kill the hunger, to turn it off. Pulling back, she looked upon Lizzie's face. So soft, so delicate. So fresh. Her hand lingered on Lizzie's cheek for an instant, and the life in it transferred warmth to her icy hand. "Prepare another syringe," she said, turning.

David retrieved a black leather case from his suit coat. He pushed Lizzie's sleeve up and, though satiated from the packaged blood, still gazed longingly at the vein in the crook of her arm as he slid the syringe in. Soon this will not be a problem, Elita thought, watching. Soon, she will no longer be a temptation, but a temptress instead.