The Winslow Incident

PART TWO


TRAPPED. TRAPPED LIKE RATS AND LEFT TO DIE.

—Kohl Thacker





TUESDAY SUNDOWN

DON’T LOOK

Don’t look at it. Don’t look. Zachary Rhone careened down the hallway on the second floor of his house. The light in the hall was strange—a thick amber.

It’s so hot. I can’t breathe. His hand went to his throat and he struggled for air. Is the house on fire? he panicked.

No, he realized and his throat reopened. The sun is going down.

The prospect of another dark night filled him with dread. He had not slept in days, and he didn’t want to go through the long night alone.

Except there’s him, he remembered but wished he hadn’t. He’s worse than alone. Why won’t he stay across the creek where he belongs?

Losing his balance, Zachary smashed hard into the wall with his left shoulder. Plaster buckled. He barely registered the pain—every muscle in his body ached already. Deep. His bones were sore.

“Where am I?” he asked the wall. “What am I doing here?”

He spied something out of the corner of one eye. Don’t look.

Standing in the bathroom doorway, he stared at the tub where his daughters always took their baths, their red hair tucked into polka-dot shower caps because Melanie didn’t like the girls going to bed with wet heads.

All at once he remembered. Looking for her. That’s what I’m doing here.

“Melanie?” he whispered.

Then he stood, uncertain, listening to his own rapid breathing.

“Melanie!” he yelled at the house, only to watch his shout bounce against the tile.

“Don’t look at it,” he said.

His voice sounded like his own and he found comfort in that. Maybe he hadn’t followed him in here after all. But then Zachary was standing at the sink, the porcelain ice cold beneath his hands. He gazed into the mirror on the medicine cabinet. And there he was.

“Who are you?” The man in the mirror had tried everything to look like Zachary: same crew cut, same sharp jaw, same muddy eyes. “Why are you following me?”

Me. Zachary blinked hard. The apple doesn’t fall—

There was no time to think about him right now. He pivoted away from the bastard in the mirror. He needed to find his wife.

I don’t want to look at it.

But then he couldn’t stop himself.

He looked.

At the blood.

At the blood on the wall and the floor of the bathroom . . . bloody handprints on floral wallpaper, bloody footprints on white tile. When he staggered out to the hallway he saw the blood there too: smears of it along the wainscot rail, drips of it on the scuffed hardwood floors. Everywhere he looked, he saw red stains.

Standing at the top of the staircase, he howled, “Where is my wife? Where are my daughters?” His despair was profound, running as deep as his aching marrow.

Zachary looked down at his hands and slowly turned up his palms. Blood. These aren’t my hands. Red, dirty, crusty under the nails hands.

He realized he was crying, animal sounds coming from his throat, tears and sweat dripping off his cheeks. And he smelled himself—foul like an animal too.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

His eyes went to his feet: red splashes up and over his ankles as if he’d stepped in a pool of it. Stop looking!

He took the stairs down two and three at a time, marveling at his agility. After he crashed to a stop at the bottom of the staircase he bent at the side to peer cautiously into the living room. Nobody. But more red prints led toward the kitchen, the back porch, the rear yard.

“A killer on the loose,” Zachary murmured. “A maniac.”

He felt himself disassociate then, the foreboding so powerful he could no longer bear to be present in this moment, in this situation.

Bolting the opposite direction of the trail of blood, he tore out of the house and raced across the yard past the bakery, feeling him just on his heels, feeling his stale breath on the back of his neck. And Zachary did not stop running until he reached the cover of the apple orchard, where the trees sprouted no blossoms and bore no fruit.

I‘ll stay here. He spun in a slow circle, watching the surrounding trees turn dark against the dusk. He’ll never follow me here.

To the nearing night Zachary Rhone pled, “Please let the bear get him first.”





THE DEEP POND

Sean Adair held his hands before his eyes and watched as fresh tremors seized them. Spasms had racked nearly every part of his body by now. Making tight fists to stop the trembling, he raised his eyes and refocused.

The world was a solid blind of orange, which made it tricky to differentiate between objects. Except for the crosses, lined stark on the rise against the deepening sky.

Though he had no memory of how he’d gotten here, he knew where he was: the Winslow family graveyard on the eastern slope of the hotel grounds, nearly overgrown with brambly bushes. The blackberries smelled overripe.

Despite its low-slung position the sun continued its assault. I’m dried out, Sean realized. His lips were cracked and his tongue felt rough. Gazing at the pond at the base of the boneyard, he weighed the wisdom of taking a drink. Could I feel any worse?

Not likely, he decided, and went to the edge of the pond.

Sean leaned down and scooped up a handful of warm, murky water, sending soft ripples across the pond. Cupping his hand to his mouth, he drank, relieving his parched throat. He reached for more—only to snatch back his hand when he noticed long black hair floating a foot below the surface. Enthralled, he watched the hair sway and fan out in the water.

He stepped away. “Just walk away,” he told himself.

Instead, Sean picked up a fat stick and crept back to the water’s edge. Against his better judgment, he bent forward and poked at the hair, upsetting the surface of the pond with a sound like falling leaves, creating small whitecaps on a miniature ocean. Then, working his stick beneath the mushroom of hair, he pulled up.

“Patience?” His voice revealed his sudden, sure dread.

A face rose slowly to the surface—a lovely, pale face.

“Holy shit.” Sean felt instantly paralyzed. His heart stopped beating and his mind screamed, Don’t fall in!

Her arm shot out of the pond, white and slippery, reaching for him, trying to pull him down into the dark water with her.

Sean fell onto his back, still gripping the stick, and the arm bone landed on his bare chest with a smack while the wet hair draped over his belly. He struggled to claw the hair off but the strands clung tight. Mud-thick revulsion poured through him and his skin crawled wherever she was touching him.

He screamed and scrambled up, finally figuring out that these horrors were attached to his stick. So he flung it. Neither bone nor hair, he could see now. Just a harmless sapling with dangling roots. It smacked into Ruby Winslow’s headstone and slid down, coming to rest in a tangle with the blackberries.

“Damn . . .” Sean glanced down to see if his heart really had exploded out of his chest or if it only felt that way.

He walked over and kicked the pale sapling away from the marble grave marker, then he read the epitaph.

RUBY WARING WINSLOW

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

NOT A THING WE COULD DO

’TWAS THE SPANISH FLU

1918

Nearly hidden in the weeds, a shorter headstone stood several feet away. Curious since he’d never noticed the grave before, he went over and smashed down brambles with his foot and brushed away dirt, the granite grainy and cool to his touch.

His blood turned to ice when he saw the inscription.

H. S. WINSLOW

No, he thought.

BORN 1993 / DIED 2010

No. He backed away, refusing to believe. Until he read the final line.

OUR PRECIOUS HAZEL

No No No No No. His lungs clamped shut so tightly he was certain he’d never breathe again.

Dying flowers lay at the base of her headstone. Ugly pink carnations. Hazel would hate those, he thought. Hate them.

When he turned to run he stumbled over a mound of dirt and fell into freshly turned soil, his face inches from another engraved granite stone.

AARON SAMUEL ADAIR

APRIL 2003 ~ JULY 2010

SLEEP LITTLE LAMB

“Oh, no.” Sean shook his head violently. The mound was so small, so pathetically small. He pushed himself up and away from the headstone.

Turning his back on the graves, desperate to forget he’d ever seen these horrors, he pounded his thighs with his fists. “Wake up! Wake up!”

Only he wasn’t asleep.

He kicked at brush and rocks, stirring up stickers and dirt. “I should’ve told Zachary. I should’ve told him, ‘Screw your bacony breakfast and come take a look at this right now!’”

Sean glanced back at the headstones. “I didn’t know,” he explained. “How could I have known?” Remorse flooded him and he sank to his knees, drowning in it.

When a man cleared his throat, Sean lifted his head to find his uncle standing before him.

“What’s got you so down, kid?” Uncle Jim asked, holding a bottle of whiskey by the neck just like he always had up until it’d killed him.





LUCKY CHARMS

Dogs are death. That Irish setter puppy showed up in town only one day before Patience’s grandmother died. Nobody knew where he came from, and then her Gram was gone. But the dog stayed. Dogs are omens of death. And Jinx is Hazel Winslow’s familiar.

“She’s a bad girl, Patience,” Gram Lottie said, “who plays games with people’s lives.”

“No,” Patience disagreed, at the same time wondering if it might be true. And she wished the spiders would stop crawling on her, pricking her skin with the tips of their spindly legs. For hours she’d been sitting with Gram Lottie on the piano bench, their fingers poised but silent on the ivory keys. The charms hanging from Patience’s bracelet clicked against the honey-colored wood each time her hand shook. “No,” she repeated. “That’s not true, it isn’t.” She reached out to touch Lottie, her grandmother’s skin so dry it brushed away like powder beneath her fingertips.

“You told my fortune,” Lottie spoke without breath, without warmth, without words. “You knew what was about to happen to me. And now you know what is going to happen next.”

“It’s not true.” She refused to face Lottie now; her Gram would know Hazel had hurt her, would see the shame branded onto her cheek. Instead, she began to play her part of the duet and Lottie joined in at once and the music was beautiful, so beautiful, that she never wanted the song to end. When it did Patience said, “Let’s play it again.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Startled, Patience swiveled on the bench. She hadn’t heard her grandfather come into the parlor and didn’t understand his question.

“Who are you talking to?” Ben Mathers repeated. He wore a mask over his mouth, goggles over his eyes, a cap on his head, gloves on his hands.

He looked silly but even as she smiled at him, her stomach churned with trepidation. “Why do you have all that stuff on, Gramps?”

When she stood up from the piano bench he yelled, “Keep back! Close enough!”

“Why?” Patience felt crushed. Nobody cared about her. Not her parents, not her grandfather, not Hazel—especially not her. Like sisters, Patience had always thought. Until Hazel slapped her.

Cocking his head at her, he asked, “Why the devil are you wearing that get-up?” The mask made it sound as though Gramps Ben was actually in the next room. “You march home, Patience Charlotte, and get yourself cleaned up.”

She glanced at the outfit she’d changed into earlier, humiliation burning her face.

“And who were you talking to?” he murmured through the mask.

Why did he keep asking that question? Couldn’t he see? “Gram . . .” She gestured to where Lottie sat sideways on the piano bench, watching them with keen interest.

His eyes looked surprised behind his goggles. Then he backed farther away. “Patience, dear, listen. Your grandmother passed on. It’s been five years. Don’t you remember?”

Patience shook her head hard, deflecting his words away from her.

“The Winslows killed her. You remember that, don’t you?”

Yes, Patience thought but refused to say it out loud.

“That place is vile.” His mask twisted on the last word.

She glanced down at her charm bracelet, at the gold horseshoe Hazel gave to her on her sixteenth birthday, and at the four-leaf clover Hazel had given to her not long after her Gram Lottie died.

Then Gramps Ben said, “The Winslows mean this town harm, dear. Ruinous harm.”

I told her! Patience’s heart clenched painfully tight. Didn’t she tell Hazel something really bad was about to happen? Madame Marcelle knew. I knew. Why doesn’t anybody ever listen to me? Hazel should’ve never let Tanner break that mirror. And she didn’t even help me take the pieces of broken glass outside to bury them in the moonlight. Why didn’t she help me?

More baby spiders hatched beneath her skin; the pinching increased. “Gramps,” she tried to steel herself, “is Hawkin Rhone back?”





DEAD HORSE POINT

You. Are. The sheriff. You. Are. In charge here.

Nate Winslow paced along the precipice at Dead Horse Point. He strode ten feet, stopped, then turned back the opposite direction. When he lost his footing, dirt and pebbles cascaded down the side of the cliff until he recovered his balance and resumed pacing.

You’re weak, he berated himself. Weak and not performing your duty.

Peering directly into the brilliant sun setting across the canyon, his gaze landed on the truss bridge. He blinked to erase the glare spots from his eyes . . . to clear his vision so he could see the bridge, so he could see what was happening down there.

Nobody’s coming. He took a long, faltering breath.

Then his scalp crawled. Something was watching him.

His pulse burst wild as he whirled to face the woods at his back.

Nothing but trees. Incredibly tall trees. Even the young bristlecone pines towered, growing fast and skinny, reaching for their share of sunshine. He felt incredibly small.

Nate turned to look out over the canyon again, swaying at its edge, the Lamprey River rushing by below. It’d be better if he just fell over the side, he realized. Then it’d all be over. For he was certain his incessant retching had by now ripped open his stomach to leak its noxious contents and pollute the rest of his body. He felt as though his every cell had been injected with poison.

He wondered when he’d feel better. If he’d feel better.

He wondered if he was thinking straight at all.

He wondered if he’d completely lost his mind.

He thought of his daughter Hazel, a tough girl but still only a girl, with a dusting of freckles and delicate features, and bright eyes that were all Anabel Holloway. Nate hoped Sean and Hazel were looking out for each other. Despite some occasional undesirable behavior, Sean was a good kid. And even though Hazel sometimes came home red-eyed from drinking and what else Nate didn’t want to know, at least she’d never come home pregnant.

He wished his wife were here to help him worry through these things. What did he know about a seventeen-year-old girl? Anabel was the only girl he ever really knew—thought he knew—and now this one was enough like her to scare the hell out of him.

He’d given up looking for his wife a long time ago. Why look for somebody who doesn’t want to be found? It’d finally dawned on him like a cold slap to the face what a fool he’d been making of himself in front of his fellow lawmen whom he’d enlisted in the search, in front of his townspeople, in front of his daughter.

Now he thought too about his mother Sarah and the rest of the townsfolk. If he felt this bad, might others be even worse? If they were, they would be vulnerable. They would need him to protect them. It’s all up to you. If you don’t do something, people are going to get hurt.

“Pull yourself together!” He shook his head to try and clear it and in answer to his voice something stirred in the woods behind him.

Again he spun to confront it, drawing his revolver this time, and his boot heels sank into the loose dirt at the edge. Only vaguely did he register that he was about to tumble backwards over the side of the cliff. He threw his weight forward by dropping to one knee and then he scrambled back up to take aim at the rustling.

After he fired off a round without consciously pulling the trigger, the sound of cracking branches and fleet footfalls over dry pine needles confirmed the creature’s presence. Visually tracking its movement between the trees, Nate refused to get any closer.

Refused because the smell coming from the woods horrified him: it was the scent of monster, of thick dank fur and hot rapacious mouths with long tongues.

Pulse quickening, he chastised himself for being so frightened. It’s only a wolf—and you’re the one with the Smith & Wesson. He looked down at his shaking hand. Suddenly the revolver felt burning hot, searing his palm, and he dropped the gun to the dirt with a dull thud and a splash of dust. And just as suddenly, he could not possibly have been any more disgusted with himself, disgusted with the worry and the weakness, with the debilitating fear.

Stooping, he picked up the revolver. The grip wasn’t hot; it was never hot.

That was when the brown dog burst from the woods.

On muscular legs the chocolate Lab raced toward him where he teetered on the rim of the canyon. If he didn’t move she’d plow him backward over the edge. If he did, she’d continue over by herself. He decided to make a stand because it was the Peabody’s dog Molly. A sweet dog.

Only she didn’t look sweet when she came to a stop in the dirt eight feet away from Nate. Teeth bared, she growled low and deep.

“What’s the matter, girl?” Offering her his left hand, he held the gun tight in his right.

The dog whined and for a moment Nate thought it was going to be okay but then she snapped her head and jerked her body around as if she’d been bitten on her back. She darted away, yelping and leaping into the air and twisting again, before racing back Nate’s direction.

“What is it? What is it?” He could do nothing but watch helplessly as she ran in frenzied circles.

Abruptly Molly dropped into the weeds and Nate saw her struggling to get back up but her legs seemed to have given out on her.

He stepped slowly to where she lay, cautious not to startle her further, trying to reassure her. “It’s all right, girl.”

But as he got closer he heard her chewing, heard her biting on something hard, making loud crunching and grinding sounds. When he reached Molly he saw what was in her mouth.

A rock. She was gnawing on a fist-sized rock and her mouth was covered in blood and her teeth were cracking and falling into the dirt.

Nate took careful aim. One well-placed shot to the head.

Then he turned away from Dead Horse Point and marched resolutely in the direction of town. I’ll go back in. I’ll face what needs to be faced.





WORSE, MUCH WORSE

“Damn those Winslows!” Dread stuck snugly in Ben Mathers’ craw. He wished that Patience could be right, that Lottie really were here, because Lottie always knew how to ease his tangled mind. Ben was convinced that if Sarah Winslow’s appetizer hadn’t killed his wife, she would have found another way. He leaned over the steering wheel and through his goggles glared at The Winslow perched contemptuously on the hill, lording over the whole town.

He shook his head, reminding himself, I warned her, didn’t I?

He shifted his focus back to the road. Prospect Park passed by on his left, the buildings of Civic Street on the right. He peered intently straight ahead. No longer accustomed to driving the Valiant, it required his full concentration. There hadn’t been reason to go anywhere lately. For years, really. Not since Lottie was murdered. Bitterness twisted his gut. “I warned her.”

But she hadn’t listened. Now, not only were things worse, things were much worse. Fire at Holloway Ranch, his granddaughter suffering delirium, people beyond themselves—

A couple holding hands stepped out into the street in front of him. Ben slammed the brake pedal to the floor and the Valiant jerked to a stop. They were, he realized, buff-bare as the day they were born. But these were no babies.

When the man made a move toward the Valiant as if coming over to share something, Ben yelled, “Stay away from me! Keep away!”

The man (who looked a lot like Bowen Marsh only Bo had been gone for awhile) held up his bare arms as if to say, Okay, take it easy. Then he retook the woman’s hand and the pair finished crossing the street into the park.

Ben yanked down his mask to call after them, “Put on some clothes for decency’s sake!”

He shook his head again. Much worse.

The sun was setting over the Lamprey River canyon, and he recalled the July when they were just boys and Bo Marsh and Randall Winslow and Hawkin Rhone hiked with Ben into the woods beyond Ruby Creek. It wasn’t dark when they set out. That was later. When he was trying to find his way back. When he was trying to swallow the panic. When the night was choking up all around and the day was sneaking away from Ben just as stealthy and mean as the other boys had when they ditched him. He’d been lost for hours, way past terror by the time he finally came upon The Winslow. If his father had been around to teach him about things, he would’ve never let himself get tricked like that. Ben Mathers learned that day not to trust just anyone.

Now no one could be trusted, not even his Patience. When he’d looked at his cherished granddaughter’s face he could see the sickness raging beneath her skin and behind her eyes.

As for Ben, he refused to get sick. Somebody had to keep a handle on things and Nathan Winslow certainly wasn’t around. Some sheriff he turned out to be. The minute a real crisis hits the sonofabitch is nowhere to be found.

That definitely did not help the nervous roiling in Ben’s belly.

He dared another peek at the hotel. I warned her, didn’t I?

Up ahead a pair of cowboys on horseback crossed the street and rode into the park. Ben didn’t know what Pard Holloway might be up to but had no cause to trust him either and decided to steer clear. There was a menace to the cowhands even under normal circumstances. They carried guns.

Should I just leave? Should I just keep driving? Ben suddenly wondered, surprised that the idea hadn’t occurred to him before then.

No, he decided and straightened up behind the wheel. This is my town now.

He realized he’d drifted over to the wrong side of the road and yanked the steering wheel hard right. Overcorrecting, he sent the Valiant smashing into a parked pick-up.

The jolt and noise were extraordinary.

For a stunned moment, Ben sat motionless. Then a smile formed on his lips.

He backed up his car at a diagonal to the Chevy and sat idling. Squinting through the sunset, he contemplated the dented truck bed. Then he glanced around. Had anybody seen? If the cowboys had heard, they obviously didn’t care for the street remained deserted.

Gunning it, he slammed into the truck again, collapsing the driver’s door into the cab of the Chevy with a scream of metal and a hail of glass. The impact was astounding and the Valiant’s engine abruptly died. The old man slammed both gloved hands against his steering wheel in a confusion of triumph and frustration.

Then, belly shaking and tears welling in his eyes, Ben Mathers laughed.





PROSPECT PARK

Pard Holloway wiped the sweat from his face with a bandanna. It smelled of horse. He liked that smell. He got along better with horses than people and didn’t suppose there was much wrong with that.

Tugging the reins, he turned Blackjack left onto Ruby Road, glad to leave The Winslow behind. They’ll be okay, he told himself. Just need to buck the hell up, is all. Lord knew he’d already sacrificed. A hundred head of cattle worth of sacrifice. And since he was starting to suspect that his initial gut instinct had been right along and that his animals had been poisoned, that sacrifice might prove to be a complete waste. But one thing was for damn certain: no one was leaving Winslow until he found out exactly how this happened—and why.

Pard shook his head, fighting the persistent notion that townsfolk’s wild paranoia and half-cocked speculating were affecting him more than he cared to admit. Maybe this madness really is contagious, he thought.

He peered up the street, wondering where the crash ’em up derby he’d heard while he was up at the hotel had taken place, but he didn’t see any wrecked cars along Ruby Road.

As they continued into the park, Pard found Blackjack’s steady gait reassuring. Pard wanted to believe he had everything under control, yet he had his doubts. For one thing he still couldn’t find Doc Simmons. Or his nephew. Or the sheriff.

At least that bastard sun was finally going down, blanketing the town in pleasing orange light. He let himself think then that everything would be fine. That it would all be over soon. We’ll wind up this sorry business and get back to the way things were.

With no interest in ranching, the rest of the Holloway clan had left the mountainside and were now scattered around the state—around the country, for all he knew. And his niece Hazel had as much intent to stick around Winslow as a bucket of ice at a Fourth of July picnic. So childless himself, Pard hadn’t planned on having anybody to pass it all on to. Except now there was this kid—this smart-ass, skinny, annoys-the-hell-outta-me kid. If he could somehow whip Tanner into shape . . . but he had serious doubts. He hadn’t meant for his nephew to get hurt at the rodeo Saturday. If only Tanner had held on like he’d told him to do. Clearly Pard would not be making a buckaroo out of that boy anytime soon.

When he rode into Prospect Park he came upon Hap Hotchkiss pushing his lawnmower under the monkey bars. Out of gas, apparently, since the motor was silent. Hap, hunched over the mower handle and sweating like a horse thief, nodded slightly as Pard passed.

Have to send a man out here to take care of him, Pard thought. It was getting damn hard to keep track—

“Keep up the good work, Hotchkiss!” Jay Marsh ran by, bare-ass unshucked.

Pard watched Jay scurry out of the playground to the duck pond, where half a dozen people had congregated. Some were sprawled beneath the shady oak while others sat on the low wall surrounding the pond. No one spoke when Pard rode up.

“You folks know we got quarantine on, don’t you?” he said.

Nobody answered; few even looked at him.

“That means you’re picking yourselves up and going home.”

Nobody moved. That included the two ducks floating dead in the pond.

“That means now.” The end of his patience was very near. He had enough problems at the ranch, didn’t need more nonsense in town.

Jay had joined Julie Marsh (also unshucked from muzzle to switch) where she sat in the shallow water. Pard dismounted Blackjack and walked to the edge of the pond.

“It’s hot,” Jay informed him.

This was really too damn much. Pard put one foot up on the low wall and leaned in. “Get out of that water, get some clothes on, and get yourselves home.”

“We’re not bothering anybody,” Jay said.

“You’re bothering me. Get the hell out of there!”

Reluctantly the Marshes stood while Pard turned to address the others. “If you’ll just do as I say, you’ll all be fine.”

“Your cattle weren’t fine,” Jay said from behind him. “You planning to firebomb us too?”

Pard reeled around and punched him just below the eye, and Pard thought he felt the man’s cheekbone give way beneath his fist. Wearing a look of pure astonishment, Jay was flung flat on his back into the pond. And when he sat up, blood-sullied water cascaded from his nose. Looked a lot worse than it actually was, Pard speculated.

Julie’s mouth opened wide, though nothing came out. At first. Then an angry screech split the dusky air just as Pard turned his back.

“This is about damage containment,” he told the rest of them. He strode back to Blackjack and swung himself up onto the horse’s back. “And we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”

He jerked the reins to turn his horse around and then rode out of Prospect Park to the accompaniment of Julie Marsh’s furious sobs.

Pard had had enough. Why won’t they just cooperate? he thought. For their own damn good. He’d send his men to take care of these people, to clean up this mess. Once they were done at the bridge.





THE BRIDGE

Tanner Holloway wasn’t sure how it would all play out, but the idea of riding off into the sunset sounded pretty good. And he didn’t know what he’d do once the sun went all the way down and he was stuck on the pass in the dark. That didn’t matter yet. Getting out was all that mattered.

For now, that orange ball of misery was shining right in his eyes as he rode the Kawasaki toward the bridge. Whenever he blinked, sweat dripped off his eyelashes.

Of course it’d been bullshit about taking Hazel to her mother. He had no clue where Anabel Holloway might be. But it’d almost worked. She bit hard; he saw it in her eyes. Then he’d watched as she’d struggled with her desire to go running to mommy versus her guilty need to stay and make up for being such a disloyal bitch to Sean Adair. Poor dumb bastard. At least Tanner had been able to set him straight about her. Sean and Patience both. Poor dumb Patience.

It’d also been bullshit about not telling anybody in Stepstone what was happening up here so Sean wouldn’t get busted. It was so he wouldn’t get in trouble. Pard would kill Tanner—douse him with fuel and toss him in the trench—if he were the reason any of this got out.

Who cares anyway? he thought. I’m so outta here. His parents would have to take him back in. It wasn’t his fault the whole thing turned to shit. For once, it really wasn’t his fault.

Wondering how much gas he had left in the bike, Tanner glanced down at the tank as he crested the last hill before the bridge. What he saw when he looked up again shocked him.

It’s too late.

His heart sank. Too late to cross the bridge, too late even to turn around because the ranch hands were all looking at him with a lot of interest. Rifles at the ready, six men and one woman stood in front of trucks parked across the near end of the bridge, blocking off both incoming and outgoing traffic.

As Tanner puttered downhill toward the mouth of the bridge he told himself, Act like you meant to be here.

When he came to a stop before her, Maggie Clark asked, “Where you headed, kid?”

Kenny Clark stood next to her in his stone-washed jeans and his lariat belt buckle. He unrolled a soft pack from the sleeve of his t-shirt and shook out a cigarette. “Yeah, where you headed on my bike?”

Jack-off, Tanner didn’t have the guts to say out loud.

Tanner cut the engine and got off the motorcycle, thinking, Damn, my leg hurts. It felt swollen, and it crackled when he put his weight on it. Crackled. Damn.

To Maggie, Tanner said, “Uncle Pard wants me to help stand guard.”

“I doubt that.” She started to say more but then abruptly brushed past him, moving up to the road along with the other suddenly mobilized cowhands.

Tanner turned to see a station wagon lurching downhill toward the bridge, alternating between too much accelerator and too much brake. Tanner figured the driver must be seriously wasted.

The ranch hands leapt out of the way just as the car weaved dangerously close to the guardrail. In a squelch of tires the car jerked to a stop two feet short of the barricade.

Now Tanner recognized the driver: that tall, skinny kid with the lame black Mohawk. James Bolinger, he remembered. Obviously this was his first time behind the wheel.

The kid rolled up his window quick while a woman in the passenger’s seat smiled pleasantly at the cowhands closing in on the station wagon, as if they were bringing her a root beer float.

Maggie tapped the driver’s window with her rifle. “Turn it around.”

James cranked the window back down. “But it’s the only way out.”

“Nobody leaves,” Maggie said.

“Says who?” James asked.

“Sheriff. Town’s under quarantine. We can’t let you infect the whole valley.”

“I’m not sick,” James said, even as his face took on a guilty expression. Then he mumbled, “Not really.”

“Not yet.” Maggie gestured with her rifle. “What about her?”

The woman had gotten out of the car and was heading for the bridge railing.

“Mom!” James yelled. “Get back here!”

She leaned over the rail to peer down at the river. “It’s so beautiful . . .”

“Go ahead, Emily,” Kenny Clark said.

She spun around to look at him with eyes big and bright. “We are as beautiful as butterflies.” Emily’s smile turned to a look of puzzlement. “Time to fly?”

Kenny grinned at her and nodded. “Go ahead, Butterfly. Fly.”

Emily turned back, grabbed the railing with both hands, and hoisted one leg. Then with one foot up on the rail and the other dangling above the pedestrian walkway, she hesitated.

“Mom!” James flung open his door and ran toward her just as she raised her trailing leg to fully stand on the rail, bobbing and teetering like a sprung jack-in-the-box.

James shouted, “Don’t look down!”

At that, she looked down at the river and Tanner saw sheer fright strike her face right before James snatched her by one flapping arm and a trembling leg and pulled her off the railing.

Emily immediately squirmed loose from him and raced off the bridge, singing, “Free, free, you’ll never catch me.”

Looking panicked, James rushed back to the station wagon, scrambled in, and then swerved backwards the way they’d come while Kenny laughed and everyone else swung their attention to the sound of a vehicle grinding into low gear at the far end of the bridge.

A flatbed truck driven by a fat man approached in slow motion.

The cowhands stayed this side of the blockade until the moment the truck stopped several yards away, its driver confused by the obstruction. Then they stepped out with their rifles and were on the guy before he could think to slam it into reverse and get the hell out of there.

Tanner was never going to get another chance like this. He jumped back on the bike and kick started it with a foot that felt as if it might fall off anytime now.

In the two seconds it took him to decide that he should go back the way he’d come rather than try and squeeze around the trucks, Kenny Clark grabbed him by the hair with one hand and by his t-shirt with the other. The shirt ripped but the hair held as Kenny yanked him off the bike and slammed him to the ground. No sooner was he down than another cowboy picked him up and punched him in the gut.

Doubling over, Tanner caught a knee beneath his chin. His teeth clacked together hard. That’s funny, he thought, I actually see stars . . .

“Enough,” he heard somebody say through the blood rushing in his ears. He looked toward the voice, his focus swimming, and realized it was Old Pete.

They had the truck driver now, who was looking at Tanner with a mixture of sympathy and terror. Kenny came back at him and Tanner flinched away, but Kenny was on him and putting an arm across his shoulders, a brotherly gesture. And the a*shole who’d sucker-punched him held out his hand as if to say, No hard feelings.

Not knowing how to get out of it, Tanner shook the calloused hand, all the while marveling, What the hell? These people are seriously f*cked up.

He looked at the fat man again, trying to figure out who he might be and what he was doing here . . . and how soon someone would notice he’d gone missing because it was obvious they weren’t planning to let him go either.

The man’s eyes darted around as if he weren’t clear who was in charge here. Finally, they landed on Old Pete. “I need to talk to Pard Holloway,” he said.

Kenny scoffed, his arm still around Tanner in a posture both possessive and threatening.

Old Pete whistled and rolled his eyes. “Pard’s a busy man right about now, Earley. What’s there to talk about?”

Tanner had never seen anybody look so nervous as this man Earley, and figured him for the grain guy Hazel had told him about. You could fill a gallon bucket wringing out his shirt. Then he realized that if moldy flour and feed really were to blame for all this, Fritz Earley oughta be scared shitless.

And he could see the man mentally kicking himself, Why did I come up here?

Tanner was kicking himself too. Why did I waste so much time dilly-dallying around with Hazel Winslow? I could’ve been—should’ve been—halfway down the mountain by now instead of getting the shit kicked outta me.

And then he wondered who would be sorrier he didn’t make it out.