The Winslow Incident

A LONG, SAD SIGH

Aaron Adair heard the guest lady crying, and once he reached the second floor landing, he saw her. She sat on the top step of the red-carpeted staircase, face buried in her hands, sobbing in a way that scared him, scared him almost as much as the blood-gurgling lady had last night. Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, she’d kept on, until finally he’d had to turn on his light and read Treasure Island till he was too tired to be scared of anything anymore except one-legged, one-eyed pirates.

Coming up behind her, Aaron wondered why she was crying. Maybe she’d been left behind when all the other hotel guests took off that afternoon. He stood at her back, feeling as though he was intruding somehow, as if he’d caught her telling a secret nobody should hear.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, but her shoulders shook with sobs. Tears fell to her lap with the same soft sound as water dripping from leaves after the rain stops.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ll come back for you. They’ll remember they forgot you here.”

When she lowered her hands to her lap, Aaron noticed the rings on her fingers. Three, with bright stones that reminded him of Jujubees. And her tears kept dripping. He realized the carpet around them had grown wet and squishy beneath his antsy feet.

“Can’t you see it?” she suddenly asked in a voice full of breath.

That made him even more anxious. Still behind her, he couldn’t see her face, and he suddenly worried that if he did, he wouldn’t like what he saw.

“See what?” he asked, not really wanting to know. Maybe he should just walk away, go back and hide in his safe bedroom down the hallway in his family’s quarters.

But before he could escape, she lifted her head as if to look around the hotel.

Then she sighed. A long, sad sigh. “Can’t you see the stain of every miserable thing that has ever happened here?”

Aaron reached down to touch her, to comfort her, and to tell her to stop talking like that because she was making him really, really afraid.

He leaned forward, expecting his hand to land on her shoulder. Instead his hand went straight through her and suddenly the staircase yawned wide before him, willing him to tumble down.

At the last moment, his hand grasped the banister.

She had looked so real. Blinking hard, the boy suffered a realization that turned his blood cold. I can’t tell them apart anymore. How was Sean supposed to protect him if he couldn’t even tell the living from the dead?

On shaky legs, Aaron ran.

And all of a sudden, he no longer felt the floor beneath his feet, no longer felt anything at all, in fact. Looking down from above, he could see himself running along the hallway.

His body, that is. His body was still running—he just wasn’t inside it anymore.





MONDAY MORNING

Day Four of the Heat Wave





RAINING FISH

A fat wet catfish splat onto the boardwalk before Cal’s feet.

He watched it squirm on the worn wood, watched it gasp with its whiskered mouth.

Cal sniffed the briny air. “I’ll be damned.”

He looked up to the sky as several more showered down and clattered heavily against the roof of the Fish ’n Bait.

Awestruck, his jaw dropped. It’s raining fish.

He glanced down at the creature struggling for its life. “I’ll be damned.”

Then Cal noticed townsfolk up and down Fortune Way scrambling for shelter as the sky darkened, thunder bellowed, and fish poured from the heavens.

Arms outstretched, Cal tried to grab hold but they wriggled out of his hands to land in the street with sickly plops. I’ll be damned, Cal thought right before a catfish hit him on the head.





HAZEL

Awash in sunshine, Hazel turned onto Fortune Way to see Cal sitting on the edge of his roof, fishing into the space between the Fish ’n Bait and Buckhorn Tavern. When she got closer she saw bartender Marlene Spainhower crouched in the dusty passageway tugging on Cal’s line.

Cal raised his rod and reeled in the line, shouting, “Whoa, whoa!”

Marlene squeezed her face together to suppress the laughter that shook her petite frame. Then she noticed Hazel and put a finger to her mouth, Shush.

What the? Hazel marveled. After she had finally calmed down Patience last night, her dad had returned from his wolf hunt at the Rhone place looking even more shook up than when he’d left. Without a word he’d walked past them in the living room and into the kitchen where Hazel heard him take a bottle from the cupboard and scrape a chair away from the table.

“I better go now,” Patience had whispered, the sheriff’s strange behavior clearly refueling her fear. Then she’d left for her house next door while Hazel listened to her dad fill his glass.

The pit of dread born in Hazel’s stomach at that moment had grown so much overnight that she wasn’t surprised this morning to see Cal perched on the bait shop roof, fishing the dirt. Wasn’t surprised to see Hap Hotchkiss pushing his lawnmower down the middle of Fortune Way. And wasn’t surprised when she walked into the Crock to find it already packed and noisy. They weren’t even supposed to open for another hour—Hazel had decided to come in early to set up for breakfast in case Rose was still sick.

Hazel wove her way around the tables—it seemed as if the whole stinking town was crammed in there—asking people to scoot in their chairs so she could get to the back where she found a pale and harried Rose Peabody at the coffeemaker just pushing BREW for a pot of decaf.

“What’s going on?” Hazel asked, following Rose through the swinging kitchen door.

“Order up!” Owen Peabody pounded the bell twice even though they were standing right there.

“We had over a dozen people waiting for us to open.” Rose was seriously flustered. “Last night, nobody. Today, everybody!” She grabbed two plates and headed back to the dining room.

Owen plopped more bacon onto the hot grill and it spat back up at him.

Hazel leaned both arms on the warm metal counter and watched him add a scoop of butter to a short stack with sausage and eggs. She always thought Owen looked like Popeye, especially around the oversized jaw, and since Rose looked like Olive Oyl, they made a perfect match.

“You feeling better, Owen?” Hazel asked.

“Right as rain, m’dear.” He cracked open two eggs on the already full grill, not bothering to pick out bits of shell.

“You sure?” she said. He didn’t look right as anything. A sheen of sweat covered his big arms and had soaked through the t-shirt covering his barrel chest.

“Never better.” Owen grinned at her.

That gesture unsettled Hazel deeply. It was not his usual good-natured grin, but rather a manic-looking, teeth-baring gape. “Owen,” she tried, “maybe we should close up?”

The counter was covered in plates of The Special. He spun the order wheel and looked at the sole ticket. “Okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “Three more specials.”

“Owen—you’re cooking up the same order.”

“Two by two by two.” He flipped pancakes prematurely and battered the bacon.

She plucked the ticket off the wheel. “This is from yesterday.” Hazel remembered taking the order from James Bolinger and his grandfather Gus yesterday morning because James—growing boy that he was—had bashfully ordered two Two by Two by Twos and then left her a hefty tip as a token of his adoration. “You already cooked this order, Owen.”

“Look. I’m doing my job here. Please do yours and get these out while they’re still hot.”

Hazel had hoped things would get back to normal today; clearly things were not headed that direction. Feeling topsy-turvy, she considered suggesting again that they close up, but decided to hightail it out of the kitchen instead once she saw Owen pick up his huge chef’s knife.

After hastily tying on her frilly yellow work apron, she carried two plates of food into the dining room and set them on the table near the waitress station, where Jay and Julie Marsh sat looking confused.

Jay managed to stop pulling on his moustache long enough to acknowledge her. “Thank you, Hazel.” He turned to his wife. “Try and eat something, Julie. It’ll make you feel better.”

Julie gave Hazel an odd look before squinting at her plate. “Are there potatoes?”

“I can get you some hash browns,” Hazel offered.

Julie made a repulsed face. “I hate potatoes.”

“Then I won’t get you any hash browns?” Hazel looked quizzically at Jay.

“It’s fine, Hazel,” Jay said. “Thank you.”

When Rose brushed by, Hazel followed her to the toaster. “Did you order any specials?”

“I can’t remember.” Rose covered her mouth with her hand and dashed for the restroom. Toast popped up loud. “Butter that, will you?” she called back, muffled, before disappearing.

As Hazel slathered the bread, she thought, What the hell?

Returning to the kitchen where Owen was flinging food all over the place and again to the dining room to deliver more plates, Hazel repeated this back and forth for twenty minutes before deciding she needed to go find her father and tell him what was going on. Ignoring demands for coffee refills, and wondering what had become of Rose, Hazel pushed her way out of the Crock onto the sidewalk.

The Peabodys’ chocolate Lab was out front chasing her own tail. Molly spun in an endless circle, whimpering because she couldn’t quite catch it.

“You’re not very smart, are you?” Hazel asked the dog, feeling slightly guilty for doing so because Molly was Jinx’s girlfriend.

Hazel looked over to the corner of Fortune Way and Civic Street, at the squat brick building that was once Mathers Bank but now served as the post office and the seldom-used jail. In fact, nobody had been incarcerated there since her dad busted Tiny Clemshaw a few years back for driving while intoxicated. Her dad’s office occupied the southeast corner and she could see all the windows shut up tight. Where is he? He’d been gone when she woke up—something that’d never happened since her mother left. Now she had no idea where to even look for him.

Two doors down the opposite direction, Ivy Hotchkiss stood with her hands on her hips looking up at Cal on the roof of the Fish ’n Bait. “Come on down,” Ivy told Cal, “before you hook somebody in the eye.” And across the street in Prospect Park, Ivy’s husband Hap Hotchkiss mowed pine needles with his gas-powered lawnmower.

This is food poisoning? Hazel marveled. What did they eat? Again she hoped that she wouldn’t get it too.

She noticed Patience sitting statue-still on the porch steps of her Grandfather Ben’s mansion on the corner of Park Street. She appeared to be staring at the playground area in the park . . . as if waiting for Hazel or Sean to return victorious from the ghost hunt so they could finally eat the rest of the candy.

Wondering how Sean felt today, she decided to walk down to Rhone Bakery to check on him as soon as Rose came out of the bathroom. She was tempted to split right then but for some reason felt compelled to stay and help the Peabodys. Perhaps because last night an overwrought Rose had chosen to inform her that she’s like a daughter to them.

I’ve been taken emotional hostage, she realized, remembering how those Olive Oyl eyes had shone with such sympathy and affection after Hazel was abandoned by her mother.

Just as a car accelerated onto Fortune Way, she spotted Jinx trotting across the street from the park, heading for where she stood in front of the Crock. “Jinx, no!” she shouted. “Wait there!”

When the dog took this as encouragement and picked up his pace, Hazel stepped into the street and waved her arms, shouting to the oncoming car, “Stop, stop!”

The El Camino lurched to a halt just in time for Jinx to saunter in front of it on his way to the sidewalk. Molly the chocolate Lab whined in greeting to her boyfriend.

Hazel waved to the driver. “Thanks.”

Kenny Clark, Holloway Ranch’s youngest yet crustiest cowpoke, leaned out his window. “You better tie up that mongrel. Next time he won’t be so lucky.”

“Thanks, a*shole.”

Kenny narrowed his eyes. “Trespass at the ranch again and I’ll shoot first and let somebody else ask questions later.”

“You already shot at me, you dumbass! Does Friday night ring a bell? Poor helpless calf? Shoot anywhere near me again—even threaten me again—and I’ll have my father haul your ass to jail.”

“Oh, look out . . .” He pretended to gnaw on his fingernails. “The sheriff.” He made an even uglier face. “You Winslows think you own this town.”

“Own it? If we do, it’s for sale. Cheap. Got any money?” She gave him a facetious smile.

His middle finger said it all as he gunned his engine and peeled out.

She responded in kind before looking down at Jinx. “What’s the matter with you? You’re gonna get yourself run over.”

He wagged his tail and licked his snout and saliva flew onto her bare calves.

“And you’re really slobbery today, you know that?” She gave the red dog a few pets on the head.

He complained more, more when she stood back up.

“Sorry, gotta get back to work.”

He whimpered again before he and Molly turned and padded up the sidewalk toward the Buckhorn Tavern . . . maybe they could score a hot dog there.

“Not open yet,” she called after them.

She glanced back at the bank building. Where was her father when she needed him?

Determined to convince the Peabodys to close the Crock and urge everyone to go home until things got sorted out, she pushed open the restaurant door, unleashing the usual riot of bells.

In the dining room, all eyes were on Kohl Thacker. The tall bald man stood on his chair, sweating and excited and running down items they might have eaten in common. “Who had corndogs?”

A few hands were raised.

“Okay then—who ate burgers?”

More or less the same. Hazel glanced around to see if any Holloway Ranch cowhands were present. There weren’t. Ranch hands rarely ate in town.

Kohl wrinkled his bare forehead. “Sick cattle, sick people?”

“Rose doesn’t eat beef,” Hazel said. “And she’s in the ladies room, sicker than anyone.”

“Oh.” Kohl sounded disappointed. “Okay then, how about catwiches?”

Hands were raised all across the dining room.

“I knew it.” Kohl slammed his fist against his palm. “It’s always the fish that goes bad.”

Gus Bolinger broke in. “I ate no catfish, so you know squat, Thacker. And my guess is we’ll all be feeling better in no time, so how ’bout we just leave it at that.”

Looking defeated, Kohl sank to his seat while everyone turned their attention back to the food in front of them. It was then that Hazel realized nobody was actually eating anything. Just poking at their plates. She headed for the kitchen to tell Owen not to cook any more food, to tell him to get out here and flex his Popeye muscles and make everyone leave so she could go look for her dad.

As she was passing the Marshes’ table, Julie exploded the sunny side of her eggs with her fork and a look of repulsion washed over her face. Julie gasped and pushed the plate away, quickly covering the offending yolks with her napkin. Hazel doubled back to remove the plate.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asked his wife.

Julie stared at him with a helpless expression.

Just as Hazel reached for the plate, Julie looked at it in squinty-eyed terror and flipped it over. Food spilled across the table and Hazel’s patience snapped—she’d had it with these people and their freakish food poisoning. “Why’d you do that?” she said.

Gently, Jay said to Julie, “Settle down, sweetie.”

“There was something on my plate,” Julie said.

“What?” he asked.

Hazel looked at the mess she would have to clean up. “Your breakfast?” she suggested.

“Something else . . . ,” Julie replied.

Hazel lifted the edge of the overturned plate. “Let’s see: eggs and bacon and pancakes. Nothing horrible, nothing moving.”

“Please,” Julie said.

Hazel picked up a piece of bacon, examined it, then held it out to her. “Just good food.”

“Please, Hazel!” Julie’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“Sorry,” Hazel said, realizing she’d gone too far—even if Julie was undeniably irritating.

“It’s not your fault, Hazel,” Jay said. “We were up all night. Didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

“It’s okay.” Hazel grabbed a bar towel and began consolidating the food strewn across their table.

Meanwhile, the dining room grew even noisier.

Concentrating on her coffee cup, Julie’s pupils were open as wide as saucers.

“Julie?” Jay tried.

She remained fixated on her cup. When Hazel picked it up to wipe beneath it, her eyes followed the cup up . . . and then down again.

“Sweetie?” Jay touched the cap sleeve of his wife’s babydoll blouse. “You feel all right?”

Slowly, she turned to face her husband. “Yes, I do. I feel all right. I feel just fine. How many times are you gonna ask?” Her voice rose, “In fact, I feel great. I’ve never felt better.” Yelling now, “I’ve never felt this f*cking great in my whole f*cking life!” She sank her fingernails into his forearm. “How the hell do you feel?”

Hazel jumped back while the noisy Crock went dead silent. Jay glanced around for some sort of help but everyone averted their eyes. Hazel felt as uncomfortable as he looked.

From the table by the door, a low laugh escaped Kohl Thacker. Then he let loose with a full belly laugh, gasped for air, laughed some more. A woman at the next table began to snicker. Another started up. Soon the entire room reverberated with laughter.

Tension twisted Julie’s face before it lifted and she released hysterics of her own.

Jay gave a halfhearted, “Heh heh,” while looking at Hazel as if to ask, Are they outta their ever-loving minds?

Hazel glanced around the dining room: this was not funny at all. More like frightening. Watching these people she’d known all her life become sudden strangers, she recalled how Sean had asked her yesterday, “Where did I go?”

At that, she felt the mountainside tilt beneath her feet.

She left the towel and the mess and dashed into the kitchen where she found Owen in the cooler muttering, “Bacon eggs cheese milk.” He grabbed a handful of sausage off the shelf, sniffed it, dropped it to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Hazel asked.

Startled, Owen spun around and she noticed that his pupils were huge too. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

Turning back to the shelf he poked at a package wrapped in white butcher paper, meat most likely. Then he picked up the bundle and examined it. “A definite possibility,” he said before flinging it to the ground.

He strode out of the cooler, not bothering to close the door, and went over to the toaster oven. There he tore open a plastic bag containing a loaf of bread. He shook his big head. “This is wrong.”

“What do you mean?” She moved next to him and looked at the pieces of bread strewn across the cutting board. “What’s wrong?”

Owen held up a slice in the bright sunlight flooding the kitchen to reveal a slight grayish hue. “See?” He looked at her with an expression of wonderment. “It’s the water, Hazel, it’s gotta be. Something’s wrong with the water. And it’s gotten into everything.” His face went ashen. “Including us.”





SEAN

That sun is blinding me, Sean thought, placing his hand across his forehead like a visor.

He ducked into Clemshaw Mercantile and swiped a pair of sunglasses off the circular rack next to the front door. Once back outside he donned the shades and realized that he couldn’t recall it ever being this bright or hot so early. Waves of heat rose from the sidewalk, blasting him like when the door is finally opened on a car that has sat in the sun all afternoon.

At least his stomach felt better than last night. But while the nausea had departed, an uneasiness had moved in that he didn’t really understand. Actually, he was having trouble understanding anything today. Everything felt different somehow, as if somebody had changed the channel during the night. Or more like it was the same show, only a different episode. And everything sounded louder. Maybe that was why the headache that’d been looming since early that morning had now arrived in full. No matter, Sean continued on rubbery legs toward the bakery, despite the nagging thought that he should just go home, get into bed and stay there for a very long time.

In the back of the bakery he found Zachary Rhone staring into the big oven. The place was immaculate, not a speck of sugar or flour dotted the countertops or floors. And there was no bread rising, no donuts frying, no buns cooling. Sean said, “Sorry I’m late—”

Zachary shot up so hard Sean worried the man might jump right out of his skin. And Sean noticed that Zachary’s face looked craggier, as if his bad temper had etched itself deeper into his complexion overnight.

After what felt like forever, Zachary finally said, “Go home.”

“I’ve been sick,” Sean said and his brain pounded against his skull in agreement.

“I know,” Zachary said quietly, and his stony eyes seemed to drill all the way past Sean’s aching eye sockets right into his sore head.

“You know?” Sean asked.

“Don’t say anything to anybody.”

“Huh?”

“There’s no need to say anything.” Zachary’s eyes were as dark and shiny as black marbles. “To anybody.”

Oh, shit . . . Sean’s stomach clenched.

“Just go home.”

Sean noticed then that Zachary was trembling and felt more than glad to get away from him.

After he stepped out of the bakery and into the shock of sunlight, he saw Melanie Rhone hanging laundry on the line. He shuffled up to her despite his thudding head because she waved to him and he liked her and he felt sorry for her.

Pale as the white sheet she’d just pinned up, Melanie smiled weakly. “Did you get the food poisoning too?”

“Yeah, we all did. Except my dad.” Sean tried to sort it all out, what it had to do with sick cows and Hazel and Hawkin Rhone, but his brain felt like taffy. All of his thoughts were stuck together in one gooey heap. Whenever he tried to peel one off, it would just stretch out until it lost its meaning entirely.

“. . . wasn’t anybody’s fault, I’m sure,” Melanie was saying. “Probably just some mayo got left out too long in the sun.”

Sean realized he hadn’t been paying attention to her. “Where’re Violet and Daisy?” he asked. It struck him as unusual that the girls weren’t in the yard; they were never far from Melanie.

“Inside. Their daddy says they have to stay—” Melanie gasped and her blue eyes flew wide open.

“Thought I told you to go home, mister!” Zachary seized Sean by the back of his t-shirt and jerked him away, choking him with his own collar. Then he turned Sean around and let go with a hard push to his shoulder. “That’s my wife—you have no business talking to her! Keep away from my wife!”

“Okay, okay . . . ,” was all Sean could muster as he stumbled down the lawn and off the Rhone property. Not coming back, he decided then. Never.

Once back on Fortune Way he felt as though he’d never been there before. Everything was in its place but the Old West–style storefronts now struck him as ridiculous. Laughable. He guffawed just for the hell of it and Tiny Clemshaw, now standing guard in front of the Mercantile, glared at him, which made Sean wonder if the shopkeeper had seen him steal the sunglasses.

The sound of Sean’s tennis shoes slapping the wood plank sidewalk was so loud he couldn’t believe people weren’t rushing out to see what all the ruckus was. He laughed again. A humorless, one-note laugh: “Ha.” He stopped to peek through the window of the Buckhorn Tavern—it looked invitingly dark and cool inside but wasn’t open yet. The sun beating down on his back felt like fire so he moved on.

Then he called up to Cal on the roof of the Fish ’n Bait, “Having any luck?”

“Nibblin this mornin’,” Cal replied, “shy ever since.”

Sean heard Rose’s Country Crock before he saw it—the swell of excited voices and the clink clank clatter of cups and plates and spoons. The sandwich board listing the day’s specials (often written in Hazel’s sloppy handwriting so you were never actually sure what they were) was not in its usual spot on the sidewalk.

Reaching the doorway, he was relieved to spot Hazel amid the crowded tables. But he was afraid to go inside—too loud and too bright—so he waited there until she finally noticed him and came over.

“Hi,” she said, a bit out of breath. Her eyes were extra green today, he noticed, her hair especially reddish gold.

“Hey.” He felt better already seeing her.

“Everyone’s freaking out here,” she said, looking kind of freaked out too. “Did you go to work?”

“I think Zachary fired me. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Some maniac in the kitchen was pounding the pick-up bell.

“Sean . . .” She looked at him with concern. “Are you getting sicker? Do you feel worse?”

“I don’t know.”

Somebody who sounded like Owen Peabody called from the kitchen, “Hazel? Hazel?”

“You look really bad,” she said. “You should go home.”

“I don’t want to. Why does everyone keep telling me to go home? I want to see you.” Nothing had ever been more necessary.

“Ha-zel!” yelled the Owen-maniac.

Sean reached for her hand.

That bell kept ringing.

That f*cking bell.

She gestured at the dining room with the hand he wanted. Needed. “I don’t have time right now.”

Suddenly Sean felt crushed beneath the weight of his humiliation. “I always have time for you.”

“Hazel Hazel Hazel!”

“Sean, why are you—” she started.

But he yelled, “I’ve always done everything for you and you don’t even give a shit!”

“That’s not true!” She looked shocked by his sudden hostility.

“Why do I waste my time on you?” he asked.

People in the Crock were staring at them now.

“She loves me, she loves me not,” Sean bitterly sing-songed. “Do you know how f*cking confusing that is!” he screamed at her, certain that his head would split open right then and there, his taffy brain plopping out—splat—onto the white linoleum.

“Sean.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he screamed some more. “You’re jerking me around!”

“No I’m not!” she cried. He turned away from her and she grabbed him by the arm. “What do you want from me, Sean?”

“I want you to leave me alone, Hazel.” He shook her off. “Just leave like you’ve always wanted to.”


Hazel stood on the sidewalk outside the Crock for a long time after Sean was gone, because everything he’d said to her was absolutely true.





COBWEBS

Pulling up to The Winslow, Ben Mathers was surprised to find it looking so innocuous. This was his first visit in five years so he’d had plenty of time to work it up in his mind, and he’d expected the hotel to wear its malevolence brazenly.

He climbed out of his brown Valiant, walked to the foot of the steps, and stopped to look up at the structure: old growth siding, flat rooflines with elaborate brackets supporting deep cornices, and windows as tall as late afternoon shadows. Nothing to suggest anything sinister.

The place is clever, he thought. It hides.

Ben shook his head, irritated by his own trepidation. He needed to keep his mind on what he was doing here. Swallowing the fear, he forced himself to walk up the stone steps.

He paused to catch his breath once he reached the level front yard, leaning against one of the pedestal gaslamps that flanked the walkway. An enormous birch tree still occupied the northeast corner of the yard, shading the hotel in summer, branches laden with snow in winter. He’d remembered that right.

Evan and Ruby Winslow’s mansion had been converted into the town’s only hotel after the Silver Hill Hotel in Matherston burned to the ground in 1918. Same year the Spanish flu stole away half the town. Most likely Evan Winslow himself struck that match, Ben had always thought.

That got his ire back up. He marched through the yard to where the path concluded at wide steps leading up to the columned front porch, then took each stair one at a purposeful time. After Ben passed beneath the double-arched entry, he reached the twelve-foot black walnut doors and placed his hand on the silver knob. Then he hesitated.

Not because the door was locked . . . but because things had happened here.

He stared down at his feet, shod in sandals with thick leather straps. My Lottie would not approve, he thought, and a wave of dread poured through him.

“Get a hold of yourself, Mathers,” he said out loud and the sound of his own voice gave him the strength he needed to push open the heavy door.

He glanced around, eyes darting left and right, up and down . . . looking for what? What did he expect to see? Floating apparitions? Blood? All he saw was the red-carpeted staircase with its silver stair rods and the brass statuette adorning the newel post.

Moving through the lobby into the ballroom, it felt as if it had been a hundred years since he’d sipped his last gin and tonic in there. He could almost smell the juniper scent of the booze and remembered resting his arm across the mantle of the carved marble fireplace, watching the others drink their cocktails in the reflection of the gilt-framed mirror. Now he was afraid to look into that mirror. I don’t want to see. He backed out of the ballroom. I don’t want to see.

Ben waved his hands in front of his face as if clearing away cobwebs. He needed to stay focused on the reason he’d come to this place: he needed to find her. Time to settle up with Sarah Winslow.

He didn’t have to look far. When he turned around she was standing beside the newel post. She looked older than the last time he’d seen her. He supposed that he did, too. It didn’t feel as though his heart was beating anymore.

“Get off my property,” she said. Her light eyes reflected resolve, nothing more.

He stood his ground, but suddenly his bladder felt very full. “I demand to know what’s wrong with this town.” Something was wrong all right, and anytime something went wrong around here, it was a sure bet that a Winslow was behind it.

“I’m warning you, Mathers.”

Funny, he hadn’t noticed the shotgun resting against her side until now. Painfully full . . .

“You’re not going to shoot me, old girl.”

“You sure about that?” She raised the gun to her hip.

He was not at all sure. And he could no longer ignore his urgent need to relieve himself. “You had better hope nothing worse comes of this, Sarah Winslow.”

As he moved toward the door, she swiveled with the shotgun to keep him covered. “You’d better hope not either. And you’d better not come back here.”

He careened out the door and hurried as quick as he dared back to his car. When he reached the Valiant, he scrambled in and drove fast down the driveway. Then he slammed on the brakes three quarters of the way to Ruby Road. Ben jumped out, raced to the side of the drive, and unzipped his shorts. As he stood urinating into a thatch of ferns, he looked up at the hotel.

It wasn’t hiding anymore. The Winslow watched him through arched windows, mocking him, forcing him to remember—and daring him to do something about it.





SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG

Sitting astride Blackjack, Pard Holloway surveyed his acreage and worried.

Worried, What the hell is happening to my herd.

Worried, Where the hell is Doc Simmons.

And it promised to be hot again. Is that it: the heat?

Then he wondered how much this nightmare was going to cost him above and beyond the market value of each head lost.

He figured he’d lost sixty-five head total. About the same number were sick, but hanging in there. So far. And his men had found no more dead since Friday. While a relief, that made the whole damn thing all the more confounding. Each time he ran down the list of possibilities he was left more perplexed than the time before. The symptoms, variations in severity, rapid onset: none of it added up to anything Pard had ever seen or even heard about. In fact, if he didn’t know better he’d think his animals had been poisoned.

He was likely to strangle Doc Simmons whenever he finally decided to show back up, but only after the vet told Pard what was the matter with his cattle, why his prize bulls were buckling like newborn calves. All night Pard had fought the panic that threatened to spill over like the creeks at high water. If Simmons didn’t figure this out soon, it might be too late to save the rest of the herd. And depending on whatever the hell this turned out to be, Pard stood to lose his herd and his reputation. And if that happened, that’d be the end of Holloway Ranch.

Pard was not a rich man but he did well enough. The ranch had been in his family for nearly ninety years but it was he who’d grown it from bare subsistence to a full-blown moneymaking operation when he’d made the name Holloway synonymous with Prime grade beef. Now his beef was shipped to upscale restaurants and high-end markets across the country.

And Pard was dead certain about one thing in this whole sorry mess: news about sick cattle would spoil those refined appetites for his goods. For good.

At least he’d scared the kids quiet Friday night. (And dammit if Hazel didn’t look just like Anabel when she was mad. Eyes flashing that same fierce green, those long coltish legs kicking at the dirt.) But then there’d been that regrettable incident with Indigo at the rodeo. So now, on top of everything else, Pard had to worry about the other townsfolk squawking. He hoped they’d have enough sense to keep quiet—for the common good. They had, after all, done this dance before.

While Pard found that somewhat reassuring, he still worried that someone was bound to slip up. In which case Pard may as well take out a billboard on Yellow Jacket Pass:

SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG UP AT HOLLOWAY RANCH.

He sighed so loudly that Blackjack craned to look at him.

Patting the horse’s neck he said, “It’ll be all right.” Then he nudged the animal with his boot heels to get him moving across the narrow bridge. Once they reached the opposite side of Ruby Creek, Pard nudged harder and Blackjack broke into a gallop across open pasture.

I’ll do what it takes to put an end to this, Pard thought.

Story over. Period.

But what precisely—Dammit!—was this all about?

He found his ranch hands talking and smoking outside the main barn. They constituted fifteen weathered cowpokes ranging in age from nineteen (Maggie Clark’s boy, Kenny) to seventy-two (Old Pete Hammond, who was curing ham and churning butter on this land before Pard was even born.) He knew he had the complete loyalty of these men. Though they resented his heavy hand, their livelihood depended on Pard keeping the ranch afloat and for that they respected him.

Noticing him riding up, they gathered and turned their attention to the boss.

Pard remained on Blackjack. “Listen up! I want you men to separate the ailing cattle from the rest and as you do, check them from muzzle to switch for cuts, lesions, screw worms, bugs, grubs, ticks, fleas, blisters and warts. Check their piss, shit and every hole in their body for discharges of pus, snot and blood or any other damn thing. Herd the healthy to the north pasture. Sick go south. Move it out!”