“They came just at dusk,” Selma said as she lifted her hand to touch her swollen cheek, “came up the hill with silenced revolvers and began shooting the dogs. They shot the dogs and some of the animals and birds in the cages, then they took Melinda away.” She moved her hand from her cheek, down to caress the forehead of the girl sleeping in her lap. Her voice sounded so distant and hollow that the interior of the cabin seemed to darken as she spoke. “Benjamin tried to stop them but they beat him senseless, then one of them hit me when I tried to help him.”

“I should’ve been here,” the other girl said bitterly, then banged the head of her ax against the floor.

“You’d have just been hurt too,” Selma said quietly. “I’m glad you were gone.” Then she stared at me. “Melinda kept screaming that she would go with them, go with them gladly, but they kept laughing and kicking poor Benjamin and shooting at the dogs.”

“They shot the bulldog?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Gut-shot him,” the girl with the ax answered, “but he and the three-legged bitch were still alive this morning when I left the vet hospital down at CSU.”

“They’re gonna be damned sorry for that,” I said.

“What about kidnapping my wife, for god’s sake,” Trahearne said.

“That, too,” I said. “For all of it.” Then I straightened up. “How many of them were there?”

“Four,” Selma answered.

“Was one of them a big dude, a Mexican with a pug’s face?” I asked.

“They all seemed like giants,” Selma said blankly, “and they wore ski masks.”

“You didn’t call the sheriff, did you?” I asked.

“They said they would kill Melinda if we did,” she answered, “then come back and kill all of us. I believed them, You should have seen them shooting the dogs, the crows and hawks and the bobcat in their cages. I believed them, so I didn’t call the sheriff.” She raised her hand to touch her face, palpating the bruise as if the wound went deep within her. “What could we do?” she pleaded. “What can we do?”

“I can damn sure do something,” Trahearne threatened, lifting the shotgun as if it were a holy ikon, the rallying banner for his private jihad.

“Try to relax,” I told him. He gave me a foul look, then stood up and walked about the cabin, glaring down his puffy nose at the sleeping ranks of cats. Then I asked Selma, “Why did you jump me?”

“We thought you must have brought them,” she said.

“Why?”

“You’re the only one who knew who she was—where she was,” she answered. “Why did you come back?”

“She wanted to talk to me,” I said, “to tell me what to tell her … her natural mother.”

“And what are you going to tell her?” Selma asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll tell her that I have climbed the mountain and seen the prophet, but all I know is that I’m getting too old for this sort of foolishness.” I tried a wry grin, and it seemed perfectly at home on my face.

“You’re hurt too,” Selma said with a brief smile. “I suppose I did that.”

“It’s nothing,” I scoffed like John Wayne.

“Stacy,” Selma said to the girl with the ax, “why don’t you see to Mr. Sughrue’s wound.” She leaned her ax against the low couch where she sat, then walked across the room with a sheepish grin. “Stacy has attended a year of vet school,” Selma said.

“I guess that’s good enough for me,” I said. “I was delivered by a vet.”

Trahearne laughed. “Goddammit, Sughrue, if you were any more country, your feet wouldn’t fit shoes,” he said, then laughed again.

Stacy peeled the dried bloody shirt off my back with hydrogen peroxide and professional fingers, then she cleaned off the wounds. The pattern of shot was larger than I had suspected, circling from the back of my neck to the middle of my upper arm.

“I’m glad you weren’t any closer,” I said to Selma.

“You haven’t spit up any blood, have you?” Stacy asked.

“Not lately,” I answered.

“Don’t try so hard to be funny,” she said. It sounded like medical advice.

“How many pellets?” I asked.

“Eleven,” she answered as soon as she finished counting them.

“What size shot?” I asked.

“Seven and a half,” Benjamin answered.

“Steel or lead?”

He had to go over and open a drawer to check the shell box to answer that. “Steel,” he said.

“If you’ve got some sort of antibiotic salve,” I said to Stacy, “we can leave them in for a few days.”

“I’ve got probes and some local anesthetic that I use on the animals,” she said. “I could freeze ‘em and pop ‘em right out, then suture up the wounds.”

I looked over my shoulder at her. She had high cheekbones, dusky skin, and dark brown eyes. If I hadn’t seen her in action with the ax, I would have thought her a delicate type.

“What the hell,” I said, and she went after her bag.

As she worked on me, Traheame persuaded Benjamin to go down the hill for the bottle of whiskey. For himself, though, not for me. When the boy brought it back, I had a drink anyway. As soon as Trahearne took a second hit off it, I made him give me the bottle. I held it until Stacy finished working on my back. She put the last circle of tape over the sutures so they wouldn’t catch in the weave of my shirt, then she patted me on the shoulder lightly.

“What now?” she asked.

“We go get the lady back,” I said.

“You know where she is?” Trahearne asked anxiously.

“I know how to find out,” I said.

“You need some help?” Benjamin asked.

“Right,” Stacy said.

“We’ll all go,” Selma said, and the girl sleeping in her lap stirred.

It was a great romantic notion, a band of righteous misfits rescuing the princess, and I even thought about it for a second, but we already had enough troubles.

“You been in the service?” I asked Benjamin.

“No, sir,” he answered, then hung his head.

“You stay with Selma, then,” I said. “Help her take care of things here.”

“I’ve never been in the service either,” Stacy said with heavy irony, “but I’m meaner than any Marine in the world, by god, pound for pound.”

“I can use you for bait,” I said, “but you’li have to be nice to a creep.”

“That should be easy,” she said, smiling, “I’ve spent my life doing that.”

“Are you afraid?” I asked.

“Damn right,” she said, “but I’m too mad to give a shit about being afraid.”

“It won’t be very pretty,” I said.

“I can tell you things about ugly that would make your ears curl up in self-defense, mister,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “you’re on.”

“Take care of her,” Selma said in a quiet voice.

“I’ll be fine,” Stacy said firmly, letting me know that she damn well meant to take care of herself.

“You all take care,” Selma said.

“This is what I’m supposed to do for a living,” I said, which made me laugh. I don’t think I sounded full of joy with the laughter. When I glanced around the room, nobody would meet my eyes. Except Traheame, and he looked infinitely sad.

As Stacy, Traheame, and I walked down the trail, he paused to rest, leaning against a stone outcropping.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, and slapped me on the shoulder.

“First of all, we’re going to stop slapping me on the shoulder,” I said, meaning it as a joke, but he took it seriously.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Goddamn it, I haven’t done anything right since the war.”

“You came back up the hill with that shotgun,” I said.

“It was all over by the time I got there,” he said, looking up at me. “You’re going to need me, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Particularly your plastic money.”

“And what am I supposed toprovide?” Stacy asked. “Your nubile body,” I said.

“Well, you ain’t gettin’ no cherry,” she said jauntily, then led off down the trail.

After a wildly hectic afternoon down in Denver— renting two cars, buying Stacy a new dress and me a wig and fake mustache, and finding a ground-floor motel room with a private entrance near the airport—we put it all together in time for a freshly scrubbed Stacy, looking sixteen in spite of the twenty-four on her driver’s license, to be sitting in Tricky Dickie’s topless bar on Colfax when Jackson came in after a day at the office. He was all polyester and.smiles as he arrived for his vodka martini and his visual fix of female flesh. Just as I feared, though, he had a hired tough with him.

Stacy had been great—street-wise and tough. The bartender didn’t want to believe her ID at first, and when she bullied him into giving her a drink, he wasn’t sure he wanted a strange hooker in his place. She set him straight, then fended off the stag line until he believed her. When Jackson made his play, she held him off a bit.

“Listen, man, I’m looking for work,” she told him, “not a party. No citizens, no johns, and no traveling salesmen, okay?”

“What sort of work were you looking for, honey?” Jackson asked.

“The same sort of work I was doing back East,” she answered, “until the weather got to me.”

“The weather?”

“The heat, man,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said as if he had understood all the time, “right, the heat. What a … what sort of work was that?”

“I’m in the fucking movies, man,” she said. “What did you think? Hanging paper, maybe? Boosting groceries? Get off my case and outa my face, okay?”

“Listen, babe,” he said as he sidled closer while pretending to wave his empty glass at the bartender, “I’ve got some friends, some business associates actually, who sometimes make movies. Just for fun, you know.”

Stacy sneered. “Fun and profit.” “You got it, kid.”

“And I guess you’d like to check my moves before you put me in touch with these friends of yours, right?” “Why not?”

“Right.” She snorted. “Hit the road, man. You want a free sample, call the Avon lady.”

“I, ah, don’t mind paying,” Jackson said cautiously.

“A hundred for a half and half,” Stacy said quickly. “You look like the kind of john who’ll need it.”

“A hundred!” he said so loudly that the bartender and most of the patrons looked around.

“If you can’t afford the merchandise, man, get out of the store,” she said, then became very interested in her drink. I don’t know how Stacy knew to play him tough instead of giving him the hooker’s usual honey and promises, but it worked like a charm.

“Sure,” Jackson said. “Sure, that’s fine. Let’s do it.”

“Let’s see the bread,” Stacy said without looking at him.

The poor bastard had to cash a check and endure the bartender’s sly grin when he brought the bills. He handed the money to Stacy and chugged his third martini.

“You hold it,” she told him. “I just wanted to see it.” “My car’s right out front,” he said, falling over himself trying to be casual.

“My motel room’s at the airport,” Stacy said. “Let’s

hit it.”

“Right,” Jackson said, then turned to his hired friend. “Hey, man, let’s go.”

“Who the fuck’s that?” Stacy asked, holding back against Jackson’s hand.

“My driver,” he answered loftily.

“Is he going to hold your dick, man?” she said.

“I’ll be back,” Jackson said, and his friend sat back down quickly and ordered another drink.

I brushed the curly-haired wig out of my eyes and followed them outside. This was the only part where I had told Stacy what to say. I didn’t want her in Jackson’s car.

“Hey, man,” she said, “I got a rented car right there. Why don’t you follow me?”

“I’ll bring you back,” he offered grandly.

“What if I don’t want to come back here?” she asked.

“When I get through with you, honey, you’ll follow me anywhere,” Jackson insisted, ushering her into his Cougar.

I stood on the curb and watched them drive away, wondering where the hell Trahearne was with the other rented Ford. I kicked myselffor trusting the old man to wait outside, for not having another ignition key for Stacy’s rental unit. Five minutes later, Trahearne finally showed up, his big face flushed, a sorry smile twisting his lips.

“They took off, huh?” he muttered as I opened the door and shoved him from behind the wheel.

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked as I gunned the car down the street and made the corner in a four-wheel drift.

“Listen, son, we left the whiskey in the other car,” he said, waving a pint of vodka at me, “and I knew we’d need a drink. We’re too old to do this kind of crap without a drink. So I went around the block to buy a bottle. What the hell difference does it make?”

“He wouldn’t follow her,” I said as I slipped through a yellow light ahead of a bus. “She’s in his car, and if they’re not at the motel when we get there, if he took her home or someplace else, I’m gonna have your ass, old man, and have it good.”

“Goddammit, C.W., I didn’t know,” he whined, then he changed his approach with the sort of clumsy grace drunks think of as quick-witted. “What the hell, boy, that little lady can take care of herself. You can be damn certain of that.” Then he slapped me on the shoulder again, hard enough to start the bleeding from torn stitches. I jerked the wig off and threw it on the floor at his feet. He picked it up and laughed, holding it out like a prize beaver pelt. “You looked like shit in this, you know,” he said, then sat it on his head like a hat. “Of course, I look like a million dollars,” he said, then laughed again. He reached over and ripped the phony mustache off and stuck it crookedly on his upper lip. “How’s that?” he asked, grinning. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Aw hell, come on, don’t be so damned serious. Have a little drink and try to relax.” He nudged me with the pint, and there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. “They got my Melinda, boy, and I don’t know what to do,” he said as I handed the bottle back. “I don’t know what to do.”