Читать книгу The Bird Saviors - William J. Cobb - Страница 5

L o r d G o d i s t a l k i n g a g a i n . H e d o e s love to hear himself speak. A graybeard loon, he sits hunched over the kitchen table, his arms sunburned, nose hooked, hair thin and wiry, ranting hoarse- voiced about sinners and socialists. Outside the foggy window Smoke Larks flutter liquid as living shadows to perch atop the woodshed. When they settle the morning sun backlights their black silhouettes like burnt figures on a woodcut.

Ruby shifts the baby girl in her lap and thinks of the birds, how they must be cold of a morning like this. She's seen twelve this week whole. She counts the birds and invents her own names. She knows people call them by another name, but she calls them Smoke Larks. Swirling in vast flocks in late winter, they look like smoke from a great fire, burnt souls twisting in the wind. Purple- black, dusky, and speckled, the short- tailed birds scatter among the twisted junipers in the backyard, pecking in the dry hay grass.

Ruby began counting all the birds two years before, when she noticed how quickly they seemed to be dwindling. They are disappearing and someone has to note this, to keep it in her mind if nowhere else. The going away of things has to be noted. Especially a thing as perfect as a bird, even the squawky Blackjacks, or an old Grief Bird with claws like voodoo earrings.

Only a handful of Smoke Larks came this winter, rare as snow. She remembers home- school years not so long ago when both snow and larks were common still and taken for granted. She remembers being trapped in the house and staring out the windows, watching the birds, wondering when she would go to school like normal children. And when she did, at age thirteen, she wasn't prepared for it. The smiles and touches. The looking at you and teasing, the telling you how funny you talk, how pretty you are. After years of harsh soap and chores and the warnings against vanity and foolishness. The wanting something from you, something unspeakable but familiar.

She remembers the Smoke Larks in her home- school years, outside her window, her untouchable friends. The cottonwoods in the gulch used to wear them like black leaves every February. Now more often than not the skies are clear and hateful, not a bird shadow or silhouette to be seen. Taken for granted are fires in the foothills and dust storms off the plains.

The world has gone wrong. They pay men to hunt and shoot birds. The fever has the city people spooked. They blame it on the birds, stupid stupid. It's a shame is what it is. Nothing to do but count to the last one. Ruby hasn't seen a Moon Bird in over a year, and Squeakies are just a flicker of what they used to be.

Baby girl Lila tugs at Ruby's nipple and puts her hand on her breast. Lord God says the world is Lila's to inherit and see through to the end. Ruby wants her to grow up in a world of birds and the beauty of spotted feathers. She worries that the last of the birds will be gone before Lila has a chance to recognize their leaving.

Things don't stay around forever.

People don't either. Like her mother. She's been gone for two weeks and Ruby can't take life without her. Life in this house. With its mouse scratchings and bacon grease and Book of Mormon on the table. The sense of Lord God breathing down your neck. Ruby's eyes well with tears as Lila's hand rests against the pale skin of her breast. The baby girl's eyelids blink as if in slow motion, her arms creased with fat wrinkles at the wrist, fingers splayed like the rays of a starfish.

Across the kitchen table Lord God is going on about how he needs to trim the toenails of his one good foot. And the danger of the bears. How in droughts like this they come down from the mountains. How you have to be careful. They could be out there, lurking behind the woodshed. They can smell bacon five miles away, he says, his voice raspy as that of a biblical prophet.

Ruby turns her face to her pancakes. She doesn't want to hear such nonsense. She doesn't feel right herself this morning. Her nose has been running and her cheeks feel hot and flushed. She fears the fever but doesn't dare say a word. She will pretend Lord God doesn't exist if for one second he will just shut up. He holds out a plate of bacon and eggs, urges her to eat. He has cooked their breakfast and the least she can do is enjoy it. She needs to put some meat on her bones, she does, and he has blessed the food especially for her.

She lifts her face and tells him Lila is almost finished feeding, she'll eat in a minute. She speaks in barely a whisper, stares out the window at the parched fields of prairie and high desert, the Sierra Mojada in the west turning pink with the sunrise, above it a wall of dark curdled clouds. Opposite the mountains comes the day's light casting its long morning shadows onto rabbit bush, sage, and bunchgrass.

Behind the shed the crooked wooden fence posts lean this way and that like tombstones on a wind- bitten hillside. Lord God's land is miles outside Pueblo, off Red Creek Road West. The edge of nowhere, its face to the hills and back to the town, true to his isolation- scenario mind- set. The fence is a last stand before the coyote howls of emptiness beyond.

Wind gusts make the power lines hiss and whistle. In the west the sky above the mountains looms russet and solid, an ash cloud of trouble coming. Like wet walls of the Red Sea parted and waiting for that moment to swallow up the world once again. The weather people don't know what to make of it. Snow and dust storms at once, a thing both strange and ordinary now as a sky without birds.

Lila falls asleep with the nipple in her mouth. Ruby does her best to tune out Lord God. She strokes her baby's cheek for a moment, heartbroken at what's in her own mind, the anguish she faces. She eases Lila into the wicker bassinet between the kitchen table and the woodstove. Before the stove she squats to open its black cast- iron door, adds a couple split pieces of aspen from the cardboard kindling box. A wisp of smoke belches out, the gusty wind backing it down the stovepipe chimney. The heat makes her face flush, a smoky tang sharp in her nose.

That's enough, says Lord God. Until this wind dies down it's a bother. Another gust and this house will be smoky as hell.

Ruby stands and refuses to look in Lord God's direction. She rinses plates and cups at the kitchen sink. Outside the window a pair of Grief Birds perch on the fence rail. These are bigger than crows, lonely, speaking in tongues of portent. The closest Grief to the house croaks and shakes its ruffled neck feathers like an African lion its mane. Lord God is asking her something, again, but she doesn't catch what he says. She has to concentrate to decipher the sounds that issue from his perpetually hoarse voice.

You aren't ready for the world, he says. Do you know what it's like to live in a Muslim house? I've seen it. I've fought in their streets. You leave the house without your face covered? They scar you with whips. You fall for a man not your husband? They stone you to death. It's a circle of shame there and they want to make us their slaves. I've seen it. I know. And now I'm returned to set right the scales of justice in this fallen, sinful world of Mammon.

He cuts a bite of pancake and waits for Ruby to lift her voice. She dries a plate and stacks it in the cupboard.

I've shouldered weapons among the heathens, he says. I've struggled with them close enough to smell the spices on their breath. I have tasted the ash of anger and have seen my leg lying in the street, blown clean from my body. And in this greatness I have been given the grace of a new leg and now I walk to preach the tongue of a righteous Lord.

Ruby squints at the portrait of Jesus on the wall opposite the kitchen table— his expression merciful and angelic, a tenderness in his eyes she has never seen in a living man. Beside him hangs a portrait of Joseph Smith, high cheekbones and narrow chin, eyes burning like a madman, full of fire and conviction. Lord God insists the two martyrs stand side by side, both sacrificed to teach the sinful and the righteous a lesson.

Ruby asks if he has heard anything from her mother.

Lord God chews, his face turned to the window, a slat of morning sun reflecting within his artificial eye. The glass orb glows golden, opaque. He closes his eyelids as if to savor the food. His face wrinkles with maniacal certainty and anguish, crease lines on his chin visible through the gray tangle of his beard. His lips are lost in the coarse hair, even his cheeks and neck covered, as if he is becoming a half- man, half- bear creature of legend.

Your mother is gone, he says. But she'll be back. She will see the error of her ways. It may take time is all.

Ruby finishes drying the dishes. She turns to find her baby girl awake now and watching, a slight smile on her lips. Lila has a perfectly round head. Her grandmother calls her Baby Lollipop with such affection that it melts Ruby's heart. And now she's gone and not here to help with Lila.

I miss her, says Ruby.

Lord God is quiet for a moment. He chews his toast. Finally he whispers, I do too.

You should beg her back, says Ruby.

Lord God rocks back in his chair, stares up at the ceiling.

Girl? Haven't I taught you right? Never beg. Never rely on anybody else.

This is different, she says. It's Mom we're talking about.

We get by just fine, don't we?

Ruby makes a funny face for Lila, crossing her eyes and opening her mouth wide. The baby girl waves her hands in the air and makes a sputtering sound. Say what you want but it's not the same, living here without Mom, answers Ruby. The house is cold.

It's what I've been telling you, says Lord God. The house is cold because you don't have a husband. And with a child of your own too.

I'm doing okay, she says.

What? With me taking care of her, you mean? When you're off studying uselessness?

Ruby dries the dishes, counting the Smoke Larks. Maybe I should quit school? she asks. Besides, we won't be here long anyways.

You're just stubborn. You know how to solve this problem, says Lord God. Marry that man. They say he's a good egg. And he's got more money than he knows what to do with.

Why? she asks. Why would I do such a thing?

We could drop by his pawnshop and have a nice chat. He's a good egg.

You're not listening to me.

It's not you who takes care of Ruby when you're in school, is it? You need to be cared for. And kept from the wickedness of the world.

Daddy, don't.

A wickedness you have already tasted. And have been stained by.

My baby is not a stain.

I know. I also know there is more to the story. I have seen the wickedness, he says. It is amongst us.

Ruby sighs. Half the time I don't know what you're talking about.

We must keep you from harm, for your own good, he says. For Lila's sake. You haven't seen the evilness, says Lord God. And I hope you never will.

I've seen a little. I've also met some good people out in the world. They're not as bad as you say they are.

Lord God frowns and rises from the table with a faint pneumatic hiss.

That's a fine kettle of fish, he croaks. Man comes home from war, from getting his body blown to hell and back for your sake, so all the fat can sit around and complain about everything. His wife leaves him. His child mocks him.

I'm not mocking, says Ruby. I don't want to marry a stranger. Is that so crazy?

Lila grabs a skein of Ruby's red hair in her fist and cries. Ruby puts a pacifier in her mouth and rocks her, one hand on her belly. The pacifier muffles the sound until she spits it out and cries harder, her face turning purple.

She shouldn't get gas after feeding, not on breast milk, says Lord God. It might be something you're eating. You're not eating too much red chili, are you? She'll get those spices through your blood.

Ruby carries Lila to the wooden rocking chair in the living room. The crying subsides as she rocks, until Lila only whimpers. From the kitchen comes the sound of the clink of silverware and china, Lord God putting away the dishes.

Ruby rocks and waits. She needs to get ready for school. That is what she should be doing. But she watches the kitchen door and waits. Aloud she says, Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you.

Lord God finishes clearing the table and stands in thought. He is out of work and has given up looking for more. He lives off disability but it's hardly a living. He preaches now at the Lamb of the Forsaken Fundamentalist Church of Latter- Day Saints. His congregation is mostly lost souls and the lonely, living hand to mouth. He drinks his coffee and surveys the empty expanse of his day before him.

He walks with a thump and hiss to the doorway of the living room, where he stands and watches Ruby coddle Lila. A child of mixed blood, misbegotten in the hardest of times. The Lord gives us choices and we don't always make the right one.

Your baby girl needs a father, he says. Any fool can see that. You're going to marry Page.

Not a man with two wives already.

I had a vision, says Lord God. The Lord spoke to me. He told me Page is a good man. Better than you know or have known.

Says you.

Says the Lord God Jesus Christ. I'm right. And you know it.

Ruby takes Lila to her bedroom, kissing her forehead as she carries her propped against her hip. She changes Lila's diaper and finishes getting ready for school. She listens to Lord God talking to himself in the kitchen down the hall. It has become a habit with him, a kind of running commentary of his thoughts, spoken aloud in a whispery, intense tone. Sometimes he seems to be talking to her mother now that she's gone, arguing with her, firing back at her female sass. She hears him say, Is that what you'd have me do, Juliet? Is that what you want? Just tell me and I'll make it so.

Ruby slips a gauze face mask around her neck and arranges it at her throat like a white choker necklace. She can't stand the thing but school regulations require it, everyone insane about germs. With the fever that has swept the country, wearing face masks is now mandatory in public places.

Two years ago it was the fever snuck up like an ugly rumor and nobody believed it at first. Soon you saw people fainting at the supermarket. Later a shopping mall closed after a rent- a- cop discovered a Pakistani woman two days dead in the parking lot. They had to close down the unemployment offices to prevent the contagion in line. People out of work and sick too made it insult to injury.

In school that term Ruby studied Native American customs and learned that they had called it the Fever Moon. Somehow it made more sense than anything you heard from the talking heads on the screen. Doctors saying they have no cure but what can you do anyway? They don't know. They're making it all up. They like to hear themselves talk, to look important. They don't know when it will end. When the next thing will begin. They blame the birds.

Lord God calls out, You miss the bus, don't plan on getting a ride from me.

Ruby stands at the window, watching a lone Grief Bird on the railing. It stares back, like a shape- shifter waiting for her next move.

Lord God stomps his peg leg on the front porch. Ruby grabs her book bag and marches past him. She keeps moving down the front walk. Red Creek Road is a two- mile stretch of potholed dirt from their front yard to Highway 96. When she passes the junipers near the mailbox, she catches sight of the yellow school bus pulling away. She has to turn and head back.

It came early, she mumbles as she passes him.

You're late again, says Lord God. You'll be late for your own funeral.

Ruby stops and stares at the sky. Snow clouds bulge over the mountains. The wind whips dust into her eyes, makes her squint. She does not want to give Lord God the satisfaction of acknowledging his words and warnings.

I'll take you to meet Mr. Page on the way to school. He is just the thing you need.

She goes through the front door, back inside the house. Lila sits in her plastic play swing and smiles like a cartoon baby when she approaches. Ruby leans in to kiss her cheeks and forehead, trembling. Lila grabs a curling lock of Ruby's hair and holds on tight, as if she's holding the reins of a roan pony. A clear dribble of drool shines her lips.

Ruby disentangles her hair from Lila's fist, whispering, Mommy has to go now. I'm going to miss you and think of you every minute I'm away until I can come back and take you away too. Mommy loves you so much and she won't do anything to hurt you. For now Grandpa will take care of you.

Ruby's eyes well with tears as she kisses her baby's lips, soft and wet with drool. She tells her she's sorry. She swears she'll be back to get her as soon as she can. A day or two at the most. She covers her face with her hands and tries to stop her sobbing. She hears Lord God on the porch, opening the door, telling her to hurry.

He tells her he doesn't have all day. We have to get Lila dressed and in the car seat too, he shouts.

Lila puts her hands over her eyes and then pulls them away dramatically. She wants to play. Ruby's voice breaks when she says, Peekaboo! Lila covers her eyes again and Ruby starts to cry as she leaves the room. When Lila takes her hands away, the room is empty. Mama, she calls. Mama!

Ruby rushes through the smoky kitchen and out the back door. Lord God follows her but is several steps behind, his prosthesis slowing him. Did you hear me? he calls. You need to dress your girl. I'm not a taxi. You want a taxi you get a job and pay for one.

She runs past the woodshed, Grief Birds rising and cawing, her backpack slapping her shoulders. At the fence she tosses her backpack over, grabs a crooked post, clambers over the sun- bleached rails. She turns her body sideways to straddle the rough- hewn cross- ties. A rusty nail catches her jeans until she wriggles free.

For a moment she takes one last glance at the house— a faded white box set against the redness of the sky beyond, a smoky plume rising from the stovepipe. Lord God on the back steps, bearded and angry as a statue of Brigham Young, perplexed and one heartbeat from judging her to have lost her ever- loving foolish female mind.

The high desert beyond the woodshed is brown grass sloping upward, toward the mountains. To the east dry gulches big as small canyons cut the bleached landscape.

Lord God shouts again. Ruby hurries on, the wind ripping her father's voice into the past. The field of rabbit bush and sage jiggles before her eyes. She cuts a zigzag path through cactus, cold air stinging her face.

The wind fills her ears with a loud buffeting roar. She stops to catch her breath. Behind her Lord God still follows, struggling against the gusts, losing her. She takes off again, her legs feeling thick and clumsy. To the west roils a dust cloud like a billow of sandblast. The early- morning sun reflects against it, against the clouds of prairie dust boiled loose by downdraft in the foothills of the mountains. The clouds churn, swirling tongues of dust spreading across the plains and heading toward Ruby alone in the murk.

S o u t h o f P u e b l o a red- tailed hawk perches on a telephone pole. It has not eaten in two days. Below it a prairie dog scuttles into its burrow. Trucks thunder by on Interstate 25, drafting gusty diesel wind, ruffling the parched brown grass. Another prairie dog strays from its burrow until the hawk swoops low with talons outstretched. The prairie dog darts below. The hawk banks, curls toward the highway, and is flapping its wings to regain height when a passing truck clips it with a shiny side mirror. Caught by the wind, the hawk's body tumbles into the right lane of traffic.

Passing vehicles run over it twice before a Subaru slows and pulls onto the shoulder. The driver sets his emergency brake and turns on his flashers, watching the stream of traffic. He pulls on leather gloves as he rummages on his floorboard for a paper sack. He unfolds it, watching a tractor- trailer rig in the distance.

Ward Costello gets out of the car and stands in the shudder of tailwind gusts off the diesel rigs, hurries across the right lane. A truck blasts its horn. He eases the hawk's broken body into the paper sack, taking care not to crush the cinnamon- colored tail feathers. The truck honks again. At the last minute Ward trots to the shoulder and gives the trucker a wave, cradling the paper sack like a swaddled baby.

He opens the bag wide enough to give the hawk a preliminary inspection. The tips of its primaries are ragged, indicating stress from pollution or inadequate diet. One of its talons is broken off to a stump. He smooths the mottled feathers, waits for a break in the traffic, and stares at the dead hawk's red tail feathers sticking out of the paper bag. It looks like something being smuggled.

A northwest wind blasts a thin scrim of dust over his windshield. Ward turns on the wipers and merges into traffic. On either side of the freeway, tall white wind turbines straddle the interstate like an invasion of alien propeller giants. Their enor mous blades rotate slowly. A herd of antelope grazes in the stretched- out morning shadows of the turbine towers.

He heads into the outskirts of Pueblo, a no- man' s- land of abandoned strip malls with jagged- teeth windows, ratty vacant lots, and dusty Mexican restaurants. The blackened husk of a burned XXX adult bookstore. A dark brown sky spreads in the west.

His cell phone rings and rings. He fishes it out of the console, sees the caller ID display, and cringes: his sister- in- law. After the rings stop the beeps begin, telling him he has voice mail, telling him to be connected, demanding that he pay attention, for God's sake. Telling him no matter how much he wants to be alone he can't be. He listens to the message, the only way to stop the idiotic beeping.

Nisha's voice is all about broken promises, suicide- hotline desperation. The electric bill is over four hundred dollars, she says. If he doesn't pay, they're going to turn off the power. It's his house, so he has to pay it, doesn't he? Legally? Isn't he financially liable? This is a country of laws, isn't it? True, she happens to be living there now but she has no job and no money. What does he expect? It's his house she's sitting, right?

Please help me please. Why did you leave me? You touched me and that's okay. I wanted you to. But you left and you don't talk to me now? Are you ashamed of me? Of us?

Ward listens as her voice fades in and out on the spotty connection. Nisha's voice resembles her sister's. Like voice mail from the dead. This isn't her only similarity: The last night Ward stayed in his home he slept with Nisha. Even her body, her spicy smell, was like Sita's, like sleeping with a twin. Only needier. She wanted to marry him. She wanted him to bless her with child. She said her time was running out.

The next morning he walked out of the house, leaving her naked in his bed, her sleeping body sprawled atop the white sheets, her mocha skin and darkly painted eyes, arms wrapped around a pillow and black hair tumbled and thick. He will pay the power bill. If it comes to it, and it will, he will deed the house to her and assume both the financial and moral debt.

On voice mail she begs him to come back. Come home soon, she pleads. Don't forget me now. You can't forget me, can you? I know you can't.

O n t h e o t h e r s i d e of town George Armstrong Crowfoot tries to avoid the severed head. He has bad dreams and a thing like that, once seen, skyjacks your nightmares like a special guest star. Like a relative with a shot liver who won't go home and won't quit asking where you hid the whiskey. George has never seen a severed head except in movies, and he figures special effects are good enough.

Mosca won't shut up about it. The infamous head. Said to be that of outlaw Black Jack Ketchum, hanged in Clayton, New Mexico, in 1901. When the trapdoor opened and Ketchum's body dropped twelve feet to the noose bite, his head popped clean off, shocking the crowd of morbid onlookers. Now Jimmy Rodriguez, aka Mosca (the Fly), says he won it in a poker game.

Right, says George. I believe that.

What? You think I'm lying? You calling me a liar?

What I find hard to believe is you winning a poker game.

You never seen me play, says Mosca. I got a poker face. I got luck.

George Armstrong Crowfoot does not believe that either. Mosca works with him on patrol for the Department of Nuisance Animal Control, and George knows anyone who stoops that low likely isn't a lucky bastard. Not to mention that Mosca is skinny and tattooed, like an overgrown Chihuahua. Crowfoot frowns and sniffs. Oh, Jesus. What's that smell?

Mosca sniffs the bowling- ball case. Oh, Black Jack's got an aroma, yes, he does. Mosca worries open the zipper. Behold the mighty, he says.

The skin is leathery, shrunken. Stiff as dried masking tape. A rictus pulled back to evince a death- scream grimace, reveal a set of long yellowed teeth. A black mustache all wiry and tangled above the grimacing maw.

George frowns at the head and says, Black Jack Ketchum was hanged in 1901. This individual looks to be only a few years departed, you ask me. Wouldn't Ketchum be not much more than a skull by now?

It's Black Jack's head, says Mosca. I shit you not.

Whatever you say, hombre. But before you get your panties in a wad, maybe you ought to take this to the Antiques Roadshow people. One of those queens will set you straight.

I don't need any queen to tell me what's what.

Antiques Roadshow, repeats Crowfoot. They talk about provenance and whatnot.

What's provenance?

Proof of where it came from.

I don't need proof. I got a head.

Right.

He's well preserved is what he is. Like my grandmother. We had to dig her up for an inquest thing. To prove if my grandpa poisoned her or not. For the insurance, you know.

And did he?

Probably, but they couldn't prove it. Grandma looked pretty good, considering. Like she'd been dead only a month or two.

I don't know about your dear departed. But I tell you it doesn't take a genius to figure that ain't Ketchum.

Is too.

You been had.

Mosca considers the withered human head in his lap. The wispy black hair, ears like dried apple slices. A flake of yellow epidermis peels away from the edge of a sunken, gaping eye socket. Mosca picks at it, trying to neaten the skull. It's like trying to scrape the label off a mayonnaise jar. All he manages to do is to loosen a bigger hunk. He licks his finger and dabs at it.

Damn, he says. I didn't mean to do that.

George shakes his head and backs out of the driveway. You can probably hock it.

You think?

George shrugs. Hock shops value the odd. It might fit right in. I mean, it's a head all right. Even if I doubt it's Black Jack's.

Mosca stares at the grimacing, leathery mug. People will pay good money for the head of Black Jack Ketchum. Man I won it from said it was worth a grand at least.

Crowfoot shrugs. You might get something for it. I don't know about a grand. Maybe a hundred bucks.

Shit. I get more than that. He's a famous outlaw.

Ketchum was. This dude, he probably robbed a liquor store and forgot to grab a top- shelf bottle of tequila, the dumbshit. Crowfoot grins. That's if you ask me.

Mosca says, Fuck it. He stuffs the head back into the bowling- ball bag, crams it between his feet on the floorboard. I'm going to make some money off this head if it's the last thing I do.

That's just peachy, says Crowfoot. They drive taciturn and moody through the streets of Pueblo to the Department of Nuisance Animal Control office, where they check in and get their assignment for the day. Crows and cowbirds near a feedlot. Exterminate with all due diligence. The boss man Silas tells them to get started pronto.

Halfway across town Mosca says, You hear about the fatso kidnappings?

Crowfoot holds the steering wheel with one finger, his hand in his lap, staring at the landscape of pawnshops, strip clubs, and palm readers that clatters by the pickup's window like lemons and cherries on a slot machine. After a moment of silence he says, You want the truth? I bet Black Jack Ketchum's head is buried along with his name.

They're kidnapping fat people and liposuctioning them skinny to sell the oil on the black market. That's what I heard.

The sky looks darker the farther west they travel.

What do you mean, "they"? asks Crowfoot.

You know, says Mosca. The lipo gangs. The ones who sell it

on the black market to the illegals and migrants living in the boxcars down at the freight yards.

Crowfoot squints at the storm clouds massed before them. Looks like we're about to be in the shit, Señor Fly.

Jesus Christ. I don't need another day off, says Mosca. I need some work is what I need. By hook or crook.

George is thinking he needs a better pair of boots. And a better job. He used to think this grunt work was a step up from hauling trash since part of the job was shooting things. Years ago maybe George would have enjoyed the pure sport of it— the aiming, the hitting of the target— but now when he's called out to exterminate another murder of crows sighted near town, he feels the spider- on- your- neck creep of guilt. And today's detail is just pathetic, sent to the west side of town to track and kill a flock of cowbirds massing on feedlot scraps. A job like this would make Crazy Horse turn over in his grave.

Interested in a little extra cash? asks Mosca. I got something going on the side. Bet I could get you on, easy.

You're full of bets today, aren't you?

Mosca grins. I'm a betting fool, that's for sure. I tell you about this, you promise not to breathe a word? It's somewhat wide of the law, if you catch my drift.

Do I look like a snitch?

Mosca explains that he's part of a crew of cattle providers. With the price of beef higher than ever, a man can make good money liberating a few head of cattle at night, taking them to a slaughterhouse out of state. Black- market beef.

You have to know your way around a steer, says Mosca. I'm guessing you probably do. Plus it helps to have some muscle. It's all quick and fast and these dudes I work with, they don't fuck around.

You're cattle rustling?

You could call it that. I like to think of it as a Robin Hood kind of deal. Taking from the rich and selling to the poor.

That's supposed to be giving to the poor.

We can't be that old- fashioned, can we?

I don't like the sound of it.

I didn't either at first. But once you get used to money, it makes you feel like the king of Denver.

They near the western edge of town. The wind picks up and grit blasts the windshield. Crowfoot flips on the wipers. The rubber blades squeak and shudder on the cold glass, clearing two arches. Mosca says they're screwed. No way in hell they're going to do any bird killing in this duster. They watch as the dust storm rears up in front of them. It comes on like a cloud of bricks.

Crowfoot and Mosca sit in the cab and wait it out. The sand sifts across the windshield in a hypnotizing swift drizzle. It's as if time is moving faster than it should. Mosca says sometimes it seems that the end is near and this is nothing but hourglass sand running out.

They watch as the dust storm swallows a billboard advertising topless dancers in the Wiggle Room.

After a half hour the storm slackens. The wind dies and the dust sifts down on the back side of the wind gusts. Traffic begins to crawl. Mosca and Crowfoot drive on, straining to see the taillights of the vehicles ahead.

Crowfoot asks for more dope about this cattle- rustling gig.

. . .

R u b y h u r r i e s a c r o s s the prairie, the roiling bulge of the dust storm looming like the debris cloud of a demolished building. She coughs and squints, the grit in her eyes and mouth. A gulch opens before her. She stumbles at the edge and into the shadows she falls.

She trips and slides down the steep ravine walls. Cactus rakes her face, neck, and arms. She hits the bottom of the gulch hard, landing in a jumble of stones and grass. When she comes to a stop, she winces and rocks in pain. Her left arm burns and aches. She clutches it to her side. She feels for wounds, finds a swelling on her head. Her hand is wet. She holds it before her eyes. She can see nothing but a finger and palm shadow in the brick- red haze.

The dust storm swirls above the gulch like a bloody tornado. She huddles in the hollow of a boulder, finds a windbreak behind it. She curls on the grassy floor of the dry- wash streambed, feeling the stab of cactus spines embedded in her cheeks and arm. She can feel the sand trickling into the gap of her collar and down her back. After a time she rubs crusty tears from her eyes and can see again. She pulls off the gauze mask and sits up, coughing and wheezing. All about her dust covers the grass and stones. She struggles to her feet, cradling her arm close to her side. Her elbow is swollen and shot with hot pain.

Not far away a coyote stands motionless. She stares numb and confused in its direction for several moments before she notices it, still as the landscape, the gray of its fur contrasting with the dust- covered boulders and stones.

She stares at it and takes a step forward. The coyote drops its head and backs away, keeping its eyes on her, until after a few feet it turns away and trots down the middle of the gulch floor.

She follows the coyote's prints in the dust. The gulch is a dozen feet deep, with sides of steep, corrugated dirt. At its lip are hard- packed overhangs, pocked with the mud cones of Cliff Swallow nests.

She comes upon two illegals in white cowboy hats, carrying bolsas, their faces covered by bandannas. Only their eyes and black hair are visible in the wedge of skin above their noses and below their foreheads.

Ruby pulls her gauze mask over her nose to hide her face. She stands coughing as they near. Her heart beats so hard she feels faint.

The illegals look like sand people. One of them has a bandage on his hand, brown blotches on the gauze, the stain of blood seep. They nod at her and pause.

She nods back and takes to coughing again.

One of the illegals removes his hat and holds it in both hands. Está enferma? he asks.

Sí. Mi boca está lleno de arena.

Lo siento. Puedo ayudar?

No, gracias. Estoy bien.

The man nods. Bueno. He looks behind him, in the direction she's headed. The one who has not spoken, who has the bandage soaked with blood and coated with dust on his hand, removes his hat and slaps it against his leg, brushing free a plume. A rifle hangs from his shoulder.

Ruby moves away. Vaya con dios, she says.

Dondé está su casa? asks the one with the rifle.

She keeps walking. She listens for their movements. She tenses to run even as she yet steps carefully through the sand and cactus. Her heart in her throat, she struggles to suppress her cough and to breathe, to be able to hear any sound of movement behind her.

Ruby moves toward town slowly. She feels snowflakes in her eyelashes like the smallest of blessings. A glorious hush falls upon the world. With the dust storm behind her and the snow squall upon her, she has no sense of east or west, past or present.

She thinks of the warmth and comfort she could find if she reaches the vet's office where her mother works, if she reaches someone to take her fever, to hold her up. To keep her from falling. To keep her safe. To return her to her baby girl, to squire them both away from Lord God and all his righteous rants and ravings.

She's faint and weak and begins to doubt her eyes. The falling snow looks red, soft crystals floating down like bloodstained feathers. She knows she's close to town but suddenly a quartet of horses appears galloping, snorting and shaking their heads.

One is a palomino, a pale golden blur in the blizzard of red snowflakes. The others are chestnut and roan, shaggy manes and arched tails. Their eyes are bright and wild as they gallop past. One of the roans, a stallion, slows and whinnies, tossing his head up and down.

Ruby remains still, frightened by the power and excitement of the horses. They canter around her for a moment, this quiet girl eerily motionless in the middle of a desert field, a girl out of place. It's like something out of Lives of the Saints, a miraculous girl there to tame the wild heart of the horses, only it is the animals who seem puzzled by her presence, who gallop over the hill to flee from this curious pilgrim of the cactus and prairie grass.

At Pueblo Boulevard, the hiss of tires on snow- wet asphalt. A siren Dopplers in the distance. It sounds like Lila crying, trapped in a wooden box with Lord God, watching out the windows as the world becomes swallowed by dust. A car's deep bass speakers throb. Ruby limps through the weedy parking lot of an abandoned Circuit City next to a defunct Blockbuster Video. The haggard facade of a beauty shop tagged with gang graffiti. Smashed windows of a camera shop next door. Shattered glass and fast- food paper bags litter the asphalt.

Ruby crosses the wide boulevard, forced to hurry on her sprained and swollen ankle through the honking traffic. The vet's office is a few miles farther. She reaches the median and waits for the walk signal. Cold spray from the passing cars' tires wets her cheeks. She slips her gauze mask over her mouth once again and stares stoically at the signal of an amber hand. Cars honk.

Mosca and George Armstrong Crowfoot sit in a line of cars at the red light and see Ruby trying to cross, standing in the median, covered with red dust. It's freezing cold and the jacket she wears is thin. Mosca rolls down his window and tells her, Get inside, honey pie. Get warmed up. No sense being out in the cold like that.

She shakes her head and won't look at them directly.

Come on, sweetheart! Where you headed? We take you wherever you want to go. You're going to catch your death out there.

Ruby hunches her shoulders and stares at the traffic signal.

Come on, chica! Get in here and we warm you up! We won't bite. Promise. 'Less you want us to.

Crowfoot feels sorry for her and watches as she hurries through the traffic, darting behind their pickup, to the other side of the intersection, caught by a green light halfway through, running with a hitch in her step in the pink snow.

Cars honk behind the pickup until it roars away. Finally the light changes and Ruby crosses the second lane of traffic. She limps down the sidewalk beside a snow- covered golf course. A Christmas stillness envelops it, the rolling greens coated a pure pinkish white, strips of red storm dust visible in the hollows of the sand traps. She passes a cemetery beside a seedy business district. Colored Christmas lights festoon the eaves of Vietnamese massage parlors and shabby strip clubs/casinos promising all- nude dancers and half- price drinks. She walks beneath a sign proclaiming, all nudes, all the time

! The snow settles upon

cinder- block liquor stores and palm- reader shops advertising vi siones del porvenir, amuletos para buen suerte, y pocíones contra mal ojo. She walks on, feverish and dizzy.

On Polk Street Ruby comes upon La Iglesia de los Niños de Jesus Cristo. Her skin burns. A heavy weakness fills her bones. She can no longer see clearly. She rubs her eyes and holds out her good hand, watches the snow settle upon it like pink icing.

The sky above ripples. Ruby limps through the churchyard, tears the gauze mask from her face, and gasps, spots in her eyes. When she reaches the steps of the brick church, her vision clouds purple. She sits on the cold steps.

The snow grows heavier, falling in great fluffy flakes. Her hair is soaked and limp. Near her stands the church's nativity scene, a small hut of recycled lumber, a roof of juniper bows and straw, papier- mâché wise men, Joseph and Mary, a wheelbarrow in which lies a plastic doll, the baby Jesus. A square of straw- strewn earth surrounds it.

She rises and limps to the shelter of the hut, bone- weary and feverish. Into the wheelbarrow she curls her body around the doll, its blue plastic eyes open wide with artificial lashes fat and spiky.

She lies there, shivering, delirious. A flock of seagulls hovers over the crèche, their black eyes like polka dots upon the swirling red snow. After a time a nun appears. You cannot sleep here, she says. Please. It is a sacrilege.

Ruby only blinks at her, blood and scratches on her face. The nun makes the sign of the cross and hurries back inside the church, leaving Ruby there, holding the plastic baby Jesus in her arms.

I t h a s b e e n t w o y e a r s and thirteen days since ward Costello's wife and baby girl passed away. On the outskirts of Pueblo he passes a billboard that reads, when americans believe in god, god will bless america. A dark blue deportation bus roars by, filled with illegals, mainly women and children, their sorrowful faces near the windows. They watch him through the smeared glass of his windshield.

He feels swollen. As if it is all too much for him. He's had this

odd itching for a while now, since his wife had and daughter have been gone: a feeling that all his past, all his memories, is just a blink away, the width of an eyelash, the click of a tongue, everything, right there. The slightest movement or hiss of wind can bring it all rushing back. A trapped sensation that there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, from this tsunami of the past. The more he focuses on the present the more he can't wish or will it away.

This he remembers: her long, dusky eyelashes, her incredible warmth, the smell of her and her alone on the cotton pillowcases, the feel of spooning next to her, the curve of her smoothness against his lap. The bliss remembered. Waking up to call her by name, a single word, baby.

He exits I- 25 in downtown Pueblo. He drives west, the sky ahead like a hammered sheet of copper, traffic moving in fits and starts. He passes a truck hauling cattle, the whites of their bovine eyes rolling at him through the slats in the cattle trailer. He heads down 4th Street, through a moribund district of brick shops long closed. His eyes burn like they've been soaked in Tabasco. His heart beats too hard and fast and the dividing stripes in the road seem to rise in the air above his car like flying white snakes.

He rolls down his window to let in the cold. When his scalp begins to tingle and goose bumps cover his arms, he rolls it back up. The heater blasts hot air, so he feels cold and feverish at once. He worries it could be a touch of the sickness, even though he's supposed to be immune now.

He heads toward an odd darkness in the sky, toward the prairie that divides Pueblo from the Sierra Mojada, foothills to the Rockies, where he plans to do his bird- population study. After sleeping in the car and no shower, he smells sour and homeless. He keeps expecting a motel to pop up on the western edge of town, where it would be convenient. None do. Hispanic teenagers in muscle cars rumble in the other lanes, blasting Tejano hip- hop.

Sitting at an intersection he closes his eyes and the next thing he knows a pickup behind him is honking and he's faint and frantic, pressing down on the accelerator and giving the driver behind a guilty wave. He passes pawnshops and massage parlors and Mexican restaurants. He squints at the street signs and sees he's crossing Pueblo Boulevard, on the edge of town, a sign indicating to turn right for the city zoo. All the billboards are in Spanish. He keeps driving until he realizes he is beyond everything. The landscape here is tan and rust- colored rock on cliffs above the road, and below it cottonwoods and Russian olives, pale green and dusted with road drift, along the banks of the Arkansas River.

Here what little is left of town looks like Mars conquered by Cortés. In a sudden moment of panic he loses his way. A cloud wall of dark red dust swallows the road and he slows to a crawl before pulling onto the shoulder. The car shakes in the wind. Sand and dust pummel the windshield.

Ward closes his eyes and leans against the steering wheel. His thoughts bob and float. A memory lurches up like a zombie: how as a boy he would mow the grass of an aunt and uncle's house. His mother would drive him there on weekend mornings and drop him off, return to pick him up hours later. The mowing didn't take long and he'd have hours to kill in the musty- but- clean house of the old couple. He must have been eight, nine years old. His cousin was much older and was already grown, but in his old room there was a large box of vintage comic books. Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Archie, Spiderman, the Flash. He remembers how happy he was just to sit in the room and read the comic books. How peaceful it was. How long ago it seems.

Later he wakes in a daze, a spot of drool on his crossed arms. He rubs his eyes and sees that the storm has passed. Weak and brain- befogged, he does a U- turn in the empty road and heads back toward town, crosses the Arkansas River and the railroad depots. A neon sign the shape of a buffalo, upon which rides a cowgirl holding the loop of a lariat. The Buffalo Head.

He pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine. The car ticks like the sound of his brain defusing. He stares at a horse tied to a stanchion near the office. A faint snow begins to fall. Ward rubs his eyes and blinks. A horse? He wonders if the fever is affecting his vision. The snow looks pink.

In the motel office Ward stands at the check- in counter, blowing his nose. His head is clogged, each beat of his pulse causing a throb of ache in his temples. To his left is a platter of glazed doughnuts, a coffee machine with an urn full of black liquid. He takes a seat on the ugly brown sofa near a wall- mounted, taxidermied buffalo head. The lobby paintings are all cowboys herding steers across a river or coyotes against a full moon. The lamp- shade stand is made of deer antlers. Ward sits and stares at the painting of cowboys and steers as if stunned by a slaughterhouse air gun. His face is pale and he can smell himself, feel the waxy sweat upon his fevered forehead.

After some time he awakens in the chair, his bladder full and hot with pain.

Are you okay?

It's the clerk. She's behind the check- in counter now, leaning forward to see him. A bleached blond chewing gum. Hey, mister. You okay? she asks again.

He finds himself staring at the garish electric sign of the motel. A cowgirl with loopy neon lariat, riding a stylized buffalo. The yellow- and- blue light streaks like glowing tattoos upon the deep blue skin of dusk. No, he says. Not really.

H i r a m p a g e opens his pawnshop with a premonition of something wonderful about to drop into his lap. Not one month ago he saw a red- haired preacher's daughter sitting in a pew of the Lamb of the Forsaken temple and knew she would become his third wife. He has a way with these things and it isn't to be argued with.

Hiram is forty- eight but looks older, discount- store distinguished. He's a tall, broad- shouldered man with a wide, shrewd face, a high forehead and white hair. Handsome enough to use his looks for his own gain. Although raised in a Mormon family, he enjoys a drink now and then, but who doesn't? The chastised pride themselves on overcoming vices, but it takes a man to manage them for his own enjoyment.

The secret to success is constancy of purpose, he often says, a quote from no less than Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister from the nineteenth century. The man was an accomplished as a British statesman despite being a Jew. Hiram attends an FLDS church every Sunday and professes to believe in the mirage of the one true prophet. A foolish idea if there ever was one.

His pawnshop lurks on Northern Avenue, at the edge of Mexican town, a good place for poor folk desperate to sell something for much less than it's worth. The shop itself is an ex– convenience store, its wide glass windows girded by burglar bars. In place of the Slushy machine stands a firearms display.

This morning the sunlight slants through the steel bars covering the windows as into a prison cell. In the distance a train howls. Hiram starts the day with a nip of bourbon and its mist still warms his throat when a man- child in plaid western shirt and faded jeans stumbles in, struggling against the wind, face masked by a bandanna. Standing just inside the shop like a shy bank robber, he pulls down the bandanna and puts an asthma inhaler to his mouth. After a moment of wheezing he removes his cap and shakes it clean.

Hiram watches the dust settle onto his recently swept tile floor. I appreciate that, friend, he says. I was just telling myself how my clean floor needed some dirt.

Hiram has a Gregory Peck voice, rich and deep. A voice you hear on wildlife documentaries.

You the owner?

Hiram raises his chin. I might be. Long as you're not about to point a six- shooter at me and proclaim this a stickup.

I'm not sticking up anyone.

The newcomer puts his Colorado Rockies baseball cap back in place and tries to stand up straight, but it's as if his body is slightly crooked. He opens his mouth to speak and pauses. The fluorescent lights fill the white cap with a glow, giving him the aura of a farm- team Jesus, eyelashes long and girlish.

Hiram pushes a bottle of hand sanitizer toward the rockabilly. Do the honors, would you?

The man takes the sanitizer in a submissive way, rubbing his hands and then reaching out for a Kleenex to dry them.

What I hear is that you and me are family.

Hiram purses his lips. How so?

My name's Jack Brown and I'm your wife's second cousin. Honey Davis. Davis is her stepfather's name. Her real father was a Hostetter, and my mother is Dorothy Hostetter, his cousin. So Honey's my second cousin. Or third, I don't know. You just ask her. She'll tell you.

I'm sure she'd sing like a bird, says Hiram. But for the moment, let's say you're telling the Lord's truth. What can I do you for?

You've got a reputation, you know that? People always talking about what a shrewd customer that Mr. Hiram Page is. I even hear you got two wives.

Hiram blinks and again purses his lips almost imperceptibly. Both are sweet and pretty. And they smile when I walk up.

Jack Brown grins. You got me there.

Did you come in just to get acquainted? asks Page.

Brown steps forward, speaks in a hush. Thing is, he says, I need to borrow some money. I got to buy a pickup.

You do.

I know what you're thinking. Just 'cause he's my wife's second

cousin he thinks he can saunter in here like the king of England and get some money for nothing. But that's not it at all.

It's not the half of it, I'd wager.

How much you give me to borrow off a carat- and- a- half diamond wedding ring? You know, as collateral.

Carat plus? That's a big diamond.

You're telling me. I'd say it's worth twenty grand.

Hiram raises his eyebrows. These days you can buy a house in Little Pueblo for less.

I got no use for a house.

Hiram sighs. A pock- faced teenager scuffles in the door. He smells like weed and looks like trouble. His oil- black hair hangs in his eyes and between the bangs his gaze slides by Hiram and Brown like they're museum pieces and he's on a high school field trip.

Hiram paces down the counter, away from Jack Brown and toward the kid. What can I do you for? Let me guess. You're looking for something? A birth certificate?

The kid is chewing gum and pauses in midchew. He shakes his head. He wears sneakers with the laces untied and spiderweb tattoo sleeves decorate his arms.

Is the drum set in the window for sale?

You bet it is, says Hiram. And if you can play a drum solo, I'll drop the price 40 percent. Hiram looks at Jack Brown and winks.

The teenager smiles. I'll try.

You interested in that diamond ring or not? asks Brown.

Let me see what you have.

I don't have it here with me.

And you want to know what it's worth?

Ballpark figure, yeah. I mean, what I could borrow for it.

I can't estimate a value on a mythical ring, says Page. King Solomon had three hundred wives, but he still knew you have to bite gold.

I can get that ring. This afternoon, most likely.

The teenager gives the drums a steady roll and drowns out Jack Brown's voice.

Pardon? asks Hiram.

I can get it, shouts Jack Brown. It! he shouts. The ring! Later today.

So where is this Star of India?

It was my grandmother's! He shouts again to be heard above the drum noise. Two teenaged girls who have just wandered in cringe and go wide- eyed.

Hiram nods. Let me guess. She's no longer among the living?

Died two years ago.

The kid kicks into a drum solo. Jack Brown shakes his head. After a moment the kid stops and calls out, I get that 40 percent off ?

You got it, Ringo, says Hiram.

The whole set?

The whole set. I'll even throw in an extra pair of sticks.

The kid smiles and extricates himself from the drum stool. I'll be back later with the money.

You do that.

Hiram calls out to the teenaged girls in the electronics aisle and tells them to give him a holler if they have any questions.

Now, where were we? he asks Brown. Oh, yes. We were tak

ing a diamond ring off your deceased grandmother. Right. Have to dig her up and soap her finger, do we?

I gave it to a woman is what I did. Now I'm having second thoughts.

Hiram smiles. Clear as mud.

I asked for it back. I'm going to pick it up later. It's early yet.

And this Ophelia? She's happy to return said expensive romantic keepsake you gave her free and easy? She hasn't sold it already?

Not if she knows what's good for her.

Hiram steps away, wiping his hands, mock Pontius Pilate. You bring the ring and I'll take a look.

I'll be back before you can get bored watching the two fillies there on aisle two.

Hiram stares back into his eyes. Okay, Cousin Jack. I'll be waiting. But remember what Margaret Thatcher said about patience.

Margaret who?

Thatcher. Former prime minister of England. I assume you've heard of the nation of England? Beef eaters and blood pudding? Soccer hooligans? Ring a bell?

Don't be talking down to me, okay? I know you got me over a barrel, but there's other pawnshops in the world.

Yes, there are.

So tell me already. What did this Margaret lady say that I should remember?

She said, I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

. . .

L i k e s o m e t h i n g out of legend, an equestrian patrol officer appears before La Iglesia de los Niños de Jesus Cristo on a chestnut horse. He dismounts and ties his mare to the crèche, squatting down to get a good look at the girl in the hay. The nun meets him and they speak for a moment. Both wear gauze face masks, struggle to hear each other over the shovel scrape and high- pitched beeping of a passing snowplow. The nun mentions the word fever.

Officer Israel James comes to stand above Ruby curled in the wheelbarrow. He shakes her shoulder. She does not respond. He calls in a report to the dispatcher. She tells him that all the ambulances are busy, that he should transport the girl to the hospital himself. He explains that he's on horseback. The dispatcher tells him to wait while she directs a patrol car his way. He listens and nods, replaces the wireless unit in his shoulder harness.

The girl has the fever no doubt and to touch her is forbidden if you are anyone but family or a doctor. He guesses a lawman fits somewhere between the two categories. A risk of his life it is and he will do it without thinking, looking at this pale face. How can you turn away? You can't. If it's your time to punch the big clock, so be it.

The chestnut mare shakes her head and mane, whinnying high- pitched and petulant.

The policeman takes a handful of sugar cubes from his pocket and holds them out, the horse's tongue warm against his cold fingers. Now, calm down, Apache, he says. This girl's hurt and I think you can wait a few minutes till the wheels arrive.

Before long he sees a patrol car turn at the intersection and head his way. He stands over Ruby for a moment, plants his feet wide, hefts her into his arms. He carries her to the patrol car, her body limp and lifeless. He waits as the patrolman opens the door and, grunting and breathing hard, he maneuvers her into position on the rear seat. She parts her lips and moans, her eyes half open and dreamy.

Later Officer James is called to defuse a domestic disturbance. At a motel no less. The dispatcher says some couple is shouting and threatening mayhem. Sober guests have complained.

Israel James does not like motels. They bring out the worst in people. The good take home a bar of soap or vial of shampoo, the polishing cloth for a shoeshine they will never use, maybe the Gideon Bible in times of spiritual doubt. The bad rip the blow dryer out of the wall, burn a hole in the carpet, then strangle a hooker to death after failing to perform, leaving her body beneath the bed or stuffed in the closet, covered with a blanket, behind an ironing board. And the people who are torn between good and bad? They hear the devil whispering, and they listen.

The Buffalo Head Inn has seen better days, perhaps during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when the Joads offered to sweep and mop to pay for the room. It's two stories of bleached and weather- beaten wood done imitation- ski- lodge style, with pine railings adorned with bucking- bronco woodcuts, plank walkways outside the rooms, and room numbers wood- burned on aspen cuts.

Israel James rides his horse to the office breezeway and dismounts, the leather of his gunbelt creaking. Apache snorts, her shoes popping the pavement. The carport roof above the breezeway catches the sound. He ties her to a wrought- iron bench.

You behave now, girl, he says. Don't bite the paying cus tomers.

The parking lot is spotty with old pickups and new Minis, cars so small you expect a troupe of clowns to emerge at every stoplight. Cigarette butts dot the asphalt amid the deadbeat jewelry of broken glass.

Inside the lobby, a bleached blond sniffs a magazine perfume insert and watches Israel approach. Country music sad- sacks out from a radio. Behind her sits a bassinet with a sleeping child in it. A handwritten sign above the sign- in counter advertises happy hour

5– 7 in the wagon wheel lounge, free beer & wine.

Her ID tag reads, Fufu. You must be here for the honeymooners, she says. They're in 117.

You know anything about them?

Fufu shrugs. The gal's been staying in the room alone mostly. I think lover boy just showed up and if I'm guessing right, she's pissed he found her. Maybe she's just not that into him. Or he wants into her, and she wants out.

The female must be an Amish schoolteacher, right? A looker?

Fufu pulls a face. Nothing special. My guess is she's the kind of woman men like. You know. For their earthly pleasures.

James is thinking of Fufu along similar lines. It's the devil on your shoulder in the motel zone. She wears a tangerine western shirt with pearl- snap buttons and saddle stitching, a gap between the snaps revealing a peek of lily- white bra cup. He guesses she's sometime past high school and somewhere before second divorce.

Well, it's my job to keep the peace. Should I be worried about these two?

Fufu shrugs. He smells like lowlife, you ask me. Like he'd beat a dog if it took to barking.

You're saying maybe I should use some caution.

Fufu smiles. A horse cop trying to break up a domestic? Maybe you should call in the Mounties.

You watch my back, would you?

She grins. I could do that. But I got to watch him first, she adds, indicating the sleeping baby.

Officer James takes it slowly, counting his paces down the warped wood planks to the stairway. He passes a room illuminated by the glow of a TV flickering against the drawn curtains, laughter and loud voices. At another room a woman holds a door open for a man carrying a baby in a car seat. An alarm honks from the used- car parking lot, no one nearby.

Although Israel Franklin James is a man of the law, supposedly he's a descendant of Jesse James, hothead outlaw and one- time Missouri boy. He suspects it's just a family myth. Kin always get a little vague when asked for proof, citing some long- lost letter from Independence, Missouri, with Jesse's name on it. Israel figures Jesse wasn't much of a letter writer, what with the bank robbing and all. His hands must have been full, holding six- shooters and bags of cash.

And he doesn't particularly like the name Israel. He's uncomfortable with the biblical, Red Sea tone of it. He isn't a Bible thumper and doesn't want to be confused with one. But a name is a gift one doesn't give back. Friends call him Elray. His sister named him that. She gave it a hillbilly twang, just to yank his chain.

Elray hears bedlam before he reaches the top of the stairs. A man and woman both talking at once is what he'd say with his eyes closed, which they are in effect, just a pair of voices somewhere above and down the breezeway to the right. The woman raises hers loud and clear, calling for the comfort of the public sphere.

You touch me I'll scream, she says.

Nobody's touching nobody, the man says. Touching time is over and out.

Possession is nine- tenths of the law, says the woman.

Yeah, well, the other tenth is what matters, and it's my grandmother's ring. So turn it over already.

You don't scare me.

Give it back and let's just close this door and move on. That's what we're going to do here, less you got twenty grand cash to buy it straight out.

You're crazy.

Right. You don't have it, do you?

I have a ring is what I have. A diamond ring you gave me. Fair and square.

You got a broken heart and a rock that don't belong to you, is what you got.

Jack Brown is breathing hard and pulls his asthma inhaler out and takes a breath as he watches the law approach.

Come on, now, Brown says to the woman. You're making a spectacle of yourself.

She sees Elray and her eyes stay on him as she speaks. Don't tell me to clean it up. You're the dirty one, not me.

Brown holds her elbow. Great, he says. Now you're going to end up in court. Everybody's going to get a good laugh.

See here, says Elray. Let's you two just calm down and be nice.

Brown shakes his head. We got no use for you here, Officer. Just a civilized disagreement is all.

That's a lie, says the woman, trying to twist away from his grip on her arm. He's trying to take my engagement ring is what he's doing.

That's between us, Becca.

I'll be the judge of that, says Elray. Let her arm go why don't you?

Brown doesn't budge. This is my grandmother's ring.

I don't give a shit whose it is. I said let the woman go.

I'm not letting her take my—

In two steps Elray has Brown's ear in his right hand, twisting.

Pardon? says Elray. I don't think I heard you right.

He gave this ring to me, says the woman. He gave it to me, she repeats. He called it off but once you give an engagement ring you don't take it back.

Jack Brown grimaces from his ear being twisted. That ring cost twenty thousand dollars, he pleads, his breath wheezy. It's over, right? Well, I can't be paying twenty thousand dollars for two months of her time, now, can I?

I told you to let go of her, says Elray. This ain't tag- team wrestling, shithead. Let go before a judge sorts things out not to your liking.

You want this ring? asks the woman. She puts her ring finger into her mouth. She sucks for a moment, squeezes her eyes shut tight, then pulls the ring off her finger with her free hand and holds it out. Is this what you want?

Becca? Don't mess with me.

It's mine, she says. It's mine to do with what I want. She holds the diamond ring between her index finger and thumb. As if to assay its value. As if to offer it in auction. Or to hock at a pawnshop. For a brief moment. Then she smiles and moves to put the ring into her mouth.

Brown tries to grab her hand and snatch the ring but misses and stumbles, Elray still holding on to his ear.

Are you crazy? He tries to jam his fingers into her mouth. A confused struggle, his voice cursing her. Elray pins Brown by the neck against the rough wood siding of the motel wall. Brown's baseball cap cants sideways at a comical angle. Elray feels the flex of a windpipe. Brown's face goes purple.

Whoever you think you're dealing with here, says Elray, you are mistaken. I am a horse cop, yes. That's who I am. Who are you? You're the jailhound who just resisted arrest.

He thinks he knows everything and everyone, says the woman. He's walking poison is what he is.

Brown's gasps, his tongue visible in mouth agape. He seems to be shaking his head, grabbing at Elray's left arm with both hands. His hat falls and the woman catches it in the air, flings it backward over the railing. It lands brim down in an oily puddle. Brown continues to struggle. Elray pulls him forward a space and slams him back against the wall. His eyes bulge. He raises his hands.

That's probably good, now, says the woman. She touches Elray's arm. I don't want you making trouble for yourself. Come on, now.

I let you go, you going to touch this woman again?

Brown does the best head shake he can, his neck pinned and his face gone purple.

Elray loosens his hold and steps back, one hand held out as if to ward off a wild vengeance swing. Brown gasps and hunches over, wheezing, his lungs loosing a high- pitched hiss. He scrabbles on his knees for a moment, a squirming ball of faded western shirt and blue jeans, working the inhaler out of his pocket and into his mouth.

Oh, good Lord, says the woman. She kneels beside Jack Brown and strokes his forehead as he wheezes. Every time he tries to play the badass, his asthma acts up.

Elray watches crestfallen, afraid now that this little dustup is turning into something ugly and complicated. Domestics are always like this: One minute you think it's over, the next you're rushing a shirtless drunk to the St. Mary's ER or answering questions at a disciplinary hearing.

He going to be okay?

I think so. The woman helps Jack Brown sit up. He just can't breathe is all.

Elray asks for their names and an explanation of the dispute. Hers is Rebecca Cisneros, friends called her Becca. Long black hair like a show horse's mane and high cheekbones. She's the kind of woman who could be the mother of beautiful children or the teller of a First National Bank. Or end up broadcast on the Internet in a sex video shot in a no- tell motel like the Buffalo Head Inn, with bad lighting, shag carpet, a painting of elk and pines on the wall, and beneath her naked skin an ugly bedspread.

When he can talk Jack Brown says, My name is Smith. He stares at Becca as he says this.

Smith? Elray repeats. First name?

William. That's right. A vein pulses down the middle of Brown's pale forehead, and at each breath he grimaces. I'm guessing you've probably heard my name before.

Elray looks him straight in the eyes and does not blink. Sounds like an alias.

I'll get a lawyer, Brown says. Once this gets settled, you'll be sorry.

Elray has been holding the pepper- spray can at the ready, like it's an aerosol quick- draw contest. He tucks it back into a belt loop and says, Now I'm scared.

Jack Brown keeps wheezing. Yeah, well, you should be.

Becca wears the queasy smile of a woman who has swallowed a diamond ring worth twenty thousand dollars and now realizes the only way to retrieved it will be slow, painful, and unpleasant. Most likely the only witness to its egress will be herself, in her mind the rightful owner of the pricey bijou and symbol of undying eternal affection.

Elray adjusts his hat and looks at the two of them. I tell you what. I hate domestics, you know? I don't like to get in the middle of other people's disagreements. Can we end this here?

He's not getting that ring, says Becca. Not now. Not a week, month, or year from now.

Forget it, says Brown. His face is blotchy and eyes bloodshot. He smooths his bushy hair with one hand. I can buy another one, he adds. And get another sweetheart. Same difference.

Let's hold off the insults, okay? says Elray.

Can I leave? Without you pulling a gun and plugging me in the back?

Go, says Elray. It will be my pleasure.

Brown walks away, wearing the look of a man who has lost a battle but is planning a war. The stairwell shudders under his boots and the weight of his body bounding down the steps. He goes to the parking lot and picks up his cap, brushes it off. Moments later a Jeep wheels out of the parking lot, squealing as it takes a right on the avenue.

You know how to make friends, don't you? says Becca.

I suppose, says Elray. He shrugs. Funny how people obey if you have them by the throat.

Becca touches his arm and tells him she appreciates his help, his standing up for her like that. She explains that Jack Brown gave him a fake name. You can't trust him. He gave me this engagement ring and then demanded it back. I said no way, she says. Then he got all huffy about it, insisted it was worth twenty thousand dollars.

Elray puts away his notebook. You're better off not married to any man who would ask for the ring back, what I'm thinking. You deserve better than that.

Becca smiles. You're sweet. Can I tell you a secret?

Does it involve lawbreaking?

She looks at him funny for a moment, wiggling her mouth and jaw, then reaches inside her lips with her fingertips. Bingo, she says and holds the diamond ring up in the air.

Elray grins. You're no dummy.

That's the truth. Problem is, Jack is. Just enough of a dummy not to let it go. I'm here hiding from him, but he found me. He's like a bloodhound. Dim and determined.

So what is this outlaw's real name?

I'll tell you on one condition. You interested in some dinner? I could fix us something. I'm not always involved in such seedy scenes, you know. Most of the time I'm downright civic- minded. I vote and pay taxes.

You don't, he says.

I do. She smiles. And I make a good plate of fried chicken. Sound good?

Elray says it does and he'll be glad to accept. They agree he'll show up later, after nine.

She gives him a kiss on the cheek and he feels the softness of her lips, smells her skin when she leans in close.

I'm looking forward to it, she says. You probably got the wrong idea about me earlier.

You're better off without that loser.

She nods and tucks her hands in her back pockets. I am.

Elray is love- headed on his way out the door, stifling a foolish grin, waving good- bye to her as she stands in the aura of the doorway. Half a mind to double back and ask if he can take her out somewhere nice. But then again, hard to refuse a woman who offers to cook for you. He keeps walking, his mind full of her smell and her softness. He moves on into the early evening, the sky a pure violet overhead, toward his horse, forgetful and enchanted, passing light- headed down the motel breezeway, down the stairs.

He's a mile toward home, sitting a bit chilled in the saddle, holding Apache's reins, when he realizes he's forgotten to get the real name of her abuser.

A f t e r t h e d o o r c l o s e s Becca feels herself deflate. A depressing quiet settles like the hush of bad news. Her smile fades as she moves through the room, tuning the TV to the Weather Channel, pouring herself a glass of water. She's ashamed and realizes her engagement was nothing more than a pause at the intersection of Hope and Desperation. Forget marriage. She knows the reality likely will be her standing alone in line at a convenience store, trying to corral a two- year- old, buying tampons and a pack of Marlboro Lights.

She goes to brush her teeth and stares at her reflection in the mirror. A trace of wrinkles around her mouth and eyes and oh God she's thirty- one years old and getting older by the second.

Out the open window she can hear a couple arguing in the alley. She rinses her teeth and stares at the diamond ring on the counter beside her moisturizer and makeup. From the window she can hear a truck's loud engine throbbing and a burst of drunken laughter.

She rummages through her makeup kit and comes up with a small vinyl coin purse with the logo and address of First National Bank of Pueblo on it. She wads the engagement ring in several sheets of Kleenex until it's a puffy square, then wedges this inside the coin purse and squeezes it to make sure it fits securely.

With her palms sweating, Becca heads to the lobby. There the buffalo head looms over a sofa with cow- horn armrests. Before the sofa there's a coffee table covered with magazines and to the left a small table with a coffee pot, microwave, and creamer, sugar packets, and stir sticks.

Becca pours coffee into a white Styrofoam cup, facing the check- in counter, watching. She takes the coin purse from her pocket and crams it into the buffalo's mouth. She pushes it until she hears a woman talking on a phone, walking up to the front counter.

You need something, honey?

Becca wipes her hands on her jeans. No, I'm fine, she says. I was just looking for a magazine to read.

You want some company? They make a mean margarita in the lounge next door. Aside from the losers and degenerates, it's not half bad. They got free peanuts and pretzels too.

Becca smiles. I'll keep that in mind.

On the way back to her room, she stops at the soft- drink

vending machine, feeds a dollar into the metal mouth, her heart still beating wildly. She's reaching for a Pepsi can when a van pulls to a stop nearby and two goons step out, followed by Jack Brown, looking sheepish, calling out, Hey, Becca. We need to talk.

We don't need anything, she says, hurrying toward the stairs. Before she can reach them one of the goons clamps a hand over her mouth, dragging her backward. Becca's Pepsi can drops to the ground and fizzes. She flails as he pins her arms and the other goon grabs her feet. A car honks as she twists and squirms, shouting, until they slap a piece of duct tape over her mouth. Jack Brown follows behind, saying, Hey, go easy on her. She's my girlfriend. Or used to be.

The van is already moving before Jack is ready, and he has to run across the parking lot to hop inside, whatever he started already in motion and out of control.