Panic!

This drifter—why had he run? Well, you could figure it simply enough: he had seen something. And what had he seen? Perrins getting hit? The guy or guys who did the job? It could be, too, that he had stumbled on the body after the shooting and thought that he might be tagged for it and cut out for that reason; but if that was the case, why had he left his overnight bag there, and fingerprints on a dozen surfaces?

Figure he saw something, then, figure he saw the hit. So he runs. Where does he run? He doesn’t have a car; that doesn’t add. Would he go to the highway the way Forester had it? Or would he head into the desert? Circumstances. If he saw something, and got away clean, he’d head for the highway because that was the quickest potential way out of the area. But if he was spotted by the sluggers, the desert would be his choice; there were innumerable hiding places out there, as long as you had the guts—or enough fear—to risk snakes and the sun and the badlands themselves.

And if that was the case, what would the hit men do? Go after him, in one way or another? It had to be that way: no pro was going to leave a witness, not under any circumstances. If all of this was accurate thinking—and the chances of it were good enough to preclude light dismissal—then maybe the killers of Perrins were still somewhere in this area. And maybe the drifter was, too. If they hadn’t caught him. If he was still alive.

Well, Jesus, this whole thing was giving him a headache. Had it been up to him, he’d have had helicopters out and a couple of roadblocks set up two hours after he’d seen the way things were at the Oasis. But it hadn’t been up to him, he was out of it, he was just a resident-in-charge with his job hanging by a thread and a yen for noninvolvement. The thing for him to do was let it alone, forget about it, but he could not seem to do it; he wanted to be shut of it, he wanted the old status quo, and yet it would not let him alone, it kept eating at him and eating at him ...

Brackeen lifted the beer on his thigh and drained it and put the can on the ground beside the rocker. There were six cans there now and he was as sober as he had been when he arrived home. He looked at the house and shouted, “Marge! Marge, bring me another beer!”

The front door opened after a time and a big woman with dark blond hair came out on the porch. She had huge, soft breasts and firmly wide hips and thick thighs that vibrated sinuously when she walked; her face was round and well-tanned, and the age lines were faint, pleasant trails crosshatching its contours. Brackeen, watching her come down the steps toward him, felt the same stirring hunger deep in his loins that he had felt the first time he saw her, here in Cuenca Seco, those many years ago. She was a lot of woman, you, couldn’t deny that—a kitten when you wanted it one way and a hellion when you wanted it the other, a listener instead of a talker, a rock, a wall, uncomplaining and unquestioning, always there, always waiting. She was the kind of woman he had desperately needed after what had happened in San Francisco, the kind of woman he had to have in order to maintain his sanity; he owed a lot to Marge, he owed a hell of a lot to her.

Marge handed him the beer she carried, and then stood looking down at him. “What’s the matter tonight, Andy?” she asked at length.

“Why?”

“Something’s bothering you.”

“It’s nothing, babe.”

“It’s that murder today, isn’t it?”

“You heard about that, did you?”

“The whole town’s talking about it.”

“All right, so they’re talking.”

“Are you investigating?”

“Christ, no.”

“Well, what do you think happened?”

“What difference does it make what I think?”

“Do you think that drifter did it?”

“The hell with the goddamn drifter,” Brackeen said.

“God, you’re in a mood,” Marge said.

“So I’m in a mood, so what?”

“So come in the house and I’ll see what I can do about it.”

“It’s too hot for screwing.”

“You didn’t think it was too hot last night.”

“That was last night.”

“You really are in a mood,” Marge said. She turned and went up on the porch again, moving her hips. When she got to the door, she looked back, but Brackeen was sitting there in the rocker with his eyes focused on the base of the willow tree. She shrugged and went inside and shut the door softly.

Brackeen drank from his fresh beer, and smoked a cigarette, and the night wind blew cool and feathery across his seamed face. After a while he decided that maybe it wasn’t too hot. He got up from the rocker and went into the house, and Marge was waiting for him just the way he had known she would be.

Seventeen

When the last burning edge of the sun vanished in the flame-streaked sky to the west, the harsh desert landscape softened into a serene and golden tableau. Gradually, almost magically, the horizon gentled into a wash of pink and the pale sphere of the moon rose, the desert turning vermilion now—as if infrared light were being cast over it. Shadows lengthened and deepened, and there was an almost reverent hush across the land.