Winter Moon

soiled portions of the house. He finished only when he had used the

entire supply of hot water.

He dressed but not for bed. Socks, chinos, a T-shirt. He stood his

boots beside the bed, next to the shotgun.

Although the nightstand clock and his watch agreed that it was

two-fifty in the morning, Eduardo was not sleepy. He sat on the bed,

propped against a pile of pillows and the headboard.

Using the remote control, he switched on the television and checked out

the seemingly endless array of channels provided by the satellite dish

behind the stables. He found an action movie, cops and drug dealers,

lots of running and jumping and shooting, fistfights and car chases and

explosions. He turned the volume all the way off because he wanted to

be able to hear whatever sounds might arise elsewhere in the house.

He drank the first beer fast, staring at the television. He was not

trying to follow the plot of the movie, just letting his mind fill with

the abstract whirl of motion and the bright ripple-flare of changing

colors. Scrubbing at the dark stains of those terrible thoughts.

Those stubborn stains.

Something ticked against the west-facing window.

He looked at the draperies, which he had drawn tightly shut.

Another tick. Like a pebble thrown against the glass.

His heart began to pound.

He forced himself to look at the TV again. Motion. Color. He

finished the beer. Opened a second.

Tick. And again, almost at once. Tick.

Perhaps it was just a moth or a scarab beetle trying to reach the light

that the closed drapes couldn't entirely contain.

He could get up, go to the window, discover it was just a flying beetle

that was banging against the glass, relieve his mind.

Don't even think about it.

He took a long swallow of the second beer.

Tick.

Something standing on the dark lawn below, looking up at the window.

Something that knew exactly where he was, wanted to make contact.

But not a raccoon this time.

Don't, don't, don't.

No cute furry face with a little black mask this time. No beautiful

coat and black-ringed tail.

Motion, color, beer. Scrub out the diseased thought, purge the

contamination.

Tick.

Because if he didn't rid himself of the monstrous thought that soiled

his mind, he would sooner or later lose his grip on sanity. Sooner.

Tick.

If he went to the window and parted the draperies and looked down at

the thing on the lawn, even insanity would be no refuge. Once he had

seen, once he knew, then there would be only a single way out. Shotgun

barrel in his mouth, one toe hooked in the trigger.

Tick.

. He turned up the volume control on the television. Loud. Louder.

He finished the second beer. Turned the volume up even louder, until

the raucous soundtrack of the violent movie seemed to shake the room.

Popped the cap off a third beer.

Purging his thoughts. Maybe in the morning he would have forgotten the

sick, demented considerations that plagued him so persistently tonight,

forgotten them or washed them away in tides of alcohol. Or perhaps he

would die in his sleep. He almost didn't care which. He poured down a

long swallow of the third beer, seeking one form of oblivion or

another.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Through March, April, and May, as Jack lay cupped in felt-lined plaster

with his legs often in traction, he suffered pain, cramps, spastic

muscle twitches, uncontrollable nerve tics, and itchy skin where it

could not be scratched inside a cast. He endured those discomforts and

others with few complaints, and he thanked God that he would live to

hold his wife again and see his son grow up.

His health worries were even more numerous than his discomforts. The

risk of bedsores was ever-present, though the body cast had been formed

with great care and though most of the nurses were concerned,

solicitous, and skilled.

Once a pressure sore became ulcerated, it would not heal easily, and

gangrene could set in quickly. Because he was periodically

catheterized, his chances of contracting an infection of the urethra

were increased, which could lead to a more serious case of cystitis.

Any patient immobilized for long periods was in jeopardy of developing

blood clots that could break loose and spin through the body, lodge in

the heart or brain, killing him or causing substantial brain damage,

though Jack was medicated to reduce the danger of that complication, it

was the one that most deeply concerned him.

He worried, as well, about Heather and Toby. They were alone, which

troubled him in spite of the fact that Heather, under Alma Bryson's

guidance, seemed to be prepared to handle everything from a lone

burglar to a foreign invasion.

Actually, the thought of all those weapons in the house--and what the

need for them said about Heather's state of mind--disturbed him nearly

as much as the thought of someone breaking into the place.

Money worried him more than cerebral embolisms. He was on disability

and had no idea when he might be able to work again full time. Heather

was still unemployed, the economy showed no signs of emerging from the

recession, and their savings were virtually exhausted. Friends in the