Winter Moon

days, once we're settled down at the main place." Paul retreated from

the house, pulled the door shut, and locked it. "You might want to

have an electrician out to check the wiring."

Instead of returning the way they had come, they angled across the

sloping yard toward the stable, which stood on more level land to the

south of the main house. Toby ran ahead, arms out at his sides, making

a brrrrrrrrrrr noise with his lips, pretending to be an airplane.

Heather glanced back at the caretaker's bungalow a couple of times, and

at the woods on both sides of it. She had a peculiar tingly feeling on

the back of her neck.

"Pretty cold for the beginning of November," Jack said. The attorney

laughed.

"This isn't southern California, I'm afraid. Actually, it's been a

mild day.

Temperature's probably going to drop well below freezing tonight."

"You get much snow up here?"

"Does hell get many sinners?"

"When can we expect the first snow--before Christmas?"

"Way before Christmas, Jack. If we had a big storm tomorrow, nobody'd

think it was an early season."

"That's why we got the Explorer," Heather said. "Four-wheel drive.

That should get us around all winter, shouldn't it?"

"Mostly, yeah," Paul said, pulling down on the brim of his hat, which

he had pushed up earlier to scratch his forehead.

Toby had reached the stable. Short legs pumping, he vanished around

the side before Heather could call out to him to wait. Paul said, "But

every winter there's one or two times where you're going to be

snowbound a day or three, drifts half over the house sometimes."

"Snowbound? Half over the house?" Jack said, sounding a little like a

kid himself. "Really?"

"Get one of those blizzards coming down out of the Rockies, it can drop

two or three feet of snow in twenty-four hours. Winds like to peel

your skin off. County crews can't keep the roads open all at once.

You have chains for that Explorer?"

"A couple of sets," Jack said.

Heather walked faster toward the stable, hoping the men would pick up

their pace to accompany her, which they did. Toby was still out of

sight. "What you should also get," Paul told them, "soon as you can,

is a good plow for the front of it.

Even if county crews get the roads open, you have half a mile of

private lane to take care of."

If the boy was just "flying" around the stable, with his arms spread

like wings, he should have reappeared -by now. "Lex Parker's garage,"

Paul continued, "in town, can fit your truck with the armatures, attach

the plow, hydraulic arms to raise and lower it, a real fine rig. Just

- leave it on all winter, remove it in the spring, and you'll be ready

for however much butt kicking Mother Nature has in store for us."

No sign of Toby. Heather's heart was pounding again. The sun was

about to set.

If Toby ... if he got lost or ... or something ... they would have a

harder time finding him at night. She restrained herself from breaking

into a run. "Now, last winter," Paul continued smoothly, unaware of

her trepidation, "was on the dry side, which probably means we're going

to take a shellacking this year."

As they reached the stable and as Heather was about to cry out for

Toby, he reappeared. He was no longer playing airplane. He sprinted

to her side through the unmown grass, grinning and excited. "Mom, this

place is neat, really neat.

Maybe I can really have a pony, huh?"

"Maybe," Heather said, swallowing hard before she could get the word

out. "Don't go running off like that, okay?"

"Why not?"

"Just don't."

"Sure, okay," Toby said. He was a good boy.

She glanced back toward the caretaker's house and the wilderness

beyond. Perched on the jagged peaks of the mountains, the sun seemed

to quiver like a raw egg yolk just before dissolving around the tines

of a prodding fork. The highest pinnacles of rock were gray and black

and pink in the fiery light of day's end.

Miles of serried forests shelved down to the fieldstone bungalow. All

was still and peaceful. The stable was a single-story fieldstone

building with a slate roof. The long side walls had no exterior stall

doors, only small windows high under the eaves. There was a white barn

door on the end, which rolled open easily when Paul tried it, and the

electric lights came on with the first flip of a switch. "As you can

see," the attorney said as he led them inside, "it was every inch a

gentleman's ranch, not a spread that had to show a profit in any

way."

Beyond the concrete threshold, which was flush with the ground, the

stable floor was composed of soft, tamped earth, as pale as sand. Five

empty stalls with half-doors stood to each side of the wide center

promenade, more spacious than ordinary barn stalls. On the twelve-inch

wooden posts between stalls were castbronze sconces that threw amber

light toward both the ceiling and the floor, they were needed because

the high-set windows were too small--each about eight inches high by

eighteen long--to admit much sunlight even at high noon. "Stan

Quartermass kept this place heated in winter, cooled in the summer,"