Winter Moon

lives that don't have anything to do with the ranch."

"Darn it, we just missed Halloween," Toby said, more to himself than to

them. He stared toward the cemetery, caught up in a personal fantasy

that no doubt involved the challenge of walking through a graveyard on

All Hallows' Eve. They stood quietly for a moment.

The dusk was heavy, silent, still. Uphill, the cemetery seemed to cast

off the fading light and pull the night down like a shroud, covering

it-self with darkness faster than any of the land around it. Heather

glanced at Jack to see if he showed any sign of being troubled by

having Tommy Fernandez's remains buried nearby. Tommy had died at his

side, after 11, eleven months before Luther Bryson had been shot.

With Tommy's grave so close, Jack couldn't help but recall, perhaps too

vividly, violent events best condemmed forever to the deeper vaults of

memory. As if sensing her concern, Jack smiled. "Makes me feel better

to know Tommy found rest in a place as beautiful as this."

As they walked back to the house, the attorney invited them to dinner

and to stay overnight with him and his wife. "One, you arrived too

late today to get the place cleaned and livable. Two, you don't have

any fresh food here, only what might be in the freezer. And three, you

don't want to have to cook after putting in a long day on the road.

Why not relax this evening, get a start on it first thing in the

morning, when you're rested?"

Heather was grateful for the invitation, not merely for the reasons

Paul had enumerated but because she remained uneasy about the house and

the isolation in which it stood. She had decided that her jumpiness

was nothing other than a city person's initial response to more wide

open spaces than she'd ever seen or contemplated before. A mild phobic

reaction. Temporary agoraphobia.

It would pass. She simply needed a day or two--perhaps only a few

hours--to acclimate herself to this new landscape and way of life. An

evening with Paul Youngblood and his wife might be just the right

medicine.

After setting the thermostats throughout the house, even in the

basement, to be sure it would be warm in the morning, they locked up,

got in the Explorer, and followed Paul's Bronco to the county road. He

turned east toward town, and so did they.

The brief twilight had vanished under the falling wall of night. The

moon had not yet risen. The darkness on all sides was so deep that it

seemed as if it could never be banished again even by the ascension of

the sun. The Youngblood ranch was named after the predominant tree

within its boundaries. Spotlights at each end of the overhead entrance

sign were directed inward to reveal green letters on a white

background: PONDEROSA PINES. Under those two words, in small letters:

Paul and Carolyn Youngblood.

The attorney's spread, a working ranch, was considerably larger than

their own.

On both sides of the entrance lane, which was even longer than the one

at Quartermass Ranch, lay extensive complexes of whitetrimmed red

stables, riding rings, exercise yards, and fenced pastures. The

buildings were illuminated by the pearly glow of low-voltage

night-lights. White fences divided the rising meadows: dimly

phosphorescent geometric patterns that dwindled into the darkness, like

lines of inscrutable hieroglyphics on tomb walls. The main house, in

front of which they parked, was a large, low ranch-style building of

river rock and darkly stained pine. It seemed to be an almost organic

extension of the land.

As he walked with them to the house, Paul answered Jack's question

about the business of Ponderosa Pines. "We have two basic enterprises,

actually. We raise and race quarter horses, which is a popular sport

throughout the West, from New Mexico to the Canadian border. Then we

also breed and sell several types of show horses that never go out of

style, mostly Arabians. We have one of the finest Arabian bloodlines

in the country, specimens so perfect and pretty they can break your

heart--or make you pull out your wallet if you're obsessed with the

breed."

"No cows?" Toby said as they reached the foot of the steps that led up

to the long, deep veranda at the front of the house. "Sorry, Scout, no

cows," the attorney said. "Lots of ranches round here have cattle, but

not us. However, we do have our share of cowboys." He pointed to a

cluster of lighted bungalows approximately a hundred twenty yards to

the east of the house. "Eighteen wranglers currently live here on the

ranch, with their wives if they're married.

A little town of our own, sort of."

"Cowboys," Toby said in the awed tone of voice with which he had spoken

of the private graveyard and of the prospect of having a pony. Montana

was proving to be as exotic to him as any distant planet in the comic

books and science fiction movies he liked. "Real cowboys."

Carolyn Youngblood greeted them at the door and warmly welcomed them.

To be the mother of Paul's children, she must have been his age, fifty,

but she looked and acted younger. She wore tight jeans and a