Winter Moon

morning of July sixth, Travis was still curious, so he went out to

Quartermass Ranch to talk to Ed--and found his body instead. Coroner

says Ed had been dead no less than twenty-four hours, probably no more

than thirty-six."

Jack paced along the wall of horse photographs and along another wall

of bookshelves and then back again. slowly turning the glass of port

around in his hand. "So you think--what? Fernandez saw some animal

behaving really strangely, doing something that spooked him enough to

go load up the shotgun?"

"Maybe."

"Could he have been going outside to shoot this animal because it was

acting rabid or crazy in some other way?"

"That's occurred to us, yes. And maybe he was so worked up, so

excited, that's what brought on the heart attack." At the study

window, Jack stared at the lights of the cowboys' bungalows, which were

unable to press back the densely clotted night. He finished the

port.

"I assume, from what you've said, Fernandez wasn't a particularly

excitable man, not an hysteric."

"The opposite. Ed was about as excitable as a tree stump."

Turning away from the window, Jack said, "So then what could he have

seen that would've gotten his heart pumping so hard? How bizarre would

an animal have had to be acting--how much of a threat would it have to

be seemed--before Fernandez would have worked himself up to a heart

attack?"

"There you put your finger on it," the attorney said, finishing his own

port.

"Just doesn't make sense."

"Seems like we have a mystery here."

"Fortunate that you were a detective."

"Not me. I was a patrol officer."

"Well, now you've been promoted by circumstances."

Paul got up from the corner of his desk. "Listen, I'm sure there's

nothing to be worried about. We know those raccoons weren't

diseased.

And there's probably a reasonable explanation for what Ed was going to

do with that gun. This is peaceful country. Damned if I can see what

kind of danger could be out there."

"I suspect you're right," Jack agreed. "I brought it up only because

. . well, it seemed odd. I thought if you did see something peculiar,

you ought to know not just to dismiss it. Call Travis. Or me." Jack

put his empty glass on the desk beside Paul's.

Y'll do that. Meanwhile . . . I'd appreciate if you didn't - mention

this to Heather. We've had a real bad year down there in L.A. This is

a new start for us in a lot of ways, and I don't want a shadow on it.

We're a little shaky. We need this to work, need to stay positive."

That's why I chose this moment to tell you."

"Thanks, Paul."

"And don't you worry about it."

"I won't."

""Cause I'm sure there's nothing to it. Just one of life's many little

mysteries. People new to this country sometimes get the heebie jeebies

cause of all the ope space, the wilderness. I don't mean to get you on

edge

"Don't worry," Jack assured him. "After you've played bullet

billiards with some of the crazies loose in L A there's nothing any

raccoon can do to spoil your CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

During their first four days at Quartermass Ranch-- Tuesday through

Friday-Heather, Jack, and Toby cleaned the house from top to bottom.

They wiped down walls and woodwork, polished furniture, vacuumed

upholstery and carpets, washed all the dishes and utensils, put new

shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets, disposed of Eduardo's clothes

through a church in town that distributed to the needy, and in general

made the place their own. They didn't intend to register Toby for

school until the following week, giving him time to adjust to their new

life. He was thrilled to be free while other boys his age were trapped

in third-grade classrooms.

On Wednesday the moving company arrived with the small shipment from

Los Angeles: the rest of their clothes, their books, Heather's

computers and related equipment, Toby's toys and games, and the other

items they hadn't been willing to give away or sell. The presence of a

greater number of their familiar possessions made the new house seem

more like home.

Although the days became chillier and more overcast as the week waned,

Heather's mood remained bright and cheerful. She was not troubled by

anxiety attacks like the one she'd experienced when Paul Youngblood had

first shown them around the property Monday evening, day by day that

paranoid episode faded from her thoughts.

She swept away spiderwebs and desiccated insect prey in the back

stairs, washed the spiraling treads with pungent ammonia water, and rid

that space of mustiness and the faint odor of decay. No uncanny

feelings overcame her, and it was hard to believe that she'd felt a

superstitious dread of the stairs when she'd first descended them

behind Paul and Toby.

From a few second-floor windows, she could see the graveyard on the

knoll. It didn't strike her as macabre any longer, because of what

Paul had said about ranchers' attachment to the land that had sustained

their families for generations. In the dysfunctional family in which

she'd been raised, and in Los Angeles, there had been so little

tradition and such a weak sense of belonging anywhere or to anything