Winter Moon

peace. With no more financial worries, having settled into their new

home in less than a week, with Jack fully recovered, with the dangers

of the city schools and streets no longer a threat to Toby, Heather was

finally able to put the negativity of Los Angeles behind her. They had

a dog. They were making new friends. She was confident that the

peculiar anxiety attacks that had afflicted her since their arrival at

Quartermass Ranch would trouble her no more. She had lived with fear

so long in the city that she had become an anxiety junkie. In rural

Montana, she wouldn't have to worry about drive-by gang shootings,

carjackings, ATM robberies that frequently involved casual murder, drug

dealers peddling crack cocaine on every corner, follow-home

stickups--or child molesters who slipped off freeways, cruised

residential neighborhods, trolled for prey, and then disappeared with

their Wlch into the anonymous urban sprawl. Consequently, habitual

need to be afraid of something had given rise to the unfocused dreads

and phantom enemies that marked her first few days in these more

pacific regions. That was over now.

Chapter closed.

Heavy wet snowflakes descended in battalions, in armies, swiftly

conquering the dark ground, an occasional outrider finding the glass,

melting. The kitchen was comfortably warm, fragrant with the aromas of

cooking pasta and tomato sauce.

Nothing was quite so likely to induce feelings of contentment and

prosperity as being in a well-heated and cozy room while the windows

revealed a world in the frigid grip of winter.

"Beautiful," she said, enchanted by the breaking storm. "Wow," Toby

said. "Snow.

It's really, really snow." They were a family. Wife, husband, child,

and dog.

Together and safe. Hereafter, she was going to think only Mcgarvey

thoughts, never Beckerman thoughts. She was going to embrace a

positive outlook and shun the negativism that was both her family

legacy and a poisonous residue of life in the big city. She felt free

at last. Life was good.

After dinner, Heather decided to relax with a hot bath, and Toby

settled in the living room with Falstaff to watch a video of

Beethoven.

Jack went directly to the study to review the gun available to them.

In addition to the weapons they'd brought from Los Angeles--a

collection Heather had substantially increased after the shootout at

Arkadian's service station-- a corner case was stocked with hunting

rifles, a shotgun, a .22 pistol, a .45 Colt revolver, and ammunition.

He preferred to select three pieces from their own armory: a

beautifully made Korth .38, a pistol-grip, pump-action Mossberg

twelve-gauge, and a Micro Uzi like the one Anson Oliver had used,

although this particular weapon had been converted to full automatic

status. The Uzi had been acquired on the black market. It was odd

that a cop's wife should feel the need to purchase an illegal

gun--odder still that it had been so easy for her to do so.

He closed the study door and stood at the desk, working quickly to

ready the three firearms while he still had privacy. He didn't want to

take such precautions with Heather's knowledge, because he would have

to explain why he felt the need for protection. She was happier than

she'd been in a long time, and he could see no point in spoiling her

mood until--and unless--it became necessary.

The incident in the graveyard had been frightening, however, although

he'd felt threatened, no blow had actually been struck, no harm. He'd

been afraid more for Toby than for himself, the boy was back, no worse

for what had happened. And what had happened? He didn't relish having

to explain what he had sensed rather than seen: a presence lrl and

enigmatic and no more solid than the wind.

Hour by hour, the encounter seemed less like something he had actually

experienced and more like a dream. He loaded the .38 and put it to one

side of the desk. He could tell her about the raccoons, of course,

although he himself had never seen them and although they had done no

harm to anyone. He could tell her about the shotgun Eduardo Fernandez

had been clutching fiercely when he'd died. But the old man hadn't

been brought down by an enemy vulnerable to buck shot, a heart attack

had felled him. A massive cardiac infarction was as scary as hell,

yes, but it wasn't a killer that could be deterred with firearms.

He fully loaded the Mossberg, pumped a shell into the breech, and then

inserted one additional shell in the magazine tube. A bonus round.

Eduardo had prepared his own gun in the same fashion shortly before he

died. If he tried to explain all this to Heather now, he'd succeed in

alarming hen- but to no purpose. Maybe there would be no trouble. He

might never again come face-to-face with whatever presence he had been

aware of in the cemetery. One such episode in a lifetime was more

contact with the supernatural than most people ever experienced. Wait

for developments. Hope there were none. But if there were, and if he

obtained concrete proof of danger, then he would have to let her know