Thunder Road

by Thorne, Tamara

  She stared at him. “You’re not comparing me to a cow, are you?”

  Instantly his face turned hot. “No, no. I was just stating a fact.”

  “Well, then, thanks, cowboy. You’re not so bad yourself.” With that, she poured the grounds into the bubbling water. “I’m glad you’re sticking around.”

  For a long moment they stared at each other intimately, then uncomfortably, and Tom was afraid she was going to spook and send him packing. But she didn’t. Looking at the simmering coffee, she said, “You’re a hell of a lot easier to take than Franklin Hank or little blue men.”

  “That a compliment?” Tom asked, a half smile on his lips.

  Marie studied the coffee some more. “Of course it is. Hand me your cup, cowboy. Coffee’s ready.”

  35

  James Robert Sinclair

  I AM NO FALSE PROPHET?

  James Sinclair sat propped up and coverless in bed, staring at his dusty bare feet. He had been loath to wash the red dirt from his feet, or throw away the bit of sagebrush that had caught in his beard, because once those were gone, the proof of his sanity would be as well.

  He had tried to convince himself he had been sleepwalking and had taken the cart to the mesa and there dreamed of God and the dark angel. But after returning from the steeple, he had checked the cart and found it fully charged and spotless. Besides, he had never had a somnambulism episode before in his life.

  Maybe you were just more inspired than you thought.

  Greed and imagination had always been his inspiration; he had known that from the very first. Until recently, he had counted the days until “the Horsemen rode”—a term that was really a private euphemism for his own ride to his island hideaway.

  Had he deluded himself from the first, or was this madness his penance for misleading his followers? Perhaps God, whom he had never believed in before, had chosen him to be on the receiving end of His ultimate practical joke?

  He’d never remembered the dream plaguing him before, and he wondered if this new one was the same as the earlier one. He wished he could remember more of tonight’s dreamlike encounter. The Voice that had spoken to him had told him important things, but most of them were lost now. And there was the dark angel. Lucifer was a dark angel, but the spirit he had seen was not of Satan. He knew its darkness was an illusion, that its aura had been the brilliant beautiful light in which everything had been bathed. Vaguely he remembered a face he could not look upon. Was it one of God’s angels, or God Himself?

  And after it had extended its hand to him, what had happened? There was a sensation of ecstasy, and the next thing he knew, he was back here with Tim Dresner pounding on the door.

  He had chalked up his recent reticence to leave his flock to the normal human desire to cling to the familiar, nothing more. But now he knew it was born of something more: madness or God, he didn’t know which.

  “Dear Lord,” he prayed, “help me to remember, that I may do Your will.”

  THURSDAY

  36

  Marie Lopez

  “THIRTY-TWO, THIRTY-THREE, THIRTY-FOUR.” MARIE LOPEZ FINISHED counting her flock for the second time, then looked at Tom, who rode beside her. “There were thirty-six yesterday, so even if I imagined last night, something happened to them.”

  “You aren’t the sort to hallucinate, Marie.” Tom picked a burr out of Belle’s silver mane. “Only thing I can think of is that the military is testing some new gizmo and your sheep were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least we haven’t found any bodies.”

  “Thanks, Tom. You’re keeping me sane.” Beneath her, Rex snuffled at the spring grasses, looking for something good to eat.

  It was barely dawn and rays of sunlight were poking up between the eastern hills, highlighting patches of yellow and blue wildflowers, casting long shadows from rocks and Joshua trees. Marie was glad Tom had stayed the night. She’d taken first watch, and the second: He’d been sleeping so soundly that she didn’t want to wake him. Besides, the missing animals were her problem, not his. Now all she wanted to do was get the flock back to her small ranch and catch some shut-eye.

  She glanced at Tom. “I’m going to take a ride around the perimeter of the meadow and make sure the sheep haven’t just wandered off.” The last time she had found a mutilated animal, it had been wedged between some rocks in an almost impossible position, and that’s what she half expected to find again. “You go on home,” she added, and to her relief, he refused.

  Still, she protested that he had better things to do.

  “Nice morning for a ride,” he said, shaking his head. Then he paused. “Unless you don’t want company.”

  Tom Abernathy was the most annoying man she’d ever met. He had his laconic, loose-boned cowboy act down to an art, and he had a heart as big as the tall tales he liked to tell, and he certainly knew horseflesh, but in some ways, he was nothing but an overgrown boy. Sometimes she just wanted to punch him in the nose and tell him to say what was on his mind.

  She was pretty sure he was interested in her, but he was just too hard to read to be certain. Like last night, when she’d said she was cold, she gave him the perfect excuse to move closer; he’d built up the campfire instead.

  Maybe, she allowed, glancing sideways at him, admiring the chiseled, tanned profile under the brown Stetson, she was just as guilty as he was of talking around a subject. Maybe she was as afraid of rejection as she thought he was. For sure, she should have said she was cold and snuggled in closer to him instead of leaving it up to him.

  The trouble was, she was afraid of being too obvious because that was liable to scare him off altogether. She suspected a man like Tom might have very old-fashioned notions about women boldly making the first move. Then again, maybe she was just casting her own old-fashioned notions on him. It was all too confusing to even think about anymore.

  “Tom, I’d love some company,” she said. He looked relieved.

  After an hour’s search, they found no sign of the sheep. Finally she looked at Tom. “If you want to ride down with me, I’ll whip up some breakfast when we get to my place.”

  Tom nodded. “A man’d be a fool to refuse an offer like that.”

  “Let’s go, then. I’m starving.” She whistled for the dogs, wondering if he would have given the same response if she’d asked him into her bed. You know he would. Maybe he’d take off his hat, though.

  “Marie, that’s a devilish smile on your face. What’re you thinking about?”

  She looked him in the eye. “Nothing fit for a lady to talk about in public.” Tilting her hat low over her eyes, she peered across the valley and added, “Ask me in private sometime.”

  She thought she heard him say he just might do that, but she’d already urged Rex forward so that he wouldn’t see her blushing.

  37

  Justin Martin

  JUSTIN MARTIN LEFT SCHOOL AT ELEVEN-THIRTY, AFTER HIS LAST final exam of the day. It’d been in Old Lady Marquay’s history class, though, of course, she couldn’t be there since she was busy rotting in the old shaft below the Haunted Mine Ride.

  He’d aced the test, no problem, and had encouraged Christie Fox, who hadn’t studied because she was ohh, soo upset about dead old Rick Spelman, to copy off his paper. Her eyes looked like they needed a bucket of Visine each, but at least she’d smiled at him while he let her cheat. That was a start. In another couple days, he’d ask her to have a burger with him or something equally harmless, and lend her his shoulder to cry on. If letting her sob and whine all over him didn’t get him into her pants, he didn’t know what would, short of alcohol. And he didn’t want to resort to that unless he had to: It seemed unsportsmanlike and he hated to smell it on anyone’s breath.

  Hannibal Caine had phoned him this morning just before he left for school, and he’d promised to meet the church honcho at Ray’s Cafe this afternoon at two. It was a pain in the ass, but Justin knew it could be worthwhile. God’s Green Berets, my ass! As he turned the car onto Old Madely
n Highway, Justin rolled down the window and spat. He’d have to be careful in dealing with Caine. The thought made him laugh out loud. What the hell! He had known how to be careful since he was five years old, when he’d performed his first dissections on his grandmother’s stupid lovebirds. He’d taken apart at least a hundred animals since then, not to mention three human beings, and no one had ever suspected. “Careful” was his middle name.

  He was on his way up to check on Alexandra Manderley and her nerd-faced assistant before the meeting with Caine. Maybe he’d luck out and Toad-Boy wouldn’t be there.

  Passing Madland, he grinned at the sight of Police Chief Moss Baskerville stalking toward the entry gate, where a bunch of unsuspecting Apostles were shoving flyers in people’s faces as they went into the park. He recognized one of them as Eldo Blandings, even though they were all wearing their Sunday best: white robes and umbrellas.

  What goons! He’d never seen any of them in robes except on Sunday in the compound. They were supposed to wear the robes so that God would know who they were on the day of the Apocalypse. And they had some bullshit idea about a flood—out here in the desert!—and the umbrellas were to keep “God’s tears” off of them.

  He reached Thunder Road, then Spirit Canyon, slowing only when he was close to the turnoff for Manderley’s campsite. He’d had some really hot dreams about old Alex last night, and he’d awakened with an unrelenting hard-on and a big yen to see her.

  In the dream, she was naked, all that toffee-colored skin showing just for him, and she was tied, standing with her arms straight up over her head. Just thinking about it gave him a throbber, big time. He’d had a scalpel and was using it to remove the skin from her back in long thin strips. Lovingly he laid each piece out in the sun to dry like jerky, and the sound of her screams as each strip was slowly, smoothly, torn from her body was sweet music that he could listen to forever. He thought that perhaps the Voice had sent the dream, and with it, a message.

  “Shit,” he whispered as he pulled onto the turnout edging the camp. He idled a moment, pushing his erection into a more comfortable position, then spent a moment reciting the Declaration of Independence to get his mind off sex—he couldn’t pay her a visit looking like that.

  After a moment, he got out and walked the short distance around a bend into the campsite. “What the fuck?”

  They were gone—the people, the Bronco, the tents and all their junk, packed up and gone. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he whispered, walking to the place where the tents had been. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

  He stomped around, pissed as hell, examining the area. The bitch had said she was going to stick around awhile, so why the hell was she gone now? How dare she go without telling him? “You goddamned fucking bitch!” He picked up a baseball-sized stone and threw it as hard as he could. It landed with a metallic sound out of sight behind a bunch of rocks and a goddamned fucking cactus.

  Fists clenched, he walked over to the rocks and looked around to see what had made the sound. It was a flashlight.

  He picked it up. It was dusty as hell, and the lens was cracked, but it still worked. It probably belonged to Ms. Bitch. I bet she wants it back.

  He stalked out of the camp, jumped into the Mustang, and threw the light on the passenger-side floor. He had an hour to kill and he was going to find Manderley and her twerp. She had to be around here somewhere—probably this campsite wasn’t good enough for her either and she’d gone looking for a new one. Women like her were never satisfied. But I can satisfy her.

  He thought of the dream, the screams, and decided that he’d have to talk to the Peeler about her. Soon.

  38

  Cassie Halloway

  “I’D KILL FOR SOME CHINESE FOOD,” CASSIE HALLOWAY TOLD Moss Baskerville as she finished off her shredded beef and black bean burrito. She leaned back in the auditorium seat. “Though I guess we should be happy we’ve at least got a choice here now—burgers or burritos.” She fanned her mouth, then took a long drink of iced tea. “I used too much hot sauce again.”

  Moss laughed. “Yeah, hon, your face is all red. Better be careful or it’ll stay that way, then people’ll think you’ve got a gin habit instead of a salsa addiction.”

  “That’s all I need. All the more reason for a Chinese restaurant to open out here.”

  “I’ve got tonight off. Want to go into Barstow and eat at the Chinese joint this evening?”

  She smiled. “The place where you said the pork tasted more like basset hound? I don’t think so!”

  “Picky, picky,” he teased.

  “Besides, Davy’s ribs are too good to pass up.”

  Moss grinned. “You’ve decided to be sociable?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to be a regular party animal. Think Tom’ll mind if I bring Eve? I don’t want to leave her alone at the house with only a sixteen-year-old baby-sitter. Not after . . .”

  “Of course he won’t mind, Cass.”

  They were sitting in the front row of the Langtry Theater. When Moss arrived bearing lunch, Cassie had happily given her stagehands an hour off. They’d driven down to Ray’s Cafe for lunch, taking Eve along, leaving Cassie alone with her man. They locked the doors and joked about “doing it” center stage, but in the end, decided they were too hungry and too old to make love on the hard wood floor.

  “I didn’t mean to whine about the food, Moss,” Cassie said, then leaned across the armrest and soundly kissed him. He tasted like jalepeño peppers. “Hot stuff.” She kissed him again.

  “Next free night I get, we’re going down to the Red Dragon in Victorville,” he declared, “especially if you keep kissing me like that.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, mister.” She stared into his steel gray eyes with the deep-set laugh lines in the broad face, then pushed her fingers through his graying blond hair and pulled his face to hers, planting another kiss on him. He was the best thing that ever happened to her. Ten years ago, when he arrived here, she was still wiggling around in a bikini, showing off her tattoos, and when she first laid eyes on the new chief of police standing there in the middle of the audience, she knew she was in trouble. He had looked so straight and stern, so I’m-cleaning-up-this-town-starting-with-you. But after the show, when he inevitably came backstage, he handed her an ice-cold bottle of Coke and complimented her on her body art. She invited him to sit down, and it wasn’t a week before the two of them were sneaking around like schoolkids, making out here, there, and everywhere.

  The sneaking had been her idea. She didn’t think the chief of police should be seen in the company of the resident tattooed lady. He’d protested a little, but he knew she was right.

  When she had Eve, he tried like crazy to get her to marry him, but she kept saying no. For almost five years they’d had a relationship with more fire than anyone over twenty-one usually experienced, and she was afraid that the passion would die—especially since they now had a child—if they married and stopped sneaking around. He’d pointed out that all their friends knew they were a couple, so why not make it official, so she’d told him her fears. He finally acquiesced, and they compromised, spending most nights together at her place because neither of them wanted Eve left with sitters too often.

  Right after that, she bought the Langtry Theater, and her life became busier than she ever thought possible. Moss still mentioned marriage about once a month—pointing out that the passion hadn’t gone away, even though they rarely coupled in the backseat of a car anymore. He also pointed out that he was a patient man who always got what he wanted, and that he knew she’d come around someday, at least for the sake of their daughter, who would need her legitimate daddy to walk her down the aisle when she got married.

  Cassie knew Moss was right, and she was finally ready to say yes. In fact, she’d been going to bring it up the other evening, but then her goat was killed and the six-six-sixes were painted on her mailbox. She didn’t want Moss to think she was finally saying yes because she was afraid to be alone.

  But
she was afraid. Moss had worked last night, and every little noise she heard had her jumping out of her chair or out of bed, shotgun in her trembling hand, ready to run off any trespassers. She hadn’t had any sleep until Moss climbed into bed somewhere around dawn.

  Despite her exhaustion, she wanted to go to Tom’s tonight because she knew Moss wanted to go, and because she didn’t want to deprive him—he’d insist on staying home with her.

  “How’s the new play coming?” he asked.

  “It’s shaping up really well.” The theater specialized in old-fashioned vaudeville and drama. Each show started with a short melodrama, complete with a live piano player, and the characters were always variations on Little Nell, Snidely Whiplash, and Dudley Do-Right. The audience was encouraged to hiss, boo, ah, and cheer at every opportunity. After the melodrama came the vaudeville acts, always with a western theme, but changing with the seasons. The current show was centered around spring, with mildly naughty double entendres and bad jokes about love, dating, and marriage.

  The players were in rehearsal for the summer show, which would begin next week. It featured humor about desert heat, rattlesnakes, and miners. Cassie’s favorite, however, was the Halloween show. As soon as the summer show was under way, she’d begin planning it. The ticket taker and the ushers were all dressed as grim reapers, complete with long-handled scythes, and the melodrama was Madelyn’s own tale of Olive Carmichael, the Hitchhiking Ghost. Tom Abernathy loved that story, and he’d been the one to suggest it. It’d gone over so well that it had become the traditional feature. After the drama came “The Ghost Town Revue,” which was a joy. Cassie and her players went wild thinking up new skits and routines each year.

  “What are you thinking about, Cass?”

  “Huh? Oh, the fall program.”

  “Work, work, work,” he chided as he rose and bent to give her one more kiss. “Speaking of which, I’ve got to be getting back. Those damned Jim-Bobbers are making real pests of themselves.”