The seven broken bits of mountain teeth curved around him like the horns of the moon. Rifle butts, knife hilts, gun belts and pistoled steel stamped rattlesnake warnings across their bodies. Sweat winked on quivering horseflesh, dropping in and out of the sun's light as the lungs worked like bellows.

Aeneus kept the rifle in his left hand, an old kingsnake ready to spit its fire. His eyes circled them all at once. Hector stood beside him, the short bristles of his hackles raised, thunder rolling in his chest, waiting the word.

The tall man smiled again. "Now, Mr. Adams, like I told you, we don't want much. Just water for our poor horses here. A little civilized food. Not asking much, is it? Been a long time since we tasted fresh bread or a piece of pie."

"And like I said, the river's free for anyone." Aeneus's voice was a lone oak on the prairie. "Socorro is only twenty-three miles south of here. Albuquerque just two days ride in the opposite direction. Plenty of places for a meal. Saloons too. That would suit you boys better than whatever we could offer."

The tall man's head made the smallest of movements while his eyes and body stayed still. The right tip of the horn twitched forward.

The rifle rose like cobra, pointing its hood at the tall man's chest. The six shooter winked out of its leather cave. Tight against Aeneus's body, it watched the crescent's tip.

A cricket chorus of rifle sounds echoed inside the house. The same song played in the stable.

"I'll repeat myself once more," Aeneus said, "we don't have anything for you. I suggest you keep moving before you lose too much more of the day."

The tall man split his grin wide. Moon white teeth caught the light and filled his mouth with ghost blood.

The skin of Aeneus's neck tried to crawl away. It was a rare feeling. Even during the War, when he had charged seething, grey walls, that sensation had been absent. Behind the shells and the witch fingers of bayonets, had just been men, men like him who teetered between madness and fear, who bled, laughed, loved and hated and who, one day, would die when death rolled for them with his dice. They had been men in the midst of death, the most natural thing in the world. This man was not.

"My, my," the tall man said. "Seems we underestimated you, Mr. Adams." He lifted his head, taking deep, sharp samples of the air. "Well, no hard feelings. We'll be leaving then."

He addressed the men around him. "All right boys. Let's go. Ride in line. Keep those hands away from your waists and rifle scabbards."

The tall man turned his horse and twisted back at Adams, both hands on the pommel. "Give my respects to the family," he said.

They rode off quick as drumbeats.

One of the thunder wolves broke free of Hector's chest. He threw one woof of defiance at their backs.

Aeneus put the pistol to sleep and reached down to scratch the dog behind the old, scarred ear.

The rifle kept watch.

Eddie Longbones chuckled. Short shovelfuls came out of his mouth and scattered in the unwinding evening. On his right, Butch Riker spat, his girth swaying in the saddle.

"Don't see any damn reason to laugh. Easy pickings my eye. Hard day's ride and for what? No gold, no women, nothing. So much for just walking in and taking, what we wanted."

To his right, Diego Vasquez nodded, his snake light body oscillating in the saddle, staying in front of every direction at once. "Si. Are we afraid of farmers now, patron? Farmers with their bleach bone wives and dogs so poor, their faces are more scars than skin. Farmers are too strong for Eddie Longbones, eh?"

On the left, Tom Starkey muttered, "How the hell did they even know we was comin? That's what I want to know."

A buckshot of laughter burst out of Longbones.

"Vasquez, if I didn't think you were still useful, I'd kill you right now and be done with it. See the way he stood? Way he held that rifle? How that pistol came out to cover Iron Shirt? Treat a man like him like a regular peon and you'll be vulture's meat." He turned without moving his head. "And if you'd been paying any attention, Tom, you'd have seen that little platform on the roof of the house. With a pair of field glasses, a man could see for miles up there."

Longbones turned and looked past Starkey to the man who had said five words in the last twenty-four hours.

"Eagle Drink, what did you see?"

Black eyes stared ahead, cutting through the thickening webs of dying light and shadow.

"Six in the house. A woman, a girl and young ones. Two in the stable. Older than the ones in the house."

"And what were they like? What does Iron Shirt say?"

Brief conversation passed between the Comanche and the other sun-loved man on his left in words that came like wind through the spaces between the stars.

"He sensed determination. But also inexperience. Doubt."

"There, Butch," Longbones said. "Nine total on that farm. Probably only four who can fight and only two or three who can do that well enough to mean anything. You'll get your gold. And your women. You all will. Just like I promised you would."

"And what'll you get Eddie?" Starkey asked.

"Me?" Longbones turned to look at the little man for the first time in a week. "Didn't you smell what was in that house? Didn't you hear it moving around beneath its bandages of blankets? Couldn't you taste sugar sweet, bread simple dreams?"

He laughed and the other men pulled their jackets closer to their bodies.

Aeneus hung his rifle on the wall with the others. The gun belt stayed wrapped around his waist.

Hector sat down, eyes flickering between him and the stove where pork, beans and cornbread called to hungry stomachs.

Aeneus smiled. "Get on and help then."

Hector smiled and trotted over. Little Israel laughed and threw his arms around the thick neck, laughter increasing as the leather pink tongue came out to wash his face.

Kathy came from the stove, leaving Abby to direct Washington with the fire and the pots and pans. She enveloped herself around her husband, above the gun belt that separated and united them, threatened and protected them.

"What did they want?"

He breathed in the summer night of her hair. Where there had been pitch, now streaks of moonlight cut through on spider's webbing. So much of their story was recorded in those silver veins, he thought. And there was still so much more to add.

"I don't know. Not the water and food the tall one asked for. They probably planned on robbing us and worse once we let them in. They were bad ones, Kathy. I could almost taste the blood on them. But that tall one . . . there was something else underneath the blood."

The door opened and Peter and Eli came in, rifles in hand.

Aeneus turned to his two eldest.

"Is everything secure in the barn and outbuildings?"

Peter nodded. "Yes, Dad."

Eli spoke up, the fifteen years inside of him boiling over in excitement. "Were they thieves, Dad? Are the grapevines going to be ok? I can stay out on the cupola tonight and keep an eye on them so that if they came back I could—"

He put his hand on the wet clay of the thin shoulder where muscle waited like spring storms to rise and smiled. "No, that won't be necessary." The smile vanished. "You boys know to stay off that cupola during things like this. I didn't build it to be a fort. You'd be a sitting target up there. I expect you to obey, regardless of what's happening. After supper, I'll check on the grapes. Afterwards, we'll all stay close to the house until morning. By then, everything should be all right."

"You think they'll be going?" Peter asked.

"Probably, son. After breakfast, I'll ride to Socorro and let the sheriff know about them. He can do what he thinks best after that."

The bedroom door opened and Joshua brought out pink-bundled Rebecca, all sage fire and mountain stream. Comet light raced from toe to head, pushing the great loop of growing universe ever wider. She took the mummied, New Mexican air and made it Edan. Black eyes seized faces and turned them into smiles. Dumpling hands held the world like a lollipop. Innocence spilled up from her.

Kathy took her, held her close. Aeneus rustled Joshua's ripening buckwheat hair with one hand while the other stroked the duck down evening of Rebecca's head.

They sat down and ate, Hector laying under the table, waiting for his scraps.

The gun slept in its cave.

The grapevines were still laughing virgins, their green bonnets catching the last light of the day. Aeneus reached out to feel a leaf. It was as fresh as a December dawn. There was still a month before the hot weather came, riding on horses of quicksilver and mercury. Even then, the leaves would not shrivel and the grapes would probably not die thanks to the Rio Grande. All signs pointed to a good year.

He looked out over the now-close-to-three-hundred plants dancing to beats he could not hear, thousands of drunk arms dancing on the air, repeating laughing prayers to Dionysius. Not long ago, there had been only thirty, the concentrated total of all their wealth planted in holes which left raw blisters on the hands and empty promises on the heart. Their families back East had said they were crazy to move to the strange southwest. Crazier still to start a vineyard. How could you grow grapes in the desert?

It had been a crazy idea. He could admit it now. Twenty years ago, it had been a promise of rebirth after all the blood of the battlefield, the chance to sit beneath his own vines and let their songs wash away the accumulated death. Only Kathy had believed in it. She could have flowed with her people, broken their promises to each other and stayed, killing half the dream. But the possibility had never even risen as a ghost in his head. And she had followed him, the fresh gold around her finger singing like morning dew as she climbed into the tiny wagon beside him, not knowing Andrew was already with them. They had buried him in the flatlands of Colorado.

Ahead, Hector sniffed at the base of the vines, following different trails, years falling off him in puppy excitement.

"Come on, boy. Time we got back to the house. Don't want to get caught out here after dark." He remembered the tall man's grin too well for that.

Hector broke off the trail and started trotting the half mile back, stopping and looking back every few yards to make sure Aeneus was still following.

Shrill screeches broke the peace. Two owls dove down together and rose again. Each trap of talons carried a still wriggling plump rag. Aeneus watched the victors fly off with the spoils, heard again the rattle of the dice like he had when he was seventeen in the War. Odd that they would hunt together . . . must have been mates . . . though they had both looked like females.

Unseen eyes fixed themselves on him, on the vineyard, on his family. Their claws were poised like bayonets in the dark for the critical second when they would all become mice and rabbits. His body shivered against orders.

Hector came back and pushed his head beneath Aeneus' hand, brown eyes asking what the matter was. Aeneus's fingers made the usual motions over the loaf pan head, he familiar fur and scars and warmth soaking into him.

"I'm worried about nothing, boy," Aeneus said. "Morning will come and they'll be long gone. If we hadn't stood today, it would be different. But we did and everything will be fine."

The campfire gibbered, tearing shadows out of the dark with its swords. Butch Riker sat by it, wrapped in his saddle blanket, nursing the last swallows of bourbon from the bottle. Tom Starkey came from the dark and sat next to him.

"Where's Eddie?"

Riker spat into the fire.

"Where do you think?"

Starkey cast an eye to the mesa looming before them. A single, orange eye glittered at its top. If he listened close, he could almost hear the shrieks and animals screams like before . . . 

Starkey shivered. "What the hell does he do with those witches? It ain't natural. I tell you, Butch, I haven't been easy since Eddie brought those two in. The two Comanch ain't as bad as those Apache."

"So why haven't you left?"

"You know damn well. Where would I go? Where would any of us go? We've all burned all our bridges. There's no going home. There ain't no home for us."

"Then shut up and accept it."

Footsteps stepped on brush, noise popping behind them like the break of bones. The two men didn't even look behind them. Their footsteps were now as familiar to each other as the heat of the full grown sun and the whispers of the spirits at night.

Alejandro Diaz sat heavily down, whale muscle spilling over his gun belt, reaching toward the warmth of the fire.

"Cold," he said simply.

Butch grunted.

"Hey. Los Comanches. Where are they?"

"Went off together after dark. Probably going to find a straggler somewhere and have some fun. Probably should've gone with'em. Would've gotten a little fun, anyways."

Diaz laughed. "You have the—how you say?—the itch on the foot, amigo?" He looked around, eyes passing over the form of Diego Vasquez curled beneath blankets between the fire and the night. "The patron. He is with las brujas? There?" He pointed to the mesa. The eye had closed leaving nothing of the place but its outline against the pall draped sky.

"You got it," Riker said.

"Wish I knew what goes on at those powwows," Starkey muttered. "It'd be better than this. Sometimes I think I'll—"

"Sneak up there again to try an' get another peek an' Eddie will kill you." Riker tipped the bottle and swallowed the last drink, throwing the empty glass into the dark. "You want to be staked out in the desert, fine. Me, I don't care what Eddie does with whoever he does it with. He can kiss the Devil's ass every night far as I'm concerned. Long as I get what he promised me. Gold. Whiskey. Women. Now if he doesn't . . . "

Eddie Longbones walked into the firelight on lion paws. He wore no shirt and his chest and shoulders were covered in a thick pelt of sweat. His eyes caught the flames and played with them, turning them into green snakes and white maggots.

"All right, boys," he said. The glow of his teeth was dirt on the fire. "Everything's ready. Be ready to ride before dawn. And be sure to fill your canteens full. You're going to want them."

Aeneus jerked awake. Sometime in the night, he must have dozed in the old cowhide chair. The rifle still slept across his lap and the pistol dreamed scattered dreams in his holster.

Sweat crawled in drooping lines on his forehead and cheeks. The shirt's cloth sucked at his chest and back. His trousers were an insect's hide, tight around his legs.

Hector sat at the front door, woofing at it every few seconds in a constant beat. It was one of these that had awoken him.

"What is it, boy?"

He rose, ungluing himself from the chair. The warmth came up to greet him like a great wave. The room was almost unbearable thick, filled with rising dough of high summer heat. The promise of dawn was not the usual, strawberry freshness of late spring, but the sullen glare of a camp follower, daring the chaplain to set himself against her.

Hector barked.

Aeneus opened the window and listened. The usual sounds—birds testing their voices, bees making their morning visits, the earth rolling over to let the sun massage cramped muscles—were gone. A heavy spell of fire lay on the backs of everything that lived, pushing them into the earth.

Hector barked again.

Kathy came from the bedroom, her hair drowned moss clinging to her face and neck.

"What's the matter? What's Hector barking at? Is there a fire?"

Aeneus shook his head.

"I'm going out with him to take a look. Get Peter and Eli up."

"Do you want your second pistol?"

"No."

He went to the door and opened it, rifle in his left hand.

The dog walked out, down the porch to the edge a hundred yards away, the invisible mark which separated the house from the rest of the wildness and stared, deep strings of bass playing in his chest.

Aeneus walked slowly through the August rotted temperature. Everything was quiet, buried under invisible snow that froze all sounds to the ground. His eyes and ears stretched themselves out, trying to dig beneath the snowbanks.

Hector quivered, eyes focused on something that couldn't yet be seen, the great jaws a bear trap.

The crack of the gun split the morning in two. The bullet screamed past Aeneus and buried itself somewhere behind him.

The rifle responded. Two lead warriors whooped war cries and charged their invisible enemy. There was a yell.

"Hector!"

The dog dove forward.

Rifle fire came from either side of him. Dark forms of men stood against a copper sky, lifting long guns. Bullets danced. Explosions of light and dirt bloomed like flowers on rocks.

Aeneus ran back to the protection of the house. The rifle in his left hand fired, somersaulted through his fingers, and fired again, in a repeating arc of action. The six shooter was in his right, screaming its old cries. All three remembered the old familiar dance of death. The rifle fired and the target spun halfway round and fell, the shriek rising higher the lower he fell.

Gagged explosions came from the house, rifle mouths appearing and disappearing through the firing holes like jackalopes at midnight.

Aeneus's feet jumped onto the porch. He crouched down, sending the last of the flock of lead crows nestled in the long gun and pistol to his left while the others took on the right.

The men turned and ran. Some spun back like tops to give parting shots but these were balled fists shaken to the sky. They disappeared and Aeneus heard faintly the sound of hoofbeats pouring away.

It was the body of a Mexican, a small stick man of brittle wood, all the snake quickness in the muscles pooled on the ground with his blood. A bullet hole splayed across his chest and his throat had been opened by a dog's jaw.

Hector sat over the prize, panting, looking up at the man and the two boys, tongue and jowls coated red. Aeneus leaned over and jostled the old ears. The dog leaned his head against his leg.

"Dad!" Eli said, "He was one of the riders who came up yesterday! They must have stayed to get us this morning. Before we were even up!"

"Makes sense." Aeneus let go of Hector and knelt down besides the body. The man's eyes looked at the sky, glass already covering the hard rock in the sockets. "They timed it to when they thought we would still be asleep. Or, exhausted if we had stayed up all night watching for them."

"Dad?" Peter looked at his father. "Why didn't they ride off like you said they would?"

"Maybe they think we have money in the house. Maybe they think we have a mine of silver somewhere. It doesn't matter. They think we have something valuable to them."

And maybe they just want to kill and burn.

"But we don't—"

"Doesn't matter. Even if we let them in and ransack the house, they wouldn't believe us. Besides, men like this don't just want gold."

"What . . . what do they want?"

"The horses. The pigs. Our guns. Your mother and your sister."

The words fell and trapped the boys. The tininess of their years against the sky and earth and the things that came from their caves at night shrank them down to pebbles.

"But they're gone now," Peter said. "One of them dead and another wounded, they've got to be going this time, right Dad?"

Aeneus straightened. His eyes looked over the land, baking under the eastern cracked sun, raking it like a hawk, pushing himself to find what he could not see and what he knew was out there.

He called Hector and started walking to the house. He wiped the sweat from his face. The heat was increasing. The light burned like noon.

"Dad! They're—"

"What we did this morning means they can't go. They had their chance last night and didn't take it. Now they don't have a choice. They have to stay. They have to prove to themselves that they're still the hunters, that they're still the terrors they've built themselves up to be in their own minds. They can't run now."

"Good!" Eli grinned. "We can beat them. They're nothing but Gila monsters, too slow and fat to get their teeth into us!" He patted the rifle in his hand. "One more time and there won't be any of them left!"

"I hope you're right, son," Aeneus said. But I already know you're wrong.

"We should pull out now!" Starkey stood among the loose weave of rain cloud faces staring at him. Riker sat melting against a rock, left shoulder bandaged, eyes sparking as he drank the whiskey Diaz had given him. Diaz squatted on the ground, cleaning his rifle. The two Comanche stood on the outer ring, their faces of square granite still as summer ponds. Eddie Longbones sat cross legged on a flat rock, his back to Starkey, looking in the direction they had come. There was no sweat on his face.

"Diego and Butch is hurt. Probably needs a doctor."

"Don't use me as your excuse to turn yellow," Riker said. His face flushed like a burst grape. "You rats all want to run, fine. But I'm staying till I kill that bastard. No dirt digger is going to put lead in me and walk away."

"We can always come back," Starkey pleaded. "Right now, they're probably expecting us to come again. Smartest thing is leave and come back in a month or two. Besides, in this heat, we might give out before they do. They've got a water supply. We don't." He looked at the hungry faces. "Diaz, you've got to see the sense of—"

"Quiet." Longbone's noise was the eye of a storm. Everything plastered itself to its gaze for protection. "We're not going anywhere. There's too much at stake and not enough time. We can't leave now."

He flicked his eyes to the rabble of scraps around him and, not for the first time, despised them. Ants with no understanding of their insignificance and so no conception of what was needed to overcome it. Gold, women, an endless supply of whiskey and good food was their heaven. Pigs in their troughs. Soon, though, he would not need them. Soon, he would supersede them. All he needed was the baby in the house . . . 

"There's gold there. And women. You'll all get what you want and the chance to have some real fun. All you got to do is take it. Unless you think a farmer's better than you."

He stood, each leg a crane pushing him up past them, past the mesas, past the sun.

"This afternoon, hottest part of the day, we'll go again. But this time, we do it like this . . . "

They stood in small batches of twos, baking in the guts of the afternoon.

Aeneus walked from one edge of the porch to the other, pausing at each pole to stare into the vastness before him and wipe the prickly pear sweat from his face, before he shot himself to the other end to repeat the same actions. By the door, Hector lay on his side, panting, tongue splayed on the mummy wood.

They were lucky. In the barn, where Peter was, or in the house where Kathy, Eli and Abby were, where Washington stood guard over Joshua, Israel, and little Rebecca in their bedroom, the heat swallowed you whole and kept you trapped in its cage of forge red ribs. Here, on the porch, you were more exposed, but the walls were not here to press down and squeeze you between its fingers. It was not an escape. But it was the appearance of it.

He looked at the sun now obviously crawling west. It hung in a cracked mirror sky, a white snake, staring at the world with white empty eyes. Its rattle lay silent and it spilled its poison over everything.

There had been hot springs before but in the last twenty years, there had never been such a quick step that changed spring to high summer overnight, that whispered drought and desert at the end of April. It was like the tall man, there and inescapable, surrounding you and laughing.

The tall man. He was the force driving those men to attack them. Aeneus had seen that type once before, soon after the War, in a nameless Kansas town. Eating dinner at the hotel, a man had walked in, bringing winter ice with the dust. Aeneus had caught the tip of the stranger's eye-barb wire pushing back with spindle arms a raging fire. Death clung heavy to him like summer rain. Here was a man who had decided that the only way to beat the dice was to become part of them and deal out what the master decreed. Words and laws could do nothing against him. It was no longer even a full man. Its humanity had washed away, leaving a knub of something that came out from the mud at night to hunt.

"Aeneus." Kathy's voice was a ghost on oven wind, her body a melting candle. He walked to the window where she stood.

"Have you heard anything?"

"Nothing." The sweat shriveled on his face, the last drops of water in his body hiding in crevices and ravines to save themselves.

Kathy handed him a ladle and he drank the greening water.

"We'll need more. People have had to drink, almost constantly, especially the children. I don't understand this weather. It makes you have to drink. But no matter how much you do, you're still parched. All the little ones can think of is water."

"Put some in a glass and I'll take it to Peter. Afterwards, Eli and I will refill the jars."

He stepped off the porch, into the milk-white blindness of the light, rifle in one hand, glass in the other and started walking to the barn. Hector woke, lifted his head, scrambled up and followed, panting.

The attack came when he was between the two structures.

War whoops tore through the muslin curtains of lava. Gunshots gave birth to explosions.

Aeneus dropped to the ground. The glass shattered. Hector roared.

The two Comanches charged towards him, dark blotches riding hard from the west, the sun's stare providing them cover in the open.

Aeneus squinted into the shine and fired, sending lead lightning towards the attackers. Peter's shots answered his from the barn.

The Indians whooped and broke apart, firing at him, wheeling their horses on the fingertips of the air, avoiding the hot bullets that whizzed by them from the house.

Hector tore after one of the Comanche horses, snapping at its legs, making it break its dance. Horse and warrior screamed. Hooves and bullets weaved, trying to find their mark but the dog stayed glued to the horse, moving with the animal, herding it away from the house.

The other Comanche screamed and charged.

Aeneus rose on one knee and fired. The Indian gurgled a last war cry and fell from the saddle.

They wouldn't just send two.

"Peter!" he shouted above the dry thunder of the guns. "Stay where you are! Watch the back of the house!"

He ran back to the porch, reloading as he went.

The tall man seemed to appear from thin air. He sat in the saddle at the corner of the house where no rifle holes were bored. He lowered his pistol like a judge's gavel at his prey's stomach, the smile wide on his face.

A bellow of thunder rolled over them and Hector was there, leaping up on rusting muscles, jaws wrapping themselves around the tall man's meaty calf, teeth sinking into the softness. The man shrieked as he was pulled off his saddle. The horse screamed and danced in terror.

Aeneas rushed into the house and into the bedroom, pulling the window shutters wide open, already knowing what he would see.

The three were only fifty yards away, torches belching smoke to the blue above them, horseflesh striking away at the distance. Aeneus aimed and fired. He heard two guns join his. One was Peter from the barn but where was the other one coming from . . . 

The three veered off, their surprise attack killed, horse and riders dodging the bellowing steel blue dragons.

He heard Kathy's feet running towards the bedroom. "Stay where you are!" he roared. "Make sure they don't come around to the front."

He kept up his firing, following the three horsemen until the corner of the house covered them, the second gun echoing his. Before the corner swallowed them, one of the men drew his pistol and shot. Not toward Aeneus but high up on the roof. At the cupola.

There was a scream, wet thunder on the roof, the dull embrace of bone on the dirt. Peter was yelling, his screams mixed with those of the gun. Aeneus ran out, back into the blazing sun. He saw the tall man riding back into the wilderness, saw Hector, fresh blood flowing from his head and jaws trying to chase him, but all he could see was Peter outside the barn, firing at the two retreating men, standing over the still form of Eli. A red river poured from his chest, watering the greedy earth. Aeneus joined his rifle to Peter's until the four were specks against the vast body of the vastness stretching itself forever.

The pain burned and twisted beneath shredded skin, the mangled red swamp overflowing with spikes and kegs of barbwire. Every step was a scream he had to swallow. Leaders could never show pain.

Longbones swore as he climbed the trail to the mesa's top. Below, the others were milling about, bandaging minor cuts and wounds, drinking or rummaging through saddle bags for food.

There would be trouble now. Two defeats in a row were bad enough. Two defeats by the same opponent were lethal. Especially when the opponent was not even worthy of the word, just a dirt grubber with his wife and brats. The gang had always been flimsy, a cacti needle, sharp but splintery, held together only by his promises, successes and fear. But defeats made punchlines of promises, even eroded fear. It was a simple law, simple as the desert: Deliverer, you lead. Do not, you die.

He laughed at their puniness, the scaly notes slithering out between his clenched teeth. Even in the pain, he couldn't help himself. They, who thought themselves predators, unbound by any convention or restriction, who had thrown off society's cords, they still acknowledged that law. Even the Comanche recognized it, a single tooth comb of civilization that smoothed out their barbarism, made the warrior all a stage act. And that would be their death. Survival only came to the uncivilized, the raw people who could harness pure power and use it on whoever, wherever they wanted.

He was not civilized. Nor were the Apache sisters. They understood what was needed to survive, had not been afraid to find the answer and accept it deep in themselves and love themselves for their decision. And after he had killed that farmer and drunk his blood, when he had his baby, he would have not only the answer but the key.

Longbones finished the climb and limped to the center of the mesa.

They were waiting for him, wrapped in shadows brought from deep caves and a dozen different soul's midnights. Light and heat slid off them like oil on water. Wolf eyes watched him from human thin faces molded from copper, always a breath away from melting and reforming into a different shape for different purposes. Sometimes an owl, with stone beaks that ripped hearts from pale chests. Sometimes Gila monsters which waited a week beneath the sand or among river reeds for the chosen victim. Sometimes as smoke that covered a person as they slept to drown them in nightmares. He licked his lips at the thought, at the sight. It was the taproot he had envied since he heard the stories, coveted since he found them, and had been promised since he had joined the circle.

The first one spoke.

"Another failure."

Her sister continued.

"They are protected by strong magic."

"Yes, but where is it?" Longbones asked. "We need to finish this. Tomorrow will be the last night the ceremony can be performed for another year and if we don't have the baby, there will be no sacrifice which can be offered."

"The dog." They spoke in unison. "The dog protects them. Powerful magic. Deep forces flowing in its body. Kill him. Tear out his heart. Rip off his head. Rip off his flesh. Stake his stomach to the ground to trap his spirit in the earth. Kill the dog and you will take what you need."

"Good." He turned to go. A hand fell on his shoulder. The usual ice sick water filled his stomach and he reveled in it.

"But first, you will stay with us."

Eli lay on the bed, the fever roasting him on a spit. His mouth was a fish on the sandbank gasping for air. Kathy replaced the cloth of cool water on the moon skin of his head. Rebecca lay on the floor beside her mother, crying for attention, sensing the fear weaving its net around the house.

Aeneus sat at the table with Peter. Abby worked around the stove. Hector lay on the floor by Aeneus's feet, crying softly to himself, the white blotch on his head stained red where the pistol butt had broken the skin and fractured the bone, letting Joshua and Israel try to comfort him with rubs and treats. Washington walked from window to window, looking out into the distances folding into distances. The salamander light of the setting sun was a bonfire.

"Your brother is going to need a doctor," Aeneus said. "Can't take him in the wagon; too easy to spot and too slow when they do. Someone has to go to Socorro and get Doc Henderson. Peter, that's going to have to be you and Washington. He can keep up with you and you'll need an extra pair of eyes and hands." He looked at his eldest. "If they spot you and you can't outrun them, you know what you'll have to do."

Peter nodded.

He looked so young, Aeneus thought, too damn young for something like this. Sure, he had run away to join the Army at sixteen, afraid the fighting would be over before he could legally join, but that had been his choice. For Peter, there was none.

"Leave at dark," he continued. "That will give you some cover. And they've lost two men. They won't be able to spread themselves over as much ground now. Especially if the house is still their aim."

"Do . . . do you think it is, Dad?"

He nodded.

"They're not going to stop, are they?"

Again, he nodded.

Kathy came from the bedroom, Rebecca sticking on her arms. "His fever is still rising. I can't stop it. And that bullet . . . Aeneus, it's poisoning him!" She sat down at the table. "And the water. Something's happened to the water. Like pond scum. Hardly fit to drink. But he needs it! We all need it! Aeneus, what's happening?"

"All I know," he said. "Is that Peter and Washington are going for the doctor soon as it gets dark. Don't argue. I'm going to take another look before night."

"Take your other pistol in case."

"No. Leave it in here if you need it. I can load quickly if need be."

He got up and made for the door.

Hector saw him, struggled up and followed.

The usual colors of evening were melted into bronze sludge still hot from the blacksmith's forge. Nothing spoke, or buzzed, or twittered, flew or lowed. Only the flies moved, reveling in the grave heat, attacking flesh too weak to flick or nip them away. Aeneus pushed through the haze around the house, the barn, the chicken coop, Hector trailing behind, stopping every few steps to catch a breath before continuing. The dying sun glared at them with all the hatred of youthful noon.

He stopped, sniffing. A tinge of smoke cut into his nose. Now he could hear the faint whisper of flame, see orange light play with itself against the evening light. It came from the vineyard.

Hector bayed.

Aeneus ran, ignoring the clammy hands of wet fire grabbing at him, pulling him down, cursing himself for not anticipating this move. Hector ran behind him.

The fires were orange and yellow tomcats pawing and leaping onto the green vines, adding their life to the sun's. Aeneus made for the secondary well, already knowing it was hopeless and knowing that he still had to make the effort.

The big man rose up from the cluster of vines and heaved himself forward. One arm was slung in a black bandanna. The other had a bowie knife. It came down on Aeneus and he felt cold teeth and hot blood and singing nerves running down his left arm. The rifle fell from his hand.

He stumbled back. The big man bellowed and lumbered forward, bear anger greasing his legs and arms. The knife was lightning falling from heaven, hungry for blood.

Aeneus stepped forward, met the bear, forcing left arm and hand to hold back the lightning. It gave way and the knife bit into his shoulder as the six shooter reared and fired three times. The lead termites bored through intestines, broke off bones and drank away the big man's life. The bear limbs crumbled as the fuel seeped out of his eyes. The big man gurgled once and fell.

Gunfire sounded from the house and Aeneus was running again, the pistol in its holster, the rifle in his right hand, red rain showering down from his useless arm.

There were three of them, the Mexican, the Comanche and the little man crouching low, two covering as the third darted forward, the process repeating until they were at the porch, making the gun holes useless.

Aeneus ran to the rear corner of the house. One of the men saw him, took a shot. It went wild. He emptied the rifle, cradling its body in his left arm, turning immediately back to the pistol when the rifle clicked its gums and did nothing else. Iron hornets flew at the three men, forcing them back into the brush. A red explosion appeared on the Mexican's shoulder. He yelled. The white man grabbed him and they were running into the deepening black, the Comanche covering their escape.

Aeneus stepped from the house's corner, hands trembling, blood wet fingers slipping across the pistol's body as he fed it. Four bullets in the cylinder, he raised it and emptied them all into the mouth of the crouching night.

He stood for a moment, letting the sounds of flames and panicked birds, of the horses pounding on their stables, wash over him. It was all right. They had repelled another attack and another of them was dead and another wounded. The grapes could be replanted. He and Eli and Hector would heal . . . 

Hector.

The dog was not with him.

Starkey finished strapping the dirty bandage on Alejandro Diaz's shoulder. The darker man grimaced.

"Madre de Dios!" he guttered. "Tom. Give me another bottle!"

He snatched it and drained away half its life in a gulp.

Starkey looked up from Diaz to Longbones. The tall man stood before the mirror hall of the fire, looking into its faces. Hordes of blood dried on his hands and front and there were even specks of red around his mouth.

Starkey stopped looking, stopped thinking and started talking.

"I don't give a hoot in hell what you want, Eddie, but we're gonna leave while we still have something to ride on. This ain't worth it."

He rose from his haunches and stood across from the tall man. "Especially with you leading us."

Longbones chuckled.

"Sit down, Tom. You know you'll only try when my back's turned." He lifted his head, stared staright into the small man. "And you wouldn't t try even then, would you? Too afraid I'll still see you."

He turned and addressed the other two. "We've come too far to turn around. Run now and you won't stop. A toothless prairie squatter will be able to chase you off his hovel. The only way out is through. Tomorrow this time, you'll have gold, two women to split and swap and whatever else you want in that whole, damn place."

"Those pretty speeches haven't done us any good yet, Eddie," Starkey said.

Diaz grunted. "Tom makes a good point, patron. Why is this promise different from the other two you made us, eh?"

"Because now their protection's gone." The tip of tongue came out and touched one of the red flecks. "And because we'll all be there tomorrow." He looked at the men around the fire. "You understand me? All of us."

A cold wind whipped around them, taking away the fire's soul.

Iron Shirt said nothing. His expression did not change but he shifted his weight and threw his thoughts into the fire.

The grave lay on the western side of the house, where he had often sunned himself after the real work of the day was done, watching Aeneus and the boys finishing the chores, sometimes chasing a chicken back to the main group while they waited to be escorted into the coop for the night.

Aeneus finished shoveling on the last bit of dirt, the emptiness eating him away. Kathy, with Rebecca, stood at the foot of the grave, a single tear sailing down her cheek. All the children were crying. Peter and Abby shook silently. Israel and Joshua bawled, understanding that the dog which had watched over them their whole lives, who had helped them chase butterflies and jackrabbits, who had checked on them every night, promising to be there for them in the morning, was gone and was never coming back.

The last light peeped from the coffin already lowered into the western sky. Now, the rest of the lid started closing. The oven hotness stayed free. The night was a black fever, wringing them dry.

Aeneus spoke, his voice coming from somewhere other than his mouth, from another corner of himself where he had never been.

"Peter. Washington. Saddle the horses. Abby, go into the kitchen and put some food together for them. I'll get their guns ready."

He walked toward the dream house on dream legs. Everything was off by a fraction of a degree, turning the world into a carnival mirror, familiar faces and landmarks hiding deformed bodies. Three days ago, the world had been normal, promising to flow in that direction forever. And now one of the links in their chain had broken and scattered them with no way of returning to that old river.

When the dark was still fresh cut, Peter and Washington raced south, their hooves muffled with rags.

Aeneus watched them disappear, the emptiness branching out, pulling himself inside of it.

He walked back into the coffin hot blackness of the house and sat in the cowhide chair and put his right hand down where nothing was waiting to be scratched.

The sun was a lizard's eye when it climbed over the rim of the earth. Aeneus felt the heat when he woke up, shrouding itself tightly around him, tightening when he opened the door and made his way to the barn.

This would be the day. They had started with seven. Three were dead. Two were badly hurt. Even so, the tall man would send at least one rider out to reconnoiter. He would see Peter and Washington's tracks. He would know that two were gone and another dying. He would hit now before help could come. It would have to be today.

He did the chores with his good arm, the sling limp and dead. When he was done, he stood in front of the house, waiting.

Four riders rose in a line, forcing horseflesh through the walls of prehistoric fever. Behind and to the left of them, two more figures followed. January ice poured itself into Aeneus' stomach at the sight of them. They were too far away and too distorted by the sidewinders of heat to see clearly, but he smelled them and what was on them. He heard the dice rattle as plainly as if he was sitting at the table across from death.

He stopped and waited, the one pistol in its leather blanket cave. The other pistol slept against his back.

The two creatures stopped a hundred yards off. The other four kept coming, stopping only when they were fifty feet from where he stood.

The tall man nudged his horse forward another thirty feet. His eyes crawled from beneath his hat, two sick green suns burning worlds for the joy of death.

"Gonna stand your ground then." Flies buzzed around his leg where the blood-caked bandana was tied but the muscles didn't move.

Aeneus said nothing.

"Didn't expect anything else." He grinned. "I'm glad. It'll make this more fun."

The two things jumped down from their horses and came forward in a fast coyote trot, backs humping into the air, fingers touching the ground ahead of toes. The line became a circle, the circle bent into a lopsided dance. Legs snaked out of blankets to swoop through the dirt. Wrinkled arms sprang up from red cocoons. Rattles and copper bells filled the oven air. Black words whispered on the still air.

The ice burst his stomach. He knew what they were from stories the old timers whispered to each other in Socorro and Albuquerque, stories he had not wanted to believe.

He needed to shoot them, needed to take them before he did anything else. But the heat was unbearable now. There had never been any coolness. Oceans, clouds, autumn rains, spring breezes were shredded into dead dreams. He was in the heart of a funeral pyre, staked to the ground, the flames screeching over him, digging into him. The light intensified, opening its rattler mouth for him, erasing everything into a white nothing.

He could only hear the tall man laughing.

No. Kathy. Abby. The boys. Rebecca. Oh God, no not that for Rebecca . . . 

The gun was in his hand but it was a Gila monster, biting, sinking its teeth into crisp flesh. Nerve tips screamed and his fingers spasmed open. He dropped to the ground, pawing in the dirt, trying to find it, trying to bury himself to escape the million whips of the sun on his body and soul. He needed to open his eyes . . . if he could see, he could find the gun . . . but the glare skewed them with spears, forcing them tight against his skull.

"Soon enough, dirt grubber," the tall man laughed. "You'll be in the earth soon enough. After the coyotes and vultures eat their fill of good bacon, course. Wouldn't want to deprive them, would we?"

Aeneus wiggled blind and scalded on the ground, the sling falling off him like snake skin.

There was a creak of leather. "They won't put up a fight in the house now. Go on in, boys, and do what you will."

Something pushed against Aeneus's body, something warm and familiar. Something like a powerful, loaf pan head came under his arms, lifting his chest from the ground. There was a sound he had thought he would never hear again in his ear and a warm, leathered tongue licking his face. Some of the heat melted away and he could breathe.

It left. There was a roar, a scream, followed by shouting, yelling. Gunshots swam through the air. He heard the dandelion explosions of bullets hitting the earth.

Aeneus opened his eyes. The glare was dwindling. He saw one of the witches on the ground, a mummy face looking up into the sky, a red gap where her throat had been. The other was rolling on the ground, flailing as if trying to escape something on her back. The tall man was riding around it, yelling, firing his pistol at nothing.

The Mexican swore and charged.

The pistol lay in front of him.

Instinct grabbed it, aimed and fired in the time it took lightning to strike. The Mexican's head reared back and he toppled over the saddle and the horse's haunches.

The little man cursed, spun out his gun and aimed at the tall man's back. The tall man pricked up, swiveled and fired. His bullet bit off the little man's face.

There was a final scream from the witch and it lay still.

The tall man howled, spun his horse and charged Aeneus. He screamed words older than the mountains and uglier than the things that lived beneath them.

Something bit Aeneus' hand. Blue fire numbed his fingers and burned away the muscle. The pistol dropped for a second time.

Aeneus saw the crazed light burning through the tall man's eyes, blood, pain and death dancing together, gibbering obscene words. The pistol came up.

A black shadow skirted alongside the horse. There was the echo of a dog's baying and the horse veered away. The shot went wild and the tall man cursed, wrenching himself around the saddle.

Aeneus' left hand reached and pulled out the second pistol. His arm and shoulder screamed with the gun as it emptied half its life into the body.

The tall man slumped over and collapsed.

Aeneus turned toward the Comanche who had not moved from his spot.

A silence stood between them. Aeneus grit his teeth, forcing the pain in his arms back, ordering the pistol in his left hand to stay watching the mounted man. Even so, it quivered.

No charge came. The Comanche raised his right arm in salute, wheeled his horse and started north, looking neither left nor right.

Aeneus dropped his arms. Rubber replaced muscles and his legs jerked like a marionette's. Footsteps ran behind him and Kathy was there, her arms around him, crying, trying to fix his sling and wipe his face at the same time. Her tears were cool against the desert of his flesh.

He thought he felt a soft muzzle, scarred from many tussles, whisper beneath his numbed hand. He looked down and around, twisting himself out of Kathy's arms.

The wildness was vast. There were many things there. But none that he could see.

A cool wind came, picked up her skirt and ran.