The thing was, no one seemed to be around. The windows all were open. Anyone inside could not have helped but hear him. All the same, there wasn't any sign of anyone. Slaughter knocked, but no one answered. Then he turned and looked out toward the barn, toward the corrugated metal structure which he saw now had one door open, nothing in there on this side except a motorcycle. Well, that helped explain it. They were on the range and seeing to the stock. Either that or gone to town. Even so, you'd think that someone would have stayed. The wife perhaps. He'd met her once in town. Nice hands. She didn't seem the type to go out working with the stock.

He put his hand down on his holster, stepping off the porch and walking toward the barn. He saw where posts and boards were rigged to form a horse pen, a nice looking appaloosa in there underneath the shelter of a cottonwood. He saw a water trough, a salt lick, and a feed pail. That reminded him to get another salt lick for his horses. He turned, facing toward the house again, the flowers on one side, the well-kept strip of lawn around the house and porch. He scanned the sheds, the barn, the open space between them, nothing out of place, nothing dirty or run-down, everything as freshly painted as the house, and thought that this must be among the best-kept ranches that he'd seen.

He stood between the house and barn and shouted. No one answered. The horse was looking at him. Slaughter went over, leaned on the fence, and snapped his fingers at it. "What's the matter? No one home?"

The sun glared down on him. The horse moved its hoofs as if to come across to him and then stopped, its head cocked toward the house. Slaughter sensed before he heard it. A constant, high, shrill whistle. It was coming from the back of the house. He walked along the side, looked through a kitchen window in the back, and saw it. There upon the stove. A kettle with a flame beneath it, steam escaping through the whistle on the spout. He found a door in back that led in to the kitchen, knocked but no one answered, went in and shut off the stove. He didn't understand. He searched through all the downstairs rooms and then the bedrooms up on top. He thought that someone might have turned the kettle on and then lain down to rest a moment and then gone to sleep. But there was no one anywhere. The well-kept grounds, the freshly painted house. It wasn't like the people here to go off with a kettle on the stove. Slaughter went out, checking through the barn, the sheds, and the garage, but there was no one, and he didn't understand. What would make them leave a kettle like that? Why had they forgotten? Where in hell had they gone anyhow? The kettle had started shrieking only a while ago. They must have turned it on just before he came, so where in God's name were they?

TEN

Dunlap was hungover. He was slumped across the back seat of the bus. He had made connections with the nearest airport and had thought that he would take a taxi to the town. He hadn't remembered to check his map, though, and was told that Potter's Field was fifty miles away. No one would agree to drive him. It wasn't just the distance. It was that the town was on the other side of all those mountains. Getting there was several hours. Better take a bus. "But I want to go there in a taxi." They just shook their heads. This was something new to Dunlap. In New York where he came from, taxi drivers would grab the chance to go that kind of distance, picking up another fare and coming back. That was just the trouble. No one would be coming back. People took the bus. "But I'll pay to have you go both ways," he told them. They just shook their heads again. "All that driving through the mountains. We'll stay here and save the cars."

So Dunlap took the bus. He'd stayed up drinking late the night before in Denver, waking almost too late for his morning flight to here. The plane had propellers. It hit some rough air just above the northern mountains, jolting up and down, and sick already, Dunlap had barely kept his stomach down. He'd tried some coffee. That didn't help. He tried some Alka-Seltzer, and it almost worked. Then he made a joke about a little of the dog that bit him, asking for a drink. At first the flight attendant was reluctant, early in the morning like that, but Dunlap made a point of it, and in the end he convinced her to sell him a Jim Beam on the rocks. That was just the trick. It went down sharp and made him gag, but it stayed down, and it seemed to settle his stomach. Two more sips, and he was fine. At least he thought he was, returning to his stupor of the night before. Another drink, and then his stomach let him have it. He was in the washroom, throwing up.

He washed his face, looked in the mirror at his gray wrinkled skin, walked back, and slumped, but he was glad to have it out of him at least, and he was sleeping, even through the turbulence, as the plane struggled through the clouds and jounced down for a landing. Waiting for the bus, Dunlap went in to the men's room, washed his face again, opened up his travel bag, took out a bottle, and had another drink. He knew that he was classic: drinking all night, sick and yet in need of still another drink. All the same, he needed it, and if he did his job right, who could tell the difference? Just as long as he could function. That's what you do? Function? Just about. He had another drink. He had another on the bus, his pint bottle hidden in his jacket pocket. He sprawled, feeling sick again, staring at the seat before him, and then sitting up, he glanced at all the grassland going past. It was flat at first, but then it started rising, sloping up to foothills and then mountains, fir trees angling off as far as he could see now, rocks among them, and at one point, looking out, he saw the guardrail and a straight drop down to boulders and a section of the road that curved around a ridge down there. An object came around the lower bend. He knew it was a car, but down that far it resembled a toy, and suddenly aware of just how high he was, Dunlap felt a spinning in his brain, a rising in his stomach, and he had to look away. Either that or throw up again.

He settled back in his seat, glancing at the people who were near him. Men in cowboy hats, women wearing gingham dresses (gingham-Lord, he thought that had gone out of style fifty years ago), old men in suspenders, all with sun-creased skin that looked a bit like leather. Two seats ahead of him, an Indian was looking at a magazine. The Indian's dark hair hung to his shoulders. He wore a pair of faded jeans, a red shirt and a beaded necklace, his boots stuck in the aisle, showing cracked seams, run-down heels, and something on one side that looked distinctly like a piece of horseshit. Dunlap watched him as he turned the page. There was something strange about the photograph. It showed a naked woman, braced, her crotch against a tree. Dunlap peered a little closer. She was dark-haired, ruddy-skinned, exactly like the man who read it. And the language, as he leaned a little closer, wasn't English. Christ, a pornographic magazine for Indians. He'd have to make a note about that. Clearly he could use it. Local color and all that. He squinted at the pear-shaped breasts upon the naked woman. Then the page was turned, and he was looking at a beaver shot. Dunlap thought of Indians and made a joke about a Little Beaver, shook his head, and took another drink.

What kind of place was this to build a commune anyhow? he thought. Why not east or maybe on the coast? At least he had some friends there. Well, there had been many communes in those places, but none had ever been like this. Besides, he didn't choose his assignments. His bosses told him what to do, and he went out and did it. Maybe that was how they got at him for all the drinking that he did. Maybe. Still, he did his job. Or so he told himself at least. He'd have to clean the act up. That was sure. After this job, he would dry out, and he'd show them. Sure. Just as soon as this was over. He slumped so no one could see and had another drink.