"But don't you see I have to know?" the medical examiner had begged him. Slaughter knew how he himself would feel and in the end had let him. After all, what difference did it make? The boy was dead. There wasn't time to bring in someone else to do the job. They had to know right now how this thing worked. He sipped his drink and wondered if the medical examiner would find out that the boy had died from other causes. That would be the best thing anyone could hope for. If the medical examiner did discover that, however, was it likely that the town council would believe him? Or yourself, he thought. Would you believe him? Do you trust him that much?

Yes, he thought, and when the phone rang and he reached for it, he guessed that this might be the medical examiner calling to report. But it wasn't, just a dead sound on the telephone.

"Who is it?" Slaughter repeated, but there wasn't any answer. He wondered if this might be the father. "Is there anybody-?"

But abruptly the dial tone was buzzing, and he stared down at the phone and set it onto its holder. Which he would have done regardless, because from the field down by the barn he heard the horses. They were whinnying and snorting. Through the open window and the screen, he heard their hoof-beats skitter one way, then another. In a rush, he set down his glass and rose from the chair. The bourbon made him dizzy, and he waited until his brain was steady before walking toward the door. He'd turned the porchlight off when he came in, but now he turned it on again and stepped out, pausing as he glanced around, then swung left off the porch to face the barn. There was something different, and he had to think before he noticed that he didn't hear any insects. They were always rasping in the bushes and the grass. They had been when he drove in, parking, going down to check the horses at the start.

But now the night was silent, heavy, except for the skittish whinny of the horses, and he wished that he had thought to bring a rifle from the house. He had his handgun, though, and in the dark its range was good enough for any target he might see. This likely would be nothing anyhow. The horses sometimes acted like this if they sensed a snake or a coyote down that drywash on the rear side of the barn. Often all he had to do was calm them or else shine a light out into the bushes, and the thing would go away. But with the bourbon working on him, he'd left his flashlight in the house, and he was wondering if he was in control enough for this. Considering the trouble that was going on, this might be something, after all.

So, careful to approach the open barn door from an angle, he quickly reached inside to switch on the floodlights. There were two sets, one in front and back, that blazed out toward the drywash and the field beside the barn and toward the house. His eyes hurt briefly as he stared at where the horses galloped toward the right and whinnied and then swung fast toward the left. Their pattern was a kind of circle as if both felt threatened on each side, and although they were a distance from the fence before him, he could see their wild eyes and their twitching nostrils. "What the hell?"

The words were out before he knew he'd said them, and their sound, mixed with the horses' panic, startled him. He'd never seen them act like this. When there was something here that bothered them, they always made some slight disturbance and then shifted toward a better section of the field. But both were in a frenzy, snorting, twitching, galloping, and he was just about to climb the fence and go out there to calm then when he realized that they might be infected. Sure, a sudden change in manner. That would be a symptom. He could not afford to go to them.

But what else could he do? Assume that something in the darkness frightened them. He hoped that was the case. He loved these horses, and he'd hate to lose them. Well, get moving then. He realized that his reluctance was an indication of how much he'd been bothered, and he took a breath, pulled out his gun, then forced himself to walk along the fence to reach the drywash.

The floodlights brightened everything for fifty yards behind the barn. He saw the red clay of the gully, saw the bushes on the slope across there and the trees along the far rim. He glanced behind him, fearful that there might be something crouched behind the barn, and then his back protected, he walked slowly toward the gully.

There was nothing at the bottom, just the red clay and the boulders and the branches he had thrown in to stop erosion. All the same, he felt that there was something. In the field, the horses continued skittering and snorting, and he didn't know exactly how to do this. Under usual circumstances, he would have no second thoughts before he went down into the gully and then up the other side to check the bushes. After all, what normally would be out there that could harm him? But this trouble made him reconsider everything. He had to distrust every living thing and even dead ones. But he couldn't bear the horses' panic, couldn't tolerate their agony. He had to stop what they were doing. So he started down the gully when he heard the branches snapping.

Over to his left, across the gully in the bushes, where the glare from the floodlights blended with the darkness. Stepping back toward the rim, he walked along it, frowning toward the darkness. His handgun cocked and ready, he couldn't be certain if the branches snapped from something that came close or backed off. Then he heard another group of branches snapping, farther to the left, and he relaxed a little as he judged that it was something moving off. The branches snapped close to the first place he had heard them now, however-farther to the left again as well-and there was more than one thing out here, that was certain. He was rigid, fighting the urge to flee in panic like the horses.

Keep control. It's just coyotes. Sure, then why the hell have you quit breathing? When he heard the snapping once again and couldn't pretend anymore that it wasn't coming closer, he reacted without thinking. His instinct now in charge, he fired in the air and saw the lean four-footed object, furry, scrambling backward through the bushes. Then he saw the other, and another, and he might have shouted as he saw yet another coming nearer. He would never know for sure. He heard a noise down in the gully to his right, another on the far side of the barn, and he was running up along the fence beside the barn to reach the house. The horses galloped in a line with him, and then they bolted toward the middle of the field. He kept running, hearing noises close behind him, not once looking, only gasping, racing, and he reached the house and burst inside, slamming the door, locking it behind him. He dodged through the living room to reach the kitchen and the back door which he locked as well. He closed the windows everywhere. He locked them, pulling down the shades, and he was reaching for the phone, gasping, frantically dialing.

"Hello," a sleepy voice said. "Who, uh-"

"Rettig, this is Slaughter. Get Hammel and get out here."

"Chief? Is that you? I uh-"

"Rettig, don't ask questions. Just get out here."

"To the station? What time is it?"

"My place. Fast. I need you."

Slaughter repeated his instructions and set down the phone, hearing how the horses whinnied beyond tolerance. He started toward the windows on that side, reaching for a blind to pull it up and see why they were sounding like that. But the phone rang, and he stood immobile, one hand on the blind while he stared toward the phone. That god-damned Rettig. What's the matter with him? When Slaughter crossed the room and grabbed the phone, there wasn't anyone, however, just that same dead silence. "Tell me what you want!" he shouted to the mouthpiece, but the silence continued. Then he heard the dial tone again and scratching on the porch and only one horse out there now was whinnying. He faced the front door, his handgun ready, glancing at the window on the side that faced the horses. But he couldn't hear even one horse now, and as he scrambled toward the front blind, the scratching stopped. The night became terribly soundless.