Read an Excerpt
Hands shoved deep into his pockets, head down, Tim stomped out
to the
sidewalk. He rattled a crumpled soda can halfway down the street
in
seven good kicks. Then it sailed over Old Man Shever's white
picket
fence, right past Old Man Shever himself.
He ducked
behind a tree, but Shever saw him.
"Sorry," said Tim with a
wince.
Old Man Shever opened the gate, waving Tim
inside.
"Pick it up, Tim. But don't break off any
flowers."
Reaching gingerly into the flowerbed, Tim managed to
retrieve the can
without damaging anything. He turned around to find Old Man
Shever
staring intently at him.
Before he could move, a
gnarled hand had reached out and lifted his
chin. To Tim's dismay, tears
spilled from his eyes.
"Whole world's comin' apart for you, eh?"
asked Shever. "What's
ailin' you?"
A bony arm went around
Tim's shoulders and he was propelled toward
the front door of the house.
From “Old Man Shever”
They located the turn-off without difficulty and followed
the road
that wound toward the green-grey foothills. Hedge sparrows
and
meadowlarks flew up on either side. A red-tailed hawk sailed
in
tightening circles over the land, intent on lunch, or at least a
snack.
A most handsome pair of loudly scolding magpies escorted them as far
as
the next indiscreet grasshopper delicacy.
The road soon
narrowed to one lane and Marge hoped out loud they
wouldn't meet anyone
coming downhill.
"Not half as much as I do," assured Dan.
"They'll be on my side."
A small, battle-scarred road sign stuck
out its thumb as they passed
by. Marge read what she could of the
bullet-riddled letters. End of . .
. end of something or other. She shrugged.
In the boondocks, what could
they be nearing the end of?
From “Once Upon a Weekend”
On his ritual morning walk, Barney tramped through the autumn
leaves
being briskly piled and recycled by the wind along the sloping
shoulder
of the lane. Even if it had stopped drizzling, he would not
dare walk
on the narrow road itself. The countryside and the sleepy village
were
changing. Some young maniac, the first of the week, would soon
hurtle
around a curve.
One day, Barney reasoned, he would
hear the squeal of tires, the
screech of brakes applied too late, and his
bloodied, battered body
would be tossed up over the hedge like Old Harvey's
scarecrow that he'd
been dreaming about for weeks. The heartless motorist
would speed on his
way, cursing the expense of having to fix the front fender
of his shiny
murder machine. He'd be just like the hit-and-run motorist who
had
fatally injured Old Harvey. And Barney shuddered at the nightmare
he'd
been having over and over.
Interrupting his thoughts, a
horn brayed and Dopplered past. He
barely glimpsed the red sports car, as he
fell to his knees from the
draft.
"Oh, God." He pressed his
hand against his heart, then cautiously
patted his arms and legs, finding
nothing that hurt worse than usual.
From “Barney”
Jessica gave him a look that would have curdled his mother's
milk.
Right then he felt like kicking her butt out into the street. He
had
heard the office grapevine version of what she thought of
him.
Jessica, it was said, considered Dave supremely
egotistical. Just
because he had come in on the new College Hire Speedy
Training Program,
he acted like some kind of anointed prince.
Temperamental older supervisors had left no doubt about what they
thought of
such boy wonders, too-whipped through four accounting
sections in less than
twelve months, they stayed just long enough in
each to disrupt the entire
flow of work. Old-liners complained bitterly
that they would have to
put things back together after Dave moved on. He
often felt as welcome at the
company as a toad at a family picnic.
From “Early Morning Encounter”
"Why did you come back now, Jim? What can you
do?"
Last night's questions from his sister Elizabeth echoed in
his mind
as he paced nervously. Only dimly aware of the books and guns
and
Mexican artifacts in the study, he was totally unaware of breaking
into
tiny pieces the long stems of dry grass absently carried back from
the
summer-brown hills. His morning ride had provided neither answers
nor
inspiration, only questions.
Worse, now he was bewildered
by a vision. His ten-year-old gelding
had seen something, someone, that
should not have been there, could not
have been there, yet was. And Jim had
seen her, too, though she was
three years dead.
"I'm not
crazy! Oro felt what I felt, saw what I saw," he assured
himself. "But
it's impossible."
As Jim rode along the pathway near the flower
garden, placid,
imperturbable Oro had shied away. Something more than the
mewing tabby
cat had spooked the palomino; at a walk, Oro often allowed a cat
to ride
in front of the saddle, sometimes clinging to his white
mane.
No, it was Jim's mother-his dead mother-who had startled
Oro; she was
there by the fountain. Jim had seen only her shimmer that time,
but had
he put out his hand, he would have touched her. Of that, he was
sure.
Her presence radiated a powerful aura there in her favorite
place.
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