option; it would be misconstrued.'
'No one needs to know.'
'My presence here is a matter of official record. Both the county sheriff's office and the state police dispatcher know exactly where I am.'
'You're right; you can't stay.'
'I'll get a room at the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair.'
'Will you at least call me when you arrive so that I know you made it safely?'
'I'll do that. Try to think of where Robert might be heading.'
Nita nodded and forced a smile, but her eyes were worried.
'What's wrong?' Kerney asked.
'I don't want anything to happen to Robert.'
'Robert is a survivor, just like you,' Kerney replied evenly.
'He'll be all right.'
'Have you always been such an optimist?'
'I have my black moments every now and then.'
'When was the last one?'
'The day I had to shoot you,' Kerney replied.
Kerney's unexpected response shook Nita.
'I'm sorry that happened. You must think I'm terribly weak.'
'I think you're a woman who needs to get on with her life.'
'In prison?'
'I hope not, Ms. Lassiter.'
'It wasn't fair of me to say that.'
'No harm done.'
As soon as Kerney said good night and slipped out the door, Nita wanted him to come back. With all the constraints that existed between them, she knew he wouldn't. But she could sense Kerney's loneliness ran as deep as her own, and that left her feeling very sad. ^ Ugly things had happened in Robert's dreams, forcing him awake. Paul Gillespie's face floated through his mind. The face changed into El Malo; horns snaked out of his forehead like worms and his eyes turned fiery red and evil.
Robert opened his eyes, found himself in total darkness, and scrambled to his feet. He could feel the pressure of the walls and ceiling gripping him-pushing him down-and his heart pounded in his chest.
He ran, stumbled against something, groped his way toward a current of cold air that blew against his face, and found a broken window. He crawled out, fell on his knees, and ran until a pain in his side forced him to stop.
Gasping for air, he turned and looked back. The setting moon behind the church made the spire look like a dagger stabbing the sky. He shivered in the cold, but the tension in his body lifted, and he felt better now that he was outside. Then the voices returned.
He could only use his right thumb to plug his ears; somebody had put a plaster cast on his left arm. He tried to rip the cast off, but the plaster was too hard and thick. He gave up and started walking down the road.
Snowdrifts buried the road and covered all but the tops of the fence poles along the highway.
Somewhere, Robert had gotten a new coat, and it felt warm. But the air was frigid and his feet were cold.
He looked down at the boots that flapped against his ankles, wondering where they had come from. As he walked, snow seeped over the boot tops, soaked his feet, and made it hard to move. He stepped carefully to keep the boots from coming off in the snow.
There was no traffic on the road. Everything was silent and still. He stuck his thumb out as soon as he heard the sound of an engine and the scrape of a plow on the pavement behind him. An orange highway department snowplow slowed to a stop. Robert got in.
'Did you go off the road?' the driver asked.
'I didn't see your car.'
'No, I'm just walking.' Robert stared at a pack of cigarettes on the dashboard.
'Got a spare smoke?'
'Help yourself.'
Robert grabbed a cigarette and lit it.
'Looks like you got banged up a little,' the man said, eyeing the cast on Robert's arm and his missing teeth.
'Got in a fight,' Robert replied, thinking maybe it was true.
'No big deal.'
'Where are you heading?'
'Mountainair.'
'I can take you as far as the maintenance yard in town.'
Robert nodded.
'That's cool. Got any coffee there?'
'The pot is always on.' The driver dropped the transission into gear, lowered the blade, and began plowing his way toward Mountainair.
Robert puffed on the cigarette and tried to concentrate on where he was supposed to go after he got to town. Nothing registered. The voices were gone, replaced by a noise like radio static.
Close to town, with the sun just up and the glare off the snow bouncing into the sky, a state police car passed them. Robert turned his head to follow the car, thinking that if he got out and waited, the cop might come back and take him to jail. He shrugged off the thought and snorted. Cops were assholes.
The driver gave him a strange look.
Robert bummed another cigarette and stared out the window. He liked the way the snow covered everything and made things look clean. His feet started to hurt as the driver turned into the maintenance yard. It felt like somebody was sticking pins into his toes.
He jumped out of the truck and went with the driver into the empty office.
'Got any rubber bands?' Robert asked.
The driver rummaged through a desk drawer and held out a handful.
Robert pulled them over his boots.
Maybe they would help keep the snow out.
'What happened to your laces?' the driver asked.
'I don't like them.'
The driver filled his thermos, gave Robert a cup of coffee, and went outside to load sand into the truck's spreader. When he returned the hitchhiker was gone. nita found Kerney sitting in the Shafier Hotel dining room picking over a light breakfast. The room was full of railroad workers just in from a night of clearing a freight derailment at Abo Pass. Snow and mud had been tracked into the room, and small brown puddles had formed under the tables where the workers sat.
Nita dropped her coat over the back of an empty chair and joined Kerney at the table.
'Good morning,' she said.
'Morning,' Kerney answered, inspecting her outfit.
She wore insulated boots, jeans, and several layers of sweaters.
'Going somewhere?'
'With you,' Nita replied.
'That's not possible.'
'Do you want to waste time trying to find your way to Serpent Gate, or do you want to get there in a hurry?'
'There are a lot of other places Robert could be,' Kerney said.
'I've already looked everywhere else.'
'Then I'll start at Serpent Gate.'
'It's not that easy to get to. Do you have a four wheel-drive vehicle?
