felt warm, soft, and curly under his fingers. “Lie down,” he said, making his voice low and soothing.
It rocked a little. He pushed harder. Its legs sagged, forelegs folding first, followed by the hind ones. Its nose dropped to its front legs.
Garreth moved closer and pushed some more. “Roll over. Lie flat.”
With a sigh, the bull did so.
Garreth felt an urge to sigh, too, in relief. Except now he had to look away. Murmuring soothingly, Garreth knelt and moved his hand up the neck into a hollow behind the jaw. He probed, searching for a pulse…found it, beating strong and slow. Keeping the fingers of one hand on it, he knelt, bent over the outstretched neck and, extending his fangs, and bit where his fingers touched.
And found only flesh and the barest taste of blood.
Not again! He wanted to scream in frustration.
The bull twitched. Garreth fought panic. The pulse throbbed under his fingers. He smelled blood under the pale hide. It had to be in there somewhere. He made himself try again, biting in a slightly different position.
This time blood spurted. The twin gushers filled his mouth. After his usual refrigerated diet, its heat startled him and he nearly jumped back. But the hunger ignited by the hot flow quickly overcame surprise. He hung on, drinking his fill.
His fill, but as with the rat blood, not to satisfaction. He sat back, holding thumbs over the punctures with frustration snarling in him. Blood was blood. Why was this not good enough?
The bull lay still, its eyes closed. Garreth removed his thumbs. The punctures had stopped seeping blood. A handful of earth rubbed into the hide covered the marks.
When he stood the bull rolled onto its chest, but made no attempt to stand, just lay with its eyes closed. Still, he backed away keeping his eyes on it. He did not turn until over the hill, then, once out of sight, he ran…partially to put distance between himself and the huge animal, partly in a vain attempt to run away from the longings racking him.
But enjoyment came, too, in the nighttime strength and energy clamoring for release. The ground streamed beneath his feet as power surged through him. Soon exhilaration drowned all other thoughts and he gave himself up to the unthinking joy of motion. He had never run this fast before! The gate lay ahead and instead of stopping to crawl through, he hurdled it.
Landing beside the car, he discovered that his heart and breathing returned to normal in seconds. He grinned. At this rate, he could run for miles without even trying. What a kick!
A spotlight lit him up.
He froze in its glare, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes. The action came reflexively but even as his forearm rose, Garreth realized it served another purpose as well, to keep the person behind the light from seeing his eyes reflect red.
A car door opened.
The spotlight prevented him from seeing who climbed out, but the very fact of a spotlight suggested law enforcement. He lowered his arm enough to peer over it and identify a light bar on top of the car. Which might or might not be good, remembering times on patrol with a few partners before Harry. Too bad he had no badge on him.
“Evening, son,” a voice said from behind the light.
The casual tone of the greeting gave him hope of a friendly encounter. “Good evening, Officer.”
“Deputy sheriff,” the voice corrected him. “What’s your name?”
“Garreth Mikaelian. My driver’s license is in my hip pocket. Would you like to see it?”
“If you don’t mind.”
As Garreth fished out his billfold and extracted the license, the deputy said, “You have California plates. You a student at the college?”
Yes, there was a college here. He debated his answer and chose honesty. “No, just passing through. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn.”
“What are you doing way out here?”
What answer would the deputy accept? What would he accept if their positions were reversed? “I’m a night person and your town goes to sleep before I do. So I took a drive. This is a spectacular sky. I don’t see anything like it in San Francisco.”
“Don’t you see No Trespassing signs out there?” He pointed to the one wired to the fence beside the gate.
Okay, maybe this was turning not so friendly and good thing he had not shown a badge and made himself look more irresponsible. Garreth gave the deputy a sheepish grimace. “I saw the sign but I wasn’t going to do anything but walk to the top of the hill and back. Which I did.” Would it help to come across as an ignorant city boy? “I didn’t even bother the cow that’s sleeping on the other side of the hill.”
“Cow?” The deputy laughed shortly. “The Good Lord looks after fools. Son, that ‘cow’ is Vale’s Chablis of Postrock, Postrock ranch’s prize Charolais show bull…or he was until he got too mean to handle.”
Garreth swallowed. “Mean?”
“He’s put three men in the hospital, one of them crippled for life. You could have paid for trespassing with your life.” The deputy returned the driver’s license. “Suppose you go on back to town and stay out of pastures, especially when they’re posted.”
Garreth went, shaking in retrospective fear.
By the time he reached the hotel, that had been replaced by exhilaration. Though ignorant of the risk he took, he controlled the bull…which should mean no trouble with less dangerous cattle. Giving him a plentiful source of blood which did not have to die feeding him. He needed a better excuse for nocturnal activity, though. The next deputy might be less friendly.
Jogging suggested itself. Everyone ran these days and he enjoyed the one tonight. Before he headed to Baumen tomorrow, he would buy a pair of running shoes and a warm-up suit to lend his story credence. But maybe exercise more caution, too, in his choice of cattle to fed on.
13
Driving east from Hays on I-70 then north through Bellamy to Baumen, Garreth focused of being positive. Baumen had Biebers. Lane was going to be one of them, or at least whoever wrote to her was. Entering the town trying to feel vibes of her past presence, his thought became an astonished observation that their main street, Kansas Avenue, was wider than the Embarcadero. Almost as wide as their shopping district was long. Railroad tracks stretched north up the middle, flanked by two traffic lanes and diagonal parking on each side.
He crossed the tracks onto Pine Street, noting automatically that City Hall occupied the next block west of Kansas, surrounded by the fire station behind it to the south and police department on the west. But when the high school appeared on down the street, his focus snapped back to Lane. Would he find her here or not.
As in Pfeifer, a secretary in the principal’s office led him to the library and handed him over to the librarian, Miss Mary Schumacher, a lean, brisk woman in her sixties. When he gave her his story, she showed him the yearbook shelf at the rear of the stacks, brought in a chair for him, and left him to his reading.
He started with 1930, when Lane would have been fourteen and a freshman, assuming she gave her correct birth date when arrested. Mental fingers crossed, he turned to the freshmen. His pulse jumped at the name Bieber under three pictures…only to slow in disappointment when neither of the two girls were named Madelaine and despite the small size of the pictures, clearly bore no resemblance to Lane. The sophomores and juniors also had small pictures…with only a male Bieber in the sophomore class and none in the junior class, or among the eleven seniors, who each had nice large pictures.
Well, detective work always meant plowing doggedly on.
He reached for the 1931 yearbook and stopped. No, he might as well go for broke, and the big senior pictures. He pulled out the ‘33 year book. Still, to be thorough, he checked each class, in case she were younger than she claimed, or had been held back. Fifteen freshmen, no Lane. Not among the thirteen sophomores or
