open spaces than she'd ever seen or contemplated before. A mild phobic
reaction. Temporary agoraphobia.
It would pass. She simply needed a day or two--perhaps only a few
hours--to acclimate herself to this new landscape and way of life. An
evening with Paul Youngblood and his wife might be just the right
medicine.
After setting the thermostats throughout the house, even in the
basement, to be sure it would be warm in the morning, they locked up,
got in the Explorer, and followed Paul's Bronco to the county road. He
turned east toward town, and so did they.
The brief twilight had vanished under the falling wall of night. The
moon had not yet risen. The darkness on all sides was so deep that it
seemed as if it could never be banished again even by the ascension of
the sun. The Youngblood ranch was named after the predominant tree
within its boundaries. Spotlights at each end of the overhead entrance
sign were directed inward to reveal green letters on a white
background: PONDEROSA PINES. Under those two words, in small letters:
Paul and Carolyn Youngblood.
The attorney's spread, a working ranch, was considerably larger than
their own.
On both sides of the entrance lane, which was even longer than the one
at Quartermass Ranch, lay extensive complexes of whitetrimmed red
stables, riding rings, exercise yards, and fenced pastures. The
buildings were illuminated by the pearly glow of low-voltage
night-lights. White fences divided the rising meadows: dimly
phosphorescent geometric patterns that dwindled into the darkness, like
lines of inscrutable hieroglyphics on tomb walls. The main house, in
front of which they parked, was a large, low ranch-style building of
river rock and darkly stained pine. It seemed to be an almost organic
extension of the land.
As he walked with them to the house, Paul answered Jack's question
about the business of Ponderosa Pines. 'We have two basic enterprises,
actually. We raise and race quarter horses, which is a popular sport
throughout the West, from New Mexico to the Canadian border. Then we
also breed and sell several types of show horses that never go out of
style, mostly Arabians. We have one of the finest Arabian bloodlines
in the country, specimens so perfect and pretty they can break your
heart--or make you pull out your wallet if you're obsessed with the
breed.'
'No cows?' Toby said as they reached the foot of the steps that led up
to the long, deep veranda at the front of the house. 'Sorry, Scout, no
cows,' the attorney said. 'Lots of ranches round here have cattle, but
not us. However, we do have our share of cowboys.' He pointed to a
cluster of lighted bungalows approximately a hundred twenty yards to
the east of the house. 'Eighteen wranglers currently live here on the
ranch, with their wives if they're married.
A little town of our own, sort of.'
'Cowboys,' Toby said in the awed tone of voice with which he had spoken
of the private graveyard and of the prospect of having a pony. Montana
was proving to be as exotic to him as any distant planet in the comic
