'I'm a reporter on the paper there. I write a music column.' He leaned forward and held out his hand. 'My name's Austin Peevey.'
Mary ignored the hand. 'You shouldn't sneak up on people. It's not cool.' The front door opened and closed: the cowboy had gone out into the storm. Rachel Jiles lifted the coffee dispenser's lid and peered inside, then left the lobby area.
Austin Peevey withdrew his hand. He was smiling with his thin-lipped mouth, a little tuft of sandy hairs on the point of his chin. 'Are you somebody famous?' he asked.
'No.'
'I swear your face is familiar. See, I've got like tons of old records and tapes. I'm into, like, sixties stuff. I was trying to figure out if I'd seen your face on a record jacket… you know, like Smith or Blue Cheer or some old band like that. It's right here' – he tapped his skull – 'but I can't see it.'
'I'm nobody.' Mary summoned up a yawn and delivered it into his face. 'How about leaving me alone now.'
He stayed where he was, ignoring what she'd said as she'd ignored his hand. 'I'm going to Salt Lake City for a record collectors' convention. It's my vacation. Thought I'd drive it and see the sights, but I didn't count on getting stuck in a snowstorm.'
'Look, I'm real tired. Okay?'
'Oh, sure.' The leather of his brown boots squeaked as he stood up. 'I've seen you before, though. Somewhere. You ever go to record conventions?'
'No.'
Rachel Jiles had returned with a pitcher of water, which she poured into the coffeemaker. Then she unscrewed a jar of Maxwell House and sifted coffee into the filter. It clicked in Mary's head that new arrivals were coming from the interstate.
Still Austin Peevey wouldn't leave her alone. 'What's your name?'
'Listen, I don't know you and you don't know me. Let's keep it that way.'
'Mary?' Now Rachel was walking over, and Mary felt rage gnawing at her insides. 'You want a cup of fresh coffee?'
'No. I'm trying to rest.'
'Oh, I'm sorry.' She cast her voice into a whisper. 'I see David's out like a light.'
'Cute kid,' Peevey said. 'My dad's name is David.'
Her patience reached its end. 'Let me get some goddamned sleep!' she shouted, and both Rachel and the young hippie drew back. The force of Mary's voice woke Drummer up with a start, his pacifier popped from his mouth, and a wail blossomed. 'Oh, shit!' Mary's face contorted with anger. 'Look what you've done!'
'Hey, hey!' Peevey lifted his hands to show his palms. 'I was only trying to be friendly.'
'Fuck it! Move on, man!' Mary picked up Drummer and started desperately trying to rock him back to sleep.
'Oh!' Rachel winced as Peevey turned and began to walk away. 'Mary, such terrible language!'
Peevey took another step and stopped.
Mary felt her heart slam. She knew. Whether the kid had suddenly put together the names Mary and David, whether her description in a newspaper story had become clear in his mind, or whether the word terrible had translated into Terrell or Terror, it was impossible to say. But Austin Peevey stood very still, his back to her.
God spoke next, right in her ear: 'He's tagged you.'
Peevey started turning toward her again. Mary zipped open the shoulder bag and slid her hand down amid the Pampers, her fingers closing on the Magnum's grip. Peevey's face had gone chalky, his eyes wide behind his hornrims. 'You're…' he said, but he couldn't get it out. 'You're… you're the woman who stole -'
Mary pulled the automatic out of her bag, and Rachel Jiles gave a shocked gasp.
'- the baby,' Peevey finished, taking a backward stagger as the gun pointed up at him.
Mary hooked the bag's strap over her shoulder again and stood up with the crying baby held in her other arm. As she did, such fierce pain ripped through her thigh that it robbed her breath for a few seconds and left her dizzy. Oily sweat clung to her face, a damp bloodstain in a large crescent on her jeans. 'Stand back,' she told them, and they obeyed.
The front door opened.
The cowboy entered first, snow caught on the brim of his hat and on his shoulders. Behind him were two women shivering in thick sweaters, their faces reddened by the cold.
'- get these big 'uns in February,' Jiles was saying. 'The skiers like 'em when they're over and done with.'
Laura heard a baby crying. She knew that sound, and her gaze tracked it like a hawk on the wing. The broad-shouldered woman holding the infant stood twenty-five feet away.
Her eyes locked with Mary's. Time slowed to a nightmare crawl, and she heard Didi say, 'Oh… my… God…'
Mary Terror was frozen. It was a majesty of bad karma, a weird acid trip bursting its paisley seams. There they were, the two women Mary despised most on earth, and if she had not felt such overwhelming, white-hot hatred she might have laughed at the twisted joke. But there was no time for laughter, and no time for freaking out. She turned the pistol on Laura.
The Indian woman let loose a shriek and attacked Mary, grabbing at the hand that held the gun. The Magnum went off an instant after Laura and Didi had flung themselves to the oak-planked floor, and a hole the size of Sam Jiles's fist punched through the door in a spray of splinters. The cowboy scrambled behind the registration desk, as Mary and Rachel fought for the gun. Laura reached beneath her double sweaters for her own automatic in the waistband of her jeans, but as she tried to yank it out, something snagged in the folds.
The sleepers were awake. 'She's got a gun!' somebody shouted, as if the sound of a Magnum going off could be mistaken for a kernel of corn popping.
Mary held on to Drummer with one arm and clenched the gun in her other hand as Rachel Jiles tried to force her fingers open. Her husband came up from behind the registration desk, his hat off, his blue eyes wild, and an ax handle in a two-handed grip. Mary kicked the Indian woman in the shin as hard as she could with her left foot, and Rachel let go and staggered back, her eyes squeezed shut. Mary saw Laura struggling to pull a gun from her waistband, Didi crawling for cover behind a big urn full of dried wildflowers. She was aware of Sam Jiles swinging the ax handle at her like a baseball bat, and she fired a shot at Laura without aiming as the cowboy released his grip and the ax handle came spinning at her.
The bullet tugged at Laura's K-Mart sweater, passing across her right side like a burning kiss and then slamming into the wall. A heartbeat after that, the ax handle thunked into Mary Terror's left shoulder, about three inches from Drummer's skull, and knocked her to the floor. She held on to Drummer, but her hand lost the gun. It skidded over beside Rachel Jiles, who had gone down and was gripping her splintered shin.
The cowboy came over the registration desk, and Mary grabbed the ax handle. He got a kick in at her, hitting her shoulder near where the first blow had been, and the air hissed between her clenched teeth. Pain shivered through her, and then it was her turn: she swung at one of the man's knees with the ax handle, striking it with a noise like a grapefruit bursting open. As Jiles cried out and limped backward, Mary came up off the floor in a surge of desperate power. She swung at him again, this time hitting him on the collarbone and reeling him against the registration desk.
Laura wrenched the automatic free. She saw the fury in Mary's eyes, like that of an animal who has heard the noise of a cage springing shut. Didi was scrambling across the floor after the fallen Magnum. Laura saw Mary look from one to the other, trying to decide whom to attack. And then the big woman suddenly wheeled around, took two long strides, and smashed the ax handle down upon the CB radio, turning technology to junk in an eye blink. The communication to the pigs taken care of, Mary turned again, her teeth gritted in her sweating face, and hurled the ax handle at Laura.
As it came flying at her, Laura shielded her head and curled her body up into a ball. The ax handle hit the floor beside her and skidded past.
'Stop!' Didi shouted, aiming the gun at Mary's legs.
Mary ran. Not toward the front door, but the way Rachel had left the lobby to get water for the coffee. She grunted with pain as she dragged her bad leg behind her, and she burst through a pair of double doors into a long
