Alex stopped and adjusted the strap of the submachine gun, the Pearson Freedom bow tucked under his armpit. Maybe the goats were fucking with him on purpose. Maybe they were trying to ... well, to get his goat. The FBI had found out about his stash and his weapons and his tax evasion, and instead of coming up and knock ing on the front door with a warrant, they'd concocted the most screwed-up, expensive, and outlandish revenge possible. Yeah, that was what the U.S. of A. was all about.
Well, revenge worked two ways. Alex patted the Colt Python at his side. The ripped-up ground was moist, the goat shit fresher as he climbed the slope of Lost Ridge. He was gaining on them, even with darkness settling in. And if the universe was as just and fair as Alex always believed it was, especially while brain-basted on a thumb- sized joint of God-green smoke, then he'd have his revenge before the sun surrendered to the night.
An engine roared in the distance. Motorcyclists or kids on all- terrain vehicles sometimes prowled the old logging roads, disturb ing the peace, trespassing, and generally raising hell. If he came across one, Alex just might put a slug in a rear tire. From the cam ouflage of the forest, he wouldn't be seen, and he'd bet his pair of Herman Survivors that the driver in question would fishtail his ass back to civilization, riding the rim or not.
Alex was in a good mood, despite the loss of a season's worth of crops. The evening's events felt natural, as if they had already hap pened, as if this were a stage play and the parts had been written ahead of time: Alex, the dark storm of vengeance, and the goats in their supporting role of government vermin. He might even encounter Weird Dude Walking, who seemed to be a part of all this craziness. Maybe Weird Dude was some sort of upper- level federal agent, in the National Security Agency, even. Alex realized maybe that particular line of paranoid delusion was probably a bit too ex travagant, but it pleased him nonetheless.
He shifted into a double-time jog, eager to catch up with what ever was awaiting him at the top of the ridge.
'Shit, shit, shit.' Katy beat the steering wheel as the goat rammed its head against the door a second time. Another goat, this one a hoary old-timer, with gray and white streaked among the brown patches on its face, reared up and settled its front hoofs on the bumper and glared at Katy over the hood.
She'd tucked her suitcase in the trunk and had just closed the front door when the goats appeared. She had looked over the drive way and the gravel road checking things out before fleeing, and the coast had been clear. Admittedly, she'd been looking for Gordon and not goats. She figured he was still out making whatever weird farm rounds he kept on Sunday evenings.
The goats had appeared out of nowhere. First came Abraham, the only one she could distinguish because of the right horn that corkscrewed crazily behind his ear. Abraham had waltzed down like a show pony, in high spirits, even kicking up and clicking his back hooves. Katy had grinned at that one, even though Abraham had broken out of the fence. That was Gordon's problem. Katy mourned briefly for the perennials she'd planted along the front porch, the forsythia, hosta, and snowball bushes that the goat would no doubt munch, but this wasn't her house anymore. If it had ever been.
She'd checked her watch and noted it was a quarter after seven. She debated running into the house and getting Jett. She'd also for gotten to call her mother and announce their unexpected arrival. When she looked up from her watch, three goats came around the house like a gang of gunfighters in a spaghetti western. That was when the first alarm had gone off inside her head, an insistent, irri tating beeping.
She was about to open the door when the rearview mirror re vealed a half dozen more, popping up as if they had formed from smoke. She didn't like the look of their eyes. And while she hadn't quite believed they were dangerous before—despite her own creepy encounters; after all, a goat was an herbivore, not a carnivore, right?—she accepted it now, because the goats moved with a com mon intent, as if they shared the same mind and the same hunger.
When Jett opened the front door, Katy wanted to scream at her to go back inside the house. Then she saw Gordon behind Jett, and th e ghost—
Katy decided she needed to improve the odds a little. As the butt-head slammed her car door for the third time, she turned over the ignition key. The Subaru engine roared to life, and she threw th e gearshift into drive and hit the gas. The goat perched on the bumper (for some reason, the name 'Methuselah' came to mind) lost its balance and bounced off the grille with a meaty thump. Gravel spat from beneath the wheels like Uzi slugs, and startled goats emitted bleats of surprise and pain. The fishtailing rear of the Subaru slewed into a small group of the creatures, scattering them like soft bowling pins. Katy heard limbs snap, and a stray horn clacked against a side window and caused the glass to spiderweb.
Some of the goats danced out of the way, their long, angular faces almost comical with those obscene eyes set deep beneath heavy brows. Katy navigated an arc, parking the passenger's-side door at the foot of the porch steps. She leaned over and flung the door open as Jett hopped toward the car. Gordon looked shattered, as if he wanted to cry but couldn't find any water in his dried-up heart. Katy would almost have felt sorry for him, but she was pretty sure he was distraught over the dead and injured goats and not over losing his wife.
'Shit, Mom, you rock,' Jett said as she climbed into the front seat. Katy was already pulling away before the door closed.
The goats had by now figured out a monstrous steel predator was in their midst, and they had parted like the waves of the Red Sea.
'Moses,' Katy said. 'Did he have a goat named Moses?'
'That one,' Jett said, pointing to the left. 'The one with the black hairs in its beard.'
Katy veered out of the way and clipped Moses head-on. The goat bounced up on the hood and pressed against the windshield. For one horrifying second, Moses glared through the glass at Katy, as if admonishing her for breaking some unwritten commandment. Then he rolled to the side and was flung from the car, which was by now halfway down the drive to the Ward house. When Katy checked the mirror, Moses was flopping and flailing on the hard-packed road.
'Sweet!' Jett yelled, as if this were a sequel to
'Fasten your seat belt,' Katy said, her hands no longer trem bling. She hadn't had time to be frightened—well, not such a much of it—but now the reverse endorphins were kicking in and the blood drained from her face, her bruised eye throbbing.
'I saw your ghost,' Jett said after obeying the parental com mand. She put her backpack in the floor between her legs, opened it, and rummaged while Katy aimed for the paved highway.
'It's not
Jett pulled a CD from her backpack, opened the case, and slid it into the player. She punched a button and Paul Westerberg's 'Knockin on Mine' blared from the speakers like a bad attitude in A major.
Neither of them noticed the ghost sitting in the backseat, its head in its lap.
Sue parked the Jeep beneath a stand of balsam, gnarled trees whose bones had been bleached white by acid rain and foreign pests. A number of native tree species were in decline because of exotic diseases that had been brought to the country from Asia, usually piggybacking on landscaping plants. Human vanity had led to this imbalance of nature, as it did to most imbalances. The regional tourist economy, and Sue's personal economy, was threat ened by the damage to scenic beauty.
Perhaps Harmon Smith, the Circuit Rider, was another such blight, invading a realm where he didn't belong. The Circuit Rider was just as much a threat, because he couldn't be caged and put on display at five bucks a head. Instead, he literally killed her cus tomers, if indeed he had done away with the Everharts while they were cycling. Plus, somebody had to pay for the damage to the bicycles. Though the Circuit Rider couldn't pay in a pound of flesh, Sue hoped to extract some sort of substance.
'Ready to rock and roll?' she said, looking over at Sarah. Maybe ancient wisdom had something on the brashness of youth, because Sarah gripped the safety bar on the dash in front of her and stared straight ahead at the woods.
'I don't know why you brung me along,' the storekeeper said. 'If I was meant to take care of Harmon Smith, I expect I'd have done it many moons ago.'
Sue brandished the pickax, letting it catch the last rays of sun light. 'Maybe you didn't have the right tool.'
