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  The Honda arrived at the crossroads two minutes after the red roadster had taken the opposite turn and headed up onto Backwater Ridge.

  Two minutes after that it drew up in front of the Morrison residence and Lori clambered off and headed up the path to the house.

  The front door was locked.

  Panic stricken, she rattled the knob until Miguel came and told her to quieten it down.

  Together they skirted the building, Miguel doing his ‘settle down’ act on the dog while Lori tried the back-door screen. Marge had been so pre-occupied with her memories she’d neglected to throw the bolt. Lori gave a sigh of relief as the kitchen door opened under her hand.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  And she was.

  But instead of the Dreamcatcher, all that she brought with her was a horrified expression. “It’s gone,” she said. “The envelope’s there but the Dreamcatcher’s gone. Somebody must have taken it.”

  23

  Rube Watson finally located Tracey just after ten. He’d been up since dawn, ever since her frantic mother had sounded the alarm. He was half slept, irritable, desperate for a cup of coffee and now, totally out of his depth.

  Mrs Barnes, like Marge Morrison, had been having trouble sleeping due to the heat and had also got up to get herself a glass of water. But unlike Lori’s mom, she HAD gone in to check on her daughter on her way back to bed. Only to find that the bird had flown.

  Rube had gone round to the house, bleary eyed and unshaven and asked the usual questions. Had she been unhappy lately? Was she having trouble with her school work? With her boyfriend? Anything else bothering her that might have led her to run away from home? Mrs Barnes had admitted that she’d recently broken up with Perry Johnson, which Rube already knew. Backwater Ridge, you couldn’t keep anything secret for long. They’d checked her wardrobe but nothing seemed missing, so Rube assured Mrs Barnes that she couldn’t have gone very far.

  Probably just looking for attention, was Rube’s candid opinion. But what with the Wayne thing and then Barney McGee, he could understand a mother’s hysteria. He’d tried to calm Mrs Barnes down, promised to get right onto it. And he had. Toured the town to see if there was any sign, noted Perry’s car wasn’t parked in its usual spot and had gone out to the swimming-hole to check whether he and Tracey had made it up and were celebrating in the usual manner.

  But nothing.

  As a last resort he’d driven up onto the Ridge, hooking up with the Interstate. Not much traffic at this time of the morning. Not much traffic at all, generally. But if she was trying to hitch out of town he might just be in time to stop her, bring her back, tail between her legs. When that drew a blank he decided to drive back via the scenic route, run a computer check, contact missing persons. All he could do.

  And then he found her.

  He looked down at the body.

  The first thing he’d spotted was Perry’s car, parked just off the road among the scrub. He’d heaved a sigh of relief, prepared his ‘your mom’s worried to death about you,’ speech while deciding he’d go back to bed just as soon as he’d escorted the runaways home. Sam could hold the fort for the afternoon.

  But when he’d gone over to it, he’d found the car was empty. Except for a parcel wrapped in sacking on the driving seat. No sign of anybody.

  Until he’d walked around the other side.

  Tracey was laid out in a cruciform shape, her wrists and ankles secured with rope. For some reason she was wearing a man’s tracksuit, miles too big for her, her slender frame lost among the grey knit folds. She’d been staked into the rocky ground with small wooden pegs. Her eyes were open, staring at the sun – or would have been if there’d been any eyes.

  The sockets were empty. Like the jar of honey by her head.

  She’d been scalped, a small triangle of red hair lifted from just above her forehead and hung, like a trophy on a branch nearby. Rube could only hope it had happened after she was dead. Because she was dead. As a doornail.

  He prodded her head with his toe, then drew back with a snarl of disgust as the ants poured out of her ears and down her nose. Fat, bloated. He managed to stomp on a couple of dozen of them before the rest, hundreds upon hundreds of tiny red bodies, scuttled back into the holes that they’d emerged from, attracted by the smell of the honey warming in the rising sun.

  Everything pointed to the half-breed. This was an Indian death, Rube knew that much. A punishment for traitors to the tribe. A warning to anybody else who might be thinking of selling their compadres down the river, to think again.

  But if it was the Indian then why was Perry’s car here? He scanned the area for single tyre tracks. But the ground was so hard, the sand baked solid by the blazing sun, that even if a motor-bike had been here you wouldn’t have known. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. Whoever it was that had pegged Tracey out must have had a hammer to drive the stakes in. Or superhuman strength. Were both of them in it? Was it some kind of satanic pact? Just what in tarnation was going on? And why was it happening here? In Backwater Ridge?

  They said bad news came in threes. Rube fervently hoped that after Wayne and Barney, this would be the last. What was he going to say to the Barnes’? The memory of Wayne’s parents, devastated by the news, still hung heavy on him. And the moment when they’d had to identify their son’s headless body, had been even worse. Rube shuddered. He’d give anything not to have to go back to Mrs Barnes and tell her that her worst fears had been realised.

  Whatever, he was wasting time. He’d better bring both Miguel Coyote and Perry Johnston in. Sooner the better. Get them off the streets. ‘Course the breed could be long gone by now. Would be if he’d had anything to do with it. If he had any sense.

  The Sheriff looked at his watch. Sam should be in by now. He moved back to the police car and put in a call, telling his Deputy to order up an ambulance and pick up both boys on suspicion.

  “Run a check on the breed,” he said. “See if he’s got a record. Anything. No matter how small. A parking ticket. Anything. Just so’s I can hold him. And send out a tow-truck for the car. We’ll need to get somebody up from the city to dust for prints.”

  “You coming in now Sheriff?” Sam, checked his gun for bullets. He would have preferred a bit of back up in case the biker got stroppy. But he was out of luck.

  “Not yet, Sam,” his boss said. “I better wait around til the blood wagon arrives.”

  Re-hooking the receiver, the Sheriff made his way back to the roadster. There was a note under the windscreen wiper. Pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, he reached forward and picked it out, unfolding it gingerly.

  “Dear Lori,” it read. “You know you have something that I want. I desperately need to talk to you. It’s vitally important. I must see you as soon as possible.” It was signed – Miguel Coyote.

  Rube scratched his head, re-reading the note before folding it and putting it in his top pocket. What in the name of jumpin’ Jehosephat did it mean, he thought, stripping off the gloves?

  Wait a minute. Didn’t the biker say something about a Dreamcatcher? About Lori having it? About it supposedly having magic properties? Rube snorted. Horsepockey ‘course. But if THEY believed it? So maybe it WAS a black magic thing? If it was, then it looked like Lori Morrison might well be up to her ears in it as well. Better bring her in while he was at it.

  Suddenly something else caught his eye. Something hanging on the other side of the dusty windshield. A circle of some sort with a cat-gut centre, decorated with feathers and beads. Lord Almighty. This was probably the Dreamcatcher in question. Rube moved round the side of the car to get a better look. And saw the parcel lying on the front seat.

  He’d forgotten all about it.

  He leaned over the sill and undid the loosely wrapped sacking.

  And Wayne Maxwell’s head fell out.

  Rube reared back with a yell.

  But not fast enough.

  The rattler was faster.

/>   It leapt from between the seats where it had been coiled, basking in the sun, the rattle on its tail making a fierce primitive sound as it sunk its fangs into the Sheriff’s cheek.

  Rube felt a jolt as the poison hit his blood stream. Then he tore the snake from him and hurled it onto the ground, drawing his gun, firing three or four times.

  Uselessly as it happens. The rattler had already writhed away.

  The Sheriff staggered to the police car, feeling death clouding his brain, slowing his pulse. Dragging himself into the driving seat, he started the engine and took off. No time to wait for the blood wagon now. But if he could meet it half way? They might have something? An antidote. If it had been in his arm, he might have been able to suck out some of the poison. But he couldn’t get at his own cheek. Had the rattler thought of that? Did a snake have that much cunning?

  Rube tried to stay awake as he drove, feeling the serum deadening his senses as it headed for his heart, that heart a dull throb in his temples, getting duller all the time. He strained his dimming eyes for a sight of the ambulance. To no avail.

  When, at some point, he realised that he wasn’t going to make it, he was more surprised that upset. He’d always thought he’d live to a ripe old age, retire, appreciated by all, with a gold watch and a nice pension. It was why he’d decided to take the job, not go into the army like the rest of the eldest sons in his family had done since time immemorial. His Dad had been killed in ‘Nam. He’d wanted to avoid a similar fate. Nothing ever happened in Backwater Ridge. Safe as houses. Or used to be.

  As he fought with the last of his strength to keep the car on the road, sweat pouring down his face, the snake-bite a virulent slash, reddening in the sun, Rube thought it was ironical that despite all his precautions, he was going to die, right here, in his own back yard. Unmarried. Unsung. He’d always had a hankering after Marge Mason. But Ted Morrison had got there first. Too late now. Too late all round. Rube had no brothers or sisters. There were no male heirs to carry on the family name. He was the last of his line, his mom dead these five years. He wondered vaguely whether she’d be waiting for him in Heaven? Or if not, what Hell was going to be like?

  Probably no hotter than New Mexico.

  At least he wasn’t going to have to face the Barnes’. That odious duty would be up to Sam now.

  A sudden cold draft came out of nowhere and he glanced in his rear view mirror.

  Someone was sitting in the back seat. A young guy in his early twenties, blonde hair slicked back, dark glasses. He must be hallucinating.

  The hallucination smiled slyly and raised his right hand in a salute.

  Then Rube Watson went down into the warm red darkness as the police car rolled over into the ditch.

  24

  Miguel Coyote was the first person on the scene.

  The police car lay upside down in the ditch with its wheels spinning. Like an upended beetle struggling to right itself. A single arm, protruding from the driving side, was the only evidence of life. Or death.

  The biker screeched to a halt. Flinging the Honda aside, he loped over to the vehicle and hunkered down beside the open window.

  Rube Watson lay upside down in a crumpled heap, his head at an awkward angle, the weight of his upper body bearing down on his neck. First impressions were that he was dead. Certainly he looked in a bad way. His face, tilted towards the door, was puffy and swollen from some sort of bite. Snake probably. Maybe scorpion? The cause of the accident for sure.

  Miguel placed two fingers against the carotid artery. There was a faint pulse. A flutter, no more. The Sheriff’s eyelids flickered and a tortured sound escaped his lips. Closer to a sigh than a moan. Not dead then. Not yet. But as close as made no matter.

  With no time to lose, or to wonder whether any bones had been broken in the crash, Miguel Coyote leant in and yanked the policeman out into the open, laying him on his back, straddling the body. Tearing a skinning knife from his belt, he plunged the tip into the swollen cheek, excising a neat circle in the skin. Rube Watson would carry a sizeable scar. If he lived to tell the tale.

  Miguel squeezed the livid flesh between his finger and thumb, unleashing a bloody fountain of poison and pus. Then bending his head, he sucked as much of the residue from the wound as he could, spitting the vile stuff out in a noxious arc which sizzled away into the soft sand by the road-side.

  Grabbing the Sheriff’s shoulders, Miguel shook the policeman fiercely, shouting his name, trying to bring him round. But this was no superficial wound. The venom had gone deep, was circulating in the veins, heading for the heart. Time then for more drastic measures.

  Coyote headed for his bike, ripped open the saddle-pack and extracted a battered leather hip-flask tipped with a silver spout. Muttering a few words of incantation, he sank to his knees, pressing the bottle first to his forehead, then his heart, before holding it straight-armed up towards the sun. An offering or a supplication. Rising again, he moved back to the comatose body and, cradling it in his arms, lifted the head and tilted some of the antidote down the Sheriff’s throat.

  The policeman gagged and Coyote clamped a hand across his mouth to stop the bitter mixture from coming up again. The secret recipe, handed down from his mentor, the old medicine man, tasted foul. But it would work. Provided he had gotten there in time. One way or another they would know within the next twenty four hours. Miguel forced another swig of the tincture through the swollen lips for good measure.

  Then the ambulance barrelled over the rise and the biker tucked the hip-flask into his back pocket before leaping to his feet and rushing into the middle of the road to wave it down.

  When her mom looked in on her about eight, she’d found Lori dead to the world, a beatific smile on her face. So Marge had let her sleep, phoning into school to say that ‘under the circumstances and due to the shock of finding Barney etc etc...’

  And indeed, it was the best sleep Lori had had in a week. No Dreamcatcher. And therefore, no dreams. No nightmares either. No nothing. Just black, blessed oblivion.

  The wail of the siren followed by shouting and the sounds of a struggle was what finally brought her round. One of the voices sounded like Perry’s. Still half asleep, she staggered out of bed and over to the window. What she saw there snapped her awake fast.

  A police car was parked at the kerb.

  And it WAS Perry’s voice that she’d heard.

  Handcuffed and still in his pyjamas, his blonde hair uncombed and sticking up round his head in an untidy halo, he was wrestling with Sam Leroy who, for some reason, was trying to push him into the back seat of the squad car. Mrs Johnston was objecting loudly, grabbing Sam’s shirt, pulling it out of his belt at the back.

  Just before Perry disappeared inside, forced in by the Deputy’s superior weight, he glanced up at her window. There was no sign of the heroic Prince Charming that Lori had fantasised about for the past five years. This was the face of a disorientated boy, his eyes clouded with fear, his mouth forming the word ‘help’.

  Lori whirled, grabbed her wrap and tore down the stairs. Marge was already in the hall, coming from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. As the pair of them emerged into the harsh white light of morning, Sam Leroy was tucking his shirt back in, prior to getting into the driving seat and Mrs Johnston was close to tears. Marge pushed past Lori to put an arm round her distressed neighbour’s shoulders.

  “What’s happening?” she said, “What’s going on?”

  But before anybody had time to reply a tow-truck turned into the street, pulling Perry’s roadster and doing about ninety miles an hour. It screeched to a halt behind the police car and Pearly Gates leapt out, almost choking on his chewing tobacco.

  “Sheriff’s rolled the car,” he announced. “Think he’s dead. Paramedics are checking. Thought I’d let you know.”

  Sam Leroy went white.

  “How?” he stammered.

  “Looks like a snake bite. Found Wayne’s head too.” He nodded towards Perry. “In the kid�
��s car.”

  “God almighty.”

  Lori stood rooted to the spot. She’d just noticed the Dreamcatcher. It was swinging from the windshield of the roadster, feathers hanging limp in the already scorching heat. She didn’t need to look any further to know who (or what) was to blame for this latest catalogue of disasters.

  If she could just get hold of it. Get it to Miguel Coyote.

  Everybody started talking at once. Except for Mrs Johnson who began to cry in earnest and Perry, who sank down in the back seat with his hands covering his face. Over the ensuing hub-bub Lori heard her Dad’s irritated tones coming from the direction of the front door.

  “Hold it down, will ya? I’m trying to watch the game.”

  Then the dog flew out from between his legs and started to bark at the top of its voice. And Lori used the diversion to grab the Dreamcatcher and high-tail it indoors, Ted shouting ‘where’s the fire?’ as she almost knocked him down.

  Rushing up the stairs, she slammed into her room, crashing the door behind her, turning the key in the lock, looking around wildly for somewhere to put the cursed charm until she could get it to the Miguel Coyote. Wherever he was.

  She scurried across the room to the dressing table and opened her jewellery box, thrusting the Dreamcatcher inside. Mrs Moody’s. That’s where he’d be. If she could just get rid of this thing. Let Miguel destroy it once and for all.

  Then she felt her skin pucker as the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Suddenly she knew she was not alone.

  And a voice behind her said silkily.... “Who’s been a naughty girl then?”

  25

  He was sitting on the end of the bed, long legs crossed, cleaning his nails with a cactus spine.