The Cowboy and Vampire

It was just past dark before I realized I had wasted my whole day setting on my ass. I should've been up in the mountains watching the sunset and drinking a beer, all wore out from pounding fence posts, instead of setting on the couch drinking a beer, all wore out from watching reruns on the black and white. Rex was curled up on the recliner, raising his head from time to time to make sure I wasn't going to do nothing productive. Other than get up to change channels, and there was only two channels to choose from and neither worth a shit, the odds were low. Mostly I just listened at the static, and thought about how expensive it was going to be flying out to New York City and how I didn't want to go to a stinking sprawl of a place like that anyway but fair was fair.

Halfway through a twelve-pack of beer, and making pretty good time, I was letting my mind drift back on Lizzie and all the things I missed in particular, which was bringing a big, dumb grin to my face. All of a sudden, headlights swept across the trailer wall and Rex exploded out of his chair, barking like the devil himself was selling candy door to door. A car rattled across the cattle guard and the lights got brighter. I give Rex a little kick with my stocking foot to turn his volume down. I figured it was Dad or, worse, Melissa Braver, come to see how lonesome I was. Admittedly, I was mighty lonesome, but it wasn't nothing either of them could help me with. I stood in the door with my shirt unbuttoned and my eyes shielded against the headlights. The car wasn't familiar.

About that time Rex quit his barking and stood wagging his little stump of a tail and whining. The headlights shut off and the door opened up and Lizzie stepped out. "Hey, cowboy," she said. You could've knocked me over with a feather.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I stammered and she walked on up natural as can be.

"Is this a bad time? I could come back later," she said, smiling. I just drew her into my arms and kissed her for all I was worth and felt her pull herself tight against me. Standing there, we were able to say hello without words for better of ten minutes. Then we moved inside and continued saying hello, still without words, for better than two hours.

Later, she sat on the porch smoking. She was wearing nothing but one of my shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the tails tucked between her legs. Her bare skin glowed smooth like ivory in the porch light. Rubbing her hands together, she said, "It's sure getting cold out here." I said nothing 'cause I was still feeling warm all over from what had just transpired between us. She blew out a stream of smoke, and for an instant, a different kind of light surrounded her, like something from the past fondly remembered, making her look like an old-time photograph. She stubbed out her smoke, took my hand, and led me inside to the couch.

"I'm glad you're here," I said, wishing there were words that sounded better. I paused an instant before more words come to me.

"But just exactly why are you here, and why the hell didn't you call?"

"I had to get away," she said, and shrugged as if that answered everything.

I waited for something else but she didn't say anything, so I said, "I suspect there's more to it than that."

She sighed and nodded in agreement but said only, "Seems like forever since I saw you last."

"At least three months," I said, which made her smile. "But that three months sure drug by. Couldn't hardly think about nothing but when I'd see you again."

"Is that right?" She arched her eyebrow. "Thanks for letting me know how much you missed me. I figured you weren't much of a letter writer, but I didn't know your phone was broken."

"Disconnected, more like." She arched her eyebrow. "Well, not really It's just, ahh, you know how the cowboy thing goes."

She laughed a deep, throaty laugh that made me warm all over. "No, I guess I don't. Why don't you tell me about it?"

I tried to think of something but couldn't. "Pretty damn boring, really. I'd much rather hear all about your exciting life in New York City."

Something dark passed over her like a shadow, only colder, and her response was cautious and forced. "A little too exciting, sometimes."

"Yeah? More exciting than usual? Must be, seeing as you up and left on such short notice. That ain't like you."

"Is it that obvious?" she asked and I nodded. "Remember that story I was working on? It just got a little weird."

She sounded serious, so I put a chew in. "What kind of weird?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm overreacting. It's probably nothing. Some sick game that I don't understand."

I was quiet, figuring she'd spill when she was ready, as long as I didn't say nothing to stop the process. That's a little something I've learned through the years. Out here it's pretty damn easy to observe human behavior, since there's so few humans around.

Not that small town folks like myself are nosy, just interested. Besides, what else have we got to do? If I've learned anything, it's that folks love to share their secrets, but only when they're good and ready 'Course, the quickest way to get them good and ready is to pretend like you ain't interested and then be still and let nature take its course. Kinda like the cure for constipation, I suppose. Human behavior has a simple, biological equivalent, or so it's always seemed on those many nights I've spent ruminating with Rex under the stars, listening to Snort pass gas. I decided to just bide my time and let her do the talking.

We sat silently, watching Rex scratch, then lay his head against her thigh. In less than five minutes she was ready. "Okay, I think someone's after me." Bingo. One of Tucker's theorems of human behavior proved right before my eyes. I amaze myself sometimes. "That's sort of why I came to see you," she continued. "I guess I wanted to get away for a while."

"'Cause you was scared?"

"A little, I guess. Mostly, I just needed to clear my head. Try to figure out if I'm imagining all this or not."

Honestly I suppose I would have preferred some other kind of secret. That Lizzie might be in danger set the hair on the back of my neck up straight. I stood up to stoke the fire to give me something to do while I got my rising concern under control. "Tell me more," I said, rattling logs around with the poker.

She come stood next to me, brushing her fingers lightly against my temples, tracing the lines of my cheekbones. She let her hands come to rest around my neck. "Remember last time I was here, I told you that I loved you."

"Vaguely."

She arched her eyebrow. "I do love you. I'm certain of it now," she said.

I knew I should say something back, and that something should be I love you too. And I do love her, I do, which means it shouldn't be no harder to say them three words than any other three words in the English language, but for some reason when I tried to get them from my brain to my mouth they just sort of withered and blew off. There was a moment of silence that I hoped wasn't as awkward as it felt. She pressed her finger to my lips.

"Let's not talk right now. Wait until morning." She kissed me on the cheek, then lightly on the lips, and I felt my hands tremble as I circled them around her waist to kiss her back. I slipped my hand up her shirt, which was really my shirt, and cupped her breast, felt the nipple hardening against my calloused palm. Laying her down in front of the fire, I unbuttoned each button slowly, opening the shirt and falling in love again and again. She pulled my tee shirt off above my head, ran her nails down my back, and pressed against me. Her breath felt hot and ragged against my skin. Pushing me back, she looked straight into my eyes and I'd seen that look once before, from a bobcat in a trap. She whispered, "I love you, I love you," over and over again, like saying it once wasn't enough or even twenty times, sort of like she was chanting it.

The next morning she woke close and wouldn't hardly let go for me to start coffee. She kept one arm wrapped around my waist while I scrambled some eggs and I could feel her hair brushing across my neck and shoulders. There was some beans cooked off in the fridge so I warmed them too with some salsa and a few strips of bacon.

"Want toast?" I held up the bag and she ruefully shook her head at the sorry pieces visible therein. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Didn't have much advance time to do no shopping."

I reached the bread back toward the fridge and she wrinkled up her nose. "Don't save it."

"Why not?"

"It's already bad and it won't get any better."

"It'll be fine for french toast later on." I set a plate full of food in front of her and took mine across the table. "Last night worked up a hunger," I said.

She smiled and poked at her plate, moving some eggs this way and that and even going so far as to almost take a bite.

"All right, looks like it's time to talk," I said finally, my plate damn near polished and me trying hard not to be too obvious in eyeing hers.

"What do you mean?"

"You ain't hardly eaten a thing and you said even less."

"I don't eat breakfast. Ever." She sighed. "I need a smoke." She took her bag and opened the door, sitting in the doorway to light up. Snort wandered up to watch doleful from outside and Rex, engaged by her motion, thumped his stubby tail and lifted his head enough to watch, but decided instead to remain sprawled out in the patch of sunshine he'd claimed.

"Well?" I again prompted.

"Like I said, I just figured I should get away for a while." She blew a thin stream of smoke toward the sun.

"Well, you can't get much more away than LonePine, Wyoming."

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out." She paused. "You remember that Vampire story I wrote you about?" I nodded. "I went to this party, a Vampire party at an art gallery A bunch of weirdos, but hey, a story is a story, or so I thought then. Tucker, they killed twenty people. Right in front of me, in front of a hundred or more witnesses. But it was like these people were willing victims. They took off their own clothes and there was no one forcing them to go along with anything, they let themselves be tied up, seemed almost happy about it, then they offered up their throats to be slit. I thought it was a game, a joke but it wasn't. I saw them die, all of them. It wasn't fake blood, it wasn't an act. I almost passed out, it was so horrible. And no one said a thing, no one tried to stop the killing. They just kept drinking their wine and chatting like it was the commonest of events." She caught her breath on the last few words, talking fast, almost hysterically.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You watched a bunch of Vampire weirdos murder twenty people, and then they let you just waltz out of there?"

"I," she shook her head, "I don't know, I just... it was as if they wanted me to see it, like it was done for me. I nearly fainted, but they held me up and made me watch. The host, Julius, kept looking right at me and smiling." She held a fresh cigarette. "Light this for me," she said and I took the matches from her trembling hand so I could oblige. "I ran for the door, right past the bodies all hanging dead, but it was locked. But then they just casually asked me if I wanted to leave, walked me out, and put me in a cab."

She was silent a moment. "I called the police, of course, but when they called back later, they hadn't found anything. No bodies, no Vampires. Just a regular art gallery with regular art and no chains, no blood. The number Julius had given me on the invitation was disconnected. The police said his address was a cemetery."

"A cemetery? Is that a joke?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. The cops were not very happy, thought I had made the whole thing up. But I didn't, I swear."

"Who is Julius?"

"Julius is the one who invited me to the party in the first place."

"I already don't like him," I said, feeling a certain hardness come over me.

"He called, the next night. Said he wanted to see me. I told him that I didn't want to talk to him or see him or any of his strange friends again, ever. Later, I thought I saw someone outside my apartment. I just packed a bag and left. Didn't tell anyone but Ric and my landlady. She said she'd feed my cat."

"And then you came here."

"Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like I need someone to take care of me or anything like that," she snapped and then stood.

Her jaw was set all hard, and she stared out at the mountains without saying a word. I could tell she was struggling to keep her defenses up, and was doing a pretty good job of it.

"Well, you'll be safe enough here, I reckon."

"I don't need a protector, Tucker. I just had to get away for a while, get my thoughts in order, sort out fact from fantasy."

"I ain't arguing that." Plain to see this was new territory for her, this being scared. She stood without talking for a couple of minutes, the whole time Rex staring up at her. At last something in her softened and she sat down beside me.

"I'm sorry I snapped. It's just that there's something about you and this place. I can't explain it."

"Might help to try."

"We are so different, you and I. Opposite worlds. I thought it was just some little fling, sex with a cowboy. The last cowboy.

Something to brag about."

That hurt a little, and she must've seen it, 'cause she quickly went on. "But it turned into something else, something bigger. I don't quite know how to say it. It's like I'm more me, or at least the me that I want to be, when I'm with you." She shook her head. "I know this sounds crazy maybe you can't understand - you've never been alone, without family I've been completely alone since I was twenty, no mother, no father, no family, not even any friends. And honestly, I don't really like anyone very much." She shrugged, not so much pained at the admission as mildly embarrassed. "So, it's just been me. I thought I had it all figured out, thought I could take care of myself, make a name for myself. And I can do all those things." She was talking a mile a minute.

"Don't forget to breathe," I said quietly She smiled a crooked smile.

"Now here I am, scared about all the weird things I saw at that party, but the truth is what is really upsetting is that I actually had some place, no, someone, I wanted to run to." She paused. "God, even the sound of my own voice is annoying."

"The only thing annoying about you is your stubbornness. I thought Snort was bad."

She laughed at that, poked me in the ribs and then got all serious again. "There's more and it's harder to say."

"I ain't going nowhere."

"It's hard because you've seen a side of me that no one else ever has. I bet you wouldn't even recognize me in New York."

I didn't answer, only because I didn't know what to say I guessed that she had something big churning inside and thought it might be best for me not to steer her away from it by saying what might turn out to be the wrong thing.

"I've never done anything, not one thing, for anyone."

"Your life ain't over yet."

"How can a roughneck cowboy make me think like this? I was fine without you. Wasn't I?" And then she whispered, "This is a new concept for me, Tucker."

I sat for a minute thinking and spit into the pop can serving as a cuspidor. I set it down between us and despite the emotions clouding her eyes she managed a look of distaste at the chew juice. "How long?" I asked.

"How long, what?"

"Are you staying?"

She looked out over the mountains, the snowcapped loneliness there, and sighed. "Hadn't really thought about it. A couple of weeks. A month. How long will you have me?"

"Hell, stay as long as you like," my mouth said, but all the while my mind was thinking just how long it had been since I'd had a woman underfoot and despite the severity of her situation, how it might interfere with this illustrious single life I'd been living. I had been thinking seriously about getting a satellite dish and now that was definitely off. Sure can't watch TV with a woman wanting to talk all the time. And what about Rex? He was used to being my significant other and now that would no longer be the case and he's awful sensitive. And I'd probably have to start buying groceries on a regular basis, and Good Lord my bathroom just wasn't big enough to keep all the things she'd want. A month, my Lord! In a month she'd be talking about babies and buying a house and...

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Absolutely." A dark wind blew between us, and in that keening silence Rex sat up to regard us curiously, his head cocked to one side.

"How will you know when to go back?" I asked, finally breaking the silence.

"I'll get my head together soon enough. I'll call Ric in a week or so and see what's up."

That was probably the happiest week of my life, the happiest time of my life. Only thing that even come close was a shining and notable eight seconds of happiness when I had clung grimly to a disgruntled Brahma bull name of Boxcar at the LonePine Fourth of July rodeo. I was a high-school senior desperate to attract the attention of Missy Speck, a cheerleader and, as far as I could tell, the most beautiful girl in school. Although, with only eleven girls total in the class, it wasn't too wide a field.

On her account, I gave Boxcar the ride of my life, literally, since it was both my first and last professional rough-stock event. I was spurring him hard, digging my boots deep into his ribs and using that force to keep astride him. My free arm was whiplashing like a radio antenna and the crowd was roaring. I just knew that Missy had to be falling for me but good after a ride like this. The buzzer blew and everyone was on their feet stamping and clapping and spilling their beer, so I took off my hat and waved at the stands. As I started my dismount, my hand got all tangled in the rope and Boxcar, sensing eminent disaster, pulled right as I leaned left. I slipped down underneath him and he proceeded to tango on my face with such vigor that it pushed my nose way over to one side and dang near ripped my ear off. The rodeo clown pulled me free, left me lying in the mud and blood and bullshit listening to the sirens of the ambulance as it pulled into the arena thinking ain't that just the way it goes, from eight seconds of glory to waiting for a ride to the hospital.

Missy never came to see me in the hospital. I don't know why I even thought she would. The sad fact was the only visitors I had was Mom and Dad who brought me some Louis L'Amour books I'd already read a half-dozen times, a jug of orange juice, and a hopeful wish that Boxcar had stomped out my desire to be a rodeo cowboy, which, in fact, he had. Laid up there for three days, I got to thinking about how love was a doomed endeavor at best and how the price you pay for happiness is dear, even for just eight seconds' worth. I couldn't help but wonder what the cost of a week's worth of pure happiness with Lizzie would be. Seems it would have to be mighty dear.

That price began with a phone call. We had spent the last hour dancing close to country songs on the radio. She was laughing and when commercials come on we'd just hold tight and whisper wordless things back and forth. Eventually she set me down beside Rex and announced she was calling Ric to see how things were back in New York.

Now, by all rights I had no reason to begrudge Lizzie's friendship with Ric, but there was a certain glint come to her eyes when she talked about him and a nervous motion in her fingers that let me know they'd tried and failed. I'm man enough to admit that I was just a scrap jealous when she finally set about to calling him because I didn't know how quits they really was. Not being the jealous kind by nature, I wasn't real sure how I should be acting, so I settled on sullen with a speck of furious, and sat on the couch pretending to read Western Horseman and pretending not to listen. There was a heat flushing the back of my neck and my hands was clenched so tight my magazine was squeaking.

"Tucker."

"Hmmm?"

"Don't be jealous."

"What's that?" I choked out. "Jealous? I'm not jealous."

"He's just a friend."

"I'm not jealous," I said, my voice cracking. "'Sides," I muttered under my breath, "it's your life." I slunk off to the bedroom and closed the door.

"You're cute when you're jealous," she called. I heard her dialing and then nothing. Then I heard her dialing again. "I think something's wrong with your phone," she said.

I opened the door. "Try Dad. The number is there on the wall."

She dialed it in then looked up. "It's ringing. Hi. Hello, it's Lizzie. No, nothing. I'm just trying the phone." She rolled her eyes.

"Yes, we do have phones in New York. It's just that it wasn't working and, never mind... what? Yes, he's right here." She held out the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

I shook my head. "No way. I'll call you tomorrow," I yelled.

"He said he'll call you tomorrow. What?" She listened for a beat. "I will not tell him that. Okay, bye." She hung up. "He said that a good son would find the time to talk to his decrepit father."

"I thought you said you weren't going to tell me."

She shrugged. "He also said he would like to see me. He's so sweet."

I shook my head. "Dad is not sweet." Then I remembered that she didn't have a dad at all. "Okay, maybe he is sweet, but only when you're around."

She pointed at the couch. "Sit, let me try Ric again." She dialed, listened for a minute, then hung up. "It's like his machine is picking up but not playing. Listen." She held the phone to my ear and dialed again. It rang once, then there was a whistling emptiness that sounded cold and far away and a wet click that was unlike a connection being made or unmade. I handed it back to her.

"Hang it up. That ain't right."

"Ain't isn't a word," she said, cradling the receiver.

"Maybe not in New York."

"I'm going to try his office." She dialed in a new number. "Hi, Ric Castlin's desk, please. What? Ric Castlin." She put her hand over the receiver and said aside, "That's weird, the receptionist..." then made a gesture with her hand as someone took the line.

"Mr. Meyers? This is Lizzie Vaughan, I was just trying to get hold of Ric... What?" She paled. "Oh my God." She turned to look at me, her eyes wide in disbelief. "He's dead."

There was more conversation, but her voice had grown cold, the words clipped and betraying no sense of what she might be feeling. I held her hand and she avoided my eyes, stumbling over her words. After she hung up she sat looking blankly at the wall, silent tears streaming down her face, tears that were strangely out of place, as if falling from her eyes for the first time.

When she did finally speak, it was with a quiet, detached tone that was mighty unnerving. "I didn't even cry when my mother died, why am I crying now?"

"Maybe you're crying for her too," I said softly. She looked at me quizzically, and just like that, the tears stopped.

"Ric committed suicide, slit his wrists. His boss asked if Ric had been acting weird." She shook her head. "But everything was fine. When we went to the party he was acting like he always did. Like an asshole. He left me at the door just a soon as the first woman with sufficiently large breasts came his way. Just like always. He would never," she said, "there was no reason."

"I'm sorry," I said, "truly I know you were close." I put my arm around her, and she let me. Drawn by that, Rex come up too and did his best at comforting her. She petted him with trembling hands and he watched her with those big, serious eyes of his. I took her into the bedroom and we spent the night like that, me holding her and her holding Rex, who curled up in her arms, both of us waiting for her to sleep.

I couldn't help but think how she reminded me of an unbroke horse, one that needed gentling down. In my experience, they're generally anxious to come right up and take a lump of sugar and get petted, but instinct and stubborn pride keep spooking them so that they don't stay put for very long. That was two things we both had plenty of, instinct and stubborn pride, but there was something deep that was keeping me close with my hand out, and something that kept bringing her back to it. I usually don't have the patience for breaking horses. Dad has always said it was 'cause they tended to break me.

The next morning, more to get her mind off things than for any other reason, we decided to ride up to Widow Woman Creek and stay a few days. We borrowed a horse from Melissa, a little bay name of Dakota, who Snort was more than a little sweet on. I packed us up a bag of food, a couple bottles of wine, and we set out that morning with Rex running ziggedy zag and forth and back between us until by late afternoon we arrived at the cabin. Rex was plumb wore out and dragging along fifty yards behind with his head low. Lizzie got down stiff, walking gingerly on account of her tender behind, and I brushed the horses down and turned them out into the little corral. We set on the fence holding hands while they rolled around in the cool grass kicking their legs in the air.

Way back before me, Dad built this cabin up on Widow Woman Creek. It was where him and Mom first started. Wasn't much but it was snug and real pretty. Set back into a stand of aspen that opened onto a beaver pond. The front porch looked all the way down onto LonePine, which was barely worth the look, and then on past to Campman Plains and right up into the mountains. Besides the view there was many other benefits such as no electricity and an antique wood stove that was both hard to keep a fire going in and also filled the cabin up with smoke. Outside the door was an old-fashioned pump that froze up and bust every fall and inside was a rough cut pine bed which was comfortable enough but still managed to fill my ass with slivers every time I slept on it. There's just nothing like roughing it.

I spread our bedrolls out on the bed as Lizzie stood on the porch and watched the sunset, dipping cheese spread out of the jar with little crackers. "Dad built this place back in, hell, must a been 1950 or something," I said as I walked past and tossed first my saddle and then hers over the split-pole corral built right off the cabin wall.

"It's beautiful," she said. "Did you grow up here?"

"No. By the time they moved up here, Mom was four months pregnant with my brother. About fifteen minutes after the first snow fell she packed up all her stuff and moved back to town. Told Dad he was welcome to come with her if he wanted."

"Not entirely unreasonable."

"Guess not." I poured some dog food onto the ground. Rex sniffed at it and then cast a mournful look at the saddlebags with our food.

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"I don't. Not no more."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be." I pulled out a bottle of wine and screwed the cap off, to which she wrinkled up her nose. "I know this is probably not what you're used to, but it's all they had at the Gas 'N Get."

We sat on the porch and sipped wine out of enamel coffee cups and watched the night come across the valley like a shroud pulled over the land. The sky come alive with stars and coyotes set to calling back and forth. Night birds whooshed through the darkness and now and again a fish would jump and break the surface with a distant splash. I built a fire and woodsmoke trailed between us and some even escaped out the chimney, but soon enough the crackle and warmth of a fire filled the cabin, making it downright cheerful. We passed several hours talking about nothing in particular and telling jokes and watching Rex be adorable until she got a look in her eyes that corresponded to a feeling I had in my heart and I took the cup from her hand and set it on the porch railing. Back inside, she stood by the stove as I undressed her there in the faint glow and shadow, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breasts and her eyes burning like the embers in the fire. She pulled at me, at my shoulders, and then with her arms around my neck, pressed into me like we was just one body I wrapped her up tight and laid her back onto the bed, onto the bedrolls still smelling of sunshine and of the horses where they'd been lashed. We made love under the first layer of coarse blankets quietly and slowly, both scared of this powerful thing between us, but neither of us backing down or hiding at all, just staring deep into each other and holding on so fiercely that it seemed there was nothing left in this broken-down old world but me and her and what was felt between us.

That and pine splinters in our private parts. And Rex, who'd crept up to the foot of the bed, and who I kept kicking at but he refused to budge until I at last grew tired of fighting him and he stretched out proper across the bottom blankets, trapping my feet.

LONEPINE, WYOMING

October 6, 2001, 10:45 P.M.

"I cannot believe this place," Desard said, peering over the steering wheel of the rented Lexus as the headlights washed over the deserted main street. Rain was falling hard, running down the pavement.

Elita slid down in her seat and shook her head. "I haven't seen this much desolation since the black plague." She pointed. "Pull in there." The open sign of the Sagebrush Cafe flickered feebly in the darkness. "I want coffee."

They entered, Elita at the front with her elegant stride, followed by Desard, and behind him, two nondescript men with nervous eyes and pale skin. Strangers in expensive clothes with narrowed eyes. "Four, please," Elita said as Hazel looked up from the counter, her mouth hanging open. Well-dressed strangers in LonePine were surprising enough, more so after sundown.

"Uh, smoking or non?"

Elita blew a thin stream of clove-scented smoke in her direction and smiled. "Smoking."

Hazel ushered them to a booth. "This all right?"

"Of course it is, uh..." Desard leaned close to read her nametag. "Hazel. Of course it is. And we don't need those," he said, tugging at the menus under her arm.

"Nothing to eat?" Hazel asked.

"Just coffee," Elita answered as she paused to let one of her silent companions into the booth. "Four coffees."

Desard raised his hand. "And Hazel, make mine a decaf, would you? Otherwise I'll be up all night."

Elita stifled a laugh.

"I'll have to start a fresh pot," said Hazel, tucking her pad back into her apron.

"Quite all right," Desard said, shouldering out of his leather jacket to reveal his wiry frame, nearly swallowed by a billowing silk shirt.

Hazel brought back four cups, filled three and returned shortly with Desard's decaf. After she left, Elita took a sip of the bitter brew, grimaced, and rolled her eyes. "Well, if we weren't already dead, this coffee would certainly kill us."

Desard turned in the booth to stare morosely from the window at the empty street and darkened buildings behind them. "I have died and gone to hell," he said to no one in particular.

A brief silence ensued until Elita looked narrowly at their silent companions. "Aren't you two the life of the party."

"Sorry, Miss Elita," one said, at last, "it's just that..." He shrugged and looked for support to his companion in silence, who continued to stare intently into his cup.

"Do you find me so uninteresting?" She rested her chin on the back of her hand.

"No. Nothing like that."

"They're shy," Desard mimicked in a falsetto, turning back around to rejoin the attempted conversation. "New recruits, my dear."

Elita meticulously stacked five sugar packets atop one another and pinched a corner between two carefully lacquered nails, peeling the ends away She dumped the sweeteners into her coffee and stirred, her spoon clinking against the sides of the cup the only sound in the otherwise deserted diner. "So, how old are you?"

"I'm, uh seventy," one said.

"And you?" Her gaze rested on the quieter of the two near mutes.

"Eighty-eight."

"Why, you're just children."

"Told you so," Desard said.

"Tell me, I'm just dying to know. Why did Julius turn you? You obviously must have some redeeming qualities. Did you spend time in jail? Kill someone, perhaps? Rape? Telemarketing scam? Oh, never mind, I'm sure Julius had his reasons." She bit her bottom lip gently "I do love younger men."

Desard rolled his eyes and his thin shoulders shook with mirthless laughter. "It's so good to know that there are eternals in life, such as your insatiability. May I make a suggestion? Instead of catering to it just now, perhaps we should turn our attention toward finding our charge and getting out of the Middle Ages as quickly as possible." He swept his hand at the window and the emptiness behind it.

"So practical, Desard. Always so practical." She sat her empty cup down and regarded it impatiently for thirty seconds. "And practical is so boring. Oh very well, let's put our heads together and," she looked up, "what's this?"

A group of three cowboys entered, obviously suffering from the influence of alcohol. They stopped in the doorway shaking rain from their hats. At the sight of Elita, they bumped together and stared open-mouthed at her slender legs crossed at the knee, the creamy skin revealed by her sleeveless shirt, and the ruby glow of her pursed lips.

"Goddamn," one of them whispered, "look at her." They stumbled their way to a table across the room, arguing about who had to sit inside, thereby losing the view.

"What are the odds that one of those gentlemen knows our mysterious Tucker?" Elita asked.

"In this town, judging by the limited amount of available women," he flashed an eye toward Hazel, "chances are they're all related to him," Desard responded.

The tip of her tongue traced around the edge of her lips and she stood, smiling across at the still-riveted cowboys. "Oh, I adore those hats."

"Yippi-Ki-Yay," Desard whispered under his breath as she walked over to the other table.