If You Believe

At first glance, everything looked exactly as it should. The vegetable garden was a patch of green-studded brown earth alongside the springhouse. Fruit trees marched across the pasture in a dozen perfect rows toward the barbed-wire fence line, their symmetry broken only by a weathered wooden barn and a few outbuildings. A neat, white picket fence outlined the well-tended perimeter of the grassy, flower-edged yard. Just inside the gate, her father was crouched in the dirt, digging for fossils.

Suddenly a man emerged from the leafy umbrella of an apple tree and moved toward her father.

Mariah gasped. Her hands came up and pressed against the glass. A strangled sound escaped her throat.

She spun away from the window and did what any self-respecting spinster would do when confronted with a strange man on her property. She went for her shotgun.

Mad Dog stood beneath the fragrant canopy of an apple tree, shrouded by low-hanging boughs. Every now and then a breeze came through, rustling the leaves and releasing the delicate scent of fruit. He pushed the battered Stetson higher on his forehead and peered through the leaves.

It was a quiet, well-tended little farm. In the exact center, at the end of a flower-trimmed gravel path, sat a boxy, two-story white farmhouse with a curlicued overhang that shaded a homey porch. Evenly spaced pillars, twined with dead vines, connected the roof to the porch floor, and bunches of drying flowers hung from the white railing. A swing creaked slowly back and forth, touched by the invisible hand of a late afternoon breeze. Everything about the house declared itself a home.

He felt a stirring of discomfort. This wasnt his kind of place at all. Somewhere in this dusty little town was the sort of place Mad Dog belonged. A room filled with the same hard-drinking, hard-hitting, homeless men he met on the line. He could always find that room, no matter what town he crawled into. A broken-down farm on the edge of town, a crew of losers digging ditches, an itinerant group of shearers.

Somehow they all found one another in the dark underside of small-town life, all congregated in the dirty gutters.

Thats the kind of place he felt comfortable, the kind of job he usually took. But they didnt have clean sheets. Just the thought made him smile again. "What did you say, Greta?"

Mad Dog peered through the leaves again. This time he noticed an old man, digging in the dirt not more than forty feet away. The man was hunched over, his clawlike, big-knuckled hands wrapped around a small spade. Thin strands of cottony hair curled along his liver-spotted scalp. A ratty muslin shirt hung from his small shoulders and hugged his sunken chest. Sweat glistened on the sparce white hairs that stuck up from his open collar.

"Rather birdlike," the old man muttered. "What do you think, Greta?"

Mad Dog glanced around. The meticulously tended yard was empty except for the old man. "Are you looking for someone?" he asked.

The old mans head came up with a snap. He saw Mad Dog and blinked in surprise.

"Who are you?"

He moved toward the old man, his hand outstretched in greeting. "Folks call me Mad Dog. " The man squinted up at him. "Injun?" Mad Dog bit back a smile. Yeah, Im a blond-haired, gray-eyed Indian. Theres a million of us. "Fighter. "

&nbs

p; The man nodded as if he understood, which Mad Dog was certain he didnt. He set down his spade and got to his feet. His tired joints creaked in protest. "Im Professor Erasmus Throckmorton. " He shook Mad Dogs hand. "You can call me Rass. What can I do for you?"

"Im here for the handyman position. "

Rass frowned. Thick white eyebrows veed owl-like above startlingly blue eyes.

"Really? You want the job?"

Mad Dog shrugged. "Id take it for a while. "

Rass nodded slowly, eyeing Mad Dog with an unnerving intensity. "This is a surprise. . . . Im not quite sure . . . "

"You did place an ad, didnt you?"

"Uh-hummm," he answered, blinking up at Mad Dog.

Mad Dog didnt feel a stitch of discomfort. He was used to being sized up by employers. How he fared usually depended on how desperate they were. Only desperate men hired Mad Dog Stone.

"You got a wife?"

Mad Dog laughed. "Nope. "

Rass was still frowning. "The job pays eight dollars a week plus room and board.

Thats probably not enough. . . . "

Mad Dog grinned. "Thatll be just fine. "