Pam Tibbs had opened the door to her room and was drinking a beer in the doorway. She was dressed in jeans and a maroon Texas Aggie T-shirt. ?I saw him running across the lawn,? she said.
?Look at my fucking truck.?
?The world is really sliding down the bowl,? Pam said.
A few minutes later, she tapped on the bolted door that connected her room to Hackberry?s. ?Are you having a nervous collapse?? she said.
?Not me,? he said.
?Can I come in??
?Help yourself.?
?Why are you sitting in the dark??
?Why waste electrical power??
?You thinking about Jack Collins??
?No, I?m thinking about everything.? He was sitting at the small wood table against the wall. There was a telephone on it and nothing else. The chair on which he sat was as utilitarian as wood was capable of being. She walked into a blade of light from the window so he could see her face. ?You think we?re firing in the well?? she said.
?No. Collins is out there. I know it.?
?Out where??
?Someplace we don?t suspect. It won?t be part of a pattern. It won?t be in a place we look for the bad guys. He won?t be surrounded by whores or dope or stolen goods or even weapons. He?ll be in a place that?s as ordinary as rocks and dirt.?
?What are you saying, Hack??
He shrugged and smiled. ?Where?s your beer??
?I drank it.?
?Open another one. It doesn?t bother me.?
?I only bought one.?
He stood up, towering over her. Her shadow seemed to dissolve against his body. She lowered her head and folded her arms across her breasts. He could hear her breathing in the dark.
?I?m really old,? he said.
?You?ve said that.?
?My history is suspect, my judgment poor.?
?Not to me.?
He cupped his hands on her shoulders. She hooked her thumbs in her back pockets. He could see the gray part in the shine on her hair. He bent over her, his arms circling her back, his hands touching her ribs and sliding up between her shoulder blades into the stiffness of her hair on the nape of her neck. Then he drifted his fingers across her cheek and the corner of her eye, brushing a lock of hair back from her forehead.
He felt her step on top of his feet, and before he knew it, she had raised her mouth inches from his, the yeasty smell of beer touching his lips.
WHEN PREACHER UNZIPPED the flap on Bobby Lee?s polyethylene tent, the storm had passed and the heavens were ink-black again, bursting with stars that stretched from horizon to horizon, the mesas in the east pink and barely visible against the few distant thunderheads that still flickered with lightning.
Bobby Lee pushed his head out of his sleeping bag, his hair matted, his eyes bleary with sleep. ?Is the plane here??
?Not yet. But I made coffee. Get up. I want to take care of some business,? Preacher said.
?It?s cold.?