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  As soon as Bo was gone, Sonny climbed the stairs to Coco’s apartment. There was something wrong with the beautiful chef. Rubbing a circle in the window, he stared inside.

  The photographs that hung about the room took his breath away. Coco Frappé, in a host of provocative and delicious aprons, decorated the room. Sonny swallowed, unable to tell if it was the food or Coco’s delectable poses that caused the flow of saliva in his mouth.

  Mona slit the seal of the official looking letter from Washington. Before she scanned the typewritten contents, she read the signature at the bottom. Yes, she remembered him, and with a smile. A fond smile.

  As she went back up to the top of the letter and began to read, the smile widened. Of course, if she took the offer, she’d have to put her writing on hold for a while. But then, she could continue her research. She’d often been curious about the use of power as an aphrodisiac. If she responded to the letter from Jimbo Fine, she’d have the golden opportunity to find out.

  Scenarios flitted through her head. Echoing hallways, the crack of a whip, barbershops, spas, houseboats along the Potomac. Yes, Washington had lots to offer. And the money was incredible. She’d have to train an assistant or two to handle the workload. The position Jimbo Fine offered her was more than full-time. To accomplish what he had in mind before the presidential election in the year 2000, she’d have to work night and day. Her smile stretched from ear to ear. The man had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  The big Harley turned the corner at Wisteria Drive and roared down the street, seeming to suck the shrubs and trees along the road in its wake. At 112 Wisteria, Andromeda aimed the hog at the front steps and opened the throttle. The sleek black bike bounced up the steps and crashed through the front door.

  In the living room, beside the green and orange plaid sofa, Andromeda kicked down the stand and unstraddled the bike. She lifted the heavy helmet, freeing her mass of black curls.

  “Mama, I’m home,” she called.

  Red dust hovered over the herd of cattle like a Biblical curse, and Slade Rivers wiped the grainy sweat from his brow with a cracked and worn glove. “We-ee-ee, doggies,” he cried as he swung his lariat. It was only five more miles to the Jordan River, and he meant to make it before sundown.

  Agreeable, as always, the cows moved along the red dirt road that was bordered by the quiet of tall pines. It was strange, flat country to the cows, but they had given their fate into the hands of the cowboy who often quoted verse to them, and they did not question him now. Their destiny was inextricably linked with that of the tall, lean man who had been sad and lonely since leaving the West and the soft arms of Angelita, the Gypsy Whore. The cows had liked Angelita. She was a vegetarian and had argued with Slade for their release. Instead, Slade had turned south, driving the herd before him.

  “Get along little doggies,” Slade urged. He straightened his back and his mind. He missed Angelita, but his heart had accepted that she was the past. It was just other parts of him that refused to let her memory go. The landscape had changed, from the high mountains of Wyoming to the endless miles of the great plains, and finally, the mighty Mississippi and the treachery, to the cows, of the Louisiana swamps. He was almost at the end of the drive. After a few weeks of rest and recuperation, he and the cows would determine where to go next. He was traveling by blind instinct, aware only that he searched for something that he would know when he found it.

  After leaving Angelita, Slade had accepted his lot as the traveler, the poetry-less wanderer. He was doomed to move about the earth, never settling, always searching for the woman who would lasso his heart and hog-tie it while simultaneously setting his imprisoned muse free. So far, that woman had not been found.

  Up ahead he heard the splash of the cattle as the first wave found the Jordan River and eagerly waded in. The cows were hot and ready for a dip. And Slade, too.

  “What about it, Chester?” he asked the horse, patting the gelding’s sweat-slick neck. Together they walked to the bank of the river and Slade slipped from the saddle. There was no one around but Chester and the cows. He hadn’t seen a living soul for the past three days. The best he could tell, everyone else had been carried off by the swarms of mosquitoes that populated the hot Mississippi land. Unbuckling his gunbelt, he let it drop. His shirt went next, then one boot after another, and finally his pants as he joined the cows to splash and play in the cool river.

  In the embrace of the water, Slade forgot his heartache and weariness and played with the cows. One by one they drank their fill and moved out of the water to graze on the sweet grass that grew beside the river. Slade remained floating as he watched the sky turn from pale blue to lavender to gray. Night would be upon them, but he felt no need for food. In the water he’d found a measure of peace. Tomorrow would be another day, another choice to make, another path to tread. For now, though, he wanted only to float and let the colors of the sky spin against his eyelids.

  The unmistakable click of a shell being slid into a chamber made him open his eyes. At first all he saw were the banks of the river and the cows. He fastened his gaze on the dark silhouette of a woman. She held a rifle pointed directly at his … He sat up. “Ma’am?”

  “They hang cow thieves in the state of Mississippi.” The woman held the gun steady. “Not to mention trespassers.”

  “I’m only traveling through,” Slade said. He’d found his feet but he couldn’t exactly walk out and have a chat. His clothes were beside her on the bank.

  “Looks to me like you’re taking your own sweet time about traveling through.” She lifted the gun when he started to move. “Easy there, cowboy, or I’ll blow the top half of you across the creek and leave the bottom half for the hungry ‘gators.”

  Slade started forward at the mention of ‘gators, but then he remembered the gun. One was a real threat, the other a possibility. He decided to obey the gun.

  “I’m from Montana, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Slade Rivers, cowboy-slash-poet. And I’m driving my cows down to the Mississippi Sound.”

  The woman looked at him. “Why in the world have you walked those poor animals all the way to Mississippi from

  Montana? We have cows here already. We don’t need more cows, especially not those. You’ve just about killed them.”

  “It’s been a journey of the heart, ma’am,” Slade answered. “The cows decided to keep me company. We got to the meat lot in Kansas City, and they just kept going. I took it they liked the traveling life.”

  “Well, given the choice, I can’t say as I blame them,” she said. “This is McLain land, and it’s time for you to be moving on.”

  “It’s a nice stretch of property. Kind of flat, but the river is fine. The cows were right glad to get here. How many acres does your husband own?” Slade glanced at the cows, but there was no help from that quarter. They were completely involved in the grass.

  “My husband don’t own spit,” the woman answered. “I own this land, and I own this gun. If you want to take it a step further, I own the bullet that’s going to turn into hot lead and fly into your butt.”

  Slade’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the light. His interest had moved from the barrel of the gun to the woman who held it. Her hair was pinned loosely atop her head, but the sun caught several falling strands and shot them through with a red as rich as fine merlot wine. The long skirt hid the shape of her legs, but her waist was small and the tight bodice revealed full, firm breasts. Slade felt a stirring that had been absent since Granite. He sank deeper into the water.

  “Are you getting out, or am I going to have to plug you in my water supply?”

  “Ma’am,” Slade held up both of his hands to show his willingness to comply. “In deference to your decency, I can’t get out naked as the day I was born.”

  She lowered the rifle slightly. “You’ve got yourself a problem, cowboy.”

  “The name is Slade. And yours?”

  She swung around suddenly with the rifle, aimed it at a tree acr
oss the river and blasted off a tree limb. “Annie Oaktree,” she said, “and this is the Oak Grove Ranch. My ranch. I knew you years ago back in Crowsfoot, Montana. You kissed me beside the Red Rock Canyon when I was little more than a young girl and then you went off to study books and forgot all about me. You broke my heart, Slade Rivers. I came south to care for my ailing aunt and when she died she left me, her only heir, her three thousand acre ranch, where you are currently trespassing. Now I’m going on home, and when I come back down here tomorrow, you and those skeletons on four hooves had better be gone.”

  Helplessly naked in the water, Slade watched until she disappeared into the black outline of the pines that grew beside the river. Annie! He remembered her now. She’d been a slip of a girl with a wild tangle of hair and a paint pony she rode bareback. She’d been half wild, a woman-child with lips as plump and tender as a well-basted hen. When she kissed, she put her entire body and soul into the process, leaving a man drained and aching. Annie Oaktree. He’d thought about her often while he was off at school, studying the poetry of great writers. The first poem he’d written and read in public had been about her. When he’d gotten out of school and gone back to cowboying, he’d been afraid to look her up. Afraid that the fact would never live up to the fantasy. But here she was, right on the banks of the river, and here he was, as if fate had led him and the cows to this very spot just so they could meet again. Annie Oaktree. A woman with grit, spit and wit.

  Damnation! He’d made a rhyme! His talent had not deserted him after all. And it had been the shotgun toting woman from his past who had inspired him.

  When he was certain she was gone, he rose out of the water and went to his saddle to find the clean clothes he always packed. As soon as he was dressed, he found his journal and his pen. The nib was clotted with dried ink. Months had passed since he’d felt like writing. Angelita was a good woman, a fiery woman. For a time she had inspired him, but his poems had gotten more and more sexual, until he’d been reduced to one form, the limerick. No matter how he had tried to write a deep, meaningful bit of verse, the words had arranged themselves into the meter and rhyme of the titillating little ditty.

  Annie Oaktree was another matter. Now she was a woman worthy of words. Sitting on the bank of the Jordan River with the cows grazing peacefully beside him, Slade began to compose a poem for Annie. As soon as he was done writing, he intended to follow her tracks until he ran her to ground so he could recite the poem to her. Years had passed and the distance between them was great, but Slade knew it was not insurmountable. He could build a bridge of words across the gulf that separated them. The nouns of love would be the solid planking of the bridge, the adjectives that described her beauty would be the railing, but it would be the verbs that supported the structure, and the rhyme that would make it all balanced and easy to cross.

  The pen scratched against the page as he wrote and wrote, crossing out and staring over, pouring his soul into the measured lines of the poem.

  Git along little doggies

  And show me the trail

  that will lead me to heaven

  and save me from hell.

  I’m in search of a woman,

  so strong and so fine,

  she fires up my pen with a kick from behind.

  I left her behind me

  and went off to school.

  I traded her kisses

  for books and some rules.

  But today I discovered

  it’s her kisses I want.

  Her warm lips entice me, the past for to haunt.

  Head ‘em up little doggies!

  The future looks bleak.

  I’m a lonely old cowboy

  whose faith has grown weak.

  There’s a hole in my ole heart

  where love should have bloomed.

  Without a good woman, I’ll just find a tomb.

  The gods have been gentle,

  the fates have been kind.

  On a river called Jordan

  a bright light has shined.

  In the glow of the sunset

  I found her again,

  Wild Annie Oaktree, the muse of my pen.

  The cattle are lowing,

  The night time draws nigh.

  I’ll find her and wed her

  In the blink of an eye.

  We’ll fatten the cattle

  and write ‘til we’re blue.

  To Wild Annie Oaktree I’ll always be true.

  Slade folded the note into his top shirt pocket. There was no way Annie could ignore the passion of his poem. No matter how mad she was at him, no matter that he’d sampled her pleasures by Red Rock and had then gone away. He was back now. And he was a better man for his pursuit of Clara and his sabbatical with Angelita. And the cows would be happy in Mississippi. They could walk on the beach late at night. They’d never have to wallow, belly-deep in snow. They could graze in the shelter of the oaks on Annie’s ranch, fatten and grow old.

  While he and Annie kissed away the dark nights together.

  Face turned into the last light of the setting sun, Slade Rivers, cowboy-slash-poet, walked toward his fate.

  Lucille’s fingers trembled as she typed The End.

  “Lucille, you did it. You finished,” Driskell said as he held out a platter of pimento cheese sandwiches that Iris had made in lieu of the ham. “Have something to eat. You deserve it.” He watched with satisfaction as she bit a healthy hunk out of a sandwich.

  “I can’t believe she sat there and wrote while her apartment is nothing but shreds and ashes, and the man who did it is running loose around Biloxi. Not to mention her uncle.” Iris stubbed out her cigarette as she turned to her husband. “And you’re not much better. How can you think about televisions while all this is going on?”

  “It’s a family thing,” Bo answered as he picked up the power screw driver to replace the back of a set. “The Hares can focus on the job that needs to be done.” He gave Lucille a nod of approval.

  Driskell took the laptop from Lucille’s hands. She clung to it a moment, a child attached to a mother’s breast. But when he spoke her name softly, she relinquished it with a sigh. His lips reddened, puckering in a silent kiss that flew across the short distance to Lucille’s cheek. “I need the computer to take care of something.”

  “As soon as you finish can we make a copy of my book and then run by the bank and drop it in the night depository? Just in case there’s another bomb.”

  “Certainly, Lucille. Then we’ll go out to the beefalo ranch a little early. I want to check a few things. Let me take care of this one little matter, and we’ll be off.” He hooked up the telephone line and tapped onto the Internet. In a moment he’d accessed the E-mail portion to find a host of messages from Roger. He ignored them all and wrote his own.

  “Hares are under attack by Marvin Lovelace. Someone you forgot to mention? It doesn’t matter. I have taken matters into my own hands. Will use necessary force to rectify situation in a permanent way. Send back-up to old Dillon Road north of Saucier. I also quit. Driskell LaMont.” He sent the message, unplugged the telephone, and handed it back to Lucille. “Whatever is out there, we’ll put an end to it.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Peter Hare gripped the steering wheel of the cement truck he’d stolen from Carlisle Construction and waited for the cramps in his gut to pass. With each twist and tremble of his intestines, he thought of one more vicious thing to do to Driskell LaMont. Once he finished with Driskell, Lucille would be the icing on the cake. He checked the rearview mirror to make certain the cement was still mixing. He’d bury the little whiner in a cement mountain–alive. She wouldn’t last long under the density of wet concrete. Silenced forever.

  He’d driven past the shop, disguised as an honest laborer with the truck, and he’d seen them, a view through the plate glass window as clear as that of a television. They were all gathered up in the shop–red lips, Lucille, that harridan, Iris Hare, and good ole Bo. The idea of driving right throu
gh the plate glass window and dumping his load on all of them appealed to him. Only the thought of torturing Driskell held him back. The skinny interloper had destroyed his truck, forced him into an altogether too intimate relationship with soap and water, nearly killed him, and then left him to walk out of the woods. Almost as much as Peter hated water, he hated physical exertion. Only the ever-more-gruesome plans of what he was going to do to Driskell once he caught him had kept Peter going, until he’d happened upon the poorly protected construction company. Peter had learned at a young age how to hot-wire a vehicle. That the truck he’d stolen came with an enormous amount of weight and a cement mixer was God’s helping hand in evening out the score.

  All he had to do was wait until Bo and Iris went to bed. He’d snatch Driskell, find Lucille, and then come back to finish off the rest of the family. Bo and Lucille should never have been born. They were aberrations. Happy had known that. Ethel had suspected it. Against the best advice of doctors in the U.S. Army, Happy had given Ethel the two children she wanted. And look what had happened. Not that Bo was so bad, but Lucille–Hare blood gone awry. The only thing to do with a creature unable to manage on its own was to put it out of its misery.

  When the front door of the shop opened and Driskell and Lucille slid into the Cadillac, Peter felt a moment of indecision. Should he tail cape-boy and Lucille? Or should he take the opportunity to finish Bo and Iris? The glide of the Cadillac into the flow of traffic was too hard to resist.

  Peter put the truck in gear and started after them.

  Dallas pulled up behind the shiny red Miata and stared at the personalized license plates that read C-R-A-P-S. It could only belong to Sonny Zanzarro. Without bothering to open the door, Dallas vaulted out of the car and ran up the steps, taking care not to make a bit of noise as she peered into the window. Coco was seated at the kitchen counter, elbows propped and chin resting on her hands. Before her was a cup of coffee and beside her Sonny forked hunks of cheesecake into his mouth. Dallas pressed her face to the glass for a better view. Coco was not even looking at the cheesecake. She was staring at Sonny, who put down his fork and reached across for Coco’s hand. In a movement so fast Dallas couldn’t really discern what had happened, Coco was across the counter and in Sonny’s arms. The plate of cheesecake, forgotten in the moment, teetered on the edge of the counter before it fell to the floor with a loud smash. Coco didn’t even glance at the food.