Cowboy at Midnight. Ann Major

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СКАЧАТЬ the red ball hadn’t been the moon but a gigantic human skull floating above Lily and Ryan Fortune’s ranch house. Rosita had awakened screaming to the skull, “No! Go away!”

      Feeling too afraid to risk sleep again, she pulled on her robe and tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the dark hall, taking care not to wake Ruben. Just when she thought she’d made it, she crashed into her enormous bookcase in the hallway that was crammed with books and jars of herbs. Two books tumbled to the floor with loud thumps.

      She prayed silently when she heard Ruben’s snoring stop in midbreath. She barely breathed until he flopped his heavy, barrellike body onto his other side and resumed his snoring. Her house was too small, and all the rooms were cluttered, even the hall.

      The bed groaned. Only when Ruben continued his roaring for a full minute did she tiptoe toward the front windows of her living room.

      The ominous red glow that lit the window shades made her shake even more. Sensing evil, she felt her throat tighten every time she thought about going out on her front porch.

      Which was ridiculous. She’d faced cougars and bobcats and convicts on the loose while living alone on ranches. Besides, Ruben was right down the hall.

      Despite her misgivings, or maybe because of them, she opened the front door and forced herself to pad bravely out onto the porch of her small house.

      The dense night smelled sweetly of juniper and buzzed with the music of millions of cicadas.

      Summer smells. Summer sounds. Why did they make her tremble tonight?

      “Help!”

      She jumped. The plaintive cry had come from nowhere and yet from everywhere. She whirled wildly, sensing a deadly presence. She sucked in a breath and stared at the dark fringe of trees that circled her home like prison walls.

      “Who are you?” she whispered.

      A bloodred moon the exact shade of the skull in her nightmare hung over the ranch. Circling it was a bright scarlet ring. She stared at the moon, expecting it to turn into a skull.

      She kept watching the moon until it vanished behind a black cloud. She wasn’t feeling any easier when a bunch of coyotes began to hoot. Then she heard a man’s eerie laughter from beyond the fringe of juniper long after the coyotes stopped.

      “Who’s out there?” she cried.

      The cicadas halted their serenade. A thousand eyes seemed to stare at her from the silent wall of dark trees.

      Stark fear drained the blood from her face. She felt like a target.

      With a muted cry, she raced back inside her living room with its dozens of velvet floral paintings and cozy, overstuffed furniture.

      Slamming her door, she flipped on all her lights. Then she stared unseeingly at the sofa piled high with her recent purchases from a flea market—mirrored sunglasses, towel sets, children’s clothes and toys, all in need of sorting. Breathing heavily, she triple-bolted the door and sagged against it.

      Maybe the moon hadn’t been a human skull floating above the house, but one thing was for sure—she’d never seen anything like that bloodred moon circled with a ring of fire before. Never in all her sixty-six years.

      And that cry for help. And the laughter—that terrible, inhuman laughter coming from the trees…

      Someone was out there. Someone with murder in his heart.

      Rosita could trace her blood to prehistoric civilizations in Mexico. She knew in her bones that this moon was a sign.

      The Fortunes were in trouble—again.

      She’d worked for them for a long time. Too long, Ruben said. He wanted her to retire so she could focus on him. “We’ll move away, not too far, but we’ll have a place of our own.”

      Ruben had always wanted his own land, but she loved Ryan Fortune and his precious wife, Lily, as if they were members of her own family. She couldn’t leave them. Not now! Not when she knew they needed her more than ever. In the morning she would try to warn them as she cooked them eggs and bacon and tamales and frijoles. They teased her because she cooked frijoles with every meal.

      They would probably laugh at her for warning them, too. Ryan and Lily had loved each other since they were kids, but they’d had to wait a lifetime to realize their love. They wanted to be happy, and she wanted that for them, too. Why, then, did her heart feel heavy with the thought that they were doomed? Oh, dear. Maybe when the sun was high in the sky tomorrow she would be able to laugh at her fears and believe all would be well.

      She made a fist. “I have to tell them anyway! First thing, when I go to the ranch house!”

      When she finally stopped shaking, it was a long time before she felt safe enough to switch off a few of the lights. Even then she was still too nervous to go back to bed or to sort through her flea market purchases, so she curled up in her favorite armchair and clutched the arm-rests as if her life depended on it.

      The night seemed endless. If only she could wake Ruben and tell him about the skull and the laughter.

      But he would only think her stupid. He would tell her it was nothing and order her to bed. Because he was a man, he thought he knew everything.

      “Ya verás. You’ll see, viejo. You’ll see when somebody dies,” she whispered, hugging herself as the shadowy forms of the tall furniture in her living room shaped themselves into snakes and cougars and alligators.

      Somebody was going to die!

      Soon.

      As soon as they reached the Double Crown Ranch, everything would be under control again, and he could focus on his plan to get even with Ryan Fortune.

      The man who was driving fought to stay calm. He was as unnerved by his passenger as he was by the automatic with the silencer he’d concealed under his own floor mat, which felt like a lump under his left heel.

      He disliked guns, but he liked order. He had to have everything in its exact place. His slacks were all hung together in his closet; his shoes were in shoe racks. The gun was a tool to help restore order. That was all. That was why he’d had plastic surgery, why he’d come to Texas.

      Neither moon nor stars lit the wild, desolate ranch land that was owned by the man he was determined to destroy. Except for the twin cones of light arcing every time he struck a pothole or an overlarge rock and except for the interior lights of the big car, the passenger and driver were lost in a strange, pink-tinted, black void that seemed as deep and dark and endless as outer space.

      “What the hell are you doing down here in Texas?” his passenger whispered in a low, raw tone from his side of the car.

      The driver was tempted to brag about his clever plan. Instead he bit his lips as he whipped down the gravel county road at an even faster speed, sending rocks flying into the dark encroaching walls of cedar and oak. One of his large, perfectly manicured, suntanned hands gripped the steering wheel; the other held a silver flask half filled with vodka. Both fists were white knuckled and shaking.

      “You shouldn’t have run out in the middle of those psychological tests,” the passenger said in that cool, kindly voice that sent chills through him.

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