Read Online Phantom Banjo by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough - Free Book Online Page A

loaded Sam onto
the stretcher, wheeling him out the door.
    Mark looked after them, long after the crowd
surging toward the door obscured his view. Someone screamed and he
realized suddenly that sounds had not been registering for some
time. As abruptly as if the volume on a television had been turned
up, he heard the sobs, the shrill questions, the shouted demands
for information. A brawny kid in a "Hook 'em Horns" T-shirt was
arguing loudly with Mark's security guard friend. It sounded like
he wanted his money back.
    The hall emptied and the parking lot roared
with the sound of departing cars. Mark walked out into the heat. It
was eight o'clock and still broad daylight.
    The car was stifling hot and Mark couldn't
get out of the parking lot for forty-five minutes. Vehicles sat
idling in both lanes of the access road, out onto the four lanes of
highway and beyond. By the time he had crept through that to reach
the only hospital in Austin with an emergency room and found a
parking place, it was almost ten o'clock. Time for Hawthorne's
concert, had it not been aborted, to end.
     
    * * *
     
    Some time ago Mark had turned off onto the
ranch road, a well-packed gravel and tar affair now squishy with
the heat. Though it was nearly seven p.m. now, the sun still shone
and Mark still drove with the windows open. Air-conditioning
clogged his sinuses.
    He saw the longhorn in plenty of time. He
just figured it would be used to traffic on a ranch road and have
sense enough to lope away.
    He thought that because he'd been raised in
Houston and knew of the contrariness of longhorns only from
hearsay.
    He was only doing about forty miles an hour
anyway and saw no need to slow down as he drew even with the beast.
What he hadn't noticed, in his preoccupation, was that the longhorn
trotted closer to the road as he approached. Just as he should have
been past it, it was in front of him.
    The last thing he saw were beady little red
eyes glaring meanly through the windshield as he pulled hard left
on the steering wheel and felt the van hit what felt like a ski
jump. He was thrown against the open window, and a spike of
blinding pain sent him spinning down a long tunnel of pulsing black
light. As he fell, the strains of "Ride Around, Little Dogie"
sprinkled after him.
     
    * * *
     
    Willie poured another drink and was
three quarters of the way through The
Comancheros when someone knocked on his door. "Señor
MacKai," a soft, slightly accented voice said from outside the
door. Willie padded over to it and opened the inner door, leaving
the screen closed to keep the flies out.
    "What's on your mind, Benito?" he asked. The
kid was about eleven years old and looked up to Willie as he would
look up to a black sheep uncle. Willie was used to being idolized
and normally encouraged it. Tonight, while he was feeling about as
worthless as tits on a boar hog, starry eyes just made him
tired.
    The boy had other things on his mind than
worship, however. Panting with excitement he said, "Señor, I am out
exercising the horse Mosquito, you know? And I hear a noise like
thunder, three claps, very loud. Maybe a big gun firing, do you
think? And now, you smell? A fire, no?"
    Willie sniffed the wind like a wolf scenting
prey. An oily, acrid, smoky smell stung his nostrils. He wet a
forefinger, held it up. Wind was from the south. What there was of
it. Which fortunately wasn't much. Pausing only to shove flip-flops
onto his feet and throw a gun into the Jeep, he grabbed his drink
and roared off down the southbound road. Probably just wetbacks
burning old tires or something but even so, you had to check. He
hadn't looked at his watch when Mosby called, but he'd watched two
movies since then so it must have been at least three hours ago.
His head was still fuzzy from the booze, but cleared rapidly with
the combination of pumping adrenaline and the evening air.
    He smelled burning hair and flesh at almost
the same time he saw off in the distance down the long flat