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she was too numb now to even do anything to try to stop it. In a matter of minutes—long, agonizing, degrading minutes—these beasts would be through with her, and they would kill her and Emily with as little thought or concern as stepping on an ant. How could this happen? How could the world be so cruel and unfair? Why weren’t there any heroes left to come along and save the day in the nick of time?
    Why?

4
    On the CD player in the F-150’s dashboard, Chris LeDoux sang about how the cowboy was still out there ridin’ fences. “You just can’t see him from the road,” Tom Brannon sang along when the song got to that part.
    He knew he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. His wife Bonnie had told him that often enough. Brannon didn’t care. He liked singing along with his favorite songs. But out of consideration for others, he confined it to the times when he was alone in the pickup.
    He was east of town, driving toward Little Tucson. He had been out to see his folks, who still lived by themselves on the family spread at the edge of the Sierritas even though they were getting on in years. Herbert Brannon had to use a walker to get around most of the time now. His wife Mildred took care of him and wouldn’t hear any talk about putting Herb in a home or some such foolishness like that. But her health wasn’t as good as it had once been, either. Tom didn’t know what he was going to do about the situation, but the time was coming when he would have to do something . He had a couple of older sisters, but one of them lived up in Flagstaff and the other over in California, in Bakersfield. He was the one still close to home, so he was the one who had inherited the job of looking after their folks. He tried to check in on them at least three times a week.
    The spread wasn’t a working ranch anymore, of course. All the stock had been sold off long ago. But it was home to Herb and Millie, and naturally they didn’t want to leave it, even though it would have been easier on Tom if they lived closer to town. He had a business to run, too. Luckily, he had a good manager in Louly Parker and a couple of dependable part-time employees. They kept the auto parts store running pretty smoothly. Of course, business wasn’t what it had once been. Ever since the SavMart had moved in on the western edge of town, Tom’s sales had declined. He had enough loyal customers to keep him going, though, at least until they all died off. When that happened . . . well, he could always go to work for SavMart himself. If they didn’t need anybody in the auto parts department, he could stand at the door and say howdy to folks when they came in. He wondered idly if he ought to practice asking, “Need a buggy?”
    That was when a flash of red caught his eye, and he noticed the little car parked on the dirt road, a couple of hundred yards north of the highway.
    A frown creased Brannon’s forehead. He saw a faint haze of dust hanging in the air along the dirt road. The red car had just driven along there and stopped within the last few minutes. Brannon had to wonder what the driver was doing out there. There was nothing around at that spot, no reason for anybody to stop.
    Brannon kept his left hand on the wheel of the F-150 and in a habitual gesture ran his right hand over the close-cropped sandy hair that was starting to turn gray in places. He had kept the short haircut ever since he came back from Vietnam. It was simple, and Tom Brannon was a man who liked simple things. That was one reason he had never left Little Tucson except for a few years at the university in Tempe and his hitch in ’Nam. He was a small-town man, always had been, always would be.
    And folks from small towns still looked out for their neighbors, even in this day and age when it seemed like nobody trusted anybody. Maybe whoever was in that little red car was having trouble. Wouldn’t hurt to go take a