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time he could remember being drawn to somewhere. Tom was dead, but it looked like Jimmy was heading to Rattlesnake in his Place.

C HAPTER F OUR
     
     
    T HE CAR almost didn’t make it, rattling its way grimly up the freeway, then through Merced and onto a county road. It was fortunate that traffic was light, because the terrain began to rise and the Ford crawled along, every extra mile a miracle from the gods. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief when he made it to Highway 49, and another when he found the turnoff for Rattlesnake.
    He suspected that at one time the highway had run right through the center of downtown Rattlesnake. But the state had apparently decided to build a bypass so that folks in a hurry could zoom on to better places. A few fairly modern buildings clustered close to what was now the main route: a gas station with an adjacent auto repair shop, a small grocery store, and a little strip mall with a Subway sandwich place, a pizza parlor, a real estate office, and a hair salon. A few blocks closer to downtown sat an ugly modern church, an old one with a tall spire, and across the street, Rattlesnake High School with a painted mural of an angry reptile on its long beige wall.
    And then he arrived in central Rattlesnake—all four blocks of it. The two-story buildings would have looked comfortable in an old John Wayne or Clint Eastwood flick. Jimmy cruised down Main Street, rubbernecking as he went. He passed the Jewel Box Theater, with its art deco sign announcing a superhero movie. He saw a handful of touristy boutiques, a western-wear shop, several restaurants, a tiny museum. A place that sold crystals and incense and crap like that. Antique stores, the post office, a bank. And the Rattlesnake Inn, which appeared to contain both a hotel and a bar.
    Smaller streets ran off to the sides, downhill on his right and up on his left, but he didn’t see any businesses. Just houses, most of them old.
    Jimmy piloted the Ford into a public parking lot at the edge of the business district. His was the only car there, and as he turned off the engine, it emitted a sound suspiciously like a death rattle. He tucked the letter into his jacket pocket, made sure all his belongings were stuffed into his duffel bag, and settled the bag over his shoulder before setting off toward downtown. He could have left the duffel in the car, but he liked to keep it nearby whenever possible since he never knew when he might have to leave abruptly.
    It was past six on a weeknight in April, and most of the businesses were closed. There probably weren’t many tourists right now. The post office was locked up too, but a pair of old geezers sat and smoked on the bench between it and a café. They looked as if they’d been sitting there since the town was founded. One of them had a dog.
    “Excuse me,” Jimmy said politely. “Could you tell me where I could find a guy named Shane Little?”
    The old men squinted at him as if he’d been speaking a foreign language. Finally the one in the dirty ball cap sniffled. “Whattaya want Shane for? You one of his boyfriends?” Both men cackled.
    Jimmy raised his eyebrows. Either Shane Little was gay or the townspeople had some kind of running joke about his sexuality. Interesting, but beside the point. “I’ve never met him. But I have a message to give him.”
    “Who from?” demanded the second man, whose head was as hairless as an egg.
    “Well, I figure that’s his business. If he wants to share, that’s up to him, not me.”
    The old guys looked slightly disappointed, but they nodded. “He’s in there,” said the bald one, pointing across the street at the Rattlesnake Inn. “Tending the bar.”
    “Thank you.”
    A plaque next to the front door announced that the Rattlesnake Inn was built in 1850, burned in a fire two years later, and was rebuilt in its present form in 1853. With the exception of the addition of electric lights and an ATM machine, the small lobby didn’t appear to have