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quiet precision he
began to kick Angel’s body, picking the tenderest and most
vulnerable points, aiming carefully, poising his thick body and
striking with all his power. The first couple of times Angel
grunted from the depths of his unconsciousness. Once he opened his
mouth as if to groan, but a trickle of blood was all that emerged.
After that, there was only the ugly thudding sound of Mill’s kicks.
Boot stood to one side, a sickly expression on his face. It was a
long time before the fat man stopped.

Chapter Seven
    There are deep recesses in the
human mind into which the spirit can retreat. Sometimes, if it
retreats too far, the return journey is impossible, and the shell
which the spirit still inhabits is taken somewhere and what it
contains is pronounced insane. Sometimes, in terrible illness, the
pain will cause a similar retreat, for the darkness is safe and
coming back means facing the agony that awaits. In such cases, a
man will often will himself over the black borderline into death;
or the physicians attending him will write on the charts they keep
to show that it is not their fault: do not resuscitate. The endless capabilities of the
human body are not measurable. There is a blackness beyond the
darkness of pain and close to death, and men have been there and
returned. Angel was in such a place.
    Somewhere in that darkness he felt
something. He knew instinctively what it was and he knew that he
must move back towards the light. In whatever part of his brain the
decision was made, a battery of warnings was flashed by other parts
of his consciousness which warned him to stay where he was in the
safe blackness, quiet and undisturbed. The warnings spoke of the
awaiting pain and yet the faint spark that was life insisted that
he try. He knew that he must try and he came back in terrible fear
for then he knew that he must face the pain.
    Even as he came up from where
he was he felt the pain start, but he kept on coming and the pain
came more strongly as he did but now his brain had identified the
sensation he had felt and he opened his eyes to see it, even as his
broken nostrils registered the rank carrion smell of the buzzard
sitting on the ground near his head, beady eyes alert, beak poised
for the first stabbing peck at his eyes. He drew a deep and ragged
breath and the waiting pains came together in a crescendo that made
him scream in agony and spiral back down into the blackness. It was
enough; his trailing scream startled the huge black bird, which
soared upwards in a tight circle, cackling in panic, swooping to join a
screeching trio of its brothers on the whitened branches of a dead
iron-wood tree.
    He felt as if he had been in
the blackness for a long time, but it was only a few minutes before
he opened his eyes again. Once more, the pain came; but this time
he was ready for it, knew it for the enemy it was. A sound emerged
from his mouth that might have been a curse or a prayer. He was
lying face down on the rock-strewn sand, and the sun was
brightening the arroyo. It was not hot. He thought about it for a
long time and then spoke. The word was without meaning, but what he
said was ‘morning.’ Then hearing came, and he heard the myriad buzz
of flies around the patch of sticky, half-dried blood beneath his
body. He heard the steady screech of the buzzards in the ironwood
tree.
    Morning. He had lain there all
night. That coyotes had not ripped his body open he could only
attribute to the possibility that even during his deep
unconsciousness he had stirred, or groaned. Any movement at all
would have been enough to keep the cowardly predators away. But
they would not have gone far. He pictured them sitting at a safe
distance, tongues lolling, waiting. The buzzards screeched
monotonously. ‘Yes,’ he said to himself.
    Getting his body turned over and levering
himself into a half-sitting position took him the best part of half
an hour, a half hour of the most excruciating agony. Head reeling,
no strength in