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hammered down hot, despite a stiff desert breeze that came and went, thick with the scent of sagebrush. “I got point,” he told the others, “and Mike’s got the rear. Keep an eye on the van. Twitch, get overhead and give it a look.” He turned and headed out.
    He heard Twitch’s sharp cry as the fairy sprang into the air, and the silver falcon’s horse’s tail brushed Eddie’s head as he took flight, racing up the gentle slope and towards the trailer. Twitch was pretty—though kind of weird—as a bird, but Eddie had seen it before, and kept his attention focused. For all that he didn’t want to kick in the door, he didn’t want to get caught with his pants around his ankles either, so he walked with the Remington in his hand, pointed down at the ground but ready to pull up and shoot if he needed it.
    Eddie was calm, and normally he trusted his own judgment and coolness. He still felt a bit shaken by his vision of the backcountry Sears, though. He worried he might see frozen heads sticking out the ground and feel like he had to shoot them.
    Instead, he heard a hiss and a rattle off to his right. He turned, brought up the stubby nose of the shotgun and almost fired, anyway.
    But Jim got there first. With a loud snick! his sword jumped from its scabbard and the head of the rattlesnake snapped off and went flying into the brush. The snake’s body, scaly yellow-brown and surprisingly long, danced spastically before collapsing into the dust.
    And then suddenly there were two more snakes lifting their heads from the dust to threaten Jim. The big singer kicked one incoming with his boot, sending it sailing into the back of the church’s plywood sign with a loud, meaty thud . The second lost its head like its companion.
    “ Huevos! ”
    And then there were a dozen.
    “Twitch!” Eddie yelled.
    So much for the quiet approach. Eddie pumped the shotgun and waded into the hissing curtain of rattlesnakes.
    Boom! went Eddie’s shotgun. Snick! followed Jim’s sword. And then Mike finally got his gun out of his pants and joined in, bang! bang! bang!
    “I don’t like this!” Eddie shouted, stepping over spattered snake meat to take aim at another serpent, blasting it to oblivion.
    Jim nodded and pointed up at the trailer by way of answer. He skewered two rattlesnakes with a single deft stab of his blade and then scraped them off with the instep of his heavy boot.
    Mike saw Jim’s gesture and led the way, jogging up the track towards the trailer. He got ahead of Eddie, who took a couple of seconds to turn around and follow, but Eddie could tell by Mike’s continued shots, and the plumes of dirt that exploded into the air around the bass player, that he was still threatened by attacking snakes.
    Jim brought up the rear. Eddie didn’t worry much about him, and worried even less when Twitch swooped down suddenly from the blue sky to snatch up a pair of snakes, one in each claw.
    Mike, though, looked like he was in trouble. Snakes closed in on him from behind, and on both right and left, as he staggered over a cattle guard and between two driftwood fence posts. He fired again and then dug into his pocket for his second clip.
    The big guy stumbled—
    Eddie whipped up his shotgun and broke into a run as snakes swarmed out of the tall dry grass and sage, slithering towards the bass player on the ground—
    and then a wave of gray-brown fur washed over Mike. Something like a dog—several things that looked like dogs, or maybe foxes, it was hard to tell at this distance—scurried over Mike’s back and legs and threw themselves at the snakes.
    Something was helping Mike. That gave Eddie the breathing room he needed to blast a couple of rattlers out of his own way, and then he was on top of the bass player, grabbing Mike by his elbow and dragging him to his feet.
    “ Cojón! ” Mike shouted. Jim caught up with them and they raced for the double-wide. Bouncing blue and yellow in his jogging vision, the little building