Twelve

      THE OLD BUT WELL-KEPT HOUSE STOOD ON three or four acres beyond the city limits of Pico Mundo, a two-story Victorian structure with a deep front porch and lots of gingerbread, painted white with pale-blue trim. A long blacktop driveway led between colonnades of velvet ash trees, their spring growth dulled by dust, past the house, to a long horse stable that had been converted into a garage with five double-wide doors.

      As I approached the stable, one of the electrically powered doors rose, and as I slowed almost to a stop, a man stepped out of the shadowy interior, into sunlight. Tall, lean, weathered, wearing boots and jeans and a checkered shirt and a cowboy hat, he would have fit right into any Western that John Ford ever directed. He waved me into the garage, and I parked the Big Dog where he indicated.

      As I took off my helmet and goggles, the cowboy introduced himself. He appeared to be as trim and fit as a man in his forties, but a life outdoors had given him an older face, seamed and as tanned as saddle leather. “Name’s Deacon Bullock, born and raised a Texan, lately of Pico Mundo. It’s a five-star honor to meet you.”

      “I’m just a fry cook, sir.” I put the helmet and goggles on the seat of the bike. I shook his hand. “There’s no great honor in it.”

      Every one of the many lines in his face conspired to be part of his smile. “I know your selfsame history, son. Don’t be hidin’ your light under a bushel.”

      “I don’t need a bushel,” I assured him. “A paper cup will do.”

      “You wasn’t followed?”

      “No, sir.”

      “You’d bet an ear on that?”

      “I’d bet them both.”

      “This here’s a safe house where our folks can hide out, and we mean to keep it safe. You been given a phone we tinkered with?”

      I produced my jacket from one of the saddlebags, took the smartphone from the jacket, and handed it to him.

      When Mr. Bullock activated the phone, the first thing that appeared on the screen wasn’t the name of a service provider or phone manufacturer, but instead a single thick exclamation mark in gold against a black background. It remained there until he entered a five-number code, and then the exclamation point was replaced by a photograph of my smiling face. He nodded, satisfied. After switching the phone off, he returned it to me.

      “You understand, son, it don’t transmit your location when you use it, like all them other dang phones do. And it don’t identify the owner. Any call you got to make or text message you got to send, or any web surfin’ you got to do while you’re on this here property—or off it, for that matter—you use only this one phone.”

      “It’s the only one I have, sir. Mrs. Fischer gave it to me.”

      “The head honcho herself. All right, then. I’m told you travel light as a mayfly, but you must have yourself some luggage.”

      “Yes, sir.” From the compartment in which I’d stowed the jacket, I retrieved a zippered leather kit that contained my electric razor and toiletries, and from the other saddlebag on the Big Dog, I took a matching soft-sided overnight bag that contained a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, spare underwear, socks. “Somehow they learned what I’d be riding. We had a little confrontation a few hours back. The bike is hot.”

      “So then we’ll shred her and melt her down.”

      When I realized he was serious, I said, “Isn’t that a little extreme?”

      “Not when you’re dealin’ with them folks.”

      I looked at the beautiful Big Dog. “Sad.”

      “Let me help with that,” Mr. Bullock said, and took the bag from me. “Nothin’ I hate worse than bein’ useless.” As I closed the lid of the saddlebag, he said, “So I’m given to understand you don’t have yourself a suitable gun.”

      “Neither suitable nor unsuitable, sir.”

      His eyes were blue, and when he narrowed them, they seemed to grow brighter, as if his squint compressed the color in them. “How come you rode through all that dangerous habitat of schemin’ men and all that wasteland crawlin’ with snakes and beasts, and you with no dang gun?”

      “I don’t like guns, Mr. Bullock.”

      “You don’t need to like one to know you got to have it. I don’t like gettin’ a colonoscopy every five years, but I grit my teeth and drop my drawers and get it done just the same.”

      “I’ve never had a colonoscopy, either.”

      “Well, you’re not of an age to need one. That there’s a joyful experience you got to earn by livin’ to my age. Anyways, around this here safe house, everyone’s got to have themselves a firearm, not just to keep in a drawer, but to carry at all times. Once we get you settled in, I’ll fix you up with the very thing you need. You had yourself some breakfast yet?”

      “More than some, sir. Just need a bed. I didn’t sleep last night.”

      “Then bring yourself on in the house and meet Maybelle. She’s my missus. You’ll like her. Everybody does. She’s a peach. We haven’t enjoyed a bit of company since that astronaut had to hide out here while we worked up a convincin’ new identity for him. Maybelle’s starved for better company than me.”