Jason White stood in the back of a ticket line in the Los Angeles International Airport listening to music with headphones and watching a young woman in another line. She seemed to be looking right at him, but it wasn't the eye contact so much that caught Jason's attention as her dark eyes, olive skin and east Indian features--like a young version of my mother, Jason thought. He smiled at her, and she offered him a tiny, qualified smile before looking down.
It was then that her face seemed to fly apart. He heard a snapping sound that, an instant later, he identified as a pistol shot, but it came to him as background noise, indistinct and barely audible over the music coming through his Walkman headphones.
The young woman jerked sideways and fell to the floor. People began screaming and falling, and Jason thought they were all being shot, maybe with a machine gun.
A man put his hand on Jason's shoulder and pushed him. "Down," the man said, "Get down. On the floor."
Jason--hobbled by a newly healed broken leg--dropped his tennis racket and his cane as he fell to the floor. Pain stabbed his leg. Jason snatched the speakers from his ears as he looked around. People on the floor nearby made little sound, but others further away screamed unintelligible words in high, thin voices. The only man standing waved a pistol, staring at the woman he had shot. His face looked puffy, and his eyes had a wild, crazy roundness to them. Something about the man reminded Jason of the Aussie boy responsible for Jason's broken leg.
The gunman looked over his shoulder toward the entrance to the building at security men rushing toward him. He jumped over several people lying on the floor and began running. As the man ran past him, Jason stuck out his cane. He heard the crack of the man's shin against the wood and watched him fall, smashing his head against a luggage cart. The man went limp.
Jason stood, feeling unsteady, using his cane for support. Some people had begun crawling toward the exit, and others scurried off, hunkering down as if there might be bullets flying through the air, just above their heads. No one had seemed to notice what the gunman had tripped on, and Jason was glad for that. He looked at the man, amazed at how large he seemed and at how bizarre he appeared with his pink, freckled skin and Irish-red hair.
Security men surrounded the unconscious man, pointing pistols at him. Jason backed away and leaned against a wall, angry with himself for acting like the old Jason. The new Jason should have swung the cane, he affirmed. He closed his eyes and replayed the scene, this time cracking the man's shins with a solid swing then scrambling to his feet just as the killer raised the pistol to point it at Jason's heart. The man's thick finger began its deadly pull on the trigger as Jason swung again, hitting the killer's wrist an instant before the pistol went off to send a bullet through the hair just above Jason's ear. He heard it. He felt the sting of its heat. And he stepped fast to the prone man, put the end of the cane against his throat to pin him against the luggage cart.
"But all I did was trip him," Jason whispered. He glanced at the dirt on his white trousers and shirt. Airports are filthy places, he thought, and deadly places, now. If I had gotten some sleep, maybe I could have swung the cane. Maybe I would have gotten a start on being the new Jason.
He had been awake, more or less, for nearly forty hours when he arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport. During the first leg of his trip--from Kuala Lumpur to Japan--he felt too much excitement to sleep even if the flight took most of the night. He divided his attention between the in-flight movie, Fatal Attraction, and his anxieties over moving from Malaysia to a ranch in West Texas.
During the eight-hour layover at the Narita Airport near Tokyo, he wanted to sleep, but found the noise and the tobacco smoke too distracting to relax. He hobbled about leaning on his cane, looking without success for a chair built for someone of his height. By the time he got aboard the flight across the Pacific, his leg ached too much for him to rest in the cramped airplane seat.
When he arrived in Los Angeles, Jason felt numb, and he limped through the airport, almost in a daze, while he followed those exiting from the plane. At one desk, the clerk scowled at his passport and said, "Pay attention to the signs. You need to go to the line for U.S. citizens. This one is for foreign passports."
"Yeah," Jason said, looking around in confusion. American, he mumbled to himself, I'm an American. Make it a mantra, chant it to myself like Muslims chant prayers. American.
Later, a customs inspector glanced at Jason in distaste. "Put your bag there," he said in a querulous tone. Jason leaned against the counter, unaware that the inspector had spoken to him. "I said, put the bag right there," the inspector repeated. Jason put his bag on the counter. How come youÆre carrying a tennis racket if youÆre too crippled up to play? Jason started to explain he was recovering from a simple bone fracture when the agent pulled a paper packet from Jason's bag. "What's this? Drugs?"
"Cheap gemstones."
The customs official unfolded the paper and whistled. "I'll bet those cost plenty. You'll have to pay some tax on those pretties."
"Those are mostly synthetic spinel--a man-made stone." Jason pulled a receipt from his wallet.
"One hundred ringgit. How much is that?" "About forty dollars. The conversion from Malaysian ringgit to dollars is 5..."
"Fine." The inspector glanced at the line behind Jason. "Go on through."
Jason found a bench, sat and rubbed his leg. HHe changed tapes in his Walkman, put the earphones in his ears, and adjusted the sound to cut out most of the noise of the airport. Then he joined the line at the ticket counter of the airline for his connecting flight to Amarillo. That was when he had seen the young woman, moments before her death.
If she had been my sister or my lover, Jason thought, I would stand beside her. When the man pulled the pistol, I'd whack him across the face, gouge him in the stomach with my cane. She would be alive.
Jason glanced around at the numerous policemen, at the paramedics coming down the hall with a stretcher, at the frightened faces of the passengers who had, just minutes ago, been standing in what seemed a routine line. He avoided looking at what was left of the woman who had smiled at him, the woman who was not his sister or lover and who was dead. So this is America, he thought. It's a hell of a homecoming.

Chapter 3

Angela pulled the wire tight and tied it with twine to the eaves of the house. "He ain't going to scare me away from my own home," she muttered. "Not this time." She climbed down from the step ladder and turned to face the Chevy pickup as it pulled off the driveway toward the bunkhouse, stirring up a cloud of dust. A dog ran toward the pickup, barking.
"Shut up, Turdy," Angela said.
The dog circled to the driver's side but backed away, growling, when Lint got out. He ignored the dog, hooked his thumbs over his belt buckle and surveyed Angela's work, looking at the wire she had strung from the main building to the bunkhouse. "Looks to me like fourteen gauge."
"If the sheriff catches you out here, you go to jail."
"Ought to be twelve or maybe ten." Lint turned to her with his little boy smile. His cheeks dimpled. Angela breathed a sigh of relief: he had not been drinking. He never seemed to smile when he had been taking some pulls on the bottle he kept in the glove box of his pickup. "Set your house on fire with a tiny gaged wire like that. What happened to the old wire?"
"Got broke in the hail storm. Lint, you just get in that truck and head on out. There's that peace bond, remember?"
"We got some number twelve at the house. You just say the word, and I'll fetch that wire over here. Even hook her up, if you want." He grinned again.
"Thanks, Lint. But I can twist them wires myself. And what I strung is plenty big for just a couple of light bulbs, Hyram says."
"Hyram," Lint said with contempt. He walked to the stepladder. "You brought her right up to the right spot. I'll strip it and tie it in. You got black tape?" He pulled a knife from his pocket, snapped the blade out, and climbed the ladder.
Angela looked at him with some hesitation. The thought of making that connection herself did scare her, even if she would never admit it. Hyram had connected the wire on the other end, and he did so without turning the house current off. "The key is," he had explained, "not to touch more than one wire at a time. You do, and it'll bite you. Could even kill you. Most people, shoot, they don't treat house electricity with respect. But it could kill you, the juice right out of ordinary house wire. Kill you dead." He told Angela to string the wire, if she wanted, but not to make the connection. He would do that when he got back from town.
But Angela had determined she would get the lights going before Hyram got back, however spooky it might be to cut insulation from wire that was alive with house current. She took a roll of tape from her back pocket and handed it to Lint. "Hyram is going to be really pissed if he drives up and finds you here." Angela saw a quick flash of temper cross Lint's face, but he swallowed it back and smiled. Maybe he has been at the bottle, she thought. The idea frightened her.
He scowled. "Don't talk to me about that fat sumbitch."
"Hyram would just as soon shoot your ass off as look at you."
Lint waved his hand and laughed, then got on with the business of removing insulation and tying the wires together.
He got off the ladder and looked at Angela, moving his eyes in a slow, deliberate way from her feet to her breasts, then back down. "I always loved seeing you in them tight blue jeans. You're one helluva beautiful girl."
"No I ain't."
"Angela," Lint stepped up to her and took her arm. "Angela, you know I always thought you was the prettiest girl around."
"I ain't a girl. I'm a woman, Lint. Look at me in the eyes, Lint. You never look at me in the eyes. You afraid you might see a woman? I might have been a girl when you married me, but I grew up. You never noticed, did you?"
"It's them green eyes, Angela. You know that. Only witches got green eyes. Where's your blue contacts?"
"You can look for them in the garbage, if you want." She jerked her arm away and turned toward Hyram's ranch house. Lint grabbed her hair and pulled her back. She screamed. The dog ran up to them, barking.
"You got no call to talk to me that way." Lint's voice was low and angry.
"Bite him. Bite him on the leg, Turdy."
The dog snapped at Lint's boots. He kicked Turdy, and it ran off, howling. "You ain't treated me nice in a long time. How come you never treat me nice no more?"
"You let go of my hair."
"Don't you look at me. Not with them green eyes. And you treat me nice, you hear?" He jerked her to him, wrapped his arm around her and began dragging her toward the door of the bunkhouse.
"You let go of me, you sawed-off bastard."
Lint jerked the screen door so hard the upper hinge came loose. He pulled Angela into the bunkhouse and released her except for his grip on her hair. "Take off your clothes. I'll teach you to treat me like a woman ought to treat her husband."
Angela started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut and struck out at him. She thought she could detect a faint smell of liquor on him, and she knew if he had even a tiny bit of alcohol in him, words would do no good. Fighting wouldn't either, but she determined she would not give in, not this time.
Lint slapped her and jerked her head about. "Fight me, will you?" He laughed. Angela could tell he liked it when she fought because he believed that meant he would win. He slapped her face again and ripped at her shirt, popping off some of the buttons.

Hyram saw Lint's truck when he pulled in the driveway. He turned off the engine and sat for a moment, looking toward the bunkhouse, thinking he ought to go do something. But Angela had been firm: she would handle Lint, if he ever came out to the ranch. And he was, after all her husband. At least until the divorce was final.
Then Hyram noticed the screen door hanging from the bottom hinge. He grabbed the shotgun from the rack behind the seat and ran toward the bunkhouse. When he got close, he could hear the sounds of a struggle. "Damn," he said, wishing he had not left Angela alone. He took some deep breaths, trying to get his wind enough so he could talk.
Lint pinned Angela to the floor. He had her shirt and bra off, and he was pulling at her jeans. "Any time you want to stop fighting and start helping, just be my guest." He laughed.
Hyram kicked what remained of the screen door aside. "Get off her, Lint, or I swear to God I'll kill you."
Lint released Angela and stood up. "This ain't your concern, Hyram." Lint's voice was just a whisper.
"This scatter gun says it is my concern. You get your carcass out of here. Now." Hyram stepped back, letting Lint out the door. "You come on my land again, and I'll open you up with buck shot."
Hyram stood in the doorway, watching Lint drive off fast and hard to throw gravel behind him. "Coward," Hyram said in contempt. He turned to Angela.
She sat on the floor, her hair hanging in her face, her breasts bare. "You okay, honey?" Hyram asked. She tossed her head to get the hair out of her face and looked at him.
They held eye contact for a long moment. "I'm an old man, Angela. There's some things I could no more do than a cow could jump over the moon." Hyram heard his own voice sounding thin and high. "An old man."
He turned and walked to his pickup, the shotgun hanging in the crook of one arm, pointing at the ground.

Chapter 10

Jason looked in dismay at the prairie as the plane taxied into the Amarillo airport. It's like an ocean, he thought. The land runs flat all the way to the flat horizon, like the South China Sea. No trees. Nothing.
As he emerged at the gate, Jason was amazed to see so many cowboy hats. There had been none at the airport in Los Angeles.
He looked down at the young woman who touched his arm and spoke his name. She seemed like something off the set of a western movie: a perfect miniature clad all in blue--blue boots, jeans and plaid shirt. And so pretty with her long red hair. The one blemish in her beauty was the way her lower lip puffed out, like she had a cotton pad under it. "Yes?" Jason said. Should I offer my hand? Women in Malaysia didn't shake hands, but what about those in Texas? He shifted his cane to his left hand and put his tennis racket under his arm just in case.
"I'm Angela." She held out her hand. Jason took it, gave it a formal pump, and let go. "Hyram sent me to get you. He said to lay it on thick about how sorry he was not to be out here and explain all about the work he has to do to get ready for his next horse auction. And it's the truth, too--that bit about all the work getting ready for the auction. Come on," she took his arm, urging him down the hall, "let's go get your bags."
Jason allowed himself to be led while he worked on figuring out what Angela had said. Something about Hyram and horses. Her twangy accent made her speech sound only marginally like English, as Jason understood the term.
"Are there any trees on Snake Mountain?"
"Mesquite. Scruffy little cedar. You might accuse them of being trees, if you took a notion to stretch the definition some." They rode the escalator to the ground floor while Jason tried to make some sense of what she had said about trees.
"Sit on that bench. When your bag appears, point it out, and I'll get it, seeing as you're all gimped up. Bone fracture, Hyram told me. How long you gotta haul that stick around?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"That stick." Angela pointed at his cane. "How long you gotta use it?" She pulled his arm, urging him to sit on the bench.
"Just a few more days while my leg gets back some strength." He sat and immediately began to stand again. "There. That's my suitcase. The brown leather one with straps."
Angela put her hand on his shoulder, urging him to stay seated. "Take it easy, like I said. I might be a mite little, but I can hoist a dead ton all over creation."
Jason watched her walk toward the luggage. Her jeans fit her so snug that he imagined her painting them on. What had she just said? He resolved to listen with greater care, maybe watch her lips as she spoke.
Outside, the late afternoon sun felt weak to Jason, who was accustomed to the Malaysian sun hitting him like a physical blow. He followed Angela to her pickup and watched in amazement as she heaved his suitcase into the back. She glanced at him, looking amused. "I told you."
It made him feel disoriented when Jason saw the steering wheel was on the wrong side. It wasn't a surprise; he knew Americans drove that way. But knowing and seeing were different, somehow. He got in and looked around for a seatbelt, but found none.
Angela drove to Interstate 40 and turned west. "Thirty minutes and we will be at Hyram's place." She looked at her outside mirror and said, "Shit."
Jason looked back, leaning down to see under the gun rack. When he realized there was a weapon hanging over the seat back, he jerked in surprise.
"The man in the pickup behind us," Angela jerked her thumb toward the back. "Watch him for a few minutes. Tell me if he takes a drink of something."
"Is that a gun?"
"Of course. What would you expect to find on a gun rack?"
"Why?" Jason fumbled for more words but couldn't find them. The idea of being that close to a lethal weapon unnerved him. He closed his eyes, feeling his fatigue and the jangle of his nerves. Again he heard the shots and again saw the image of the young woman as her face flew apart. He shuddered and sank back in the pickup seat.
"For varmints. Skunks and the like. And hunting quail, when they're in season. If you live on a ranch, you gotta have a shotgun. Hey, Jason, how bout keeping an eye on that jerk back there, like I asked?"
With some effort, Jason sat up, turned, and peered out the back window again. "What did you say you wanted me to watch him do?"
"Drink. If you see him take a drink of any kind, tell me. That sucker's tailgating me like he's just tied one on."
Jason tried to see the man in the vehicle behind them, but the glare on the windshield made it impossible to make out the man's features. He seemed to be wearing a cowboy hat. "What is he doing to you?"
"Following too close. Is he drinking?"
"No. Wait. He does have something in his hand. Yes. He just took a drink from some sort of decanter. Who is that man?" Jason wondered what Angela had said. Tied one what onto what?
"Lint Bodark. The king of assholes. I aim to lose him with some quick turns." She switched lanes in front of other cars and left the Interstate on an exit ramp. The other drivers hit their brakes and honked. Lint's pickup was boxed in tight so he couldn't follow Angela across the lanes. "There. I foxed that turkey into going on. And from the look on your face, I scared the tar out of you."
"You did indeed frighten me." Angela laughed. "Anyone ever tell you that you talk funny? Like someone from England or someplace. It ain't easy to understand you, sometimes."
I talk funny? Jason thought: she can say that right after speaking of foxing a turkey?
"I'll take the loop around to South Washington. It'll add about ten minutes to our trip, but it's worth it to shake that drunkard, Lint." She drove south on a two-lane road. "Sorry for the tricks back there on the highway."
Jason sat back and closed his eyes. Who was this crazy woman, anyway? An employee of Hyram's ranch? Hyram's daughter, maybe? He couldn't remember either of his parents mentioning Hyram having a family. He glanced at her and their eyes met for a moment. She appeared scornful.
"Damn," Angela said, looking in the rear-view mirror. "Damn."
"What now?"
"Lint. He took a lucky guess and has about caught up with us."
The other pickup was there again, closing in fast. Jason watched as the pickup pulled up within 20 meters or so. Lint put an arm out of his window and pointed at them. When they heard the popping sounds, Jason ducked. "He's shooting at us! Get down!"
"That egg-sucking skunk. Jason, all Lint has is a tiny hand gun. A Saturday night special. The barrel is only this long." She held up a finger and thumb, indicating about fifty millimeters. "He couldn't hit my pickup, much less one of us, even if he was to shoot right-handed. Reach under the seat and get me the box of shells that's under there."
"What?"
"Just do it."
Jason felt around under the seat. What kind of a nightmare place had he come to, he wondered. The murder in California, then that lunatic cowboy shows up to fire bullets at him and this crazy woman Hyram sent. He found a box and put it on the seat. The man behind them fired several more shots.
"Not that one. That's buck shot. I want to spook Lint, not blow him away. There's another box under there." Jason felt around under the seat again and found another box. "That's what I want." She braked and pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
"You're stopping?" Jason's voice went up an octave.
"Just sit tight. Hide, if you want." She came to a complete stop, took the shotgun off the rack, and took two shells from the box Jason had found.
He glanced back, but the glare on the glass of the pickup kept the driver obscured. Lint had stopped behind them. He sat watching, still holding the pistol out the window. Angela broke open the shotgun, inserted a shell, and got out of the pickup.
When she fired the gun, Jason felt his entire body jump. Never had he heard anything so loud.
Angela broke open the gun again and inserted the other shell. The tires of Lint's pickup squealed as he took off backward. Jason watched him go some thirty meters, wheel around, and take off the other direction.
Angela got back into the pickup and put the gun on the rack. She laughed. "I bet it'll cost him most of a pay check to clean up what my load of bird did to the front of his truck."
Jason stared. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I done told you that." She started the engine. "Angela. I'm Angela."