Three steps further, and he could see who they were. Cal Denholm. Jim Haack. Joe Portis. He was shocked, though he probably shouldn’t have been. The other ranchers had obviously snuck onto his property under the cover of night and storm, no doubt intending to destroy the body in the smokehouse, and he was filled with an optimism and sense of hope that he hadn’t experienced since before all of this started. Did they know that Jorge was dead? They had to have heard the shot, though the storm was at its height at the time and the sound could have blended in with the thunder. Without Jorge to guard the smokehouse, they would have a clear crack at the monster, and if they had enough gasoline or turpentine, they might even be able to set the building on fire despite all of the rain. Excited, Cameron made his way toward the corral gate—
And a steer blocked his way.
For a moment, he thought it was an accident, a coincidence, but then the animal stopped, turning to look at him, and he saw the awareness on its face. Another steer walked purposely over from the direction of the barn. There was a slight greenish glow about the animal, as though it were a radioactive character in a cartoon, and in that instant he understood the situation. The other ranchers were not trying to sneak over to the smokehouse. They had tried that, but they had been caught, and they had been herded into the pen by…cattle.
Cameron backed up slowly, ready to fire if need be. Behind the first steer, Jim was waving his hands in a pantomime that he did not understand. Cal was whispering something he could not quite hear.
Another steer had appeared from somewhere. Cameron glanced around, looking for more, but saw no others. For all he knew, these three were all that was left of his herd.
Lightning struck nearby, and he jumped at the decibel-busting thunder that instantly followed.
It was as though the thunder and lightning had jarred something loose in his brain. The situation before him was suddenly clarified, and he looked back toward the smokehouse, which appeared to be lit from inside, lines of light seeping out from between cracks in the wood.
Now he remembered. He was supposed to protect the angel.
How could he have gotten so far off track?
It didn’t matter. He was once again on course, with the program, and he looked into the eyes of the steer blocking his way. The animal stepped aside to let him pass.
“Thank God,” Cal said. “You’ve got to get us out of here. These fucking—” He stopped, seeing something in Cameron’s eyes. There was fear in his voice. “You’re not going to let us go, are you?”
Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked overhead.
“No.” Cameron said, raising the gun.
“You don’t want to do this…”
“Don’t worry,” he promised. “I’ll take you out clean.”
And he did.
THIRTY ONE
When Ross awoke, just before dawn, his laptop was open on the table, the screen shining brightly. He didn’t remember leaving it on, didn’t even remember seeing it when the storm woke him up in the middle of the night, but, then, he’d been tired.
Walking over to turn off the laptop, something nagged at him, something that was wrong.
Wait a minute.
Why was the screen bright?
His tired brain was just beginning to sort through and process the information it was receiving, and he realized that even if he had left the laptop on, the screensaver would have kicked in. Then, a half hour after displaying a photo of sunrise at the Grand Canyon, the laptop would have gone into sleep mode, and the screen would have gone dark.
He approached the table warily, leaning over the back of the chair to see what was being displayed. It was a list of email messages that had been sent since last night, and to his amazement there was an entire page of them. Sitting down and reading over the subject lines, he saw that they were from various companies in the aerospace industry.
All of them were offering him jobs.
He blinked, thinking for a moment that he was dreaming.
He wasn’t. It was astounding, this sudden wealth of opportunities, and he scrolled down the list, reading each message, overcome by the offers, any one of which he would be grateful to accept. He noted the locations—San Diego, Long Beach, Denver, Dallas, Houston—and the proposed salaries: a hundred and twenty, a hundred, a hundred and forty, a hundred and ten…
Stunned, he sat there as the sun rose in the east. He’d heard that the economy was starting to rebound, but this was so ridiculously over the top as to be unbelievable. These offers were solid. Guaranteed. He had his pick of twenty-four positions, and all he had to do was decide which one he wanted. It was a dream come true, the answer to his prayers, every positive cliché he could come up with. He smiled. Suddenly, he was no longer of this place, and the problems that had been consuming him up to now seemed small and unimportant. Magdalena was about to be history, and he would never have to worry about weird storms or metamorphosing monsters ever again.