Pigs were searching for a dark green van with a Georgia license platei

Good, Mary thought. She was half dozing, her feet up on the Barcalounger and the TV on before her in the cozy little den. By the time the pigs found the van in Rocky Road's barn, she'd be long gone with Drummer.

Her stomach was full. Two ham sandwiches, a big bowl of potato salad, a cup of hot vegetable soup, a can of applesauce, and most of a bag of Oreo cookies. She had fed Drummer his formula  -  warmed on the stove, which he appreciated  -  burped him, changed his diaper, and put him to sleep. He'd gone out like a light, in the bed shared by Rocky Road and Cherry Vanilla.

Mary watched the TV through eyelids at half mast. Pigs were searching, the newscaster had said on the ten o'clock news from Iowa City, sixteen miles west of the farmhouse she'd invited herself to visit. Baskin was the name on the mailbox. Mary used to buy ice cream at Baskin-Robbins in atlanta. Her favorite flavor was Rocky Road. He'd looked like Rocky Road, dark-haired and chunky, enough of a roll of flab around his belly to make him soft and slow and oh-so-easy. His wife was blond and petite, with rosy cheeks. Cherry Vanilla, she was. The fourteen-year-old boy was dark-haired like his father, but more wiry: Fudge Ripple, she figured he'd be if he were a flavor.

There were family pictures on the paneled walls. Smiling faces, all. They no longer smiled. In the garage were two vehicles: a brown pickup truck with a University of Iowa sticker on the rear bumper, and a dark blue Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee was roomy and had almost a full tank of gas. all she'd have to do is move her suitcases, the baby supplies, and her Doors records from the van, and she'd be ready to roll. an added prize had been finding Rocky Road's gun cabinet. He had three rifles and a Smith Wesson.38 revolver, with plenty of ammunition for all of them. The revolver would join her own Magnum when she packed the Cherokee.

Mary had taken a shower. Had washed her hair and scrubbed her face, and carefully cleaned her wounds with a solution of rubbing alcohol and warm soapy water that had left her gasping with pain on the bathroom floor. Her forearm wound looked the nastiest, with its raw red edges and its glint of bone down in the crusted matter, and her fingers from time to time would convulse as if she were clawing the air. But it was her torn thigh that kept oozing blood and hurting like a barefoot walk on razor blades. Her knee had turned purple and had swollen up, too, and the bruises advanced all the way to her hip. Mary had packed cotton against the wounds, put bandages from the medicine cabinet on top of those, and bound her forearm and thigh with strips of torn sheets. Then she'd put on one of Rocky Road's woolen bathrobes, gotten herself a Bud from the refrigerator, and eased herself into the Barcalounger to wait out the night.

The newscast's weather segment came on. a woman with blond hair sculpted into a spray-frozen helmet stood in front of a map and pointed to a storm system growing up in northwest Canada. Should be hitting the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area in thirty-six to forty-eight hours, she said. Good news for the ski resorts, she said, and bad news for travelers.

Mary reached over beside her chair and picked up the road atlas she'd found in Fudge Ripple's room, there on his desk next to his geography homework papers. It was opened to the map of the United States, showing the major interstate highways. I-80 would be the most direct route to San Francisco and Freestone, taking her through Iowa, Nebraska, curving up into Wyoming and down again into Utah, through Nevada and finally into northern California. If she kept her speed at sixty-five and the weather wasn't too bad, she could make Freestone in another couple of days. When she left here depended on how she felt in the morning, but she wasn't planning on spending another night in a dead man's house. The telephone had rung five times since she'd herded them into the barn at six o'clock, and that made her nervous. Rocky Road might be the mayor or the preacher around here, or Cherry Vanilla might be the belle of the farm-life social set. You never knew. So it was best to clear out as soon as her bones could take the highway again.

She was weary, and she ached. Growing old, she thought. Giving in to pain and getting weak.

Ten years ago she could have strangled Bedelia Morse with one hand. Should've beat her to death with a piece of wood, she thought. Or shot her with the Magnum and then run the van over the other bitch. But things had been moving so fast, and she'd known she was torn up and she was deep-down scared she was going to pass out before she and Drummer could get away. She'd figured the pitbulls were going to finish Laura Clayborne off, but now she was wishing she'd been certain.

I panicked, she thought. I panicked and left them both alive.

But their car was gone. The dogs had done a number on Laura, at least as bad as the damage done to herself. Should have killed her, Mary fretted. Should have run over her with the van before I left. No, no; Laura Clayborne was finished. If she was still alive, she was gasping in a hospital bed somewhere. Suffer, she thought. I hope you suffer good and long for trying to steal my baby.

But she was growing old. She knew it. Growing old, getting panicked, and leaving loose strings.

Mary slowly and painfully got out of the lounger and limped back to check on Drummer. He was sleeping soundly on the bed, cuddled up in a clean blue blanket, the pacifier clenched in his mouth, and his cherub face scraped from friction with the floorboard. She stood there, watching him sleep, and she could feel fresh blood oozing down her thigh but she didn't mind. He was a beautiful boy. an angel, sent from heaven as a gift for Jack. He was so very beautiful, and he was hers.

"I love you," Mary whispered in the quiet.

Jack was going to love him, too. She knew he would.

Mary picked up her bloody jeans from the floor and reached into a pocket. She brought out the clipping from the Sierra Club newsletter, now stained with spots of gore. Then she limped back to the den, and the telephone there. She found a phone book, got the area code she needed, and dialed directory assistance in northern California. "Freestone," she told the operator. "I'd like the number of Keith Cavanaugh." She had to spell the last name.

It was rattled off by one of those computer voices that sound human. Mary wrote the number down on a sheet of yellow notepad paper. Then Mary dialed directory assistance a second time. "Freestone. I'd like the number of Nick Hudley."

It joined the first phone number on the sheet. a third call: "Freestone. Dean Walker."

"The number you have requested is not available at this time," the computer voice said.

Mary hung up, and put a question mark beside Dean Walker's name. an unlisted numberi Did the man not have a phonei She sat in a chair next to the phone, her leg really hurting again. She stared at Keith Cavanaugh's number. Did she dare to dial iti What would happen if she recognized Jack's voicei Or what if she dialed both numbers and neither voice was Jack'si Then that would leave Dean Walker, wouldn't iti She picked up the receiver again; her fingers did their clutching dance, and she had to put the phone down for a minute until the spasms had ceased.

Then she dialed the area code and the number of Keith Cavanaugh.

One ring. Two. Three. Mary's throat had dried up. Her heart was pounding. What would she sayi What could she sayi Four rings. Five. and on and on, without an answer.

She hung up. It was a little after nine o'clock in Freestone. Not too late to be calling, after all these years. She dialed Nick Hudley's number.

after four rings, Mary heard the phone click as it was being picked up. Her stomach had knotted with tension.

"Helloi" a woman's voice. Hard to say how old.

"Hi. Is Nick Hudley there, pleasei"

"No, I'm sorry. Nick's at the council meeting. Can I take a messagei"

"Um..." She was thinking furiously. "I'm a friend of Nick's," she said. "I haven't seen him for a long time."

"Reallyi What's your namei"

"Robin Baskin," she said.

"Do you want Nick to call you backi"

"Oh, no... that's all right. Listen, I'm trying to find the number of another friend of mine in Freestone. Do you know a man named Dean Walkeri"

"Deani Sure, everybody knows Dean. I don't have his home number, but you can reach him at Dean Walker Foreign Cars. Do you want that numberi"

"Yes," Mary said. "Please."

The woman went away from the phone. When she returned, she said, "Okay, Robin, here it is." Mary wrote down the telephone number and the address of Dean Walker Foreign Cars. "I don't think they're open this late, though. are you calling from the Freestone areai"

"No, it's long distance." She cleared her throat. "are yon Nick's wifei"

"Yes, I am. Can I give Nick your numberi Council meeting's usually over before ten."

"Oh, that's all right," Mary said. "I'm on my way there. I'll just wait and surprise him. One more thing... see, I used to live in Freestone, a long time ago, and I've lost touch with people. Do you know Keith Cavanaughi"

"Keith and Sandy. Yes, I do."

"I tried to call Keith, but nobody's home. I just wanted to make sure he still lived there."

"Oh, yes. Their house is just down the road."

"Good. I'd like to go by and see him, too."

"Uh... may I tell my husband you called, Robini"

"Sure," Mary said. "Tell him I'll be there in a couple of days."

"all right." The woman's voice was beginning to sound a little puzzled. "Have we ever meti"

"No, I don't think so. Thanks for your help." She hung up, and then she dialed Cavanaugh's number once more. again there was no answer. Mary stood up, her thigh swollen and hot, and she limped to the Barcalounger and her can of beer. Two days and she'd be in Freestone. Two days, and she'd find Lord Jack again. It was a thought to dream on.

Mary fell asleep, with the lights on and the TV going and the wind shrilling outside. In her sanctuary of wishes, she walked with Lord Jack across a wide, grassy hillside. The ocean was spread out in a tapestry of blue and green before them, and the thunder of waves echoed from the rocks. She was young and fresh, with her whole life before her, and when she smiled there was no hardness in her eyes. Jack, wearing tie-dyed robes, held Drummer in his arms, and his blond hair flowed down around his shoulders and back like spun gold. Mary saw a house in the distance, a beautiful two-story house with rock chimneys and moss growing where the Pacific spray had touched. She knew that house, and where it stood. The Thunder House was where the Storm Front had begun, in its ritual of candles and blood oaths. It was where she had first been loved by Lord Jack, and where she had given her heart to him forever.

It was the only house she'd ever called home.

Lord Jack hugged their baby close, and he put an arm around the tall, slim girl at his side. They walked together through flowers, the air damp and salty with ocean mist, a lavender fog creeping across Drakes Bay. "I love you," she heard Jack say close in her ear. "I've always loved you. Can you dig iti"

Mary smiled and said she could. an iridescent tear rolled down her cheek.

They went on toward the Thunder House with Drummer between them and the promise of a new beginning ahead.

and in the Barcalounger, Mary slept heavily in an exhaustion of blood loss and weary flesh, her mouth partway open and a long silver thread of saliva drooling over her chin. The bandages on her thigh and forearm were splotched with red. Outside, snow flurries spun from the sky and frosted the barren fields, and the temperature fell below fifteen degrees.

She was a long way from the land of her dreams.

Ten miles west of where Mary rested, Laura moaned in a fever sweat. Didi roused herself from a cramped sleep in the chair to check on Laura, and then she closed her eyes again because there was nothing she could do to ease the other woman's pain, both physical and mental. The scissor blades had proved worthless for the task of removing screws from license plates, but Didi had gone through an assortment of junk in the Cutlass's trunk and found a screwdriver that would work. The Cutlass now bore a Nebraska tag, its Playboy decal had been scraped away, and the red plastic dice trashed.

Sleep took the sufferers, and for a little while shielded them from hurt. But midnight had passed and a cold dawn was coming, storm clouds already sliding down from Canada in the iron dark. The baby woke up with a start, his blue eyes searching and his mouth working the pacifier. He saw strange shapes and unknown colors, and he heard the shrill and bump of muffled sounds: the threshold of a mysterious, frightening world. In a few minutes his heavy eyelids closed. He drifted off to sleep again, innocent of sin, and his hands clutched for a mother who was not there.