They would get by. Somehow, they always did. When Robert had his motorcycle accident in '81, the smart-ass doctors said that he might never walk again, but he had fooled them all. The boy had finished law school leaning on a cane, but he could do without it now, and you would only catch him limping if you made a special point of looking for it. People would survive, no matter what. It was a lesson the bureaucrats in Washington had never seemed to grasp. No matter how you beat a man and pushed his face in the dirt, he would return and get his own back from you one fine day. Unless you killed him.

Gib Schultz had seen his share of killing in Korea, up around the Chosin Reservoir, in early 1951. He and Bud Stancell had called it Frozen Chosin, with the temperature so far below the freezing point you had to dig a hole for your thermometer to catch the falling mercury. Guns froze, trucks froze, and you could lose a hand by touching anything at all without your heavy mittens on. It was a wonder to him that the Chinese soldiers had been able to attack with such ferocity through gusting sheets of ice and snow. It was a wonder to him that he had survived.

He started dusting counters, though the shop was clean enough already, and as always, he began in Sporting Goods. It was an ostentatious label for one tiny corner of his store, but it had always been Gib's favorite. There had not been much call, of late, for fishing gear or hunting knives, but he kept both in stock for old times' sake. The long guns were his first love. Shotguns, rifles, no more than a dozen of them now, and half of those had been on hand for better than a year. But while he had a store, Gib would continue stocking guns and ammunition. In the old days it had been a decent money-maker; recently, he saw the oiled and polished weapons almost as a symbol of resistance to the changing times, one man's refusal to be pushed aside.

He smiled, imagining what Vi would say if he began to spout philosophy and wax poetical around the house. He was a simple man, but that did not diminish his perception of established values, his belief in the traditions of America. Gib didn't buy the argument about a Soviet invasion, all that crap about the farmers and the gun buffs forming a militia to repulse the Reds. You couldn't drop an ICBM with a 12-gauge, but it wasn't foreign enemies that worried Schultz so much these days. He watched the news and read his daily paper out of Tucson, saw enough of life in general to know that something had gone fundamentally, perhaps irrevocably, wrong in modern-day society. Convicted criminals were wandering around in perfect freedom, while their victims lived in cages, bars on windows, triple locks on doors. You couldn't turn on the television or pick up a paper without encountering some judge or politician who was on his way to jail. One federal "jurist" from Nevada had been drawing $75,000 a year from his prison cell, and would have kept on drawing it for life, except that someone in Congress got around to calling for impeachment. Even then, the bum had nerve enough to go on television, blaming prosecutors and the FBI for having nerve enough to double-check his tax returns.

Venality in politics was nothing new, but recently the stain had seemed to filter downward, through society, affecting damn near everyone. You had more raving psychos on the street today than you could shake a stick at, crazy bastards who would kill a man for the fun of it and then drive on and do the same to someone else a few miles down the road. You heard about young kids in grade school taking dope and sacrificing animals to Lucifer, like something from a cheap horror movie on the late show. Runaways, child prostitutes, sadistic crimes where one kid turns upon his playmates with a knife or Daddy's .38. Sometimes Gib wondered how his own three kids had turned out normal. God knows he and Vi had beaten all the odds.

And he was thankful. You'd have to be an egotist, an atheist, or just plain stupid to believe that you could pull it off alone. The kids spent too much time away from home as they were growing up for Mom and Dad to take the credit for themselves. You did your best, instilled a sense of values where you could, but then you had to turn them loose and put your faith in something greater than yourself. Sometimes it even worked. Sometimes.

It hadn't worked for Jack Washburn. He had raised the sweetest boy you'd ever want to meet, provided for him, watched him grow to young adulthood with his mind and body both in decent working order. He had staked his future, all his dreams, on his boy, unmindful of the trouble that was brewing half a world away in Vietnam. When Tommy Washburn went to war, his father had been proud, convinced that nothing could go wrong. When Tommy came home in a box two weeks later, old Jack's dreams had frozen in their tracks, and they had never budged again.

Sometimes you just got lucky, damn it... and sometimes your luck went sour, all at once, without a hint of explanation. It was like the shifting wind, one minute at your back, propelling you along, the next directly in your face, with sand and grit to sting your eyes. You couldn't trust the desert wind, no more than you could trust in luck. But faith... that was something else again.

He caught the blinding glint of sun on metal, glancing up in time to see three Mexicans unloading from a dark sedan. He didn't recognize them, but their presence came as no surprise. These days, the traffic passing through was mainly headed north, and if they stopped to spend a dollar, Schultz was not inclined to ask about their green cards. Strangers didn't stop into a tiny, rural hardware store unless they needed something, and he only hoped that he would have whatever it might be on hand. Gib Schultz was smiling as the first one entered, jingling the little bell he had mounted on the left-hand door. It sounded just like money, and the sound was music to his ears.

Santa Rosa's main street was deserted, baking in the heat, as Esteban Rodriguez parked outside the hardware store. He took a moment to adjust his shades and double-check the .45 he wore beneath one arm. He was aware of Julio and Ismael breaking out their weapons, checking loads and safeties. Opening the driver's door, he grimaced at the furnace blast that greeted him. It would be hotter in Sonora, but there he would have been indoors, attending to Luis Rivera's personal security in air-conditioned comfort. Soon, with any luck, they would be home again, and he might be in line for a reward.

Hector Camacho had incurred Rivera's anger, wasting time in Santa Rosa when he should have had the gringo safely under wraps. He might still talk his way out of a demotion, but if Esteban impressed his boss with his own performance here, it might just tip the balance, move him up into a job with more responsibility, increased prestige. A bodyguard's life was reasonably safe — until last night, at any rate — but it was also tedious. Esteban relished the idea of moving up and out in the Rivera empire, managing a territory of his own one day. With everything that he had learned, he was already on his way.

But first he had to show what he was made of here, in Santa Rosa. It had been a good idea, this raid to search for weapons and effectively disarm the town. A tour of Main Street had revealed the hardware store to be their only target; they had found no gunsmith's shop, no sporting goods emporium with rifles in the window. If the town had any guns on sale at all, they would be here, and Esteban would have the shop secured in a few more moments.

He was not concerned about resistance from the local peasants. Granted, they were superior in numbers, and many of them would undoubtedly have arms at home. Rodriguez scanned the weathered, faded storefronts, and he sensed that they would offer no resistance as a group. Confronted with a team of tough, professional assassins, armed with automatic weapons, Santa Rosa's citizens would slink off to hide until the danger passed. Except, Rodriguez thought, this time Rivera might not let them hide.