Yessir, it thought, opening the fridge, I’m a regular one-man posse. But even posses got to eat. They get powerful hongry, posses do, chasin down them bank-thieves and cattle rustlers.

There was fresh chocolate milk on the top shelf. Tak took the tall white Tupperware pitcher out with Seth’s grimy hands, set it on the counter, then inspected the contents of the meat drawer. There was hamburger, but it didn’t know how to cook and there was certainly no information on the subject stored in Seth’s memory-banks. Tak had no objection to raw meat-liked it, in fact-but on two or three occasions, eating hamburger that way had made Seth’s body ill. At least Aunt Audrey said it was the raw meat which had made him sick, and Tak didn’t think she was lying (although with Aunt Audrey, it could never be completely sure). The last go-round had been the worst-vomiting and shitting all night long. Tak had vacated the premises until it was over, just checking in every now and then to make sure there was no funny stuff going on. It hated Seth’s eliminatory functions even when they were normal, and on that night they had been anything but.

So, no hamburger.

There was bologna, though, and a few Kraft cheese slices-the yellow ones that it particularly liked. It used Seth’s hands to put the food on the counter and used the extraordinary mind it and Seth shared to float a plastic McDonald’s glass across from the cabinet where they were kept. While it made itself a sandwich, slapping meat and cheese on to white bread slathered with mustard, the plastic pitcher rose and filled the McDonald’s glass, upon which was a fading picture of Charles Barkley going one-on-one with the Tasmanian Devil.

Tak drank half the chocolate milk in four big gulps, belched, then emptied the glass. It poured a second glass with its mind while tearing into its sandwich, heedless of the mustard which dripped out and splattered on Seth’s dirty feet. It swallowed, bit, smacked, swallowed, drank, belched. The roar in its gut began to subside. The thing about TV-especially when The Regulators or MotoKops 2200 was on-was that Tak got interested, fell into its powerful dreams, and forgot to feed Seth’s body. Then, all at once, both of them would be so ravenous it could hardly think, let alone act or plan.

It finished its second glass of chocolate milk, holding it over its mouth to catch the last few drops, then tossed the glass in the sink with the rest of the dirty dishes. “Ain’t nothin beats chow around the campfire, Paw!” it cried in its best Little Joe Cartwright voice. Then it drifted back toward the kitchen door, a dirty boy-balloon with the remains of a sandwich in one hand.

Moonlight streamed through the living-room windows. Beyond them, Popla r Street was gone. It had been replaced by the Main Street of Desperation, Nevada, as it had been in 1858, two years after the few remaining gold miners had realized the troublesome blue clay they were scraping out of their claims was, in fact, raw silver… and the declining town had been revitalized by disappointed wildcat miners from the California goldfields. Different land, same old ambition: to grub a quick fortune out of the sleeping ground. Tak had known none of this and had certainly not picked it up in The Regulators (which was set in Colorado, not Nevada); it was information Seth had gotten from a man named Allen Symes shortly before he had met Tak. According to Symes, 1858 was the year the Rattlesnake Number One mine had caved in.

Across the street, where the Billingsley and Jackson homes had been, were Lushan’s Chinese Laundry and Worrell’s Dry Goods. Where the Hobart house had been the Owl County General Store now stood, and although Tak could still smell smoke, the store wasn’t showing so much as a single charred board.

Tak turned and saw one of the Power Wagons on the floor. It was poking out, almost shyly, from beside one end of the couch. Tak floated it into the air and brought it across the room. It stopped before Seth’s dark-brown eyes, hanging in mid-air with its wheels slowly turning while Tak ate the rest of its sandwich. It was the Justice Wagon. Tak sometimes wished it was Little Joe Cartwright’s Justice Wagon instead of Colonel Henry’s. Then Sheriff Streeter from The Regulators could move to Virginia City and drive the blue Freedom van instead of riding a horse. Streeter and Jeb Murdock-who’d turn out to have been only wounded, not really dead-would become friends… friends with the Cartwrights, too… and then Lucas McCain and his son would move in from his spread in New Mexico… and… well…

“And I’d be Pa,” it whispered. “Boss of the Ponderosa and the biggest man in the Nevada territory. Me.”

Smiling, it sent the Justice Wagon around Seth Garin in two slow, beautiful circles. Then it swept the fantasies out of its head. They were lovely fantasies, though. Perhaps even attainable fantasies, if it could gain enough essence from the remaining people across the street-the stuff that came out of them when they died.

“It’s getting to be time,” it said. “Roundup time.”

It closed its eyes, using the circuits of Seth’s memory to visualize the Power Wagons… especially the Meatwagon, which would lead this assault. No Face driving, Countess Lili co-piloting, and Jeb Murdock in the gunner’s turret. Because Murdock was the meanest.

Eyes closed, fresh power lighting up its mind like Fourth of July fireworks bursting in the summer sky, Tak began the job of powering up. It would take a little while, but now that things had gotten this far, it had time.

Soon enough, the regulators would come.

“Get ready, folks,” Tak whispered. Seth’s fists were clenched at the ends of its arms, clenched and shaking. “You just get ready, because we’re gonna wipe this town off the map.”

Allen Symes worked for the Deep Earth Mining Corporation in the capacity of Geological Mining Engineer for twenty-six years, from 1969 to late 1995. Shortly before Christmas of 1995, he retired and moved to Clearwater, Florida, where he died of a heart attack on September 19th,

1996. The document which follows was found in his desk by his daughter. It was in a sealed envelope marked CONCERNS STRANGE INCIDENT IN CHINA PIT and READ AFTER MY DEATH, PLS.

This document is presented here exactly as it was found.

October 27th, 1995 To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this for three reasons. First, I want to clarify something that happened fifteen months ago, in the summer of 1994. Second, I am hoping to ease my conscience, which had settled down some but has been considerably stirred up again ever since the Wyler woman wrote me from Ohio and I lied to her in my response. I don’t know if a man can ease his conscience by writing things down in hopes they will be read later, but it’s worth a try, I guess; and I may want to show this to someone-maybe even the Wyler woman-after I retire. Third, I can’t get the way that little boy grinned out of my mind.

The way he grinned.

I lied to Mrs Wyler to protect the company, and to protect my job, but most of all because I could lie. July 24th, 1994 was a Sunday, the place was deserted, and I was the only one who saw them. I wouldn’t have been there either, if I hadn’t had paperwork to catch up on. Anyone who thinks being a mining engineer is all excitement and travel should see the tons of reports and forms I’ve had to plow through over the years!

Anyway, I was just finishing for the day when a Volvo station wagon pulled up out front and this whole family got out. I want to say here that I have never seen such excited people who weren’t going to the circus in my whole life. They looked like the people on the TV ads who have just won the Publishers” Clearing House Sweepstakes!

There were five of them: Dad (the Ohio woman’s brother, he would have been), Mom, Big Brother, Big Sis, and Little Brother. LB looked to be four or so, although having read the Wyler woman’s letter (which was sent in July of this year), I know now he was a little older, just small for his age.