Wiping his hands on the dewy grass and then his jeans, Miguel took a minute to breathe in the chilled air as his gut cramps and chest pains abated. The cry of a night heron drew his attention back toward the main road through town, and he saw the hunched, almost stocky-looking gray and white bird lift off from the wreck of a house a hundred yards down. A flash of red and white zipping from the cover of the ruins gave away the fox that had been stalking it. A rumbling growl began at the back of the dog's throat, but Miguel silenced her with a simple command.

"Quiet, dog. Even the fox must eat, yes?" he said. "And better a useless heron or prairie chicken than some farmer's egg layer."

He heard the screen door bang open as Sofia emerged from the store. She, too, had pulled on her boots, and she was carrying her Remington. Her face looked puffy and pale, and she rubbed eyes that seemed to be rimmed by dark shadows.

"I didn't know where you were," she said almost resentfully. "I don't like it in there on my own."

"That's okay," he said. "If you look after the horses, I will see to breakfast."

She seemed grateful for something to do. If her night had been anything like his, she would be looking for a distraction. The horses would provide one. By the time they had been brushed and had their hooves picked and cleaned and their legs massaged and rubbed down, she would have done at least an hour's work.

"Keep the dogs with you and your rifle close to hand," he said. "I shall not be far."

She gave him a brief, fierce hug as they passed, which made Miguel feel a little better. He had to admit that he didn't care for the ice-cold blankness of yesterday.

He returned to the store, intending to search the cellar properly before he prepared any food. There seemed to be quite a treasure trove down there, but they would have to choose what they took carefully. They did not have the capacity to load up a wagon train, and even if they had, it would have slowed them down too much. He could not shake the conviction that they had to cross a lot of ground very quickly to get Sofia away from the agents.

The cowboy shivered as he reentered the shop. The remains had not bothered him the night before, but now, in the light of day, something like a cold eel slithered up his spine, raising gooseflesh on his arms and causing him to shudder with an unspecified sense of dread. He regarded those taken by the Wave with some trepidation, as though the empty clothes, stiffened and black with the leavings of those who had worn them, might suddenly inflate with their specters and rise from the floor to admonish him-or worse-for living when they had died.

"Madre de Dios," Miguel muttered to himself, momentarily forgetting his own frequent commands to his family to always speak in English. "Get a grip, you ignorant fool," he said more forcefully.

Still, he could not help glancing back over his shoulder to where the dogs sat patiently guarding Sofia as she brushed down his horse in the warming light of morning. The animals seemed not at all perturbed, and he consoled himself that although he was not a stupid and superstitious peon, he had heard it said by such types that dogs were especially attuned to the spirit world and to those who passed, by accident or design, from the place of shadows in the world of real things. If spirits there were in this empty store, Blue Dog and Red Dog were unaware of them. They sat, grinning stupidly, awaiting a feast of canned franks or loose meat.

Tamping down on the very strong urge to step back out into the bright, clean light, Miguel stroked his saddle gun in the oversized holster at his hip and stepped farther into the crypt.

He stopped.

Why had he called it that?

The same shiver seized his whole body this time, and he could feel goose bumps spreading all over both arms and legs. Even his ass tingled with a strengthening sense of free-floating dread.

Miguel Pieraro remained fixed where he stood, and darkness gradually seemed to swirl up like mist from the shadowed recesses of the aisles at the rear of the store. He was certain that were he to turn around, the Disappeared would be standing there, yellow teeth grinning at him through rotted lips, bony claws reaching out to seize him and carry him off to wherever the Devil had taken their souls on the morning of March 14, 2003.

When the dogs began barking, he nearly filled his pants. The two men were on horses, which wasn't unusual. The fact that they wore white business shirts with clip-on name tags and black ties under their navy blue Columbia windbreakers definitely was. They had been advancing down Leona Road on two chestnut-colored horses until they'd encountered his daughter leveling the business end of her Remington 700 at them. Now they weren't going anywhere. They sat very still in their saddles with their hands in the air. The dogs had taken up guard positions on either side of Sofia and hunkered down on their front legs as their wiry fur bristled and their lips skinned back from cruel-looking fangs.

Miguel lowered his weapon as he emerged from the store and recognized them as Mormons. Another two just like them had come by the ranch almost a year earlier, and at the time he had been struck by the incongruity of their dress. It was a sort of uniform, he knew, and he could think of nobody else who would be dressed in such a fashion this morning in East Texas.

"Sofia," he called out. "It is all right. You can put the gun down."

He was gratified to see that his daughter did not take her eyes off the men even as she lowered the muzzle of the rifle.

"Good day to you, gentlemen," he said, projecting his voice down the empty street. He still held his Winchester, but casually, one-handed, pointing it down into the dust. The saddle gun lay heavy and reassuring at his hip. The riders, he noted, made no effort to place their weapons within easier reach. They each appeared to have modern military-style rifles slung across their backs, and he could see no evidence of a quick-draw saddle gun such as his own Lupara.

"Good morning to you, sir," one of them called back, waving with what looked like forced cheer. "Do you homestead around here, or are you passing through?"

"Around here," he answered with some care. There was no reason to explain to these men what he and his daughter were doing on the trail. "But I am traveling north. Yourselves?"

"We head north as well. To Kansas City, with a herd of beef cattle."

"Advance riders?" he asked, walking out to meet them in the center of the road.

Sofia turned slightly at the hip to watch him as he walked toward them, her gun pointed down but her finger still firm on the trigger. Miguel could see no sign of a big herd anywhere near town. His horses had trotted up to the fence line of the property where he had secured them for the night. They snorted and whinnied at the new arrivals while the dogs remained on guard on either side of his daughter. Should trouble develop, they would fly at the men's horses with fangs bared. The chance meeting did not feel dangerous, though, despite an air of strain about the men.

"Our main group is some miles back. Near Elwood," said the second rider, who had not spoken before. "We've ridden up to see whether there is pasture and shelter for them here at Leona, or whether it might be best to push on for Centerville. My name is Willem D'Age, and this is Cooper Aronson. Besides driving cattle we are witnesses for the Lord and…"

Miguel waved him off before he could get into his sales pitch.

"I am Catholic," he said. "For what it's worth. That will do me fine for now."

"And on Judgment Day?" Aronson asked.

Miguel gestured to the ruins of Leona behind him. "Some might think that Judgment Day has come and gone and left us all in its wake, my friend."

The Mormons nodded somberly.