He suddenly felt the burden of gratitude. Having been granted this impossible gift, he felt he should do something meaningful with it. Before today, he’d lived a smallish existence, cooking and cleaning, learning his lessons, caring for Blake, riding through canyons and over buttes, and on Sundays baking something sugary. Now he expected more of himself, although what that could be he hadn’t a clue, yet. Perhaps helping to purge the world of arms was the most significant thing he could accomplish. He tried to envision the planet with no guns, no violence, no war, but it was too bizarre to imagine.

  He held his breath, waiting for a shooting star to wish on.

  DEEP INTO the night, howls of coyotes woke him. He lifted his head and saw glowing spots on the far side of the fire, firelight reflected in several sets of eyes.

  The horses twisted their heads against the halter ropes, sniffing for danger. They nickered and stamped their hooves. Groucho leaped up and growled.

  Matt Reece lurched wide-awake. He shouted for Groucho to stay. Those glittering eyes sunk back into the darkness. He felt movement all around the camp, beyond the fringe of light. He sensed them waiting. He reached for the rifle but remembered the coyotes he saw that morning, ripping their own kind to death. The idea of killing turned his stomach to ice.

  He walked to the fire instead and built it into a blaze. He drew a flaming branch and waved the torch over his head to scatter the pack. He shouted, and only silence answered.

  By the time he was back with his head on his saddle, they were howling again. Those earlier feelings of doing something important fled. Now it felt like the world was waiting for its chance to pounce, and all his energy needed to focus on staying alive.

  Chapter Seven

  IN A pale dawn, Matt Reece woke to snowflakes swirling about his head and warm breath on the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, wanting to crawl back into his dream of lying on a tropical beach. Who knew, another interlude of sleep might let him wake in a warm, happy place where he was not a hunted man. But try as he might, his shivering kept him awake. He craned his neck and saw the trees were dusted with white. The campsite resembled a Hallmark Christmas card.

  More surprising, he found himself encircled by Kenji’s arms, cuddling for warmth while both their heads rested in the same saddle.

  He disengaged himself without waking Kenji. He pulled on his boots and hurried to the fire pit, hugging his serape. He used a stick to dig into the still-hot coals and sprinkled dry pine needles onto them. He blew a flame to life and piled on more needles, followed by twigs, and then branches. When he had a blaze going, he cleaned out the coffeepot, refilled it, and set it into the fire.

  He glanced at Kenji, who seemed uncannily at peace in the snow-blown dawn. Sunrays made his skin seem as luminous as the snowflakes caught in his eyelashes. Matt Reece thought about all they discussed last night. He didn’t know if he was blessed or cursed. Whatever came, he thought, they were now bound to each other for perhaps a thousand years. Much as he revered this man, that didn’t feel like a blessing.

  On the other hand, if Matt Reece had to spend a millennium with someone, why not him? He was as beautiful and graceful and inscrutable as a mortal could aspire to, and he was nearly immortal. And now Matt Reece was too. He hated the idea of being trapped in a teen’s body forever, but he would never suffer old age and disease like Grandpa Blake.

  Kenji’s eyes twitched over a dream. Matt Reece imagined those dreams as a bright and serene time when the world forgot all it ever knew of violence and disease and even death. Yes, those imaginings must be of an idyllic future devoid of suffering. He hoped with burning optimism that it would evolve quickly.

  He pulled his silver watch from his pocket and clicked open the lid. The hands were still frozen at 8:15. He snapped the lid closed and tucked it away just as Kenji lifted his head off the saddle and asked how soon the coffee would be ready.

  They were fed, packed, and on the move an hour after sunup. The saddle leather creaked from the cold. They kicked the horses into a lope and rode to a lower elevation where there was less cover but warmer temperatures. Once they reached the high prairie, with the sun warming their backs, they slowed the horses to a walk and became cheerful again. Even Groucho seemed happy to leave the cold behind.

  They traveled for three days through barren hill country of the Waucoba Mountain range and then along the western slopes of the White Mountains. The country’s stark splendor and vast openness reminded Matt Reece of home. They ate tortillas and cheese and whatever game Kenji could shoot.

  The afternoon of the third day, a towering cloudbank swept south across the land with long tendrils of trailing rain. At first the clouds didn’t seem to move, and yet forty minutes later, they caught and consumed the sun. The day turned to dusk, and the mountains radiated a pewtery light, hard and dull. A white lance of lightning shot downward. Thunder rolled like caissons over the land. Matt Reece trembled with pleasure in the promised turmoil. What began as startling detonations—metallic, clashing notes—faded into low bass rolling in the distance. The first fat raindrops thudded up dust in spurts. The sharp smell of dampened earth saturated the air. Then lazy drops peppered the brim of his Stetson. He lifted his face to the sky. Droplets beat his cheeks, and water trickled down his neck.

  He glanced at Kenji.

  “Looks like we’re in for it,” Kenji said. “Sorry you came?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re in luck, because we’re almost there.” They galloped over a rise and spotted a cabin tucked into a stand of cottonwoods, with smoke funneling from the chimney. It looked inviting, but it was still a half hour’s ride away. The rain abruptly turned to hail—hailstones a half inch in diameter beating on them with stinging force. Minutes later it settled into a heavy rainfall, streaming down as if the heavens were dissolving, turning earth to mud, dry gullies to torrents. They spurred their mounts into a run, but they were soaked to the skin by the time they reached their destination.

  The cabin was rustic, made of horizontal timbers, a shingle roof, and a covered porch. The windows had drawn curtains of dark cloth that let no light escape. Beside it stood a shed with a compact car parked inside.

  They dismounted. Matt Reece called Groucho to his side and held the horses’ reins. Kenji climbed into the car and backed it into the rain so Matt Reece could lead the horses into the shed.

  Kenji walked up, untied his saddlebags, and slung them over his shoulder. “You look done in.”

  “‘Done in’ came and went three hours ago. Now I’m a zombie.”

  “Cheer up. We’ll sleep in warm beds tonight. You tend the livestock while I announce our arrival.”

  Matt Reece unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down with a towel from the camp pack. He watered and fed them the last of the oats and closed the shed doors to lock them in for the night. Groucho followed him to the front door and sat beside him. He wasn’t sure Groucho would be welcome inside. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he was welcome.

  He stood with hat in hand, listening to what sounded like an argument. It didn’t take much imagination to understand it was about him. He knocked, opened the door, scraped his boots on the doormat, and stepped into an area that was a living room on one side, a kitchen on the other. Groucho followed him in. As he closed the door, the only sounds were a crackling fire, a ticking clock, and rain swishing the roof.

  Consuela Rocha y Villareal stood at the sink. Matt Reece had met her. She came to the ranch for dinner several times, and he talked to her at Golden Eagle’s company picnics. She turned to him gracefully, smiling an empty smile.

  In the orange light from the fireplace, she looked oddly theatrical, passing the back of one hand across her brow to brush back some loose strands of hair. She stared at him, and her face was pale and austere, with that hint of red from the firelight.

  “Buenas tardes, señora,” he said, nodding to her.

  “Hola, Matt Reece, ¿cómo estás?”

  “Estoy bien, pero un poco mojado.”

  She nodded. “Sí, eso veo.”

  Kenji sat at a table, drinking tea with both hands cupping the mug. Before him was a sizable tower of money, crisp bills bound by white strips of paper into inch-high bundles. Matt Reece was staring at a fortune. It took his breath away. A MacBook Pro perched on top of the money, and also a flash drive, a half-dozen credit cards, and what looked like two US passports.

  He gasped. “Holy shit! Did you rob a bank?”

  Kenji chuckled. “You’re looking at seven hundred grand. I funneled the lion’s share of my salary into a brokerage account for over twenty years. My investments did well once the country dumped Bush. On top of that, Consuela sold her house.”

  “I also sold several fine paintings, some valuable books, and antique furniture I inherited from my parents,” she said. “Those raised over fifty thousand.”

  Consuela wiped her hands on her apron and poured another mug of tea. She had a sturdy body—not fat, but stout as a Shetland pony—with a head of lovely silver-streaked hair. She wore jeans and a white blouse, with turquoise Native American jewelry on her neck and arms. Her face was wrinkled, telling him that she never exposed herself to the radiation treatment.

  When she glanced his way again, he noted a flash of anger—no, fury—directed at him. She was, he could tell, trying to conceal that rage. Her eyes were birdlike, sharp and fierce. She conveyed a raptor’s deft awareness. No part of her seemed fragile.

  She carried the mug to Matt Reece and held it out. “Es bueno verte de nuevo, Matt Reece. Esto te va a ayudar a calentarte.”

  “Gracias, señora. Y gracias por recibirme. Siento ser un invitado sin invitación, pero creo que no me di cuenta de las consecuencias.” She didn’t seem to mind a wet dog in the cabin, so he decided not to ask permission. Better to not mention it.

  “I see you still have your lovely manners,” she said, switching the conversation to English. “How delightful. You must be having quite an escapade so far.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Beyond anything I bargained for.”

  “Brace yourself, honey. You’ve only seen the tip of this iceberg. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving, ma’am.” He took the mug, blew over the rim, and sipped. The heat scalded his mouth, but he took a second sip.

  “Good. I’ve had my dinner, but there’s plenty of cabbage soup left over, and a loaf of sourdough bread. Shuck off those wet clothes, and stand by the fire to warm yourselves. I’ll bring blankets to wrap around you while your clothes dry. Then you can eat.”

  “Much obliged, ma’am.” He thought it best not to mention that cabbage soup gave him gas.

  Kenji joined him at the fireplace as Consuela disappeared into a room at the back of the cabin. He didn’t feel cold, but the heat on his wet legs felt divine. He pulled off his serape, laid it on the stone hearth, and dropped his Stetson and rawhide gloves on top of it. He took off his boots and stood them near the fire and draped his socks over the boots. He pulled his shirt and T-shirt over his head and arranged them over a rocking chair.

  His jeans began to steam. He peeled them off and stood in his sopping underwear, absorbing all that delicious heat. He slipped his silver watch from the jeans pocket, checked the time—8:15—and set it on a table beside the rocking chair.

  He took in the room. The walls were neatly fitted horizontal timbers stacked to the pitched roof. A calf hide was nailed to one wall, and an elk head hung over the fireplace. An oxblood-colored Naugahyde sofa and matching armchair faced the hearth. This seemed more a hunting cabin than a ranch house, a place where hunters huddled before the fireplace waiting for the dawn when they would go out to kill. He looked back at the elk head. Yes, the air had a slight stench of death, giving the impression that this was a site where life could not succeed for long.

  Consuela returned holding two patch quilts. She handed one to each of them, and then gave Matt Reece’s body a critical stare. “¿Cuántos años tienes?, Matt Reece?”

  “Dieciocho, señora.”

  “Que no se ven más de catorce.”

  Kenji cupped Matt Reece’s shoulder with a gentle hand. “Relax. He’s eighteen but small for his age, a bit of a runt. You should see him handle a working horse. You’d swear he was twenty-five.”

  She walked to the stove and stirred the soup.

  Matt Reece wrapped a quilt over his shoulders and shimmied out of his underwear. By the time he arranged his clothes in front of the fire to dry, Consuela had served two bowls of soup. Matt Reece joined Kenji at the table. He slathered butter on a slab of bread and dug in. He tried not to wolf his food, but he never knew such a consuming hunger. He occasionally tore off a hunk of bread and tossed it to Groucho.

  When he glanced up, she was staring at him with a predator’s scrutiny. The clock on the mantle ticked, and the burning logs crackled. Even the sound of the rain swishing the roof had softened to a murmur.

  Matt Reece sopped up the remains of his soup with the last of the bread and ate it with relish. He wanted more but was too shy to ask.

  The clock’s ticking became loud.

  “I will not support this,” she finally said. “We must get him to a lab. We have to—”

  “There is no longer a lab. We can’t go back.” Kenji’s tone was adamant. “You flushed that option when you blew the lab and posted the video two weeks early.”

  “Don’t make this about me. We were ready, and you got careless.”

  “Ready? Obviously not. But I’ll grant you we are both at fault.”

  “We’ve never experimented on someone so young. We can’t be sure how his cells are responding. Our first priority is to safeguard his health. I know people at UCLA Medical Center who will help us and who we can trust to keep this quiet. It will only take a few days. We can be in and out of there before anyone recognizes us.”

  “We can’t reverse this even if it’s raging havoc. It’ll play its course no matter what we do now. Look, it’s been four days with no visible effects. We made a plan.” Kenji’s voice rose. “Even though you, yes you, jumped the gun, we’ll stick to the plan.”

  “How can you be so callous toward your own son?”

  Kenji’s lips pressed together. He would not answer her.

  The air grew humid from the steam rising off wet clothes. A rank smell, mindful of damp horses, permeated the room.

  She gathered the dishes from the table. “The bottom line is this: tomorrow I take him to UCLA Medical Center for a full regimen of tests. That is not negotiable.”

  Kenji glanced at Matt Reece. “She’s got brass-ball opinions. Always did.” Matt Reece and Kenji stared at each other. Kenji said, “What do you want?”

  She set dishes in the sink. “He doesn’t get a say, and neither do you.”

  Kenji winked at Matt Reece. “I guess we’ll have to shoot her.”

  Matt Reece grinned. “Then we can take all this money for ourselves.”

  “We’ll split it fifty-fifty. We can even take her car.”

  “Yeah,” Matt Reece said, “but I’m not digging a grave in the mud like I did last time.”

  “No problem, kiddo. We’ll just drag her outside and let the coyotes have her.”

  Matt Reece smiled, nodding. “You want to flip to see who goes to get the rifle?”

  “I didn’t bring any change. Did you?”

  “Nope,” Matt Reece said.

  Consuela carried the teapot to the table and refilled their mugs without saying a word. Her face grew as emotionless as a clenched fist.

  Kenji said, “Seems our hostess doesn’t appreciate irony or wit. It’s a vernacular little known in the scientific community.”

  “This is no joking matter,” she said. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  Kenji sipped more tea. “I’m too tired to argue. Let’s sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning.”

  Matt Reece could only agree. He longed for a bath and to sink his head into a pillow. He led Groucho into a bedroom and trotted off to the bathroom. He mixed the bath water as hot as he could stand it and took his time soaking. He could hear them arguing still, but he tuned it out. Right then he was beyond caring. He simply wanted to be clean and warm and in bed so that he could crawl into his dreams. That sunny beach was calling to him.

  The voices hushed, and a door slammed. Kenji stepped into the bathroom. “I guess that tub is too small for both of us?”

  “I’m getting out now.” He opened the drain and grabbed a towel. He stood and gave himself a brisk rub, wrapped his quilt around him, and slipped out the door. The bedroom had two twin beds, the covers neatly laid back. Groucho was snoozing on an oval hooked rug between the beds. Matt Reece spread his quilt over a bed and crawled in. The sheets felt clammy. He heard the sound of water running in the bathroom as he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

  What seemed only moments later, he felt a shaking. He opened his eyes. Kenji knelt beside his bed, his black hair still damp.

  “Even though Consuela is upset, I’m glad you came. You’re a good kid, a handsome kid, and I don’t feel so lonely with you here.”

  Matt Reece’s sleep-drenched mind struggled to understand. “Thanks, but I ain’t so good or handsome.”

  “You took care of Blake,” Kenji said. “That demonstrates your character more than anything.”

  “I only did what anyone would.”

  Kenji caressed Matt Reece’s cheek. “Much as you hate death and violence, you didn’t recoil when you saw cancer eating up that old man. You gave him every comfort.”

  This conversation came out of left field. The room was so still and silent that he heard his own heart beating in even gushes.

  “I need comforting too,” Kenji said.

  Matt Reece stared at him, fully awake now.

  “Let’s share the same bed?” Kenji said. “I’m not putting moves on you. I’m just lonely.”

  Matt Reece grew acutely aware that they were both naked, and his heart rate doubled. He shook his head no.

  “It’d be nice just to hold each other. Could we do that?”