CHAPTER 6

.....Just short of being accepted as part of town, The Watergate Motel hunched resentfully in a patch of scrub and dust, a loose collection of adobe and faded tile roofing. The cracked neon of the marquee hung loose against faded dreams.
.....The Valiant kicked up some of that dust as it rolled in.
.....The door chime chimed as Wolfe stepped inside, the sound of sitar music playing gently from behind a curtain of beads. As the door closed behind him, the music cut off guiltily. It was replaced by some old school country and western.
.....George Jones.
.....He didn’t sound happy to be there. Who would?
.....Wolfe rang the desk bell. As if on cue, the beads parted and the proprietor of the desert inn stepped on stage. He was pretty styling for a middle-aged East Indian, dressed as if he stole his wardrobe from the costume room of a mid-sixties television western.
.....He tipped back his red cowboy hat, tassels swinging jauntily from the sleeve of his buff suede jacket.
.....“Help ya’?” he asked in a soft, lilting drawl.
.....Wolfe managed to keep his sartorial opinion down to a couple of blinks. “I’ve got a reservation for tonight. Wolfe, Daniel Wolfe.”
.....The clerk made a show of checking the book, despite the nearly full bank of keys hanging behind him.
.....He was a slow reader, so Wolfe looked around the office as he waited. An American flag took up one wall, and photos of the president had been liberated from news magazines and framed to take up any available free space.
.....In the office of The Watergate Motel, no one would ever mistake the proprietor of being a terrorist or sympathizer. That is, no one but an ignorant fool who didn’t have his ethnicities down straight and didn’t have the decor of the office as a handy frame of reference.
.....Omkar Singh rarely left the Watergate anymore, not since the month after 9/11 when a pissed-off cowboy outside The Larkspur had mistaken him for an Arab. In the ensuing whupass, the cowboy’s platinum HHS Class of '86 ring had nearly torn the man’s ear off.
.....He still couldn’t hear properly out of that ear. Although now he kept a fully loaded Bulldog .44 under the counter of the check-in desk, just in case someone else was unclear of the vast difference between an Arab and a Punjab.
.....He didn’t have all that much faith in the American myth of John Wayne anymore, but he’d worry about dealing with the American judicial system when he got there, if circumstance demanded.
.....Finally, Singh turned and pulled a key from the hook and dropped it to the counter.
.....“Room 22,” he informed Wolfe. “Checkout time is 11 am.”
.....“Good thing I called ahead.”
.....“Yes?” Singh blinked. Although having become admirably fluent in American, he was still a little slow in recognizing facetiousness.
.....Wolfe nodded at the collection of keys. Now there were two gaps in the bank.
.....“Yes,” the clerk sighed. “This time of the year is big with the tourists.”
.....Singh had a native knack for sarcasm, though.
.....“I’ll bet,” Wolfe said. “There’s just so much to see around here.”
.....Singh shrugged.
.....Wolfe signed off in the log and eyed the clerk. “Is there anywhere good to eat around here?”
.....“There’s an Applebee’s out by The Mall...”
.....“This town has a mall now?”
.....“Sort of,” the clerk nodded. “We share it with Lumbeck down the road.”
.....“Right... but I was in the mood for some homestyle-type cooking.”
.....“Well, Applebee’s is America’s Hometown Restaurant...”
.....Wolfe imagined it was. “Thanks.”
.....But no thanks.
.....The corporate mission statements of chain restaurants operated on the understanding that most people feel reassured by a menu that tastes uniformly the same from Seattle to Miami, New York to Los Angeles, with all the flyovers in between offering the same tepid product.
.....All he knew is that it tasted like overpriced pulp product with watery gravy, no matter where he went. Personally, he liked to taste his food and he wanted it to taste good.
.....He scooped up the key and headed for the door.
.....“No guests,” Singh called out to him. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”

.....Wolfe threw his dufflebag on the bed and inhaled a breath of stale air. It was laced with a traditional lingering undertone of ancient cat piss. He picked up the remote and aimed it towards the television, thumbed the power button.
.....And thumbed it...
.....There was no response from the television.
.....He took the extra step from the side of the bed and hit the power button on the set. A white dot appeared on the screen, split in a horizontal line before opening up into the flickering image of a televangelist.
.....Wolfe turned back to unpack. He unzipped the leather duffel bag and pulled out a toothbrush, tube of Pearl Drops paste, and a Gillette razor locked into its plastic mount.
.....Putting the gear aside on the bed, Wolfe began to dig for some clean underwear. He buried his nose in a pair of boxers and sniffed. He hoped that they had installed a Laundromat in the town since he’d left. Finally, one pair was deemed acceptable and he dropped it on the nightstand.
.....“... beware the number of the Beast, for it is a human number...” the televangelist cautioned.
.....Wolfe amused himself considering that the evangelical might have actually been an Iron Maiden fan in his youth. He doubted it. The man had the self-important bloat of someone who had burned more than his share of LPs in his younger days.
.....He wondered what the neo-Puritans used these days as fuel for the purifying flames in the digital age. MP3 files just wouldn’t seem to be able to burn with the same righteous glory that vinyl had.
.....He opened the drawer below the phone, pulling the slim volume of battered phonebook from beneath an uncracked Gideon’s Bible. He paused to change the channel, only to find no other options but varieties of snow.
.....Wolfe turned off the set and sat down on the bed to let his fingers do the walking.
.....It was a short walk to the Restaurant section, and an even shorter menu. It was not a good sign when McDonald's was listed under Restaurants in the Yellow Pages.
.....It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for:
.....The Teapot Dome Cafe.
.....He slid the slim volume under the telephone and retrieved his shaving gear as he turned to see what awaited in the shower.

.....A half-hour later the Valiant was rolling back down Main Street. A few minutes of that timeframe was occupied with the reflection of a Hummer 2 cruiser looming large in the rearview mirror.
.....Finally, the light bar of the cruiser sprung to life and the siren chirupped.
.....Wolfe muttered an obscenity and eased the car over to the curb. At least I got to shave and wash my hair before I met the welcome wagon, he mused.
.....From the reflection of the sideview mirror, Wolfe watched as the door of the Hummer opened and a jackboot slid out, ground in the gravel as the bulk of the officer followed; black paramilitary jumpsuit with a utility belt hanging low on the hip.
.....A gloved hand reached down to unsnap the holster, revealing the grip of a .50 Desert Eagle semiautomatic.
.....Not exactly standard police issue, but not much about the local police seemed standard to Wolfe. The officer slammed his door and approached the Valiant with thumbs tucked into the belt to frame the buckle, fingers cupped and ready to play.
.....The cop looked down at Wolfe, tipping back his Stetson to reveal mirrored aviator shades and a neatly trimmed black mustache.
.....HICKS read the name tag, and Wolfe held his tongue.
.....He had his license and registration ready. “Afternoon, officer.”
.....“Afternoon,” the deputy nodded. “License and...”
.....Wolfe handed them over.
.....A plank face eyed him over the driver’s license. “Hm. Been through this one a lot, huh?”
.....Wolfe shrugged. “Can I ask what...”
.....“Your taillight was flickering.”
.....“Taillight?” Wolfe frowned. “How did... it’s daylight, right? How would you...?”
.....The plank face hardened. “You tellin’ me how to do my job?”
.....“No, Sir…I wouldn’t dream of it.”
.....The officer unsnapped a pouch on his utility belt and withdrew a capable-looking little black gadget, roughly the size of a paperback book. He swiped Wolfe’s license through the little machine and examined the card as the numbers ran. The device chirped busily as it went about its duty.
.....“California, huh?” the deputy remarked offhandedly.
.....“Yep,” Wolfe replied.
.....“You speak pretty good American.”
.....Wolfe blinked up at the cop. “Excuse me?”
.....“The national language there is Commie, right?”
.....Wolfe wondered if The Man might be having some fun with him. But then, the cop's unlined face didn't seem to have much experience with humor.
.....“Oh... right,” he replied, winging it. “I took ESL at an early age.”
.....The cop tilted his head. “ESL?”
.....“English as a Second Language.”
.....“You being smart with me?”
.....Wolfe smiled carefully. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”
.....“You’d be right about that, Hoss.”
.....The officer keyed numbers into the machine and a ticket scrolled out. He tore it loose and handed it to Wolfe with the license and registration.
.....“You might want to take care of that problem ASAP,” he offered. “Wouldn’t want to get rear-ended in the dark, would you?”
.....“No... no, I wouldn’t.”
.....The cop waited.
.....“Sir,” Wolfe finally added.
.....The officer gave Wolfe a two-finger salute from the broad brim of his hat and turned back to his cruiser.
.....As he waited for the cop to move on back to his vehicle, Wolfe’s attention was distracted by the building snap of heel taps, the sound of high-gloss Maurader boots stabbing the sidewalk.
.....The sharply-dressed recruiter that had been trolling the arcade was in the 'hood. The aftermarket boots were a violation of Army dress code, but he liked the flash and having his own soundtrack pleased him.
.....Ramrod stiff and marching as on a mission, the soldier maneuvered his way down the sidewalk past the Valiant and snapped a razor sharp hard right. He went up the path to a modest but responsibly maintained ranch-style home.
.....He rang the doorbell which lie just beneath a pleasant sign that read The Zieglers.

CHAPTER 5

.....With the late morning rendezvous outside the Blockbuster fulfilled, The Wrecking Crew was complete. Word. It was a silly nickname for the posse, although no sillier than most self-inflicted nicknames.
.....As usual, Scot T was the last to arrive, red hair still tousled with bedhead. He tamped it down with his Tigers cap. The boy sidled up to The Crew and his hand dropped down with casual ease to cup Lolita’s ass.
.....“Whassup, niggaaaahz?” he drawled, lurching forward to bump fists with Pierce.
.....He winced and pulled back at the jab of a sharp elbow to his side from Lolita. The wigger blinked at her in confusion.
.....“Yo, bee-yotch,” he drawled, weaving back and forth as his hands threw down with a mishmash of MTV-sampled wannabe gang signs. “Why you be hatin’...”
.....She shushed him, gesturing with her eyes towards the video store.
.....Scott T looked over and shrunk a little, his hands retreating to the pockets of his baggy pants.
.....Doc Taylor was in the house... or at least, in the doorway of the shop. A well-maintained black man in his mid-seventies, he eyed the group as he handrolled a cigarette. Belying his snow-white hair and deeply creased features, his hands were steady and his eyes were sharp... apparently as sharp as his hearing.
.....Whoops.
.....Scot T cleared the faux jive from his throat. “Good morning, Dr. Taylor.”
.....“Morning,” replied the doctor. He considered Scot T’s get up dubiously. “Boy, you don’t get a belt for those pants, you’re gonna trip and break your neck someday.”
.....The boy nodded seriously. “I’ll look into that, sir.”
.....The doctor nodded, spit-sealing the cigarette.
.....With a snap of fingers blue flame danced on the tip of his thumb. The Wrecking Crew remained unimpressed by the slight of hand. Every bag of tricks gets old fast in a small town, and they had seen the bottom of the doctor's bag years before.
.....Doc dipped the tip of his cigarette into the flame, paper and stray seeds crackling. Inhaled deeply and held it. He exhaled with pure smoking satisfaction.
.....“You do that.”
.....He stepped down from the doorway and headed down the street, leaving a sweet potpourri of suspect tobacco smoke in his wake. The quartet inhaled deeply.
.....Scot T began to weave about in postured aggrievence.
.....“Yo,” his hands resuming their flight. “Who the hell he be callin’ boy?”
.....Pierce opened the door to the video store, bowing low as he gestured with a sweep of his free hand their first stop of the day.
.....“Word up, niggahs,” Pierce laughed. “Let the Wrecking Crew roll.”
.....They rolled.

.....The monitors bolted to the ceiling of the Blockbuster sputtered promos for upcoming releases. Remakes of flicks that no one was all that impressed the first time around. The bottom of the barrel was being scraped.
.....They were ignored by the patrons trolling the rows as they scanned the banks of videos and DVD clamshells for the evening’s diversion. The current crop of new releases didn’t look all that inviting and cost twice as much to rent, so the majority cruised the aisles for old favorites.
.....It was an uneasy time of the morning, early enough that most of the John Wayne titles hadn’t been returned yet and late enough that the returns had already been rented for the evening.
.....In the Video Game section, Mike dropped his selection as Pierce slammed a shoulder into him. The rest of the group hung back, glinty-eyed at the coming release. Pierce eyed the case laying on the floor at their feet.
.....“Ooh. Medal of Honor,” he smirked at Mike. “Gonna go home and spend the night jerking off and pretending to be a warrior?”
.....Mike glanced at the girls and back. “Back off, Pierce.”
.....He took some comfort in the look of unease that Lolita had darted towards Pierce.
.....He couldn’t care less what Debbie thought. He seriously doubted that the cheerleader-knockoff of Paris Hilton was even capable of carrying any thought heavier than a pom-pom.
.....The security camera paused in its rounds and swung back to zero in on the group, red light blinking watchfully. Finally, things were getting interesting.
.....Pierce stood tall, addressing his troops. “Real warriors don’t need to jack-off.”
.....Debbie drew herself up to him, and curled around his arm.
.....“Not when they’ve got themselves a real warrior princess,” she purred. She playfully snapped at his ear and spared Mike a cat-that-ate-the-cream look.
.....“He’s gonna be a hero some day,” she added. There were Gold Stars in her eyes.
.....“Yeah, if he can make it all the way through basic training,” Mike scoffed.
.....Pierce leaned in towards Mike, his green eyes narrow.
.....“I can take you anytime, asshole,” he snarled, jabbing Mike with a splay-fingers to the chest. Mike winced and stepped back to keep his balance, then stepped forward to kneel down and pick up the video game.
.....“Fuck you, Pierce,” he muttered, without looking up.
.....Pierce moved in, jutting his crotch towards Mike’s face.
.....“Yeah, well...since you’re down there...”
.....Game in hand, Mike stood back up and glanced at Debbie. He cocked an eyebrow at Pierce. “What, a real warrior princess isn’t to your taste anymore?”
.....Pierce blinked, his face going red. Mike took advantage of the lull to move towards the door.
.....Pierce called after him. “Have fun, faggot.”
.....Mike flipped an extended middle finger without looking back, exiting without another word.
.....With an air of disappointment, the video camera resumed its rounds.

.....The engine of the Hummer patrol vehicle ticked as it cooled in front of the police station where Sheriff Roy Crawford had parked.
.....Instead of going straight on up to his office upon arrival, he had sat down on the stairs for a spell to watch the sun climb higher into the sky. He listened to the sounds of Harding in the course of another Sunday morning.
.....Birds chirped, children playing.
.....No single train of thought dominated his mind, just the indulgence of the idle pleasure to be found in where he sat. His eyes were half-closed and head tilted back as the sun bathed his face with warmth.
.....The stone steps lay cool and hard beneath his buttocks, leading upwards behind him into the open mouth of the ancient building which housed the Harding Police Department.
.....Seemingly chiseled whole from rough-hewn gray rock, the station squatted protectively at the center of the town, dark and unyielding since before the birth of the twentieth century.
.....The pragmatic design of the building appealed to his aesthetics. It was built long before the advent of the generic blocks of steel and glass that served as county office space since before he was born. Usually trimmed with siding pressed in colors better suited to a finish of a seventies-era refrigerator discarded in the landfill.
.....As had those who served before him, Roy could observe both ends of the business district from his vantage point.
.....If he were to cock his head to the right, Roy would be able to discern the sun glinting off of the dull metallic backside the town limits sign four blocks down the secondary road that split the burg in half.
.....An equal distance to his left, its companion stood muted in the shadows unmet by the sun making its way towards noon.
.....Back to back they were posted as sentries, offering in white on green their taciturn message.
.....The blunt nature of the signs suited Roy just fine. Tall and built like a fading linebacker, but with a farmer’s plain features that belied his parent’s Okie roots, Roy had no use for the occasional transgressor in his town.
.....In the seven years since assuming the post, he had arrived unto the conclusion that strangers invariably meant impending trouble, and in his small world, Roy had little to no patience for that.
.....Like the new arrival he had just eyeballed outside the Blockbuster Video.
.....He’d looked familiar. Although the stranger was probably nothing more than just someone’s cousin from out of town and dropping by to maintain the ol’ family connections, Crawford still had Julia run the tags, even if for nothing more than kicks.
.....All those new high tech toys up in the dispatch office, just gathering dust in the absence of any real criminal activity to monitor. Now and then it was a good idea just to go through the motions, and keep the routine sharp.
.....Just in case.
.....He pulled a drag off of his Marlboro and sighed out the smoke.
.....He had no room for complaint though, he reflected. Harding was as quiet as most small towns go, and more likely quieter than most.
.....More ever as not, the only conflict that he or whichever of the deputies were on duty on any given night would encounter would be whether to park the patrol car on a hidden back road for a nap, or to just to spend the shift watching all-night movies off the satellite.
.....It was a routine broken only occasionally by a barking dog complaint or an unruly patron at the Larkspur Tavern.
.....The bell began to toll from the tower of the Protestant church and the Sheriff sighed, his idyll time over. Although it was his day off, the events of the night before needed to be explained and tided up. He field-stripped his Marlboro and left the remaining tobacco to flutter off in the breeze, tucking the filter in his hip pocket as he stood.
.....His knees popped at the effort as he made his way up the stairs.

.....Julia was parked at the dispatch desk watching the Home Shopping Network on the big plasma screen. He eyed the programming dubiously.
.....“Something useful might come up,” she offered in response to Crawford’s look.
.....He watched as a whippet-lean model with fried-out blonde hair waggled a cubit zirconia-studded ring from one of her skeletal fingers. An off-screen voice hawked its merits.
.....Over sixty-thousand bucks the screen would’ve set back the department. That is, if Homeland Security hadn’t have picked up the tab. One of those fancy Samsung flat-panel HDTV monitors with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. He didn’t have the slightest idea what those numbers meant, but the salesman made it sound as if it was something pretty damned good.
.....It wasn’t his money, so what the hell?
.....He heard that there was a 102-inch model in the pipeline, so what with the next budget round coming up, he just might have a used 80-inch to replace the 42” plasma that he was making do with at home. It didn’t make any of the crap they showed on the television these days any better, but at least all those extra pixels made it look like you were getting your money's worth.
.....He could have haggled on the price and scored it over at the Mall from Best Buy at nearly half the price, but with the Homeland allocations came the obligation to purchase such things through the proper channels.
.....Not that the department would have ever even considered the need for such an extravagant toy in the absence of such allocations. And with the approach of the end of the fiscal year, sometimes the boon seemed more of a boondoggle, as he and the department struggled to find creative ways to spend the funds in their budget, lest they have the swag decreased in the next fiscal year.
.....Improbably, his department had found that there were certain limits to the amount of high-tech toys that could be packed into the arsenal. In the surrounding mountains, deer were being targeted by the same high-tech sniper scopes that were putting terrorists and insurgents in the crosshairs over in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they were helping take the venison down with the same type of cold efficiency.
.....He’d seen what one of those Geneva Convention-approved rounds could do to a hunk of flesh, and he had no interest in seeing what it would do to a human. Enemy of the State or not.
.....Meanwhile, the best plasma screen that unlimited funds could buy was being used to shop for costume jewelry.
.....“Yeah, we can start sporting bling,” he agreed. “That’ll look good on the next budget evaluation.”
.....Which reminded him: he needed to have Joey down in the motorpool paint that new cigarette boat in department colors, just to cover their asses on the off chance that some beancounter might come around snooping. Someday he’d have Julia use that internet thing to track down a lake within driving distance so that he and the boy could see what those four-hundred cubes could do on open water.
.....“Don’t be a poop,” Julia retorted. She stuck her tongue out and tossed her red mane of hair as she swung around in the office chair to grab a Virginia Slim from the deck that lay by the keyboard.
.....He’d be a poop if he wanted to, but with Julia on dispatch he never much felt like being one.
.....Police uniforms weren’t supposed to make a woman sexy, and in Julia’s case it didn’t. She made the uniform sexy. He would have made a play a long time before, but he abided by the one piece of sage advice that his old man had managed to pass along before disappearing to who-cared-where: never fish off of the company pier.
.....Nevertheless, he still indulged in leaning over her to scan the screen of the computer, breathing deep of her perfume. And cigarette smoke.
.....“Anything come back on that tag I had you run?” he inquired, faking being able to understand what was on the screen. If he did understand, he would have realized that Julia was trolling MySpace.
.....Everyone needed a hobby, and Julia’s was torturing the true trolls. Today, she was a thirteen year old Goth chick who was looking for someone old enough to be dead. It’s a wide, weird world out there, and she was getting more than The Reaper’s share of hits.
.....“Nope.” She hit a button and the unicorn-themed desktop took over the screen. “He’s just some guy from California. Daniel Wolfe, I think his name is. Want me to have county run a deeper search on him?”
.....“No, just keep the info on file.” He stood back and cupped his back. It popped obligingly. “Did Clyde turn in a report on that clusterfuck last night?”
.....“Which one?” she asked, then laughed at his frown. “It’s on your desk.”
.....“Fan-fucking-tastic.” He started towards his office, then paused. “Still, have him see me the minute he gets in.”
.....He shut the door behind him and Julia brought MySpace back up. His door cracked open again and he stuck his head out.
.....Julia sighed, waiting.
.....“Did you check around to see whether that guy in the Valiant was planning on sticking around?”
.....She didn’t bother to look up as she typed in a response to her latest Daddy. “Well, he’s got a reservation out at the Watergate. Room 22.”
.....“Damn.” Crawford frowned. “For some reason, I’ve got one of those hinky feelings about the guy.”
.....He closed the door again and left Julia to torture the pervs in peace.

CHAPTER 4

.....Wolfe paused on the sidewalk outside Hogarth's Gun Store, shielding the flame of his Zippo from the breeze as he lit up another cigarette. He blinked against the smoke, then blinked even more at the "Back To School Sale" placard in the window of the shop.
.....A middle-aged Mexican worker in oil-stained Dickies overalls exited the store, a dark, polished long rifle case tucked under his arm as he headed down the sidewalk towards a gray-primered Ford F150 pickup truck.
.....Approaching the opposite way, a man and his two young sons crossed paths with the worker. Still in earshot as they passed, the father cocked back his well-worn straw cowboy hat and leaned down to the youngest, eyes directing the boy’s attention to the worker.
.....“That’s what a terrorist looks like,” he said.
.....The Mexican halted in his step. He opened the door of his truck and threw the rifle case across the bench seat. Climbing in slowly, he slammed the door behind himself.
.....Hard. A small chunk of Bond-O cracked loose and fell to the pavement.
.....The child blinked.
.....“Remember that,” the father chided, matching cold stares through the truck's windshield with the Mexican. The worker broke the staredown first. He started the truck and backed out of the parking slot, not looking back as he pulled away.
.....A smile curled from the corner of the cowboy’s mouth.
.....“Call nine-one-one!” the older boy chanted as his brother began to cry. The man smacked the crying boy in the back of the head.
.....“Don’t be a faggot.”
.....The older boy laughed. “Damn faggot!”
.....The reverend was still in earshot, and glanced over with a frown. The father cuffed the older boy. The older boy huffed a protest.
.....“Don’t curse.”
.....Rubbing the back of his head, the older boy glared at his brother resentfully as they continued up the sidewalk to pass Wolfe. His brother would pay later.
.....The father nodded agreeably to Wolfe. “How’s it going?”
.....“Good.” Wolfe nodded back. “You?”
.....“Good.”
.....“That’s good.”
.....As they moved on, the father leaned down to his youngest.
.....“That’s what a faggot looks like...”
.....The cowboy watched warily as Wolfe opened the door of the Larkspur Tavern to disappear into the murk, then opened the door of a white van to load in the boys. Stepping around the back of the van, he passed a sun-faded bumper sticker on the rear bumper that read GOT METH?
.....He pounded twice on the rear door before continuing on to the front and climbing in.
.....A belch of black smoke erupted from the exhaust vent on the roof, and the vehicle backed out. As he neared an oncoming patrol vehicle, the man slung an arm out the window and waved.
.....The cop waved back as the vehicles passed.

.....As Wolfe stepped into the darkness of the bar, the patrons turned to the door and winced against the sudden intrusion of light. Eyes hooded below the bills of soiled and well-worn baseball caps evaluated the newcomer before turning their attention back to the television.
.....The door closed behind him, dimness settling back down comfortably.
.....The sound of NASCAR rattled from the abused speakers of the television, a bottle-scarred Quasar of a vintage roughly the same as the dying neon Olympia sign that crackled in protest against the wafting cigarette smoke.
.....They were in uniform: distressed Wranglers, trucker caps sporting bad innuendo, and untucked flannel shirts. Not the proud cowboy of western iconography, just the idle working class redneck. Long idle, by the comfortable set of their asses on the bar stools.
.....At their backs, a wretched old Indian swayed on his feet.
.....Sorry, Wolfe corrected himself, Native American.
.....The old man was long past his good years; a shock of white hair and ragged gear that looked as if they hadn't met a washing machine in years. Nothing soft about the man... even his wrinkles were harsh. He was pinned in place by the bartender's unblinking gaze.
.....While the patrons' eyes were on the television, their ears were tuned to the drama.
.....“Not fair," the old man muttered. “You took our land, and now you won't even...”
.....“Took your land, huh?” The bartender glanced around to the peanut gallery, eyebrow cocked. The others glanced at each other. Chuckled appreciatively.
.....“Then you must be used to hearing this...” He paused for dramatic effect, then threw his finger to the door: “Get the fuck out of here!”
.....While it didn't seem possible that the old man's shoulders could slump even more, they did. As he turned to leave, his eyes briefly met Wolfe's. The gaze was empty, the fire long gone. His eyes moved on towards the door. Wolfe pulled back as the man shambled by; the raw stench of cheap wine long past its shelf life curled his nostril hairs.
.....Daylight flared as the door opened, and then the intruder was gone. The door sighed shut behind him. The funk remained.
.....After the awkward pause had outstayed its welcome, the good ol' boys resumed muttering at each other, exhaling smoke and stubbing out Marlboros in overflowing ashtrays as they nursed their Miller High Lifes and Pabst Blue Ribbons.
.....They watched the cars roar around in circles.
.....Waiting.
.....Scattered popcorn crunched beneath the soles of his Doc Martens as Wolfe made his way towards the bar. He parked himself in the last remaining bar stool and made himself comfortable, nodded agreeably to the men on either side of him. They nodded in return, pulling away slightly as they turned their attention back to the race.
.....Something was bound to happen, and they didn’t want to miss it.
.....Wolfe joined everyone in watching the television as the cars howled at each other like God and Satan in a lover’s spat.
.....“No place in the sport for a broad,” noted one of the men, shaking his green John Deere-capped head. His observation was carried by an exhalation of cigarette smoke as he flicked an ash loose just short of the ashtray.
.....“Well, she’s winning, ain’t she?” retorted one of his companions, tipping back his Pabst.
.....“She’s cheating.”
.....One of the patrons leaned forward and retorted: “How the hell do you think...”
.....“Less body mass, Whit.” reckoned John Deere cap. “Saves on pit stops, y’know?”
.....A saggy face with a three-day stubble and a less-than-passing acquaintance with dental care threw in his worthy evaluation. “She ain’t all that good-lookin’ anyways.”
.....One of the good ol’ boys in an FBI: Female Body Inspector tee-shirt chuckled. “I wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eating crackers.”
.....The others laughed at his good humor.
.....Wolfe leaned forward and peered down the bar as the bartender set about constructing a mixed drink. A Collins glass packed with ice and filled halfway with Barton’s vodka was being topped off with Mr. and Mrs. T’s famous Bloody Mary mix. He dropped the mix back into the well and slid the drink on down to the waiting hand of one of the men.
.....No straw.
.....Real men don’t use straws.
.....The bartender sparked a wooden match across the surface of the bar and lit a Pall Mall with it, sparing a brief glance towards where Wolfe sat.
.....He dismissed a dragon’s breath of smoke from his nostrils and turned his attention back to the boys, leaning in and sharing a quiet joke. His wit was rewarded with chuckles.
.....One of the men glanced casually Wolfe’s way, then turned back and expanded on the bartender’s comment. More chuckles followed.
.....Patient attention to the race continued as Wolfe waited...

........ and five minutes later, Wolfe was still waiting to be served.
.....“Excuse me?” he finally called out to the bartender.
.....Grinding his back against the inside of the bar, the man shifted his attention without turning his head, factoring in the two small rings Wolfe sported in his left ear. His itch relieved, he steadied as his eyes went back to the television. The cars continued to scream at each other in their endless circles.
.....“Could I get one of those?” Wolfe requested.
.....The race segued into a commercial for Coors Lightning, a bouncy spot in which after drinking one, a sad fat man suddenly loses his girth and is miraculously transformed into a suave ladies’ man. Bikinied hardbodies clawed over each other and pulled at hair in their struggle to get at him. He was whisked away to safety by Paris Hilton, who pulled the man into the sanctuary of her stretch limo.
.....“A Bloody Mary, please?” he continued, as the commercial ended with Hilton’s chihuahua growling jealously.
.....“I don’t think so.” The barkeep turned back to his regulars and looked across the line-up of near-empties separating them. “How you guys doing here?”
.....One of them considered his Pabst, shifting his heft uncomfortably to cause his plumbers crack to shudder like a fleshy faultline.
.....“Y’know...I’d like to try one of them Coors Lightnings.”
.....The others considered his order, then nodded.
.....“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to give one of them a try...”
.....“Set me up with one, too.”
.....“Same here, Sam.”
.....Wolfe slid down off of the stool. “M’kay.”
.....He pushed himself away from the bar and exited, the soft laughter of the boys cut off abruptly as the door of the tavern closed behind him.

.....As the door to The Larkspur hissed shut behind him, Wolfe breathed in some fresh air and pulled out his Wayfarers, propping them on against the daylight that suddenly seemed harsh.
....“Hey, bro?”
....Wolfe turned to meet the gaze of the old Indian. Sorry, Native American.
....“You think that...” the man trailed off uncertainly.
....“Sure,” Wolfe nodded, pulling a bill from his pocket. He paused... it was a five dollar bill. He shrugged and offered it to the old man.
...."Why don't you buy yourself something pretty?" he joked.
....The old man snatched the bill. “Fuck you.”
....He turned and made his way down the sidewalk.
... Wolfe sighed.
....He turned his attention back to the Main Street routine, watched as a super-sized matron waddled out of Starbucks to climb into a virtual juggernaut of Detroit excess.
.....As large as the SUV was, it still tipped uneasily as the matron mounted the sideboard to climb in. The door clicked shut behind her and the mutant Lincoln grumbled to life and pulled out of its spot. The vehicle backed up a few yards and then with a lurch pulled forward to swing into a spot across the street.
.....As Wolfe watched the matron struggle out and scuttle into the local Crispy Creme, the air began to pulse like bad blood.
.....He could feel in his diaphragm the sound of subwoofers being punished, an uneasiness felt before he could actually hear the source.
.....As the unseen vehicle grew closer, Wolfe recognized the song, something from the former lead singer of that old punk band The Misfits.
.....The singer seemed to have some issues with his mother.
.....The bassline echoed off the facades of the buildings and ricocheted down the street towards them.
.....Finally, the source of the noise turned onto Main Street and Wolfe wasn’t all that surprised to see that it was one of those monster truck wannabes, a jacked-up placebo prescribed to salve any masculine insecurity on sexual identity, swaying over wheels the size of Donald Trump’s ego.
.....Wolfe stepped off the curb to open the door of the Valiant, but drew back against the car as the monster truck swung without warning into the spot next to him. He caught a glance of the ugly silhouette of a some form of assault rifle resting in the rear window gun rack, before a flurry of golden hair obscured it.
.....The music cut off with the guttural roar of the engine, replaced with the tick of cooling iron. The chassis shifted as Wolfe heard the driver’s side door open, then the vehicle righted itself as the driver dismounted, slammed the door shut.
.....“Excuse me?”
.....Blue eyes and a tangle of blonde hair looked down at Wolfe from high up on the passenger side, red-nailed fingers curled across the sill of the door.
.....The smell of Teen Spirit wafted through the open window.
.....The driver of the vehicle rounded the front of the beast and pulled up at the sight of Wolfe. Close-cropped sides of mullet bristling, letterman jacket straining against suddenly swelled adolescent muscles pumped with testosterone. His green eyes were narrowed.
.....“Excuse you?”
.....Wolfe slid off to the side to make room for the girl, and the door opened, blocking off Joe Campus.
.....The girl began to back out of the open maw of the behemoth to rappel her way down to pavement, a shapely leg swinging from beneath the cheerleader miniskirt in search of unfound purchase. Wolfe stepped up and grabbed her waist, lifting her down gentleman-like.
.....He courteously ignored the flash of white cotton panties.
.....“Thanks, mister,” the girl offered. She swept her hair back to consider him with those blue eyes. The door closed behind her.
.....If the boy were any more of a cartoon character, he would have had steam rolling from his ears. He was doing a pretty good job of trying for the effect nonetheless. He stepped up behind the girl and looped the crook of his elbow over the girl’s shoulders, hand stealing down to cup her breast.
.....She didn’t seem to notice, or care if she did.
.....The boy eyed Wolfe with hooded gaze, lip curling up to snarl an insult that paused at the sound of an ominous rumble. They all turned to the source of the noise; a behemoth that dwarfed the vehicles it passed, rolling thunder on four wheels.
.....Wolfe realized that this wasn’t one of those General Motors knockoffs that the company marketed as a Hummer, this was the genuine article: a true military-issue Humvee beefed up and painted jet-black with white doors. Smoked windows and police light bar bolted to the roof.
.....As the vehicle rolled up to them, POLICE in golden block letters scrolled along the black of the fender. Against the white of the door, the department crest flashed in the sun.
.....Shadowed by a light gray Stetson, a blank face behind mirrored shades evaluated Wolfe as the cruiser grumbled by slowly. He held a microphone to his mouth as lips moved silently below the rumble.
.....As the Humvee rolled by Wolfe, the cop nodded and hung up the mike. The vehicle sped up and continued on down the street.
.....“Holy shit...” muttered Wolfe.
.....You don’t see that every day.
.....He turned to see that while he was occupied, the psycho and his girlfriend had moved their loitering space over to outside the video store.
.....Lolita had joined them. Her mother was nowhere in sight, and out of stink-eyeshot of the rough trade her precious darling was keeping company with.
.....A wigger wove about the girl like a snake with a rash on its belly, a Detroit Tigers baseball cap cocked at ten-o-clock. His Dr. Dre t-shirt hung from beneath a letterman's jacket, and his baggy pants threatened to drop to the sidewalk at any moment.
.....Wolfe shook his head, climbed into the Valiant. There was another ticket tucked under his wiper. He reached through the window and retrieved it.
.....“Fucking assholes.”
.....He fired up the Valiant and pulled away from his two remaining metered minutes.

CHAPTER 3

.....Wolfe made his way past the banks of video games. Howls of simulated mayhem squawked from speakers in response to the rapid caress and urgent tap of fingers. Youths rocked their hips in solo dances with pixels, slammed their crotches against the machines.
.....He glanced over the shoulder of one the players, keeping his distance to avoid the boy's ducking and weaving. The snap of a dull green Army surplus trenchcoat enforced the distance.
.....Tight-lipped and unblinking, the lanky boy fired back at the digital terrorist attack. The screen flickered with the images of crudely-rendered Arabs firing off AK-47s as they leapt from the dark maws of shattered windows, jabbering “Akbar! Akbar! Akbar!” before disintegrating under the boy’s deadly aim.
.....The game was coded by the best designers money could buy, the money supplied by the taxpayers of the United States and funneled through the United States Army.
.....It was an arcade prototype of the popular online recruiting tool, America’s Army.
.....The Arabs may have been caricatures, but the mayhem was gloriously detailed. The state-of-the-art sound system depicted the gunfire, explosions and screams with remarkable fidelity.
.....The game was supplied free of charge to the arcade, and a thick cable ran from the back of the machine and snaked into a jack in the wall.
.....Finally, the last terrorist was blown to bloody pieces and large block letters filled the screen:
.....MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
.....The boy tapped in his initials to mark the high score: MSZ.
.....All but one of the spots were taken up by MSZ, with an interloper nicked SAG hanging in there at number ten.
.....Wolfe shook his head and moved on to the counter to join a queue of one, a small boy trading in his penny collection for quarters. The chain-smoking attendant was indifferent to anything but his cigarette, but at least postured himself as if he were following the count.
.....“Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty...” the boy counted off, separating the coins into two piles.
.....From deep in the bowels of the arcade came a frustrated “Fuck!” and the boy’s shoulders spasmed. He paused, a frown crossing his features. His count began to skip.
.....“Thirty... thirty...”
.....The attendant glanced at Wolfe and sighed. Wolfe mimed smacking the kid alongside the head and the clerk’s cigarette danced between his grin.
.....The boy swept the two separate piles back together and started over.
.....“One. Two...”
.....Wolfe checked his watch and glanced around the arcade to find a way to occupy his time.
.....The movement of a US Army sergeant in full dress uniform caught his attention. The soldier was making a beeline for the kid in the trenchcoat. Wolfe was amused at how gaudy the uniform looked when you slapped a red loop of braid across the shoulder.
.....The sergeant looked like some razor-creased Christmas decoration.

.....The teen at the video game found his hand stopped as he reached to feed in another coin. The US Army recruiter dropped in a coin of his own, and smiled with a flash of perfect teeth.
.....“Here,” offered the sergeant. “Allow your Uncle to pay for this one.”
.....The boy eyed him blankly. “I don’t have...”
.....“Uncle Sam, that is.”
.....“Oh... right.” The teen paused. The game was already paid for, he finally admitted, so he hit START.
.....The program reloaded and presented a fresh cityscape to obliterate, dark recesses primed with electronic surprises.
.....Unlike the other arcade games, there was no head-banging soundtrack to accompany the gameplay, just an eerie moan of wind through the canyons between buildings. Ambient sounds of distant explosions filled out the atmosphere.
.....And then the mayhem began anew.
.....The recruiter maintained a respectful silence, content to offer an occasional appreciative chuckle for a well-placed shot.
.....The game played out and initials were entered in the top spot. SAG was summarily banished until the next comer with a handful of coins.
.....Perhaps. The top scores were pretty damned impressive.
.....The recruiter finally spoke. “MSZ, I presume?”
.....The kid eyed him cautiously. “Yeah.”
.....“Are those your initials?”
.....The teen glanced at the screen and nodded. The recruiter waited.
.....And waited, as the boy looked everywhere but at him.
.....The recruiter extended his hand. “Sergeant First Class Gary Hutchins. United States Army.”
.....Reluctantly, the boy took the offered hand and shook. “Mike Ziegler. Just plain Mike Ziegler.”
.....“Don’t sell yourself short,” the recruiter replied, indicating the game. “You've got some phenomenal eye-hand coordination going on there. Extraordinary reaction time, and equally impressive tactical skills.”
.....He leveled his gaze at Mike. “Have you ever considered...”
.....“I gotta go.” Mike cut him off, picking up his backpack and shouldering it. “School, y’know?”
.....A perplexed look crossed the recruiter’s face and he checked his Rolex.
.....“It’s Sunday,” he observed.
.....Mike shrugged, glancing at the clock over the door. “Sunday school. I’m late.”
.....He turned, then half-looked back over his shoulder. “Thanks for the game.”
.....The recruiter smiled, waving dismissively. “Not my money. I suppose your dad paid for it, in a way.”
.....“Right.”
.....Mike moved to the door, paused in the sudden sunlight, then hung a right and disappeared.
.....Smile still in place, Sgt. Hutchins pulled an olive-drab BlackBerry from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. He tapped in the boy’s name. His fingers darted across the keypad and added City and Estimated Age.
.....After a brief hum, an address came up on the screen under the parent’s names, Steve and Mary Ziegler.
.....He glanced up as Wolfe passed, sorting his change in palm.
.....The two men exchanged nods as Wolfe headed for the door with a quarter in hand.
.....He was too late. Tucked beneath the wiper, a ticket waited for him.
.....“Son of a...”
.....He pocketed the ticket, then dropped the quarter in the meter.
.....It gave him ten minutes.
.....“Fucking rip-off.”
.....The fat half of a mother-daughter team glared at his language as they passed. Mumu-mama out for a walk with her soft-focus cheerleader. Lolita and her wary escort. Young curves barely concealed by sun-drenched school colors of red and gold, guarded by a thundercloud of Hawaiian print.
.....But the chill of mother’s stink-eye was washed away in the sudden warmth of a Mona Lisa smile offered to Wolfe by the young girl. Her eyes quickly averted.
.....The pair passed with a sullen waddle and a sudden hip snap, respectively.

.....Wolfe maintained a leisurely pace as he made his way down the sidewalk. He began to drop in on old memories, matching them against the current corporate slate of his hometown.
.....The incongruities were readily apparent. Old haunts were shuttered, dark sockets of windows empty of merchandise and looking balefully out to the street. Sun-bleached “Going out of Business” signs peeled back from behind dusty glass.
.....But other shops thrived, familiar now to Wolfe but alien in the context.
.....The Gap. Starbucks. Subway. Jack in the Box...
.....The plastic signage of the chainstores were bolted to faded wood frames and dusty red brick, ill-fitting as a miniskirt on a nun.
.....Outside the burger chain, Wolfe realized abstractly that the OX in the box could also be taken for the ichthys, wondering if...
.....A man of the cloth abruptly exited the fast food joint, nearly colliding with him.
.....Wolfe stepped back, out of his way. “Excuse me.”
.....“That’s okay,” the reverend replied with a smile. “Have a nice...”
.....The smile faded as he looked past him.
.....Wolfe turned as the reverend moved around him to cross the street towards a small boy and girl sharing a bench in the patch of central park, his jaw set grimly as the rest of him followed.
.....Oncoming traffic slowed in respect, giving him the right of way.
.....He mounted the sidewalk. “Willy, could you come here for a moment?”
.....Willy glanced to the girl, then dutifully rose to approach as the reverend knelt down to eye level, and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
.....“What did I tell you about girls, last week in class?” he reminded the boy.
.....Willy was suddenly interested in a crack in the sidewalk.
.....“That they’re silly,” he replied, kicking at the crack as if to make it go away. It didn't.
.....“And why do they wear makeup and perfume?”
.....“Because they’re ugly and they stink...”
.....The reverend chuckled at his own joke. “And?”
.....“That they have cooties?”
.....“That’s right.” The smile brightened. “Very good.”
.....With a forefinger, he eased the boy’s chin up to meet his gaze.
.....“Then I’ll see you in class today. Right, Willy?”
.....“Yes, sir.”
.....“That’s a good boy.” Willy turned to collect his gear from the bench, and in one fluid motion the reverend patted the boy’s ass and stood, hands sliding comfortably in pockets.
.....Willy paused in half turn, then hurried back to the bench. He avoided the girl’s gaze.
.....“I’m gonna be late for class,” Willy muttered, gathering up his books. Without looking back, he plodded off across the grass.
.....The girl looked across to the reverend, who met her gaze of rebuke stonily. Glancing away and down, she realized that the laces on her shoes needed adjusting. She took her time at it. .....When she looked back up, the man was gone.
.....As the reverend moved briskly down the sidewalk towards the gleaming spire that rose over the houses down the blocks ahead, he crossed paths with a pair of matrons.
.....He nodded his head and smiled warmly.

CHAPTER 2

.....Far beneath the notice of the cloudless azure sky, a 1967 Plymouth Valiant sporting dusty California tags roared past a sun-bleached billboard.
....."Welcome to Marlboro Country."
.....The swaybacked billboard served as a forlorn greeting, set against the hardscrabble landscape that ran alongside the road.
.....Ahead, the beer-tacked town limits sign waited.
.....If Daniel Wolfe could have been bothered to glance at the population account, he wouldn’t have been all that surprised to see that the number had not been changed since he’d roared off in the opposite direction twenty years before.
.....The small Wyoming town of Harding was a classic case of the more-things-change adage, with one teenager running off on the heels of each new birth. Or ahead. Sometimes it was related, sometimes not. Somewhere in between, someone died or came back.
.....For what it was worth, the population held at 616.
.....Give or take.
.....And with the town limits sign suddenly behind him, Wolfe was back home. Just for a visit, of course.
.....Twenty years... where did it all go?
.....Twenty years of California had replaced the former teenager with a fairly fit man holding off his approach to middle age middling well. His longish, unkempt hair danced in the breeze that swept through the Valiant's open window. He scratched at his three-day stubble, batted an American Spirit from the pack and popped it in his mouth.
.....He fired the cigarette up with the dashboard lighter, the core still managing to summon up a dull red glow beneath the crust of forty years of cooked tobacco.
.....Rebellius Americanus.
.....He coughed out the smoke in appreciation.
.....The air conditioning and radio in the car had long ago given up the proverbial ghost, but for the eight hundred mile-plus road trip, the lighter had remained a trooper.
.....The crowded ashtray could attest to that.
.....Through his passenger window flashed the ruins of what looked to have been at one time a convenience store. Cheap plastic signage bolted to a tall wooden pole at the edge of the parking lot promised a KWICKIE-STOP.
.....There was nothing left behind the promise.
.....Charred and smoldering two-by-fours poked skeletal fingers up from the sooty ruin, mattressed on the small patch of scorched earth that lay at the far side of the empty parking lot.
.....Wisps of smoke filtered up from the debris and dissipated in the breeze.
.....Then he was past, the stench of scorch still lingering in his nose.
.....The Valiant rolled past the town's rustic service station. The two pumps stood together on the island looking positively ancient. Steampunk even, although the station itself probably wasn't more than sixty years old. Still, he wondered where on earth they could even find replacement parts for the damned things.
.....He noted with satisfaction that over the years no one had bothered to change the faded Sinclair signage outside Harlan’s gas station.
.....A steel postcard from another era, the white silhouette of the big ol’ brontosaur held its tiny head high against a field of sun-bleached green. Once as ubiquitous as trading stamps and service attendants that cleaned the bugs off of your windshield, anymore Sinclair Oil was nothing but the answer to some Trivial Pursuit question.
.....Wolfe figured that some corporate octopus such as British Petroleum or Exxon was probably the supplier of record at moment.
.....In Harding, tradition was sacred and old traditions held more sway than some out-of-town branding, and the silhouette of the apocryphal bronto would continue to greet traffic as it had for decades.
.....That is, until the black stuff finally disappeared, and the last residue of the ol’ dino was belched out of an SUV exhaust pipe.
.....Wolfe pulled a grin and another drag off of the cigarette.
.....One of his more sentient students back in California had caught the Peak Oil bug and, seeing that he was sort of obliged to kindle the sporadic curiosity that might present itself among his charges, Wolfe had encouraged the kid’s research.
.....Soon enough, Wolfe had caught the bug himself.
.....Not so much as an excuse to tear off into the wilderness, grow a beard, clean the guns and wait eagerly for the utter and complete collapse of civilization, but more for the cranky “Wouldn’t it be nice?” woolgathering material it afforded.
.....The ancient signage of the gas station shrinking in his side mirror, Wolfe mused that as the concept of Peak Oil was ignored by the public and the petroleum companies scrambled to squeeze the last gasp of resources from embattled grounds, Harlan's last dinosaur would likely stand proud twenty years on down the road in a fitting epitaph.
.....Beneath it, townsfolk would once again use teams of horses to pull their stripped-down Escalade or Suburban SUVs from one end of the town to the other.
.....Wolfe couldn’t wait. He had no problem with bicycles.
.....He just wondered where the mohawked gangs of rampaging mutants, geared up in football shoulder pads and warpaint, would find the fuel in the post-petrol apocalypse to keep their dune buggies running.
.....The Valiant entered Harding proper.
.....His own twenty years down the road had finally looped around to lead him back, the facades of the downtown welcoming in their familiarity.
.....At a casual glance, they didn't look any different from when last viewed by young Daniel Wolfe in his rearview mirror.

.....A squat skyline of plain brick buildings and the crisscross of narrow avenues frames the central block that serves as park.
.....The park is a token collection of cottonwoods rooted in a verdant green. The trees provide some amount of shade for those who pause to relax on the antique park benches, seats crafted with slats of green-painted wood and held together by cast iron.
.....As the seasons change, the occasional drift of fallen leaves floats in the basin of the faded green bronze fountain.
.....On the north end of the block rises the flagpole, up which the Stars and Stripes forever are hoisted fresh each morning by the local postmaster. Over the years, the number of stars had changed, but the routine remains the same.
.....With the sun, the flag rises before the people of the town do, to snap in the breeze against the big blue sky.
.. ..At nightfall, the flag is brought down and folded by three members of the local Boy Scout troop. The procession then carries the triangle of tightly folded red, white, and blue across the street, to place it back in the hands of the postmaster.
.....Each day the darkly arched eyes of the spartan buildings watch the ceremony, as they continue to hunch shoulder to shoulder about the park. The are old, old friends.
.....The buildings had been erected towards the dawn of the twentieth century with handcrafted red brick. Over one hundred and twenty years before, the imported brick had been stacked carefully to raise block-like structures that would form the heart of the town.
.....As the town grew, the spread of buildings remained satisfied enough not to aspire to being over a story or two high. Over the course of ensuing decades, red acrylic paint was periodically applied to the facades to conceal the coarse material of the brick, applying a certain glossy coarseness of its own.
.....The occasional liberal layer or two of white or yellow paint brings out the ornate plaster flourishes that frame the vaulted windows, imbuing a certain shrewd gaudiness to the facades that brings out a pleasant contrast to the otherwise plain architecture.
.....The tallest structure represented is the grim looking City Building, which houses both the City Hall and the Police Department.
.....Higher than them all rises the steeple of the Main Street Protestant Church.
.....It spears up into the wide Wyoming sky, as if in a constant reminder of what had created them and what will make the town’s continued existence possible, a monument to humble hubris.

.....As Wolfe slowed in the street that ran along the park, the flag hung listless in the non-existent breeze.
.....Mounted below the flag, a camera swiveled to follow the approach of the Valiant.
.....The old Plymouth seemed positively dainty compared to the ass-ends of the SUVs it passed, each adorned with a seemingly mandatory yellow-ribboned ‘Support Our Troops’ decal.
.....Adding a distinctive touch of regionalism, the ribbons were in the shape of the Christian fish symbol.
.....“Ichthys,” Wolfe muttered to himself, debiting five cents from his still outstanding student loan. Finally spotting an open slot, he wheeled the Valiant in and turned the key off.
.....The car shook itself like a dog as it dieseled to a stop. He'd have to swing by Harlan's station and get that looked at.
.....Through the dusty windshield, Wolfe could see the open door of a video arcade. Darkness abided beyond the threshold, an open invitation to the innocent to come be debauched.
.....The sounds of electronic screams and gunfire spilled out.
.....Across the street, two Boy Scouts paused in their rounds, watching Wolfe ease his door open and climb out.
.....The two boys were incongruously in their early twenties, with greasy hair that hung lank. They squeaked like sausages in their poly-blend suntan skins. The uniforms protested against a man-child girth most designers had not considered a potential scout to reach.
.....The first scout was pushing two-seventy and the other was lagging slightly, but he was catching up fast.
.....The jumbo Snickers bar and liter of Diet Coca Cola he was alternating his attention between was adding plenty of fuel to the race.
.....Although the visitor himself was of passing interest, they found the sticker on his rear bumper to be of even more interest:
.....“BRING ‘EM ON”...HOME!
.....The message didn’t seem all that patriotic to them.
.....In fact, it seemed downright plain Un-American.
.....The first entered the fact into his BlackBerry as his second looked on in approval. They watched intently as Wolfe paused to feed the meter.
.....The man patted his pockets: no change.
.....Moving in towards the arcade, Wolfe stopped to eye a large poster scotch-taped inside of the window by the door.
.....The impassive face of a United States Marine eyed him back stonily. The soldier was posed ramrod-stiff against a backdrop of American flag.
.....Block letters printed over his green beret identified him as Sgt. Bryce Crawford. Printed across his lower chest was the epitaph:
....."Keep Fighting That Harding’s Sacrifice Wasn’t in Vain."
.....Wolfe half-turned, looked up and down the avenue. Every storefront seemed to sport one of the posters.
.....Almost as many as the MISSING fliers of teenagers.
.....Snaps of kids frozen in casual poses. Smiles and postured scowls caught like butterflies, photocopied and pinned to tele- phone poles by the hand of the spare few who cared enough to waste the energy.
.....Wolfe entered the arcade.
.....Across the street, the two scouts radioed in a status report.

.....