knocks, the coyote pack was retreating, snarling, with ears down.
The oncoming dirt-bike roar of a Ranger RZR utility vehicle spitting up twin funnels of sand and snapped-off brush finished the job. The coyotes vanished into the moonlight-dappled sand as if made of it.
The ATV ground its noisy way to the enclave's open gate. I followed, dusting off my supple yet rhino-hide-tough Inferno Hotel catsuit. The driver doffed his helmet and goggles. My Vegas-based, designer suit - wearing ex-FBI guy was looking provocatively off-Road and Track.
Oooh, chica, Irma purred in my mind. Our Ricardo is flaunting his muy macho mode. My motor is revving.
Yup, my uninvited alter ego is the Queen of Shallow.
"Coyotes?" Ric greeted me. "Are they okay?"
Quicksilver circled the Ranger to sniff its huge tire footprint, hackles raised.
"A bit bruised and cut," I said. "We pick a time were-wolves aren't out and then run into their innocent little brothers on a tear."
"They must be hungry to pack in fives," he said. "Coyotes generally stick to mated sets or run in threes."
"Like zombies?" I asked, nodding at the stolid waiting trio.
"Just more stragglers from that lot I resurrected at Cicereau's Starlight Lodge."
"What are you going to do with them?"
"Keep them out of the zombie trade, at least. You bring something back from the dead, in whatever state, you're kinda responsible for it."
His words left me speechless. My tough FBI guy didn't know it, but I may have done exactly that with him.
"I really understand," I said in a serious tone that slipped past him. His mind was still on the wandering zombies.
"The rest have scattered pretty far," he said, "but I won't need you and Quicksilver for roundups after this. Didn't know if Cayuse here" - he slapped the Ranger's sand-blasted engine cover - "would work to round up stray Zobos. It sure does. They shy like horses at unnatural sounds."
"Jeez, Ric. A man and his wheels. You've named that mobile mechanical monster of overbearing tires and sheer ruckus?"
"You've got Dolly."
He nodded at the barely visible black bulk of my '56 Caddy convertible. Her full name was Dolly Parton, and she had the awesome chrome "bumper bullets" to prove it. She was parked on the dirt road that was way too far from the highway asphalt for my taste and her black-satin finish.
"Come inside." Ric dismounted easily in his spandex race driver jumpsuit. "I'll show you the setup. We need to get these Zobos tucked away for the night and the next few weeks. Now that they've got horses to tend and guard - and are safe behind silver wire - they're ready for rehab."
"Rehabilitation for what? Basket weaving?"
"I don't know yet. I just can't leave any known dead wandering around to be meat for the Immortality Mob."
I followed him inside the rambling barbed wire, shaking my head and muttering "Cayuse?"
Quicksilver couldn't trot away from the parked Ranger fast enough. We were two of a kind, urban creatures, especially when that citified outpost was Las Vegas, the capital city of all things spectacular and supernatural in 2013.
Inside the fence I saw the usual barn, horse corral, and bunkhouse.
The three rag-suited Zobos were being tended by four of their ilk, this set wearing Lee jeans, work boots, and plaid cotton shirts with pearlized buttons.
Quicksilver whined behind me, whether from confusion or outraged fashion sense, I couldn't tell.
The brown leathery look of the Zobos' visible skin evoked human cowhands who worked outdoors in the desert. Ric could even open a dude ranch with these guys. The Lazy Z.
"This place looks like the Louisiana Hayride TV show set," I commented. "What do feral zombies eat? I suppose these guys haven't worked their way up to brains."
"That's a bad rap. They eat nothing ... yet. Right now they just feed and water the horses. These are the sleepwalking dead. Since drops of my blood animated them, they have to obey me. I don't know if the Immortality Mob exists, but I do know somebody's learned to exploit zombies."
"We need a word out of earshot, Montoya," I told him. How sharp were Zobo senses, or brains, anyway?
We moved to lean against the crossbars of the corral fence, watching the half-moon reflected in the darks of large equine eyes. As a coyote howled in the distance, the horses did an uneasy soft-shoe over the desert floor.
"Other than your obsession to leave no zombie wandering unclaimed," I told Ric, "what's the point of collecting the ones you raised at the werewolf mob's Starlight Lodge? They were