indulgences, was sentenced to Hades, where he was to roll a boulder up a steep mountain, with one small catch. Just as he was about to reach the top, it would always roll back down, forcing him to start over. He was to do this throughout eternity.”
“And you think that’s us.”
“It did seem like the gods were conspiring against us last night.”
“I say we try shoving it up the mountain one more time to make sure we are actually in hell,” she said.
“Sometimes understanding the futility of our fate is the only form of happiness we’re allowed.”
“Funny, I’ve always found the struggle to be the real reward.”
“That confirms something I’ve long suspected—you’re a better person than I am. If you want to again risk the wrath of the gods, I’ll be back this afternoon.”
He hung up and let his eyes trace the twisting road leading down to the ranch. There was little shade; in fact, there were only a few scrawny trees scattered across the property. Vail glanced at the sun for position, its unrelenting glare warning that it was going to be another hot day.
Vail took his time getting down to the three ancient, colorless structures. They were nothing more than shades of gray, as if permanently in an old black-and-white movie. They had been built side by side without any space between them, and the way the outside walls leaned made them appear to be holding one another up. There was a wooden walkway in front of all of them, with a corrugated metal sheet overhead. The outer ones were smaller and had flat roofs, but the middle structure had a peaked roof and looked like it was the only one used in the last fifty years. A hand-painted wooden sign over the door said “Last Chance Saloon.” Whether it was a movie set or someone had tried to make a business of it after the western movie business dried up, he couldn’t tell.
Kicking up dust as he walked down the road, he cautiously approached the first structure. The door was half open, and he could tell by the debris on the floor that no one had been in there in years. Instead of going in the middle building next, he went to the third one and found it in a similar condition.
That left the “saloon.” It was much cleaner inside and along one wall was a homemade bar. It looked only a few years old. The rest of the long room was relatively empty except for some fast-food containers scattered on the floor.
He examined it again, this time searching for anything that might have the attraction of a trap, but couldn’t find anything. He walked back onto the front walkway and looked beyond the building. Then he thought he heard something up on the ridgeline where he had parked. Stepping back into the shadow of the saloon, he watched and listened for a few minutes but heard nothing else.
Fifty yards farther into the property he could see a foot trail disappearing into a stand of low trees. He started to follow it, and when he was halfway to the tree line, he saw a white paper bag, a twig driven through it holding it to the ground. He bent over and picked it up. It was from Sargasso’s restaurant and it smelled of garlic. Next to it was a 30-06 casing, untarnished by the weather.
As Vail bent over to retrieve it, a shot rang out from behind him on the hill. He dove to the left and rolled, holding on to the shotgun. From the sound of the shot, he could tell it was a heavy-caliber hunting rifle, probably a 30-06.
He half crawled, half ran back to the dilapidated buildings. That’s when he felt the wetness against his shoulder. He reached up and brought back his hand with blood on it. He felt the wound again; his trapezius had been nicked. Three inches to the left, it would have severed his spine.
As he worked his way behind the buildings, he tried to remember if he had loaded the deer slug first or the buckshot. The slug could reach two hundred yards, but with the shotgun having only a bead on the end of the barrel, it would take lottery luck to hit anything that far uphill. The buckshot would be useless at that distance.
When he got to the edge of the structure, he pumped all the rounds out of the gun, then picked up the three slugs