to lose it. But this was not a time either to surrender or to accept the terms of one?s enemies. How did her grandmother put it? We didn?t give our lives. The Cossacks stole them. A Cossack feeds on weakness, and his bloodlust is energized by his victim?s fear.

That was what her grandmother had taught her. If Esther Dolan had her way, the man they called Preacher was about to learn a lesson from the southern Siberian plain.

When Preacher opened the tent flap, she caught a glimpse of mesas in the distance, an orange sunrise staining a bank of low-lying rain clouds. He closed the flap behind him and started to fasten the ties to the aluminum tent pole, then became frustrated and flung them from his fingers. He was not carrying his weapon. He sat down on the cot opposite her, his knees splayed, the needle tips of his boots pointed outward like a duck?s feet.

?You?ve been around men who didn?t warrant your respect,? he said. ?So your disrespect toward males has become a learned habit that isn?t your fault.?

?I grew up not far from the Garden District in New Orleans. I didn?t associate with criminals, so I didn?t develop attitudes about them one way or another.?

?You married one. And you didn?t grow up by the Garden District. You grew up on Tchoupitoulas, not far from the welfare project.?

?Lillian Hellman?s home on Prytania Street was two blocks from us, if it?s any of your business.?

?You don?t think I know who Lillian Hellman was??

?I?m sure you do. The public library system gives cards to any bum or loafer who wants one.?

?You know how many women would pay money to be sitting where you are right now??

?I?m sure there?re many desperate creatures in our midst these days.?

She could see the heat building in his face, the whitening along the rims of his nostrils, the stitched, downturned cast of his mouth. She picked up a small piece of brownie with the ends of her fingers and put it in her mouth. She could feel him watching her hungrily. ?You haven?t eaten?? she asked.

?Molo burned the food.?

?I made these for my friend Mrs. Bernstein. I don?t guess I?ll ever have the opportunity to give them to her. Would you like one??

?What?s in them??

?Sugar, chocolate, flour, butter, sometimes cocoa powder. You?re afraid I put hashish in them? You think I bake narcotic pastries for my friends??

?I wouldn?t mind one.?

She held out the box indifferently. He reached inside and lifted out a thick square and raised it to his mouth. Then he paused and studied her face carefully. ?You?re a beautiful woman. You ever see the painting of Goya?s mistress? You look like her, just a little older, more mature, without the sign of profligacy on your mouth.?

?Without what on my mouth??

?The sign of a whore.?

He bit into the brownie and chewed, then swallowed and bit again, his eyes hazy with either a secret lust or a sexual memory that she suspected gave birth to itself every time he pulled the trigger on one of his victims.

29

PAM TIBBS PULLED the cruiser onto the shoulder of the dirt road and stopped between two bluffs that gave onto a breathtaking view of a wide sloping plain and hills and mesas that seemed paradoxically molded by aeons and yet untouched by time. Hackberry got out of the vehicle and focused his binoculars on the base of the hills in the distance, moving the lenses across rockslides and flumes bordered by mesquite trees and huge chunks of stone that had toppled from the ridgeline and looked as hard and jagged as yellow chert. Then his binoculars lit on a large pile of bulldozed house debris, much of it stucco and scorched beams, and four powder-blue polyethylene tents and a chemical outhouse and a woodstove and an elevated metal drum probably containing water. A truck and an SUV were parked amid the tents, their windows dark with shadow, hailstones melting on their metal surfaces.

?What do you see?? Pam asked. She was standing on the driver?s side of the cruiser, her arms draped over the open door.

?Tents and vehicles but no people.?

?Maybe the Mexican construction guys are living there.?

?Could be,? he said, lowering the glasses. But he continued to stare at the sloping plain with his naked eyes, at the bareness of the hills, the frost that coated the rocks where the sun hadn?t touched them. He looked to the east and the growing orange stain in the sky and wondered