6

The rider stepped off the train and down into the snowdrifts. It was near dark already, late afternoon, the night coming fast and mean and long at this latitude. The rider didn’t mind. He loved the winter months.

It was the emptiness, mostly. It was the way the tourists cleared out, their camper vans and SUVs all done choking the highways, crowding into towns, pushing out the locals. It was the way the restaurants emptied out, the stores, the parks. It was the stillness, the way the snow muted every sound until it felt like you were the only person in the mountains, and maybe the world.

There was a peace in the winter that didn’t exist when the weather warmed. There was a calm, but that calm had an edge to it, a darkness on the fringes. People left the mountains in the winter because the mountains were dangerous. They left for fear of the cold, for fear of the howling-banshee storms that brought snow and wreaked havoc, closing the roads and isolating the towns, sending cars skittering off the highway and into ravines. Only the strong survived in the winter. The weak perished long before spring.

It was true that it was more difficult to find prey in the winter. Every predator knew that. Most viable candidates had learned to migrate or hibernate; anything with any sense left the mountains, and people were no different.

But the rider didn’t mind. Those who stayed behind stayed because they had no other choice. They were bound to the mountains by circumstance, lack of resources, lack of opportunity. They were weakened by the cold and the lack of tourist dollars, desperate and vulnerable. The rider liked vulnerable. Vulnerable made for easy targets.

And the snow was damn good at hiding bodies. People disappeared in winter. They turned up in the thaw, dead as could be, and nobody batted an eye. Easy for someone to get lost in a storm. Walk the wrong way coming home from the bar and you’d die in a snowdrift, easy. No one really asked questions. The winter was deadly. People took that as fact.

The rider had come west again, caught on a slow, heavy drag, stepped off when the train slowed at a crew-change point nestled deep within the mountains. The change point was a small town, railroad-dependent, a hotel for the train crews and a bar for them, too; a few houses and a gas station, a sad excuse for a school.

The snow had eased to a few stray flakes, but the roads were still covered, and what little traffic passed the rider passed him slowly and cautiously. He kept to the shadows, turned away when he saw headlights, heard the crunch of tires approaching.

The bar was half full when the rider walked in the door, Bob Seger on the jukebox, a thick cloud of tobacco smoke filling the small room, nobody caring to enforce the state’s smoking ban. A few faces turned when the rider walked in, looked him over from behind their bottles, turned away again. Impolite to stare, and anyway, the rider knew he didn’t look like much. He fit in, in places like this. He looked like he belonged with this crowd.

What crowd there was consisted of a handful of aging loners propping up the bar, a table of railroad guys in the corner by the jukebox, some truck drivers playing pool, and a couple of women. And the bartender, who wore a look like he was wishing he’d skipped town when he was still young enough to make a go of it.

The rider slid a five on the bar and ordered a Budweiser. Left the change and retreated into the smoke, found a booth in the corner. He kept his eyes on the table as he drank the beer, avoided eye contact with the rest of the crowd, knew mostly everyone would forget he was there.

“Buy me a drink?”

One of the women; she’d watched him come in. She stood at the edge of his table, hip cocked, a short skirt and a beer company tank top, cut low enough to show off the tops of her breasts. She wore heavy makeup, was fighting a losing battle; even in the dim light, the rider could see she was well past middle age.

The rider met her eyes, then looked away fast, a reflex he hated and was powerless to control. He forced himself to look up again, study her face. Made himself see that she was just like the others.

She’s just an animal. An ignorant beast, simple and cruel. And she’s only here to manipulate you, just like the others.

Like all of them.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” the woman continued, smiling everywhere but her eyes. “You work on the trains?”

The rider shook his head. “Just passing through.”

“A wanderer, huh? Man after my own heart.” The woman shifted on her heels, smiled wider, plastic. “Listen, you’re cute and I’m thirsty,” she said. “How about we get this thing started?”

The rider swallowed his revulsion. He set the bottle down, lay his left hand flat on the table so she could see the glint of gold on his ring finger. Now wasn’t the time. Not yet. Not like this.

“Gee, I’d love to,” he told the woman. “But I swore I’d behave.”

Disappointment flashed behind the woman’s eyes, but just briefly. Then she smiled again, bright as she could fake it, and straightened. “The last honest man,” she said, turning to leave. “I guess I can’t be mad at that. You have a nice night, anyway.”

—

The rider stayed in the bar, in his corner, all but invisible. He finished his Budweiser and ordered another, left another five on the bar. He drank slow, and he watched the railroad guys play the jukebox. Watched the truckers shoot pool. Watched the woman and a couple more work the room.

Whores. The rider made himself sit still. Watched the women and let the hate burn hot inside him—need and jealousy and envy and desire, a hundred emotions burning together in one searing flame.

After about an hour, the woman found a willing partner, one of the railroad guys. His friends hooted and jeered after him as he took the woman’s hand and followed her out of the bar. The rider watched her go. Watched the railroaders laugh and slap one another on the back. He nursed his beer.

The woman and the railroader came back a half hour or so later. His buddies cheered again, and he blushed and bought a beer and sat down, steadfastly refusing to look in the woman’s direction.

A couple other women dropped by the rider’s table. They made similar pitches for his time. The rider showed them the ring. The women wandered away again.

Fat fucking chance, the rider thought. Money, that’s all you’re after. You wouldn’t even look at me if you didn’t see me as a mark.

Another hour passed. The rider finished his Budweiser and was about to order another when the woman walked out again, the first woman, with one of the truck drivers this time.

The rider watched her go. Stood and walked through the smoke to the men’s room, pissed in the urinal and zipped up again. Opened his coat and checked the handcuffs on his belt, the scarf he’d fashioned into a garrote. And the knife in its sheath on his belt, the bowie with the custom handle, the knife he’d taken from the Indian girl. The rider liked the knife. It was a nice souvenir.

He replaced the knife. Slipped the handcuffs and the scarf into his coat pockets, buttoned his coat closed again, and walked out of the restroom. There was a rear exit to the bar, just beyond the restroom doors. Let the marks walk out the front door with the whores. When a girl disappeared, they’d be the first suspects. The rider slipped out the back door instead, unnoticed.

The snow had picked up a little bit, but not enough to be consequential. The rider circled around the side of the building to the parking area, kept to the edge of the lot, found a stand of pine trees, and waited there.

He surveyed the lot. Found the truck drivers’ rides, a couple of logging rigs, Kenworth sleeper cabs towing skeleton trailers. The rider watched the rigs. The snow fell. A car crunched by on the main road in front of the bar. Somewhere in the distance, a diesel engine throbbed.

The cab light came on inside the nearest rig. Then the door opened and the woman climbed down, slipping a little in her heels on the snowy ground. The trucker locked the door to his rig and hurried back into the bar. The rider heard the jukebox again as the driver opened the door, the railroad guys getting rowdier.

Neanderthals.

The whore didn’t go back inside right away. She crossed the lot to an old gray Ford Taurus, opened the driver’s-side door, and sat down inside. The rider watched her flip the mirror down, check her makeup, apply new lipstick. Perfect. He stepped out of the shadows and walked across to the car. He was shaking again, excitement and fear and anger, an energy that propelled him forward, drowned out his rational brain, replaced it with something urgent, something primal.

The whore didn’t see him approach. She didn’t look up until he tapped on the window. Then she flinched, gasping, froze up like a scared rabbit. But she relaxed when she saw the rider’s face. She put her lipstick away. Rolled down the window, and her smile was back. “Change your mind?”

The rider grinned back. Bounced on his feet. “You’re just too pretty,” he told her. “I guess I couldn’t resist.”