Once outside she forgot about being angry. The pine trees moved back and forth, soft green windshield wipers across the glass blue sky. Back and forth, just the motion made her happy as she trailed behind Luke and the others through the tall grass. Five guys had come over to walk off Luke’s property boundaries. Walking the land they called it, the men staring at the ground muttering, "Yep." "Looks good." "Yeah." All meaningless back-patting men-talk, with her tailing along behind staring at the tree tops, their needles lost in the endless material of sky. Luke turned to watch Sandra drifting behind with her head in the clouds. There wasn’t any reason to lower their voices. They could be dragging bags of heroin as big as manure from one car to another and she wouldn’t notice. For sure, someone was giving the cops information, but the fact that these thick-headed Idaho rednecks had dared suggest that it might be Sandra just because she was a new face was chewing up his nerves. "If you don’t fuckin’ drop it, I’ll drive back to L.A. without the deal, right now." No, no, they all backed down. Who were they kidding? When people want their dope, it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks. Sandra was totally oblivious to the fact that the blue nylon flight bag was now sitting in someone else’s truck. But she did notice that the same dog-faced boy was with them, and when she looked at his back, a shadow crept over her heart. Still she was determined to feel sorry for him no matter what Luke said. Weird... she heard a buzzing noise. The buzzing was slightly louder than all the insects, like little seeds inside the empty gourd of an Indian rattle, and to her city mind it had to be mechanical. A smoke alarm? She had set one off in a Holiday Inn once just by smoking in bed. This time she was determined to ignore it, unlike the last time when she had jumped out of bed like a bad girl. She had just made love to a boy she barely knew. She thought it was okay, but maybe she had overlooked something, maybe he was too ugly, or had herpes, or maybe it was some kind of quiz she had failed, or her mother just couldn’t stand it any more and hit the buzzer. She smiled remembering how frightened she was, but now it didn’t even bother her that someone had nailed a smoke detector to one of the trees. Just another stupid idea. She looked up at the vast blue sky. Who cared if anyone smoked out here? Luke’s voice slid in between the humming insects, the far away birds and the annoying alarm, slid right into her ear next to her brain, "Sandra, don’t move." It was interesting, no matter how low he spoke she could always hear him. It was that mysterious connection she didn’t understand. She stopped. What? Now what was she doing wrong? They were all watching her from a safe distance. The sad dog-faced boy backed away from the group and bolted for his truck at a dead run. "Back up, baby, real slow," Luke’s voice purred beside her like a cat sitting on her shoulder watching the empty sky for birds, "Real quiet." So, like a dancer, she took one slow but very exaggerated step backward. The smoke alarm still buzzed away. "Now go back again, SLOWLY," he said quietly. She almost felt like doing the opposite of what he was saying. Was he was showing off? Some kind of macho display for the others? But again she backed up one step, slowly, as the dog-faced boy ran back from his truck throwing himself down at Luke’s feet. In his hands was the longest gun she had ever seen, complete with a telescopic lens and other gadgets she couldn’t identify. He raised the gun into position, pointing at what she thought must be her knee caps. Unable to move, her eyes were drawn to the little black mouth of the gun. The conversation she heard at Rick’s about leaving no witnesses ran through her head, and all she could think of was the irony of traveling all this way just to get shot. The pine trees still brushed across the empty sky, but in silence...all the little noises had stopped. "Shoot," whispered Luke under his breath. "Her?" "No, stupid, the snake," Luke hissed. The silence exploded, shattering over her skin along the ground and up into the surrounding mountains. The noise of the gun bounced off every rock in the valley. Luke ran up to her–pleased or relieved, she couldn’t tell. Teasingly he turned her around to look at the dragon they had slain for her, a big fat ten-foot rattlesnake. Didn’t she hear the warning rattle of the monster? Was she in such a daze that she always needed their protection? he joked. She would be dead if it wasn’t for him. "Yes, yes," she said shyly. The blonde dog-boy danced around the snake, babbling excitedly about his perfect hit. He had creased its skull, killing it, but not damaging its skin in any way. He went on to describe the other perfect hits he had made as a sniper in ’Nam. Luke let him talk. He had earned it. As they stood around inspecting dog face’s gun, Sandra and the dead snake looked on. She tried to join them in their after-kill talk–polite ooohs and ahhhs over the gun. It’s the largest one I’ve ever seen (no one gets the joke). So, thank you for saving my life. Imagine shooting a snake in the eye at . . . what is it? . . . forty paces . . . forty days and forty nights . . . the true test of any man in the desert. Dog boy gratefully agrees with her. He doesn’t understand much, but he has one thing they all admired: a natural aptitude for killing. He holds his gun tenderly, caring nothing for anything else, neither his slovenly appearance nor that his shoe is untied, or worse yet that his eyes are cold and dead as the snake’s. He seeks warmth. Today was good, he has traded killing for the affection of his comrades. Seized by a sudden hatred for this boy, Sandra could tell, just by looking at him, that tomorrow he wouldn’t be so lucky. Luke was right about him, he was a snitch. He was sent here to spy on the drug deal that was coming down here under the soft pine trees supposedly without her knowing it. Before they leave Idaho this boy will have more than pimples. His face will be disfigured from the boots and fists of the people that he now wags his tail under. The sad thing is that he will consider the beating justice, and will even be dismayed that they did not take the opportunity to kill him. After all, that’s certainly what he would have done. Moving to the far side of the meadow the boys all bring out their guns. Tin cans are set up, and everything is disrupted by an explosion of gunfire. The sky cracks like an egg and millions of birds fly out of it. They shoot at these too. For a moment everything that moves is in peril, then the meadow is empty. The boys are left alone to kill rocks and cans until the sun goes down. They fill the emptiness with noise.

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