Lizardskin Read Free Page A

Scratch was perfectly still, except for his tongue. Now and then, McAllister could see it flutter out and back. Scratch was tasting the air, tasting the oil and gas smell of McAllister’s cruiser. Calculating the odds and the distances.
    McAllister glanced down at his Browning, trying to work out his position in this thing. Knowing he didn’t really
have
a position in whatever happened next.
    The mama-dog was up now on her back legs, looking sideways at McAllister. She couldn’t smell him in the car. Her tail flicked and trembled, and the pup at her feet started to move. McAllister could hear it making a little beeping sound.
    That was enough for Scratch. He started to slide out of the shadow, like a wave curling across a pond.
    McAllister picked up the Browning and thumbed back the hammer.
    This was silly—he’d shot more prairie dogs than this snake could eat in three lifetimes. Why was he getting involved now?
    Was it because of the two babies? He had babies. Well, not babies. Girls. One grown now, twenty-two and somewhere down in Wyoming at an archaeological dig. And Bobby Lee, six this very day, waiting for him at what used to be his house and was now generally known as the Bitch’s Bungalow.
    No turning back now. Scratch was committed. He’d get to within a lunge of the prairie dog, and suddenly he’d be
on
them. You’d never see the move. There’d just be a snake with a dead prairie dog in his jaws. Mama was still thinking about McAllister’s cruiser. She was not paying enough attention to what was going on around her.
    Cold little brown eyes on her. She reminded him of Maureen,which reminded him about his date—no,
appointment
was more like it. His appointment with Maureen to pick up Bobby Lee at six tonight. It was four now, and he still had to get the car into the station house, shower and change, wrap the present.
    Maureen did not
like
it when you were
late
. That was
your problem
, Beau. You were always
late
. That isn’t
nice
, Beau. So don’t be
late
, Beau. Thinking on that, he reached down and turned off his radio. What could happen this late on a slow Friday?
    Well … just about anything, but they could get into it without any more help from Beau McAllister. He’d pulled his weight long enough to get some slack.
    He watched the snake sliding through the grasses, in and out of the sunlight. It was interesting to watch. You could pick a portion of that body and focus on it, and it would be as if that part didn’t move. The pattern there would compress, and the rest of the snake would just flow through that section. It was like watching the light bulbs on the roof of the Cineplex in Billings. You watched the bulbs and you missed the pattern, or you watched the pattern and the bulbs seemed to move.
    Scratch was picking up a little speed here. Jesus, these things could really cover the ground. McAllister moved the Browning across his chest and lined the sights up on Scratch’s head, tracking it as it made that little sideways move, back and forth, the tongue out and flickering. A few yards away, a soon-to-be-
ex
-prairie-dog mama continued profoundly misunderstanding her situation. Come
on
, Mom!
    Then she seemed to vibrate for a half-second—a flicker and a spurt of dust and she was—
gone
. A rustle in the grass at the far side of the road. A flash of gray tail. Leaving the kids in the roadway.
    Christ, what a cold-assed
bitch
!
    So much for motherhood.
    And here comes Scratch, making his run at the half-blind pups in his path. McAllister tightened his grip and began to pull. He had maybe a couple of seconds.
    beep beep beep
    Christ! He’d forgotten to shut off his beeper. God-
damn
all beepers! Somebody was trying to get him and knew his radio was off. He flicked the switch to his radio and picked up the handset just as Scratch got to the first pup.
    “Five eleven.”
    Man. Just like that. A cocktail sausage.
    “Beau! Where the hell are you?”
    In the background of the transmission,