the rooms are dark but for one. there, bathed in the flickering light of a tall candle, lies the body of the old general we saw at the opening.
is the dead general. even in the bleached ravages of age and death, his face still holds a shadow of vigor and pride.
he climbs a littered and disused staircase, past broken beer bottles and condom wrappers to a dark and creaky second floor.
it's still the disaster we remember. gabriel walks slowly through the room. he scratches up some blood, tastes it.
the recently unearthed skull sits on katherine's desk. feet up beside it, she leans back in her chair looking through a dinosaur book. one of her students, a twelve year old boy, finishes cleaning up the floor and stands beside her.
is a crush of filing cabinets and erector-set shelves. all of it crammed with low grade stuff. the heroin busts and million dollar currency arrests don't end up here. here it's all shoe boxes and dusty files. fragments of small lives forgotten.
mary is still in bed, droopy-eyed and sweating. her grandmother is there, and so is an elderly navaho. he stands beside mary's side, holding above her body a clenched pouch that he passes slowly back and forth.
the sheriff's personal office is turn of the century regal, with high beam ceilings and rotating fans. nothing seems newer than 1940, including the coffee pot the sheriff pours a mugful from. trim with glasses, bolo tie and boots, he looks like barry goldwater.
wood splinters rocket through the smoke as gabriel appears in the doorway. grey horse, everyone, freezes.