of Luther’s neck, inhaling a funk that verged on the offensive but steadfastly remained deeply sexual. It was a smell only lovers got. A stranger would have wrinkled his nose at the presumption.
Luther stirred.
—Are you awake?
—Oh, sorry, Luther. I didn’t mean to wake you.
—I wasn’t sleeping.
—Me neither.
—Why not?
—Just thinking.
—What about?
—Just things. How about you? You’ve got to get up for work in a couple of hours.
—I know.
—So why are you awake? I don’t go on shift until tonight. I can afford to waste sleeping time.
—It’s not as if I’m choosing to.
—What’s bothering you?
—It’s nothing.
—I’ve heard that before.
—You wouldn’t understand.
—Do you have any idea how insulting that is?
—Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that I don’t quite understand it, and that’s why I’m awake, because I can’t figure it out.
—Maybe I could help you.
—You wouldn’t want to get involved in my problems.
—Why wouldn’t I?
In the blue darkness, Luther turned to face Peter.
—Why would you?
Luther’s eyes reflected the moonlight that crept in through the slats in the windowblinds. He held on to Peter’s arm and peered deeply into Peter’s face, as if the answer were literally written there and he would have to make it out in the dark somehow. Peter could feel the pressure of full attention. Here was, if not the moment, then certainly a moment, a turning point where wished-for but unexpected advancement just might be possible, where the door opened a crack and a small light flung its way toward the promising. Peter couldn’t catch his breath. He could actually feel the sweat coming off of his brow.
But, curses until the end of time, it was too early for him to rise to the occasion.
—I think … I mean, you’re a great guy.
—Oh. Well. Thanks. That’s very sweet.
He kissed Peter on the forehead.
—I think you’re great, too, Peter.
—I just mean—
—You don’t have to say any more. It’s all right. Just me and my boring problems. Let’s just try to get some sleep, okay?
Luther turned back around, away from Peter. Peter nuzzled closer to him. Neither of them slept during what remained of the rags of the early morning, Luther lost in his thoughts, Peter berating himself for not saying something, anything better. And so neither of them found out what there was to find out, neither of them spoke when the opportunity was there. Which was too bad, because if either of them had had that tiny bit of bravery available right at that moment, so much of what followed could have been avoided.
It was still dark, and the sleeping bodies of the herd were scattered across the Arboretum’s wide main field like boulders thrown from a volcano. Maggerty slept in a nervous curl at the base of a tree, somnolently shooing away a murder of dream crows that pecked at his bare dream feet. A clear sky huddled overhead, the stars whispering in urgent tones about some universal matter or other. There was no artificial light on the hill of fields, but the moon was bright enough to cast crisp shadows of the many clutches of snoozing rhino hillocks. All was quiet. It was late enough for the olive bats and Hennington flying foxes to have finished their nocturnal feedings and scoot themselves off to inverted slumber. Even the breeze had settled down to rest.
But she was awake. She wasn’t upset, she probably couldn’t have even been called troubled, but there was definitely a disquiet in her. For hour upon hour now, she had been unable to work it out. She was lying down and had pulled distractedly at the grass within reach of her lips until a bald spot had appeared in a semicircle around her. Even then, she kept at it until she tasted nothing but dirt. Finally, she just sat up, twisting her ears this way and that, listening for the usual sounds of the deepest part of the night, hearing some, not hearing others.
Everything was wrong and nothing was. Her nostrils could smell the hint of dust in the air, yet that in itself wasn’t troubling. The eagles weren’t in their nests, but maybe they had just started mating season a few weeks early. The grass tasted bitter, but maybe something had just gotten into the groundwater. Maybe her anxiety was misplaced. The rest of the herd didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. The birthrate had held steady, and the nine calves that had been born this year were neither more nor less healthy than in previous years. The last animal to die was almost two years ago when an ancient male was unable to pull himself out of a mud bog and the animals had to mill around helplessly while he slowly bleated his way to death by dehydration. There was no disease in the herd, no malnourishment, no hoof or skin malady.
So what was bothering her? The herd might be oblivious but the thin creature that always followed them had sensed something, too. He gave off a horribly forlorn and confused smell in the best of times, but lately it had increased to the point of almost being distracting. He also stuck closer to the herdmembers than he had before, even daring to nap in the middle of the herd while they grazed. It didn’t prove anything, but at least she wasn’t alone.
The sky began to change color, glowing slightly along one horizon. She hadn’t rested all night, but forcing herself, she laid her head down onto the dirt mat to snatch whatever slumber she could before full-fledged daybreak. It was still a long while before she finally slipped off to shallow, fitful sleep.
Eugene’s first job for Tybalt ‘Jon’ Noth was the procurement of a car (—Something black, Eugene, maybe a convertible, a sun roof at the very least), so when Eugene pulled up in front of the Solari in his brother’s seventeen-year-old orange Bisector, the one with the sideboards that kept killing old ladies before they moved the bus benches further away from the road, to say that Jon was non-plussed was quite possibly to understate the matter.
—And just what under the expanse of great blue heaven above is this?
—It’s my brother’s.
—Is he adopted?
—It’s the only car I could find.
—What
