Page 4 (1/2)

Chapter 1

There were three watchers, two lasses It was a question of distance They were alet area, because of the terrain There was no closer cover It was low, undulating country, burned khaki by the sun, grass and rock and sandy soil alike The nearest safe concealulch scraped out a o by a different cli rivers

The men lay prone in the dust with the early heat on their backs, their telescopes at their eyes The boy scuttled around on his knees, fetching water fro coht in a dusty pick-up truck, the long way around, across the empty land from the west They had thrown a dirty tarpaulin over the truck and held it doith rocks They had eased forward to the ri their telescopes as the lowsun dawned to the east behind the red house almost a , and they were low on conversation

"Time?" one of theone eye open and the other eye shut

The boy checked his watch

"Six-fifty," he answered

"Any moment now," the man with the telescope said

The boy opened his book and prepared to make the same notes he had made four times before

"Kitchen light on," the man said

The boy wrote it down 6:50, kitchen light on The kitchen faced the sun, so it stayed dark even after dawn

"On her own?" the boy asked

"Sa

Maid prepares breakfast, the boy wrote Target still in bed The sun rose, inch by inch It jacked itself higher into the sky and pulled the shadows shorter and shorter The red house had a tall chier on a sundial The shadow itand shortened and the heat on the watchers' shoulders built higher Seven o'clock in theBy nine, it would be fearsome And they were there all day, until dark, when they could slip away unseen

"Bedroo," the second man said "She's up and about "

The boy wrote it down 7:04, bedroom drapes open

"Now listen," the first man said

They heard the well pump kick in, faintly from almost a mile away A quiet mechanical click, and then a steady low drone

"She's showering," the man said

The boy wrote it down 7:06, target starts to shower

Theto happen while she was in the shower How could it? They lowered their telescopes and blinked against the brassy sun in their eyes The well pump clicked off after six minutes The silence sounded louder than the faint noise had The boy wrote: 7:12, target out of shower The ain

"She's dressing, I guess," the first man said

The boy giggled "Can you see her naked?"

The second ulated twenty feet to the south He had the better view of the back of the house, where her bedroom as

"You're disgusting," he said "You know that?"

The boy wrote: 7:15, probably dressing Then: 7:20, probably downstairs, probably eating breakfast

"She'll go back up, brush her teeth," he said

The man on the left shifted on his elbows "For sure," he said "Prissy little thing like that "

"She's closing her drapes again," the ht said

It was standard practice in the west of Texas, in the summer, especially if your bedroom faced south, like this one did Unless you wanted to sleep the next night in a room hotter than a pizza oven

"Stand by," the oes out to the barn now " It was a wager that nobody took, because so far four times out of four she had done exactly that, and watchers are paid to notice patterns "Kitchen door's open " The boy wrote: 7:27, kitchen door opens "Here she comes "

She caham dress that reached to her knees and left her shoulders bare Her hair was tied back behind her head It was still damp from the shower

"What do you call that sort of a dress?" the boy asked

"Halter," the man on the left said

7:28, cooes to barn, the boy wrote She walked across the yard, short hesitant steps against the uneven ruts in the baked earth, maybe seventy yards She heaved the barn door open and disappeared in the gloom inside

The boy wrote: 7:29, target in barn "How hot is it?" the man on the left asked

"Maybe a hundred degrees," the boy said "There'll be a storm soon Heat like this, there has to be "

"Here coht said

Miles to the south, there was a dust cloud on the road A vehicle, ress north

"She's coet comes out of barn, the boy wrote "Maid's at the door," the man said

The target stopped at the kitchen door and took her lunch box froht blue plastic with a cartoon picture on the side She paused for a second Her skin was pink and damp from the heat She leaned down to adjust her socks and then trotted out to the gate, through the gate, to the shoulder of the road The school bus slowed and stopped and the door opened with a sound the watchers heard clearly over the faint rattle of the idling engine The chro and drifted in the hot still air The target heaved her lunch box onto the step and grasped the bright rails and claain and the watchers saw her corn-colored head bobbing along level with the base of the s Then the engine noise deepened and the gears caught and the busup behind it

7:36, target on bus to school, the boy wrote