"In fact, yes." Jack was relieved that the postures they had chosen relative to each other made it possible to avoid meeting the veterinarian's eyes without causing suspicion. He told Travis about the crow at the window that morning-and how, later, it had flown tight circles over him and Toby while they played with the Frisbee.
"Curious," Travis said. "It might be related, I guess. On the other hand, there's nothing that bizarre about its behavior, not even pecking the glass. Crows can be damned bold. It still around here?" They both pushed away from the Rover and stood scanning the sky. The crow was gone.
"In this wind," Travis said, "birds are sheltering." He turned to Jack.
"Anything besides the crow?" That business about toxic substances had convinced Jack to hold off telling Travis Potter anything about the graveyard. They were discussing two utterly different kinds of mystery: poison versus the supernatural, toxic substances as opposed to ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night. The incident on the cemetery knoll was evidence of a strictly subjective nature, even more so than the behavior of the crow, it didn't provide any support to the contention that something unspeakably strange was going on at Quartermass Ranch. Jack had no proof it had happened. Toby clearly recalled none of it and could not corroborate his story. If Eduardo Fernandez had seen something peculiar and withheld it from Travis, Jack sympathized with the old man and understood. The veterinarian was predisposed to the idea that extraordinary agents were at work, because of the brain swelling he'd found in the autopsies of the raccoons, but he was not likely to take seriously any talk of spirits, possession, and eerie conversations conducted in a cemetery with an entity from the Beyond.
Anything besides the crow? Travis had asked. Jack shook his head.
"That's all."
"Well, maybe whatever brought those coons down, is over with. We might never know. Nature's full of odd little tricks." To avoid the vet's eyes, Jack pulled back his jacket sleeve, glanced at his watch. "I've kept you too long if you want to finish your rounds before the snow sets in."
"Never had a hope of managing that," Travis said. "But I should make it back home before there're any drifts the Rover can't handle." They.shook hands, and Jack said, "Don't you forget, a week from tomorrow, dinner at six. Bring a guest if you've got a lady friend." Travis grinned. "You look at this mug, it's hard to believe, but there's a young lady willing to be seen with me. Name's Janet."
"Be pleased to meet her," Jack said. He dragged the fifty-pound bag of dog chow away from the Rover and stood by the driveway, watching the vet turn around and head out.
Looking in the rearview mirror, Travis Potter waved. Jack waved after him and watched until the Rover had disappeared around the curve and over the low hill just before the county road.
The day was a deeper gray than it had been when the vet arrived. Iron instead of ashes. Dungeon gray. The ever-lowering sky and the black-green phalanxes of trees seemed as formidably restricting as walls of concrete and stone. A bitterly cold wind, sweetened by the perfume of pines and the faint scent of ozone from high mountain passes, swept out of the northwest. The boughs of the evergreens strained a low mournful sound from that rushing river of air, the grassy meadows conspired with it to produce a whispery whistle, and the eaves of the house inspired it to make soft hooting sounds like the weak protests of dying owls lying with broken wings in uncaring fields of night. The countryside was beautiful even in that prestorm gloom, and perhaps it was as peaceful and serene as they had perceived it when they'd first driven north from Utah. At that moment, however, none of the usual travel-book adjectives sprang to mind as a singular and apt descriptive. Only one word suited now. Lonely. It was the loneliest place Jack Mcgarvey had ever seen, unpopulated to distant points, far from the solace of neighborhood and community.
He hefted the bag of dog chow onto his shoulder. Big storm coming. He went inside. He locked the front door behind him. He heard laughter in the kitchen and went back there to see what was happening.
Falstaff was sitting on his hindquarters, forepaws raised in front of him, staring up yearningly at a piece of bologna that Toby was holding over his head.
"Dad, look, he knows how to beg," Toby said. The retriever licked his chops.
Toby dropped the meat. The dog snatched it in midair, swallowed, and begged, for more.
Isn't he great?" Toby said. "He's great," Jack agreed. "Toby's hungrier than the dog," Heather said, getting a large pot out of a cabinet. "He didn't have any lunch, he didn't even eat the raisin cookies I gave him when he went outside.
Early dinner okay?" me," Jack said, dropping the bag of dog chow in a corner, with the intention of finding a cupboard for it later.
"Spaghetti?"
"Perfect."."We have a loaf of crusty French bread. You make the salads?"
"Sure," Jack said as Toby fed Falstaff another bite of bologna.
Filling the pot with water at the sink, Heather said, Travis Potter seems really nice."
"Yeah, I like him. He'll be bringing a date to dinner next Sunday.
Janet's her name." Heather smiled and seemed happier than at any time since they had come to the ranch.
"Making friends."
"I guess we are," he said. As he got celery, tomatoes, and a head of lettuce out of the refrigerator, he was relieved to note that neither of the kitchen windows faced the cemetery.
The prolonged and subdued twilight was in its final minutes when Toby rushed into the kitchen, the grinning dog at his heels, and cried breathlessly, "Snow!"
Heather looked up from the pot of bubbling water and roiling spaghetti, turned to the window above the sink, and saw the first flakes spiraling through the gloaming. They were huge and fluffy. The wind was in abeyance for the moment, and the immense flakes descended in lazy spirals. Toby hurried to the north window. The dog followed slapped its forepaws onto the sill, stood beside him, and gazed out at the miracle.
Jack put aside the knife with which he was slicing tomatoes and went to the north window as well. He stood behind Toby, his hands on the boy's shoulders.
"Your first snow."
"But not my last!" Toby enthused. Heather stirred the sauce in the smaller pot to be sure it was not going to stick, and then she squeezed in with her family at the window. She put her right arm around Jack and, with her left hand, idly scratched the back of Falstaff's head.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt at peace. With no more financial worries, having settled into their new home in less than a week, with Jack fully recovered, with the dangers of the city schools and streets no longer a threat to Toby, Heather was finally able to put the negativity of Los Angeles behind her. They had a dog. They were making new friends. She was confident that the peculiar anxiety attacks that had afflicted her since their arrival at Quartermass Ranch would trouble her no more. She had lived with fear so long in the city that she had become an anxiety junkie. In rural Montana, she wouldn't have to worry about drive-by gang shootings, carjackings, ATM robberies that frequently involved casual murder, drug dealers peddling crack cocaine on every corner, follow-home stickups-or child molesters who slipped off freeways, cruised residential neighborhods, trolled for prey, and then disappeared with their Wlch into the anonymous urban sprawl. Consequently, habitual need to be afraid of something had given rise to the unfocused dreads.and phantom enemies that marked her first few days in these more pacific regions. That was over now.