car shakes in the wind. Sand and dust pummel the windshield.
    Ward closes his eyes and leans against the steering wheel. His thoughts bob and float. A memory lurches up like a zombie: how as a boy he would mow the grass of an aunt and uncle's house. His mother would drive him there on weekend mornings and drop him off, return to pick him up hours later. The mowing didn't take long and he'd have hours to kill in the musty- but- clean house of the old couple. He must have been eight, nine years old. His cousin was much older and was already grown, but in his old room there was a large box of vintage comic books. Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Archie, Spiderman, the Flash. He remembers how happy he was just to sit in the room and read the comic books. How peaceful it was. How long ago it seems.
    Later he wakes in a daze, a spot of drool on his crossed arms. He rubs his eyes and sees that the storm has passed. Weak and brain- befogged, he does a U- turn in the empty road and heads back toward town, crosses the Arkansas River and the railroad depots. A neon sign the shape of a buffalo, upon which rides a cowgirl holding the loop of a lariat. The Buffalo Head.
    He pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine. The car ticks like the sound of his brain defusing. He stares at a horse tied to a stanchion near the office. A faint snow begins to fall. Ward rubs his eyes and blinks. A horse? He wonders if the fever is affecting his vision. The snow looks pink.
    In the motel office Ward stands at the check- in counter, blowing his nose. His head is clogged, each beat of his pulse causing a throb of ache in his temples. To his left is a platter of glazed doughnuts, a coffee machine with an urn full of black liquid. He takes a seat on the ugly brown sofa near a wall- mounted, taxidermied buffalo head. The lobby paintings are all cowboys herding steers across a river or coyotes against a full moon. The lamp- shade stand is made of deer antlers. Ward sits and stares at the painting of cowboys and steers as if stunned by a slaughterhouse air gun. His face is pale and he can smell himself, feel the waxy sweat upon his fevered forehead.
    After some time he awakens in the chair, his bladder full and hot with pain.
    Are you okay?
    It's the clerk. She's behind the check- in counter now, leaning forward to see him. A bleached blond chewing gum. Hey, mister. You okay? she asks again.
    He finds himself staring at the garish electric sign of the motel. A cowgirl with loopy neon lariat, riding a stylized buffalo. The yellow- and- blue light streaks like glowing tattoos upon the deep blue skin of dusk. No, he says. Not really.
H i r a m p a g e opens his pawnshop with a premonition of something wonderful about to drop into his lap. Not one month ago he saw a red- haired preacher's daughter sitting in a pew of the Lamb of the Forsaken temple and knew she would become his third wife. He has a way with these things and it isn't to be argued with.
    Hiram is forty- eight but looks older, discount- store distinguished. He's a tall, broad- shouldered man with a wide, shrewd face, a high forehead and white hair. Handsome enough to use his looks for his own gain. Although raised in a Mormon family, he enjoys a drink now and then, but who doesn't? The chastised pride themselves on overcoming vices, but it takes a man to manage them for his own enjoyment.
    The secret to success is constancy of purpose, he often says, a quote from no less than Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister from the nineteenth century. The man was an accomplished as a British statesman despite being a Jew. Hiram attends an FLDS church every Sunday and professes to believe in the mirage of the one true prophet. A foolish idea if there ever was one.
    His pawnshop lurks on Northern Avenue, at the edge of
    Ward closes his eyes and leans against the steering wheel. His thoughts bob and float. A memory lurches up like a zombie: how as a boy he would mow the grass of an aunt and uncle's house. His mother would drive him there on weekend mornings and drop him off, return to pick him up hours later. The mowing didn't take long and he'd have hours to kill in the musty- but- clean house of the old couple. He must have been eight, nine years old. His cousin was much older and was already grown, but in his old room there was a large box of vintage comic books. Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Archie, Spiderman, the Flash. He remembers how happy he was just to sit in the room and read the comic books. How peaceful it was. How long ago it seems.
    Later he wakes in a daze, a spot of drool on his crossed arms. He rubs his eyes and sees that the storm has passed. Weak and brain- befogged, he does a U- turn in the empty road and heads back toward town, crosses the Arkansas River and the railroad depots. A neon sign the shape of a buffalo, upon which rides a cowgirl holding the loop of a lariat. The Buffalo Head.
    He pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine. The car ticks like the sound of his brain defusing. He stares at a horse tied to a stanchion near the office. A faint snow begins to fall. Ward rubs his eyes and blinks. A horse? He wonders if the fever is affecting his vision. The snow looks pink.
    In the motel office Ward stands at the check- in counter, blowing his nose. His head is clogged, each beat of his pulse causing a throb of ache in his temples. To his left is a platter of glazed doughnuts, a coffee machine with an urn full of black liquid. He takes a seat on the ugly brown sofa near a wall- mounted, taxidermied buffalo head. The lobby paintings are all cowboys herding steers across a river or coyotes against a full moon. The lamp- shade stand is made of deer antlers. Ward sits and stares at the painting of cowboys and steers as if stunned by a slaughterhouse air gun. His face is pale and he can smell himself, feel the waxy sweat upon his fevered forehead.
    After some time he awakens in the chair, his bladder full and hot with pain.
    Are you okay?
    It's the clerk. She's behind the check- in counter now, leaning forward to see him. A bleached blond chewing gum. Hey, mister. You okay? she asks again.
    He finds himself staring at the garish electric sign of the motel. A cowgirl with loopy neon lariat, riding a stylized buffalo. The yellow- and- blue light streaks like glowing tattoos upon the deep blue skin of dusk. No, he says. Not really.
H i r a m p a g e opens his pawnshop with a premonition of something wonderful about to drop into his lap. Not one month ago he saw a red- haired preacher's daughter sitting in a pew of the Lamb of the Forsaken temple and knew she would become his third wife. He has a way with these things and it isn't to be argued with.
    Hiram is forty- eight but looks older, discount- store distinguished. He's a tall, broad- shouldered man with a wide, shrewd face, a high forehead and white hair. Handsome enough to use his looks for his own gain. Although raised in a Mormon family, he enjoys a drink now and then, but who doesn't? The chastised pride themselves on overcoming vices, but it takes a man to manage them for his own enjoyment.
    The secret to success is constancy of purpose, he often says, a quote from no less than Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister from the nineteenth century. The man was an accomplished as a British statesman despite being a Jew. Hiram attends an FLDS church every Sunday and professes to believe in the mirage of the one true prophet. A foolish idea if there ever was one.
    His pawnshop lurks on Northern Avenue, at the edge of
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