PROLOGUE
Frankie Verris held the plastic cup
in his trembling left hand and stared out the bedroom
window. Broken limbs from winter storms littered an
unmowed lawn. Weeds lay flattened in the vegetable
garden. The jonquils and tulips, which Doris had always
loved so much, had refused to bloom this spring. It
pretty well summed up Frankie’s life over the past
year, with Doris gone. Another sleepless night, filled
with pain and loneliness, had brought him to this
despair.
He looked at the easy-open prescription
vial in his right hand, cherishing even the look of
his wife’s name on the white label. Why hadn’t he
cherished her more when she was alive?
With unsteady fingers, he flipped
off the cap and poured the pills onto the dusty chest
beside the window. They had helped Doris sleep. Would
they work for his pain?
He gagged on the first swallow, but
it finally went down. He sank into the bedside chair
and took two more. They went easier. He watched the
silent flight of a hawk as it winged over the horizon
of forest past the yard. Everything seemed to remind
him of Doris these days. She’d loved the hawks because
of “the poetry in their wings.” She’d loved so many
things. She’d loved him, unworthy as he was.
She’d loved God most of all.
For years Frankie had been jealous
of God, often resentful because of the special relationship
Doris seemed to have with Him. And now God had taken
her and there was nothing left.
He swallowed two more pills, then
kept going, two at a time. It grew easier and easier.
The drug was fast acting, and he
appreciated that. He didn’t want to sit around and
wait for it to work. In fact, he thought he might
be feeling the first effects already....
Jacob Casey gripped the telephone
receiver hard, fighting back another wave of pain
in his upper thigh. “Hello, emergency room? This is
Cowboy again. I’m coming in with another injury.”
It had been a few months since they’d seen him, and
he’d never been there in the daytime. Maybe today
would be a different staff, and maybe this time the
doc on duty wouldn’t give him the familiar three-hour
sermon about being careful around wild animals.
He grimaced as the secretary questioned
him. “Nope, no ambulance. I’ll do it myself.” He’d
called an ambulance once—last year when the bison
had kicked the paddock gate over on him. It had taken
him longer to get to the hospital then than ever before
or since.
He looked down to find more blood
dripping from his thigh. “Can’t take the time to talk.
Just be ready for me. My pet cat bit me. No rabies,
so don’t even think about shots.” Leonardo was well
vaccinated.
With a short grunt Cowboy hung up
the phone and reached for his hat. The room started
to go black on him, and he lowered his head. Must
be losing more blood than I thought. Forget the hat.
He picked up his keys from the kitchen table and flung
one last, angry glance out the window toward the cage
outside where Leonardo the lion paced from end to
end. Let him go hungry if he was going to behave like
this.
ABOUT