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.