Chris Larabee stretched, enjoying the slightly cool morning air even more for knowing that in another hour it would be hot enough to fry an egg on the truck. And thinking of eggs…he looked into the truck bed at the man-sized lump cocooned in the threadbare sleeping bag. Buck’s turn to cook, he thought smugly. He’d already tried to wake his friend twice with no results, but he was getting hungry so maybe more desperate measures were called for. His eyes were drawn to a handful of cattle cropping at the sparse desert vegetation near the fence he and Buck were out here to repair…

The largest longhorn looked back at him placidly. Chris smiled.

Walking around the side of the truck, he grabbed hold of the rusted bed and used his weight to make the worn shocks bounce. "Stampede, Buck! Stampede!"

Buck Wilmington came awake with a start and made a panicked attempt to get away from the marauding cattle. He ended by falling out of the truck bed, still tangled in his sleeping bag, and shot a wild-eyed look in the direction of the range they were fencing in - a range supporting nearly a hundred head of half-wild steers…

The longhorn blinked at him and continued chewing his cud, unimpressed.

Buck struggled to his feet, swearing, and sat heavily on the tailgate while he tried to get out of the sleeping bag and into his boots. "I was in a stampede once; three hundred head goin’ hell-bent for the horizon…"

Chris cut him off before the story could continue; he’d heard it before, and every time Buck told it there were more cattle involved. "You need to get breakfast fixed so we can get this fence finished and get on to the next job."

"Breakfast? I made breakfast yesterday!"

"Like hell you did - I did, it was bologna and beans."

"No, it was eggs - I made eggs."

The argument ended - like their arguments always ended - with a fast game of rock/paper/scissors which Buck invariably lost. They had eggs, finished the fence, and then were back on the road to Perfection. About halfway to the little desert town Buck spotted a small red truck parked offroad amid the rocks and sagebrush. "Hey Chris, isn’t that new grad student supposed to be a girl?"

"Not if the university knows you’re out here," his friend replied dryly, grabbing the steering wheel to keep the other man from turning off the road; Buck had something of a reputation as a skirt chaser in spite of the fact that the nearest skirts for him to chase were forty-five miles away in Bixby. "You know we’ve still got to get over to Nestor’s today and suck out that septic tank…"

"Aw shoot, do we have to do that today?" Buck hated the unpleasant sheep farmer and his bratty son almost as much as he hated the leaky pump they’d have to rent from Josiah to suck out the man’s underground septic tank. "You know, we’re awful close to the doc’s place; how ‘bout we do his concrete today and then go to Nestor’s tomorrow?"

"Nestor won’t be home tomorrow," Chris reminded him. "We’re stickin’ to the plan, Buck; Nestor’s septic tank today and Doc’s concrete tomorrow. And Nestor’s paying in cash, which we’re mighty short of right now."

Buck thought about it. "How much is he payin’ us again?"

"Fifty bucks - which is forty-seven more than we’ve got right now." Chris ran a hand through his cropped blonde hair and leaned his head against the back window. "It was not havin’ a plan that got us in this mess of livin’ off odd jobs in the first place…"

"Hey! We’re handymen, pard; handy men!"

"Whatever, Buck - so we’re damn well stickin’ with the plan now. And the plan says we go to Nestor’s to suck his shit out of the ground, so that’s exactly what we do."

Ten minutes later the two handymen reached Perfection and hitched the battered septic pump setup on its little trailer to the back of the truck before going into the run-down store to let the owner know they were taking it. Josiah was agreeable to waiting for his money - as usual - and the men used one third of their remaining financial resources to buy two sodas from him; the two of them proceeded to lounge around at the counter while the big storekeeper waited for his other customer to finish picking over his purchases, making small talk about what little went on in and out of town. "Saw that the new grad student is out here already," Buck said, hoping Josiah knew something about her. "What is it exactly they keep comin’ out here for, anyway? A rock is a rock is a rock, isn’t it?"

"Guess that depends on who’s lookin’ at the rock," the big man rumbled. "This new one must have just got here, hasn’t been in the store yet." He was sure the student would be, though; Sanchez’ General Store was the only store of its kind in Perfection - the only store at all for forty miles, if truth be told. "Now, Ezra," he said to his other customer, who was frowning at a small rectangular box. "I know you asked for hydroshock hollowpoints, but these regular hollowpoints were all I could get. That gonna be all right?"

"A bullet is a bullet," the man said with a shrug, opening the box and taking out one of the bullets to look at it. He looked jarringly out of place in the dusty, cluttered store, his expensive suit and polished shoes seeming to belong more to some urban paradise than to the dilapidated backwater he currently resided in. His voice was soft and cultured and carried a faint Southern accent. "These will do; I had simply wanted to try the others. Another time, I suppose." He replaced the bullet and went back to neatly stacking his supplies in the worn cardboard box that sat in front of him. "Who knows what those students are really doing out here?" he entered into the previous discussion with dry amusement. "Looking for oil, perhaps? Or maybe plutonium, uranium? Quite possibly these collegiate ‘researchers’ are merely the vanguard for governmental hordes waiting to declare immanent domain and snatch our homes out from under us in order to rape the desert of its hidden wealth. You gentlemen may get your chance to move to Bixby sooner than you think."

"You’re all sweetness an’ light today, ain’t ya, Ezra?" Buck observed; he and Chris had been ‘planning’ to move to Bixby for years now but hadn’t so much as packed a box that anyone knew of. He drained the last of his soda from the can and then tossed it across the room toward the box beside the cooler. His aim was off, and the can bounced off the side of the cooler and clattered across the floor. Buck went to get it after a pointed look from Josiah.

The ancient cooler as if on cue began to shake and squeal. "Bearing going out, what’cha say, boys?" the storekeeper rumbled hopefully. "Can you fix it?"

Buck frowned thoughtfully and made a move in the direction of the noisy machine, but Chris caught his arm and shook his head. "Can’t do it now, Josiah, we’ve got to get out to Nestor’s. Maybe we can take a look tomorrow after we get done at Doc’s place, okay?"

"That’ll work," Josiah said, and wandered off to the back room of the store to get Ezra another bottle of gun oil. The Southerner returned Buck’s wave good-naturedly as the two men left.

"Wonder what that little bastard wants with all them guns?" Buck mused idly as he settled into the passenger seat of their battered blue truck and they set off to do their least-favorite odd job. "He must have enough stuff up in that fortress he calls a house to start World War Three."

"Or to live through it," Chris replied with a shrug. "Or maybe he’s just afraid whoever he’s bein’ hid from is smarter than the Feds that are hidin’ him." They drove past Billy Travis bouncing down the rutted dirt road on his pogo stick and waved to his mother Mary, who had obviously brought the novel she was working on outside so she could keep an eye on her son. "Oh, Mary wants some more shelves built, I told her maybe next week I could get over there."

"Sure you don’t need my help?" Buck asked, all innocence. "Seems like you ain’t doin’ too good of a job on your own, she’s always callin’ you back over there to either do somethin’ new or to fix somethin’ you’ve already done." Chris growled but didn’t answer and Buck smiled to himself and held his peace; he enjoyed teasing his friend about the widowed writer but didn’t want to push too hard and drive the man away from the first relationship he’d even attempted since his own family died. It was good to see Chris starting to live and sometimes even to laugh again; Perfection had done that much for them, at least.

They reached Nestor’s dilapidated holdings far too soon for Buck’s taste…but although the man’s car was parked out front there didn’t appear to be anyone around and no one came out of the house when they called out. "Maybe he’s out back with the sheep," Buck offered, although his voice sounded nervous in his own ears. "I’ll go have a look."

"I’ll take the house," Chris agreed. "Holler if you find them." He looked around again and then stepped up on the porch and approached the front door…which was open. That unnerved him; it wasn’t like Nestor to leave the door unlocked when he wasn’t there. He banged loudly on the side of the trailer and called out, "Nestor? Melvin? It’s Chris and Buck, we’re here to do the septic tank!"

No answer. Chris pushed on the screen door and frowned when it swung open, then stepped in cautiously; there was money lying on the kitchen table next to a cup of coffee, the bills stacked in two piles as though someone had been counting them. And closer inspection showed the coffee to still be warm. Chris’ bad feeling started to get even worse. He hesitated a moment, then scooped up the money and did a rough count of it before stuffing it into his back pocket; fifty of it was his anyway, the other sixty or so he’d return to Nestor when they found him. Going back outside, he took a good look at the surrounding area from the slightly elevated vantage point of the porch. Everything still looked normal…

A yell from Buck made him jump, and Chris made his way around the back side of the trailer and over to where his friend was standing by the sheep pen; it was only then that he noticed that the ever-present noise of the nervous animals was absent. And once he arrived at Buck’s side the reason was horrifyingly obvious.

Nestor’s flock of sheep had been torn to pieces - literally. "Not even a whole pack of coyotes could have done this," Buck said. "You find any sign of Nestor or Melvin?"

"Cup of coffee on the table, still warm," Chris answered, not taking his eyes off the carnage. "And a whole pile of money right beside it."

"Damn." Both men knew that the tight-fisted farmer wouldn’t leave money lying around, if for no other reason than because his shiftless son would steal it. With a sigh, Buck stepped over the low wooden fence and began to pick his way through the grisly scene; wishing for a gun, Chris followed right behind him. Nestor’s hat was lying on the ground near the center of the pen as though it had been dropped there, and Buck was relieved to see that it had no blood on it. "Maybe he’s chasin’ whatever did this," he said, bending over to retrieve the hat. "Probably Melvin’s with him…"

The hat came off the ground, and the sheep farmer’s death mask stared up at the two men accusingly from it’s nest in the dry sand. Chris swallowed hard. "Hope not."