Muppets. Maybe Kermit.”
They opened their doors and got out of the SUV, raising their hands to show that they were not armed.
The cowboy with the walrus mustache warily stepped back from Carson, as if she were the biggest and meanest piece of work that he had ever seen. His face suggested fearlessness, but his quick shallow inhalations, revealed by rapid frosty exhalations, further belied his fierce expression. He directed her toward the front of the Grand Cherokee.
One of the other gunmen shepherded Michael from the passenger door and told him to stand beside Carson. This one wore a Stetson, too, and a leather coat with sheepskin collar. The cold air revealed his breathing to be less agitated than that of the other man. But his restless eyes, shifting from Carson toMichael and to various points in the night, revealed the fear that he was striving not to disclose.
These were not Victor’s creations. They were real men with some reason to know that horrific events were occurring behind the scenes in this apparently peaceful Montana night.
The third man, who quickly searched the SUV, appeared with both his shotgun and one of the Urban Snipers. “They have another of this here. Never seen its like before. Pistol grip. And it seems to be loaded with big slugs, not buckshot. They have two pistols and a satchel full of spare magazines and shotgun ammo.”
The second cowboy looked to the one with the mustache. “What you want to do, Teague?”
Teague indicated the Urban Sniper and said to Michael, “You want to explain that cannon Arvid is holding?”
“It’s police-issue. Not available to just anyone.”
“You’re police?”
“We used to be.”
“Not around here.”
“New Orleans,” Michael said.
“Used to be—but you still have a police-only gun.”
“We’re sentimental,” Michael said.
Teague said, “Ma’am, you handle a weapon that powerful?”
“I can handle it,” Carson said. “I can handle you.”
“What kind of police were you?”
“The best. Detectives. Homicide.”
“You come right at folks, don’t you?”
“Fewer misunderstandings that way,” Carson said.
Teague said, “I have a wife like you.”
“Get on your knees and thank God for that lady every night.”
Most people weren’t as bold at eye-to-eye contact as Teague. His stare was scalpel-sharp. Carson could almost hear her stare ringing off his with a steely sound.
“What’re you doing, anyway, riding around all gunned up?” Arvid asked.
Carson glanced at Michael, he raised his eyebrows, and she decided to go with a little bit of the truth, to see how it played. “We’re on a monster hunt.”
The three cowboys were quiet, weighing her words, glancing at one another. The soft silent snow coming down, breath smoking in the cold air, the great dark trees slowly fading to white all along the street … Their quiet reaction to her strange statement suggested they had experienced something that made a monster hunt seem as reasonable as any other activity.
“What have you seen?” she asked.
To his pals, the nameless cowboy said, “They have guns. That means they must be like us. They need guns.”
“Clint’s right,” Arvid said. “Those killing machines don’t need guns. We saw what they can do without guns.”
Michael said, “Machines?”
Unlike Arvid and Clint, Teague hadn’t lowered hisshotgun. “They looked like real people, but they weren’t. There was a Terminator feel to them but even weirder.”
“Space aliens,” Arvid declared.
“Worse than that,” Carson said.
“Don’t see what could be worse.”
Teague said, “Ma’am, are you telling us you know what they are?”
“We should get off the street to discuss it,” Carson suggested. “We don’t know what might come along at any time. Clint’s right—you and us, we’re on the same side.”
“Probably,” Teague said.
She indicated the house set deep in the trees and all the parked cars in the driveway, their