"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Jeffers nodded. "Coming this way?"

"No. Good night."

He turned and plodded on, leaving the man standing there. He wanted his bed, now. The beer was making him sick.

Something flashed briefly in the starlight, seeming to fly over his head. And then it had him by the throat, and he was fighting for breath, twisting and shifting furiously, but the thing at his throat bit all the harder, and in the end it was no use.

William Jeffers was the first man to die. T hree nights later, Jimmy Roper was in his barn, sitting up with a colicky cow. Dandelion had always been prone to the ailment, with a temperament that was easily unsettled, but she was his best milker and worth the trouble to keep her healthy. Her calves carried that trait, and she had done much to improve the quality of the dairy herd.

He was tired. It had been a long day, and it would be longer still before he could seek his bed. But he had learned patience after taking over the farm from his ailing father. One waited for cattle and for crops and for time to shear. One waited for sun and for rain and for a still day to harvest. If he'd had a choice he would have worked at the brewery, but as an only son, he had had to fill his father's shoes.

He heard the squeak of the barn door and leaned around the edge of the stall, to see who was there. "Pa? Is that you? I told you I'd come to your room as soon as I saw to things here."

There was no answer. His father shouldn't have walked that far. He'd be out of breath, shaking.

Roper got to his feet, feeling a tingle in one leg from crouching there by Dandelion until his foot had gone to sleep under him. Picking up his lantern, he walked down the aisle, past the stalls where his three horses dozed, undisturbed by their temporary neighbor's restlessness, and saw that the outer door was open several inches-but there was no one inside the barn after all. Had his father had a fainting spell?