Devil’s Claw

After puzzling over the problem for several minutes, Joa

Maybe the house was hit by a fire, she thought. If it is, we’ll rebuild. It won’t be that bad. Then, a little later she added, Please, God. Whatever it is, don’t let it be that bad.

Coming through the highway cuts between Bisbee and the Double Adobe turnoff, Joa

Joa

Turning onto the one-lane track that led to her house, she saw that the pulsing halo of lights was much larger, much brighter. Usually she recognized the separate tire tracks that traveled her mile-long dirt access road. This time there were too many strange tracks for her to be able to identify any of them. When Joa

Once through the wash, Joa

She looked at the house. From the outside it seemed all right. There were lights on throughout, and they cast a comforting, familiar glow. See there? Joa

She stepped out of the Crown Victoria and took stock of some of the nearby vehicles scattered haphazardly around on the roadway. There were Frank Montoya’s Civvie, Ernie Carpenter’s Ford van, Butch’s Outback, and even Dick Voland’s new Camry. She noticed the vehicles and the small clutches of people standing here and there. The groups of onlookers all seemed to be watching her questioningly, waiting for direction, perhaps-waiting for her to tell them what they should do. She heard the sound of a few voices, of people speaking to one another in the low, earnest, and self-consciously controlled voices usually reserved for guests at funerals, for broadcasters at golf tournaments, and for stu

Butch Dixon detached himself from a trio of men and walked toward her. His face materialized through Joa

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching for her and pulling her close.

“I’m fine, Butch,” she said with a catch in her throat. “At least I think I’m fine. What’s happened here? What’s going on?”

He took her hand. “Come inside,” he said grimly. “You’ll see.”

As soon as Butch opened the back door, Joa

“Watch your step,” Butch murmured, steadying her by holding on to her elbow. “There’s lots of broken glass and lots of water, so it’s all terribly slippery.”

Once at the doorway to the kitchen, Joa

Months earlier, watching a television newscast, Joa

Standing in the doorway of her own destroyed kitchen, it seemed impossible to Joa

All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out, emptied, and then used as sledgehammers on the counter and the breakfast nook, smashing to pieces Andy’s carefully routered Formica and demolishing the drawers themselves in the process. And all around-on the walls, the ceiling, the light fixtures-were zany fingerpaint patterns of squirted colored matter-mustard, ketchup, barbecue sauce, hot sauce-crusted with crumbs of thrown cereal and flour and sugar.

The refrigerator lay on its side, with the hacked-off end of an electrical cord dangling from the back of it like an amputated appendage. On the counter was a line of broken appliances also devoid of cords. The kitchen sink had evidently been plugged up and filled to brimming, which accounted for the soup of inch-deep soapy, greasy water that covered the floor.

Stu

If anything, the dining room was worse. The buffet had been turned over on its side, spilling out and smashing all of Joa

The top of the buffet was where Joa