CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set by Billie Sue Mosiman Page B

Like his mission was to get me rescued and he was ready to really lie down and stay dead now."
    "Wow. That's some ghost story," Molly said.
    Cruise turned to her and this time he wasn't smiling. "It wasn't a ghost story." His voice was ominous in its warning. "It's the truth. Boots got me home. I owe him my life."
    "Well, sure..."
    "He's the best guy I ever knew. He didn't deserve to die that way and end up in a nameless, rotten jungle grave."
    "Well, of course not.."
    "You don't understand. You weren't even born yet. It was a stinking, sadistic war and we didn't even win it, even with guys like Boots on our side. We fucking gave up. Something Boots never did. Even after death."
    Molly felt a wave of intensity in the dark car that came off Cruise like invisible heat. She had never heard him cuss so much before. He scared her into silence.
    "Open me a Coke, will you?"
    Molly lifted the Igloo cooler's top and took out a bottle. She uncapped it and handed it to him. It was lukewarm.
    "My dad was in Vietnam," she said carefully. "But he never talked about it."
    "I shouldn't have either." He upended the Coke and drank several swallows. "Talking about Boots gets me depressed."
    He glanced at Molly and saw she looked nerved up, on standby for any sort of emergency action. "It's all right," he said, changing his tone of voice so that it wasn't so hard and unrelenting. "That's one story I shouldn't have told you. I hate thinking about Boots over there in Vietnam. I never could tell them where he was buried. I handed over his dog tags and tried to forget about him. I don't think I'll ever forget, though."
    Molly watched the road ahead without comment.
    Cruise tried to turn his attention to his driving. They were passing through land where uniformly flat-topped mountains stood off to the right and left of the freeway. They
    were a hundred seventy miles east of El Paso and he had not mentioned going down into Mexico to Molly. If she didn't want to, he'd make her, so it didn't make any difference to tell her his plans.
    They passed a small hill where a diorama was set up.
    Cruise pointed to it. "Out here in the middle of nowhere," he said.
    "What is it?"
    "A diorama. That's what the sign says. I guess it means some kind of stationary play. See the crosses and the figures? Supposed to represent the crucifixion."
    "Oh. I don't know much about religion. Dad never made me go to church or anything."
    "More's the pity. Everyone needs to start off with a little religion. Especially if you're going to give it up."
    "Have you given it up?"
    "Long time ago." He had an image of his father beating his brothers and sisters. Crucifixion in the home. Diorama come to life. All the bleeding Jesuses. Where was God when anyone needed Him? Nowhere. That was the point.
    The highway began to cut through the Apache Mountains. The sides of the cut-throughs were pale, sparkling in the starlight. The mountains were made of shell or limestone, Cruise decided, although he knew he didn't know shit about geology. For all he knew they were made of diamond dust and Kryptonite. Up the mountainsides were black dots of shrubs that hugged the dry land like scabs on a dog.
    The earth was brown and rust. As a wind came up, Cruise saw tumbleweeds rolling side by side in the roadside ditch. Outside of Stanton, Texas, a welcome sign read HOME OF 3OOO FRIENDLY PEOPLE AND A FEW OLD SOREHEADS.
    Molly had read it too. She chuckled and mumbled, "Soreheads. Cool beans."
    Cruise thought about the Apaches who roamed this land on horseback, following buffalo herds. Now semis prowled the roads going east and west. Some of the mountains in view had sheared-off tops, some few were pointed skyward like huge thrusting breasts of earth awaiting a touch from the hand of a giant. Cruise wondered if a glacier had come through and lopped off some of the mountaintops and bypassed others. There seemed no
    other explanation for the two distinct shapes. If they were made from volcanic action, then it