Chapter I: The Wooden Ranch

Chad was searching around behind him, trying to figure out who she was looking at like that. Surely it couldn't be him, as that was not how his luck tended to run. When he looked back over at her, she was gone.

Chad decided to go back to what he normally did on a Saturday night, and walked up to the bar and ordered another beer. He made sure to get some change for the pool table, and resigned himself spending his evening playing for shots with some of the local wits.

"Hey, did you see that blonde?" asked Freddie, one of Chad's favorites, "I swear she was looking right at me!"

"Yeah, sure Freddie," Chad scoffed, "I'll bet she was just dyin' to get to know you."

Chad didn't tell him he had had the same feeling only moments before. He didn't see what good it could possibly do anybody. The guys would only razz him, like they were doing to Freddie right now. Chad plunked his quarters down thoughtlessly on the shiny wood, and watched as a guy in a Metallica T-shirt sunk three solids, and then scratched. He found himself looking back towards the bar dreamily, only to shake it off and listen to all the funny jokes. He'd heard most of them before, but he laughed anyway, just glad to be laughing at all.

He won the first game, and downed approximately 3.27 ounces of Jose Cuervo, marvelling at the consistency with which it always made the room wobble for just a second. He wasn't the type of guy to get very drunk, because he could definately handle his liquor. God knows, he'd been practicing long enough, spending a large part of his adult life in bars, doing about what he was doing right now.

After winning two more games, and then losing three, his eyes were feeling a little swollen from all the smoke, and he thought instead of lining up for the men's room, he would find a nice quiet spot outside.

There was a nice little grove of trees across the parking lot Chad frequented when the urge hit him, and he thought he'd walk back there. There was already someone back there, though, and Chad was a very private man when it came to urination. He'd have to settle for the dumpster behind the alley.

As the familiar sound of water splashing on brick filled the air, Chad had a strange thought. Who was back in those trees? Probably some drunk, but whoever it was had been awfully quiet. Walking soundlessly through brush is rarely accomplished by drunken idiots, and Chad knew this only too well. He'd barely seen their shape, and they hadn't come out yet, and he found himself walking back over there, to sate his curiousity.

There was definately no one back there, he discovered, and for a moment, he was sure there was no sign anyone ever had been, but then he saw one small thing. It was a piece of metal, a mere sliver, and he had no idea what it was.

Such a tiny, miniscule thing, glinting in the moonlight, and he picked it up, studied it, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He walked back across the parking lot, back into the Wooden Ranch, and was about to return to the pool tables, when he saw her.

She was sitting at a table on the other side of the bar, sipping a Long Island Tea, and reading a book.

"Who reads in a bar?" Chad thought, but with a rare burst of courage, he walked over to say hi.

She looked up at him like he was vermin, and scowled.

"Can't you see I'm reading?" she asked him abruptly. "You're very rude."

He didn't know what to say, so he slunk away like a coyote, and rejoined some people that were far ruder than he was. He leaned up against the wall, and watched Freddie get his ass kicked by a cowboy, who was a pretty good player.

Chad could've probably given him a run for his money, but he was preoccupied with the blonde, and whoever had been in those trees. He fished the sliver of metal out of his pocket, looking intently at it, like he would suddenly have a vision that told him where it came from.

No such vision came, and instead he heard Jim Rogers' voice.

"What'cha got there, Chad?" he asked, wondering if Chad had something interesting, like a joint, or a twenty dollar bill.

"Just a piece of metal."

"Oh."

Jim didn't seem too interested in that, and Chad said, "I found it in the woods."

"Well, what were you doing in the woods?"

"I went out there to take a leak."

"Well hell, you got some kind of bladder problem? I just saw you takin' a leak in the back alley!"

Chad had never realized Jim was so observant, and he said, "I thought I saw somebody back there."

"What, in those woods?" Jim asked stupidly, and then added, "there's people in those woods all the time!"

"Never mind," Chad said dejectedly.

"Well let me see it."

"What?" Chad's mind had wandered again.

"The piece of metal, let me see it," Jim sounded mildly annoyed.

"Oh, here."

Jim studied it carefully.

"I think it's Aluminum," Chad offered.

"No, my man, I'm pretty sure this is Steel."

Jim looked right into his eyes.

"What's the difference anyway? So you found a piece of metal in the woods, big deal."

"Whatever."

Chad turned away, and found himself walking towards the blonde's table again. He decided he'd stop at the bar, and order another beer. As he was doing that, he noticed two wanna be studs talking to the blonde. They sat down at her table, but it was obvious to Chad that they were intruding. He got his beer, and went over for a closer look.

One of the guys had his shirt unbuttoned to show his massively hairy chest, and wore a gold medallion of an Indian arrowhead around his neck. He was saying something, -all Chad caught was "great party," and "boat."

As he approached the table, he could hear her saying "get lost, jerk," and some language that would've made a prisoner blush.

"C'mon now, you don't really want us to get lost, now do you?" said the other guy, dressed almost as stupidly as his friend. Steve here, he's a real catch, you know. Half the ladies in this town would like to bag him, and I do pretty well myself."

Without knowing why, Chad grabbed ahold of Steve, who was much bigger than him, and pulled him up by his chest hairs. His eyes were as big as ping pong balls, and Chad barked, "What are you doing with my wife?"

"Hey, relax," Steve intoned carefully, "I wouldn't want to have to kill ya, and I didn't know she was your wife."

"Yeah, what's your problem?" said the other guy, jumping up, but he backed off a step as soon as he said it.

"Your wife's got an attitude problem, anyway," complained Steve, as if he expected Chad to agree.

The two men stood and said meaningless crap to Chad for a minute, and the blonde stayed quiet, watching Chad with amusement. Finally, they ambled over to the bar, and found something else to keep themselves busy, harrassing Wendy Carruthers, who pretty much lived there.

"My hero!" she cried, and clasped her hands to her chest.

She laughed, and even though she was mocking him, it was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. Then her face turned very dark, and she said, "now who's gonna get rid of YOU?"

Chad just let it roll off him, and said "you mind if I join you for a minute?"

"Ooh, some politeness has crept into you," she smiled. "I guess your momma must've raised you right, after all!"

He just looked at her, silently.

"Well, allright, if you think you're up to picking up a babe like me, let's see what you've got."

"Not much," he laughed resignedly. "I didn't come over here to pick you up, I just wanted to talk to you, that's all."

"OK, well, talk!"

And before he knew it, he told her about his experience outside, and showed her the piece of metal.

"It's a good thing you're not trying to pick me up, because that sure isn't the story that'll win a woman's heart," she said smoothly. "I just love hearing about a man's bathroom functions, especially mixed with blatant paranoia."

"It just seems weird, that's all I'm saying." He looked at his beer bottle like he was genuinely interested in it.

"Well, c'mon," she said suddenly, getting up from her chair.

"Where we going?" he asked, intrigued.

"Let's go over there and see what we can find."

Chad thought it very odd that she would volunteer to go into the dark woods with a strange man, and for a second, he wasn't sure he'd actually go.

"Maybe she's going to rob me, or kill me, or worse," he thought, remembering a movie he saw where a beautiful woman went around the country looking for stupid men to torture. But he knew that he was just being foolish, and besides, his curiousity was far too strong.

"It sure is a pretty night," she said as they walked across the parking lot.

"No night could ever be prettier than you are," Chad was going to say, but decided it would sound stupid, and just said, "Uh huh," very noncommitally.

"On a night like this, the dead come out to dance."

"Why did she say that?" he wondered, and began to think about that movie again.

"Blood Girl," she said tauntingly.

"What?" Chad was confused.

"The movie you're thinking of is called 'Blood Girl.' They used to play it on cable all the time."

She was right, that WAS the movie he'd been thinking of.

"Boy, you're quite the piece of work. First you won't leave me alone, and now you're acting like I'M the stalker. Well, make up your mind, are you afraid, or are you interested?"

"Afraid AND interested."

"Figures," she laughed again.

They were getting closer to where the light ends, and the dark begins, just beyond the first row of trees.

"So they weren't making any sound, that was the problem?"

"Who?"

"Whoever you saw in the woods, remember?"

"What? Oh yeah, that's right." Chad couldn't remember ever being this stupid before.

"Well, you've got a point there. I don't think any of the idiots in THAT bar are going to be that graceful."

And then she disappeared, into the dark.