FLASHING POINTS OF light, row on row, rushed at Jason out of the pitch black. The flickering lights grew smaller, closer together, and then merged into a landscape of pixels, first black and white, then gray, then muted brown. The scene began to coalesce into the image of a vertical wall of pale wood splashed with a streak of red. Jason realized he had not taken a breath. He gasped, gulping in dust and the smell of gun smoke and dirt. His eyes teared as pain flooded his senses. He blinked the image into focus. What he thought was the wall was the wooden floor, and the red streak was a pool of the deputy's blood. He was lying on his side on the floor of the saloon.
The game, he thought. Dammit. I'm still in the game. He rolled onto his back and a sharp ache in his hip where he'd struck the
