5
We pulled into Las Vegas a little before five. The sun still blazed down, bright and unrelenting, and at that time of year, it would be hours before full dark arrived…if it arrived there at all. Even in full daylight, the town’s neon signs and marquees blazed away, advertising the million and one ways to keep yourself entertained in that faux oasis in the desert.
The whole place made my brain hurt. No, actually, I realized that all of me hurt, muscles and mind alike aching in the aftermath of what had happened in Kanab just a few short hours earlier. I didn’t want to think about it, but it seemed as soon as I shut my eyes, I could see that horrible scene all over again — the raised pistol, the billow of smoke from the barrel…the shocked flare of my mother’s blue eyes as the bullet hit
