Winter Moon

the entrance to their property. Burned into the arch, rustic lettering spelled QUARTERMASS RANCH. They turned off the county route, under the sign, and headed uphill.
        Wow! This all belongs to us?" Toby asked from the back seat, enraptured by the sprawl of fields and forests. Before either Jack or Heather could answer him, he posed the question that he no doubt had been wanting to ask for weeks: "Can I have a dog?"
        "Just a dog?" Jack asked. "Huh?"
        "With this much land, you could have a pet cow." Toby laughed. "Cows aren't pets."
        "You're wrong," Jack said, striving for a serious tone. "They're darned good pets."
        "Cows!" Toby said incredulously. "No, really. You can teach a cow to fetch, roll over, beg for its dinner, shake hands, all the usual dog stuff- plus they make milk for your breakfast cereal."
        "You're putting me on. Mom, is he serious?"
        "The only problem is," Heather said, "you might get a cow that likes to chase cars-in which case it can do a lot more damage than a dog."
        "That's silly," the boy said, and giggled. "Not if you're in the car being chased," Heather assured him. "Then it's terrifying," Jack agreed. "I'll stick with a dog."
        "Well, if that's what you want," Jack said. "You mean it? I can have a dog?" Heather said, "I don't see why not." Toby whooped with delight.
        The private lane led to the main residence, which overlooked a meadow.of golden-brown grass. In the last hour of its journey toward the western mountains, the sun backlit the property, and the house cast a long purple shadow. They parked in that shade behind Paul Youngblood's Bronco.
        They began their tour in the basement. Although windowless and entirely beneath ground level, it was cold. The first room contained a washer, a dryer, a double sink, and a set of pine cabinets. The corners of the ceiling were enlivened by the architecture of spiders and a few cocooning moths. In the second room stood an electric forced-air furnace and a water heater. A Japanese-made electric generator, as large as a washing machine, was also provided. It looked capable of producing enough power to light a small town.
        "Why do we need this?" Jack wondered, indicating the generator. Paul Youngblood said, "Bad storm can knock out the public power supply for a couple of days in some of these rural areas. Since we don't have natural-gas service, and the price of being supplied by a fuel-oil company in this territory can be high, we have to rely on electricity for heating, cooking, everything. It goes out, we have fireplaces, but that's not ideal. And Stan Quartermass was a man who never wanted to be without the comforts of civilization."
        "But this is a monster," Jack said, patting the dustsheathed generator.
        "Supplies the main house, caretaker's house, and the stables. Doesn't just provide backup power to run a few lights, either. As long as you've got gasoline, you can go on living with all the amenities, just as if you were still on public power."
        "Might be fun to rough it a couple of days now and then," Jack suggested. The attorney frowned and shook his head. "Not when the real temperature is below zero and the windchill factor pushes it down to minus thirty or forty degrees."
        "Ouch," Heather said. She hugged herself at the very thought of such arctic cold. "I'd call that more than roughing it,"
        " Youngblood Jack agreed. "I'd call it suicide." I'll make sure we have a good gasoline supply.
        The thermostat had been set low in the two main floors of the untenanted house.
        A stubborn chill pooled everywhere, like the icy remnant of a flood tide. It surrendered gradually to the electric heat, which Paul switched on after they ascended from the basement and inspected half the ground floor. In spite of her insulated ski jacket, Heather shivered through the entire tour. The house had both character and every convenience, and would be even easier to settle into than they'd expected. Eduardo Fernandez's personal effects and clothing had not been disposed of, so they would need to empty closets to make room for their own things. In the four months since the old man's sudden death, the place had been closed and unattended, a thin layer of dust coated every surface. However, Eduardo had led a neat and orderly life, there was no great mess with which to deal..In the final bedroom on the second floor, at the back