“Okay,” Stone said.

Billy draped the carcass over a table by the pool, took a folding knife from his pocket, made a few deft cuts, and in one motion, stripped the hide from the snake. The rattles came off with it. “There you go,” he said. He opened the door to the woodshed, hung the skin from a nail, stretched it tight and placed a piece of flagstone on the bottom. “Let it dry there, and you can have a pair of boots made from it.” He closed the door and latched it. “The meat is very good deep fried. Do you want to keep it?”

“I don’t think so,” Stone said.

“Then let’s leave it for the coyotes.” He swung the carcass wide and tossed it into some bushes a few yards away. “They’ll find it before morning.”

They went back into the kitchen and sat in front of the fire with drinks, while Gala prepared dinner.

“Stone,” Billy said quietly, “that species of rattler may be native to this area, but I don’t think it got into the house all by itself.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, first of all, it’s a very big snake. A mouse might get in through a small opening, but I doubt if there’s one big enough to admit that snake.”

“A door left open, maybe?”

“I don’t think so—you’ve got screens on all the doors. However, there’s a snake wrangler working on the movie being made at Bonanza Creek, and a scene in the script with a big rattler.”

“How do you know that?”

“I took the tourist tour of the ranch this afternoon, and I swiped a copy of the script from the saloon set. And I saw the snake wrangler’s truck.”

“So it’s Boris.”

“He seems to have ignored my warning. Perhaps I’d better give him another chance to listen.”

“Dinner’s on,” Gala called to them, and their conversation ended.

—

The following morning, Billy set his large case on the bed, opened it, and removed the items he had borrowed from Centurion Studios the day before. He dressed in the jeans, shirt, leather vest, and boots and donned the weathered, sweat-stained Stetson. He reassembled the Winchester Model 1873 and loaded it with .44/40 ammunition, then slung the gun belt with its Colt .44 over his shoulder, grabbed the movie script, and walked out to his car.

He drove out to the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch and parked his car in the parking lot. The place was alive with the movie’s cast and crew. He loaded the .45 and strapped on the Ojala holster and belt, almost universally used in Western films, then he put on his Stetson and left the car, blending in with the other cast and crew arrivals.