Neil shook his head. “What news?”

“Billy Ritchie died this morning. I thought you might have heard.”

Neil felt cold with shock. “He died? How did it happen? He looked fit enough to me, apart from his legs.”

“His house was burned out,” said Doughty. “His neighbor said it was a freak stroke of lightning, sent the whole place up like a bonfire.”

“Lightning? We haven’t had an electric storm for weeks.”

“I know. But that’s what the neighbor said. The whole place was sent up like a bonfire. Poor old Billy, not having the use of his legs, was trapped in his living room. Burned to death, black cat and all.”

Neil swallowed, and his throat was as dry as a nylon rug. The day seemed suddenly hot and oppressive, and the clank and clatter of boats’ rigging was like the tolling of toneless, funereal handbells.

Neil admitted, “I saw him only yesterday. I was talking to him, as close as we’re standing now.”

Doughty looked away, and puffed a couple of times at his pipe.

Neil said, “Did you find out anything else about it? Or was that all?”

Doughty turned around, and eyed him up and down. “All? What more do you want? You know what they’ve always said in Napa County. Where there’s a Fenner, there’s a bad wind blowing.”

“What kind of a saying is that?”

Doughty shrugged. “I’m not sure I know. But I guess it’s one of those sayings that’s based on experience.”

Neil stared at the blue-gray Pacific for a while, at the wavelets which lapped at the fishing boats and pleasure cruisers tied up at the jetty. Then he said, “Billy Ritchie talked about the old days, about the times when Bloody Fenner was still alive, and about the Indian massacres. He told me all about Ossadagowah, and some of the other Indian demons.”

Doughty took the stem of his pipe out of his mouth and spat a distance of ten feet into the water. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “You think he talked too much, and some of them Indian demons set ablaze to his house?”

Neil looked at him sharply. “It’s nothing to joke about, Doughty. Those demons are dangerous, just as much today as they were in the old days.”

“Neil,” growled Doughty, in his old sea-dog voice, “you’re letting yourself get out of hand.”

“You think so? What if I tell you I saw a ghost with my own eyes right out there on the bay? What if I tell you that one of the most powerful Red Indian medicine men who ever lived came alive in my house last night?”