Prologue

The air hung heavy over the flat Kansas prairie, dense and feverishly heated as a sick person's breath. As the afternoon progressed, ominous black clouds encroached on the Western skyline, and violent gusts of wind - like the wracking coughs of an invalid - stirred but failed to cool the crowd below.

"Smith! SMITH! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? YOUR ACT'S SUPPOSED TO BEGIN NOW!" a darkly handsome man in his late twenties emerged from the shack that served as an equipment shed on this makeshift motorcycle stunt circus track, shouting to make himself heard over the roar of the large crowd. Spotting his star stunt rider standing beside the concession stand with a buxom peroxide blonde clinging to his muscular arm, the irritated show manager strode in that direction.

"What the fuck's holding you up?" the dark-haired man snapped. "We've got a show going here, remember? It's past time for your act, and the crowd's waiting for you."

"Don't make him do it, Larry!" the girl pleaded, throwing her arms around the well-built stunt rider. "The wind's too bad! The radio said there's gusts up to 30 miles per hour!"

Larry Johnson, the manager, stared down at the girl, his face reflecting the contempt and dislike he felt for her. Though she was still in high school, her face and hair were already coarsened by overuse of cosmetics and dyes, and her large breasts, bulging conspicuously under her tight CYCLE CIRCUS T-shirt, would be sagging by the time she reached the age of twenty. Still, she was a good lay - he ought to know, for he'd tried her out before passing her on to his star stunt rider. And, more important, she was the daughter of the man who owned the most popular radio station who'd given their two-week Kansas tour so much free publicity. Anyway, she was probably just what Verne Smith needed, what with that beautiful but frigid wife of his back home. There was so much tension involved in this sort of dare-devil stunt riding that it wasn't a good idea for the guys to be sexually frustrated as well.

"What's the matter, Verne?" Larry asked, staring hard at his top bike rider. "You turn chicken over a little wind?"

Verne Smith laughed, looking embarrassed as he glanced at the teenager hugging him. He'd never quite learned to handle these precocious cycle groupies, nor quite managed to overcome his innate guilt about cheating on his wife.

"I ain't scared of no wind," he said to Larry, "you know me better than that. But I was just trying to calm down Sherry here."

"Just go on and get that act moving. I'll handle Sherry."

Verne moved out onto the track and mounted his powerful black cycle to the accompaniment of the crowd's loud yells. Though he was only twenty-five, he was already famous among cycle enthusiasts around the country for his fearless skill.

"Don't do it, Verne! Don't do it!" he heard Sherry's shrill adolescent voice calling and turned to smile and wave reassuringly before gunning his bike and tearing across the field to the first hurdle.

Suddenly, so quickly that the watching crowd hardly saw what happened, a particularly violent gust of wind caught the speeding, climbing cycle at an angle that sent it hurtling back down the hill. Verne Smith's black leather clad body flew through the air to land not far from the spectators with a sickening thud, then lay as still as a crushed insect. Beyond him, the accelerating bike's powerful engine immediately burst into crimson flames that shot high into the darkening sky.

Larry Johnson rushed toward his friend's twisted body, the terrified screams of the crowd and the wail of the fire siren echoing in his ears.

"Verne! Verne!" he shouted, kneeling beside the sprawled out body. But the stunt rider was unconscious, and in the next minute his inert body was being lifted into a shrieking ambulance which raced toward the nearest hospital.

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