Mexican Hat

"I don't think she cared, one way or the other."

"So he returned with your son to uncover a murderer," Kerney proposed.

"Real or imagined," Cornelia agreed testily, her voice rising.

"My father is gravely ill. Possibly he will never get better. And do you know how I feel, Senor Kerney? Right now, I am angry with him. To the depths of my soul, I am angry. My son is dead because of an old man's obsession with the past. It is senseless."

"I am truly sorry for your loss, senora," Kerney said.

Cornelia Marquez did not hear him. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

Kerney stayed with her until she stopped crying.

When he left he took with him Senora Marquez's written permission to visit Jose Padilla in the hospital.

The house Jim Stiles lived in, a hundred-year-old adobe with a high-pitched tin roof and buttresses at the corners to hold the adobe walls in place, sat in the valley exactly halfway between Reserve and the old Spanish settlement known as Lower San Francisco Plaza.

With his feet propped on a chair, Jim lounged at the kitchen table with the back door open, reading the documents found in Padilla's travel trailer.

Omar Gatewood had given him permission to sign out the evidence and take it home.

The day had turned hot, but the thick walls kept the house cool. A slight breeze pulsed through the doorway, bringing with it the sound of the river gurgling over the rocky streambed two hundred yards away.

Stiles finished a document and turned it upside down on the stack he'd already read. The papers and letters were all written in Spanish, and while Stiles spoke the language pretty well, he was much less proficient at translating the written word. What he could make out was damn interesting stuff, although it didn't seem to have a bit of relevance to the murder of Hector Padilla.

Among the papers were the last will and testament of Don Luis Padilla and a plat of the village of Mangas that had been filed with the territorial government over a hundred years ago. There were a lot of personal letters to Don Luis from important New Mexicans of the day.

Solomon Luna and Thomas B. Catron, two political heavyweights during the first years of statehood, had written to Don Luis about investing in something called the American Valley Company, whatever the hell that was.

Until Stiles could find someone to do an adequate translation of the material, all he'd be able to tell Kerney was that Jose and Hector Padilla were descendants of the same clan that had settled the Mangas Valley, and that the government had challenged Padilla's title to his land holdings back in the early thirties.

The phone rang just as Stiles started in on another letter. He grabbed the receiver from the wallmounted telephone, hoping it was Kerney.

"Hombre," Amador Ortiz said.

"I hear you've changed jobs."

"What are you talking about, Amador?" "The Silver City newspaper. Jimmy.

It says you and Kerney are working for the sheriff and the district attorney."

"Shit! That story was supposed to be killed."

Amador chuckled.

"You know you can't keep a secret around here. So is it true?"

"It's a temporary thing. I'm still with Game and Fish. What's up?"

"I've been thinking about Kerney wanting to know if I saw anything suspicious around Mangas Mountain."

"What have you got?" Stiles tried to hold back the excitement from his voice.

"Maybe nothing. You know that old mine at the upper end of Padilla Canyon, north of the lookout tower? Last week I was with my crew barricading the road to the mine to keep hikers out of the canyon. I saw some tire tracks."

"What kind of tire tracks?"

"Looked like an ATV to me. T1-; morning I got to thinking you can get to the meadows from the upper canyon, pretty easy. At least you could before we blocked the road. A game trail runs from the mine to the meadows. Elk use it a lot. I thought maybe you'd want to pass that on to Kerney." "Hell yes. Thanks, mano," Stiles said.

"De nada, primo. You owe me a beer at Cattleman's if you find something."

"You got it," Stiles responded.

He hung up the phone, went quickly into a small second bedroom that served as his study, and pawed through the quadrangle maps on the desk.

If he remembered correctly, it was maybe a two-hour hike from the mouth of Padilla Canyon to the mine.

Stiles found the map and studied the contours. It was a no-sweat walk in the woods. With the map in his back pocket, he returned to the kitchen, gathered up Padilla's papers, and stuffed them into a manila envelope. He whistled to himself as he left the house and fired up the truck. He switched the radio frequency to the sheriffs department, and called in to report he was operational.

When the dispatcher responded, he gave his destination and ETA, and left a message for Kerney to meet him at Padilla Canyon. He thought about waiting for Kerney or asking for backup, and dismissed the idea. It would only slow him down.

Besides, ifAmador was right, he might have the first break in the case.

That would make Kerney sit up and take notice.

Damn! Nobody had thought to look north of the meadows in Padilla Canyon. The search had been concentrated south into the foothills and valley.

He'd buy Amador a case of beer if the tip panned out.

Stiles reached down and hit the switch to the emergency lights. He'd run with lights flashing all the way to the mouth of Padilla Canyon. It would save him a good thirty minutes.

Unexpectedly summoned to a meeting, Carol Cassidy sat in the small conference room at the Glenwood District Office with the forest supervisor from Silver City, the regional forester from Albuquerque, and Charlie Perry. Samuel Ellsworth Aldrich, the acting regional forester, a heavy-boned man with a double chin and thick lips, presided over the meeting. He had his suit jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up, and tie loosened. He was smiling pleasantly at Carol.

Charlie and the regional forester were across the table. Perry whispered something to Aldrich, who nodded automatically back at Charlie. Jack Wyman, the forest supervisor and Carol's boss, a contemporary she had worked with for a number of years, avoided looking at her. It was not going to be a cordial meeting.

Aldrich concluded his opening remarks, which consisted of bitching about being unable to get out into the field as often as he would like. He spread his hands palms down on the table and gave Carol a patronizing smile.

"Thanks for coming down on such short notice, Carol," he said, nodding in Wyman's direction.

"Jack and I have some concerns we'd like to discuss with you."

"I'd like to hear them, Sam," Carol replied, wondering what in the hell was brewing. Her annual operational review by the regional office was months away. There had to be a special reason Aldrich wanted to see her.

"I got a telephone call this morning from an Associated Press reporter,"

Aldrich went on.

"She wanted to know if the Catron County sheriff and the ADA had usurped the state police investigation in the Elderman Meadows murder case. I told her I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. So she faxed me a copy of an article from the Silver City newspaper. She told me Gatewood gave the story to the newspaper. Have you seen it?"

"Yes."

"Is it accurate?"

"It is. Sheriff Gatewood called me after the fact to tell me about the appointments. I had no prior knowledge."

"I'll accept that." Aldrich stopped to clear his throat.

You damn well better, Carol thought to herself.

"To make a long story short, I called Jack for a briefing on the situation and he didn't know anything about it either. Charlie Perry filled me in. He was meeting with Jack when I called."

"You could have called me, Sam," Carol said, "instead of relying on secondhand information."

She shot a hard look in Charlie's direction.

"From a reporter," she added.

Aldrich smiled charmingly.

"That's why you're here. And that's why I flew in from Albuquerque to meet with you. What, exactly, is going on?"

"To set the record straight, the investigation hasn't been usurped. I've assigned an experienced investigator who is working in tandem with a state Game and Fish officer on the poaching case only.

Since the poaching and the murder may be tied together, it seemed the sensible thing to do."

Aldrich shook his head in disagreement.

"That's not how the state police feel about it. I got a call from the chief. He isn't happy with Sheriff Gatewood, the ADA, or you. Thinks the story is bad press for his department and nothing more than small town political posturing. I tend to agree. As hard as I tried to stop it, a follow-up article on our unusual involvement in the case is going to hit the Albuquerque paper this afternoon. And I've had calls from two television reporters while we were waiting for you to arrive.

They're asking pointed questions. Has the Forest Service lost confidence in the state police?

Why have a ranger and a Game and Fish officer been given authority by an assistant district attorney and the local sheriff to investigate a murder case? We've got a damage-control problem here, Carol. There is already too much resentment about the Forest Service in the community.

It has to be solved quickly."

Carol saw the writing on the wall.

"How do you want it solved?"

"The man you assigned to the investigation…"

Aldrich thumbed through some papers.

"Kevin Kerney. He's a temporary employee, correct?"

"That's right. Hired out of your office."

"Terminate him. I want you and the district out of this before it becomes an imbroglio. My staff has prepared a press release which should put the matter to rest. It will clearly state that we see a conflict of interest in having one of our employees reporting to another law enforcement agency, and that Mr. Kerney has been released from his job so that he can pursue the investigation for the district attorney."

"That's not fair to a man who has done excellent work for me," Carol said evenly.

"He may well be outstanding, but now he's a liability. If he's so damn good, the district attorney's office can put him on their payroll. I've got ranchers and environmentalists barking at my heels. I don't need to have the state police and others in the law enforcement community joining in the chorus. Terminate him."

Carol stood up. Jack Wyman's eyes were lowered.

Charlie Perry was twiddling a pencil between his fingers, looking pleased.

She decided to test a growing realization.

"I'll assign someone else to cover the poaching case."

"That won't be necessary," Aldrich replied.

"Charlie will handle it."

"I see," Carol said, heading for the door.

"It's good to see you again, Sam. Come visit more often."

Aldrich's charm returned.

"I will, Carol."

Wyman gave her a weak smile and Charlie nodded a haughty goodbye as Carol closed the door behind her.

After getting over being steamed with Aldrich and his spineless bureaucratic meddling, Carol was back in her office when an idea came to her. In spite of Aldrich's order to fire Kerney, maybe she had some latitude. It was worth thinking about.

Padilla Canyon ended abruptly at a new rock barrier and fence that forced Jim Stiles to travel on foot. He checked his day pack to make sure he was adequately equipped. With a flashlight, water, freeze-dried rations, flares, matches, a first-aid kit, sweater, and a lightweight tarp, he could handle just about any situation. He added a hand-held radio and his holstered sidearm to the pack, slipped his arms through the shoulder straps, and started out at a brisk pace.

The new trail, built by Amador's crew, soon separated from the road and scaled the canyon wall.

Jim stayed on the roadbed, searching for any indication of motorized travel. Halfway up, he found a pull tab to a beverage can in the fine sand of a small arroyo that cut across the road. He bagged it, made a search of the area, found nothing more, and moved on. Beyond him, the new trail dipped to a low ledge before twisting up the side of the canyon. He scrambled to the trail and scanned the old road in both directions. A glimmer of reflected light in a cluster of boulders caught his eye. He climbed down to investigate. It was an aluminum beer can. Using a twig to retrieve it, he bagged the container and put it in his pack.

The canyon, wide at the mouth, narrowed as it ran against Mangas Mountain. Tree cover thickened until the forest canopy cut off his view of the lookout tower on the peak. The canyon closed in sharply before it fanned out into a small clearing at the mine. All that remained at the site was the rubble of a stone cabin, a few rotted pilings that once held up a wooden sluice used to divert water from a small creek, and a ramp with tracks for ore carts that ran from the shaft to where the canyon floor met the creek.

The creek was still running. Jim splashed water on his face before shedding his pack and looking around. Maybe Amador had seen evidence of an ATV, but all Jim could find were elk tracks near the creek that trailed off in the direction of Little Springs, the last watering spot before the meadows.

It wasn't surprising; wind and recent rain would have erased any tread signs.

Stiles turned his attention to the mine. Above the shaft entrance a horizontal row of logs braced by two vertical timbers held back the hillside. The entrance, trussed with a thick beam and joists, was square-cut and less than six feet high. He crawled in, flashlight in hand. The chamber plunged abruptly, the angled walls supported by heavy timbering above the ore cart tracks. It looked decidedly unsafe. The beam of his flashlight was swallowed up by the darkness of the tunnel.

Disappointed, Jim sat back on his heels. There was no way he could climb down without a rope and someone to pull him up in case he ran into trouble.

He crawled out, stood up, and felt something sticky on his knees. His jeans were stained with motor oil.

He rubbed a finger on the smudges and sniffed it to make sure. There was no doubt.

Back in the mine he found an area saturated with oil. Smiling to himself, Jim worked on a scenario.

Any poacher who knew his business would scout the meadow on foot until he was sure of the cougar's territory. An elusive animal rarely seen in the wild, a mountain lion could range up to fifty square miles in two days or less. It would take a lot of stealth and patience to bring the animal down, and driving an ATV deep into the cougar's range would Spock it and defeat any possibility of a sighting. The old mine was a good place to stash the ATV while hunting the cat.

It plays out. Stiles thought. The killer had to know that the Padilla Canyon road was closed the day he took the mountain lion and shot Hector Padilla. So he followed the horse trail partway with the ATV, hiked in, baited his trap, and waited at the shooter's blind. He was probably in position long before the mountain lion appeared to take the bait. Only an experienced, patient hunter could pull it off.

He sopped up the oil with a handkerchief and put it into his shirt pocket, thinking a lab analysis might help identify the type of vehicle that had been hidden in the mine.

Outside, Jim nestled the flashlight under his arm lit and bent over to brush the grime off his jeans. As he straightened up, he felt the bullet slam into his left side. The impact drove him against the cliff.

A second round missed, splintered rock fragments into his face, and blinded him. It felt as if he had been gouged by dozens of flaming-hot barbs. He lay where he fell, unable to see, pain searing down his arm.

He couldn't tell if the first shot had passed through his upper arm into his lung. The shots had come from above him on the canyon rim. The shooter would have to work his way down to confirm his kill.

He stayed motionless, opened his eyes, and saw nothing. He thought about trying to crawl to the day pack for his handgun and gave up on the idea. Even if he could make it to the pack, he couldn't see to shoot.

He would play dead and hope his sight came back. He listened intently, trying to make out the crunch of footsteps, the whisper of movement through the trees, the sound of snapping twigs. He felt pretty stupid about coming up the canyon alone.

Then he lost consciousness.

Kerney arrived at the Catron County Sheriff's Department expecting to find Jim Stiles stashed away in a cubbyhole studying Jose Padilla's papers.

Instead, he encountered a lone dispatcher in the outer office who looked like a younger version of Omar Gatewood, with the same puffy cheeks and stocky frame.

Kerney introduced himself and asked for Stiles.

"Ain't here," the boy replied.

"He's up in Padilla Canyon."

"Doing what?"

"Don't know. Said for you to meet him there. At the old mine."

"When did he leave?"

"About three hours ago."

Kerney pointed to the radio.

"Call him up."

"Can't," the kid replied.

"Transmitter won't reach into the canyon. It's a blind spot."

"Who can talk to him?"

"The forest lookout on Mangas can," the kid replied.

"Call," Kerney suggested.

"See if they've had any contact with Stiles."

"Sure thing."

The kid made contact, and Kerney listened to the conversation. There had been no communication between Stiles and the lookout tower.

The kid looked up at Kerney.

"Anything else?"

"Who's working in the tower?"

"Henry Lujan."

"Ask Henry the quickest way to get to Padilla Canyon."

"I can tell you that," the kid replied.

"Fine. Then ask Henry to get Stiles on the radio.

Tell him to keep trying until he gets a response."

"Ten-four," the kid replied. He passed along the message and gave Kerney directions to Padilla Canyon.

"Put search and rescue on standby," Kerney said, as he headed for the door.

"And tell your father."

The kid's eyes brightened. This might turn out to be as good as the Elderman Meadows murder. He was keying the microphone before the door slammed behind Kerney.

Kerney found Jim's truck and started up the trail at a fast pace, his anger with Stiles building as he ran. Going into the canyon alone was dumb, and failing to call in made it worse-raising the possibility that something had gone wrong.

He pushed himself to run faster, and his knee almost buckled in protest.

He hated the damn thing for slowing him down. The pain that ran like a spike up his thigh he could handle, it was the permanent sub par performance the knee caused that really pissed him off.

Finally the knee locked up and he was forced into a slow trot. Pockets of white clouds, empty of any rain, blocked the late-afternoon sun and cooled him down, but he had lost a lot of body fluid and his mouth felt like dry cotton. He started sprinting again when he saw Stiles sprawled in front of the mine entrance. Breathing hard, he reached Jim and bent over his body. He was alive but unconscious.

His face was a bloody mess, and his left eyelid was almost torn off. A bullet had cut through muscle in Jim's left arm and he was bleeding freely. On the ground were the shattered remains of a flashlight.

Using his handkerchief as a tourniquet Kerney stemmed the flow of blood and checked Jim's pulse.

It was fast and erratic, and his skin felt cool to the touch.

Jim's day pack yielded a first-aid kit. Working as quickly as possible, Kerney cut off the sleeve with a pocket knife, cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide, and bandaged it. When he saw the small dark stain on Jim's shirt pocket he flinched. Quickly he ripped the shirt open and found nothing but a deep bruise on the rib cage. If the flashlight casing and batteries hadn't stopped the bullet. Stiles would be dead.

He pulled a soggy handkerchief from Jim's shirt pocket and took a whiff.

It smelled like motor oil.

Using the hand-held radio, Kerney called Henry Lujan at the lookout tower, gave his location, and reported an officer down. He picked Stiles up, carried him to the creek, stretched him on the ground, raised his feet, and covered him with a sweater and tarp from the day pack. He flushed Jim's face with water, cleaning off the blood and some of the rock fragments, working carefully around the eyes. Then he gently put gauze over each eye and taped them for protection. Stiles moaned as Kerney finished up.

"You're going to live," Kerney said.

"Jesus, Kerney, is that you?"

"It's me."

"I can't see a fucking thing."

"Your eyes are patched."

"Am I blind?"

"I don't think so. Who shot you?"

"Didn't see him. It happened too fast. The son of a bitch probably followed me up the canyon."

"No. I saw only your tracks on the way in. Who knew you were coming?"

Stiles forced a small laugh.

"Probably half the county. I used the police frequency to give my destination. Every citizen with a scanner could have been listening."

Kerney started stuffing some aspirin in Jim's mouth.

"What are you doing?" Stiles mumbled, his mouth half full of capsules, as Kerney put the canteen to Jim's mouth.

"Aspirin," he explained.

"It will dull the pain a bit." K-erney watched Stiles drink deeply.

When Jim finished, he treated himself to a swallow, and looked around for a chopper landing site. The canyon was too narrow for a helicopter to fly in, and there was no adequate clearing where it could set down.

He looked back at Jim. Stiles needed to get to a hospital as quickly as possible.

"Can you walk?" Kerney asked.

"Help me up," Stiles replied weakly.

Kerney stuffed the gear back into the pack, slung it over his arm, got Stiles to his feet, and walked him a few yards down the canyon. Jim leaned heavily against him, wobbly and uncoordinated. Walking him out wasn't going to work; he would have to be carried. Kerney put the day pack on Stiles and slung the man on his back. When Jim protested that he could make it under his own steam, Kerney told him to shut up.

Each time Kerney stopped for a brief rest, Jim told him a bit more of what had happened. They heard the chopper long before it passed overhead, and soon the distant sound of sirens echoed through the mountains. Kerney picked up the pace. After a long stretch without stopping, Kerney stumbled and almost fell flat on his face. He put Stiles down and collapsed next to him.

"Almost there," he said, gasping, trying not to sound completely winded.

His chest was heaving, and his knee felt as if someone had pounded it with a hammer.

"Let me try to walk."

"There's no need," Kerney replied. Four search and-rescue team members came into view, trotting quickly up the canyon.

"We're about to be rescued."

Stiles turned his head in the direction of Kerney's voice.

"Did I remember to thank you?"

"You just did," Kerney answered, removing the day pack from Jim's back.

He turned Stiles over to a paramedic, who did a quick check of vital signs, started an IV, elevated Jim's feet, and wrapped him in a blanket.

The patches over Jim's eyes were removed, the damage quickly assessed, and fresh dressings applied. Kerney's spirits sank as the paramedic pointed to his own left eye, shook his head, and made a face, before ordering his companions to put Jim on a stretcher.

Kerney followed the men to the landing zone. No time was wasted getting Jim in the chopper and on his way to the hospital. At the barricade a half mile farther down the canyon, he found a gathering of men and vehicles, including Omar Gatewood, two deputy sheriffs, a Game and Fish officer, and one of Carol Cassidy's permanent rangers. For some unexplained reason, two sheriffs patrol cars had emergency lights flashing, the colors almost completely washed out in the bright aquamarine sky. It must be for crowd control, Kerney reckoned, eyeing the canyon, empty except for the small circle of men, thinking that he was starting to catch Jim's offbeat sense of humor.

Sheriff Gatewood pulled Kerney aside for a briefing.

They stood next to Gatewood's patrol unit. The police radio cracked with traffic about the ambush.

"What in the hell happened up there?" Gatewood demanded.

Kerney filled Gatewood in with an absolute minimum of facts.

"Who would want to shoot him?" Gatewood asked, as though Kerney could supply the answer.

"The more important question is why was Jim shot," Kerney proposed.

"Hell if I know," Gatewood admitted, tugging an earlobe.

"I'll send the boys up the road to see what they can find." He waved his hand in a come-here gesture at the officers.

"Give your boss a call," he added.

"She wants to see you."

"What's up?" "Can't say," Omar said, bending down to brush dirt off his shiny boots with a handkerchief. He walked to meet the officers halfway, issued some orders, and caught up with Kerney at his truck.

"I'm going to make sure Jim gets a special commendation out of this."

"That's a good idea," Kerney replied, trying to bite back the sarcasm.

It didn't work.

"After you do that, why don't you dispatch a deputy to patrol the Mangas road and get a reconnaissance chopper in the air, just on the off chance they may spot somebody coming out of the forest."

Gatewood's expression changed to a scowl.

"You got a bad habit of telling me what to do, Kerney. You know that?"

"Wrong, Gatewood. I'm just suggesting that maybe you ought to get your priorities straight." He threw Jim's day pack in the cab, fired up the truck, and left Gatewood in a puff of road dust. In the rearview mirror he saw Omar bending down to brush off his boots with a handkerchief one more time.

The early-evening sky was a banner of pink-and white clouds bordered by azure blue. Kerney checked his watch. Quitting time had come and gone.

Carol was probably at home. He'd swing by and see her.

Charlie Perry drove past as Kerney turned onto the road to the compound where Carol and her family lived. Kerney waved at Charlie to be polite and got a quick nod in exchange.

Carol's husband answered Kerney's knock, invited him inside, and had him wait in the front room. With a piano against one wall, a loom with an unfinished weaving next to a window, and the remaining space filled with homey overstuffed chairs and oak furniture, the room felt both cluttered and comfortable. Carol came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

"I've been listening to the scanner," she said, before Kerney could greet her.

"Is Jim going to be all right?"

"I think he'll make it."

"Thank goodness." She draped the dish towel on the arm of a chair and sat down.

"Please," she said, motioning to another chair across from her.

Kerney joined her.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes. There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just barge ahead. I've been ordered to fire you."

Kerney took it in.

"Is that why Charlie Perry was here?"

"Peripherally. He's been given the mountain lion case."

"Any particular reason why?"

"Because the acting regional forester, who's some thing of a barracuda, decided my decision to use you on the investigation was ill-advised.

Charlie kissed up to him and got the assignment."

"Are you in trouble?" Kerney asked.

"No way. Charlie hasn't got that kind of juice.

Neither does the regional forester."

"So what's this really about?" Kerney inquired.

Carol shrugged.

"Public relations. Bad press. Inability to take the heat. You name it. Aldrich got bitched at by the state police chief and grilled by some reporters. Seems that Omar Gatewood's press release raised the attention of the media."

"That man is a real work of art."

Carol shook her head.

"Tell me about it. I chewed him out for not including me in on the plan."

"I assumed you knew."

"Not until I read it in the newspaper."

Kerney gave Carol an apologetic look.

"I should have told you what was happening. Are you sure you're not in hot water?"

"Not to worry. I already told you I wasn't." Carol stopped talking for a minute.

"You seem more concerned about me than yourself."

Kerney laughed.

"It hasn't sunk in yet. I've never been fired before." "I haven't told anyone about your termination, although I'm sure Charlie Perry will get the word out, if he hasn't already. So, I'm giving you two weeks' notice, and placing you on administrative leave with pay. Technically, your commission will remain valid till then."

"Do you want me to work undercover?"

Carol's eyes flashed.

"You bet I do. Especially after what happened to Jim Stiles. Now it's personal.

I like that young man a hell of a lot. This shooting wasn't a random act of violence. It couldn't be. It has to be tied in with the murder at Elderman Meadows. Are you game?"

"More than game," Kerney replied.

"Catch the bastard, Kevin."

"It would give me great pleasure."

"Two weeks," Carol reminded him.

"That's all the time I can squeeze out for you without being insubordinate."

"A lot can happen in two weeks," he replied.

Henry Lujan, the seasonal employee who manned the lookout tower on Mangas Mountain, gave Kerney a tour. The building, an elevated room on steel pillars with an outside deck that ran around the perimeter of the structure, was glassed on all sides. The amenities consisted of an outdoor privy situated under a tree at the base of the structure and a holding tank for drinking water, replenished by truck as needed.

Kerney walked the deck with Henry, a college student in his third year as a summer worker. The views in every direction were incredible, especially to the west, where a blood-red sunset slashed across the horizon. Lujan pointed out some landmarks before taking Kerney inside: a mountaintop in Arizona, the solitary Allegros Peak on the Continental Divide, and the barely visible plateau that marked the sacred Zuni Salt Lake.

"I can't believe what's been going on around here," Henry said. He hitched himself into a sitting position on a counter that held communication equipment, his feet dangling off the floor. He was about five feet five with a well-developed upper body. He had an easygoing style.

"First the thing at Elderman Meadows, and now Jim Stiles getting shot."

He shook his head in disbelief.

"Too much, man."

"Jim talked to you about Elderman Meadows."

"Yeah. The same day it happened. There wasn't much I could tell him. I don't pay any attention to the meadows. Nobody goes in there except our people and Game and Fish."

"What were you doing at the time?"

Lujan nodded at the cot in the corner of the room.

He had a young face for his age, bony and not yet fleshed-out. Under the cot was a set of barbells. A color television on a metal stand stood at the foot of the cot.

"I was crashed. The radio traffic woke me up. Weekends, I work split shifts because we've got more people camping in the forest. Mornings and nights, that's when I work. When the man-made fire danger is the greatest. Campfires. Cigarettes. That kind of stuff."

"So you were asleep?"

"Yeah. I heard Stiles call in that you'd found that old man. I listened for a minute and went back to sleep."

"You didn't get up to take a look?"

Lujan laughed.

"Look at what? I can't see anything through the forest canopy. I didn't start scanning the meadows until you reported finding a dead body. By then I was awake."

"Did you see anyone today in the vicinity of Padilla Canyon?"

Lujan pushed himself off the counter, got a pair of field glasses, gave them to Kerney, and pointed in the direction of Padilla Canyon.

"That's almost impossible for me to do. Take a look for yourself.

The canyon is hidden by timberland. You can't even tell it's there, except for a few small breaks in the cover. I can't see anything."

Kerney trained the glasses where Henry had pointed. The kid was right.

All he could see in the fading light was a faint gash of the deep ravine obscured by forest.

"Did you have any visitors?"

"Today? Just you."

"How often do you report in by radio?"

"Every hour I log onto the fire watch system.

That's during working shifts. I keep the scanner going and the radio on all the time."

Kerney handed Lujan the field glasses. It should be easy to verify Henry's schedule.

"Do you know a fast way to get from Mangas Campground to Padilla Canyon?" "Maybe fly?" Lujan suggested with a grin and a shrug.

"I haven't the foggiest. Hiking isn't something I'm into. Besides, some of the trails are new.

Not even on the map yet."

"But you can see some trails from here," Kerney proposed.

"Sure. I'll do a visual sweep if someone's reported lost or overdue.

Otherwise, I concentrate on general surveillance."

Next to the cot was a workbench with some tools and a partially disassembled portable shortwave radio-one of the old vacuum-tube models.

"I hear you're going to college," Kerney said.

"Yeah. I just finished my second year at Western New Mexico in Silver City."

Kerney looked at the workbench.

"What's your major? Electronics?"

"No, it's forestry. I bought the radio at a garage sale for ten bucks.

It doesn't work. I'm just tinkering with it to see if I can fix it. It passes the time when there's nothing good on the tube."

"Sounds like fun. Play any sports?"

"What? Oh, you mean my weights. I wrestled in high school. Don't have the time for it now, so I work out just to stay in shape."

"Good idea." It was dark outside. The blackness of the forest was vast, interrupted by the dim lights of the few small hamlets that shimmered like frail earthbound stars in the valleys. It was time to get going.

"How well do you know Amador Ortiz?" Kerney asked.

"He's my uncle," Henry replied.

"He helped to get me this job when I graduated from high school."

"Did he talk to you about seeing tire tracks in Padilla Canyon?"

"If he did, I don't remember it."

"Do you keep any guns up here?"

"I don't, but there's a twenty-two rifle behind the door. It belongs to the Forest Service. You can look at it if you like."

Kerney knew it hadn't been a twenty-two that put the hole in Jim's arm.

"That's not necessary.

Thanks, Henry."

"Come back and visit anytime. And tell Jim I'm sorry about what happened. Tell him to hang in there."

"I'll do that."

Henry walked Kerney to the deck, watched him climb stiffly down the ladder and get in his truck. He waved as Kerney drove out of sight.

Inside, he wrote down the time of Kerney's visit in his daily log, made a quick visual sweep with the field glasses, and started working on the shortwave radio.

Dr. Harrison Walker, ophthalmologist, surgeon, and former Army medic with two Vietnam tours to his credit, walked into the lobby of the Gila Regional Medical Center. Visiting hours were over, and the lobby was empty except for one man, sprawled in a chair, fast asleep. A pile of papers had spilled from his chest onto the cushion. From personal experience, Harrison Walker knew what it meant to keep a vigil for a buddy. If he was hurt, you had to be there for him, period. End of story. It was a code Walker believed in and liked to see practiced by others. He picked up the papers and glanced at them. Some were official documents and others were handwritten letters, all in Spanish.

The fatigue etched on Kerney's face made Walker reluctant to wake him up. From what Walker knew about the incident in Padilla Canyon, Kerney had found Stiles, treated his wounds, and carried him out most of the way on a badly damaged leg.

Walker shook the man gently awake.

"Mr. Kerney."

Kerney's eyes snapped open.

"Doctor," he replied, sitting up.

"Mr. Stiles is in his room, and his parents have gone home. You can have a couple of minutes with him. Then I'm going to kick your ass out and order you to get some rest."

Kerney smiled in agreement.

"How are his eyes?"

"The fragment cut a ligament and damaged the cornea in his left eye. It missed the optic nerve but partially detached the retina. I've repaired the damage.

The right eye was a breeze-mostly fine grains of rock dust with one small perforation. He can use it, although things may be fuzzy for a day or two.

He'll keep his vision."

"That's good news. Thanks, Doctor."

"Thank you for patching him up and helping to get him here quickly. It reduced the chances of further damage." Harrison stopped, studied Kerney's face, and shook his finger.

"I'm serious about you needing some sleep. You look like shit."

"Is that a medical opinion?"

"It's an expert medical opinion," Harrison retorted.

"You'd do well to act on it."

"I believe it."

Harrison held out the documents.

"You may need these."

"Thanks, Doc," Kerney said, taking the papers.

Kerney found Stiles awake in his bed, his left eye covered with a dressing wrapped around his head.

The surgical team had repaired the muscle damage in his arm. There were bouquets of flowers from the Fraternal Order of Police and the Game and Fish Department on the bedside table.

"You look like shit," Jim said, holding out his hand.

Kerney grabbed it and squeezed.

"I thought you couldn't see anything."

Jim grinned.

"I can see your ugly face. Dr. Walker said maybe all I'll need is physical therapy to strengthen the eye muscles."

"That's great." Kerney searched Jim's face. It was still a mess. At least two dozen shrapnel wounds had been repaired, some requiring stitches to close the lacerations.

"And the arm?"

"The bullet missed the bone. It's my face I'm worried about. I look like I have permanent chicken pox."

"You're not going to be pretty for a while," Kerney agreed.

"But then you never were."

"Thanks a lot."

Kerney sank into the chair next to the bed, grateful to be off his feet.

"You missed my parents. I wanted you to meet them."

"I just got here," he fibbed.

"Some other time."

"Count on it. My dad said my department wants to give me a commendation. Omar Gatewood called and told him. Can you believe it?

An award for getting ambushed."

"Let them do it."

"Are you serious?"

"You take a risk every time you put on a badge and gun. That counts."

"I suppose you're right." Jim's mouth was dry from the anesthesia. He took a sip of water.

"Did you bring my day pack?"

"It's in my truck. Do you need it?"

"No, you do. I picked up an empty beer can on the road to the mine.

It's in a plastic bag along with a pull tab. See if you can get any prints off them."

"That's a long shot."

"I know it. One more thing-when you pop open a cold one, do you pull off the tab before you take a drink?"

Kerney looked at him quizzically.

"No. What's your point?"

Jim smiled.

"I do. Sometimes my mustache gets caught on the tab. It hurts like hell when it happens.

The beer can I found didn't have a tab."

"So I should look for a guy with a mustache who drinks beer?" Kerney ventured.

"Unless you know a woman with a really hairy upper lip," Stiles countered.

"You've narrowed the field down to one gender.

Good thinking," Kerney replied in mock seriousness.

"It's a clue," Jim shot back.

"I can't be expected to do everything for you."

"You can do something for me." Kerney dropped Jose Padilla's papers on the bed. He had read through the documents before falling asleep in the waiting room.

"Use your contacts and find somebody to research the history of the Padilla ranch. I want to know everything about the American Valley Company. Incorporators. Stockholders. How it was organized. What happened to that part of it Don Luis Padilla owned. And I need a search of newspaper archives on the Padillas, especially anything having to do with the death of Jose's father."

"I know just the person to recruit,"

Stiles said with a grin.

"As long as he's trustworthy and can keep a tight lip," Kerney cautioned.

"She's absolutely trustworthy," Jim replied, with a smile.

"Good enough."

"Sorry I fucked up today. Thanks again for bailing me out."

"Learn from it," Kerney replied.

"You don't have a job that allows for poor judgment."

Jim took the criticism like a slap in the face, and Kerney wished he could erase his words. He patted Jim's hand.

"Forget I said that. I'm dead on my feet and you're all shot up. You don't need me ragging on you. I'm just glad you didn't get yourself killed."

Jim's smile came back.

"Well, that's some consolation."

He left Stiles and stopped by the I.C.U. The state police had pulled security off the door. He rang the buzzer. The duty nurse, a man with an amiable expression, opened up. Kerney asked to see Jose Padilla.

The nurse sadly shook his head.

"He died two hours ago."

"Thanks." Kerney turned on his heel and left, stewing over the information. It was the perfect end to a shitty day, he thought. He had been counting on the old man for some answers. He swallowed hard against the memory of his ill-timed scolding of Jim Stiles. It had been poor form and bad manners, coming as it had on the heels of Jim's expression of gratitude.

He drove to a motel, got a room, soaked his knee with a hot compress, and collapsed in a stupor on the bed.

It was early morning when Kerney turned the corner of the hospital corridor on his way to see Jim before leaving Silver City. He almost ran over Karen Cox. She wore black linen trousers and a vanilla colored jacket over a silk shirt. It made her seem even more willowy.

"How's Jim doing?" he asked, glancing down the hallway to the hospital room where Stiles temporarily resided.

"He seems okay, thankfully. I expect a full briefing from you."

"Whenever you say."

"Not now. I'm running late. I understand you had a talk with my father," she said.

"What was that about?"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"I'd like to hear your version."

"According to your father, he came to the hospital on Sunday to find out if Jose Padilla was someone he once knew."

Karen blinked. Kerney waited for more of a reaction.

"And?" she demanded.

"He's not sure," Kerney replied.

"But if it turns out that Padilla is an old acquaintance, your father may be a source of information."

Faced with confirmation that her father had lied to her about his meeting with Kerney, Karen struggled to keep her composure.

"What did you learn about Jose Padilla?" she asked.

Kerney read the distress in Karen's eyes.

"He was born here. He was attending medical school in Mexico City when his father died. He came back because he believed his father, Don Luis, was murdered sixty years ago."

Karen's tone became guarded.

"I thought the working hypothesis was that Hector Padilla was shot to protect the poacher's identity."

"That's one motive," Kerney said.

"Another is that the killer simply panicked when Hector came on the scene. A third motive is that the killing might be tied to Jose and Hector Padilla's arrival in Catron County to look into the death of Don Luis."

"When can I talk to Jose Padilla?"

"You can't. He died last night. What I've learned was supplied by his daughter, who came up from Mexico City."

"I want to talk to her." Kerney told Karen where Cornelia Marquez was staying.

She nodded, broke eye contact, looked at her wristwatch, and glanced at him impatiently.

"Anything else?"

"What can you tell me?" Kerney leaned forward to test Karen's reaction.

She inched back from him.

Something had her uptight.

"I have no new information."

"Do you think your father is holding something back?"

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know." He held out the special investigator commission card.

"Here. Take it. I'm afraid you can't borrow my services any longer."

Karen looked from the card to Kerney's face, her expression vexed.

"What's this all about?"

Kerney shrugged.

"Politics. I got fired. Read the morning paper."

"What will you do?"

"I'll think of something," he said, placing the card in Karen's hand.

She reached out and touched Kerney on the arm.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too. I was looking forward to working with you."

She reacted with a flush of agreement in her voice.

"I still need you to fill me in on what happened."

"I will." He left her standing in the hallway and paid a quick visit to Jim.

"You just missed Karen," Jim said. He was propped up in bed with two pillows stuffed behind his head.

Kerney nodded.

"How are you doing?"

"The food sucks and I want to go home."

Full vision was back in Jim's right eye, but the doctor wanted to keep him under observation for another day. His arm was sore as hell. They talked a bit about Jose Padilla's death, and Jim promised he'd redouble his research efforts now that the only potential eyewitness was gone.

Kerney groaned at the pun and waved goodbye.

Jim belly-laughed as Kerney left the room.

As Kerney crossed the lobby he saw Karen in the gift shop buying the morning paper. For someone who was running late, he wondered why she was still at the hospital. He dismissed the thought as he walked outside. Carol Cassidy's decision to give him two extra weeks to solve the case was a nice gesture, but Kerney had already decided before the offer was made to nail the perpetrator, no matter how long it took. He hated leaving a job unfinished, and Jim Stiles deserved to have the asshole who shot him caught.

Karen bought the paper and looked at the wall clock in the gift shop.

Her parents were due to arrive soon for Mom's appointment with the doctor, and Karen had made arrangements to go to work late so she could be with them when they received the results of the biopsy. Mom had made sure Daddy knew that Karen had been told about the cancer.

Both had welcomed her demand to be included in on the meeting with the doctor.

She was angry at her father-much more so than before. He had lied to her twice. She wanted to believe that his lies were inconsequential, motivated by his desire to protect her from his personal conflict with Eugene. But now it seemed more damaging.

Raising the issue with him today was out of the question. She wondered if bringing it up with him at all was the right way to go. Maybe she needed to do some digging on her own before broaching the subject again.

She folded the newspaper under her arm and walked to the hospital cafeteria. It had just opened for business, and no one was in the serving line. She poured a cup of coffee, paid for it at the cashier's station, and carried it to an empty table in the corner of the dining room, away from the only other occupants, a surgical team dressed in green scrubs and plastic booties, sitting in an area reserved for hospital staff.

She took a sip, and opened the paper to the front page. The headline read:

FIRED RANGER RESCUES WOUNDED GAME AND FISH OFFICER

Kevin Kerney, a ranger fired yesterday from his job with the Forest Service, rescued Game and Fish Officer James Stiles, who had been shot by an unknown assailant while investigating the murder of Hector Padilla, a Mexican national.

According to the Catron County sheriff, Omar Gatewood, Kerney found Stiles, administered first aid, and carried him out of a remote canyon in the Mangas Mountains north of Reserve to a waiting helicopter.

Stiles, who was wounded in the arm, face and left eye, was airlifted to the Gila Regional Medical Center, where he is listed in satisfactory condition.

According to Dr. Harrison Walker, attending physician. Officer Stiles will make a complete recovery from his wounds. Walker credits Kerney for responding in a "timely and appropriate manner," and for "possibly saving Officer Stiles' life."

Kerney, who was released from his position with the Forest Service because of his appointment as a special investigator with the district attorney's office, served as the chief of detectives for the Santa Fe Police Department until a gun battle left him seriously wounded and forced him into retirement.

Kerney was fired from the Forest Service after having been enlisted by Assistant District Attorney Karen Cox to assist in the inquiry into the murder of Hector Padilla. Acting Regional Forester Samuel Aldrich released a press statement from his Albuquerque office saying "the investigation of a murder is not an appropriate function for Forest Service personnel. We regret having to terminate Mr. Kerney's temporary employment sooner than planned, but are pleased that he's now free to pursue his investigation for the district attorney's office without distraction."

Sheriff Gatewood, who commissioned Stiles to help his department investigate the Padilla murder, has announced that Stiles will receive special commendations for bravery from his office and the state Game and Fish Department. Stiles, Gatewood said, will continue to hold a commission with the sheriff's department until the murder of Padilla is solved. There are no suspects or new developments in the case, but police believe that the murder of Padilla and the wounding of Officer Stiles may be linked.

Last year, Kerney was praised by Dona Ana County Sheriff Andy Baca for solving the case of a murdered soldier at White Sands Missile Range and recovering historical artifacts stolen from the military installation.

Kerney was serving as a lieutenant in the department at the time.

Carol Cassidy, supervisor of the Luna District Office, said that Kerney's performance on the job had been "exemplary." Assistant District Attorney Cox, who was recently appointed to her position, has not yet issued a statement. Attempts to reach Kevin Kerney for comment have been unsuccessful.

Coffee forgotten, she quickly scanned the related articles. Kerney deserved a hell of a lot better treatment than he was getting, she thought soberly.

He had no choice but to turn in the commission card. The state law was very clear: without a full-time salaried law-enforcement job, Kerney could not legally serve as a special investigator.

He was now simply a civilian with no police powers. *** Edgar Cox walked between his wife and daughter into the bright midmorning sun, his mind racing. The lump in his wife's breast was cancerous, of that the doctor was certain. The fact had stunned Edgar into silence. Margaret and Karen had asked all the questions during the consultation, while Edgar looked on blankly. He had listened to the discussion with a feeling of unreality as the doctor recommended a mastectomy. Margaret had put on her reading glasses, and with handwritten notes taken from her purse, had begun asking questions: good, solid inquiries about alternative treatments and less intrusive procedures.

Edgar had been amazed by her rock-solid performance.

She was tough as nails. The meeting had ended with Margaret agreeing to the operation as soon as possible.

Margaret stopped and looked up at him.

"You've been very quiet."

"I know. Sorry."

"Tell me what you're thinking," Margaret prodded.

"You're one tough cookie," Edgar replied, placing his arm around his wife's waist.

Margaret laughed and leaned against him.

"Are you just finding that out?"

"No, I knew it the day I met you."

"How do you feel about the operation?"

"Scared," Edgar answered.

"I don't want you to have to go through this."

"I'll be fine."

"Promise?"

Margaret nodded solemnly.

"Promise."

"That's good enough for me," Edgar said, hugging Margaret. He looked at Karen.

"How about you, Peanut? Think all this is going to work out?"

Karen forced a smile, trying to dispel the worry in her father's eyes.

"I think Mom's going to be with us for a very long time."

He reached for his daughter and pulled her close.

He felt her stiffen and looked down at her. Karen's expression was one of frank appraisal as she scanned his face. He had never seen that look from her before.

"God, I hope so," Edgar said.

Amador poked a finger under his T-shirt and scratched his belly button.

"I feel bad about what happened to Jimmy. Almost like it was my fault."

"Somebody was waiting for him at the mine," Kerney countered.

"Did you tell anyone else about the ATV tracks in the canyon?"

Using the same finger, Amador scratched under his lower lip and used his chin to point in the direction of his crew. The four men were at the back of the maintenance building, restocking construction materials and cleaning tools.

"We all saw the tracks," Amador replied.

"It wasn't a big deal or anything like that. A lot of people use off-road vehicles to get into the mountains.

I didn't even think about it until after the murder up on the meadows.

Then, when I remembered it, I thought it might be important."

Kerney restated: "Did you tell anybody about your suspicions, before or after you talked to Jim?"

"No. I was off yesterday. I just stayed at home working around the house. Didn't see anybody to talk to, except the family. Why are you asking me these questions? Shouldn't you be out looking for a job?"

"Do my questions bother you?" Kerney countered.

"It's no skin off my nose, but you're wasting your time. You got no job, no authority. So why push it? It ain't gonna make you any friends, not that you have any I know of."

Kerney shrugged.

"You're Henry Lujan's uncle.

Tell me about him. Is he having any kind of problems at college? Money worries, perhaps?"

Amador got red in the face.

"Madre de Dios, are you out in left field. If you think Henry's got anything to do with this, you're crazy."

"Everything's okay with Henry? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," Amador corrected. He pointed at a small man with a receding hairline who was restacking plywood.

"That's Steve Lujan. Henry's father. Maybe he'll talk to you, maybe he won't.

But don't do it on my time, while he's working."

"What's the problem, Amador?"

"I don't have a problem, you do," he snorted, looking up at the gringo.

"Poking around in other people's business isn't healthy. You get my meaning?"

"It's been fun working with you, Amador. Thanks for all the help."

"Screw you," Amador replied.

Kerney walked out into the sunlight, thinking that it must have taken Steve Lujan a good long time to grow the Zapata mustache that drooped majestically over his upper lip. It also occurred to him that Amador was right: he hadn't made very many friends in Catron County.

Carol made a final check mark on the inventory control sheet and raised her head. She pushed the box filled with Kerney's uniforms, equipment, weapon, and shield to one side of her desk.

"That does it," she said, as Kerney dropped the keys to the ranger vehicle in her hand.

"I'll get you a ride back to Reserve."

"Thanks," Kerney replied.

"Anything happening you'd like to tell me about?"

Kerney tilted his head toward the open office door.

Carol got up and closed it.

"What is it?"

"What do you know about Henry and Steve Lujan?" Kerney asked.

"I need some background information, and Amador wasn't inclined to cooperate."

"That doesn't surprise me," Carol said, returning to her chair behind the desk.

"He keeps family matters to himself. Both Henry and Steve are temporary employees who work every summer for me.

Henry's a college student, and his father sells firewood, flagstone, and landscape rock to the folks in Silver City during the off-season."

"What do you know about Henry?"

"Not much. Amador recommended him to me.

He's been reliable. Uses the money he makes for his college living expenses. He went to school up in Albuquerque his first year. Didn't like being so far away from home, so he transferred to Western New Mexico University in Silver City. Is he a suspect?"

"No, but he's one of two people who were in the area when Padilla was murdered."

"That's stretching it," Carol replied.

"He was on duty at the lookout tower. I checked the radio log.

He couldn't possibly get to and from Eldennan Meadows in an hour.

Impossible. Who's the other person?"

"Amador," Kerney replied.

"He camped out at the construction site the night before we found Jose Padilla and his grandson's body."

"I didn't know that," Carol said, wrinkling her nose.

"Although he's done it before. It's not out of character."

"That's good to know. And Steve Lujan?"

"He got laid off at the copper mine down by Silver City. Three years ago, I think it was. Worked there for ten or fifteen years. Commuted home on the weekends. It must have hit him hard, financially.

He's got three kids in college. Henry's the youngest."

"Are all the kids still in school?"

"The oldest, Leonard, is working on a master's degree in El Paso. Henry and his sister are still going to Western as far as I know."

"What about Henry's mother?"

"Yolanda works down at the Glenwood District Office as a secretary.

Charlie Perry hired her right after he came to the district. About two years ago.

I'm sure you've met her."

"I have. Does anybody in the family have a criminal record?"

Carol raised an eyebrow.

"That's a tall order. The Lujan and Ortiz families are rather large.

How deeply do you want to delve?"

"Just the principals we've been talking about."

"Amador served eighteen months for a residential burglary when he was younger. Twenty years or so ago. He got a governor's pardon right before he started working for the Forest Service."

"Do you know the reason for the pardon?" Kerney inquired.

"I think Edgar Cox arranged it for him. Edgar was chairman of the county commission at the time."

"So Henry and Steve have a clean slate?"

"As far as I know. Henry, certainly. With Steve I'd only be guessing, but Catron County is too small for me not to have heard something."

"Any womanizing?"

"Steve?" Carol asked incredulously.

"Yolanda would hand him his huevos on a platter if he tried.

And if she didn't do it, Amador would." She spread her hands out in a gesture of helplessness.

"Sorry I can't give you more. As far as I know, Steve, Henry, and Amador are solid citizens. I don't see them as bad guys."

"That helps."

"Speaking of bad guys, Charlie Perry came back this morning. He wanted to know if you had filed a final report."

Kerney held out the papers.

"Thanks," Carol said.

"I think I'll mail it to him.

Another reply came in to your inquiry right after Charlie left. A BLM officer down in Doming would like you to call him. He just got back from a trip to Washington and read your fax message." Carol pushed a piece of paper across her desk.

Kerney picked it up.

"You aren't going to give this to Charlie?"

Carol smiled sweetly.

"Of course I am. I'll mail it to him with your report. He should receive it in three or four days."

"That should do nicely."

"I thought you'd appreciate it." Carol leaned forward, her expression earnest.

"You did one hell of a job saving Jim. I think you deserve recognition for it."

"You're not going to get all mushy on me, are you?" Kerney chided.

Carol giggled.

"Absolutely not. But you do deserve something better than a pink slip for your efforts."

"I'll take that ride to Reserve," Kerney proposed.

Leaning against the corral fence, Edgar watched Cody practice roping his pony. A dark sorrel mare with a bald face, standing barely fourteen hands high. Babe was a gentle horse. Cody made another throw, the noose of the lariat fell short, and Babe loped to the far side of the corral, a good hundred feet away from the boy.

"I still can't do it. Grandpa," Cody moaned, slapping the rope against his leg.

"Yes you can," Edgar replied, as he stepped over to the boy.

"Watch me one more time." Edgar uncoiled his lasso and started a slow spin with the noose.

"You need to twirl a circle," he said.

"Don't let your noose flatten out. Don't try to spin it too fast. Let your wrist do the work for you. Swing the loop up above your head.

Listen to the sound it makes. Don't throw the rope at the horse. Let it float out to where you want it to go."

Edgar walked toward Babe with long, fluid strides, Cody at his heels.

Swinging the noose slowly above his head, letting it gradually pick up speed, he flicked his wrist and the loop settled over Babe's neck. He walked to the mare and retrieved the lasso. Babe snorted at him and walked away.

"What kind of sound did you hear?" Edgar asked.

"Kind of a whisper. A hissing whisper," Cody answered.

"That's the sound."

"I'll never get it right," Cody complained in frustration.

Edgar rubbed Cody's head.

"Yes, you will." He took Cody's lasso and shortened the loop. Babe had moved to the gate by the horse barn, where Carl Sloan, one of two hired hands, was cleaning out stalls. Edgar caught the mare by the halter and brought her back to the center of the corral.

"Let's try it with you sitting on my shoulders," Edgar said, as he lifted the boy up and moved ten feet back from the mare.

Babe gave them a snort and a curious look. Cody spun the lasso and Edgar waited until the sound it made cutting through the air was just about right.

"Let it go."

The noose fell neatly over Babe's neck.

"I did it!" Cody shouted.

"You sure did." He set Cody down, walked to the corral fence, and dropped his rope over a post.

"Now try it again."

As Edgar watched Cody, his thoughts wandered. It was hard for him to pretend it was just another ordinary day. Margaret was in the kitchen with Elizabeth, working up meals for the freezer that would carry Edgar through her surgery and hospitalization. She acted as though she were preparing for nothing more than one of her periodic visits to her sister. On top of that worry, he was damn unhappy with himself for lying to Karen. While she hadn't said a word about it, he knew she didn't believe him.

He could see it in her eyes.

Engrossed in his thoughts, Edgar didn't hear Kerney drop over the corral fence.

"Mr. Cox," Kerney said politely.

Surprised, Edgar turned his head.

"Mr. Kerney."

He looked back at Cody, who was moving in on Babe for another try. He didn't want to think about Eugene, Jose Padilla, or any of it. Not now.

Kerney remained silent.

Edgar got tired of waiting.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, his blue eyes searching Kerney's face.

"I thought you'd like to know about Jose Padilla.

Seems he is from around these parts."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No, his daughter did. Padilla died last night."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"She also told me why Padilla came back. He thought his father was murdered."

"That's pretty unlikely."

"Why do you say that?"

Edgar paused, rubbed his palm along the smooth corral railing, and tried to stay calm. Cody's throw snaked out and the noose snapped against Babe's neck. The horse whinnied and skipped back from the boy.

"Let the noose open up before you throw it," Edgar called.

"Remember the circle. Don't let the noose flatten out."

Cody nodded glumly and walked toward the mare, coiling his lariat for another throw.

"Why do you say Don Luis wasn't murdered?" Kerney asked.

"Because he died in a fall with his horse."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Don Luis was an old man who went into the mountains alone once too often. He got caught in a blinding spring snowstorm and tried to find his way home. His horse plunged off a ridge.

Dropped a good sixty, seventy feet. Took Don Luis with him."

"Where did this happen?"

"Near Elderman Meadows. They didn't find his body for two weeks."

"What was he doing up there?"

"His sheepherder quit on him to take a WPA job building roads for the county. He hired a replacement, but the man didn't show. When the storm blew in, he went to check on the herd. He needed those sheep. He planned to sell them at the end of the season to pay a banknote and taxes. He was trying to hold on and get through the Depression, just like everybody else."

"What happened to the sheep?"

"Stolen. Most folks figured the sheep had been rustled before Don Luis left the hacienda."

"Was the crime ever solved?"

"No."

"Ever hear of a place called Mexican Hat?" Kerney asked.

"Can't say I have," Edgar answered.

"I hear you've been released from your position."

"That's true."

"Will you be staying on in Catron County?"

"Probably not."

Edgar watched Cody. He was all tensed up again and twirling much too hard.

"I didn't think so. Not many jobs hereabouts."

Cody let fly, and the lariat whipped out and snapped Babe in the eye.

The horse bawled, pitched back on her hind legs, forelegs flailing, and headed straight for Cody, who stood frozen in position.

Before Edgar could react, Kerney grabbed the lasso from the fence post and ran toward the mare, measuring the distance to the horse, spinning the lariat in a tight loop at his knee parallel to the ground. He let it go and the noose caught the mare by the forelegs. He yanked it tight and the horse went down hard on her side less than a foot in front of Cody.

Babe was on her back kicking in the air when Edgar scooped up Cody.

Kerney released the mare. She got up, shook herself off, snorted, and trotted away.

"Where did you learn that trick?" Edgar asked, holding Cody tightly in his arms.

"A fellow by the name of Bias Montoya taught it to me when I was a boy."

"Well, I thank both you and Mr. Montoya. That's some damn fine roping,"

"You're welcome."

He stroked Cody's head.

"Are you all right, cowboy?"

Cody's eyes were wet, but he wasn't crying.

"Yeah.

That was scary."

"It scared me, too," Edgar said.

"Is there anything else we need to talk about, Mr. Kerney?"

"I don't think so," Kerney replied.

Edgar stuck out his hand.

"Well then, good luck to you, and thanks again."

Kerney shook his hand and left, wondering what it would take to shake out Edgar's secret. He was damn sure there was one. Maybe Edgar had all the family skeletons locked in a closet that required a special key.

In Doming, Kerney went looking for a smuggler.

South of town, along the state highway, in view of the Tres Hermanas Mountains twenty miles distant, he found a mailbox with the right numbers at a roadside business that had gone under. The old farmhouse, bordered by cotton fields on three sides, had a front yard filled with rows of sagging wooden bins that once contained rocks for sale to the tourist trade. Signs at either end of the yard, the painted letters faded by the desert sun, welcomed rock hounds to the defunct establishment. There was a Keep Out sign posted on the front door of the house. Kerney parked and looked in the windows as he walked around the building. The rooms were empty except for some litter and a thick carpet of sand on the plank floors. Nobody had been inside for a good long time.

The wire strands to the back fence were filled with fluffs of raw cotton from the last harvest. In front of the fence was a level spot of sand and gravel near a utility pole with an electric meter attached to it. A dented propane tank sat on the other side of the site.

It was clear that a house trailer had been recently moved off the property. The tracks of the truck that had hauled it away were barely filled in with drifting sand.

Kerney kicked at the sand with the toe of a boot, pissed off at himself for taking too long to follow up on Juan's lead. It was another dead end, and he was getting tired of running into walls. He looked down the road. About half a mile away, at the intersection of the highway and a county road, was a farm equipment and supply business. Beyond that, cotton fields gave way to desert that ran up against the dark groundmass of the Tres Hermanas.

At the dealership, a metal-skin building with a large plate-glass window that bounced the sun into his eyes, he stood next to a hundred-thousand-dollar tractor and talked with the owner. Clancy Payne was in his sixties. He had a cheerful smile and a trace of a West Texas twang. He shook his head and said he didn't know much about the man up the road. Kerney learned that his target, Leon Spence, had sold the house trailer and moved to Tucson. Other than that, and a belief that Spence was a traveling salesman of some sort, Mr. Payne knew nothing more.

"When did Spence move out?" Kerney asked.

"I don't know when he left, but they hauled the trailer away over the weekend," Clancy replied.

"Were you open for business on Saturday?"

"I sure was, but I didn't see Spence, if that's what you're wondering."

"What kind of car does Spence drive?"

"He's got two vehicles. One of them is a Toyota four-by-four sport utility and the other is a four door Chevy. A Caprice, I think it is.

The Toyota is a dark blue and the Chevy is white."

"New Mexico plates?"

"Yeah, but don't ask me for the license numbers. I can't even remember my own."

Laid out on a grid, Deming ran parallel to the interstate until it petered out at both ends of the main street. On a smooth desert plain, broken only by low sand mounds and shallow arroyos, the locals fought the starkness of the land and lost the battle.

There would never be enough greenness, no matter how many trees were planted or lawns were sodded, to combat the sparseness, dryness, dust, and wind that constantly wore at the town.

With all of that going against it, Deming had been discovered by working-class retirees on limited pensions, and new, inexpensive subdivisions were pushing back the cotton fields, as the city touted its resurgence with billboards and bumper stickers.

On the outer limits ofDeming's main street, in the air-conditioned comfort of a restaurant that gave customers a great view of the interstate highway and the railroad tracks, Kerney called the BLM officer, who agreed to meet him for a cup of coffee. While he waited he borrowed the phone book and called the electric and phone companies, hoping that Spence had left a forwarding address. No such luck. He called mobile home movers. None had hauled Spence's trailer. The BLM cop arrived, and Kerney sat with him in a window booth, the sun's glare cut by a thick plastic shade that made the outside world look dark brown.

"You did the ibex investigation in the Florida Mountains," Kerney said, after the small talk concluded.

Mike Anderson, a man with a blocky face and fat earlobes, took his sunglasses off and wiped some dust out of the corners of his eyes.

"That's right.

Couldn't get anything definite on it. I called a state police buddy of mine to help out, but we couldn't get a damn bit of hard evidence other than the tire tracks. That didn't pan out either. The impressions didn't take. Not enough tread depth."

"So, what have you got?"

"Two days before I found the kill site, I stopped a kid on a four-wheel ATV. He was on state land outside of my jurisdiction, but I gave him a butt chewing anyway. Said he was camped at Rock Hound State Park with his family."

"Did you ID the kid?"

"Got a name," Anderson said, pulling a small notebook from his shirt pocket.

"The kid was maybe twelve, thirteen years old." Anderson thumbed through his notes.

"Here it is. Ramon Ulibarri. Said he was from Reserve. I called up there after I found the trophy kills, just to check it out. There was only one Ulibarri listed in the phone book and the telephone had been disconnected. So I called the Catron County sheriff."

"And?" Kerney prodded.

"I talked to the sheriff. He didn't know any kid by that name, and nobody matched the description I gave him. I figured in a town that small, the sheriff would know."

"You talked to Gatewood?"

"Sure did."

"Describe the boy to me," Kerney asked.

Anderson gave him a rundown. Four-six or — seven, slender build, wearing floppy jeans and a baseball cap with the bill turned backward. He closed the notebook and put it away.

"The kid told me that he was camping with his family at the state park, but later when I talked to the manager he said there was nobody registered from Reserve during that time."

"So the kid lied to you."

"Appears that way."

"Do you know a man named Leon Spence?" Kerney asked.

"Used to live on the highway to Columbus."

Anderson suddenly got busy stirring his coffee.

"Doesn't register."

Kerney pushed a bit.

"He had a trailer behind a vacant house that used to be a rock-hound shop. You must have seen it."

"I've seen it," Anderson allowed.

"Didn't know who lived there."

Kerney picked up the check for the coffee.

"Thanks for your time."

"Hope I didn't waste yours," Anderson replied.

He put some change on the table for a tip, shook Kerney's hand, and wished him good luck before putting his sunglasses back on and pushing his way out the door into the simmering desert furnace of the day.

As he paid the bill, Kerney pondered Anderson's behavior. The man had gone from one extreme to another. He'd been more than willing to talk about poachers, but went into a complete shutdown when Leon Spence had been mentioned. That was damn interesting.

Anderson hadn't left much of a tip for the waitress. Kerney went back and put more money on the table.

"Reading with one eye isn't easy," Jim said.

"And I don't do it very well."

"Maybe you shouldn't try," Kerney replied.

Jim sat in the chair next to his hospital bed, a pile of papers in his hand. The dressing covering his eye had been replaced with a patch and his left arm was in a sling.

The bed was occupied by a very pretty, blue-jean clad blond-headed young woman with a dimple in the center of her chin, who sat cross-legged with a laptop computer balanced on her knees.

"That's Molly Hamilton," Jim explained.

"My research associate. When she gets desperate, I'm allowed to date her."

"Shut up, Jim," Molly said sweetly, looking at Kerney. "Hi."

"Hello."

Molly held out a modem cord to Kerney.

"Plug this in the phone jack, please. State archives is sending me some confirming information."

Kerney did as he was told.

"Where did you find such good help?" he asked Stiles.

"Molly's the chief research librarian at the university," Jim explained.

"I can't get her to quit her job, marry me, and have my babies."

"Shut up, Jim," Molly said, her fingers busy at the keyboard.

"Don't listen to him, Mr. Kerney. Want to hear what we've got so far?"

"I'd love to."

Molly punched a few more keys and put the laptop on the pillow behind her.

"Okay. Before statehood, Thomas Catron owned most of the land west of Magdalena to the Arizona border. What he didn't own, Solomon Luna controlled, along with the Padilla family. Don Luis was kind of a junior partner.

They pooled their resources and formed a limited partnership called the American Valley Company.

There were a few more partners, but Catron bought them out except for Luna and Padilla. The venture never made a profit. Catron was overextended financially and couldn't raise the money for development.

In his day, he was just about the biggest landowner in the country. He held title to, or controlled, millions of acres in New Mexico. When beef prices plummeted in the 1890s and the drought hit, it was all he could do to hold on to the land."

"That's interesting," Kerney said, "but it doesn't get us very far."

"What's interesting, Mr. Kerney," Molly said, arching her back in a stretch, "is what Catron did.

He recruited a new partner with working capital:

William Elderman."

"My granddaddy," Jim added proudly.

"A real scoundrel."

"True enough," Molly replied.

"After the American Valley Company dissolved, Catron and Luna walked away from the venture, leaving Elderman and Padilla the biggest landowners in the county, but with a binding agreement that gave each of them first option for a buy out."

"So did Elderman exercise his option for the land with Padilla?" Kerney asked.

"Padilla wouldn't sell, even though Elderman hounded him for years. It took the Great Depression to bankrupt Padilla."

"Did Elderman get the land for back taxes?"

"Don't jump the gun," Molly said, waving a censuring finger.

"The only entity buying land in the valley during the Depression was the federal government.

The feds wanted to expand the Datil National Forest. That's what it was called back then. And the land they wanted was owned by Padilla.

Elderman knew it. Padilla didn't. It was pure discrimination.

The feds didn't want to deal with the Hispanics."

"Is this speculation or fact?" Kerney inquired.

Molly tilted her head in Jim's direction.

"Fact.

Most of what we know comes from an unpublished autobiography written by Woodrow Stringhom, the first park superintendent. His family donated the papers to the university after his death. Stringhom consummated the deal with Elderman to buy the land for the national forest. He wrote in his autobiography that he was ordered by Washington to have no dealings with Padilla, and to wait until the land came under Elderman's control.

"There's even a letter from Elderman to Stringhom, in which he writes that Padilla probably wouldn't be able to meet his obligations to the bank when his note came due. Seems that old William had an inside source on Padilla's finances."

"Who owned the bank?" Kerney queried.

"Another scoundrel," Jim replied.

"Calvin Cox.

Karen's granddaddy. Is this a good story, or what?"

"A very good story," Kerney agreed.

"So Elderman got control of Padilla's land through Calvin Cox, turned around, and sold a chunk of it to the feds."

"Right," Molly agreed.

"Elderman Meadows.

There was no tax auction. We think Calvin Cox covered the tax liability until the proceeds from the land sale came through. Elderman probably paid through the nose for the service, but he walked away a rich man after selling out to the government." She glanced at Jim.

"Are you rich?"

Stiles grinned.

"No, but my grandparents were, and my parents are well off. I guess that makes me part of the landed gentry."

"Dirty money," Molly said, wrinkling her nose.

Stiles nodded his head enthusiastically.

"It's how the west was won."

Molly wrinkled her nose again in disgust at the idea.

"I don't like it any more than you do, really," Jim said.

Molly's smile returned.

"You'd better not." She turned her attention back to Kerney.

"That's about it. What I asked for from state archives should fill in some of the blanks."

"Did you find any reference to a place called Mexican Hat?" Kerney asked.

"Nothing," Molly answered.

"It could be one of those local place-names that never got recorded."

"How about the Cox family? I've haven't heard one word spoken about Eugene's wife."

"Be patient, Mr. Kerney," Molly replied.

"Research takes time." She uncrossed her legs, slid off the bed, and kissed Jim on the lips.

"Gotta go. I'll pick up my laptop when I stop by to see you tonight."

"See ya," Jim said.

"And thanks."

"It's going to cost you."

"I certainly hope so."

"Shut up, Jim," Molly said sweetly as she waved and left.

Jim smiled, his eye fixed on the empty doorway.

"Nice-looking younger babe," Kerney noted.

"I knew you were going to say that," Jim replied with a laugh.

"Doesn't she do good work?"

"Is that what you like about her?"

"No comment."

Kerney and Stiles spent the next ten minutes going over what they knew.

"Old Jose Padilla may have been right about his father's death," Jim said.

"It's too bad he didn't make it."

"He may have left us enough to work with. Let's see what Molly digs up."

Jim nodded enthusiastically.

"She's something, isn't she?"

"A gem," Kerney agreed. It was clear Jim was in love.

The car that had been with him since he left Deming followed at a discreet distance as Kerney pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

The campus of Western New Mexico University, a tidy complex of buildings situated on a hill near downtown Silver City, was quiet and nearly deserted.

At the administration building, Kerney learned that no information about students could be released without written parental permission. In the business office, he had better luck. After a little cajoling, a billing clerk agreed to pull up financial information on a computer screen and let Kerney read it. None of the Lujan kids, including the oldest one who had graduated, had received student loans, and all payments for tuition, housing, and fees had been made in full and on time by checks written against the account of Steve and Yolanda Lujan. Kerney found that pretty amazing for a couple who lived on the income of a secretary and a seasonal worker with the forest service. Lujan must sell a hell of a lot of flagstone, landscape rock, and firewood during the off-season in order to pay the freight for three kids in college.

The car following Kerney in Silver City was nowhere to be seen on the drive back to Reserve. He pulled to the shoulder of the road near the town limits and waited for it to reappear. It never showed up. Whoever was following him had either switched cars or dropped the surveillance.

The Lujans lived in a settlement south of Reserve called Lower San Francisco Plaza, where the river squeezed into a confined channel and rushed through the mountains toward Glenwood before veering west to Arizona. A bridge crossed the river below the settlement, and a paved road twisted through the high country up to Snow Lake. The plaza, a collection of a half-dozen widely scattered houses and double-wide mobile homes, was one of the last remaining Hispanic enclaves in the county that hadn't passed into Anglo hands. -erney drove from house to house until he found the Lujan residence, a sprawling, un stuccoed adobe dwelling hidden by stacks of seasoned and fresh-cut firewood, piles of flagstone, and mounds of landscape rock on wooden pallets. From the look of it, Lujan had quite an inventory built up, which certainly wasn't putting cash into his pocket.

The property was enclosed by a chain-link fence and steel panel gate.

Inside the fence sat a one-ton truck outfitted with a winch, hydraulic tailgate, and dual rear tires. A load of green pine had been dumped next to a commercial log-splitter. Two vehicles, a late-model Pontiac Grand Am in cherry condition and a beat-up full-size Ford Bronco, were parked facing the front porch. A chained German shepherd sprawled between them. The dog barked angrily as Kerney stepped through the open gate.

Steve Lujan waited on the porch and watched Kerney approach.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked.

"What's your dog's name?" Kerney countered as he walked to the animal.

It stopped barking and sniffed Kerney's hand.

"Loco," Lujan answered. Small-boned and lean, Lujan stood in a defiant pose with his legs spread and his arms crossed. His bushy mustache completely covered his upper lip.

"Does he bite?" Kerney asked cordially.

"Only when I tell him to," Steve replied.

"What are you doing here?"

"Would you mind answering a few questions?"

Steve considered the request.

"I don't have to tell you nothing."

"I know that."

"I've got nothing to hide," he said gruffly.

"Come inside."

Steve led him through the front room, past a big screen television set, expensive-looking reclining chaise rockers, sofa, oak-veneer end tables with ceramic lamps, and a gun cabinet filled with hunting rifles, and into the kitchen. Yolanda was at the sink.

She turned and nodded abruptly at Kerney. A dumpy woman, dressed in leggings and a loose top that covered a thick waist, she had a testy expression.

"Hello, Yolanda," Kerney said.

She cleared her throat and shot a glance at her husband before responding.

"Hello."

Steve settled into a chair at the kitchen table, crossed his legs, and reached for a pack of cigarettes.

"Sit down."

"No thanks. I'll only stay a minute."

Lujan tapped a smoke on the table, lit up, and glanced at Yolanda.

"What do you want to ask me?"

He pulled back his head to look up at Kerney.

Yolanda took the cue, turned back to the sink, and began rinsing off the dinner dishes.

"Where were you when Jim Stiles got shot?"

Steve blew smoke in Kerney's direction and uncrossed his legs.

"Day off. I was cutting wood on a mesa. I always cut wood or haul rock on my free time. I've got a bunch of regular customers down in Silver City. I sell about fifty cords every fall and winter."

"What's the going rate for a cord?" Kerney asked.

"It depends on the weather," Lujan replied.

"Between a hundred and a hundred and twenty. You need some wood? I'll cut the price by twenty dollars a cord if you load and haul it yourself."

"I'll pass, but thanks for the offer." Kerney did a rough calculation in his head. Lujan would be lucky if he cleared three thousand dollars on the wood after expenses.

"Did anybody go with you yesterday?"

"No, I went alone." Lujan took another puff on his cigarette.

"Did you run into anybody?"

Steve stubbed out the cigarette, tilted his chair, and tipped his head so he could look Kerney in the eye.

"No. Do I need an alibi?"

"Are you a hunter?"

Tired of craning his neck, Steve let the chair drop down on all four legs and stood up. Kerney still towered over him. He reached for another cigarette and lit it.

"I take a deer every season. That's all I have time for."

"Nothing else?" Kerney queried.

"Elk, when I can get a permit. I'm not a poacher."

Kerney switched gears.

"You have a boy in graduate school and two kids at Western New Mexico, don't you?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"It must be expensive to put three kids through college at the same time."

Lujan laughed bitterly.

"Don't you mean how can a peon like me come up with that kind of money?"

"I didn't say that," Kerney replied calmly.

Lujan thrust his face forward.

"You don't have to say it to mean it. I had an industrial accident at the copper mine a few years before I got laid off. Hurt my back. The union helped me settle with the company. I got a cash payment. The money went into savings for the kids' education. We don't use it for anything else."

Lujan turned to the sideboard behind him, opened a drawer, pulled out a bank passbook, and flipped it onto the table.

"Check it out for yourself.

Every dollar pays for tuition, books, dormitory costs, and expenses."

Kerney looked. From the amount of the initial deposit it was apparent the Lujans certainly could cover the cost of three children in college.

It had been spent down systematically over a period of years.

"Satisfied?" Lujan asked. He had forgotten his cigarette. It was in an ashtray on the table burning down to the filter.

"Where were you the day Hector Padilla was murdered?" Kerney asked, holding out the passbook.

Steve took it and returned it to the drawer.

"That's a stupid question. You know where I was. I was at the campsite with Amador and the rest of the crew."

He pulled another smoke out of the pack.

"Did you leave the job at any time?"

"No."

Kerney glanced at Yolanda. She stood with one hand on her hip, her eyes darting from him to her husband. Her expression was one of masked resentment.

"That about does it," he said.

"Thanks for your time."

Steve grunted, lit up, and blew smoke in Kerney's direction.

"Let yourself out."

Loco, the German shepherd, wagged his tail when Kerney stepped off the porch. He rubbed the dog's snout and let him sniff his hand again before moving on to his truck. It seemed that Steve and Yolanda had been expecting his visit. Probably Amador had told Steve that Kerney might come around asking questions. But that didn't explain why Lujan had been so forthcoming with someone he thought no longer had any legal authority to question him. And why was he so nervous?

It was evening when Kerney got home and found Karen Cox standing next to her station wagon waiting for him. She wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a ribbed scoop-neck shirt. He parked, got out of the truck, and stretched his knee to ease some of the stiffness. He had spent too many hours driving with the leg locked in one position.

"You don't have a telephone," she said as he reached her.

"The phone company is supposed to put in a line, but now I guess I won't need it. Are you here to ask me about Padilla Canyon?"

"Not really. Jim Stiles filled me in. To him you're quite a hero."

"Hardly. I did what was necessary. What can I do for you?"

"Can we talk inside?"

In the trailer, he turned on the ceiling light and offered her the choice of the chair or the couch. She sat on the couch and waited while he opened windows to let out the heat of the day. The metal skin of the trailer absorbed heat like a sponge, and the room was stifling hot.

Except for two Navajo saddle blankets that hung on the walls, the living area held no personal touches. From the weave and the pattern she guessed both were late-nineteenth-century trade blankets, worth a considerable amount of money. The room, a combination kitchen, dining nook, and sitting area, was tidy but bleak in the harsh glow of the overhead light.

Kerney turned on a table fan, sat in the overstuffed chair, and stretched out his legs. It felt good to let the knee rest.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

Karen smiled apologetically.

"I came to thank you for rescuing Cody. My father told me what you did.

I appreciate it."

"No thanks are necessary. I think your father could have handled it without me."

"That's not the way he saw it. Why did you go to see him?"

"Are you wearing your ADA hat now?"

Karen shifted her weight on the lumpy cushion.

"You could say that."

Kerney nodded.

"Fair enough. I'll trade with you."

"Trade what?"

"Information."

"I don't have to do that."

"What's holding you back?"

"From what I've learned from Jim Stiles, you're still directing the course of his investigation. I can't allow that."

Kerney smiled in amusement.

"That's quite a stretch you're making. Counselor. I've provided nothing more than friendly advice to Jim."

"That doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to tell me what you've learned."

"I've already done that."

"Not completely. You said you had information to trade."

"It's more like a suspicion."

"Of what?" Karen demanded.

"Something happened a long time ago that brought Jose Padilla back to Catron County. It has put your father between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe it ties into the deaths of Hector and Jose Padilla, and maybe it doesn't. But until there is a solid lead on the killer and the motive, it can't be discounted."

"Now you're the one making a stretch."

"I don't mean to put you in an uncomfortable position."

"I didn't say that."

"You got uptight as soon as I mentioned your father in the same breath with Jose Padilla. You did the same thing this morning when we talked about it at the hospital."

Karen looked at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, and forced herself to relax.

"Why are you pushing this?"

Kerney leaned forward in his chair, his blue eyes filled with anger.

"Because whoever shot Jim Stiles was worried about something. But the question is, what? The poaching case? Hector Padilla's murder?

The death of a man your father knew sixty years ago? All of the above?

"I like Jim. He's good people, and he deserves to have the son of a bitch who shot him caught.

Besides, Jim was my partner, and the cop in me won't let it go until I catch the bastard. And that's what I plan to do."

Karen nodded vaguely, thinking he'd been straight with her and deserved the same treatment in return. Maybe it was time to trust him.

"The day Hector Padilla was murdered he left a letter with me to give to my father. He said it was from Jose Padilla."

"Any idea what was in it?"

"None at all. What I do know is that my father hasn't spoken to his brother in his entire adult life.

Whatever was in Padilla's letter broke that silence.

My father paid a visit to Eugene the day he got the letter."

"Something had him worried," Kerney ventured.

"This afternoon I started doing some digging of my own. I got a copy of my grandfather's will from the probate court. He changed it the same month that Uncle Eugene was shot in a hunting accident and my father ran away to join the Army. Grandfather Cox left everything to Eugene. My father was completely cut out of a considerable inheritance."

"Calvin Cox left nothing to his wife?"

Karen shook her head.

"My grandmother died of influenza when the twins were twelve years old."

"So why do you think he did it?"

"I don't know. But cutting a son completely out of an inheritance is the act of a very angry parent."

"I agree. What happened to Phil and Cory's mother? She could be a source of information."

"She left Eugene when Phil was six and Cory was twelve, and just disappeared. It caused quite a scandal. Eugene packed Phil and Cory off to military school in Roswell as soon as they were old enough.

After college, Phil came back to run the ranch. Cory never came back from Vietnam."

Karen waited for a response.

"Well?" she finally asked.

He stood up.

"Are you going to dig into this any deeper?"

"I'd like my father to come to me on his own,"

"I hope he does."

"So do I." Karen got up from the couch.

"Will you keep what I told you confidential?"

"As long as I can."

"Fair enough. You don't remember me, do you?"

"Phil jogged my memory when I had dinner with him," Kerney said.

"I remember three young girls who followed me around the rodeo grounds when I was here for the high school state finals. One of them had black hair and beautiful blue eyes, and made Cousin Cory introduce me to her every chance she got."

Karen laughed and extended her hand.

"That was me. In my age of innocence."

"Innocence doesn't last very long, does it?" Kerney replied, taking her hand in his.

"No, it doesn't. You'll keep me informed of what you do?"

"Of course I will."

Kerney saw Karen to the door, said good night, changed into his sweats, and did a two-mile run. He mulled over his meeting with Karen and came to the conclusion that the woman had some fire and steel to her-appealing qualities that increased her attractiveness.

The knee felt better when he got back to the trailer. Jim's girlfriend, Molly, was sitting on the step.

"Hi, Mr. Kerney. The wounded hero has me running a messenger service."

"Come in," he said.

She sat in the overstuffed chair with an attache case on her lap. Kerney took a seat on the couch.

Molly glanced around the room and made a face.

"This place is a pit."

"You don't find it homey?"

"You have mice."

"The landlord has promised full eradication."

"Good." She cocked her head sideways and studied him.

"You don't talk like a cop."

"Thanks, I think. What have you uncovered?"

Molly quickly turned to business, opening the case and shuffling through some papers.

"You wanted information on the Cox clan." She paused and fixed her gaze directly on his face.

"Do you still want it?"

"You bet I do."

"Haven't you been fired?"

"I'm unemployed," Kerney confirmed.

"Then what good will all this do? Jim's so angry about you getting canned he's spitting bullets. He didn't know about it until he turned on the evening news."

"Tell him to chill out. I'm going to stay with it."

Molly gave him a delighted smile.

"That's great."

She dropped her attention to the papers in her attache case and arranged them in order.

"Okay, here it is. Calvin Cox owned the local bank that carried the mortgage on the Padilla ranch. Before the property went on the auction block for back taxes. Cox bought it and immediately resold it to Elderman at an inflated price. Elderman passed the price increase on to the Forest Service. Both men made a chunk of money on the deal."

"What have you learned about Eugene's hunting accident?"

"He was out alone when he got shot. When he didn't come home, Edgar went searching for him and brought him down the mountain."

Molly flipped over a paper and studied her notes.

"When Eugene recovered enough to be questioned, he said he never saw who shot him. The state police speculated that whoever rustled Padilla's sheep shot Eugene."

"Eugene wasn't a suspect in the rustling?"

"Nope. He was back home with a bullet in his spine the day before Don Luis left the hacienda for the meadows."

"According to whom?"

"Calvin Cox, Edgar, and the doctor who treated Eugene."

"What about Eugene's wife? Any leads?"

Molly shook her head.

"Vanished without a trace, but Jim's looking." She put her notes away and got up.

"That's all I've got. Can I tell Jim my research assignment is over, please? I need to get back to my real job."

"Only if you tell me something."

"What is it?"

"Are you going to marry him?"

"Probably, but don't you dare tell him. I want to soften him up a bit more."

Kerney grinned.

"I promise I won't."

Molly stepped over to Kerney and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks for saving him for me, Mr. Kerney."

Kerney blushed and patted her on the shoulder.

"No thanks are necessary. Call me Kerney. Most of my friends do."

Molly tossed her hair out of her face and smiled.

"Okay, Kerney, you've got a deal. Jim gets to go home tomorrow morning.

Actually he's staying with me, so I can nurse him back to health." She wrote her address on a piece of paper and handed it over.

"You'd better stop by to see him. He likes you a lot.

So do I."

"The feeling is mutual on both counts," Kerney replied.

"Give Jim my best."

"I'll do it."

When Karen returned from her meeting with Kerney, Edgar carried Cody and Elizabeth up to the old house-Cody sitting on Grandfather's shoulders-to tuck them into bed. Margaret and Karen waited for him to return. When he didn't come back they looked for him out the living-room window. The light was on in the horse barn, and they saw his shadow through the open door as he moved around inside.

"He'll be fine," Margaret predicted.

"He always putters when he's worried."

"I'm worried too," Karen admitted.

"It will all be over soon." The surgery was scheduled for eight o'clock in the morning.

"I plan to breeze right through it," Margaret said, patting her daughter's cheek.

"See that you do."

When Karen left, Margaret turned out the livingroom lights and waited for Edgar to come back inside. Ten minutes passed before the kitchen door squeaked and Edgar walked quietly into the living room. She turned on the reading lamp next to the couch, and Edgar looked at her in surprise.

"Didn't the doctor tell you to get a good night's sleep?" he asked.

"He did. I will. Sit down, Edgar, I need to talk to you."

Edgar's expression grew grim.

"It's not about the surgery," Margaret reassured him.

He walked to his chair and eased his long frame down, his face still gloomy.

"What is it?"

"I want you to promise me something," she said.

"Anything you want."

Margaret held back a smile.

"I want you to tell Karen what happened on Elderman Meadows."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can. It's time, Edgar. I've kept your secret for over forty years, and I've seen it eat at you from the day we were married. Tell Karen and let her help you. A promise is a promise, and you've always been a man who kept his word."

Edgar, stunned by the request, knew he was trapped by a woman who wouldn't let him off the hook. He tried anyway.

"It's a hard thing you're asking me to do."

"But you will do it."

"When?"

"Soon. Very soon."

"You know what it may mean," he countered.

"Yes. A burden will be lifted and we can get on with our lives."

Edgar took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Margaret, still waiting for his answer, would keep him rooted in his chair until she got what she wanted. Maybe she was right and the time had come.

"I'll tell her," he said.

"Before you come back home."

Margaret went to him, sank down on his lap, and pulled his arms around her. Her wet eyes smiled.

"Thank you, Edgar."

He held her tightly, and neither spoke for a very long time.

Kerney spent a hot, long day in El Paso checking out the last two smugglers on Juan's list. Both seemed to operate legitimate businesses, which made Kerney's snooping by necessity discreet. After posing as a customer in each establishment, he staked-out the buildings until it became clear that he would need a surveillance team to help him and a lot of luck to catch any kind of a break. Frustrated, he gave it up late in the afternoon, wondering how far he could get going it alone with limited resources.

The only bright spot to the day was leaving El Paso. Big cities made no sense to Kerney at all. After the clutter of the strip malls, gas stations, and fastfood restaurants on the main drag out of town, he reached the desert that spread out like a vast ocean of glistening sandy breaks rising to steep-walled mountains on the western horizon. He cranked the air-conditioning up a notch, flipped down the visor, and headed west toward the enormous pale pink sun hovering at the horizon.

It was a two-hour haul from El Paso to Silver City. If he made good time, he might arrive early enough in the evening to pay a social call on the convalescing Jim Stiles and his lovely nurse.

Kerney's unknown traveling companion was back, and had been with him all day. Whoever was driving used a different car each time and tailed him like a pro. Kerney checked the rearview mirror and shrugged it off. Up ahead, the sun had vanished before it could set. A shroud of yellow dust came straight at him, pushed along by crosswise gusts that buffeted the truck. He turned on the headlights and reduced his speed. The cars coming at him were nothing more than floating beams of dull lights as the dust cloud boiled over the highway.

The storm blew through quickly, leaving a clear evening sky in the west and a huge sand cloud billowing to the east behind him. Drivers parked on the shoulder of the road, heading in Kerney's direction, pulled back into traffic. He watched for the car tailing him to emerge from the storm that still swallowed up the asphalt ribbon of highway in his rearview mirror. Nothing. Smiling, he increased his speed, fairly certain he had shaken the tail with the help of Mother Nature.

In Kerney's mind. Silver City had two redeeming characteristics: the foothills where the town sat, and the historic district, slowly coming back to life after years of neglect. The old hospital on the main drag, abandoned after the new medical center opened, looked like a relic from a World War II bombing raid. And the growth along the strip was a checkerboard of vacant land alternating with commercial enterprises surrounded by parking lots that appeared large enough to accommodate the cars of the entire city population at one time.

But downtown Silver City appealed to Kerney, with its long row of brick and stone storefronts with rounded second-story windows and elegant parapets, substantial old warehouses in back alleys still showing the faded letters of failed enterprises, the Big Ditch Park where Main Street once stood until a flood early in the century washed it away, and Victorian houses that climbed the hills on narrow streets.

Molly Hamilton lived in one of the Victorian cottages on a hill. A steep set of steps rose to a covered porch and an oak door with a leaded glass window. A brick chimney jutted at one end of the pitched roof.

Molly's brown eyes filled with censure when she opened the door.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

She shook her blond hair in mock dismay and pulled him by the hand into the living room, where Jim scowled at him from the comfort of an easy chair, his feet propped on an ottoman. He still wore an eye patch, and the cuts on his face had turned into bright scarlet splotches.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me you'd been fired?" he snapped at Kerney.

"I had to find out about it on the TV news."

"I didn't want to induce a relapse." Kerney's attempt at humor felt flat; Jim kept scowling.

"It's no big deal," he added lamely.

"It sucks, big-time," Stiles retorted.

"Stop bitching at him, Jim," Molly ordered, turning to look up at Kerney.

"He's been moaning and groaning all day that you probably packed up and left without even coming to see him."

"I wouldn't do that," Kerney replied.

"That's what I told him."

Jim's expression softened, and his boyish grin reappeared.

"What I was really worried about was having to solve the damn case by myself with one eye, my arm in a sling, and a face like Boris Karloff."

"You might be able to frighten the truth out of people," Kerney acknowledged.

"Good!" Molly proclaimed, clapping her hands.

"You've kissed and made up. I love this male bonding crap. Sorry to leave you boys, but kitchen duty calls." She pranced out of the room, looking lovely in her tunic top and cut-off jeans that showed her legs to advantage.

The room was the nicest Kerney had been in for some time. It had a high ceiling, a fireplace bordered by a cast-iron surround, oak wainscotting, and two wooden casement windows that faced the street. The modern, comfortable furniture, slightly undersized and placed at angles to the walls, gave the room a feeling of space.

Kerney settled into the chair next to Jim, thinking of the time when he'd been living with Laura, a bright-eyed, feisty woman who seemed to have every desirable attribute he was looking for in a lover.

They had rented a small adobe home on a hill above Palace Avenue near downtown Santa Fe. It was a gem of a house that looked down at a cluster of mud plastered homes and a dirt lane bordered by ancient cottonwoods. But it wasn't a happy place to live as Laura became more and more disenchanted with the demands of Kerney's job as a detective.

He came home one night to find Laura and a stranger packing her belongings into her car. The stranger turned out to be Laura's new юboyfriend, the man she was moving in with.

"Do you want to tell me what you've been doing?"

Jim asked.

Kerney nodded and started talking, leaving out very little. He chose not to mention the tail-which hadn't reappeared-or the way the BLM officer had flinched when Leon Spence's name had been mentioned.

That stuff was in the pending file for items of developing interest.

"So my mustache theory about the shooter didn't hold up," Jim said, when Kerney finished.

"I guess we can write Steve Lujan off."

"I'm not so sure," Kerney replied.

"He was a little too eager to cooperate."

"Want to check his story out?" Jim said.

"I think so."

"I'll do it. There's got to be a record of his injury settlement at the company."

"Get his bank records while you're at it," Kerney advised.

"What about Eugene's wife? Anything yet?"

"Nada, except for some background. Louise Blanton Cox moved to Pie Town at the end of World War Two and taught school for two years before marrying Gene Cox. She stayed with Gene for fifteen years and walked out on him in the early sixties. I haven't found any record of a divorce, but I still need to check with several more district courts."

"Maybe she never divorced him," Kerney speculated.

"Have you traced her family?"

Jim shook his head.

"She came here from Ohio or Michigan. All her family was from back there." Kerney sighed.

"Keep on it."

"I will."

Both men were dejected and unwilling to admit it. Kerney watched Jim fidget with the sling that held his arm secure against his chest before resting his own head against the cushion of the chair and closing his eyes. He was almost asleep when he felt a hand shaking him.

Molly looked down at him, a pillow and a blanket in her arms.

"You're spending the night," she announced.

"The couch in the study makes into a nice bed."

"That's not necessary."

"It is too." She wheeled and faced Jim.

"Have you seen the pit he calls a home?"

"Just once."

"He has mice living with him," Molly said, in a tone of voice suitable for castigating heretics.

"That seals it," Jim agreed, laughing.

"He stays."

Kerney took the bedding and followed Molly to the study.

Doyle Fletcher rose every morning before his wife so he could make the coffee while she showered and dressed for work. At thirty-seven, he didn't need a mirror to know he looked older than his years. His prematurely gray hair wasn't the worst of it. The bags under his eyes seemed to get bigger every day.

Doyle had hauled logs to the sawmill until the lumber industry got screwed by the spotted owl and he was laid off" from truck driving. Two years without regular work had battered his once cheerful disposition into a real bad attitude. Lately he had caught himself bitching about everything, criticizing the wife and kids for minor crap, and throwing temper tantrums for no reason.

It was four o'clock in the morning. His wife worked the day shift at Cattleman's Cafe. Her job and food stamps were keeping a roof over the family's head and food on the table. Fletcher hated the situation he was in, hated not being able to contribute to his family, and most particularly hated the United States Forest Service.

Doyle had charged Kerney all he could get for the trailer, and slapped a hefty security deposit on top of the rent. He had been counting on the extra income through the end of summer, but the stupid son of a bitch had gone and gotten himself fired from his job.

To make it worse, the security deposit was gone, used to pay a bill, and there was no way he could scrape together the cash to give Kerney a refund.

Doyle figured cleaning up the mice shit in the trailer would cancel out the deposit. If Kerney didn't agree, he'd have to wait until hell froze over to get his hundred dollars back.

His wife kissed him quickly on her way out the door. He sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee and studying the county health office pamphlet on hantavirus. Cleaning up mice shit was no longer a simple chore; not since the hantavirus outbreak began killing people several years back. Television reporters had yapped endlessly about the mystery killer illness, until the scientists figured out what the hell caused it. According to the pamphlet the disease was caused by airborne particles from deer mice droppings that attacked the pulmonary system in humans.

There were protocols to follow to remove the danger and avoid exposure, and Doyle read them over again carefully. He'd already picked up the rubber gloves, flea powder, traps, bait, paper towels, disinfectant, trash bags, and mask. It looked pretty straightforward.

He put everything in a box and carried it to his truck. In the darkness, he could see a single light on in the trailer window, and he wondered where in the hell Kerney was going so early in the morning. It wasn't like he had a job. Join the club, he thought sarcastically.

He got the kids up, dressed, fed, and ready to go.

Both were enrolled in church camp for the summer on scholarships, but that didn't bother Doyle; half the children in the congregation attended for free, and he had tithed every year when he was still working.

He let the kids watch a little television until it was time to drive them to church. Kerney's truck was gone as he passed the trailer. That was fine with Doyle. Maybe he had moved out and forgotten about the deposit.

He dropped the kids off, spent a few minutes chatting with the youth minister, and went to the trailer. It had to be aired out for an hour before he could go after the mice. He unlocked the door, called out to make sure no one was home, waited a minute, and flipped on the light switch. The explosion that followed blew the roof off the trailer and slammed Fletcher across the hood of his truck into the windshield.

He shattered the glass headfirst, and the impact broke his neck. wind-driven plumes of black smoke forced the onlookers back from the ropes that cordoned off the still-smoldering trailer. Kerney watched unnoticed at the back of the crowd. The trailer lay tipped precariously on its side with most of the roof missing.

Scorched metal fragments, strewn in random patterns across the field, showed that the blast had been considerable.

On the hood of a truck next to the trailer, a blanket covered a lifeless body. Near a fire engine, Omar Gatewood talked to a woman who wore a yellow firefighter's slicker. Directly behind them police, emergency, and rescue vehicles were haphazardly parked in the open field. A paramedic, bent over next to the open door of an ambulance, consoled an agitated, sobbing woman who huddled on the ground.

The wind died off and the smoke rose vertically, allowing people to move forward against the ropes. Kerney scanned the crowd. He recognized a lot of faces, most of them people he knew only by sight.

The gathering had almost a carnival air to it as folks shouted comments at the firefighters, who were smothering patches of smoldering grass with dirt.

There were lots of smiles and head-shaking going back and forth. Based on the size of the gathering, Kerney reckoned the event had brought out the entire village.

A voice on his right side spoke.

"Bomb."

Kerney glanced at the man. He wasn't familiar at all.

"Excuse me?"

The man was in his mid to late twenties, with a long ponytail tied back at the nape of his neck, eyes that were filled with amusement, and broad Navajo features. He took a deep drag on a cigarette before answering.

"I said it was a bomb."

"What makes you so sure?" Kerney asked, although he tended to agree with the analysis.

"I spent three years in an Army demolition unit.

No exploding water heater can do that kind of damage unless it's been rigged with a charge."

"You think the water heater was rigged?" Kerney asked.

The young man nodded. Dressed in jeans, a plaid work shirt, and a lightweight black denim jacket, he wore a very old coral-and-turquoise Navajo bracelet made of coin silver.

"I sure do." He dropped the cigarette and ground it under the heel of a work boot.

"See how the roof is torn up? It takes more than exploding propane gas to do that kind of damage."

"What kind of bomb do you think it was?"

"From the blast pattern, dynamite would be my guess."

"Triggered by what?"

"Probably by a spark. It's easy enough to do. You plant your material, short out an electrical switch, and start a gas leak. Whoever turns on the juice becomes a crispy critter."

"Did you do it?" Kerney asked, half seriously.

The young man chuckled and his dark eyes flashed in amusement. With high cheekbones, slightly curved eyebrows, and an oval face that tapered to a round chin, he looked quietly fun-loving.

"I wouldn't be talking about it if I did it, Mr. Kerney.

You've got a rookie on your hands-probably a virgin-and not a very talented one at that."

"You know me?"

The man laughed.

"Hell, man, you're headline news at Cattleman's Cafe."

"You have me at a disadvantage," Kerney said.

"I'm Alan Begay," he replied, raising his chin in a quick greeting.

"From the Navajo Pine Hill Chapter at Ramah."

"What brings you to this party?"

"I'm a surface-water specialist with the state. I work in the Gallup field office. I've been down here for the last three weeks. I heard the explosion and tagged along with the crowd."

"Do you have time to stick around and take a look at the trailer after things calm down?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Begay replied, his smile widening.

"It would be fun."

Kerney chatted with Begay for a few minutes to reassure himself that the man was who he seemed before skirting the fringe of the crowd. He found Sheriff Gatewood by the fire engine, occupying his time watching firefighters roll up hoses and shovel debris from inside the trailer.

Gatewood didn't notice Kerney until he was at his side. He cast a glance at Kerney and stifled a reaction of surprise by clamping his mouth shut. It made his chubby cheeks puff out even more.

"Damn, Kerney," he said, "we figured you were burned up inside."

"No such luck. Who got killed?"

"Your landlord, Doyle Fletcher, the poor son of a bitch."

"What happened?"

"Fire chief thinks someone planted a device. She put a call into the state fire marshal to send an arson investigator up from Las Cruces."

Gatewood kept talking, and Kerney's attention wandered. The medical examiner and a paramedic were moving Fletcher's body from the truck hood onto a gurney. He stepped over and pulled the blanket down. Fletcher's face, seared and unrecognizable, made Kerney choke down bile. He flipped the cover back over the face and spent a minute considering whether it had been the blast or the fire that had killed Fletcher. He decided it didn't really matter.

The crowd began to thin out. Slowly people walked away in tight, chatty little groups. Gatewood moved off to speak to a deputy. Soon only a few hangers-on and official personnel remained, most with nothing to do.

Kerney found himself wondering what had happened to the mice, and decided his sense of humor had gone stale.

At the rear of Fletcher's truck a deputy sheriff was using his bulk to block Alan Begay from getting closer to the trailer.

Kerney intervened.

"Sorry for wasting your time," he apologized, as they stepped out of the deputy's earshot.

"But the sheriff has sealed the crime scene. I can't get you in."

"Doesn't matter," Begay said.

"Let me show you something." He walked Kerney thirty feet behind Fletcher's truck, stooped down, and used a stick to turn over the partially melted remains of a light socket.

"Here's your trigger," he said with satisfaction.

Kerney bent over, peered at it, not quite sure what he was looking at, and waited for Begay to explain.

"You take the bulb out and solder filament wire to the hot post. When you turn on the juice it sparks, ignites the gas, and detonates the dynamite," Begay said.

"You can see where its been soldered."

"What about fingerprints?" Kerney asked.

"Don't hold your breath." Begay tossed the stick away, brushed his hands, looked at Kerney, and shook his head.

"So now you're unemployed and homeless."

"I didn't even think about that," Kerney said, as reality sank in.

"I've got a spare bed in my motel room, if you need a place to crash for the night."

Reserve boasted only one motel, so Kerney didn't have to ask where Begay was staying.

"I may take you up on the offer."

Begay nodded.

"I'll tell the desk clerk to give you a key."

"Thanks."

"No problem, man," Alan said as he walked away.

The television crew arrived. A cameraman unloaded equipment while the reporter-one of those bright-eyed, perky women who smiled at the camera no matter what the subject matter might be-hustled off to find Gatewood.

It brought the few remaining onlookers who were leaving scurrying back for more entertainment.

As soon as everyone clustered around Gatewood and the reporter to watch the interview, Kerney took off.

Mom's surgery had gone well-better than expected, according to the doctor-and Karen sat in the waiting room with her father. Even with the good news, his face was filled with worry, and he was fidgety, running his fingers through his gray hair and pacing back and forth across the waiting room, taking big strides with his long legs.

Karen wanted to pass it off as nothing more than Edgar's desire to see Mom as soon as the doctor would let him. She wondered if the love that her parents had-a sweet, absolute devotion-had melted away with their generation and was now nothing more than a cultural icon. The idea of being joined at the hip to a man had always felt stifling to Karen.

Elizabeth and Cody were much calmer than their grandfather. They were playing with a puzzle in the corner of the room with the pieces spread out on the floor between them. Elizabeth was lying on her stomach, knees bent and legs in the air, fitting pieces together, while Cody, stretched out on his side, played tiddledywinks with his pile of the puzzle, trying to vex his sister by skipping shots at her.

The only other person in the room, a woman waiting to take her husband home from outpatient surgery, sat in front of a television at the far end of the room, watching a mindless talk show. The station broke away from the network for a news bulletin.

Karen got to her feet as soon as the anchorman in Albuquerque started talking about more violence in Catron County. A trailer had been bombed and a man was dead. There would be a full report on the evening news.

"Daddy," she called.

Already at her side, Edgar scowled at the television.

"I've got to go," she said.

"Go ahead. I'll take care of the children," Edgar replied.

Karen grabbed her purse, kissed Cody and Elizabeth, and flew out the door.

Thwarted by Molly's refusal to drive him around because she had to work for a living, and because his face would cause a massive traffic accident if she took him out in public, Jim Stiles was forced to do detective work by telephone. The mining company confirmed Steve Lujan's story about his settlement, and the Catron County Bank reported no large amounts of money going in or out of Lujan's account.

Karen arrived at the trailer and quickly grilled Gatewood. She was relieved to learn that Kerney wasn't dead. The devastated trailer had been braced up with scrap lumber so that the crime scene specialists, flown in from Santa Fe by the state police, could work inside the structure. They were laboring cautiously, bagging evidence, dusting for prints, and taking photographs. Karen logged in with the officer in charge and toured the outside area with Gatewood, an arson investigator, and the state police agent assigned to the Padilla homicide. The wall studs of the trailer had been fractured into giant toothpicks, and melted ceiling tiles, warped by heat into bizarre shapes, dangled from the gaping hole in the metal roof. A couch, consumed down to the metal frame, sat next to a badly charred and smoldering mattress.

The arson investigator, in from Las Cruces, took Karen and Omar up a plank board to the hole where the front door had been. His rumpled jacket caught on the sharp edge of a piece of metal, and as he turned to free it, the trailer settled a bit. The movement froze Karen in her tracks.

The man coughed, shook his head, and stepped back down the plank, forcing Gatewood and Karen to retreat.

"Maybe I should just tell you what I found," he said.

"That's a good idea," Karen replied.

On solid ground he inspected the tear in his jacket and tried to pull out a loose thread without success before pointing at the trailer.

"We've got a dynamite explosion triggered by propane gas." He wheezed, took out a tissue, and blew his nose.

"Enough material was used to guarantee nobody inside would survive the blast. Whoever did this wanted to send a message that it was no accident. I'd say the tenant was the target, and revenge or retaliation was the motive."

"Was it a professional job?" Karen asked.

"No way," the investigator replied.

"Does it fit any kind of profile?"

The investigator shrugged.

"Sure. My bet is that we've got a male perpetrator. Women tend to use flammables and burn personal objects, like clothes or bedding. Men go for accelerants and explosives.

The perp was organized about it. Knew what he wanted to do. This is a flat-out murder case."

"Anything else?"

The investigator nodded.

"The landlord probably wasn't the target. I understand the tenant is a single man who worked for the Forest Service. I'd be looking for either an extremist or a jealous husband or boyfriend. Something along those lines."

Karen turned to Gatewood and gave him a searching look.

"Where is Kerney?"

Omar looked sheepish.

"He was here earlier."

"Find him," she ordered, thinking that maybe the democratic system of electing sheriffs was a stupid idea.

"I want a full statement from him on my desk as soon as possible. Does he know anybody angry enough to want to kill him? Concentrate on his investigation. Find out if he has been threatened or harassed. If you come up empty, ask if he has a girlfriend. What was his relationship to Doyle Fletcher? Fletcher's wife?"

Stung by her crisp manner, Gatewood sent two deputies to look for Kerney.

Satisfied that the investigation was a little less scattered, Karen went to her office to call her boss in Socorro. Then she stood at the window for a very long time, looking at the sorry row of buildings across the road. Reserve had no charm other than the natural beauty of the valley and mountains.

Most of the tourists stayed in Silver City or at resort ranches when they came to the region. There were no sidewalks or streetlights on the road. In front of an empty house across the way, once used as a real estate office, a pile of trash had collected against the sagging porch.

Next door, she could see into the vacant modular building that had housed the weekly local paper before it went belly-up. Waist-high weeds covered the bottom half of the door.

The town felt like it was dying. Maybe they needed to keep track of the population: five hundred and counting-down.

She brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek and thought about the three dead men-Fletcher, Hector Padilla, and his grandfather. How were the deaths connected? What linked them to her family and a sixty-year-old secret? Would Kerney uncover the link before she could prepare her parents for the repercussions?

Far past the ranches along Dry Creek Canyon, at the point where the forest road separated, Kerney took the fork that led away from the Slash Z summer grazing land, where he had first met Phil Cox. The road dipped into a canyon before climbing the slope toward the hogback ridge.

Jim had discovered engine oil in the mine shaft before he was shot. That meant Padilla Canyon had been used as a staging area to scout out the hunter's prey. Maybe another look would turn up similar evidence on the black bear poaching.

At the ridgeline he shifted the truck into low gear and descended slowly into a second canyon. Bracketed by box elder and walnut trees that thrived in the moisture-rich ecosystem, the canyon was an oasis compared to Dry Springs. The road, or what was left of it, crossed several small springs that trickled over river rock. It seemed to give out as sheer canyon walls closed in and the stream widened. He sloshed the truck through a pool of water three feet deep, past downed trees rotting in the undergrowth, and picked up the bare outline of the route moving sharply upland. Crawling slowly to the summit, he topped out to find a cabin in a secluded hollow, sheltered by pine trees and protected by the mountains that filled the eastern skyline. Made of hand hewn logs, it had a tin roof that sagged in the middle and a rock chimney that leaned precariously at an angle over the roof. The windows and doors had been boarded up with sheets of plywood.

Kerney made a quick outside inspection before approaching the cabin, and found no sign of human activity. A strong odor of skunk grew as Kerney approached the door carrying a tire iron. He tapped hard and listened for scurrying sounds. All was quiet inside. From the high country above, he heard an elk bugle its presence with a thin, clear whistle that echoed into the hollow. On the plywood covering the door a Forest Service No Trespassing sign was posted.

He wedged the tip of the tire iron under the edge of the plywood next to a nail, yanked hard, and almost fell on his ass as the board pulled easily away from the doorjamb. There were imprint marks in the wooden doorframe, probably from a pry bar. Someone else had been here before him. A padlocked steel grate in front of the closed door barred the way. He gave up on the door and went to work on a boarded up window, jimmying the plywood free only to discover it was shuttered on the inside. He broke the pane of glass, cleaned out the fragments embedded in the sill, pushed open the shutters, and climbed inside. The structure was a single room with a stone fireplace and four built-in bunks.

Kerney smiled when he saw the four-wheel ATV in the middle of the cabin.

He pulled a flashlight out of his hip pocket and took a closer look at the tires. The wear on the rear tires matched exactly with the tread pattern he'd seen on the mesa and at the bottom of the meadows. A carrying rack had been welded behind the rear seat, and some rope was wrapped around the support posts that attached it to the frame. There were animal hairs in the fibers, some from a cougar. He bent low and shined the light under the ATV. The oil pan, crusted with a film of dirty oil, had a small leak. Holding the flashlight between his teeth, he dug into the sticky substance with a finger and rubbed it on the palm of his hand.

There were small particles of rock dust and tiny wood chips embedded in the liquid. He put his hand to his nose and sniffed. Mixed with the smell of oil was the fragrance of fresh-cut pine.

Outside the cabin he cleaned up the signs of his forced entry and replaced the plywood over the window and the door, trying to decide who to tell about his find. It wouldn't be Charlie Perry or Omar Gatewood, and after a few minutes of inner debate, he also rejected telling Karen Cox, for now. An anonymous call to the state police was the best bet.

At least that way he could hope the information would get to someone who didn't have a personal agenda.

He called the state police from Glenwood. On the highway a few miles south of the village, a surveillance car picked him up again, staying with him all the way to Deming, dropping out of sight only when Kerney waved down a patrolling cop inside the city limits to ask him how he could find Mike Anderson.

The officer located Anderson by radio, and Mike agreed to meet Kerney at the entrance to Rock Hound State Park.

The Floridas, a short but prominent range southeast of Deming, broke twenty-five hundred feet above the desert. The road to the state park ran straight toward the stark, arid range. At the turnoff to the park, Anderson was waiting in his Bureau of Land Management truck. The car following Kerney continued on, moving too fast for Kerney to read the plate.

He pulled up next to Anderson's truck and rolled down his window.

"Heard your trailer got bombed," Anderson said, looking at him from inside his vehicle.

"You're having trouble making friends up in Catron County, aren't you?"

"I'm not very popular," Kerney agreed.

"Sounds like you've got a war on your hands," Anderson replied.

"Who did you piss off so royally?"

"I wish I knew," Kerney answered.

"I hear you. Could be any one of those radical groups that want the government to butt out so they can clear-cut the forests, overgraze the land, and reopen the mines. What do you need?"

"Answers. Tell me what you know about Leon Spence."

"Don't know anything about the man." Anderson shifted his weight and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

"I already told you that."

"You never met him?" Kerney probed.

"Never."

This time Anderson was telling the truth, but he was also holding something back.

"Come on, Mike, level with me on this. You never met Spence. I believe you, but I've got a situation with three dead men, a wounded partner, and someone trying to kill me. I need help."

Anderson removed his hat, rubbed the back of his neck, and looked Kerney in the eye.

"Okay, but I don't know what good it will do you. Spence set up his trailer at that old rock shop about two years ago.

Nothing strange about it-people come and go with their trailers on those frontage lots along the highway all the time.

"A few months after he moved in, I started noticing unusual activity.

Folks visiting at odd times driving vehicles with Arizona and Texas license plates, panel trucks towing rental trailers-that kind of stuff.

I thought maybe it was a drug-smuggling operation, so I did a little snooping, found out what I could, and passed it along to my supervisor."

"And?"

"And nothing," Anderson retorted.

"I was ordered to back off, make no more inquiries, and drop it completely."

"Why?"

"Don't know why."

"What did you learn about Spence?"

"Not much. He's in his midthirties, supposedly from Louisiana, speaks fluent Spanish, and worked as a salesman. Moved out, lock, stock, and barrel."

"Any theories about what's going on?" Kerney queried.

Anderson shook his head.

"I've said enough already.

Maybe too much." He put on his hat and gave Kerney a thin smile.

"Be careful."

"Thanks. Mike."

Anderson drove away, and Kerney mulled over the new information. Maybe Juan had given him a bum steer about Leon Spence. Kerney dismissed the idea. Spence was smuggling, but it wasn't drugs, as Anderson thought, and Mike's reluctance to say more boiled down to one strong possibility:

Spence was the target of an undercover investigation. It was the only possibility that made any sense.

Kerney's tail picked him up in Deming and stayed with him until he reached the trailer park on the outskirts of Reserve. The village had returned to a normal rhythm after the excitement of the morning; two people were talking outside of the bank, a few cars were parked in front of Cattleman's, and a cowboy was gasing up a truck at the service station.

In the parking lot of the sheriff's office, all the squad cars were lined up in a neat row, joined by two state police units. Probably Gatewood had called a meeting.

Across the street at the motel, done up as a mountain chalet with a frontier motif, he caught a glimpse of Alan Begay unloading canisters from the back of a Chevy Suburban. He went into a nearby grocery store and bought two pounds of sliced ham, before making the short drive to Steve Lujan's house.

The house, at the end of a lane, was somewhat isolated from the neighbors. Kerney saw no sign of activity in the homes he passed. The gate was locked, and the only vehicle inside the fence was the flatbed truck, parked between two mounds of unsplit wood.

The barking German shepherd was off the leash.

He backed up as Kerney drew near the gate and growled.

"Come here. Loco," Kerney called.

The dog stopped barking, wagged his tail, and looked at Kerney expectantly. Kerney threw some slices of ham over the fence and watched. After wolfing down the treat, the shepherd approached, looking for more.

"Good boy. Loco." Kerney poked another slice through the gate slats, and the dog took it gently from his fingers. Then he followed along quietly as Kerney walked the outside fence perimeter to the back of the house.

The existence of the fence and gate had raised Kerney's interest. It made no sense to fence off firewood and landscape rock in a community where both were readily available. What else was Lujan protecting?

Behind the house stood a metal toolshed and a storage building. A few truck tires, discarded engine parts, and a rusty oil drum were stacked against a wall of the shed. A patio deck jutted from the back door of the house and stopped at an unfinished rock wall. At the rear of the lot, two clothesline poles and a swing set, rusty and unused, stood in a bed of tall weeds. Part of the fence was covered by a massive thick vine, tangled and wild, that completely hid the river valley from view.

Kerney called Loco to him and tossed him some more meat.

"Are you going to let me climb the fence and take a look around?"

Loco didn't respond. He was too busy devouring the ham.

As Kerney climbed the fence, Loco growled once, flopped down on the ground, and put his legs in the air for a tummy scratch. Kerney obliged and gave him the remaining ham.

"Heel, Loco," he ordered, hoping that Lujan had trained the shepherd to do more than bite on command.

Loco took his station at Kerney's side and meekly followed him to the toolshed. The building was locked, so he used his pocket knife to open the window latch. He climbed in and looked around.

The shed contained several expensive chain saws, a set of stone chisels, and an excellent assortment of power tools, supplies, and hardware-all ordinary stuff.

The storage building had a thick pine door as the only point of entry.

It was secured by a deadbolt lock. It would take an old burglar's trick to break in.

While Loco stayed with him all the way, he got a truck jack from Lujan's flatbed, placed it between the joists that framed the door, and cranked until he couldn't ratchet it another notch. The joist sagged back enough to show a half inch of the bolt. He kicked the lock once and the door splintered free from the bolt, swinging on its hinges to reveal a room crammed with old Victorian furniture, including a four-poster bedstead, a carved chest of drawers with brass pulls and marble top, and an oak pedestal dining-room table with matching chairs. The rafters were covered in cobwebs, but the furniture had only a very thin coating of dust. It had been recently moved into storage, probably to make room for all the new stuff that filled Lujan's house.

After a quick search to make sure nothing else was missed, Kerney closed the door, wiped his prints from the doorknob and the jack, and went back to the flatbed. In the rear of the truck some of the wood chips, pine needles, and small twigs left over from Lujan's last load were coated with a sticky substance.

He picked up a chip. The underside was gritty to the touch. It was fresh-cut pine, grimy with rock granules, and smelling like motor oil.

Lujan had recently hauled a machine with an engine that leaked, Kerney noted with satisfaction. None of the chain saws in the toolshed had a cracked casing, so it could have been that Lujan had hauled the ATV in his truck to the cabin.

Kerney scratched Loco's ear and thanked him for the tour, then climbed back over the fence.

A sheriffs patrol car pulled in behind him just as he was about to back away. Inwardly, Kerney groaned. If he got busted, he wasn't sure how he could explain away the charges he faced. He killed the engine, put both hands in plain view on the steering wheel, and watched the deputy in his rearview mirror, waiting to see what kind of action the man would take. He relaxed when the officer walked casually to him with no hint of wariness.

"Deputy," he said, forcing a smile. It was the same man who had been waiting for him at his trailer the night he returned from dinner with Phil Cox and his family.

"Sheriff needs to see you," the deputy said, smiling in return. In his thirties, the officer had a football player's thick neck, a body about to go to seed, rosy cheeks, and a nose that had been broken at least once.

"What's up?"

"Hell if I know. You can follow me into town." He looked at the locked gate. The German shepherd was barking loudly and sticking his snout in between the gate slats.

"I don't think the Lujans are home from work yet."

"I guess not. I'll catch them later," Kerney replied.

"Where you been all day? I've been looking for you since this morning."

"Really?" Kerney answered.

The deputy shrugged.

"No matter. You've been found." He walked to his patrol car, called in his discovery, backed out, and motioned for Kerney to do the same.

The meeting with Gatewood consisted of the sheriff asking all the usual questions. In Omar's cramped, cluttered office, Kerney watched Gatewood's technique unfold. He talked about the "incident" at the trailer-a soft way to describe a murder bombing-and asked Kerney how well he knew Doyle Fletcher. Kerney answered directly, and Gatewood moved on, asking if he had encountered hostility from anybody during his investigation.

"Not really," Kerney replied.

"Who did you talk to?"

Kerney gave him an abbreviated list of names, and Gatewood wrote them down.

"That's not a lot of people," Omar noted.

"I didn't have much time," Kerney reminded him.

"Too bad about you getting fired," Omar said with false sympathy.

"Do you think the bombing was tied to your investigation?"

"What do you think?" Kerney countered.

"It could be. Or maybe you just pissed somebody off."

"I don't think I've been around long enough to make any enemies on my own account."

"Some people don't need a lot of time to piss folks off. And working for the Forest Service is enough of a reason for some folks not to like you," Gatewood replied with a slow grin.

"Do you have particular folks in mind?"

"None in particular." Gatewood leaned back in his chair and stared down his nose.

"So tell me something: what's keeping you here?"

"Inertia."

"No lady friend?"

Like maybe Fletcher's wife, Kerney thought.

"No," he answered.

"Maybe a lady with a husband or boyfriend?"

Omar nudged.

"No."

"Mind telling me where you were last night?"

"I stayed with Jim Stiles and his girlfriend."

Gatewood looked disappointed.

"They'll vouch for you?"

"I don't see why not. Do you have any leads at are "Not on the bombing, but we have a small break on the Padilla case," Gatewood answered, getting to his feet and walking to the office door.

"The state police got a tip on that ATV you were looking for.

Damn thing was stashed in an old Forest Service cabin up in the Mogollon Mountains. The tires match the tread evidence at the Elderman Meadows crime scene."

"Ownership?" Kerney inquired.

"Stolen about two years ago in Las Cruces."

Gatewood held the office door open.

"But we might get lucky if the lab boys can lift some prints. You'll stick around for a few days, won't you? Just in case we need to talk some more?"

"I will," Kerney replied, joining Gatewood at the door.

"Carol Cassidy told me you have a militia group operating in the county.

Do you have any intelligence on them?"

Gatewood guffawed.

"The militia is nothing more than a bunch of sword-rattling good old boys who like to play soldier."

"No political agenda?" Kerney prodded.

"Of course they have an agenda. Some time back they circulated-what do you call it? — a manifesto.

They want the feds out of Catron County and the land returned to the people."

"Sounds like a good place to start," Kerney suggested.

Gatewood's eyes narrowed.

"You just love to tell me how to do my job, don't you? For your information, I know every mother's son in the organization, and I've been talking to them on the telephone all day long. Nobody knows nothing."

"Seems like you've covered all the bases," Kerney said as he left Gatewood.

Alan Begay was in his motel room when Kerney knocked.

"You didn't get a key?" he asked, when he opened the door.

"No. I'm not staying. I just stopped by to thank you for your offer."

"No sweat, man. Come in, if you can stand the mess."

The room had camping equipment strewn all over it. There were half a dozen large ice chests stacked in a corner along with boxes filled with bottles of nitric acid, filters, and unused plastic sample jars. A portable water pump and battery sat on the desk next to an assortment of meters and probes. The bed was strewn with maps, cameras, and lab report forms. At the foot of the bed were a pair of wading boots, a face shield, a lab coat, and lab gloves.

"Tools of the trade," Begay said, as Kerney looked around. He cleared some papers off a chair and perched on the end of the bed.

"Have a seat."

Kerney sat.

"You've got some questions you want to ask me?"

"Why do you think I have questions?"

"Because it was pretty dumb of me to be showing off this morning," Begay replied.

"Made me look suspicious. I figured you'd want to at least check me out."

"I already have checked you out. I called your boss in Gallup."

"And?"

"You're a choirboy, according to your boss."

Begay laughed, his eyes twinkling.

"Sure, he said that. If I'm such an upstanding citizen, what are you doing here?"

"You spend a lot of time in the backcountry.

Maybe you've seen something."

"A lot of beautiful country and a few pissed-off ranchers is about all I see."

"What about official personnel?"

"Who do you have in mind?"

"Steve Lujan."

Begay nodded.

"I know him. He works with Amador Ortiz. But I don't see him when I'm in the mountains."

"Anybody on an ATV?"

"Nope."

"Who have you seen on this trip?"

"Just one guy I never met before. I was working on the Negrito Creek last week, checking for mercury and zinc seepage from an old silver mine. He was at one of the private ranches in the Gila."

"Doing?"

"He didn't say. He flew in. The owner has a landing strip. I was half a mile downstream when the plane came over, so I hiked in to see what was up."

"It wasn't the owner?"

"No. This guy was much younger. In his thirties.

The owner is an insurance millionaire from Detroit.

Older man. Fifty-something, at least."

"You've met the owner?"

"Yeah, once, when he was out for an elk hunt."

"Tell me about the stranger."

"Like I said, midthirties, six feet, maybe a hundred and eighty. Blond hair with no sideburns. Pale complexion. The guy didn't look like he spent much time outdoors. Didn't say much. Talked with a real thick southern accent."

"Did you get a name?"

"No, I didn't. He was kinda hurry about me being there. I had to show him my ID."

"Thanks, Alan. You'd make a good police officer."

Begay grinned.

"Think so?"

"Yes, I do."

Alan shook his head.

"I'll stick to protecting natural resources. From what I saw of your trailer, it's a lot safer then being a cop."

Kerney laughed.

"How about helping a cop for a few minutes?"

"What do you need?"

"How well do you know Steve Lujan?"

"Not very well."

"Would he recognize your voice on the telephone?"

"I doubt it."

"Good. Thirty minutes after I leave I want you to call him and say that you saw someone breaking into the shed behind his house this afternoon.

Keep it simple. Give him the message and hang up. Will you do that for me?"

"You want me to tell him what?" Begay asked, giving Kerney a quizzical look that didn't completely mask a half-formed smile.

Kerney carefully repeated the message he wanted delivered.

"Did the break-in really happen?" Alan asked.

"Yes."

"Okay, I'll do it, but where will you be when I call him?"

"I'll be watching to see what Steve does."

"That's sneaky."

"That's police work," Kerney corrected.

Dusk came, and Kerney wondered if he had completely missed the boat about Steve Lujan. From a fire road in the hills behind the valley he watched Lujan's house through binoculars, waiting for Steve to make a move.

There were a few kids still riding bikes up and down the lane, popping wheelies in the dirt and practicing stunts, and Lujan's nearest neighbor had a barbecue grill going, but that was the extent of activity in the small collection of homes sprinkled in the valley west of the river.

At the Lujan residence, the Pontiac and Ford Bronco were parked inside the open gate. Lights burned inside the house. Loco was on his chain in the front yard, and there were occasional shadowy movements in the windows as people moved about.

Finally, the kitchen went dark, a sure sign dinner was over. Ten minutes later, Lujan hurried out the front door, got into the Bronco, and drove away.

Kerney followed, staying a quarter mile back.

Lujan traveled through Reserve to the state road that ran down to Glenwood and on to Silver City.

Kerney kept an eye out for a tail behind him, but the road was dark and empty.

Lujan passed through Glenwood and didn't slow down again until he reached the turnoff for the Leopold Vista Historical Monument, a wayside rest stop on the highway dedicated to the man who had established the Gila Wilderness.

Kerney watched the taillights of the Bronco make the turn and disappear behind the low hill that concealed the monument from the highway. With only one entrance, Kerney couldn't follow without being detected. He got a microcassette recorder from the glove box and left the truck far enough back from the entrance to avoid suspicion, parked in deep shadows under a cottonwood tree. He jumped the highway fence and walked around the hill to the back of the monument. The site faced a sweeping vista of mountains to the east, and was nothing more than a large parking lot with a sign that told about Aldo Leopold and the Gila. During the daytime, tourists could whip off the highway with camera in hand, snap a picture, and be on their way in fifteen minutes.

Three vehicles were in the lot: Lujan's Bronco, an expensive RV towing a compact car, and a light colored Chevy Caprice, with the parking lights on.

Hunkered down, Kerney memorized the license number of the Caprice and watched.

At the RV, a man packed up a folding card table and some chairs while his wife waited inside the vehicle. The Bronco and the Chevy, at opposite ends of the lot, showed no signs of movement. Almost nervously, the man at the RV lashed the table and chairs to the back of his vehicle, hopped inside, fired up the engine, and drove away.

Lujan got out of the Bronco and started walking toward the Chevy. The driver cranked the motor, turned the Chevy directly at Lujan, flipped on the high beams, and froze him in the glare. Lujan yanked a hand over his eyes so he could see against the light.

A man's figure emerged from the car and stood behind the open door.

Kerney turned on the recorder.

"What's so goddamn important?" the man said.

"I told you what happened," Lujan answered, moving closer.

"Yeah, you did. So what? Go home, call the sheriff, and report the break-in. That's all you have to do."

"No," Lujan countered.

"I've had it. This is too fucking much. People breaking into my house and everything."

The man laughed.

"You sorry son of a bitch, they broke into your storage shed, for chrissake, not your house."

"Same thing."

"I'll take care of it."

"How?" Lujan asked.

The man braced his arm on the top of the door and shot Lujan twice in the chest with a semiautomatic.

He picked up the spent shell casings, walked to Lujan's body, and, satisfied with his solution, got in the Chevy and drove off.

Kerney checked out Steve Lujan's body. There were two rounds, center mass, in his chest. He turned on his heel and left the monument. When the killer walked into the light to make sure Lujan was dead, Kerney had gotten a good look. He was thirty something six feet tall with short blond hair, and he had spoken with a thick southern accent.

The sound of hard pounding at the motel door brought Kerney out of a deep sleep. He fumbled for the light, got up, peered out the window, and saw Jim Stiles. He unlocked the door and Stiles slipped inside, a worried look plastered on his face.

"I've been looking for you since midnight," Stiles said snappishly.

Kerney wore only boxer shorts, and the scar on his stomach, a long surgical incision with a puckered entry hole from a bullet, caught Jim's attention. It was a nasty-looking wound.

"What time is it?" Kerney asked groggily.

"Four in the morning," Jim answered.

"What the hell is going on?"

"You tell me." Kerney struggled into his jeans, sank down on the end of the bed, and pulled on his boots.

"What's up?"

"Steve Lujan's been shot dead, and Gatewood's got an APB out on you. A city cop came by Molly's house looking for you."

Kerney tugged his arms through the shirt-sleeves and buttoned up.

"What the hell for?"

"I called Omar and asked him the same question. He's prepared an arrest warrant on you for Steve's murder."

Kerney rubbed the sleep from his eyes, snorted, and stood up.

"Based on what?"

"He said you were seen at Lujan's house earlier in the day, and Alan Begay told him about the phone call you had him make to Steve."

"That's it?" Kerney replied, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Gatewood doesn't have a clue, does he? I think the man has just redefined the meaning of probable cause. Will Karen sign off on the warrant?"

"I don't know," Jim replied.

"I called her after I spoke with Gatewood. She didn't know a damn thing about it." Jim paused and made a frustrated face.

"Are you going to tell me what happened, or not?"

"Oh. Sure. I saw Steve get whacked."

"By who?"

"I'm not absolutely certain, but he matches the description I got from two different sources. He goes by the name of Leon Spence."

"Who told you about him?"

"Alan Begay and a BLM officer in Deming."

"I know Alan. He's solid. Do you know how to find Spence?"

"Not really. But I know where he's been. Begay saw him at a private ranch on the Negrito Creek. It's owned by some millionaire from back east who Hies in. According to Alan, the ranch has a landing strip.

Does that ring any bells?"

Jim nodded.

"The old Double Zero."

"Can you get me there without any fanfare?"

"I think you should talk to Karen first," Jim countered.

"That can wait," Kerney replied.

"First, we pay a quiet visit to the Double Zero. What's the most unobtrusive way in?"

"Horseback."

Kerney eyed the sling holding Jim's left arm.

"Are you game?"

Jim flapped the sling against his side.

"Give me a break. This itty-bitty scratch won't slow me down.

Saddle me up and I'll take you there."

"What a guy," Kerney responded with a grin.

Jim smiled back.

"Stuff it, Kerney. How did you get into this pile of shit?"

"It was easy: a little breaking and entering, a little criminal damage to property."

"Before or after your trailer got bombed?"

"After. I'll tell you about it on the way."

As they left the motel in Jim's truck, a police cruiser turned into the parking lot and started spotlighting vehicles.

The Stiles family ranch was directly across the river from Jim's house, where the Negrito Creek drained into the San Francisco. Stiles and Kerney arrived before dawn with the moon still full above the mountains.

Jim drove to the horse barn, parked the truck out of sight, and told Kerney to saddle two horses while he paid a visit to his father.

In the paddock were two fine stallions, both about ten years old and built along the same lines, with well-sloped shoulders that would generate a fluid stride. He got the gear out of the tack room, saddled the horses, and sat on the top rail of the paddock waiting for Jim's return. The first light of dawn revealed the ranch house. It was a territorial-style L-shaped adobe with thick wood lintels above the first-floor windows. The sloping roof had a series of dormer windows over a covered porch.

The porch light came on, and Jim hurried out with pistol belts looped over his shoulder, clutching two rifles.

"What did you tell your dad?" Kerney replied. He put the rifles in the gun boots and fastened a pistol belt around Jim's waist.

"I told him we were going after a predator," Jim answered.

"Did you tell him it was the two-legged kind?" Kerney asked, smiling.

He buckled on his own pistol belt and swung into the saddle.

"I left that part out," Jim answered.

They followed a sinuous creek bed through a moist, sandy wash into the mountains, cutting back and forth in hairpin turns through the shallow, fast running stream of a slot canyon. It was slow going as the horses picked their way over smooth, slippery cobblestones. Above them the early-morning sky turned blue, but the gloom of night still hung in the canyon, and rising mist from the stream created the feeling of a dreary winter's day.

At a fast-rushing pool they walked the horses up a steep bank past walnut trees stained dark by water, the limbs weighed down by moisture-laden leaves. Kerney remounted at the top of the bank and stopped to watch a Gila woodpecker light on an exposed rock in the pool.

It dipped down for a drink, and the red crown patch flashed at Kerney.

Then it dropped into the pool for a morning bath and flapped its striped wings.

Kerney rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked down at the wrinkled, sweat-stained, stinky shirt that badly needed washing. Reality hit: he was unemployed, under suspicion, and wearing all that he possessed. What little he owned had been blown up. Clothes could be replaced, but his grandfather's two Navajo saddle blankets and the pictures of his parents-the only mementos he had of his family-were gone forever. Even the championship rodeo buckle was probably nothing more than a lump of melted metal.

He looked ahead. Stiles had his eyes glued on Kerney's face. He forced a smile.

"Are you all right?" Jim asked.

"Fine and dandy."

"You look ready to pound the shit out of someone."

"That's a damn good idea," Kerney allowed.

"I just need to find the right someone."

Alan Begay stood in the ankle-deep Negrito Creek wearing waders and holding a portable pH meter with a probe. The high acidity reading wasn't a surprise, given the closeness of the tailings pile to the streambed. The return visit to the creek had been demanded by the landowner's lawyers as a delaying tactic. Alan already pretty much knew that the readings wouldn't change. He grunted and noted the result in his field book.

Begay's thoughts jumped ahead to the report he would write and the additional shit he would have to face from Sanderson's lawyers. The three mine sites along the creek on the Double Zero property were spewing contaminants into the water and threatening the fish downstream.

You'd think that a big-time Detroit millionaire who used the Double Zero as a retreat and hunting lodge wouldn't mind spending some spare change to clean up the pollution. No way. Sanderson was fighting the proposed sanction tooth and nail.

Alan heard a clattering of hooves and turned to find Jim Stiles and Kevin Kerney riding toward him.

They reined in and looked down at him.

"Hello, Alan," Jim said.

"Jim," Begay replied. He shifted his attention to Kerney. Kerney was a big man, and on horseback he looked even bigger. The expression on Kerney's face was grim. Alan braced himself for a chewing-out.

"I didn't mean to get you in trouble," he said.

"You didn't," Kerney replied gently, reading Alan's dismay, as he slipped out of the saddle.

"Tell me what happened between you and Gatewood."

"He came to see me at my room," Alan answered.

"He said Steve Lujan had been murdered, and that he knew I had talked to you. He wanted to know about our conversation, and I told him. I didn't know what else to do."

"You did the right thing," Kerney said.

"It didn't feel like the right thing," Alan countered.

Stiles nodded in the direction of the switchback trail that led to the Double Zero headquarters. The ranch sat on a flattop mesa overlooking a confusion of deep gorges and sheer cliffs that slashed north and south.

"Any activity up above?"

"A plane flew in a little while ago," Begay answered.

"It's still there."

"Did you recognize it?" Kerney asked.

Begay shook his head.

"I just heard it. What are you guys doing up here?"

Kerney remounted.

"Stay put, Alan," he ordered.

"More cop stuff?"

"Just stay put," Kerney replied genially.

Begay grinned and snapped off an exaggerated salute.

"Whatever you say."

The edge of the mesa, thick with pinon and juniper trees, gradually opened onto a meadow that stopped at a dirt landing strip. A silver twin-engine Beechcraft was parked next to a pickup truck. Behind the plane, built on a rock outcropping that served as the foundation to the building, was a long stone house. A split-log staircase curved over the rocks and up to the porch. Old-growth pine trees kept the house in deep shade. The place had a rustic, turn-of-the-century feel to it.

They stayed in the trees out of sight watching two men unload crates from the plane and carry them to the truck.

"What do you think?" Jim asked.

"Is either one of them your man?"

"Can't tell from this distance. Let's go see. We'll stay in the trees and work our way around back."

They were halfway to the ranch house when the distant sound of choppers cut the silence. Kerney and Stiles looked up at an empty sky and back at the Beechcraft. The two men unloading cargo started scrambling-one to the truck, the other to the plane.

A third man came running out of the house and swung himself into the bed of the truck as it started to roll. The Beechcraft's engine caught and the plane turned to taxi down the runway.

Out of the sun, three assault helicopters, all in a line, popped over the east ridge of the mesa, moving at over a hundred miles an hour. The choppers swung in an orbit over the field, one dropping to block the pickup that was running for the cover of the trees. As the chopper touched down, a door gunner fired a burst in front of the truck. Eight men, four from each side, all in black SWAT uniforms, hit the ground running. It was no contest. The team swarmed the vehicle without firing a shot.

A second chopper landed almost simultaneously, cutting off the Beechcraft. Eight more men piled out.

Four surrounded the plane, pulled the pilot from the cockpit, and put him in a spread-eagle position on the ground. The remainder of the squad moved in on the house.

The last chopper circled and made a complete Jass over the mesa. The pilot spotted Kerney and tiles, veered away, and landed out of rifle range.

Eight more men spilled out and scampered into the trees.

"Nicely done," Kerney said with admiration in his voice.

"Think we should surrender?" Stiles asked.

"That's a good idea. Let's make it easy for them."

Kerney moved his horse into the open, raised his hands, and clasped them behind his head. Jim followed suit, but couldn't get his left arm above the shoulder, so he surrendered with one hand raised.

A short burst of automatic-weapon fire cut into the treetops at the edge of the mesa. Pine cones and needles rained down on Alan Begay, who stepped into view with both arms in the air as high as he could get them.

"I guess Alan wanted to surrender too," Jim said.

"No sense letting us have all the fun."

"I like a man who can follow orders," Kerney noted.

A man got out of the third chopper and scanned Kerney, Jim, and Alan with binoculars before talking into a hand-held radio.

The two guys who came out of the woods behind Kerney and Stiles wore Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shield patches on their SWAT uniforms.

They got Kerney and Stiles dismounted, disarmed, and handcuffed before walking them across the meadow to the man with the binoculars. Another team followed behind with Alan.

The slightly stoop-shouldered man had an FBI shield patch on his SWAT jacket and an angry expression on his face which Kerney had seen before.

"You're a meddlesome son of a bitch," Charlie Perry said to Kerney.

"Let me guess, you're really not Ranger Rick," Jim remarked.

Perry ignored Stiles.

"What the hell are you doing here, Kerney?"

"Looking for Leon Spence," Kerney answered.

Spence was stretched out facedown, hands cuffed at the small of his back, with an M-16 muzzle pointed at the nape of his neck.

"I see you found him for me," Kerney added.

"What's Spence to you?" Charlie demanded.

"A murderer," Kerney replied.

"Don't play games with me, Kerney. I haven't got the time."

"I'm serious. Spence whacked Steve Lujan."

Perry laughed.

"If you can prove that, I'll personally kiss your ass."

"That won't be necessary. An explanation of what's going on here will do nicely," Kerney countered.

"Do we have a deal?"

Perry nodded curtly.

Kerney turned his back to Perry and waited for him to remove the handcuffs. Hands free, Kerney took the small tape recorder from his shirt pocket and played it for Perry. Voices carry in the thin night air, and even the noise of the car engine didn't mask the conversation between Spence and Lujan, and the sounds of the two gunshots. Kerney popped out the tape and tossed it to Charlie.

Spence stared at Kerney with one eye, his cheek ground in the gravel of the landing strip. He tried to lift up his head and spit at Kerney. The man with the M-16 poked Spence with the rifle to keep him still.

"I'm sure your technical people can do a voiceprint analysis and match it to Spence," Kerney said.

"Plus, I'll testify as your star witness. I saw the whole thing go down."

"That sure sounds like Leon," Charlie said as he pocketed the tape.

"You stay here," he ordered Alan Begay.

"Kerney and Stiles, come with me." He uncuffed Stiles, turned away, and walked toward the lodge.

As they moved toward the lodge, two large trucks | lumbered into view and turned in the direction of a wooden barn a hundred yards from the house. Some of Perry's team were hauling crates outside and stacking them in front of the open barn door.

The living room of the ranch house, a wide, deep room with exposed rock walls and an oak floor, was richly furnished. Two tan matching Italian leather couches sat on either side of a fireplace which could easily take an eight-foot log. Scattered over the floor were expensive Navajo rugs. The mantel above the fireplace, a good six feet off the ground, displayed a collection of Zuni pots. An antique side table held a Remington bronze that looked authentic.

Kerney and Jim Stiles sat together on the couch that faced the front windows of the room. High up on the wall were mounted heads of elk, deer, and antelope overlooking the room. Charlie Perry sat on the other couch. Behind him was a floor lamp made of deer horns. A bear pelt, complete with head and paws, hung on the wall next to the fireplace.

"Let's have it," Kerney said to Perry.

Charlie pushed his sandy hair up from his forehead and stretched out his legs.

"About three years ago the bureau infiltrated the Michigan Militia.

Sanderson, the guy who owns the Double Zero, a rich right-wing zealot from Detroit who made his money in insurance, stepped in and helped bankroll the organization. There was nothing illegal about it, but it made Sanderson worth watching.

"He put a hundred thousand dollars on the table and we kept waiting to see how the money would be used. Finally, the money was filtered to a national committee charged with reorganizing state and local militia groups into regional military districts. We have a mole serving on the committee. There are six regional districts already operating. The committee decided to use Sanderson's funds to finance a special project.

"Leon Spence ran a smuggling organization that specialized in bringing exotic birds and animals into the States. The committee approached Spence with a scheme to harvest wild game to supply the Asian market with ingredients for folk remedies. He had an organization in place that could move the product to the right buyers and get top dollar for the goods.

"It was a damn good idea. Hardly anybody knows you can kill a cougar, boil its testicles, and sell the concoction as an aphrodisiac in a third-world country at a big profit. It's been a quiet crime spree that hasn't drawn any media attention.

"Spence targeted two areas for harvesting-Alaska and southern New Mexico. Both fit the criteria: small populations, the right kind of wildlife, and not enough cops to cover the wide open spaces.

He's been running the operation for the past two years."

"What were the proceeds to be used for?" Kerney asked.

"What every army needs," Perry replied.

"Weapons and guns. Nice little toys for the self-proclaimed patriots."

"The crates," Stiles exclaimed.

"Exactly," Charlie confirmed.

"All of them filled with illegal armaments."

"Tell me about Spence," Kerney asked.

Charlie laughed.

"He's a blue-eyed, blond-haired, Spanish-speaking Mexican, with a green card. His father is the son of a German who immigrated to Mexico after World War II. His mother is the daughter of the former governor of the state of Nuevo Leon. He went to a military prep school in Georgia and took a degree at Tulane in New Orleans.

He does a great southern accent."

"Steve Lujan worked for Spence," Kerney prompted.

"Exactly."

"I'd sure like to know how he got paid," Jim broke in.

"I couldn't find a money trail."

Charlie chuckled and stood up.

"The deposits were made to a bank in the Bahamas. We've got the account impounded along with about a dozen more." He looked at his watch.

"We have agents picking up the national committee members and Sanderson right about now. Plus we're shutting down two illegal arms dealers and breaking the back of a whole network of illicit exotic animal traders.

This is one for the good guys."

"It sounds like a major bust," Kerney said, standing up so he could look Perry in the eye.

"Big-time."

"Did Steve Lujan murder Hector Padilla?"

"I can't answer that."

"I'm real happy for your success Charlie, but it doesn't get us any closer to finding out who shot Jim and blew up my trailer."

Perry chewed his lip for a minute before he answered.

"Your assumption about Lujan killing Padilla is reasonable. Maybe we can get Spence to confirm it. But if you think Steve came after the two of you to cover his tracks, you're betting on the wrong horse. I don't think Spence would allow that."

"Would Spence do it himself?"

"No way. He was under full surveillance when Jim was shot and your trailer was blown up. He wasn't even in the neighborhood."

"So who is coming after us?" Kerney demanded.

Charlie shrugged his shoulders.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"What about the Catron County Militia? The People of the West? The Free Range Society?"

Charlie smirked.

"Take your pick. Look, Kerney, let me make it clear. This operation wasn't designed to round up every pissed-off, angry white male in Catron County who wanted to join the revolution, rewrite the Constitution, or take a deer out of season. We've got a national militia organization developing that could make the Ku Klux Klan look like a bunch of boy scouts in bed sheets, once it really gets rolling. That's our target, and we plan to cut its head off."

"One more question."

"What is it?"

"Did you put a tail on me?"

"You bet I did. You're a loose cannon. I'll let Gatewood know we've got a suspect in the Lujan murder and tell him to rescind the arrest warrant on you."

"Gatewood got the warrant approved?"

"He sure did. You're a fugitive."

"Don't tell Gatewood anything."

Jim Stiles gave Kerney a quizzical look.

"Why not?"

"What kind of hand are you playing?" Charlie demanded.

"Just a hunch."

"Have it your way," Charlie said.

Kerney sat down in the easy chair in Jim's living room wearing a pair of blue jeans that were a tad too tight around the waist and a blue cowboy shirt that fit him pretty well. He was just out of the shower and felt a hell of a lot better after a shave and a fresh change of clothes, supplied by his host.

Jim sprawled on the couch, sipped a beer, and waited for Kerney to settle himself.

"Why didn't you want Charlie to tell Gatewood to cancel the arrest warrant?" he asked.

"I don't trust Gatewood," Kerney answered.

"He's too eager to make me his prime suspect.

Besides, I need an edge."

Stiles rested his head on the arm of the couch.

"An edge against who?"

Kerney smiled.

"That's the question, isn't it? Tell me about the local militia."

"I don't know who runs it," Jim replied.

"They keep a pretty low profile. What I've heard is mostly rumors."

"Gatewood said he knew the leadership."

"Maybe he does."

"Is he connected with them in any way?"

"Hell, I don't know."

"Does the name Ulibarri mean anything to you?"

"Sure. Steve Lujan's sister, Ramona Ulibarri. She lives in Southern California with her husband."

"Any kids?"

"Two teenage boys, I think. Maybe a little younger.

They visit every summer."

"Do you know the kids' names?"

"No. But the husband's name is Ray. Why are you interested in them?"

"A BLM officer checked with Gatewood after he stopped a kid on an ATV outside of Deming. The kid said he was from Reserve and gave his name as Ulibarri. Gatewood told the officer he didn't know anybody in the county by that name."

"Gatewood knows the family," Jim said.

"They only moved to California a short while back."

"Was Gatewood informed of the mountain lion translocation?"

Stiles adjusted his position.

"I'm almost certain he was."

"How certain are you?"

"If he reads his mail, he had to know. Santa Fe sends out bulletins to all local law enforcement agencies on every translocation of a cat, with an advisory to inform us if the animal is found dead or killed."

"Then he knew."

"Most likely. Do you think Gatewood's dirty?"

"Gatewood's a politician. He could be anything."

Jim laughed.

"That's funny, but I don't think Omar Gatewood would shoot me."

"Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just helped get you shot."

"That's an interesting idea. How do we find out?"

"Amador Ortiz. His phone call sent you to Padilla Canyon. Maybe somebody encouraged him to make that call."

"Let's talk to him," Jim said as he got off the couch.

"I'll go with you."

Before Kerney could answer, the front door opened and Molly Hamilton flew into the room. She glanced at Kerney, sparks flashing in her eyes, and gave Jim a very nasty look.

"Goddamn you!"

"What?"

She walked to Stiles and poked her finger in his chest.

"You were supposed to call me, remember?"

"I'm sorry."

She poked him again.

"That's not good enough."

"I think I'll leave," Kerney said, unraveling himself from the chair.

"Stay put, Kerney. I'll get to you in a minute." She poked Jim again.

"I've been all over the damn place looking for you, wondering if you'd been shot again, or kidnapped, or something."

"We haven't been anywhere near a phone until just now," Jim explained.

"We just got back. We're fine. Stop worrying."

"Shit!" Molly punched Jim in the chest with her fist and dropped her head. When she raised it, the anger on her face had been replaced with tears.

"I wish it was that easy to do," she said.

Jim pulled her close in a one-arm hug. Molly didn't resist.

Kerney quietly slipped out of the room and went to the kitchen.

Molly sniffled and wiped her nose, still a little red from crying. She sat with Kerney and Jim at the kitchen table.

"Sorry I sounded so bitchy," Molly said.

"You have every reason to bitch," Kerney allowed.

"You're right. I do. I called Karen Cox this morning after I started worrying about Jim." She shot him a dirty look, and he flinched.

"She said Gate- wood went over her head to the DA in Socorro to get the warrant signed. She wants you to stay out of Catron County and turn yourself in to the police in Silver City."

"I have no intention of going to jail on a murder one charge," Kerney retorted.

"I'll bail you out," Jim countered.

"I may not be allowed to make bail," Kerney replied.

Molly wrinkled her nose.

"Fine. Jim can harbor you, and you can both be fugitives." She took a slip of paper from her purse and passed it to Stiles.

"A lady called for you. She got your message on her answering machine asking about Eugene Cox's wife."

Jim read the name and address.

"Emily Wheeler.

Pie Town. What did she say?"

"She wrote a book about the Great Depression and World War Two in Pie Town. It's a history other family and friends who homesteaded in the area. It sounds like she did a lot of research. Tracking down former residents, searching public records, interviewing folks, and corresponding with old-timers who had moved away. She published it herself and sent copies to all her friends and relatives."

"Did she say anything about Louise Cox?" Jim asked.

"She won't talk about Louise unless you can prove you're really a police officer. She was quite insistent about it."

Kerney raised an eyebrow.

"Go and see her," he said to Jim.

"Take Molly with you."

"Right now? It's too late."

"Get her out of bed if you have to."

"It can wait until morning," Stiles argued.

"I'm going with you."

"No, you're not. Take Molly and go to Pie Town."

Jim gave him a stormy look.

"I don't want you with me," Kerney added.

"I think we should do what the man asks," Molly said.

Jim's expression softened when he looked at Molly.

"Okay. Pie Town it is."

"Can I use your truck?" Kerney asked.

Jim tossed him the keys.

"Don't get busted, for chrissake. At least not until we get back."

"If I'm caught, I'll tell Gatewood I stole the truck," Kerney replied.

Amador's house was dark, but a quarter mile up the road the Lujan house was filled with people, and a large number of vehicles were parked in front of the chain-link fence. Kerney debated delaying a confrontation with Ortiz and decided to wait and see how long the gathering of mourners would last.

He parked Jim's truck out of sight, walked back to the road, and settled under a tree halfway between the two houses. With moonrise several hours away, the night was dark. Above him the Milky Way cut a swath across the sky and sprinkled out into a vast, random pattern.

He heard a car engine fire up, and soon it passed him, traveling to the blacktop highway and turning toward town. More cars began to leave, along with a few people on foot, walking down the dirt road to their houses. Finally all the cars were gone, except for the Lujans', but Amador had yet to appear. Half an hour later, Amador and his three children came out, walked slowly down the road, and veered up the path to their house.

Kerney waited, wondering if Amador's wife was staying with Yolanda. He tried to think of a way to separate Amador from the children without announcing his presence, but no ideas came, short of breaking in and yanking him out.

Amador supplied the solution. The bedroom lights were doused, and within minutes Amador was on the porch lighting a cigarette. Kerney waited until Amador walked into the yard before making a long, looping circle behind the house.

Amador flicked his cigarette away, turned to go inside, and felt the muzzle of a gun pressed against his ear.

"Walk across the road," Kerney whispered.

"You motherfucker," Amador said.

Kerney slapped the barrel against Amador's temple, just hard enough to get his attention.

"No talking," he hissed.

"Move."

In the darkness under the trees, he ordered Amador to turn around. Ortiz spun quickly, and Kerney hit him hard across the bridge of the nose with the pistol. Amador's hands flew to his face.

"You broke my fucking nose," he gasped.

"Isn't this fun?" Kerney replied, as he backed up a few steps, out of Amador's range.

"Now, very slowly, I want you to drop to your knees and lie facedown on the ground with your arms and legs spread out at your sides. You know the drill."

"Are you going to kill me?" Amador whined. His stomach heaved and his breath came in quick gasps.

"Do it!" Kerney snapped.

Ortiz sank down and assumed the position.

Kerney walked behind him, cocked the pistol, and patted Amador down. He had no weapons.

"I had a little chat with Steve last night before he died," Kerney said.

"He told me you knew about his freelance poaching job. In fact, he said you let him take time off from work to go hunting."

Amador grunted.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"I knew about it."

"That makes you an accessory to murder."

"You're a fucking murderer yourself."

"I guess we're both in a shitload of trouble. Who told you to call Jim Stiles and tell him about Padilla Canyon?"

"Nobody."

"Don't lie to me, Amador."

"Let me get up," Amador begged.

"My nose hurts real bad."

"Come slowly to your knees and keep your arms outstretched."

Amador complied.

"Who told you to call Jim Stiles?" Kerney repeated.

"Gatewood has me by the balls, man. I did a burglary three years ago. I needed money, so I hit one of the vacation cabins. The owner had it wired with a silent alarm. Gatewood got a call from the alarm company and caught me on the road with all the goodies."

"So you're Gatewood's snitch," Kerney said.

"Did he tell you to call Jim Stiles?"

"That's what I'm saying, man."

"Thanks, Amador. You can go home now."

"You mean it?"

"I sure do. Get that nose looked after."

As Amador started to rise, Kerney cold-cocked him.

Ker emey left Amador where he fell. A bad feeling about beating up the man left a sour taste in his mouth. He cursed himself for giving in to the anger and drove away.

From the number of the squad cars patrolling the streets of Reserve it looked as though Gatewood, all his deputies, and the state police were out searching for him. Fortunately they weren't looking for him in Jim's truck. On the highway to Silver City, Kerney considered his options. With a murder-one APB out on him, playing hide-and-seek with Gatewood and his cronies wasn't an appealing idea. He could go to ground, stay in the open and risk the possibility of the danger inherent in a felony arrest, or turn himself in to the Silver City police and deal with Karen Cox. He had no place to hide and no desire to get conveniently shot for resisting arrest-which was a distinct possibility, given Gatewood's culpability.

That left jail as his only option. He would have to gamble that Karen Cox would play by the rules.

In Silver City he called Charlie Perry from a pay phone, told him what he planned to do, and asked him to get in touch with Karen and fill her in on the facts about Steve Lujan's murder. Perry was willing to oblige: Spence's handgun had been recovered, ballistics had matched the weapon to the slugs in Steve Lujan's body, and Spence's fingerprints had been lifted from the gun.

"I'll tell Gatewood to cancel the APB and void the arrest warrant,"

Perry added.

"Leave Gatewood out of it," Kerney snapped.

"According to Amador Ortiz, it was Gatewood who told him to set up Jim Stiles for the ambush at Padilla Canyon."

"That's serious shit," Perry said.

"You bet it is," Kerney replied.

"Where's Ortiz now?" Perry asked.

"I had to beat the truth out of him. He's probably home with a broken nose." Perry sighed.

"You're some kind of hot-dog cowboy, aren't you?"

"Whatever," Kerney said.

"One more thing: talk to Karen Cox in person, okay?"

"Are you paranoid, Kerney?"

"No, cautious," Kerney answered.

"Paranoia is an FBI trait."

"Not anymore. J. Edgar Hoover is dead," Perry replied and hung up.

It was well into the graveyard shift when Kerney turned himself in to the on-duty commander at the police department. He was photographed, fingerprinted, booked, and placed in a holding cell. After about an hour, the commander, a young lieutenant with a washed-out complexion, tired eyes, and a weight lifter's body, returned and squinted at him through the bars of the cell.

"Looks like you've had a busy night," the lieutenant said.

"There are additional charges pending on you out of Catron County. Seems you forced some guy off his property at gunpoint and pistol-whipped him.

Do you want to call a lawyer?"

"No," Kerney answered without hesitation. For now, he was in the safest room in town, and it wasn't costing him a dime.

"Call the ADA in Catron County for me and tell her what's happening. Her name is Karen Cox."

The lieutenant nodded.

"I'll give her a call." He passed a brown bag through the bars.

"Sack lunch," he explained.

"Left over from the morning prisoner run to the courthouse."

Kerney took the bag and opened it. It contained a bologna sandwich on white bread, an orange, and a cookie.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

The lieutenant stayed put and watched Kerney eat his meal. When he'd finished, Kerney crumpled up the bag and gave it back to the officer.

"I hear you were a good cop in your day," the lieutenant said.

"I like to think so," Kerney allowed.

"That guy you cold-cocked must have really pissed you off."

Kerney laughed and stretched out on the cot.

"Did I say something funny?"

"Yeah, in a way, you did. It reminded me of the old saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Nice try, Lieutenant."

The lieutenant shrugged lazily.

"You can't blame me for trying."

"I don't. But a stale sandwich, a cookie, and a piece of fruit won't get you a confession."

"It might help if you talked about it. I'm a good listener."

"And I'm an innocent man," Kerney said. He waited until the lieutenant gave up and walked away before closing his eyes. He was asleep within minutes. ‹‹I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," Mrs. Wheeler said.

Emily Wheeler, age eighty-five and the author of The People of Pie Town:

The Last of the Frontier Homesteaders, smiled at Jim Stiles and Molly Hamilton as they sat close to each other on the sofa. A nice-looking young couple, she thought to herself, but the young man would look better without those nasty scratches on his face, the eye patch, and his arm in a sling.

"I understand, ma'am," Jim replied.

The front room of the small house had pictures everywhere: in frames on the bookcases, in carefully placed arrangements on the walls, and lined up on the top of an upright piano. Many of the photographs were old, dating back to anywhere from the turn of the century through World War II. Emily Wheeler kept her memories right where she could see them.

"What can you tell us about Louise Cox?" Molly asked.

Mrs. Wheeler, perched at the edge of a Victorian chair, placed her hands firmly in her lap. A slight woman, she sat as erect as a young girl. She wore a housecoat and slippers. Her round face, widely spaced eyes, button chin, and full lips gave her an appearance of perpetual cheeriness.

"She was just a sweetheart," Emily said.

"The schoolchildren absolutely adored her. She was an excellent teacher."

"I'm sure she was," Jim said.

"When was the last time you had any contact with her?"