Previous Manny Rivera Mysteries by Rich Curtin:

Artifacts of Death

Manny Rivera Mystery #1

February’s Files

Manny Rivera Mystery #2

Trails of Deception

Manny Rivera Mystery #3

MoonShadow Murder

Manny Rivera Mystery #4

Author’s Website:

www.richcurtinnovels.com

DEADLY GAMES

A MANNY RIVERA MYSTERY

RICH CURTIN

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual incidents, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Copyright © 2015 Rich Curtin

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1508646554

ISBN-13: 9781508646556

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903267

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

North Charleston, South Carolina

DEADLY GAMES

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

EPILOGUE

1

WALLACE LAMONT, CHAIRMAN of Harkness & Lamont Industries, stood in the quiet library of his luxurious penthouse apartment in Washington, DC, staring out the window at the vast array of federal buildings in the distance. The sight of the U.S. Capitol Building, shining brightly in the June midday sun, always produced in him an uplifting, an excitement, a thrill—not unlike the rush a big game hunter experiences with a prized prey in the crosshairs of his scope, just before he pulls the trigger. The domed structure was the fountain of financial favors that had helped build Harkness & Lamont into a multi-billion dollar conglomerate.

Wallace lived for and loved schmoozing and manipulating congressmen, senators, and staffers to extract those favors. His peers regarded him as a true master in exploiting the political system for his own benefit. And now he was embarking on another one of his adventures. Win or lose, he always looked forward to the game with a delicious anticipation. The challenge of the contest and the uncertainty of the outcome were the ingredients that made it so exhilarating.

He glanced at his watch, then walked across the dark wood floor to his seventeenth-century English antique desk sitting atop a Persian rug. He sat down, picked up a brochure for an upcoming book auction in New York City, and read through it while he waited for his visitor to arrive. His extensive collection of rare books produced a musty smell in the mahogany-paneled library. Old first editions were his pride and joy, and he derived immense pleasure each time he found another gem to add to his bookshelves. He was awaiting the arrival of Thomas, his younger brother and vice-chairman of the company. Thomas had called earlier in the morning saying he needed to discuss a problem confronting the company’s Electronic Systems Division, a problem which was becoming more urgent with each passing day.

Wallace reflected on his brother. Both were products of Exeter and Dartmouth but, over the past thirty-five years, they had evolved into two completely different kinds of people. Thomas had become a straight-laced conservative businessman who was an expert in accounting and finance. Wallace had evolved into a skilled and daring risk-taker, a visionary, a master of closing the deal. Their skill sets complemented each other and made them a formidable team. Thomas managed the day-to-day operations of the company while Wallace handled matters of a more strategic nature. Because of the success of their company, they had risen from their upper middle-class New England roots to heights undreamed of. Each was now worth several hundred million dollars.

The door to the library opened and Evans, the butler, announced the arrival of Thomas Lamont. Thomas, carrying a thick briefcase, strode into the library, sat down on the couch, and loosened his tie. His face and the top of his balding head glistened with a fine sheen of perspiration.

“Will there be anything else, Mr. Lamont?” asked Evans.

“Yes, Evans. A glass of our 1990 Chateau Margaux Bordeaux.” He looked at his brother. “What would you like, Thomas?”

Thomas waved a hand at the butler. “Just a diet Coke for me, Evans. Lots of ice, please.”

Evans dipped his head almost imperceptibly, turned, and departed from the library.

“Our Electronic Systems Division has a serious problem,” said Thomas. “We still haven’t received that communications equipment contract from the Department of the Interior. If the government doesn’t award it by early next year, our backlog of work will diminish to a dangerously low level. I’m talking catastrophic. We’d have to lay off hundreds of our best people. It would be very difficult to recover from a blow like that.” He unsnapped his briefcase, extracted a sheaf of papers, and adjusted his bifocals. “I have the numbers right here.”

Wallace leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. “Thomas, before we get to the numbers, let’s review why we haven’t yet received that contract.” Wallace knew Thomas’s numbers and the rationale derived from them would be precise and impeccable. No one in the world was better than his brother at analyzing balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow summaries. Thomas could smell an accounting problem in an unopened annual report. What interested Wallace was his brother’s perception of the politics underlying the problem.

Evans returned with the drinks on a silver tray, placed them in front of the Lamonts, and exited.

Thomas took a sip of Coke and sat back. “The contract is for modernizing 690 emergency data communications systems for forest fire control, national parks, national monuments, BLM offices, and so forth. The dollar amount is $342.6 million. We’re scheduled to receive the contract sole source, since our company developed the original systems and no one else has the knowledge to upgrade the hardware and software. Unfortunately, funding for the contract is included in a larger appropriations bill that’s hung up in a Congressional subcommittee responsible for Department of the Interior monies.”

Wallace swirled the Bordeaux in his crystal wineglass and inhaled its bouquet. He took a sip. “Why is our money stuck in the subcommittee?” Wallace already knew the reason, but he wanted to be sure he and Thomas had the same information.

“Matthew Monroe, the congressman from Utah’s 5th District, is the subcommittee chairman. He’s the source of our problem. Our funding is part of a larger appropriations bill in the amount of $4.3 billion. All the subcommittee members are in favor of passing the bill but Monroe won’t let it come to a vote because it contains, among other things, $689 million for roads, campgrounds, and tourist amenities in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. Monroe, who’s a staunch environmentalist, is opposed to the California project because, he says, it will contribute to the further destruction of some pristine forest lands. He’s an odd duck—a Republican who’s firmly entrenched in the environmental camp. Anyway, it looks like the bill is going to die in the subcommittee.”

“The Republican primary in Utah takes place in less than two weeks.”

Thomas shrugged and produced a defeated expression. “Well, Monroe is sure to get re-elected. He’s a third generation congressman from southern Utah. The Monroe family name is like gold in that district.”

Wallace stood up, walked to the window, and looked outside. “Nevertheless, given the right set of circumstances, anyone can be beaten.”

“Not Monroe. He’s a cinch to win,” said Thomas.

“I’m aware of the political situation, Thomas. My friends in Congress have kept me informed.”

“Well, I’m completely stuck on this problem, Wallace. And frustrated. Do you have any ideas on how we can pry that contract loose?”

Wallace turned and faced his brother. “There’s only one answer. We must ensure Monroe doesn’t continue as chairman of that subcommittee.”

Thomas sat back, folded his arms. “What are you suggesting?”

“It’s simple. Monroe must be defeated in the primary.”

“I know you’re the political expert, Wallace, but all my sources tell me he’s unbeatable.”

Wallace smiled. “There are things we can do that might tip the possibility of a Monroe defeat in our favor.” Wallace waited for Thomas to digest that. He would reveal his plan slowly and deliberately, giving Thomas time to ask questions and sort out the logic of what he had done. He knew Thomas wouldn’t approve.

“What kind of things, Wallace?” There was a tone of apprehension in his voice.

“Have you ever heard of the Sagebrush Rebellion?”

Thomas frowned in thought, shook his head. “That term rings a bell but I can’t recall exactly. It was something that happened out West, wasn’t it?”

“It was. First, a little history. When the U.S. Government conquered the West, it became the owner of all the land they’d occupied from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. There were some minor exceptions such as towns, ranches, land grants, and so forth, but for the most part, the Feds owned the western lands. In the early days, there were no regulations or restrictions on how that land could be used, so people used it as they saw fit. Miners dug wherever they chose. Lumbermen cut timber wherever trees grew. And ranchers drove their herds to wherever the grazing was good. No one objected. The fruits of the public lands were there for the taking. It was pretty much that way for over a hundred years.”

“What’s all this got to do with our contract?”

“I’m coming to that. As the years rolled by, the federal government created the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage the land. Rules and regulations were established with the goal of preserving and husbanding those lands for posterity. To make a long story short, eventually the rules became too onerous for the people who had been using the land to earn a living. That’s when all the trouble started, eventually escalating into what became known as the Sagebrush Rebellion.”

Thomas’s expression revealed his impatience. “I assume you’re going to somehow tie all this back to Matthew Monroe.”

“Yes, yes, but let me finish. The scale of federal land holdings is enormous.” He walked to his desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and read from it. “Here are the percentages of land in the western states currently owned by the Federal government: Arizona, 42%; Nevada, 81%; Utah, 67%; New Mexico, 35%; Idaho, 61%; California, 48%; ….”

Thomas interrupted. “Okay, Wallace, I understand the Feds own a lot of land, but could you please get to the point?”

“The Sagebrush Rebellion reached a crescendo in the early 1980s. There was a great deal of grassroots resistance to the BLM and the Forest Service, including numerous instances of civil disobedience and sabotage. The locals felt that their livelihoods were being trampled by bureaucrats in Washington who were catering to the environmentalists, a group that was wielding more and more power each year due to the enactment of new environmental laws. The citizens of Utah were impacted in a big way by all this, particularly those in southern Utah. Eventually the anti-government discord settled down, but a strong undercurrent of resentment still lingers among the locals.” Wallace stopped, waiting to see if the light of comprehension was dawning in his brother’s brain. It wasn’t.

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t see where you’re going with all this.”

“Stay with me. Monroe’s father and grandfather stood squarely in the camp of the locals—the ranchers, the miners, and the timber companies. But young Matthew, who was elected because the citizens of the 5th Congressional District loved and trusted the Monroe family, is an environmentalist at heart. For the time being, at least, the people who elected him have chosen to overlook that fact.” He paused for effect, then looked at Thomas. “If we can re-ignite the flames of resentment in the people of southern Utah, they just might turn against Matthew Monroe.”

Thomas looked dubious. “How can we do that?”

“Whoever wins the Republican primary will win the election. The Democrats don’t stand a chance down there. A man by the name of Russell White is Monroe’s opponent in the primary. He’s a rancher from the Escalante area. Nice chap, I hear, but naïve in the ways of politics. We must give the fellow a helping hand and make sure he wins.”

“It’s a little late in the game for a large donation to make a difference.”

This would be the hard part, Wallace thought. His brother was not one to take chances when it came to circumventing the law. “I’m not just talking about a donation. I intend to resurrect the Sagebrush Rebellion in southern Utah. We will take steps to pit the hard-working locals against the feds and the environmentalists, at the same time highlighting Monroe’s strong pro-environment positions and voting record. If we do it exactly right, I think there’s a good chance the voters will turn against him.” He paused a moment, allowing Thomas to digest the concept. “Steps are already being taken to ensure his defeat. Four days ago, I hired Nikolas Oblonsky, our old friend from Brooklyn, to assist us.”

Thomas’s whole body slumped. “Oh no, Wallace. Not that guy, please. He’s sure to get us into trouble. Have you already forgotten the F&C acquisition that you hired him to help us with? It turned into the worst fiasco in the company’s history. We could’ve ended up in jail.”

“I’ll grant you, Thomas, that assignment didn’t go well. But he was an enormous help in convincing the Harkness family to sell us their share of the company at a very attractive price.”

Thomas shook his head. “I’m opposed. It’s too risky.”

“The primary election takes place in twelve days, so time is of the essence. I took the liberty of engaging the man’s services last week. He’s in Moab, Utah, as we speak. He’s been working for us for the past three days. The plan is to make Moab the flashpoint that re-ignites the Sagebrush Rebellion in southern Utah.”

Thomas sat back and ran his fingertips through the few gray hairs remaining on top of his head. “I don’t think this is smart, Wallace. Look, even if we get lucky and Monroe is unseated, how do you know White will cooperate and allow the appropriations bill to come to a vote?”

Wallace smiled. “Thomas, you stick to the accounting and let me handle Capitol Hill.” He raised his wineglass in a toasting gesture. “The beauty of my plan is that we don’t need White to do anything for us. If he’s elected, he might not even end up on that subcommittee. And if he does, he certainly wouldn’t be appointed chairman. Someone else on that committee, the most senior Republican, would inherit the job. That would be Ted Brown, and Ted is solidly in our camp. He will bring that bill to a vote, and quickly. It will pass and we’ll have our contract. All we need to do is to make sure Matthew Monroe is defeated in the primary.”

“I’m worried about Oblonsky. He takes too many chances. He’s liable to do something really stupid—something that could get us indicted.”

“In the world of dirty tricks, Oblonsky is one of the best political operatives in the business. He won’t take any foolish chances. He’ll stick with his assignment until the job is done. I’m paying him well and I promised him a large bonus if Monroe is unseated. And besides, there’s no way law enforcement can trace him back to us. I made sure of that. There’s no paper trail, no money trail, and no electronic trail. It was a face-to-face cash deal. So if Oblonsky gets in trouble and tries to finger us—which I doubt he would do—it would be his word against ours.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Wallace.”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

2

Moab, Utah

Three days later…

NIKOLAS OBLONSKY DIALED Wallace Lamont’s number using one of the cell phones he’d purchased at an electronics store in Grand Junction, Colorado. Always careful to avoid leaving traces of his presence, his standard practice was to use cell phones with prepaid minutes purchased with cash. He would dismantle and dispose of each phone after three days of use.

He was sitting atop a sandstone boulder in Arches National Park not far from the popular Balanced Rock geologic formation. From this vantage point, he could keep an eye on the long, winding asphalt road that ascended from Courthouse Wash up to Balanced Rock. In thirty minutes, Bucky Allen would be driving his black Rubicon up that road for their scheduled meeting. Bucky would be alone. He would park his vehicle in the Balanced Rock parking area, already half-filled with vehicles as tourists arrived to photograph the massive sandstone rock precariously resting atop a tall, narrow pinnacle. Oblonsky had planned it that way so Bucky would never know which vehicle was Oblonsky’s. The less Bucky knew about his new employer, the better.

Oblonsky heard a click on the line.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Lamont, this is Nikolas calling.”

“Good morning, Nikolas. How are things in Moab?”

“Just fine, Sir. It’s a cool morning with beautiful blue skies.”

“How is our project coming along?”

“Things are proceeding just as I’ve planned and I think our chances of success are excellent. I hired an assistant who I’d identified by doing a little online research. His name is …”

“Wait a damn minute.” Lamont’s tone of voice abruptly changed from friendly to stern. “You never told me you were going to hire help on this project. I assumed you would handle it yourself. Why the hell did you involve someone else?”

Oblonsky was taken aback. The last thing he wanted to do was anger Lamont and risk getting fired. Lamont paid well, and Oblonsky needed the money. But it was more than just that. It was partly fear. Wallace Lamont was a powerful man—no telling what he might do if he became angry. He could easily ruin Oblonsky’s career.

“Mr. Lamont, part of my plan calls for disruptive activities in the LaSal Mountains. For the plan to succeed, I needed someone intimately familiar with the mountain terrain. The fellow I hired has that knowledge. I certainly don’t.”

“You neglected to consult with me before hiring him. Adding another person to the project increases the risk of exposing our operation. You’ve jeopardized our security.”

Oblonsky decided his best course of action was to push back, politely but firmly. After all, he knew his business a lot better than Lamont did. “Hiring an intermediary actually improves security. He takes most of the risk. If he gets caught, there’s no way he can finger me. He doesn’t know my real name, and I’ve been careful never to let him see what vehicle I’m driving. I change motels every couple of nights, register with phony driver’s licenses, and pay in cash. Also, I have Bucky meet me in a different place each morning. He learns the location of the meeting an hour before it takes place. Don’t worry, Mr. Lamont, I know what I’m doing.”

“But he knows what you look like.”

“No he doesn’t. I’m wearing a disguise, something I always do when I’m working on a project.”

“You didn’t mention the goal of our project to this fellow, did you?”

“No, of course not. I’m paying him very well. Five hundred bucks a day. He agreed to follow my instructions to the letter and not ask questions. He needs the money. And besides, he thinks he’s striking a blow for the environmental movement.”

“You really should have discussed this with me beforehand.” There was a pause, during which Oblonsky could hear Lamont suck in a long breath, then exhale. “My brother thinks this project is too risky. Maybe he’s right.”

Oblonsky grimaced. “Do you want me to abort the program?”

That question was followed by a long period of silence. Then Lamont spoke in a calm and measured tone. “No, I don’t. Defeating Matthew Monroe is too important to the future of Harkness and Lamont. Now tell me about this fellow you hired.”

“His name is Bucky Allen. He comes from a local family of environmental activists. He’s twenty-three years old. Works part-time for a backcountry outfitter that offers Colorado River raft trips and LaSal Mountain hikes to tourists. He also waits tables at one of the local restaurants. Both jobs are on an as-needed basis so his income is meager and erratic. He needs the money, so I’m sure he’ll keep his mouth shut. He’s a smart kid, and gutsy too. Best of all, he knows the LaSals like the back of his hand. He spent his childhood summers in the mountains living in his family’s cabin up there and exploring the backcountry with his friends.”

“You say he comes from a family of environmentalists?”

“Right. The Allen family has been active in the environmental movement for decades. They support the Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and the LMPA, just to name a few. That last one, the LaSal Mountain Preservation Association, is playing an unwitting role in our project, but more about that later. Bucky’s grandfather is a well-known author who’s written books and magazine articles on a wide variety of environmental issues. Some say he’s an eco-terrorist at heart. He was active in the Sagebrush Rebellion, at least the part of it that took place in Moab.”

“I take it the LMPA is somehow involved in your plan. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them.”

“They’re a not-for-profit environmental group which has filed numerous lawsuits against the BLM and the Forest Service, claiming they have been derelict in protecting the public lands entrusted to them. They particularly object to the practice of leasing the LaSal Mountains to cattlemen for summer grazing. They say it ruins the experience of hiking, the solitude, the communing with nature, and so forth. Plus the animals crap all over the hiking trails. And yes, they’re very much involved in my plan.”

“So what have you done so far?”

“You said the goal was to stir up trouble between the environmentalists and the people who depend on using public lands to make a living. On Friday morning, I dispatched Bucky to the LaSals to cut some of the barbed wire fencing between a couple of grazing leases. I had him nail an LMPA brochure to a tree near the cut. He knows the mountains so well that he was able to get in there and out without being spotted. Some of the cattle wandered off onto the wrong leases and intermixed. The cattlemen had to go in there on horseback, sort out the animals, and repair the fence.”

“Have the cattlemen reacted against the LMPA?”

“I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so I did it for them. Late Friday night, I pushed a barrel full of paper trash up against the rear wall of LMPA’s building out on the highway. The building is constructed mostly of wood. I set the trash on fire and left a roll of barbed wire behind the building as a message, so the LMPA people would believe the incident was retaliation by the cattlemen. I checked the building the next morning. The back end was badly burned out but the rest of the building was intact. Apparently the fire department had arrived soon enough so the whole building wasn’t destroyed.”

Lamont chuckled. “That’s a good start. What about yesterday?”

“Yesterday, I had Bucky go back into the mountains to a different area. This was actually his idea. In one of the creeks descending the mountains, there’s a rock diversion dam that routes part of the water flow into a ditch which leads under a fence to a small stock pond. Bucky removed some of the rocks so that none of the water was diverted into the ditch. In the heat of the day, without any water replenishment, evaporation and thirsty cattle had reduced the pond to a mud hole. A cowhand discovered the problem late in the afternoon and repaired the dam. Bucky left an LMPA pamphlet at the scene, tacked to a tree next to the dam.”

“Did the cattlemen retaliate?”

“Again, I didn’t want to leave that to chance. Late last night, I went to the home of the LMPA Director and spray painted a message on the side of the LMPA vehicle parked in his driveway: Stop cutting our fences! For good measure, I slashed a couple of the vehicle’s tires.”

“And you expect that soon the cattlemen and the LMPA environmentalists will be at loggerheads.”

“Yes. But until that happens, Bucky and I will continue our little pranks.”

“So what’s next?”

“Today, I’ll be sending Bucky back into the mountains, this time to a different area. We’re going to crank things up a notch. I want him to cut a fence along the edge of a mesa and then drive some cattle over the cliff. Tonight I’ll retaliate in some way on behalf of the cattlemen if, by then, they still haven’t done it themselves.”

“Okay, Nikolas, but be careful. The stakes on this project are high and I can’t afford any mistakes. What else are you planning?”

“I’ve been monitoring a Moab talk-radio program. The locals have taken a keen interest in what’s been happening between the cattlemen and the LMPA. There have been several calls from irate citizens on both sides of the issue. Later today, I’ll call into the show myself. Using a few aliases, I’ll see if I can heat up the controversy a little more. I’ll make a few threats and try to get the locals all spun up. It won’t be long before the anti-government militia types and the eco-terrorists begin arriving in town to join the party. Then the real fun begins. There’s bound to be trouble.”

“Good. Now listen. I’ve contacted Russell White’s campaign headquarters and learned that he’s on a tour of all the towns in southern Utah. He’s down in the polls, but only by a 44% to 56% margin. He’ll be stumping in Moab Wednesday evening at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center. I’ve made a sizable donation to his campaign and suggested to his campaign manager some rhetoric that should improve his chances. He’ll be playing up the angle of how the environmentalists are hurting the hard-working Americans of southern Utah who are trying to make a living off the public lands. And he’ll be pinning Matthew Monroe’s ears to the problem. It’s a perfect opportunity for some more dirty tricks.”

“Good. I’ll give that some thought.”

“One more thing, Nikolas. The primary election is a week from Tuesday. That gives us nine more days—not a whole lot of time. So pour it on. And don’t forget, on primary night, when you learn who won the election, you’ll also be learning whether or not you’ve earned that bonus.”

Lamont clicked off before Oblonsky could respond.

Oblonsky glanced down toward Courthouse Wash. No sign of Bucky yet. The sun was higher over the horizon now, its rays warming Oblonsky’s back and shoulders. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the cool desert air. How different it was from what he was used to in Brooklyn. This air had a fresh, pleasant scent instead of the odor of exhaust fumes and industrial chemicals.

He thought about Wallace Lamont, wondering what it was that drove him so hard. He was already wealthy beyond anyone’s dreams, but he seemed to always want more. Was he working toward a particular financial goal? Or had his drive simply become habit, lingering long after his original goals had been met?

The sixty thousand dollars plus expenses Oblonsky would get for this job, plus the hundred thousand dollar bonus if Matthew Monroe was defeated in the primary, would cover most of his daughter’s medical and assisted living expenses for the next year. The car wreck that reduced his only child from a beautiful young woman to a facially disfigured cripple in constant need of attention had been a blow to his dream of having grandchildren. He loved Samantha, and hoped that with the proper care and attention, she would someday get back on her feet, have her beauty restored, meet a nice man, and lead a normal life. Those thoughts were foremost in Oblonsky’s mind. His singular focus was to make sure he earned that bonus.

Oblonsky missed being with his daughter. He still had a few minutes before Bucky was scheduled to arrive. He dialed her number.

“Hi, Daddy.” There was happiness in her voice. “I’m so glad you called. I miss you.”

“I’ve been thinking about you, Sammie. How are you doing today?”

“Oh, I’m fine. The pain from last week’s operation is almost gone. I’m still confined to bed, but the doctor says I can begin physical therapy the day after tomorrow. After that, only six more operations to go.”

“I worry about all the suffering you’re going through.”

“Oh, it’s okay. It just takes time. Someday it’ll all be over. Until then, I’ll just keep reading novels and watching the soaps.”

“I wish I could be there with you, but I’m on a job out west. I’ll be back in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks.”

“Don’t worry about me, Daddy. I’m fine. Really.”

“I love you, Sweetie.”

“I love you too.”

Bucky Allen’s Rubicon came into view from behind the Tower of Babel Butte, a sandstone monolith looming over the valley. Oblonsky watched as the vehicle made the long climb up the road from Courthouse Wash and turned into the Balanced Rock parking lot. Bucky parked the vehicle, got out, and looked around. Oblonsky stood up and waved his arms until Bucky spotted him. Bucky waved back, crossed the parking lot, and headed through the rocks toward his employer.

“Hi, Mr. Johnson. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” Bucky was five feet ten inches tall with a lean build. He had a ruddy complexion and long brown hair. He was wearing tan shorts and a dark blue T-shirt with a faded petroglyph image on the front.

“No problem, Bucky. You’re right on time. Ready to go to work today?

“Yes, Sir, I sure am.”

Oblonsky withdrew an envelope containing five hundred dollars from his pocket and handed it to Bucky. “This is for yesterday.”

Bucky peered into the envelope, smiled, and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He had the good manners not to count it.

“I heard the cattlemen struck back against the LMPA,” he said in a tentative, probing tone, as if expecting Oblonsky to provide some details or insights.

Oblonsky ignored the probe. “We’ll just have to teach the cattlemen another lesson,” he said.

“I’m all for that. My grandfather took a lot of abuse from them back in the eighties.”

“They’re not too happy about what you’ve done, so be careful up there in the mountains.” Oblonsky wasn’t sure if Bucky really believed it was the cattlemen who had retaliated against the LMPA. He also wondered if the young man believed his name was Johnson.

“What’s today’s assignment?” asked Bucky.

“Well, I have an idea but you’ll need to help me with the location.”

“Sure. What’s the idea?”

“Today I want you to cut some more fences, but this time I want you to stampede some of the cattle through the opening. I want you to select a location for the cut that’s at the edge of a bluff.” Oblonsky waited to be sure Bucky understood the objective.

Bucky’s smile disappeared and his eyebrows rose. “You want me to stampede them over the edge of a bluff? Kill them?”

“That’s right. Just a few of them.”

Bucky sat down on a nearby rock without comment. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared at the ground in thought. Oblonsky could almost hear the wheels turning in the young man’s head.

“That’s a lot more dangerous than what I’ve done so far.” He shook his head. “For five hundred dollars, I don’t know…”

It was exactly what Oblonsky had expected. “Did I mention the fee would be double for today’s work?”

Bucky looked up. “A thousand dollars?”

“That’s correct. Do you want the job or should I find someone else?”

Bucky didn’t hesitate. “No, no. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.” He stood up.

“Okay, good. Now, you know those mountains infinitely better than I do. Where’s a good spot to pull this off?’

“It would be hard for one man to get the cattle running toward an opening in the fence.” He frowned and sat back down. Thought quietly for a full minute. “Unless the fence line forms a corner. Even better if the corner angle is less than ninety degrees.” He smiled. “In geometry class, I think they called that an acute angle. I could cut out the corner wires, then circle back around the herd and start them running toward the corner. The fence lines would funnel them toward the opening.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got just the spot. There’s a place where South Beaver Mesa juts out to a point over Beaver Canyon. There’s good grass in there so there’s bound to be some cattle. The fence line follows the contours of the mesa. It’s a perfect setup.”

“Great. Can you do it without getting caught?”

Bucky nodded without hesitation. “Oh, yeah. I know that area real well. If someone spots me, there are several places where I can climb down off the mesa and get away. There’s no way I’d get trapped up there.”

“Okay. Get busy. Be sure to leave an LMPA brochure at the cut. And like before, make sure you leave no fingerprints on the brochure. Wipe it clean. I’ll call you tonight to see how everything went. Tomorrow morning we’ll meet somewhere else and you’ll get your next assignment. You’ll also get another envelope.” Oblonsky smiled. “About twice as thick as the one I just gave you.”

Oblonsky watched Bucky hustle back to his vehicle, hop in, and drive south on the pavement toward the park exit. When the black Rubicon reached the red rock monoliths in the valley known as the Three Gossips, Oblonsky walked back to his vehicle. Instead of following Bucky out of the park, he exited the park heading north on the Salt Valley Road, taking no chances that Bucky would have stopped for some reason and might then see Oblonsky driving by in his vehicle.

As he slowly managed his way up the little-used sandy road, Oblonsky spent the time thinking about what actions he might take tonight on behalf of the cattlemen to avenge the cattle that had plunged to their deaths at the bottom of the canyon. Hopefully, the cattlemen would cooperate and actually retaliate against the LMPA themselves, so Oblonsky wouldn’t have to do it for them. Maybe by tonight, they’d be angry enough to get in the game.

3

FROM HIS VANTAGE point standing in an aspen grove on an east-facing slope of the LaSal Mountains, Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera had a panoramic view of the southwest portion of North Beaver Mesa. The mesa was open sagebrush flats, grayish-green and tan, punctuated with scattered dark green juniper and pinyon pine. Through his binoculars, he could see about two miles of barbed wire fence heading off to the northeast and another mile heading off to the northwest. A few dozen head of Hereford cattle were grazing the flats. Rivera decided this spot would make an ideal surveillance point.

It was a clear June afternoon with cloudless blue skies. A gentle breeze brought with it the scent of sage and wildflowers. The only sounds Rivera heard were the quaking of the aspen leaves, the songs of unseen birds high in the trees, and the occasional bawling of a cow in the distance. Unfortunately, the TV weatherman had forecast a forty percent chance of thunderstorms for late afternoon. Rivera hoped the forecast was wrong, that the rain would miss the LaSals, and that he would be spared the inconvenience of getting soaked and hiking back to his vehicle through the mud. He sat down, leaned back against a tree trunk, and adjusted his position until he was comfortable.

Stakeouts were not his favorite law enforcement activity. Sitting patiently and waiting for something to happen was antithetical to the way he normally conducted an investigation. However, in the case of the recent fence cutting and dam dismantling in the mountains, he didn’t have a better idea. So, as of this morning, he found himself appointed as a member of a hastily-formed interagency task force organized to put a stop to the malicious pranks taking place in the mountains and around town. Besides the Grand County Sheriff’s Department, the task force included representatives of the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, the Moab City Police, the National Park Service, and the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department.

Grand County Sheriff Denny Campbell was in charge of the task force. In an early morning meeting at the Sheriff’s Office in Moab, he had briefed the group on the facts. The pranksters were stirring up a lot of trouble and had to be stopped. The cattlemen who moved their herds to these high-altitude grazing leases on BLM land for the summer months had become enraged and were blaming the LMPA environmentalists. The LMPA director had denied the allegations and complained to the sheriff that the cattlemen had attacked his home and his place of business. Despite the LMPA brochures left at the scene of the pranks, he asserted his own innocence and that of his organization. When asked if he could vouch for each member of the LMPA, he stated he could not.

The city and county councilmen, well aware of what had happened in Moab during the Sagebrush Rebellion, were demanding that law enforcement put an end to the nonsense immediately. They had expressed strong concerns about a revival of those troubled times and the effect it might have on Moab’s tourism economy. Apprehending the culprits was a top priority before the situation escalated any further. Campbell had appeared uncertain, worried, and confused as he briefed the group, creating the general impression he was in over his head. His experience as a street cop in Detroit hadn’t prepared him for a manhunt in the mountains.

The news reports describing the pranks were exacerbating an already tense situation. Moab’s new talk-radio station was alive with chatter that played up the mischief and created the impression a war was imminent. Already, a page seven article had been published in the Salt Lake Tribune describing the incidents and making a passing reference to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1980s. The Moab Times-Independent, due out on Thursday, would no doubt cover the story as front page news. Rivera knew little about the Sagebrush Rebellion. It had happened when he was a small boy, long before he’d paid any attention to the news. He’d heard occasional war stories from some of the locals who had lived through it, but had little in the way of facts or understanding.

He picked up his binoculars and began scanning the fence lines below, panning slowly from end to end. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The cows and calves appeared healthy and content, and there was not a human being in sight. Rivera heard a faint rumble of thunder coming from the other side of the mountains. He scanned the sky but it was clear as far as he could see.

He felt a vibration in his shirt pocket, put down his binoculars, and answered his iPhone.

“Manny, I think I’ve spotted our fence cutter,” Penny Daugherty said in an excited whisper. Penny was a BLM ranger and the only female member of the task force. She was positioned on a mountain slope overlooking South Beaver Mesa. “He’s about three quarters of a mile away. I can just make him out with my binoculars. Young man, brown hair, wearing tan shorts and a dark T-shirt. It looks like he’s cutting out the corner of a fence line where the mesa juts out into Beaver Canyon. I’m moving in.”

“I’ll circle around as backup, but be careful. It’ll take me awhile to get over there.”

“Okay, Manny.”

Rivera began the long trek to South Beaver Mesa, thinking about Penny as he hiked. She was a brand new BLM ranger, petite and pretty with short red hair and freckles. He’d met her three months ago when she arrived in Moab, a new graduate fresh out of the academy. There had been early rumors, courtesy of his friends in the law enforcement community, that she’d developed a crush on him. He’d liked her right off and found her attractive and interesting, but he was already involved with Amy Rousseau, a PhD botanist on sabbatical at the Dolores River Research Institute. The rumors about Penny and Rivera persisted for a few weeks, then seemed to dissipate.

Penny struck Rivera as an intelligent, alert, and competent ranger. She appeared physically fit but hadn’t been in law enforcement long enough to gain much real world experience. As he reflected on that, he began to pick up his pace. Would she be capable of subduing the wire cutter if he resisted arrest?

His iPhone vibrated again. “Manny, Penny again.” She sounded winded. “I’m closer now. About a half mile to go.” Suddenly her tone of voice changed. “Oh my God, he’s circled around behind a small herd of cattle and he’s yelling and clapping his hands, trying to move them toward the opening in the fence. I think he’s trying to stampede them over the cliff.”

“Fire your weapon in the air a couple of times to get his attention. Let him know you see him. Maybe he’ll turn tail and run before the animals go over the edge.”

“Right.”

He heard two gunshots. Then a third. Then he heard Penny shout, “Stop. You’re under arrest.”

“Manny, he spotted me but he can’t hear what I’m saying. He’s still chasing the cattle. Now he’s got them running toward the opening. Hold on.”

Rivera was moving at a fast trot through the forest, holding the phone to his ear with one hand and pushing away the brush slapping at his face with the other.

Penny came back on the line. “Oh, damn, some of the herd went over the edge, down into Beaver Canyon. It looks like the others are scattering to the left and right of the opening. I’m going to run him down.”

Rivera was now running through the forest. He had several miles to go before he would reach Penny. If the perp was crazy enough to kill cattle, there was no telling what he might do to a diminutive BLM ranger. He found a trail that headed toward South Beaver Mesa and followed it. Running on the trail was far easier than dodging trees and brush.

He slowed to a walk when his iPhone vibrated again. “Manny, it’s Penny.” She was breathing hard and could barely talk. “He’s heading northwest on the mesa. He’s running pretty fast. Too fast for me to keep up with. I checked my map. He’s headed out toward the tip of the mesa, right where it ends at the Dolores River.” She paused, catching her breath. “I’m betting he’ll find a way to hike from the top of the mesa down to the river. Maybe from there he’ll head toward Gateway. I’m going back to get my vehicle. I’ll take the John Brown Canyon road down to Gateway and head up that dirt road alongside the river toward the mouth of Beaver Canyon. I’ll be waiting for him when he comes down off the mesa.”

“Okay, Penny, I’ll head back to my vehicle and follow that same route. I should be about twenty minutes behind you. And I’ll call Adam Dunne who’s staking out the flats near Cottonwood Canyon. I’ll have him head down the canyon to the river and then upriver to Beaver Canyon, just in case our wire cutter gets to the river before you do and decides to head north instead of south. If he does, he’ll run right into Adam.”

“Good idea. We’ll have him whichever way he goes.”

Rivera almost smiled. Penny’s squeaky voice made her sound so young and enthusiastic. She didn’t sound like a cop. He made the call to Dunne, a BLM Special Agent who was an old friend and part of the task force, then headed to his vehicle.

Rivera hopped into his unit, a white, four-wheel-drive Ford F-150 pickup with the Grand County Sheriff’s insignia blazoned on the doors. He drove on Polar Mesa Road to its intersection with the Castleton-Gateway Road, a well-maintained gravel road through the mountains. He turned left and headed toward Gateway, a hamlet just over the Utah-Colorado state line.

He called Millie Ives, the Grand County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher, and briefed her on the situation. She said she would advise the other members of the task force and request they converge on South Beaver Mesa, closing the net around the perp. She’d try to make sure he didn’t turn around on the mesa and backtrack into the mountains instead of continuing toward the river.

Rivera’s phone buzzed again.

“Manny, it’s Penny. I don’t know if I’ll get to Beaver Canyon before or after our runner gets there, so I’m going to leave my vehicle about a quarter mile from the mouth of the canyon and head in on foot. I don’t want the perp to spot my unit and take off in a different direction.”

“I’m headed your way. Be careful.”

Rivera estimated fifteen minutes driving time to Gateway and another ten minutes up the primitive dirt road that followed alongside the Dolores River. He drove faster than he should on the gravel road, the minutes ticking away like hours. He didn’t like doubting another law enforcement officer’s ability to subdue an unruly civilian, but Penny seemed so small. He knew she was well trained in the craft of physical combat and the use of firearms, but still, she looked like she barely weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. Thinking about that made Rivera all the more anxious.

His thoughts turned to the wire cutter. What kind of sick mind would decide it made sense to drive cattle over a cliff? Probably some out-of-town eco-terrorist trying to make a point about the environment. Was he retaliating against the cattlemen for the attacks against the LMPA? Probably. There was no doubt now that the crimes were escalating. One side taking an action, the other side striking back with increased vengeance. It had to be stopped, and catching the wire cutter was the best chance to bring the conflict to a halt.

Rivera skidded around a sharp turn in the road and maintained his speed. It was late in the evening now and storm clouds had moved in and darkened the sky. A flash of lightning illuminated the terrain. It was followed three seconds later by a crack of thunder and a rumbling of echoes. The storm would soon be upon him. Rivera crossed the Utah state line into Colorado, reached John Brown Canyon, and began descending the gravel switchback road that led to Gateway. The tight curves were treacherous, especially if one was in a hurry. There were numerous opportunities for the careless to plunge to the bottom of the canyon.

He forced himself to suppress his impatience and carefully negotiated the twists and turns in the road until he reached the bottom. He sped through Gateway and headed north on the dirt road which followed alongside the river, just as pea-sized hail began pelting his vehicle. The onslaught of hailstones intensified, bouncing chaotically off the hood of his vehicle, diminishing his range of vision to thirty feet, and forcing him to reduce his speed. Soon the roar became deafening. Twenty seconds later, the hailstorm abruptly stopped. Then the wind picked up and large raindrops began pelting his windshield. He turned on his wipers.

The wet potholes and ruts in the road forced him to reduce speed. He called Penny on her cell phone, trusting that she had it on vibrate. After eight rings there was a click and the sound of breathing.

“Penny, I’m about five minutes away. Are you alright?”

There was a long pause, then a weak voice responded. “Hurry, Manny. Need assist...”

“On my way.”

Rivera turned on his siren and sped up the road. The bouncing of his vehicle caused by the potholes caused him to lose traction. He fishtailed from side to side on the wet dirt, sliding off the road once and nearly slipping into the river. He drove aggressively, crossing the state line again and re-entering Utah. He passed Penny’s unit parked on the left side of the road and continued until he reached the mouth of Beaver Canyon. There, he jammed on the brakes, sliding to a stop in the wet dirt. A short distance away, he spotted Penny, her small body stretched out on the ground. He grabbed his first aid kit, drew his weapon, and sprinted toward her, his eyes scanning the canyon for danger as he ran through the pouring rain.

She was curled up in a fetal position, lying on her left side, the right side of her head bloody. Her cell phone was near her hand, half submerged in the wet sandy soil. Rain ran down her face in red rivulets. He gently touched the wound with his fingertips and grimaced. Along her hair line was a swollen area about three inches in diameter. He glanced into the canyon, saw nothing, and re-holstered his weapon.

“Penny, what happened?” he asked, pulling out his iPhone.

She opened her eyes partway, her eyelids fluttering. Her lips moved as if she were trying to speak but no words came out. She moved her hand ever so slightly so that her index finger was pointing into the canyon. Then her hand fell limp and her eyes closed.

He called the dispatcher. “Millie, I need assistance. BLM Ranger Penny Doyle is down from a serious blow to the head. I need a MedEvac chopper immediately.” He gave his location.

He opened his first aid kit, removed a bottle of antiseptic liquid and a handful of gauze pads. He cleaned the wound and inspected it. The blood flow had reduced itself to a trickle, but the swelling looked worrisome. He hoped her skull wasn’t fractured. He gently taped a thick square of gauze over the wound to protect it. Then he picked up her limp arm and felt for a pulse. It was weak.

As the minutes ticked away, Penny’s breathing became shallow. “Penny, stay with me! Help is on the way. Stay with me!” He noticed a jagged rock about the size of a softball on the ground nearby. He could see some reddish hair and flesh stuck to one of its sharp edges.

He looked into the canyon where she had been pointing and saw no one. He inspected the trees and boulders, then began sweeping his eyes across the cliffs that formed the four-hundred-foot high walls of the canyon. He saw movement on the left cliff face. A young man in tan shorts and a dark T-shirt was climbing up a diagonal crack in the mesa wall. He was nearly at the top. He looked back once, then reached mesa level and disappeared from view.

Rivera was furious the fence cutter would resort to attacking a law enforcement officer and frustrated he couldn’t give pursuit until help arrived. He called the dispatcher and informed her that the perp had climbed back to the mesa top and was escaping back toward the mountains. He gave her a description of the man and requested that all available personnel converge on South Beaver Mesa and try to intercept him.

Any optimism he had about a capture faded when he noticed that daylight was fading fast.

After a time, the rain tapered off and stopped. Rivera could hear the rumble of distant thunder as the storm moved across Piñon Mesa to the northeast. The storm front had caused a significant drop in the temperature. Rivera went to his unit and retrieved a blanket to keep Penny warm. While he waited for help to arrive, he talked to her nonstop, encouraging her to hang in there. Finally, in the gathering darkness, he heard the thumping of the helicopter’s rotor as the pilot searched for a place to land.

Soon, EMS technicians carrying a stretcher arrived on site and trotted to Penny’s side. They applied additional first aid to the wound, then whisked Penny off on the stretcher. In another minute, Rivera could hear the chopper lifting off, headed to the Moab Regional Hospital. He glanced at the crack the perp had used to escape back up to the mesa. It was now too dark to follow him.

4

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Rivera sat in his office pounding on the keyboard of his computer as he put the finishing touches on his report. Every muscle in his body was tense as, page after page, he’d told the story of what had happened, forcing him to relive each moment. He never should have let Penny pursue the fence cutter by herself. He knew better than to let her go solo but had chosen not to embarrass her by insisting she wait for him.

It had been a long night at Beaver Canyon, securing the crime scene and searching for evidence with flashlights. Aside from the rock used to bludgeon Penny, they’d found nothing helpful. Rivera felt it was possible, even likely, the crime scene team had missed something in the darkness. This morning, he and BLM Agent Adam Dunne planned to meet at Beaver Canyon to study the area in the daylight. He slid his mouse so the small arrow on his monitor pointed to the ‘Save’ button. He clicked on it, then he gulped down the last of his coffee and headed out of the office.

He hopped into his pickup, drove to the center of town, and waited for the traffic light at Main Street to turn green. The upper half of the Moab Rim, looming on the west flank of town, was glowing a bright copper color as the rays of the rising sun began illuminating its 1,000-foot high red rock walls. Normally, the sight of that impressive escarpment would have reduced the tension he felt. The beauty of the geologic wonders in the backcountry around Moab often had that effect on him. But today was different. He’d become more attached to Penny than he had realized.

Rivera’s fondness for Moab began at an early age during a grade school bus trip from Las Cruces, New Mexico to the canyon country. Years later, after graduating from New Mexico State University, he’d hired on as a city cop in his hometown. But his heart always pined for the canyon country around Moab. When an opportunity to become a Grand County Deputy Sheriff presented itself, he jumped at the chance. The only difficult part of the decision had been leaving his close-knit family and friends behind.

The light changed and he turned right, heading north out of town. Moab was an old uranium mining town, one of many mining communities sprinkled across the West. Most had faltered either because the mines played out or because the economic demand for their product dried up. Luckily, around the same time the uranium mines around Moab were closing down due to lack of demand, outdoor adventure seekers were discovering the area’s beauty. Hikers, mountain bikers, rafters, and four-wheel-drive enthusiasts began flocking to this geologic paradise and, in the process, saved Moab’s economy.

As he drove down Main Street, he noticed there were fewer out-of-state vehicles on Moab’s streets than there were just a few weeks ago. The tourist population had decreased from its peak in April and May, due to the impending onset of the hot summer months. He turned right at Highway 128 and drove upriver alongside the Colorado River. The current was strong this time of year due to the snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains. A few oarsmen piloted colorful kayaks downriver.

Rivera turned on his radio and tuned it to the Charlie Abbott show, a popular program on Moab’s talk-radio station. The banter between Abbott, the host, and the Moab locals was always entertaining and often informative. This morning, though, the discussion had more ominous overtones.

“…all this trouble in the mountains. Those people have no business cutting those fence lines. Those cattle ain’t hurtin’ anything.”

Abbott connected the next caller. “Charlie Abbott Show. What say you, Andrew from Moab?”

“I disagree. The cattle mess up the trails. And they take away the feeling that I’m hiking in the wilderness. It ain’t wilderness if you’re hiking through a herd of cattle.”

“Charlie Abbott Show. What say you, Marilyn from Castle Valley?”

“To say that the cattle are a problem is a gross exaggeration. My husband and I hike the mountains a lot and we rarely see any cattle up there. We love the environment as much as anyone, but I think there’s a segment of the environmental movement that just enjoys making trouble. If they really want to help, they should volunteer for right-of-way clean up duty.”

“Charlie Abbott Show. What say you, Noah from Monticello?”

“The high desert is no place for cattle. They should be grazing in the grasslands in Nebraska or Montana or someplace. Not here. I’m sick of seeing them in the backcountry.”

“Charlie Abbott Show. What say you, James from Moab?”

“I say law enforcement needs to put a stop to the fence cutting and arson before it ruins the town.”

Rivera reached over and switched off the radio. James was right.

Rivera arrived at the crime scene around midmorning and found BLM Special Agent Adam Dunne waiting there for him. They were good friends and had collaborated on several cases over the past few years. Rivera knew Dunne was Penny’s unofficial mentor since she’d hired on as a BLM ranger.

Rivera walked over and shook his hand. Dunne was six feet two inches tall and slender, with a pleasant face and demeanor to match. “I’m so sorry about Penny, Adam. I feel like it’s all my fault. I knew better than to let her come in here alone. I should’ve insisted she wait for me.”

“It’s not your fault, Manny. You couldn’t have stopped her. She’s the most driven and strong-willed ranger I’ve ever met. In private, my wife calls her ‘mini-Rambo.’ Penny would have come in here by herself no matter what you had said. Besides, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I should’ve blocked her assignment to the task force on the grounds that she didn’t have enough experience.”

Rivera nodded, not convinced. But he appreciated his friend’s attempt to assuage his guilt.

“Doctors at the hospital say her condition is serious; she’s still unconscious,” said Rivera.

Dunne nodded. “I know. We can only hope for the best.”

From the dirt road that followed along the bank of the Dolores River, another more primitive road branched off and entered Beaver Canyon. They left their vehicles and walked side-by-side on the road into the canyon. The road was nearly dry now, a result of the sandy desert soil sucking down rainwater like a blotter.

“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” said Dunne, shaking his head. “Attacking a BLM ranger and killing cattle. The backcountry is supposed to be a place for solitude and enjoyment. Things are getting…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Any idea why all this started?”

“No idea at all unless it’s a resurgence of the old Sagebrush Rebellion, like people are saying around town. I was a young BLM Agent when all that started up. It was intense for a few years, then it just seemed to fade away. Maybe it’s been percolating all this time and now it’s starting to blow up again.”

“I’m guessing the fence cutting was the work of an overly zealous environmentalist,” said Rivera. “Now the cattlemen are retaliating against the LaSal Mountain Preservation Association. I assume that’s because LMPA brochures were left at the scene.”

“Probably. The LMPA’s environmental focus has been exclusively on the LaSals. The BLM’s problem is that we’re caught in the middle on this. We’ve reduced the number of cattle permitted in the grazing allotments to avoid overgrazing and erosion, partly because it was the right thing to do, and partly because of environmental lawsuits from organizations like the LMPA. So the cattlemen are angry with us. But so are the environmentalists—they want us to ban grazing altogether. We can’t win.”

“I guess you know the BLM asked the Sheriff’s Office to take the lead on the assault case,” said Rivera.

“Yeah. We don’t have the resources to handle something like this. We’ll serve in a support role. Is it your case?”

“Sheriff Campbell assigned it to me last night.”

Dunne grinned. “And how are you two getting along these days?”

Rivera laughed. “About the same. Like oil and water. We try to avoid each other.”

An image of Campbell entered Rivera’s mind. He was an impressive looking man. At six feet four inches tall, he towered over Rivera by five inches. His burr haircut and perpetual frown made him appear imposing, but he always seemed lost when it came to investigations and operations. Even worse, his management and interpersonal skills were grossly deficient. Even offensive. He had no business being a county sheriff. Working for Campbell was difficult for Rivera. He didn’t have much respect for him as a sheriff or a man. Rivera loved the red rock canyon country that surrounded Moab and wanted to remain in the area. So, at least for the time being, he’d chosen to stay on as a deputy.

“Don’t quote me on this but some of the folks around town have begun to question his competence,” said Dunne.

Rivera shrugged. “He just doesn’t have any rural law enforcement experience. He spent his career as a street cop in Detroit. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish Leroy Bradshaw was still sheriff.”

Rivera thought about his old boss. If only Bradshaw would return and run for sheriff at the next election cycle, that would make everything right in Rivera’s life. There’s no doubt Bradshaw would win. Unfortunately, that possibility appeared less and less likely with each passing month. Bradshaw’s newly-established private investigations practice in Santa Fe was doing quite well.

“Yeah, he’s a good man,” said Dunne. “How’s his investigation business in Santa Fe coming along?”

“He’s doing real well. Evidently there’s a lot of work available from Santa Fe’s wealthy. Some industrial stuff too. I have a standing job offer to join him.”

Dunne looked at him. “Are you considering leaving Moab?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I like it here.”

“We’d sure miss you, though I wouldn’t blame you for quitting Sheriff Campbell.”

“The thought crosses my mind several times a week.”

“By the way, what did you learn about that rock you found at the scene? Was it the one Penny was struck with?”

“The Utah State Police lab in Price ran tests on the hair and blood on the rock. Both were Penny’s, so the rock was definitely used as the weapon. But no usable prints. The guy at the lab said prints don’t take to sandstone very well.”

A hundred feet ahead on the left side of the road was a loop of yellow crime scene tape that Rivera had tied around a sagebrush plant last night, marking the spot where he’d found Penny. The men stopped at the tape and surveyed the general area.

The mouth of the canyon was about two hundred feet wide, bracketed by red rock walls four hundred feet high. Vertical streaks of black desert varnish stained the walls in places where compounds of iron and manganese had leached out of the sandstone. The floor of the canyon was a mixture of sand and alluvial soil which had washed down from the mountains over the millennia. It now supported a rich variety of plant life. Sage, grasses, blackbrush, and juniper flourished in the fertile soil. Large boulders which had sheared off the cliffs over time were scattered in the canyon.

A small creek trickled down the center of the canyon, a result of runoff from the LaSal Mountains finally reaching the Dolores River. Several large cottonwood trees flourished alongside the creek, their bright green foliage giving the canyon a picture postcard appearance. In a permanently shaded alcove in the left canyon wall, a seep emerged from the sandstone partway up the wall and trickled down the rock face to the ground. The flow, meager as it was, was sufficient for green moss with small white flowers to grow on the wall. At the bottom, the seep had worn a basin into the sandstone which retained a small pool of water. A hundred feet farther into the canyon, someone had set up a half dozen gray beehive boxes amidst some cottonwood trees. Honeybees flew in and out of the slits in the boxes.

“Judging from the ruts worn into this dirt road, it looks like it’s frequently used,” said Rivera.

“About two miles in, the canyon widens to a quarter mile across. There are about four hundred acres of privately owned land in there. The Harrison Ranch. It’s a beautiful place. The Harrisons raise Arabian horses. Unfortunately, I heard it might be sold to a developer in Denver. Word is they’re planning to turn the property into some kind of resort for business retreats. It’d be a shame if they did. One more piece of pristine canyon country going to the developers. Mr. Harrison and his wife are top-notch horse breeders but rumor has it his health isn’t so good and he wants to retire.”

Rivera nodded. “I’ve heard of them. They’re supposed to breed some of the finest Arabians in the country.”

“Right. I was back there once years ago. It’s a real showplace.”

“Who owns the beehives?”

“They belong to Mr. Harrison. I understand he collects the honey and his wife bottles it. My wife knows her from our church. Mrs. Harrison donates most of the honey for use in fund raising projects at the church. I’ve met her a couple of times. Nice lady.”

“Are we on BLM land here or ranchland?”

“BLM land. The ranch boundary is about a mile into the canyon.”

Rivera smiled. “So those beehives actually reside on land belonging to the mighty BLM. Did Mr. Harrison get your permission to put them there?”

Dunne laughed. “No idea. Probably not. I’ve seen paperwork for grazing allotments, timber leases, mining and extraction permits, so forth. Never seen a BLM form for beekeeping.”

“Maybe you should suggest it. It would add a little more red tape to the BLM’s operations. You’d probably get a certificate of achievement from Washington. Maybe even a promotion to assistant bureaucrat.”

“You’re full of helpful ideas, Manny. No wonder the sheriff holds you in such high esteem.”

They stopped and looked at the beehives. “My neighbor in Castle Valley has beehives,” said Dunne. “He sells the honey at the Farmers Market in Swanney Park. He says it’s good for allergies.”

They walked through a cluster of cottonwood trees to the other side of the canyon, jumping across the narrow creek. “You see anything around here we should look at more closely?” asked Dunne.

“Not really. The rain scoured the crime scene pretty good. There were no usable footprints.” Rivera pointed to the south wall of the canyon. “I spotted the perp climbing up that crack in the mesa wall. It was kind of dark but I got a brief look at him.”

“Did he look familiar?”

“He was too far away to get a good look at his face. And daylight was fading. Whoever he is, he got away in the dark. We had six uniformed officers out on that mesa less than thirty minutes after I spotted him, but he escaped anyway. He must know the area well. At first, I figured he was an out-of-town radical environmentalist who came here to make trouble. Now I’m not so sure. Could be he’s a local from Moab or Gateway.”

They re-crossed the creek and walked to the base of the crack. An immense section of sandstone had separated from the main wall about eighteen inches, leaving a ledge that rose diagonally up the cliff face to the top of the mesa. The two men stood there, staring at it.

Dunne smiled. “One of us should climb up there to see if he left anything behind. Maybe his wallet fell out near the top. Or one of his business cards with his name, address, and phone number. You never know.”

Rivera studied the passageway to the top. “That looks pretty dangerous, Adam. There are a lot of loose stones on that ledge. I’d be real careful climbing up there if I were you.”

Dunne grinned. “I have a wife and five kids at home. Molly would never forgive me if I fell and hurt myself. Who would do the chores? Who would take out the garbage? You should be the one to climb.”

“Me? This is BLM land. It’s your ledge. You climb it.”

“Manny, I’m fifty-six years old. You’re thirty-six. Do the math. Besides, this is your case. BLM is only serving in an assisting role.”

“And how do you propose to assist?”

“I’ll hold your hat while you do the climbing.”

Rivera laughed, handed Dunne his cowboy hat, and began making his way up the ledge, leaning his weight into the cliff face as he ascended. It wasn’t as bad as it first appeared from ground level, as long as he didn’t look down. Rivera knew the biggest danger was the loose gravel on the ledge, which could roll like ball bearings under his feet if he wasn’t careful. These he avoided, brushing them over the edge with his foot as necessary.

When he neared the top of the ledge, he encountered a green bush with inch-long thorns which impeded his progress. He stopped, knelt down and inspected it. He considered the obstacle, wondering how the perp had managed to get past it. His thoughts went back to last evening, when he’d seen the young man scurrying up the ledge, looking back once, then disappearing over the top. He hadn’t stopped for even a moment at the bush. Rivera decided he must have been so driven to escape that he’d simply brushed past the thorny plant, ignoring the pain of the scratches and punctures on his unprotected legs. The perp would likely have significant scratch marks.

Rivera inspected the thorns but saw no sign of blood. He judged the rain had washed most of it away, but the State Police Lab would need only a tiny trace of blood to perform a DNA analysis. He extracted a pen knife from his pants pocket and pulled open the blade. He whittled away at the half-inch thick base of the plant, careful not to leave any of his own blood on the thorns. The plant came free from the base.

“Adam, I’m tossing down a thorny plant. It might have some of the perp’s blood on the thorns. Bag it for me, would you?”

“Sure, Manny,” came the response from below.

Rivera tossed the plant off the cliff, then continued climbing until he reached the top of the mesa. The edge of the mesa was hard cap rock so there were no footprints. There were a few pockets in the rock filled with blow sand, but they too yielded no prints, thanks to the thunderstorm’s wind and rain. He searched the immediate area, but found nothing of interest. He returned to the ledge and climbed down. At the bottom, he brushed the red rock dust off his tan uniform and retrieved his hat.

“I guess that’s all we can do here, Adam. I’m thinking I’d like to visit the Harrison Ranch before I leave. Maybe they saw something that would be helpful. And my brother has horses back in Las Cruces so I’d like to get a look at those Arabians. Want to come along?”

Dunne looked at his watch, produced a wry expression. “Can’t. We’ve got some BLM brass due in from Washington for their annual visit. I’m supposed to be part of the welcoming committee.”

Rivera smiled. “They here to help with the stakeout?”

Dunne rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding. That would be work. Work’s not in their job description.” He climbed into his vehicle, waved goodbye, and drove off.

5

RIVERA HOPPED INTO his pickup, started the engine, and drove up-canyon toward the Harrison Ranch, passing the crime scene tape, the beehives, and the cottonwood trees. The primitive dirt road followed alongside the meanders of Beaver Creek as it wound its way between the massive red rock walls of Beaver Canyon. He rolled down the window and rested his arm on the sill. The shady canyon was quiet and the air was cool. Flocks of small birds erupted from the canyon floor as the vehicle approached, the sound of their collective wing beats breaking the silence.

In places where the meanders of the shallow creek made it necessary, the road crisscrossed the creek. Bends in the course of the canyon prevented him from seeing ahead more than a few hundred feet.

Two miles into the canyon, he came around a final curve and reached the place where the bluffs diverged and the canyon widened. He emerged from the shade and entered a valley where the sun shone and the temperature was noticeably warmer. Now he could see the Harrison Ranch ahead in the distance. Fields of bright green alfalfa were bordered by fences constructed of galvanized piping painted white. In one field, a row of sprinkler heads on a rolling irrigation system filled the air with water droplets, creating a small rainbow. In other fields, majestic Arabian horses, some with foal, grazed peacefully. A couple of curious horses trotted over to the fence line along the entry drive to get a closer look at Rivera. The ranch had a welcoming feel to it.

At the far end of the ranch was a modest house constructed of spruce logs and a green shingled roof. A covered porch running across the front of the house was furnished with wicker chairs and tables. In the front yard was a small garden of red, white, and yellow roses. On the side of the house were flowering yellow and orange esperanza bushes. Rivera thought about how satisfying it would be to sit on that veranda in the evening, sip on a cocktail, and look out at the view.

Off to the right of the house were a large barn and a collection of smaller outbuildings. Two dusty pickup trucks, one brown and one maroon, were parked between the house and the barn.

A woman Rivera assumed was Mrs. Harrison opened the front door of the house. She smiled and waved. She descended the porch steps and walked briskly toward Rivera. He stepped out of his vehicle.

“Mrs. Harrison?”

She extended her hand. “Yes, but please call me Eve.”

Rivera shook her hand. “I’m Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera.” Eve was an attractive brunette, trim, with hazel eyes and fair skin. She was wearing jeans, boots, and a white western shirt with a pattern of small red flowers. He guessed her age as early to mid-forties. “I’m investigating an assault on a BLM ranger that took place yesterday evening at the mouth of Beaver Canyon. It happened around the time the thunderstorm hit. I was wondering if you folks might have seen or heard anything unusual.”

“Oh, my gosh. We had no idea.” She shook her head. “We were here all day but I don’t remember seeing anything unusual—oh, wait, we did see a helicopter flying real low over the ranch. It must have been around dusk. It had a spotlight and was scanning the canyon floor. I remember because it spooked the horses.” She paused in thought. “That’s all I can think of.”

Rivera nodded. He wasn’t surprised she hadn’t heard his police siren. The sound would have been muffled and absorbed by two miles of winding canyon walls. And, for the same reason, they would have had no idea that two miles farther up the canyon, several head of cattle had plunged to their death. “That was a MedEvac helicopter coming to pick up the injured ranger. Its spotlight was on because the pilot was looking for a place to land.”

“Is the ranger alright?” There was genuine concern in her voice.

“I’m afraid not. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”

“She? A woman?” Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh my goodness. How terrible. I hope she’ll be okay.”

For the time being, Rivera spared her the details. No sense going through the story more than once. “Is it just you and Mr. Harrison living here?”

“My son lives with us too, but he’s off on one of his hikes for a couple of weeks. His name is Edward Tillman. He’s hiking the Hayduke Trail solo.”

Rivera detected a note of pride in her voice, as though the hike was some kind of great accomplishment. He didn’t want to display his ignorance by asking what the Hayduke Trail was. So he just looked impressed and nodded. He would Google it later.

Mrs. Harrison studied his face for a long moment. She smiled and asked, “Are you familiar with the Hayduke Trail?”

Rivera felt his face redden a shade. “Well, the truth is I’ve never heard of it. Is it here in the LaSals?”

She laughed. “Oh my goodness, no. It’s a 750 mile trail starting at Arches National Park, passing through Canyonlands National Park, the Henry Mountains, Capitol Reef National Park, Grand Staircase, and, let me see, oh yes, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and Zion. It’s an unofficial and unmarked trail devised by a couple of hikers from Moab. All on public lands. It’s named after George Washington Hayduke, one of Edward Abbey’s characters in The Monkey Wrench Gang.”

“Seven hundred and fifty miles.” Rivera shook his head. “How can anyone hike that far?”

“He’s doing it in segments. A week or ten days at a time. Right now he’s doing the Kanab Plateau segment. A month ago, he did the Grand Canyon segment. He always brings home an interesting collection of photographs.”

Rivera found himself fascinated. “That’s impressive. Really impressive. Does he work here at the ranch between hikes?”

“He works here and he’s also taking online courses toward a degree in ecology. We expect him home in a few days.”

Rivera decided then that he was spending too much time working and not enough time exploring the backcountry. He’d fallen into this trap before. He moved to Moab to enjoy the canyon country. Unfortunately, the demands of his job were such that most of the time he spent in the backcountry was job related. Pursuing bad guys in the wilderness wasn’t the same as enjoying the beauty and solitude of a remote mesa. After this case was wrapped up, he would take some vacation time and plan a long hike. Maybe one day he could meet Eve’s son, look at his photos of the Hayduke Trail, and get some firsthand insights on hiking it.

A man came out of the barn, waved, and headed in their direction. He was older, probably in his mid- to late sixties, walked with a slight limp, and wore jeans, work boots, and a red plaid shirt. He had a long face with the weathered skin typical of people who spend their lives working under the high desert sun.

He walked up to Rivera. “Sorry I didn’t come greet you right away. One of our mares is foaling and needs some attention,” he said. He introduced himself as Henry Harrison and shook Rivera’s hand.

Rivera noticed how much older Mr. Harrison was compared to his wife. He hoped his face didn’t reveal his surprise. Now that he had the two of them together, he summarized the events of the previous day. Both appeared alarmed when they learned the ranger’s injury was not an accident. Rivera now asked Mr. Harrison if he had seen or heard anything unusual the previous day.

Harrison shrugged and shook his head. Looked at his wife. “I don’t recall anything, do you, Hon?”

His wife reminded him of the helicopter.

“Oh, yes. One flew over after dinner time,” he said with squinted eyes, as if trying to picture the craft. “It was getting dark but I think it was one of those medical helicopters. Other than that, I don’t recall seeing anything out of the ordinary.” He looked at his wife, as if seeking concurrence.

She put her arm around his waist and gave him a reassuring hug. Her manner gave Rivera the impression the old guy was becoming forgetful with age and losing confidence in his ability to remember things.

“Any idea what caused the trouble?” asked Mr. Harrison.

“Well, it may have had something to do with a feud that’s started between the cattlemen who graze their livestock on public lands and the environmentalists who want to put a stop to it. We’ve had a rash of incidents lately which suggest that. It all started with some fence cutting in the mountains.”

Harrison frowned. “I damn well better not see anyone trying to cut our fences. If they start that business down here, I’ll shoot them dead. I mean it.”

“Maybe just a warning shot to scare them off. Then call the authorities and let us handle it.”

“I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect our horses.” Harrison’s tone was matter of fact but Rivera perceived a trace of fear in it.

A roan mare trotted over to the fence near where they were standing and whinnied. Mr. Harrison turned and smiled. He walked to the horse and rubbed its snout and its neck. The horse nickered. “You looking for attention, Tiara?”

Rivera walked over and joined him. “That’s a beautiful animal.”

“Tiara is the oldest horse I’ve got. She’s been with me a long time. We’re kind of growing old together. You know anything about horses, Deputy?”

“A little. My brother in Las Cruces owns a few horses. I ride with him whenever I visit. Would you mind if I took a few pictures of these Arabians and sent them to him?”

“Not at all,” said Harrison. “Maybe someday I could sell him one.” He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. “C’mon girls.” Three more Arabian mares came to the fence at a trot, ears erect, tails held high. One was roan, the other two black. Their coats were sleek, their musculature rippled, and their conformance perfect.

Rivera pulled his iPhone from his shirt pocket. “My brother is going to love these.” He took several snapshots of the animals, wondering what one might cost. He didn’t ask. When he was finished taking pictures, he handed Mr. Harrison one of his cards. “Please call me if you see anything suspicious or unusual.”

Harrison took the card, read it, and nodded.

As Rivera walked toward his vehicle, Mrs. Harrison followed after him.

“Deputy, are we in danger out here?” she asked.

He thought for a long moment. “Probably not. But keep an eye out just the same.”

As Rivera drove from the ranch on the dirt road through the canyon, he thought about the Harrisons. Hopefully, the trouble in the mountains wouldn’t affect their lives. They seemed like a happy couple. Content with their life and each other. He wondered how long they’d been married and what had brought them together, Mr. Harrison appeared to be at least twenty years older than Eve. Eve had said her son’s name was Edward Tillman, so he was obviously the progeny of a previous marriage. Whatever brought them together, the Harrisons seemed to have a good life.

Rivera drove through Gateway and up the switchbacks of John Brown Canyon into the mountains. He decided, before returning to Moab, that he would retrace the perp’s route across the mesa. The odds were small that he would find anything helpful, but he believed in a step-by-step approach to his investigations, overlooking nothing, assuming nothing. That’s the way Leroy Bradshaw had taught him and that’s the way he’d done it ever since. He continued on the Castleton-Gateway Road until he reached the place where South Beaver Mesa abutted the mountains. He parked his vehicle on the side of the road and began hiking out onto the mesa.

When he reached the place where the fence had been cut, he discovered it had already been repaired. The old rusted barbed wire strands were replaced with shiny new wire. The cattlemen hadn’t wasted any time. He scanned the mesa and spotted several head of cattle grazing in the distance. He walked to the fence, took off his hat, and carefully climbed through the barbed wires, holding one strand down with his left hand and raising the one above it with his right hand. He edged over to the bluff and peered down into the canyon. Some four hundred feet below, he saw the stiff carcasses of four cows and two calves being ravaged by several dozen squawking vultures and ravens. Nature’s efficiency was particularly evident in the high desert. She allowed nothing to go to waste.

He climbed back through the fence, retrieved his hat, and began hiking toward the tip of the mesa, the place where he’d spotted Penny’s assailant escaping. He took what he thought was the most direct route, which meant following along the fence line. He figured that’s what the perp would have done in his effort to get away from the pursuing ranger. His eyes were on the ground as he hiked, looking for any clue that had been left behind.

After forty minutes of hiking, he reached the point on the mesa which overlooked the Harrison Ranch. He continued hiking, finding nothing at all. After a time, he reached a fence line, climbed through it, and soon found himself at the tip of the mesa.

He stood there, looking down at the Dolores River. From this perspective, it was a shimmering silver band with gray-green tamarisks along each bank, set deep between red rock canyon walls. He lingered there for a moment, admiring nature’s beauty, then extracted his iPhone. He held it up, adjusting the angle so the proper image of the river appeared on the screen, and took a photograph. Then he backtracked along the edge of the bluff to the place where he’d seen the perp at the top of the diagonal ledge which ran up the mesa wall.

From there, he hiked back toward his vehicle, now understanding why the search party had come up empty. The dense growth of junipers, rabbit brush, and pinyon pine on the wide mesa would have made seeing the escapee a difficult, if not impossible task, especially in the darkness. There were too many places to hide in the thick vegetation. He would have seen the flashlight beams and could easily have steered clear of them. Not knowing which path the perp had used for his escape made the search for clues on the return trip a long shot. There were dozens of routes he might have taken as he wound his way through the trees and brush back to the mountains. Rivera chose one and began the hike back to his vehicle. Not surprisingly, he found nothing.

He drove out of the mountains, his thoughts drifting back to the Harrison Ranch. How lucky the Harrisons were to have found such a beautiful spot to live out their lives together. They seemed very devoted to one another. And that caused him to think about Amy Rousseau for most of the drive back to Moab. He looked forward to Wednesday evening when he would meet her at La Jacaranda for Mexican food, margaritas, flirtations, and whatever else that might lead to.

6

RIVERA HOISTED HIS feet onto his desk and stared out the window of his office at the LaSal Mountains in the distance, now silhouetted with a faint yellow aura by the pre-dawn sun. His gaze was on the dark peaks, but his mind was stepping through the sequence of events that had led up to the assault on Penny Daugherty. He’d arrived at the office early, before telephones started ringing and people began dropping in to chat, in order to spend some quiet time analyzing what he knew about the assault and searching for a logical approach to starting his investigation.

Four days ago, on Friday afternoon, a section of barbed wire fence had been cut in the mountains, allowing cattle from two different herds to intermix. Unhappy cattlemen had to trailer their horses up into the mountains, mount up, sort out the herds, and repair the fences. An LMPA brochure was tacked to a tree adjacent to the cut, an implied statement that the fence had been cut to protest cattle grazing in the LaSal Mountains.

Rivera found it interesting that no fingerprints had been found on the brochure. Whoever tacked it up there had been careful. He took a sip of his McDonald’s coffee and thought about that for a long moment. Why would the LMPA, a highly-respected environmental organization, commit a crime and then leave a calling card? Were they trying to provoke a conflict? Their tactics, always legal, had consisted of lobbying politicians and filing environmental lawsuits aimed at banning livestock in the mountains. So why the sudden change? Or had the actions been taken by a fringe element within the organization? He slid a blank yellow pad from his desk onto his lap and wrote: Interview LMPA Director.

Then on Friday night, someone had started a fire which damaged the back wall of the LMPA building. Clearly arson. A roll of barbed wire was left at the scene as a calling card. Retaliation by the ranchers? Probably, but why resort to law breaking? Why not let the Sheriff’s Office handle it? Was the resentment of the LMPA by the ranchers so strong that they decided on a violent response? Rivera wrote: Interview ranchers.

He personally knew only one of the ranchers in Spanish Valley who moved his herd to the mountains for summer grazing. That was Sam Stickle. Sam’s son and daughter-in-law lived next door to Rivera. They had a six-year-old boy named Robbie with whom Rivera often played catch, tossing a miniature football back and forth on Rivera’s front lawn. Sam visited his son’s home often and, as a result, Rivera had gotten to know him well. He was sure Sam would level with him if he knew anything. He drew a line through ranchers and in its place wrote Sam Stickle.

On Saturday, a small dam in a mountain creek had been sabotaged, cutting off the flow of water to a stock pond. Again, an LMPA brochure was left at the scene. That night, the LMPA vehicle parked in the director’s driveway was trashed. Another tit-for-tat.

The details of the lawsuits brought by the LMPA against the BLM were well known by Moab locals. The LMPA maintained that the cattle were overgrazing the mountains, and the cow pies that littered the trails were an eyesore and a health hazard. The BLM staff had responded by reducing the size of the grazing allotments each year for the past four years. They maintained that, at current levels, the cattle were causing no permanent damage. There was no question that tension existed between the environmentalists on one side and the cattlemen on the other. Adam Dunne had mentioned the possibility that recent events pointed to a resurgence of the Sagebrush Rebellion. Could he be right? Was it starting up again?

The Sagebrush Rebellion was just a fuzzy concept in Rivera’s mind. It had taken place all over the West, some of it in the Moab area. It was a period of daily tension, he knew, but he had no detailed knowledge of the events that had actually transpired. He needed to learn more and his old friend Chris Carey, a retired newspaper journalist, would know all about it. He added a third item to the list: See Chris Carey.

On Sunday, BLM Ranger Penny Daugherty had spotted a young man who took the mayhem to the next level by cutting a fence and driving a half dozen head of cattle over a cliff. When she later encountered the perp at the mouth of Beaver Canyon, he struck her in the head with a rock. Rivera arrived moments later only to see the assailant escape back to the top of South Beaver Mesa.

The mesa was subsequently searched, but the assailant had eluded capture in the darkness. Roadblocks at both paved and unpaved roads leaving the mountains had been set up quickly at Rivera’s request. The Colorado State Police had assisted by implementing roadblocks on the unpaved back roads that led out of the LaSals into Colorado. Vehicles were blocked from entering the mountains and each car leaving was searched for someone fitting the assailant’s description. Eight young men dressed in clothing similar to the perp’s were questioned and released. They were accompanied by persons who vouched for them, and the skin on their legs showed no signs of scratches or punctures.

Searches were still being conducted, but vehicles had once again been allowed to enter the mountains. Since there were small enclaves of private homes up there, it was necessary that the residents be allowed to come and go in order to run errands in town. The mountain and mesa trailheads had been searched for abandoned vehicles in the theory that the perp had driven into the LaSals, parked, killed the cattle, and left the mountains on foot. No unaccounted-for vehicles had been found.

Deputies at the roadblocks continued to inspect and interview the occupants of each vehicle but, so far, the assailant remained at large. Rivera considered those facts. Since the perp hadn’t left the mountains in a vehicle, either he left on foot or he was still up there. There were dozens of trails leading out of the mountains that he could have used to escape.

If his plan was to hike out rather than hole up in the mountains, it would have taken him till sometime the following day to make it back to Moab. Which trail would he have used? The Mill Creek Trail would be a good choice. So would the Porcupine Rim Trail. Perhaps hikers had seen him.

Rivera’s office door was abruptly pushed open, breaking his train of thought.

“Any progress, Rivera?”

It was Sheriff Denny Campbell. Rivera slid his feet off the desk. “No. Not yet. I’m thinking the perp must have walked out of the mountains on one of the trails. If that’s the case, the odds of finding him are pretty slim.”

“Well, you saw him. Haven’t you had an artist’s sketch drawn up and circulated?”

Campbell appeared troubled, as though under a great deal of stress. Rivera surmised the county councilmen had been hammering him again for results. If the sheriff had bothered to read Rivera’s report, he would already have known his deputy had spotted the killer at a distance of over four hundred feet.

“I didn’t get a good look at his face. Too far away and too dark. And it was raining.”

“Look, I need some results soon. We’ve had reports of some seedy looking characters drifting into town. This conflict between the ranchers and the environmentalists is attracting some unwanted visitors. As of this morning, there are a dozen or more motorcyclists in black leathers cruising the mountain roads in support of the cattlemen. My guess is they’re armed. They sound just like the types that descended on Detroit every time one of our social unrest situations hit the national news. They thrive on conflict. We need to break this case fast.”

Campbell turned and left the office without waiting for a reply.

Rivera got up, closed his office door, sat down, and re-hoisted his feet onto his desk. Campbell was a fish out of water. Rivera was beginning to feel sorry for him.

He resumed his thoughts. No one in a vehicle had seen the perp. What about someone on foot? There was a fair chance of that. Lots of hikers would have been in the mountains that day. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing whom to interview. Permits were not required for hiking in the mountains so there was no list of potential witnesses to work from.

Clearly, the assailant knew his way around the mountains. He knew about the diagonal crack in the cliff face at the end of the mesa. He’d headed straight for it to elude Penny. And, when he heard Rivera’s siren, he was able to climb back up the crack and escape across the mesa into the mountains, despite the presence of a search party. Those facts suggested he wasn’t a casual visitor to the area. The culprit had to be a local.

Since the assault on Penny, there had been one more malicious act. Last night, someone spray-painted graffiti across the front of the local BLM office. The gist of the scrawl was “BLM Beware.” That meant one of two things. Either the assailant had escaped from the mountains and was now in Moab, or there was more than one person involved in the attacks.

In the interest of thoroughness, Rivera ran the names of the Harrisons and their son through the law enforcement data base. As expected, all had clean records. He left the office and drove out to Spanish Valley to Sam Stickle’s place.

Stickle was in a field behind his house, his head under the open hood of an old flatbed pickup. He was a large, stocky man with a round face and close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. He wore bib overalls and a sweat-stained T-shirt.

“Hi, Sam.”

Sam pulled his head out from under the hood, smoothed down the hair on the back of his head, and squinted his eyes against the sunlight. “Well, hello, Manny.” He wiped his hands with a rag and extended a meaty paw. Rivera did not like shaking hands with Sam Stickle. The man didn’t know his own strength and his handshakes were often bone crushers.

Rivera extended his hand. “Go easy, Sam, that’s my shooting hand.”

Stickle laughed, went easy. “You making any progress training my grandson to become a quarterback?”

“He’s got a pretty good arm on him.”

“Yeah, he’s gonna be an athlete, just like his daddy. My son was quarterback of the Grand County High School football team back in the nineties.” Stickle paused. “I guess I know why you’re here. You’re gonna ask me about what’s going on in the mountains.”

“Have you got some time?”

“Sure. Better than trying to get this old Ford running again. It’s been sitting right here in this spot for twenty years. I’m trying to change the plugs, but a couple of them are rusted in real bad. Let’s go inside where it’s cooler.”

They sat at a Formica table in the kitchen and drank iced water. “I don’t know why all this business has started up again. We had a lot of trouble back in the early eighties, then things cooled off. No real trouble for a long time. Now, here we go again.”

“You have a BLM grazing allotment in the mountains. Did any of this affect you?”

“No. My herd’s on the west side of Mount Tukuhnikivatz. Other side of the mountains from where the fences were cut. So far, I haven’t been touched. But three ranchers I know have been affected. Especially Billy Post. They ran part of his herd over the edge of a mesa. He’s plenty mad.”

“Mad enough to retaliate?”

Stickle stared at Rivera for a moment. Shrugged. “No idea. You’d have to ask him.”

“Just a hypothetical question, Sam. What would your reaction be if they cut your fences and ran some of your cattle over a cliff?”

“If I knew who did it?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

Stickle rattled his glass of iced tea, shaking free the ice cubes. He took a long sip and set down the glass. “I’d handle it myself.”

Rivera turned off the highway, pulled into the parking lot of the LMPA building, and parked next to an expensive-looking black Humvee with Arizona license plates. When he entered the building, his nostrils detected an unpleasant, pungent odor permeating the air, no doubt a residual effect of the fire. He was greeted by a young man wearing a white T-shirt depicting a stylized image of a tree and the words Think Green. Rivera told him he’d like to speak with Benjamin Eastwood, the director, and was shown to his office.

Rivera arrived at Eastwood’s office just as two muscular young men in T-shirts were leaving. They glanced at the deputy, nodded, and passed by. Eastwood forced a smile, introduced himself, and gestured toward a chair. Rivera sat down.

After the preliminaries, Rivera asked Eastwood if he’d experienced any more trouble.

“Not since they trashed our vehicle.” Eastwood spoke through a clenched jaw. He was medium height with dark hair and a slender build. He struck Rivera as the type who rarely smiled.

“Do you have any idea who did it? Or who started the fire?”

“I think we all know who did it.”

“Mind telling me?”

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. It was done by people who want to use the public lands for their own gain without any regard for preserving nature’s beauty. People who don’t care a whit about the generations which will follow. This time it’s the cattlemen. A few years ago it was the mindless young men who didn’t mind tearing up the backcountry with their ATVs. Next year it’ll probably be timber men who want to clear cut the LaSals. It’s disgusting.”

“What makes you so sure it was the cattlemen?”

Eastwood cleared his throat in an exaggerated way. “It’s pretty obvious. They left a roll of barbed wire as a calling card.” He paused, looked at his desk, moved a pen a few inches to the right. “But we’re not worried. Volunteers are arriving daily to help us out. Those two men you saw leaving my office arrived today from Phoenix. They, along with several others, have volunteered to guard our facilities around the clock. More are on the way.” Eastwood’s pale, expressionless face now frowned. “The environmental movement is strong, Deputy Rivera, and we will not back down.”

“Why do you think they targeted the LMPA? There are lots of other environmental organizations.”

“I understand some of our brochures were left where the damage was done.” He paused. “And besides that, we focus our efforts primarily on the LaSals. We have almost a dozen lawsuits pending against the BLM and the Forest Service. Several of the suits argue for a total elimination of grazing allotments in the LaSals.”

“Is it possible some over-zealous members of the LMPA are responsible for the fence cutting?”

Eastwood broke eye contact, looked at his hands, and paused in thought. He looked at Rivera. “Of course it’s possible. But I’m not aware of anyone who’s gone rogue. And I certainly don’t know of an LMPA member who would assault a BLM ranger.”

7

RIVERA SAT AT a small table in Wendy’s, eating a cheeseburger and wrestling with the realization that, so far, he’d accomplished little. He’d been able to infer that the perp was a local and that there may have been more than one person involved. But not much more.

When he was a rookie investigator, a case with an absence of useful clues had always troubled him, causing him to worry day and night about the possibility of failure. He smiled at the memory of his first case. A ranch hand’s body had been discovered in a remote canyon. The only clues were a 9-mm slug in the victim’s head and a potsherd from a prehistoric ceramic pot stuck in his chest. Somehow, using his native intelligence and having the benefit of Sheriff Leroy Bradshaw’s advice and encouragement, he’d managed to solve that case.

Even now, despite years of successfully cracking difficult cases, that same fear of failure Rivera experienced as a rookie still lingered within him. He loved the challenge of a new investigation, but realized this particular case might be hopeless. Like trying to find a needle in a haystack. He gulped down the last of his food and left the restaurant.

He hopped into his vehicle, turned onto Main Street, and headed back to the office. He turned on the radio.

“…this is Charlie Abbott saying “Live life to the fullest. Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m outta here.”

After a short pause during which sounds of paper shuffling and throat clearing could be heard, a different voice came on the air.

“Welcome to the Popeye Martin Show. The switchboard is all lit up so let’s get right to it. Sarah from Moab, you’re on the air.”

“Hi Popeye. I just wanted to call in and say how mad I am at all this trouble in the mountains. I heard there was a motorcycle gang from California riding around up there in support of the cattlemen. That they were armed. Then I heard someone say that those motorcycle punks better be careful. There could be a hunting accident someday soon. My husband and I like to ride our mountain bikes up there. Now we’re afraid to go.”

“Well, Sarah, I think you’d be wise to stay out of the mountains for a while. Billy from Moab, you’re on the air.”

“What about those clowns demonstrating downtown. Parading around with those ridiculous placards. Just some more environmental extremists. We don’t need that.”

“Douglas is next. He declines to say where he’s from. Douglas, you’re on the air.”

“I’m not a local but I wanted to weigh in on what’s going on around here. The basic problem is that the federal government owns too much of the people’s land. And since they own it, they can regulate its use. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.” Rivera noticed the man had a distinctive New York accent. He sounded a lot like Vinnie Catalano, one of his classmates at the police academy in New Mexico. Vinnie was Brooklyn, born and bred. Instead of saying ‘oil,’ Vinnie would say ‘earl.’ Instead of ‘you all,’ he would say ‘youse.’ The caller continued. “So I blame the politicians. The worst one of the bunch is Matthew Monroe, an environmental extremist through and through. We don’t need any more environmental laws. Enough is enough.”

“Elmer from Blanding, you’re on the air.”

“I agree with the previous caller one hundred percent. Matthew Monroe has never supported the hard working men and women who depend on the public lands to earn a living. I wish…”

Rivera shut off the radio. The rhetoric was heating up.

As he drove past the corner of Main and Center Streets, he noticed a small group of young women parading in a large oval in front of the Moab Information Center. They were holding pro-environment placards and chanting, “Save our mountains.” Nearby, a group of men stood watching. They seemed alert and wary, as though they were expecting trouble. Two of them were the same men he’d seen leaving the LMPA director’s office that morning. Rivera guessed they were there to step in and protect the women if trouble started.

He drove to his office and updated his report. The only unfinished item on his to-do list was contacting Chris Carey to learn about the Sagebrush Rebellion. He picked up the phone and dialed Carey’s number.

“Chris Carey.” The tone of voice was businesslike, as though Carey were still sitting at a news desk.

“Chris, it’s Manny Rivera. I need some help.”

“Of course, Manny. What can I do for you?”

“I’m sure with all your contacts, you’re up-to-date on what’s been going on around here the past few days.”

“Pretty much.”

“I was wondering if I could pay you a visit and pick your brain about the Sagebrush Rebellion.”

“C’mon over. Glad to have the company.”

Rivera parked his vehicle in front of the Carey residence. Carey had been a true friend to Rivera ever since the deputy arrived in Moab five years ago. A retired newspaper journalist who had spent his entire career in Utah, he befriended Rivera during his first week in town. Carey, forced to retire because of personnel cutbacks in the print media, was bored in retirement. He’d always jumped at the chance to help Rivera with his cases.

Carey opened the front door with a smile and a handshake.

“Glad you’re here. Let’s go into the den.”

They sat down in matching leather chairs. Carey was not as spry looking and energetic as the day Rivera had met him. He wore eyeglasses with thick lenses and black frames. What remained of his hair was white and his face was a maze of lines and creases, earned during a high-pressure career of investigative journalism long since forgotten by those who once looked up to him. Boredom, inactivity, and the passing of time were beginning to take their toll. Carey had confided in Rivera once that he missed the action of the newspaper business, the way it used to be. Impending deadlines, reporters running in and out, editors barking instructions into the phone, the clacking of a dozen typewriters, the excitement of a breaking story, and the smell of ink and newsprint. Now he had to find fulfillment writing an occasional freelance story for a magazine, giving talks on journalism to the high school kids, or helping Rivera with one of his cases.

The room had dark paneled walls, shelves filled with books and memorabilia of a long career, a desk cluttered with the same stuff that was there the last time Rivera had visited, and a large globe in the corner. An ancient Underwood typewriter on a small typing desk sat off to the side, its round black keys with white lettering a reminder of days gone by. Maps of Utah and Grand County hung on the walls.

“So you want to learn about the Sagebrush Rebellion,” said Carey.

Rivera nodded. “Adam Dunne suggested that all this trouble we’ve been having might be a resurgence of the Sagebrush Rebellion. My problem is I know very little of what happened back then and what motivated it. I was hoping you could fill me in.”

Carey smiled and nodded, as if recalling days gone by. “I spent a good part of my career writing stories about the Sagebrush Rebellion. Living in Utah, I was right in the middle of it. As best I can remember, the first real sign of trouble took place in Nevada. I think the year was 1979. It was started not by an irate rancher or timber company, but by the Nevada State Legislature. The federal government owned 48 million acres of land in Nevada, about 79 percent of the state. The land was under the supervision of the BLM. Members of the Nevada legislature decided such excessive federal ownership was not reasonable, so they passed a law asserting state control over the BLM lands. That was the trigger that unleashed a lot of pent-up resentment, not just from the citizens of Nevada, but from people throughout the western states, especially those who depended on using federal lands for their livelihood. From the founding of the country until the mid-twentieth century, ranchers, timbermen, fishermen, and miners took what they needed from the land with minimal restrictions. In the nineteen sixties and seventies, things began to change. Environmental laws and regulations were enacted, restricting how the land could be used. The restrictions became incrementally stronger each year and their enforcement interfered more and more with business operations. The resentment built until, in frustration, Nevada acted.”

“Didn’t the Nevada law conflict with federal laws?”

“Of course it did, but they didn’t know what else to do. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the western territories were required to disclaim all rights to the public lands as a condition for statehood. At the time, I guess, the desire for statehood was so strong that agreeing to the public lands clause didn’t seem like it was costing anything. There were no restrictions on using the land so, they figured, what difference did it make? So they voted for it. Well, as the years went by, turns out it made a big difference.”

“What happened after Nevada passed the new law?”

“Well, it was clearly not consistent with what the territory had agreed to in becoming a state. The U.S. constitution gives the federal government the right to manage and regulate its lands. As soon as Nevada came into the union, the feds had the right to regulate the public lands in that state. When the Nevada legislature issued a challenge to the status quo, other western states followed suit by passing similar legislation. Wyoming included in its challenge not only BLM land, but also Forest Service land. The Sagebrush Rebels conducted a campaign of demonstrations and disruptive actions to raise public awareness of the issue. For a time, there was talk in Congress about privatizing some of the public lands by selling them off, but that was opposed both by the environmentalists and the Sagebrush Rebels. Eventually, the federal bureaucracy ground everyone down and the lands remained under federal control. Meanwhile, the environmentalists made incremental advances in legislation and judicial decisions each year, increasing the volume of regulations and restrictions.”

“What happened in Utah?”

“Same thing that happened in the rest of the west. It turned into a battle between the users of the land and the environmentalists. The resentment grew as more and more opportunity was taken away from the users of the land. There were fights, sabotage actions, and protests. The crushing blow was President Clinton’s decree that 1.8 million acres of land in southern Utah would be designated the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He did this without consulting the Utah legislature or the people of Utah. It included land that contained what might have become the world’s largest high-quality low-sulfur coal mine. Thus disappeared the opportunity for a lot of jobs in that area. The locals perceived it as just one more usurpation of Utah land by outsiders from Washington. Of course, the land is beautiful and deserved to be preserved, but if you’re out of work and can’t feed your family, you don’t see it that way. And that’s just one example of what’s happened in Utah.”

“What about here in Moab?”

“More of the same. As you know, seventy-two percent of Grand County is federal land. Eighty percent if you include tribal lands. Back in 1980, one-third of the county’s residents were employed in mining and agriculture. Each year, more and more rules and regulations were heaped on the people, further inhibiting the use of public lands. The locals were getting frustrated and angry with all the federal restrictions. Even the county councilmen were fed up. Finally they decided to push back.”

Rivera was fascinated. He’d never heard this story. “So what happened? What did they do?”

“On Independence Day of 1980, a long series of speeches by local politicians decrying federal overstepping was made from atop a bulldozer positioned just outside BLM land which had recently been declared a Wilderness Study Area. The general belief was that the WSA blocked access to state-owned lands having the potential for mining activities. After the speechifying, the dozer was fired up to the cheers of the crowd and a road was bladed through the WSA land to the state-owned land. The gauntlet had been thrown down.”

“That took a lot of courage.”

“It did. But it was a futile gesture doomed to fail. The federal government responded by informing the county that it had to repair the damage or the BLM would do it and the cost would be deducted from monies owed by the federal government to Grand County under one or more federal programs.” Carey stopped talking and laughed. Shook his head. “The outcome should have been predictable but everyone was mad enough to resort to civil disobedience just to make a point. Eventually the county complied, but the incident has stuck in the craw of local residents ever since.”

“So was that the end of it?”

“That was the end of that incident. But the tug of war between environmental preservation and economic development in the West goes on. You remember the recent business in Nevada where that Cliven Bundy fellow refused to pay the BLM its grazing fees? Since his family had been grazing cattle on that land for over a hundred years, he felt he had the right to continue free grazing. The feds came in and started rounding up his cattle as payment. People from all over the country came to Nevada to support Bundy. I’m talking about angry militia people with weapons. Could have turned into a small war. Finally the feds had the good sense to back down and leave. I expect the last chapter of that story has yet to be written. The resentment still simmers.”

Rivera nodded. “I guess some of those same militia types could be on their way to Moab.”

“I have no doubt they are. Manny, you’d better take those acts of sabotage and the demonstrations in town very seriously. They attract a fringe element—outsiders and agitators from extremist groups looking to stir up trouble. Things can start spinning out of control fast. Might be they already have.”

8

RIVERA DROVE BACK to his office, feeling a greater sense of urgency since talking with Carey. The man who had assaulted Penny had to be apprehended before there was a further escalation of the trouble.

Rivera pushed open the front door of the building and entered. As he headed toward his office, Millie Ives waved him over to her dispatcher’s console. Her face looked pained. She reached out and grasped his hand.

“Manny, some very bad news. Penny Daugherty was pronounced dead around noon. I’m so sorry.”

Rivera was stunned. He stood there for a long moment, his mind and body feeling a dull numbness. He nodded, said nothing, went to his office, and closed the door. He sat down and stared out the window. Unbelievable. You get up one morning and everything looks fine. The sun comes up and the skies are clear. It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day in Moab. Then, wham. You get clobbered.

Images of Penny tumbled through his mind like a high-speed slide show. Her freckled face, the day he met her, Penny smiling in her new uniform, her squeaky voice, her red hair, her subtle flirtations, Penny having lunch at McDonalds with him and Adam Dunne, Penny driving through town in her new BLM vehicle and waving.

Heavy feelings of guilt descended upon Rivera. He’d failed in his duty. It was his fault. He should have insisted Penny wait for him.

Sheriff Campbell pushed open the door. “The BLM just called me. Since the assault on Penny Daugherty has become a homicide on federal land, the FBI will be taking over the case. Special Agent Phil Lisowski left Salt Lake City by automobile two hours ago. He’ll be here this evening. I understand you’ve met him.”

“We ran across each other a few years ago.” Rivera remembered Lisowski as a smart but arrogant agent who didn’t appreciate Rivera’s meddling in his case, even though Rivera had solved it when Lisowski couldn’t.

“The way I hear it, it was more like you banged heads a few years ago.”

Rivera shrugged. Remained silent.

“Anyway, the FBI requested we stand down on the Daugherty case and serve in an assisting role. What that means is, from here on, Agent Lisowski calls the shots. We do nothing until he tells us to do something. It means you do no freelance work behind his back, no showboating, no bending the rules like you usually do. Do nothing that would irritate them. They can cause me a lot of trouble and right now I’ve got enough trouble on my hands. Make sure you’re here when Lisowski arrives so you can bring him up to speed.”

“Understood.” Rivera knew Campbell’s criticism of him was probably valid, so Rivera didn’t mind. The fact was he did bend the rules sometimes, enforcing some laws and ignoring others when he thought it better served the cause of justice. In his value system, justice always trumped the letter of the law.

Campbell dropped a file on Rivera’s desk. “Meanwhile you can be looking into this missing person case. A young man sampling water from springs and seeps as part of the EPA’s contamination monitoring program disappeared a couple of days ago. Never returned from his sampling route. He probably took off for who-knows-where with his girlfriend, but the grandfather is worried. He came by earlier today and asked us to help find him.”

Campbell turned and left. Rivera got up, closed the door, and shook his head. Could Campbell be any more irritating? It was almost comical. Obviously, he was scared to death of the FBI. Probably ran afoul of them when he was a cop back in Detroit.

Rivera picked up the telephone and called Adam Dunne on his cell phone.

“Adam, I guess you’ve heard the news by now.”

“What news? I’m out of the office. Up in the Book Cliffs area. We had reports of some elk poachers up here.”

“It’s bad news. Penny didn’t make it. She passed away around noon.”

“Aw, hell. I was afraid of that. I stopped by the hospital this morning on my way to work. They told me she was still in critical condition. That’s very sad. Okay, Manny, thanks for the call.” They disconnected.

Rivera picked up his coffee mug and walked to the break room. He filled the mug with black coffee and returned to his office. Took a sip. He thought about Penny for a long time, replaying in his mind the events of that fateful day. He knew he’d be replaying it for the rest of his life. One small error in judgment and the world comes crashing down.

He picked up the missing person file and opened it. It contained a photograph of a young man and a single sheet of paper with the essential information. The missing man was John Baron, age 25. His next of kin was his grandfather, Joshua Baron. A Moab address and telephone number were listed. Rivera looked at the photo. John Baron was a handsome fellow with dark hair and an intelligent, friendly face.

Rivera pulled up in front of the Baron residence, still mentally numb from the news about Penny. He parked and walked to the front door. The home was a modest white clapboard structure, probably built in the 1940s. The grass and bushes in the small yard were trimmed, and the house had recently been painted. An old gray Chevrolet sedan was parked in the driveway. He rang the doorbell.

After a long wait, a hunched, elderly man supporting himself with a cane opened the door. His gray hair was disheveled and he hadn’t shaved in several days. He had a long face with dark, hooded eyes. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved tan shirt.

Rivera introduced himself and Mr. Baron invited him inside. Rivera sat in an overstuffed armchair with a faded floral design. The old man hobbled to the couch and gingerly lowered himself into it. He moved the way people suffering from the pain of arthritic joints move—very gingerly. On the coffee table which separated them was an open photograph album. The air in the house had a slightly stale smell.

Rivera took a quick survey of the room. It was full of World War II memorabilia. On the walls were framed black-and-white photographs showing smiling soldiers standing in front of a tent with their arms around one another, soldiers sitting atop a tank, and soldiers marching into a town of broken buildings and rubble. A framed collection of service medals hung on the wall. Rivera recognized two of the medals, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. A mannequin stood in one corner of the room clothed in an old Army uniform. A United States flag hung from a staff in another corner of the room. From a record player, Rivera heard the scratchy sounds of an old World War II song. He recognized it as The White Cliffs of Dover by Vera Lynn, one of the songs his grandfather, who served in World War II, loved. It was pretty obvious that Mr. Baron was living in the past.

“Did you serve in the big war?” asked Rivera.

“Sure did. Still got a hunk of shrapnel in my hipbone to prove it.”

Rivera noticed the old man perked up at the question, as though he loved talking about the war.

“Where did you serve?”

“I belonged to the First Infantry Division. We were part of the Normandy invasion. Omaha Beach.” The old man spoke with an obvious pride. “We got shot up pretty good there. We fought all the way across France to the Ruhr River in Germany. That’s where I got my Purple Heart.”

Rivera nodded, impressed. It’s not often one meets a war hero. “My grandfather served under Patton. He fought in Italy and later in the Battle of the Bulge. He doesn’t talk about it much.”

“I can understand that. The war is something I used to talk about only with the men who fought with me, side-by-side. My old Army buddies.” His finger tapped on the photo album on the coffee table. “Trouble is, they’re all gone now. Old age, cancer, so forth. No one to reminisce with anymore. You can’t talk about it with people who weren’t there, in the heat of battle. They wouldn’t understand.” He thought for a long moment, his eyes moist, then smiled, as if talking to his memories. “But, you know, those were really good times. The best of times. There was a unity in the country I haven’t seen since. Everyone pulled together. Americans were proud to be American. I don’t see that spirit much anymore.” He paused, staring into space as if picturing something from the past. “These photos and that music take me back to happier times.”

Rivera waited to see if the old man had anything else to add, but apparently he was through. “I understand your grandson is missing,” began Rivera.

“John lives here with me. He hasn’t been home for the past two nights. I haven’t heard a word from him. I’m not one to overreact, but that’s very unlike him. He’s a responsible young man.”

“Is it just the two of you living here?”

“Yes. My dear Emily passed away a couple of years ago.” He pointed to a framed black-and-white photograph on the end table. It must have been taken when Emily was in her twenties. She was pretty with curly hair and a big smile.

“Have you checked with John’s friends?”

“I did. No one has heard from him.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“There’s a nurse who works at the hospital that he’s been seeing for a couple of months. I called her too. She hasn’t heard from him either.”

“Where does he work?”

“He works for the Steadman Company, that technical outfit on the highway south of town. He’s been working for them at various locations on and off for about four years.”

“What kind of work does he do?”

“He has a master’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry. Almost has his PhD. He worked in Steadman’s chemistry lab for a while. Then an opportunity to do field work came up when their sampling guy left. John loves the backcountry so he jumped at the chance to take that job. He visits the seeps and springs all over southeast Utah to collect samples of the water. He brings the samples back to the lab for analysis. As I understand it, they test them for pollution and bacteria.”

“Does he carry a cell phone?”

“Yes, but there’s no response when I call.” He recited the phone number which Rivera recorded in his notepad.

“Does he own any credit cards?”

“Just a Visa card with the Zion National Bank here in Moab.”

“How about a vehicle?”

“He doesn’t own one. He uses my Chevy when he needs to. It’s the one parked in the driveway.”

“How’d he get to work without a vehicle?”

“His co-worker Shorty Turner picked him up. Shorty works in the chemistry lab. They carpool.”

Rivera thought about that. “After he gets to work, how does he get to the backcountry to collect the samples?’

“Steadman has a van. The van driver drops John off in the morning at the start of his route. He picks him up at the end of the route in the evening. John never showed up at his pickup point on Sunday.”

“He works on Sunday?’

“They do the sampling on a rigid schedule. John said it has something to do with statistics. Occasionally, the scheduled day falls on a weekend.”

“Where are these routes?”

“All over. There are dozens of routes in southeast Utah. John does the sampling for all of them.”

“Where was he sampling on Sunday?”

“He told me he’d be working in the LaSal Mountains.”

Rivera nodded and jotted that into his notepad. He wondered if John’s disappearance had anything to do with the trouble in the mountains. He could see no immediate connection.

The grandfather leaned forward. “John disappeared the same day that lady ranger was attacked in the mountains. That’s what’s got me so worried. Maybe John was attacked too. Maybe he’s hurt up in the mountains somewhere.”

Did the Steadman Company send anyone out to look for him?”

“As far as I know, they didn’t. I don’t think they have anyone else in the company with the backcountry skills to do a search.”

The Vera Lynn record advanced to We’ll Meet Again, a song Rivera had often heard while visiting his grandparents. His grandmother had once told him that We’ll Meet Again was her favorite song. She played it every day while she waited for his grandfather to come home from the fighting in Europe.

Rivera stood up. “I’ll do my best to find your grandson.”

Mr. Baron pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his cane and walked with Rivera to the front door. He looked at Rivera with a kind of pleading in his eyes. “John is the only family I got left.”

9

BACK IN HIS office, Rivera contacted the Zion National Bank and learned that Baron hadn’t used his Visa card in three weeks. From the telephone company, he learned that Baron’s cell phone had been undetected by any of their cell towers for several days. That meant either the phone was inoperative or in a location where its signals couldn’t reach a cell tower.

He left the office and drove south on U.S.191 until he spotted a small brown sign with white lettering that read Steadman Company, Moab Facility. He slowed down, waited for a northbound eighteen wheeler to pass by, then turned left into a gravel parking lot in front of a small industrial building. He parked and got out of his vehicle. It was a beautiful morning, the cool air clean and fresh. The LaSal Mountains were a picturesque backdrop for the Steadman building. Over the mountain peaks, an armada of white puffy clouds sailed across a blue sky.

He pulled open the front door of the building and stepped inside. The interior was open and partitioned into cubicles. Along the back wall were private offices, and off to his right through a large glass window, he could see what appeared to be a chemistry laboratory.

A slender young lady looked up from her word processor and grinned, exposing a set of upper and lower braces.

“Hi, Manny.”

Rivera recognized her immediately. It was Meredith, the former receptionist at the Sheriff’s Office.

She stood up, her five foot eleven inch frame bringing her eyeball-to-eyeball with Rivera. “You’ve put on some weight,” she said.

Rivera looked down and patted himself on the stomach. “A couple of pounds, I guess. Maybe more. I haven’t weighed myself in months.”

“You never did eat right. Are you still eating cheeseburgers and fries for lunch?”

He laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

Rivera remembered Meredith well. She was smart, hardworking, and good natured. She was wise beyond her nineteen years and never one to hold back her thoughts. He always liked that about her. He made a mental note to dust off his bathroom scale and check his weight when he got home. Maybe it was time to start watching what he ate. “I didn’t know you were working here.”

“After Sheriff Bradshaw left and Sheriff Campbell took over, I had to get out of there. It was no fun anymore. He scolded me twice for addressing the deputies by their first names. He’s very stiff and bureaucratic. The place isn’t the same. No one likes working there anymore.”

Rivera knew that to be true but didn’t comment. “How do you like working at the Steadman Company?”

“Oh, it’s okay. The pay is good and they cover my tuition at the Utah State University branch here in Moab. I’m studying Liberal Arts.”

“Liberal Arts? That’s wonderful. What career field did you have in mind?”

She smiled. “I want to be a CEO. I hear Liberal Arts is a good background for that.”

“I have no doubt you’d make a fine CEO,” he said. And he meant it.

She looked at her watch. “I know you’re here to see Priscilla Zimmerman. I can take you back to her office if you’d like.”

“Thanks, Meredith.”

She led Rivera to the offices in the rear of the building and knocked on the center door.

“Come in.”

Meredith opened the door. “Priscilla, this is Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera, one of my old bosses. He’s good people. Treat him real nice, please.” She turned and left.

Priscilla stood up, smiling. “Meredith always says exactly what’s on her mind. Please come in, Deputy. I’m Priscilla Zimmerman.” She came around from behind her desk and extended her hand. Her handshake was soft and warm. She gestured to a chair, invited Rivera to sit down, and seated herself in a matching chair facing him. She crossed her legs.

Rivera’s well-honed sense of observation and memorization went to work. Priscilla was an attractive brunette, about forty, trim, five feet six inches tall, wearing a gray skirt, a white blouse, and a turquoise necklace. She had an oval face, green eyes, and a smart, alert bearing. There were no family photographs on her desk or bookshelves, and she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“I’m investigating John Baron’s disappearance. He’s only been missing for two days, but his grandfather said it’s very unlike him to go off without a word. He’s worried.”

She nodded, brushing a strand of hair off her face. “I’m worried too. He went out on one of our water sampling routes in the mountains Sunday morning and never returned. None of his coworkers has seen him since. Neither has his girlfriend. I called his grandfather Monday evening—John’s an only child and both of his parents are deceased—to see if he’d heard from him. He hadn’t. I have no idea what happened to him.”

“Water sampling route.” Rivera articulated each word. “Could you educate me on exactly what that is?” He pulled a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket.

“Sure. The Steadman Company is in the business of monitoring the environment. We have offices all over the United States and our annual revenues are about $300 million. The company opened the Moab office a couple of years ago after we won an EPA contract to make environmental measurements in Grand and San Juan Counties. Our contract calls for air and water monitoring. John was on one of our sampling routes in the LaSals. He was collecting water samples from the springs and seeps on that particular route. We collect a sample from each water source every six months. We bring them back to the lab where we measure the level of minerals, impurities, and bacteria. Our objective is to detect any long-term changes in the concentrations and report them to the EPA.”

“How long has John been doing this kind of work?”

“Around four years in various Steadman offices in the Four Corners area. He started working in this office two years ago after we won the new contract. His grandmother had just passed away and he wanted to live in Moab so he could look after his grandfather.”

“Is that the extent of his job? Collecting samples, I mean?” It seemed to Rivera too menial a task for a man of Baron’s education.

“Oh, no. He helps with the lab analyses, determines trends, and writes reports. When a worrisome trend is detected, he helps determine its cause and recommends remedial actions. He’s a PhD candidate at New Mexico State. His field is environmental biology. He’s really quite brilliant. He’s very familiar with the flora and fauna of the Four Corners area and how changes in the environment affect their health and vitality.”

“I’d like to get a copy of his route plan.”

“Sure.” Priscilla got up, walked to a file cabinet, extracted a manila folder, and closed the file drawer with a gentle sideways thrust of her hip. “After you called, I put together a package of information for you. It contains everything I thought might be helpful, including a route map with the GPS coordinates of each sampling site.” She handed the file to Rivera and sat down.

He pulled out a topographic map of the LaSal Mountains and unfolded it. There were eleven points noted on the northeast side of the mountains, each with a unique identifying number. He noted that the route passed by the mouth of Beaver Canyon, the place where Penny Daugherty had been assaulted.

“That’s one of four water sampling routes we have in the LaSals. It’s the route John was working on Sunday. At each stop, his job was to collect a water sample in a small vial. At the end of the day, he would bring the vials back here for analysis.”

“I’m going to go up into the mountains tomorrow to retrace his route.” He stood up. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Would you like some company?” She smiled.

“You mean on the hike?”

“Sure.”

Rivera couldn’t tell if she was professionally interested in helping or just hitting on him. He was blessed with natural good looks so he’d become used to such advances. “No, I’d better go alone. I don’t know what happened to John or what I might run into up there. Could be dangerous.”

On the way back to the office, Rivera turned on the radio and caught some more conversation on the talk-radio show. It was more of the same, but he detected an elevated level of anxiety in the voices of some of the callers, and overtones of anger in others. He would spend what remained of the afternoon calling John Baron’s friends and girlfriend to see if he could extract any hints of Baron’s intentions to disappear. After that, he would have the unpleasant experience of coming face-to-face with FBI Agent Phil Lisowski, an encounter he wasn’t looking forward to.

10

NIKOLAS OBLONSKY CHEWED nervously on the end of a toothpick as he dialed Wallace Lamont’s phone number. He sat on the edge of the bed in his motel room at the Bighorn Lodge, his knee bouncing up and down as he waited for an answer. Lamont answered after the fourth ring.

“Hello.”

Nikolas pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and tossed it in the trash can. “Mr. Lamont, it’s Nikolas. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I think we’ve got a problem.”

Oblonsky heard a long sigh on the other end of the line.

“What’s the problem?”

“I hope this isn’t a bad time to call.”

“Nikolas, what’s the problem?”

“A BLM ranger was assaulted on the east side of the LaSal Mountains Sunday. Someone struck her on the head with a rock. I just heard on the news that she died in the hospital earlier today.”

“And why is that a problem?”

“According to the news report, this particular ranger was chasing a young man who had just cut a barbed wire fence and stampeded some cattle through the opening and over a cliff.”

There was a long period of silence. “And that would be your Bucky, I assume?”

“Yes. I think it would be prudent to shut down the operation.”

“Damn it, Nikolas. You should have checked with me before hiring anyone. I knew this Bucky was a mistake.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lamont. Truly sorry.”

“Where’s Bucky now? In jail?”

“No. He got away. Disappeared in the mountains. Like I told you, he knows the backcountry real well. The cops are still looking for him.”

“Have you called him? He’s got one of your cell phones, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s not answering my calls. I don’t know what to think. Maybe he’s too scared to talk to anyone.”

“Do the police know he’s the one who committed the assault?”

“I have no idea.”

“What about the ranger? She could have identified him before she died.”

“According to the news reports, she was in a coma the whole time. Never regained consciousness.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Mr. Lamont?”

“What?”

“You want me to go ahead and shut it down?”

“Damn it, Nikolas. Be quiet. I’m thinking.”

The silence extended for a full minute. Oblonsky nibbled at a hangnail on his index finger while he waited.

“You said this Bucky fellow doesn’t know who you are, correct?”

“That’s right. I took precautions to make sure of that.”

“There’s no way he can trace you, identify you?”

“No way. I’ve been wearing a disguise like I always do. Sunglasses, cap with a blond wig under it, blond goatee, cosmetic cheek scar, and a set of really bad looking teeth. He’d never recognize me if I took all that stuff off.”

“There’s a lot of money riding on this operation. If he can’t trace you, why shut it down?”

“It’s dangerous. There are cops all over the place.”

“Look, you hired this guy. You own the problem. I need for you to see this operation through. Besides, the killing of that ranger can be used to our advantage. Think about it, Nikolas. The general belief is that the BLM is in bed with the environmentalists. So maybe some rancher, frustrated with all the environmental regulations and restrictions, killed that ranger as a protest to the federal government’s assault on his way of life. You can play it up as part of the battle between the ranchers and the environmentalists.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“Then do it. The poll numbers have already started to change. The margin is now 46% to 54%. We’re closing the gap. Russell White will be there in Moab tomorrow night to give a major policy speech. He’s going to come out strong against the environmentalists, the BLM, and the Forest Service. He’ll lay the problems at Monroe’s feet. So do everything you can to stir up the masses. Time is running out. We need some bold strokes.”

“Okay, Mr. Lamont.”

Oblonsky said goodbye into a dead line, clicked off, and dropped his cell phone into his shirt pocket. He sat there for a couple of minutes, then got up and walked to the window. Looked outside. The traffic light on Main Street turned green and a Mayflower eighteen wheeler emitted a loud hiss as the driver released the air brakes and slowly pulled away, heading south. In the distance, the LaSal Mountains were bathed in a rose colored hue from the rays of the setting sun reflecting off the clouds in the west. A full moon hung in the sky just above the peaks.

Oblonsky felt a cold sweat on his face. It wasn’t often he felt vulnerable, but this was one of those times. He’d always been successful, operating under the philosophy that anything goes, as long as no one got hurt. But now someone had gotten hurt. Make that killed. And, in a way, it was his fault.

He used to be in full control of his destiny. He was the best and his services as an operative were always in high demand. But nowadays, there was competition from a hoard of younger men. They weren’t nearly as effective as he was but their rates were cheaper, so his business phone didn’t ring as much as it used to. He had become too dependent on Wallace Lamont for his income, and now there was nothing he could do about it. He was trapped. Financially, there was no way he could back out. Despite the elevated risk that Oblonsky sensed, he would have to go through with the operation or kiss off the generous income he derived from the Lamonts. Were it not for Samantha’s medical bills, he’d leave town right now and start life over.

He was certain Lamont couldn’t care less if Oblonsky took the fall. Lamont would just find someone else to do his dirty work. And there were no hard links between the two men. Lamont himself was using a throw-away cell phone. In the event of trouble, Lamont would remove the battery and the SIM card from the phone, and dispose of the three pieces in three different dumpsters, just like Oblonsky had taught him. Lamont would survive unscathed. So the entire risk now rested on Oblonsky’s shoulders, and with the death of that ranger, the risk was now elevated beyond the danger point.

Oblonsky began pacing the floor. Maybe Wallace Lamont was right. Maybe hiring Bucky was a mistake. But it would have been impossible for Oblonsky to execute his plan in the mountains without help. He was a city boy, used to playing his dirty tricks in metropolitan areas where there were millions of people and thousands of high-rise buildings, where it was easy to hide or blend in. Here, in this sparsely populated canyon country, his well-honed street sense didn’t serve him as well.

Oblonsky realized he was now an accomplice to the killing of a law enforcement officer. If he ended up in jail, who would take care of Samantha? And what would she think of him? Those thoughts worried and depressed him. He sat down in a chair next to the window. He’d have to make damn sure he and Bucky never came face-to-face again. If Bucky were arrested, Oblonsky was certain he would tell the cops everything he’d done and everything he knew. He would also provide a description of the man who hired him and a BOLO would be issued. That meant a totally new disguise was called for.

Not one to linger in the face of danger, he gathered up his things, left the motel, and began driving south on U.S. 191. He found a little-used dirt road, drove in a half mile, and parked. He opened the suitcase that contained his makeup kit and disguise paraphernalia. Thirty minutes later, the blond wig and goatee were gone. He was now a freckled man with auburn hair and a moustache. He wore a white T-shirt blazoned with an image of old glory. On his head was an Oklahoma City Thunder cap. No scar and no glasses, but now there was an earring hanging from his left earlobe, a gold wedding band on his left ring finger, and a small armadillo tattoo on his right bicep.

He’d always felt more comfortable wearing a disguise, even when a disguise wasn’t called for. The less face that was exposed, the better. He knew it was because he was considered a homely man, a fact that pained him on occasions when he was introduced to new people. He could see it in their faces and their body language. Polite, but eager to move on. He’d suffered that same treatment all of his life. He’d first noticed it with his classmates in grammar school. Only they weren’t so subtle. They just called him Ugly Nik.

He inspected himself using a hand-held mirror. Satisfied, he drove back to Moab and checked into a different motel using another alias.

Now settled in his new room, he shifted his attention to the project. Without Bucky, he would have to confine his operations to town. He would spend the rest of the evening rethinking his strategy. He took a small framed photograph of his daughter from a side pocket in his suitcase and placed it on the dresser. It was taken after her graduation from Manhattan College. She was smiling and radiant. Beautiful, just like her mother was when she was alive. He vowed that, by morning, he would have a new plan. He’d find a way to earn that hundred thousand dollar bonus from Lamont.

11

RIVERA SAT AT the kitchen table in the two-bedroom house he rented near the center of town, brooding over the meeting he’d had with FBI Agent Phil Lisowski yesterday evening. Lisowski’s rudeness still rankled him. The murder of a BLM ranger was a federal crime and the FBI had jurisdiction over such matters. That was understood. What he didn’t care for was Lisowski’s attitude. “Do nothing unless asked,” had been the agent’s final instruction to Sheriff Campbell. And, of course, Campbell had said “Yes, Sir,” and practically clicked his heels and saluted.

Rivera inserted his spoon into his bowl of raisin bran, carefully maneuvered it to pick up a slice of banana with the proper portion of cereal, and inserted the works into his mouth. As he chewed, he remembered his previous encounter with Lisowski a couple of years ago.

The FBI had been searching for a key member of the Russian mafia who had escaped a raid in New York City, assumed a new identity, and ended up starting a second life in Moab. Rivera had solved the case and handed it to Lisowski all wrapped up with a pretty bow. Instead of a courteous thank you, what Rivera received was criticism for his unwanted freelancing and meddling.

And now, he was all but banned from working on a case in which he had an intense interest. The image of the killer escaping to the top of the mesa, looking back at Rivera, then disappearing over the top was permanently burned into his memory. He felt a responsibility to find the perp and bring him to justice. He resented being shut out of the investigation.

He took a sip of coffee and looked at the map unfolded on the kitchen table. It was the map Priscilla Zimmerman had given him, showing the locations of the springs and seeps John Baron had been sampling when he disappeared. The sites were numbered sequentially and the order in which they were to be followed was obvious. Start at one end of the chain and proceed to the other. But it wasn’t just the water sources that were important; the terrain between them had to be checked. John Baron could be lying hurt anywhere along the route. Therefore, it was important that Rivera attempt to travel the same route Baron had used to transit from site to site. He estimated the hike would take most of the day. He wanted to be back in town in time to clean up and meet Amy Rousseau for dinner.

He looked at his watch. It was six thirty and time to get going. He’d already fed the guppies inhabiting a ten-gallon tank on his kitchen countertop, and his dog, a chocolate Labrador Retriever with friendly eyes named Bentley. He’d adopted the dog after its owner had been murdered in the backcountry while pothunting. Rivera had filled his daypack with the essentials last night: water, maps, trail mix and other snacks, a couple of apples, his GPS unit, a first aid kit, and other necessary items. He’d also topped off the pickup’s gas tank. He finished breakfast, filled a Styrofoam cup with the coffee remaining in his Mr. Coffee carafe, and carried everything to his pickup.

As he drove north out of town, he called Millie Ives, the dispatcher, and advised her of his plans. He turned right on Highway 128 and headed upriver. A dozen bikers in colorful riding gear were pedaling upgrade on the asphalt pathway between the road and the river.

Rivera had little confidence Lisowski was up to the task of breaking the Penny Daugherty case. Like Sheriff Campbell, he was another big-city boy lost in the wilderness. Rivera knew the FBI was far more competent than the sheriff’s office in many areas, but the remote canyon country surrounding Moab was not one of them. He decided then that, despite the warnings from Lisowski and Sheriff Campbell to stay away from FBI business, he would indeed continue looking into the Penny Daugherty case. She’d been a friend and he owed her that much. His missing person case would provide him with a perfect cover for investigating matters that took place that day in the mountains.

He left the pavement and turned right on Onion Creek Road, a primitive dirt road passing through a narrow, multi-colored canyon leading up toward the LaSal Mountains. He drove slowly, crisscrossing the creek several times as he gained altitude. When he reached a place where the road had been washed out, he shifted the transfer case to four wheel drive and continued his journey.

His iPhone vibrated. It was Millie Ives.

“Manny you just received a telephone message. It’s from Meredith.”

“What does it say?”

Rivera could hear Millie smiling. “It says ‘You made a big hit with Priscilla yesterday.’”

Rivera chuckled. “Thank you, Millie.” He clicked off.

Five miles later, he reached his first stop. It was a spring in Onion Creek Valley called Stinking Springs, so named because it flowed from a Paradox Formation upthrust containing odor-producing sulfates. It was here that John Baron would have been dropped off by the driver of the Steadman van. Rivera checked his watch and entered his starting time into his notepad.

Priscilla Zimmerman had explained the standard procedure to Rivera. Upon arriving at a seep or spring, Baron would immerse a small glass vial into the water’s flow, fill it, and then seal it. He would adhere a pre-annotated stick-on label containing the site number and the date to the vial, then store it in a special compartment in his backpack.

Rivera pulled off to the side of the narrow road as far as he could, then hopped out of his vehicle. He scanned the area, checked his GPS unit, and studied his map. After getting his bearings, he hiked toward the water source, his nostrils now detecting the unpleasant odor of sulfur dioxide. He arrived at the spring, photographed it, and explored the immediate area looking for any signs that might suggest what had happened to Baron. He found nothing. He wrote the time of day into his trip log.

He studied his map and located the next site in the inspection sequence. John Baron would have been on foot at this point, but Rivera was able to proceed in his vehicle up the rutted road. He emerged from the canyon onto higher ground and continued on Fisher Valley Road. Here, the land was flat and the quality of the road much improved. He noted a couple of private ranches off to his right. Their fields were bright green with a new growth of alfalfa.

He crossed the valley, drove to the start of the Thompson Canyon Trail, and abruptly stopped. He considered the road ahead. The Thompson Canyon Trail was passable in a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle, but the road was challenging and rough. There were large steps to ascend and twisting, rocky narrows to negotiate, all of which would slow Rivera to a crawl. He decided he could make better time on foot.

He strapped on his daypack, entered the time into his notepad, and began hiking. About a mile up Thompson Canyon, he turned left into a small tributary canyon and walked a quarter mile across the scattered loose stones covering the canyon floor. He came around a bend and spotted the seep on his right. A pair of green-tailed towhees drinking at the seep burst into flight.

He checked his GPS receiver to make sure this was the right seep. It was. It emerged about halfway up a twenty foot wall, ran down a shady, red rock surface coated with moss, and dripped into a pool below. Dozens of butterflies, some yellow and some black with bright blue markings, flew to the pool, drank, and flew away.

Rivera saw no sign of human activity at the seep. He took a photograph, recorded the time, and continued through the side canyon until he reached Fisher Creek. The sun was higher now and the temperature was rising. He was working up a good sweat. He followed the creek’s meanders toward the Dolores River, checking two other seeps along the way. He found no sign of the missing man.

When he reached the river, he turned right and headed upriver. His legs were tiring and his back muscles were becoming stiff. He decided to stop for a moment and rest. He was careful to enter the time into his notebook, keeping a detailed log of his transit time from point to point. He unsnapped his daypack and sat down in the shade of a cottonwood tree on the bank of the river. He leaned back against the tree trunk, surrendering to fatigue, at least for a few minutes.

Rivera enjoyed hiking, but today’s hike was rigorous and his muscles were sore and stiff. Had Meredith been right? Was he getting out of shape? Putting on some unneeded pounds around the middle? Maybe so, but this wasn’t the time to be worrying about it.

He opened his pack and extracted a large Ziploc bag containing trail mix. It consisted of peanuts, raisins, M&Ms, and almonds, and served as a good energy boost whenever he was on a hike. He ate it often, even at home. He wouldn’t want people to know, but he often added extra M&Ms to the mix. He ate several handfuls and washed them down with water from an Aquafina bottle he refilled from his kitchen tap.

A small group of kayakers paddling downriver passed by, waved, and shouted greetings. He smiled and waved back. He imagined they would continue all the way to the Colorado River, then head to Moab on the larger river. After they faded from view, the only sounds he heard were the rippling of the water and the songbirds in the trees. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. A gentle breeze moving down the Dolores River Canyon cooled his perspiring skin.

His thoughts turned to John Baron. What had become of him? Was he injured in the backcountry and in need of help? Was he dead? What if Rivera learned nothing at all on this hike? What would that imply and what would be his next step? Despite what Baron’s grandfather had said, could John simply have left town without telling anyone? And if he did, what was his reason?

He extracted the map from the daypack and studied it. He’d inspected the first four sites in the series and had seven more to go. The next site was the seep he’d seen at the mouth of Beaver Canyon, the place where he’d found Penny Daugherty. From there, the route would take him around the tip of South Beaver Mesa and up into the eastern slopes of the LaSal Mountains. He refolded the map and slid it into his daypack. He enjoyed those times when his duties took him into the backcountry. He liked the scenery and the solitude. For him, the remoteness of the vast empty landscape helped put life into perspective. It had a way of dissolving one’s sense of self-importance.

He watched an iridescent green beetle stumbling through the grass, purposefully heading toward some destination Rivera could not discern. It was clear the beetle had a goal and was working hard to reach it. He admired the beetle’s steadfast determination. It reminded him not to get too comfortable—he had his own mission to accomplish. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. He stood up, strapped on his daypack, recorded the time in his notepad, and resumed his journey.

An hour later, he arrived at the mouth of Beaver Canyon. A picture of Penny lying on the ground in the rain flashed in his mind, painfully reminding him of his failure to save her. He walked to the seep emerging from the side of the cliff, half-heartedly took a photograph, and recorded the time.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a motor vehicle approaching. Soon it came into view. It was the maroon pickup he’d seen at the ranch. Mrs. Harrison stopped and waved him over to the open window. She had a look of concern on her face.

“I heard that poor ranger passed away. What an awful shame.”

He nodded. “It’s hard to accept.”

“Are you out here working on the case?”

“No. The FBI has taken over the case. Since she died, it’s now a federal matter. I’m here working on a different case. A missing person. Did you know a young man by the name of John Baron?”

She thought for a moment, shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“He’s been missing since Sunday. He works for the Steadman Company. His job involves collecting water samples from the seeps and springs in the mountains. I’m trying to follow his trail from site to site, hoping to find him or something indicating what might have happened to him.”

“Oh, yes. My son did that sampling work for a while a few years ago. He loved that job. He said the whole idea was to make sure the mining, grazing, and timber cutting activities on public lands didn’t affect the quality of the ground water. He loves to hike and the money was pretty good, so the job was perfect for him. He did that for several months until we convinced him he was needed at the ranch to help out. Anyway, I’m sorry about your missing man. I hope you find him soon.”

“I hope so, too. His grandfather is very worried.”

“By the way, when you visited us the other day, you expressed an interest in the Hayduke Trail. I looked through my son’s map collection and found an extra copy of the trail map. If you’d like to have it, you’d be most welcome.”

“I’d like that very much. Someday I might want to do what he’s doing—hike it a segment at a time. I’d also like to talk to him. Find out about the trails. See any photos he’s taken.”

“Follow me to the ranch and …” She stopped mid-sentence and scanned the area. “Where’s your vehicle?”

“I’m on foot.”

“Oh. Well, hop in. I’ll drive you. I’ve got some iced tea at the house if you’re thirsty.”

Rivera opened the door of the extended cab pickup and hoisted himself inside. The back seat was filled with twenty or more grocery bags. “Looks like you’ve been shopping.”

“I just returned from City Market. It’s a long drive to Moab so I only go about once every two weeks to stock up. My husband is in Grand Junction buying feed and supplies for the horses.”

At the ranch, Rivera helped Mrs. Harrison unload the groceries and carry them into the house. She went to another room and returned with the map, then poured him a glass of iced tea. He sat at the kitchen table studying the map and sipping the iced tea while Mrs. Harrison removed the groceries from the bags and put them up.

“I’d never heard of the Hayduke Trail until you mentioned it. I wonder why.”

“Edward told me the two hikers who conceived the idea originally hoped the trail would receive a National Historic Trail designation. The trail is laid out so it passes through some of the most spectacular national parks and monuments in the country. Getting government approval involved so much red tape that they finally decided to just call it an unofficial trail. As a result, it doesn’t get much publicity.”

“I’m going to learn more about it. I might have to put it on my bucket list.”

“Edward is finishing up the next-to-last leg of the trail now. He’ll be back at the ranch in three or four days. Why don’t you plan to join us some evening next week so you can meet him. He loves talking about his grand adventure to anyone who’s willing to listen.”

“Thank you. I’d be very interested in meeting him.”

“We’ll call you next week then.”

Rivera finished his iced tea and stood up. “Time to get back to work.”

“Let me drive you back to the river. It’ll save you some time.”

They got into her pickup and began the drive out of the canyon.

“This is a perfect setting for a ranch,” said Rivera.

“I know. I feel so lucky to be living here.” Her expression changed from happy to forlorn. “Unfortunately, Henry has decided to sell the place. A developer in Denver is going to convert the ranch into some kind of resort for business retreats. I’ll be so sad to leave here. But Henry is getting on in years and taking care of the ranch and the horses is a lot of work.”

“I can only imagine how you feel.”

A few hundred yards before the river, Rivera noticed two vehicles parked near the spot where he’d found Penny. One was a black Range Rover, the other a standard BLM pickup. He figured the BLM vehicle belonged to Adam Dunne. And the Range Rover, of course, had to be Agent Lisowski’s. No doubt Dunne was showing Lisowski where the assault had taken place.

“Better stop right here and drop me off. I’ll walk the rest of the way. Saves you the trouble of maybe getting questioned by the FBI. Very time consuming and annoying.”

He thanked her, got out of the pickup, and began walking toward the river. The two men were kneeling on the ground at the crime scene. Dunne was gesturing and talking, apparently explaining what had happened. When Rivera was fifty feet away, Lisowski noticed him. He stood up, brushed the sand off his pants, and stared at Rivera.

“Deputy Sheriff Rivera, did you not understand my instructions? I thought I told you to stay the hell out of this case. This is a federal matter now. You get involved only if I say you get involved.”

Rivera walked up close to him, smiling. What he wanted to say was, You mean when you need someone to find you after you get lost in the mountains? Instead he just said, “I’m out here on a missing person case, Agent Lisowski. I certainly hope the Bureau has no problem with that.”

Lisowski stared at him in silence for long moment, then stepped back. “Get the hell out of here, Rivera. This is a federal crime scene.”

Rivera continued walking upriver on the dirt road. He skirted around the tip of the South Beaver Mesa and began trekking up the slope of Dolores Point, a wooded finger of land that protruded from the mountains. Halfway up the slope, he located, with the aid of the Steadman map and his GPS unit, a series of three springs. Each bubbled up from rocky outcroppings, producing a trickle of water that ran downhill. They merged into a single stream which later disappeared underground. He searched the area, wondering who in the world had found the springs in the first place. They were in a trail-less, heavily wooded area way off the beaten path. He searched the area but was unable to find anything that would help explain what had become of John Baron.

There were three sites left to check. His weary legs pushed him higher up the slope through the thick trees and brush. A half mile later, he came upon a five-strand, barbed wire fence that appeared from the woods on his right and paralleled his path to higher ground.

The fence continued upward, winding its way through the woods, came to a corner, and then veered off to his right. Near the corner, he saw that the barbed-wire strands of the fence had been cut between two fence posts. Tacked to one of the fence posts was an LMPA brochure. He inspected the brochure, noting it was neither faded nor weathered, probably placed there yesterday or this morning. The ends of the cut wires were shiny and showed no signs of oxidation.

The sight of the cut triggered a wariness in Rivera, his sixth sense warning him of potential danger. Goosebumps rose on his arms and the back of his neck as he pulled his Glock from its holster. The breeze was stirring the leaves in the trees, but through that continuous rustling sound, he thought he also heard an intermittent one. He held his breath and listened—it sounded like footsteps through the fallen leaves. Was he about to come face-to-face with the wire cutter? Or was it an animal scurrying through the woods? Or just his imagination?

He stood frozen, stared into the dark woods, studying each tree and bush. Then he heard a whistling sound. And another. And a third from farther off. He relaxed, recognizing the telltale calls of a colony of marmots. The furry, woodchuck-like animals were signaling each other that an intruder had entered their neighborhood. He slid the Glock back into its holster.

Before leaving, he took photographs of the fence and recorded a waypoint on his GPS unit. Later, he would inform the BLM of the cut and its location. He observed no cattle in the area so there was no immediate danger of livestock wandering through the opening.

As he searched for the next two water sources, a pair of springs emerging from the base of a mammoth sandstone monolith, he pondered the meaning of the fresh fence cut. Did the perp know the ranger he’d struck was now dead? That he was a murderer? If he did know, he had to be one brazen fellow. He’d returned to continue his dirty work despite the increased law enforcement activity. Or perhaps there was more than one person at work. He couldn’t be sure.

He found the two springs, noted nothing unusual, and continued his journey. Finally, he came upon the last water source in the chain. It came from a limestone upthrust not far from the Castleton-Gateway Road. Water, cold to the touch, gurgled from a small opening in the gray rock, flowed thirty feet across the rocky surface, then disappeared into the ground. Here, as in all other water sources throughout the desert, there was a continuous parade of butterflies and birds flying in for a quick drink of water.

He recorded the time and took photographs, then hiked to the road in hopes of flagging down a passing vehicle going in the right direction. That would save someone from the Sheriff’s Office the long trip of driving to the mountains to pick up Rivera and taxi him back to his vehicle. This was the place where the Steadman van would have picked up John Baron at the end of his route. The long hike had turned up nothing, but he knew better than to think of the journey as unfruitful. It helped fill in the total picture with a little more detail and would enable him to later rule out or rule in possible scenarios he couldn’t currently foresee.

He didn’t have to wait long for a ride. Two young men in a Jeep Wrangler came along, picked him up, and delivered him to his vehicle. Driving back to Moab, he checked his watch. He would have just enough time to shower and change clothes before meeting Amy Rousseau for dinner.

12

NIKOLAS OBLONSKY TURNED into the airport in Grand Junction, Colorado, and followed the signs to the Hertz car rental return lot. He pulled his Toyota Avalon into a parking space and completed the rental transaction with the attendant. Then he walked into the terminal and located the Avis counter. There, he rented a Ford Escape and drove into downtown Grand Junction. A change of vehicles would help keep his profile low in sparsely populated Moab.

He was regretting the foolish chance he had taken earlier this morning. Since Bucky’s services were no longer available, he’d driven into the mountains himself, parked his vehicle on the side of the Castleton-Gateway Road, and hiked into the woods. He’d cut the first fence he came to, tacked up an LMPA brochure, and left. He wasn’t even sure there were cattle in the area. Just did it and left. Bucky would have been more intelligent about the site selection than Oblonsky had been.

Fortunately, no one had seen him, but what he had done was stupid. He shouldn’t have exposed himself to the possibility of getting caught. Was his desire to earn the Lamont bonus so strong that he would risk everything to earn it? Was it clouding his judgment? He wanted to get Samantha the medical attention she needed, but he decided he’d better stick to doing the things he knew best. That meant staying out of the mountains.

He located the Encore Printing Company on Broadway, entered the small establishment, and spoke with the manager. He handed him a thumb drive of images and text for some political posters, placards, and fliers he had composed the previous night. The images were photoshopped and depicted Matthew Monroe in scenes designed to anger those who depended on using the public lands for their livelihood. He told the manager it was a rush job and that there would be an extra two hundred dollars in the man’s pocket if he could finish the job in an hour and a half. The man said that was impossible, that he had a backlog of rush orders to fill. Oblonsky upped the offer to five hundred. “Take it or I’ll find another printer,” he said. Suddenly the impossible became possible. The manager said he would get right on it.

Oblonsky drove to the nearest McDonald’s and ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. While he ate, he thought about his next step. Russell White, Monroe’s opponent, would be speaking at the Moab Arts and Recreation this evening at 5:30. Oblonsky would arrive about 4:30 with posters and handouts designed to rile up the citizens. Between then and now, there would still be time to call into the talk-radio show and make a few more inflammatory comments.

After White’s talk, he would drive to all the towns of any size in southern Utah and tack up the posters—that would include Blanding, Bluff, Hanksville, Kanab, Green River, Escalante, and St. George. It would be a long night and he guessed he wouldn’t get back to Moab until almost dawn, but he needed to do everything possible in the days remaining before the election to ensure he got that bonus. There would be plenty of time to catch up on his sleep after the election.

After lunch, he returned to the printing company to pick up his order. It was ready as promised. He inspected the merchandise, paid the grateful manager in cash, and carried the product to his vehicle. He chuckled as he loaded the car. One poster had a picture of Monroe standing next to Ralph Elkins, a well-known environmentalist who was prominent in convincing the federal government to designate almost 1.9 million acres of BLM land in southern Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, thereby putting untold ranchers, timber men, and miners out of work with the stroke of a Washington pen. Through the magic of photoshopping, Monroe had his arm around Elkins and both men were grinning. The caption read, I’ve still got a job, how about you? A work of art, Oblonsky thought to himself. He had one hundred copies of this poster, each of which would soon find itself tacked to a utility pole or bulletin board in southern Utah.

He took a look at a second poster and laughed out loud. There was a photo of Monroe standing next to a barbed wire fence with a pair of wire cutters in his hand. One strand had already been cut and the wire cutters were about to clip a second strand. A few head of cattle were shown grazing in the background. Monroe had a determined look on his face. The caption on this one read, Would You Trust This Man with a Pair of Wire-Cutters?

A third poster showed Monroe driving a spike into a tree, a practice which was a well-known deterrent to harvesting timber. The caption read, Save Our Forests and the Spotted Owls. The handouts and placards carried messages similar to the ones on the posters. Each was designed to stir up residual anger in the reader, anger left over from governmental interference in the lives of rural Utah citizens. He placed the material in the trunk of his car, found his way back to Interstate 70, and headed back to Moab.

13

RIVERA SAT AT a table on the outdoor patio of La Jacaranda, Moab’s newest Mexican restaurant. He was hungry after a long day of hiking. He nibbled on corn chips and salsa while he waited for Amy Rousseau to arrive. His muscles felt tired from head to toe, but it was a good kind of tired, the kind that comes with a sense of physical accomplishment. Vince Lombardi had nailed the feeling years ago when he was head coach of the Green Bay Packers. There’s no greater feeling than exhaustion after victory, he’d said. In Rivera’s case, it wasn’t exactly victory, more like successfully achieving the next step in his investigation.

He and Amy loved La Jacaranda. The patio overlooked Main Street so there was always something going on that was worth commenting on. And the establishment featured great margaritas and piped-in mariachi music. His dog Bentley was curled up under the table, sleeping.

The evening was cool and the smell of enchiladas and nachos in the air made Rivera’s mouth water. He was sitting at the same table where, several months ago, he’d first leaned over and kissed Amy. Since then, it had become their table. It was early, so the patio was only partially filled with patrons. At a long table at the far end of the patio sat a dozen young men and women, all lean and athletic looking. Rivera overheard snatches of their spirited conversation about a race they had run. People loved to come to Moab to enjoy the outdoors and the many forms of backcountry adventure it offered.

The sun was setting behind the Moab Rim, and the cumulus clouds which had gathered in the west were creating one of those world class sunsets the high desert was famous for. Billowing pink clouds with crimson and orange overtones created rays of shadow which projected outward from the center point. Above that was a light blue sky, streaked with feathery purple bands of cirrus clouds. Against that amazing backdrop, a distant flock of geese headed north in a V-shaped flight formation.

He spotted Amy walking down the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She peered at the people on the patio, spotted Rivera, smiled and waved. She was twenty-seven years old, five feet five inches tall, with hazel eyes and honey colored hair with blond highlights. Her white shorts and yellow top accentuated her fabulous tan. A PhD botanist on sabbatical at the Dolores River Research Institute, she was an expert on high desert plant life.

She walked up to Rivera, gave him a hug and a kiss, and sat down. Bentley arose, tail wagging. She stroked his head, brought her face close to his, and said something unintelligible in a high-pitched voice. Dog talk, Rivera figured. Bentley’s tail wagged with a greater intensity.

The waiter arrived promptly and the couple ordered their usual drinks, a mango daiquiri for her, a frozen margarita for him. Rivera added a plate of cheese nachos to the order as an appetizer.

“It’s great to see you again. How’s my favorite deputy sheriff doing these days?”

“I’m tired. I spent all day in the mountains trying to find out what happened to a young man who worked for the Steadman Company. His job was to gather samples of water from the springs and seeps in the LaSals. They dropped him off at the start of his route Sunday morning and he was never seen again.”

“I thought you were working on the Penny Daugherty case. What happened there?”

“When she passed away, the FBI took over the case. My instructions are to assist.” He produced a wry grin. “But only when asked.”

“And have you been asked?”

“I’ve been asked to stay away from the case.”

“Don’t they want your help?”

“Apparently not. The Agent-In-Charge and I had a run-in a couple of years ago. He didn’t seem to appreciate my help on a case he was working on.”

“I’m guessing you figured it out for him.”

“Yeah. He’s never forgiven me for that.”

“But you were working on the Penny Daugherty investigation several days before he took over, so you would have some useful knowledge about the case. Plus you know the terrain. Isn’t he being foolish not to work with you?”

“The Federal Bureau of Ingratitude works in ways we mere mortals could never understand.”

“So you’ve dropped the Penny case completely?’

He smiled. “Well, I didn’t say that. It turns out my missing person case takes me into the same area where Penny was attacked.”

Amy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “So you’re still working on it?”

He nodded. “I think I owe that much to Penny.”

The waiter returned with their drinks and the nachos. Rivera raised his glass, clinked it against Amy’s glass, and took a sip. He enjoyed talking to Amy about his work. She was smart, interested, and asked good questions—even helped him think things through. And, she could be trusted to maintain confidentiality. He ate a nacho. Then another. And a third. It seemed that each one he ate only made him hungrier.

Amy asked him about the man he’d seen leaving the scene of the crime. He told her about the fence cutting, the slaughter of the cattle, and finally the assault on Penny at the mouth of Beaver Canyon. He gave her a description of the man leaving the scene and disappearing over the mesa top, limited though it was. He also told her about the John Baron disappearance on the day Penny was assaulted and the curious fact that Baron’s route took him right past the mouth of Beaver canyon.

“Quite a coincidence,” she said.

“I agree, but I’ve found nothing that ties Penny’s assault and Baron’s disappearance together.”

“Is it possible John Baron was the one who assaulted Penny?”

“That thought crossed my mind, but I can’t think of a motive.”

The waiter returned to take their dinner order. Amy ordered a shrimp plate and Rivera ordered the steak and enchiladas.

“Do you think Penny’s attacker just walked out of the mountains without anyone seeing him?” asked Amy.

Rivera picked up another nacho and wolfed it down. “It sure looks that way.”

She smiled. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“Starving is more like it.”

“Well, someone must have seen him. A hiker or a biker or someone.”

“Probably so. But I have no way of knowing who was in the mountains that day.”

“What about the runners sitting at that table over there?”

Rivera glanced at them. “What about them?”

“Don’t you know who they are?”

Rivera took a second look. “No.” He studied them, eight men and four women. They were all tan and lean. Beer seemed to be their refreshment of choice.

“Read their T-shirts.”

He squinted at one of the shirts. “I Survived the Desert RATS Run.”

“What’s the Desert RATS Run?”

“It’s that trail run from Grand Junction across the LaSals to Moab. It’s a seven day race covering 148 miles of rugged mountainous terrain. They run it in stages, running by day and camping out at night. The brother of one of the scientists at the Institute ran it last year. Normally there are several dozen stalwart souls who participate. They’d be spread out along the trail, the leader maybe six hours ahead of the last runner. It would be like a line of eyeballs the killer would have to cross to get from Beaver Canyon back to Moab. Maybe one of them saw something.”

“You’re assuming he came back to Moab.”

“I know. But don’t you think it’s worth a shot?”

The enthusiasm in her voice was hard for Rivera to ignore. “Well, I was hoping to sit here, enjoy a margarita or two, and flirt with you.”

“Ask them. It’ll only take a minute. Then I’d like you to come back and flirt with me.”

Rivera was well acquainted with Amy’s persistence. He knew the subject wouldn’t change until he made an effort to talk to the runners.

He walked over to their table, displayed his badge, and said he’d like to ask them a few questions.

“I knew you’d get in trouble, Bob,” said a blond girl wearing a Nike T-shirt. “You never should’ve taken that shortcut.” The table exploded in laughter.

Rivera laughed. “I’m sorry to intrude. This will only take a minute.”

“Sure, officer. How can we help you?” said an older runner with some gray in his slicked-back brown hair.

Rivera gestured to an empty chair. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“Not at all.”

“We had an incident in the mountains this past Sunday. A young man assaulted a BLM ranger who later died. I got a look at him from a distance. He was young, probably mid-twenties, wearing tan shorts and a dark T-shirt. He escaped into the darkness Sunday night. We figure he left the mountains on a trail the next day. Did any of you see someone fitting that description?’

A runner with sun-bleached, shoulder-length blond hair spoke up. “Gilbert, doesn’t that sound like the guy who came out of the woods and asked if he could run with us for a while?”

Gilbert, a slender, almost gaunt man in his mid-thirties said, “It sure does, Rod. He didn’t look like an ultra-distance runner, but I figured why not invite him to join us. Maybe a little conversation would distract me from the pain. He ran with us for a while until we came to a trailhead where some vehicles were parked. That’s where he said goodbye.”

“What did he look like?’

“Less than six feet tall, medium build, brown hair.” He looked at Rod and shrugged. “Can you think of anything else?”

“Ruddy complexion,” said Rod. I didn’t spend more than a second looking at him. When you’re running the trails, you’ve got to keep your eyes on the ground or you’re liable to turn an ankle on a rock or trip on a root and do a face plant in the dirt.”

“Did you talk with him?”

“A little,” said Rod. “I remember asking him if he was a distance runner. He said he wasn’t but enjoyed running through the woods. He said the only official race he’d run was the Turkey Trot in Moab last year.”

“Anything else?”

Rod took a sip of his beer, thought, then nodded.

“I asked him if he knew Charlie LaValle. Charlie was a guy from Moab who was about two hours ahead of us in the race. Charlie went to Grand County High School, graduated in 2002, then moved to Denver. He said that would have been four years before he graduated so he didn’t know him.”

“Did you notice any blood on him?”

Gilbert and Rod looked at each other, shook their heads.

Then Rod added, “I did notice he had some scratches on his legs. He must have been running through the brush.”

Rivera returned to his table and sat down, smiling and shaking his head.

“You were talking to them for a long time. Did they see anyone up there?”

“Well, don’t let it go to that pretty head of yours, but, yes, they did. A man in his mid-twenties ran with them for a short distance. He was probably trying to look like he was a race participant for part of his escape. He fit the description of the perp. They gave me enough information to identify him, I think. So you’ve just been promoted to Assistant Investigator.”

She smiled. “What do you mean, Assistant? I should at least have the title of Co-Investigator.”

14

THE RIM ROCK Diner was like a second home to Manny Rivera. Just as he did most mornings, he entered the diner and headed for the corner booth with a window that faced Main Street. The smell of bacon and pancakes permeating the air made his mouth water. The diner was humming with local patrons telling stories and discussing politics and the weather. Numerous black-and-white photographs of old Moab hung on the walls, somehow giving him a sense of belonging, as though he had a connection to the town’s history, all the way back to the time when it was a thriving center of uranium mining. Normally he would be having breakfast with Emmett Mitchell, a deputy sheriff from San Juan County and a close friend, but Mitchell and his wife had taken their grandkids to Disney World.

Seconds after he slid into the maroon vinyl-covered seat, Betty was standing at his side with a mug, a carafe of coffee, and a come-hither smile. She was a fifty-something waitress married and divorced four or five times, maybe more. Even she wasn’t sure of the exact number. Her bleached blonde hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head and her too-tight white uniform left little to the imagination. Buttons left unbuttoned revealed more than enough to attract the attention of male patrons.

She stood close to him, her hip lightly touching his shoulder as she poured the coffee.

“Hi, Handsome,” she said in a sultry voice. “I’ve missed you. You weren’t here yesterday morning.” Her daily flirtation with Rivera, now legendary, had begun.

He looked up at her. “Good morning, Betty. I ate at home yesterday. Had to leave early for a long hike in the mountains.”

“You’re supposed to be here each morning with me,” she murmured. “So I can take care of you. See to your needs.”

He smiled. “And you do a very good job of that.”

“I’d like to do more. Why don’t we get together this evening, have a drink, and talk about it?”

He laughed. “That might get me in trouble with Amy.”

“Oh, her. Is she still in town?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Oh, well. Are you having the usual this morning?”

“Please.”

She left and returned a minute later with a copy of the Times-Independent. “Since you’re eating alone this morning, you might want to take a look at this week’s paper. It’s hot off the press.”

Rivera read the front page while he waited for breakfast to arrive. Under the headline, BLM Ranger Killed, the main story described what was known about the attack on Penny Daugherty, her subsequent death, and the FBI’s handling of the case.

A sidebar story had the headline, Sagebrush Rebellion Redux? It described the he wire cutting in the mountains, the disassembly of the rock diversion dam, and the slaughter of the cattle at Beaver Canyon. It also described the arson at the LMPA facilities and the trashing of their vehicle. As usual, the local paper had gotten the facts exactly right and presented the story in a fair way. It provided some history about the original Sagebrush Rebellion and pointed out the similarities to recent events, suggesting the conflict was once again between the environmentalists and those who used the public lands to make a living, in this case, the cattlemen. The article raised the question of whether Penny Daugherty’s murder was an act of retaliation against the BLM.

A short article on page four mentioned the disappearance of Steadman employee John Baron and requested anyone with information to contact the Sheriff’s Office. Rivera folded up the newspaper and placed it on the table. The FBI had instructed him to stay away from the Penny Daugherty case, but now he thought he might have a way to identify the culprit. He decided to pursue his hunch. The hell with Lisowski.

He finished breakfast and headed for the office.

Rivera grabbed a mug of coffee in the break room, went to his office, and closed the door. He called the race director of the Turkey Trot, a 5-kilometer race which took place in Moab each Thanksgiving Day. He apologized for the early call and asked if she could furnish him with a list of the participants in last year’s race. She pointed him to a website which listed all the finishers.

Rivera went to the website and studied it. There were photos of the winners under the catchphrase, Why Soar with the Eagles When You Can Run with the Turkeys? He clicked on last year’s date and a list of the participants and their race times was displayed. He printed out a copy.

He left the office and drove to the Grand County High School. A short visit with the assistant principal produced a list of the 2006 graduates. He returned to his vehicle and compared the two lists. There were two names common to both lists: Mary Nelson and Bucky Allen. The perp was definitely male so that left the Nelson girl out. The Allen name rang a bell. He associated the name with a family of environmental activists that lived in Moab, but didn’t know any of them personally.

Now the question was what to do with the information. If he turned it over to the FBI and Bucky Allen had a solid alibi, Lisowski would come down on Rivera like a meteor slamming into the ground. He called the office and obtained a current address for Allen. The address led to a small duplex just off Center Street that appeared to be a rental unit. A woman who looked to be in her early twenties was moving cardboard boxes from the house to an old pickup truck parked in the driveway. Rivera parked a half block away and walked toward her.

When the woman noticed him, she nodded perfunctorily and kept about her business. She was wearing a white T-shirt and faded jeans. Her long straight hair was the color of straw and her expression was one of determination. A cigarette hung from her mouth.

Rivera tried to act casually. “Good morning. Looks like you’re moving out.” He smiled his friendliest smile.

“Damn right, I am. That no good Bucky Allen has seen the last of me.” She seemed to be struggling with a heavy box, trying to lift it into the pickup.

“Here, let me give you a hand with that.” He grasped it and hoisted it into the bed of the truck. “So you’re leaving town?” He wanted to keep her talking without the conversation seeming like an official interview.

She studied him for a moment. Nodded. “I’m heading back home to Albuquerque. Me and Bucky are through.” She took a drag on her cigarette and blew a plume of smoke from the side of her mouth.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just that he hasn’t come home for several days. If he thinks he can just go off like that without a word to me, he’s mistaken.”

“That’s odd. Any idea where he went?”

“I don’t know. He’s been acting real mysterious and secretive for the last week or so. I don’t know what’s going on. Bucky and me ain’t been talkin’ much lately.” She seemed to want to tell someone, even a total stranger, her story. “Maybe he found someone else. Anyway it ain’t been workin’ out. Besides, his family hates me. His brother called me dumb, right in front of me.” She looked at Rivera with a wry expression. “Well, that’s the last box. If you see him, tell him I went home.” And with that, she flicked her cigarette into the street, jumped into the pickup, and drove off.

Rivera drove to Chris Carey’s house and knocked on the front door.

“Welcome back,” said Carey and gestured Rivera to come inside. They walked to Carey’s den.

“I need some information.”

“Have a seat. What can I help you with?”

“It’s about the Penny Daugherty case. The FBI has taken over the investigation and the Agent-In-Charge treats me like I’m carrying the Ebola virus. He wants me to stay away from his case. Trouble is, I think I’ve identified the killer, but I need to be sure before I open my mouth. He and I have some bad history so if I’m wrong, it won’t be a pleasant situation.”

““I understand. What do you need to know?”

“I have reason to believe that a young man named Bucky Allen is the one who assaulted Penny Daugherty.” Rivera noticed Carey’s eyebrows go up a quarter inch.

Carey took off his glasses, held them up to the light, and squinted at them. He fogged the lenses with his breath, wiped them clean with his handkerchief, and put them on. “I’ve known the Allen family for years, and I’ve met Bucky on several occasions. I’m having a hard time picturing him as a killer.”

“What can you tell me about the family?”

“Well, they’re environmentalists through and through. The old man was very active during the Sagebrush Rebellion, a leader in the Moab incidents I described to you the other day. He’s written two books on the subject and dozens of magazine articles. The family is one of the primary supporters of the LMPA. They’re very interested in protecting the LaSals. When they were younger, Mrs. Allen and the kids spent every summer living in their cabin up there to avoid the heat in Moab. The old man would go up on weekends.”

It crossed Rivera’s mind that the entire Allen family might be involved in the trouble. Or perhaps Bucky was just trying to impress the other family members. “Do they still own the cabin?”

“I’m sure they do. I doubt they’d ever part with it.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Let me get a map and I’ll show you.”

Rivera knocked on the doorjamb of Sheriff Campbell’s office and waited. It was generally understood that Campbell didn’t want people walking into his office without an invitation. The Sheriff was on the phone, laughing about something. He frowned when he noticed Rivera. When the laughing was over and the golf game scheduled, he waved Rivera in.

“How are you doing on that missing person case?”

“Not much progress yet, but I think I may have found something that might be of interest to the FBI on the Penny Daugherty case.”

“What?” Campbell stood up, an angry look on his face. “You were specifically ordered to stay away from that case until and unless the FBI requested help.”

“I know, but …”

“I won’t tolerate insubordination. You’ll follow orders just like everyone else. I don’t need any trouble with the FBI.”

Now Rivera felt his face turning red. How long would it be before he quit working for this fool? “I have some information that might be useful to the FBI.” Rivera annunciated each word slowly and clearly. “What would you like me to do with the information?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell Lisowski for you. You take the heat. Tell him yourself.”

Rivera returned to his office, dialed Lisowski’s cell phone number, and told him what he’d learned about Bucky Allen and how he’d learned it. He gave Lisowski directions to the cabin and read off the GPS coordinates to be sure there was no mistake. Before hanging up, Lisowski laughed and said, “Still meddling, eh? Okay, I’ll have a team at that cabin in a few hours.” Then he added in a subdued but clearly threatening tone, “And Rivera, you’d better be right about this.”

Rivera hung up the phone and sat there, thinking about how things were just a couple of years ago when Leroy Bradshaw was still sheriff. Bradshaw had been Rivera’s mentor, showing him how to make the transition from street cop to investigator. Back then, the Sheriff’s Office was an enjoyable place to work. People pulled together and the organization was characterized by competence at every level. Everyone in the department had each other’s back.

Then Bradshaw’s wife Jill succumbed to cancer. They had been very close and lived most of their adult lives in Moab. Bradshaw decided, after her death and in the middle of his campaign for re-election, that day-to-day life in Moab produced too many reminders of that spirit-crushing loss. Even though he was certain to win the election, he dropped out of the race and moved to New Mexico. Unfortunately, the only other candidate was Denny Campbell.

Bradshaw would never have thrown Rivera to the wolves the way Campbell did. Campbell lacked backbone and fortitude. Or maybe he didn’t want to be late for his tee time. Whatever the case, Rivera began having those old feelings that it might be time for him to make some changes in his life. The job offer to join Leroy Bradshaw’s private investigations firm in Santa Fe was still open.

15

LEAVING THEIR VEHICLES parked a quarter mile away, a team of FBI agents led by Agent-In-Charge Phil Lisowski moved quietly through the woods toward the cabin owned by the Allen family of Moab. The agents were dressed in black SWAT gear with body armor. Each wore a tactical headset with a throat microphone for communications.

The cabin was set a hundred feet back from a dirt road in a section of dark forest on a north-facing slope in the LaSal Mountains. It was a large structure constructed of spruce logs. A black Rubicon was parked behind the cabin.

Rivera had better be right, Lisowski thought to himself, or this was going to be an embarrassing fiasco. He gave the order to his agents to spread out, encircle the cabin, and move in. They were well-practiced and efficient, and he had no doubts about their capabilities.

The agents drew their handguns and approached the cabin walls. At the windows, they took quick glances inside, jerking their heads back after each glance. Each whispered into his microphone and reported to the others what he’d seen. A single occupant had been observed, a man lying on his stomach in a bed in one of the back bedrooms, apparently asleep.

Lisowski reached for the front doorknob and turned it. The door was unlocked. He and a second agent moved into the cabin, weapons drawn, scanning the great room, seeing it was unoccupied. They quickly moved to the occupied bedroom as the other agents followed through the front door and cleared the other bedrooms.

“FBI. Keep your hands where I can see them,” shouted Lisowski. “Is your name Bucky Allen?”

The young man rolled over with a confused expression, as he awakened from what appeared to be a sound sleep. His expression turned to one of fear as he became aware of the handguns pointed at his chest. He was wearing only shorts and socks.

“Huh?”

“Is your name Bucky Allen?”

“Yes, Sir,” he stammered.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of a federal agent.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said as he looked from agent to agent. “This is our family cabin,” he added, as though that would clear up the matter.

The agents pulled him to his feet, cuffed him, and Mirandized him.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear. I want to talk to my father,” he pleaded. “And a lawyer.”

“Take him away, then let’s turn this place upside down. We’re looking for clothing that might contain bloodstains. Bag it and mark it.”

Outside, an agent drove a black Range Rover up to the cabin. Bucky sniffled as he was escorted out of the cabin, a beefy agent’s hand gripping his upper arm. He was loaded into the vehicle and driven off.

16

WHILE RIVERA WAS driving back to the office after interviewing two more of John Baron’s friends—interviews which had produced no useful information—Millie Ives called him on his iPhone.

“Manny, the FBI has taken Bucky Allen into custody. They’re holding him in one of our cells. His lawyer has been informed and he’s on the way over here now. Just thought you should know.”

“Has Allen admitted to anything?”

“No. He just asked to speak with the family lawyer. He also asked to talk to his father, but the FBI wouldn’t permit that. Agent Lisowski is arranging for a press briefing.”

“Already? What time is the briefing?”

“Two o’clock at the Sheriff’s Office. Most of the state and national press people are already in town covering the Sagebrush Rebellion business, so Lisowski was able to set it up on short notice.”

“Okay, Millie.” He chuckled. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll try to avoid it.”

A press briefing, groused Rivera as he drove. That was so like the FBI. They were masters of public relations, never missing an opportunity for publicity that would make them look good. When the Bureau looks good, Congress feels more generous at budget time. And when that happens, people like Lisowski move up in the organization and get better assignments. Maybe Miami or San Francisco. Maybe even Honolulu. Of course, the converse was also true—embarrass the Bureau and you’re next assignment might be Fargo, North Dakota.

He looked at his watch. It was a little before one thirty. He decided to head to Denny’s for a long overdue lunch. Maybe the press briefing would be over by the time he got back to the office. Maybe, if Rivera was real lucky, Lisowski would be on his way back to Salt Lake City. And maybe he’d never have to see him again.

As Rivera walked down the hallway toward his office, he saw Lisowski standing in Sheriff Campbell’s office, having what appeared to be a self-congratulatory conversation with Campbell and BLM Agent Adam Dunne. Campbell was smiling and nodding like he and Lisowski were big buddies. Dunne looked uncomfortable, like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Well, that was an easy one,” Rivera heard Lisowski boast. “And the press conference went well, even if I do say so myself.” His laughter echoed down the hallway. “I’ll be in town a couple of more days wrapping up the case and preparing for the prisoner’s transfer to Salt Lake City for arraignment.”

Lisowski spotted Rivera coming down the hall but ignored him and went on. “Tonight, we FBI agents will have a celebratory dinner at one of Moab’s finest restaurants.”

Rivera entered his office, closed the door, and sat down. He resented Lisowski, but was glad Bucky Allen was now behind bars. The man had killed a fellow law enforcement officer and a model citizen of the community. He thought about Penny. He’d never see her smiling, freckled face again. He suppressed his recurring feeling of anger and tried to put Bucky out of his mind.

He heard loud footsteps striding down the hallway. Probably Lisowski leaving the building. A minute later, there was a soft knock on his door. He knew it couldn’t be Campbell. Campbell never knocked.

“Come in.”

The door opened and Dunne entered, shaking his head. He closed the door behind him. “Can you believe that Lisowski fellow?”

Rivera shrugged, smiled. “Pull up a chair, Adam. How was the press conference?”

Dunne sat backwards across Rivera’s visitor’s chair, his forearms resting on the chair back, a wry expression on his face. “It went pretty much the way you would have expected: BLM ranger killed. FBI called in. FBI solves case. Killer arrested. Kudos to the FBI agents who assisted. A brief mention of BLM assistance. No mention of Sheriff’s Office assistance. Certainly no mention of one Manuel Rivera who solved the case and served it up to the FBI on a platter.”

“What evidence do they have that Bucky Allen is their man?”

“They found a T-shirt in the Allen cabin where Bucky was hiding out. They expedited a blood analysis. The blood on the shirt was confirmed as Penny’s. Also, Allen’s blood was a match for the blood traces on the thorns of that bush you cut from the cliff. Plus, he fits the description of the man you saw at the top of the cliff leaving the scene. Pretty open and shut.”

“Yeah, I expected as much.”

“The Allen family is crushed. They can’t believe Bucky would assault anyone, much less a law enforcement officer.”

“Maybe he was driven by fear and just wanted to escape. Reacted without thinking. Who knows? In any case, he’ll pay dearly for what he did.” Rivera thought for a long moment. Shook his head. “Two lives wasted for no good reason.”

“Lisowski said that in one way he was disappointed Bucky was the killer.”

“How’s that?”

“He said he wanted you to be wrong. You know, so he could come down on you.”

Rivera laughed. “That’s pretty sick. What did the sheriff have to say?”

“Not much. He just acted chummy with Lisowski. Lisowski said he and the other FBI agents were going out for dinner tonight to celebrate. I think Campbell was hoping he’d be invited. When he wasn’t, he looked a little crestfallen.”

“I can’t imagine a dinner I’d want to avoid more.”

Sheriff Campbell opened the door and entered. “Well, Lisowski has left the building. I guess the FBI is out of our hair.” As usual, he spoke in an unnecessarily loud voice. “Unfortunately, the trouble Bucky Allen started with his pranks in the mountains is still going on. In fact, it seems to be growing. We’ve got all sorts of anti-government types in town now looking for trouble. We also have some radical environmentalists congregating downtown and organizing demonstrations. There’s bound to be trouble.” He started to leave, then stopped. “Any progress on the missing person case?”

Rivera shook his head. “Nothing yet. I’m still looking into it.”

Campbell grunted and left the office.

“What are you going to do now,” asked Dunne.

“See if I can find John Baron.”

“Let me know if I can help.” Dunne got up and headed for the door. Glanced back. “Nice job on the Penny Daugherty investigation.”

Rivera sat at his desk, trying to force his mind to forget Lisowski, Bucky Allen, Sheriff Campbell, and the demonstrations downtown, and instead concentrate on the problem of what had happened to John Baron. Rivera had hiked Baron’s water sampling route from end to end, but nothing had jumped out at him as relevant to Baron’s disappearance. The only curious event was that Baron’s route had taken him to the mouth of Beaver Canyon to sample the water seep located there. Rivera wondered if it was possible John Baron and Bucky Allen had seen each other. Would their respective time lines have permitted that? It was a long shot, but maybe Bucky Allen had seen Baron and could supply some useful information about what had happened to him. Then an unpleasant thought entered Rivera’s mind. Had Bucky Allen killed John Baron too?

He set that thought aside and considered the possibility of a chance meeting of the two, even from a distance. To test that hypothesis, he decided to reconstruct the timelines of the two men as best he could. Rivera knew within a few minutes what time the assault on Penny Daugherty had taken place. He also knew what time John Baron had been dropped off by the Steadman van driver at the beginning of his water sampling route. The question was: What time would John Baron have arrived at the mouth of Beaver canyon?

Rivera thought his own transit time in covering that same route might be a good approximation of Baron’s time. He extracted his notepad, flipped to the correct page, and jotted down on a separate sheet of paper his own starting time. Then he checked the time he had arrived at Beaver Canyon and computed the total time duration. That duration had to be adjusted for several reasons. First, Rivera had traversed the first part of the trip in his vehicle rather than on foot. Second, he had rested at the edge of the Dolores River for a time. And third, a correction had to be made to account for the fact that Baron was familiar with the route and didn’t have to waste time checking his map and his GPS coordinates. He made those adjustments to his transit time, then added the corrected duration to Baron’s starting time.

A lot of fuzzy approximations had been made in the calculation, but it looked to Rivera that John Baron had arrived at the mouth of Beaver Canyon a half hour to an hour before Penny was assaulted. Rivera realized his numbers could easily be off by a half hour or more, so it was still possible the two men had encountered one another. He decided he needed to interview Bucky Allen to find out if he’d seen any sign of Baron in or near the canyon.

As he sat back and considered that, an unpleasant realization struck him. He would need Lisowski’s permission to interview the prisoner. Wonderful.

17

WHEN RIVERA INFORMED Sheriff Campbell that he wanted to interview the prisoner regarding the John Baron disappearance, Campbell left the matter of requesting permission in Rivera’s hands. Rivera called FBI Agent Lisowski on his cell phone. He explained the situation in detail and was surprised at Lisowski’s quick acquiescence to his request. There were two conditions, though. First, Rivera was to limit his inquiry to whether or not Bucky Allen had seen John Baron that day and under what circumstances. There was to be no discussion regarding the assault on Ranger Penny Daugherty. One of Lisowski’s agents would be present to stop the interview if Rivera crossed the line. And second, Bucky Allen’s attorney would have to be present to protect Allen’s rights. Fair enough, thought Rivera.

Bucky Allen was brought handcuffed from his cell to the general conference room. He was dressed in orange prisoner garb and appeared lost and disoriented. Rivera felt a rush of anger when he first spotted Bucky but suppressed it. He had important work to do. He pointed to a chair and Bucky sat down next to his attorney, James Thorn. Thorn was a respected defense attorney who had been practicing in Grand County for nearly thirty years. He was tall and slender, and wore gold wire-rimmed glasses. His gray hair was parted and he had a pencil thin mustache. He patted Bucky on the arm in a consoling manner, but it seemed to have little effect.

Thorn kicked off the proceedings with an opening statement. “My client has done some foolish things that he regrets, but he is innocent of the assault on and subsequent death of the BLM ranger. He has nothing to hide and has agreed to answer all your questions fully and honestly, to the best of his ability.”

The FBI agent, a young man with a short haircut and wearing a dark suit, tensed his body as though he was about to object to Thorn’s remarks, then relaxed, saying nothing.

The attorney gestured to Rivera. “You may ask your questions.”

Rivera leaned forward and looked into Bucky’s eyes with what he hoped was a sincere, non-threatening expression. “My questions relate to a missing person case I’m working on. I want you to think back to the time you were trying to evade that BLM ranger, the time you were on Beaver Mesa. Besides the ranger, did you see anyone else on the mesa or down in the canyon?”

Bucky stared blankly at the table, motionless, saying nothing. Rivera wasn’t sure if he was thinking about his time on the mesa or hadn’t even heard the question. Thirty seconds passed. The FBI agent began shifting in his seat, as if losing his patience.

Bucky finally shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t remember seeing anyone.” He looked at his attorney, as though seeking affirmation.

The FBI agent stood up. “I guess that’s it then.”

“Just a moment, please,” said Rivera. “Let me take him through it, step by step. I need to be sure about this.”

The agent looked at his watch, let out an audible sigh, and sat down. “Make it quick,” he said. “Agent Lisowski is treating us to dinner in ten minutes. I don’t want to be late.”

“Okay,” said Rivera, keeping his composure. “The place at the edge of the mesa where you cut the fence and drove some cattle over the edge, did you look down into the canyon?”

“Yes. Afterwards. I wanted to see what happened to the cattle. I’m sorry I looked.”

“But did you see anyone down there?”

“No.”

“Okay. At this point, you knew the ranger was coming after you. Correct?”

He nodded.

“So what route did you take from that point?”

“I followed along the edge of the bluff, running toward the crack in the mesa wall that led down to the river.”

“So you could see down into the canyon?”

“In places, yes.”

“Did you see anyone down there? Anything at all?”

Bucky shook his head. Then a spark of recollection flashed in his eyes. “Wait. I did see a pickup truck heading upcanyon on that dirt road. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Could you see who was driving it?”

“No. Just got a glimpse.”

“Do you remember the make or color of the pickup?”

“It was brown. Not new. Dusty. I don’t know what make it was.”

“Okay. Did you see anyone on foot in the canyon?”

“Bucky shook his head. “No.”

“How about when you climbed down the crack in the wall of the canyon. Did you see anyone besides the ranger?”

“No. But she…”

“Alright, that’s enough,” said the FBI agent. “Now you’re treading on our case. This interview is over.”

Ten minutes later, Bucky Allen’s attorney stopped by Rivera’s office, and knocked on the doorjamb.

“Deputy Rivera, may I have a word with you?”

“Sure Mr. Thorn. C’mon in and close the door.”

He did.

Rivera gestured towards his visitor’s chair and Thorn sat down. “Bucky did some stupid things, but he is not responsible for the death of that ranger. He’s cooperated fully with the FBI and told them everything that happened that day. Unfortunately, the feds are convinced they have their man and aren’t looking any further into the case. I expect the FBI is keeping local law enforcement in the dark about Bucky’s story. Nevertheless, I think it’s important that you hear it. You might be his only chance for clearing this up.”

Rivera nodded. “I understand Mr. Thorn, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming.”

“May I tell you what Bucky said?”

“Of course. But, as you know, the FBI wants to keep us locals out of their case.” He smiled. “They don’t want us meddling.”

Thorn held up a hand. “I understand. Rest assured, they won’t learn of this conversation from me.”

“Would you like some coffee before we get started?”

“That sounds good. It’s been a long day.”

“I’ll be right back. Rivera left the office and walked to the break room. He was relieved to see a freshly made pot of coffee resting in the coffee maker. He retrieved two clean mugs, filled them, and returned to his office. He gave a mug to Mr. Thorn, put the other mug on his desk, and closed the office door.

Thorn took a sip and nodded his approval. “You know, it’s just not true what they say about cop coffee. This is pretty good.” He took a second sip and placed his mug on the corner of Rivera’s desk. “Let me start from the beginning. Bucky is a local boy, born, raised, and schooled in Moab. His family’s roots go way back in Moab history. Back to the early nineteen forties. They are a respectable family, very much concerned with maintaining the natural beauty of the area. Some call them radical environmentalists, I know, but only because of their role in the Sagebrush Rebellion back in the early eighties. Since then, they’ve confined their activities to supporting environmental organizations financially and as volunteers. Nothing radical or illegal.”

“I’ll grant you all that. That’s pretty much what I’ve learned about them during my investigation.”

“Okay. About a week ago, Bucky was approached by a man who asked if he was interested in earning some extra money. Bucky had a couple of part-time jobs but was usually broke and pretty much lived hand to mouth. So he jumped at the chance. At first, the job entailed small pranks, like cutting fences and re-routing ditch water. The pay was five hundred dollars a day. The assignments quickly escalated, as did the pay. The fee for driving those cattle over the bluff was a thousand dollars.”

“That’s when Penny Daugherty spotted him and gave chase.”

“Right. Bucky headed across the mesa toward the Dolores River. At first the ranger gave chase, then she turned back, giving up on the pursuit. He hiked several miles through the brush to the end of the mesa. He climbed down a crack in the face of the cliff, intending to head to the coffee shop in Gateway where he’d call a friend to come pick him up. When he reached the bottom of the bluff, he spotted the ranger, the same one he’d seen earlier pursuing him. She was lying on the ground, unconscious, blood coming from her head. He went to her, knelt down, and checked her wound. It was raining and some of her blood got on his hands and ran onto his shirt. He talked to her, trying to help her regain consciousness. Then he heard your siren. Relieved that help was on the way, he resumed his escape. That’s when you saw him climbing back up to the mesa. Bucky swears that’s what happened and I believe him. I’ve known that family all my life and I’ve known Bucky since the day he was born. There’s no way he would have attacked a law enforcement official or anyone else.”

“Killing cattle didn’t seem to bother him. Maybe he’s not as genteel as you think.”

“I realize that looks bad for him. He was kind of desperate for the money. He was having girlfriend problems and his rent was overdue. So he did some stupid things. But he didn’t kill that ranger.”

“Did you ask him about the man he said hired him?”

“Yes. He couldn’t tell me much about him. Bucky would get a call each morning and a meeting would be arranged. A different place each time. He would receive his instructions for the day and get paid in cash for the previous day’s work.”

“What did this fellow look like?”

“Bucky said he was around fifty years old, six feet tall, and missing half of his left index finger. He said he thought the guy was wearing a disguise. His hair didn’t look natural. And he said the guy had a New York accent.”

“What about the man’s vehicle?’

“He never saw it.”

“Color of eyes?”

“Dark blue, he thinks.”

“It’s interesting he was hired to do the things he did. Maybe his employer was a radical environmentalist. But none of that proves he’s innocent of the assault on Penny.”

“I know. I’m just telling you everything he told me. I’m hoping you can help us somehow.”

“I don’t know how I could help, but I appreciate your stopping by to fill me in.”

After Thorn left his office, Rivera was left with three thoughts. First, it was entirely plausible someone had hired Bucky to perform the pranks in the mountains. He didn’t seem the type who would initiate anti-grazing harassment activities on his own. Unless, of course, he was trying to impress his environmentalist family members. But it was more likely, given Bucky’s personal circumstances, that he was motivated by money. The man who hired him was guilty of several crimes. Conspiracy to commit a felony, accessory to manslaughter, and probably several others. Rivera wondered if the man was still at work in Moab. If so, the law enforcement community needed to find and apprehend him.

The second thought buzzing in Rivera’s mind was a troublesome one. Suppose Bucky was telling the truth. That seemed unlikely, but if so, who attacked Penny and why? What possible motive existed for assaulting a BLM ranger in that remote country along the Dolores River? Could it have been a kayaker on the river? Or a backcountry hiker? Neither of those possibilities seemed likely. Backcountry adventure seekers were usually good citizens. Could John Baron, the missing man, have had some reason to assault Penny? According to Rivera’s chronological calculations, Baron would have arrived at the mouth of the canyon sometime before Bucky did, so it was possible. Did Baron assault her and then disappear from the area? And, if so, what could possibly have been his motive?

The third thought tumbling around Rivera’s brain was the brown pickup truck Bucky said he’d seen in the canyon. It was headed toward the Harrison Ranch before Bucky had arrived at the mouth of the canyon. Rivera had seen two pickups at the ranch; one of them was brown. Was it possible that old Mr. Harrison was near the mouth of the canyon tending to his beehives and had seen something useful, something he’d forgotten when Rivera visited the ranch. Harrison didn’t look all that healthy. He was showing his age and seemed forgetful. He didn’t remember the MedEvac chopper until his wife reminded him of it. Had he forgotten something else important? Rivera would revisit the ranch, enlist Mrs. Harrison’s assistance, and try to jog her husband’s memory and extract exactly what, if anything, he’d seen during that trip.

18

NIKOLAS OBLONSKY SAT on the overstuffed chair in his motel room, his feet propped up on the bed, watching a baseball game on the television with the sound muted. It was the wrong time of year for NFL football and the NBA playoffs had just ended. He was a big fan of the New York Jets and the Brooklyn Nets, but he had no real interest in baseball. His father had given up on baseball when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1957. The old man’s resulting disdain for the game had somehow been passed on to his son. Nikolas was just killing time, waiting for a scheduled phone call from Wallace Lamont.

A commercial for Ford pickup trucks came on. Then one for Gillette razors. Then another for Miller Lite beer. He reached for the remote control and shut off the television. While he waited, his thoughts focused on Bucky Allen’s arrest and how that might affect Oblonsky’s own security.

He assumed that, by now, Bucky had told the FBI and the local cops all about the man who had hired him. It was time to review his own security situation. Bucky couldn’t identify him. He had no idea what Oblonsky looked like and certainly couldn’t help a sketch artist create a likeness of his face. So what could Bucky tell the cops? Height, of course. Build, maybe. Face and hair color, no. Color of eyes, yes. What about the missing half of his left index finger? It had been snipped off with shears by mobsters as punishment twenty years ago when Oblonsky’s dirty tricks in a Brooklyn Alderman’s race got crossways with a numbers racket run by the Gambino family. It was a warning and it taught Oblonsky the importance of paying attention to matters of his own security. All had been forgiven, and soon Oblonsky was engaged on occasion by the mob to alter the outcome of certain elections.

Oblonsky had reminded himself before each meeting with Bucky to keep his left hand in his pocket. But had he done it? Probably, but he wasn’t sure. Damn, he should have been more careful about that. But for now, he would add two more items to his disguise, some padding for his waistline and some contact lenses to change the color of his eyes from blue to brown. It was the wrong time of year to be wearing gloves, but henceforth he would pay special attention to keeping his left hand out of sight.

He got up and walked to the window. Peered outside. It was getting dark and an orange glow now outlined the corrugated edge of the Moab Rim. His cell phone buzzed and he snatched it out of his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Nikolas, I have some new information.” It was Wallace Lamont and he sounded happy. “The polls are moving our way. The latest tally shows it’s a 50-50 race now. Five days left to get the ball across the goal line. So keep pushing.”

Oblonsky smiled. Another victory in a long string of victories was just around the corner. “That’s great news.”

“There’s one thing we have to worry about, though. I just learned from my sources in Washington that Matthew Monroe is coming to Utah for a final push on his campaign. It appears he’s now worried about the election. When the campaign began, he thought he was a shoo-in. Now, he’s not so sure.”

“When’s he coming?”

“He’ll be in Moab tomorrow night. He’ll be giving a speech at the same place where White spoke. Maybe you could prepare a welcoming committee for him.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can make his visit backfire on him.”

“He’ll also be barnstorming in the other small towns in southern Utah.”

Oblonsky thought about that. “The way I’ve got it figured is this: If Monroe loses the Moab vote, he loses the election. Most of the pro-environment vote is here and most of the anti-government vote is in the rest of the district. Monroe can’t win without strong support from the citizens of Moab.”

“Exactly what my sources tell me.”

“I’ll give it some thought and be ready to counter his effectiveness.”

“Good luck.”

When Oblonsky clicked off, he was ecstatic. He knew the polls had been moving in a favorable direction, but had no idea the race had become a dead heat.

Tonight, he would plan some special events for Monroe. If he did everything just right, tomorrow, the people of Moab would turn against their congressman. He sat down at the small desk in his room and began planning steps that would make Monroe look like an incompetent hack. This would be fun.

19

BETTY SIDLED UP to Rivera the way she did each morning, her hip lightly touching his shoulder as she filled his mug with coffee. Then, instead of the usual outrageous flirtations, she stepped back and looked him in the eye.

“Manny, there’s no way Bucky Allen attacked that poor ranger lady. No way.”

Rivera looked up at her, surprised. “You’ve heard about all that?”

She looked at him like he had just landed from another planet. “Manny, there’s little that goes on in this town that I don’t know about. Either a customer tells me or a neighbor tells me. Sometimes a customer tells another waitress and she tells me. All information in Moab gravitates toward the Rim Rock Diner. And once in here, it gravitates to me. We waitresses are the repository for all juicy gossip, inside information about evil deeds committed by people in high places, and salacious details of every affair in town. Being in the investigations business, I’d have thought you would have known that.”

Rivera smiled. “If Bucky Allen didn’t do it, then maybe you could save us all a lot of work and just tell me who did it and why.” He took a sip of coffee.

“That information hasn’t yet arrived at the Rim Rock Diner but when it does, you’ll be the first to know.” She leered at him. “Of course, there will be a price to pay.”

He decided to probe Betty’s knowledge a little further. Maybe she’d actually heard something that would be helpful. “Are you familiar with the Beaver Canyon area?”

“Sure. I visited the Harrison Ranch once.”

“You did?” He looked up at her. “How come?”

“I used to have a brother-in-law who raised horses over near Pagosa Springs. He was the brother of my second or third husband, I can’t remember which. Anyway, he bought a horse from them eight or ten years ago. An Arabian. I went with him to pick it up. He said the Harrisons were the finest horse breeders he’d ever met. He said Mr. Harrison was well known in the Arabian Horse Association and served on its board for several years.”

“I was at the ranch a few days ago and saw those horses. Amazing animals. What do you know about Mr. and Mrs. Harrison?”

“Not much. They seemed like nice people. Mr. Harrison is quite a bit older than his wife and I heard his health is on the decline.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s true. Have you heard about anything else going on in Beaver Canyon lately? Anything unusual?”

“Just the business about Penny Daugherty, and that you’ve been out there looking for the Baron boy.” She paused in thought. “And everyone knows about the cattle that were run over the cliff.”

Rivera smiled. “You seem to know everything. I don’t know why I go traipsing all over the backcountry looking for clues when I could just come in here and ask you.”

She smiled and switched back to her flirtatious manner. “I’m here for you, Manny. Anytime. You know that.” Then she took out her order pad. “You want the usual?”

“Please.”

Rivera looked out the window. Even though the spring tourist season had peaked several weeks ago, there were still plenty of Jeeps and SUVs on Main Street heading out of town to the backcountry. He loved this town and the people who lived in it. He felt lucky to have discovered it early in life. Yet he could think of several reasons for leaving Moab and returning to New Mexico. His family in Las Cruces, for one. He missed them, even though he spoke to them often by telephone and visited them three times a year. The framed photographs of them which he kept in his office were constant reminders of the warm feelings they had for each other, but the photographs never spoke to him, kidded with him, or hugged him the way his family did when he went home.

Another reason for leaving was Sheriff Denny Campbell. He was incompetent, offensive, and an egocentric fool. He was no fun to be around and Rivera had learned nothing from him. The standing job offer to join Leroy Bradshaw’s private practice in Santa Fe once again entered his mind. It was like a security blanket for his professional life.

Another reason to leave might be Amy Rousseau. She was on sabbatical at the Dolores River Research Institute and the end of her term was fast approaching. She had applied for research positions at several universities and would probably receive more than one job offer. She was only 27 years old, but had already published nineteen peer-reviewed publications in prominent botany journals. She was expecting to receive an offer from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. That was her hope since Albuquerque wasn’t far from her family in Santa Rosa. If Rivera stayed in Moab, his relationship with Amy would become one of those long distance things that usually falls apart and dissolves. That possibility hung heavy in his mind. But if he lived in Santa Fe, working for Bradshaw, he’d only be an hour away from her.

Three reasons to leave Moab and move back to New Mexico. And he sensed that someday he would probably do just that. But he wasn’t sure this was the right time. There was a kind of magnetism that pulled him to the canyon country and held him with a strong attractive force. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself, but it was there and it was powerful. He was where he wanted to be, doing the kind of work he loved to do. What more could anyone ask for?

He thought about what Betty had said, that there was no way Bucky Allen could have assaulted Penny Daugherty. Chris Carey had said the same thing. So had Millie Ives, the sheriff’s dispatcher. Their collective judgment about Bucky’s character carried some weight, but the evidence against him was strong. A competent prosecutor would have little trouble convincing a jury of his guilt.

Betty returned with his breakfast. “I hear Matthew Monroe is coming to town to give a speech tonight. Word has it his re-election is now in doubt. Russell White from Escalante has just about overtaken him.”

“I don’t pay much attention to politics, but I understand it’s a pretty spirited race.”

“To say the least. I went to the speech White gave Wednesday night. It was good. He seemed like a warm, caring guy.”

Rivera sprinkled pepper on his eggs. “Do you think he can beat Matthew Monroe?”

“Maybe. People seem to like him.”

“It’s usually pretty difficult to unseat an incumbent.”

“Well, I’ve been hearing some negative things about Monroe. My next door neighbor said he’s the one behind that fence cutting in the mountains. She heard he paid someone to hire Bucky Allen to do it. She said Monroe’s an environmental extremist. I’ve heard that from a few other people too.”

“What other people?”

“Customers. Other waitresses. Like I told you, Manny, all information gravitates to the Rim Rock Diner.”

As Rivera drove down Main Street to the office, he thought about the political comments Betty had heard. Was it really possible that Congressman Matthew Monroe was behind the fence cutting? Was he trying to stir up trouble between the cattlemen and the environmentalists? What could be gained from that? He smiled and shook his head. It made no sense.

Rivera sat down at his desk, picked up the phone, and called Adam Dunne.

“Adam, just between you and me, I’ve got some new information on the Penny Daugherty assault. Bucky Allen’s attorney claims Bucky is innocent. He said Bucky admits to the fence cutting and the cattle killing, but he denies the assault charges.” Rivera related to Dunne the story Bucky’s attorney told him.

“Bucky had the means, the motive, and the opportunity,” Dunne said. “And he had Penny’s blood on his shirt. I suppose his story is plausible but, I don’t know, the FBI has a strong case. And Lisowski is charging ahead like a bull.”

“Some people whose opinions I respect said there was no way Bucky would assault a law enforcement officer, that it just wasn’t in his DNA.”

“Sounds like you’re beginning to have some doubts about the whole affair.”

“Not really. Well, maybe. It just all seems to be a little too pat, you know what I mean?”

“Well, who else would have a motive?”

Rivera laughed. “I don’t know. Betty at the Rim Rock Diner thinks it’s tied to the Republican primary race.”

Dunne chuckled. “Could be. Politicians have a strong desire to win. No telling what some of them might do.”

“I’m going back to the Harrison Ranch to see if I can jog Mr. Harrison’s memory. Bucky saw his pickup heading back to the ranch around the time of the attack or a little before. Maybe he’d seen something. I plan to take him through his trip, step-by-step. See if he can remember seeing anything. I have a nagging feeling that we’re missing something. The trajectories of too many events seem to intersect at the mouth of Beaver Canyon. All on the same day, around the same time.”

“We’ve been all over that area. What do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that I have the feeling John Baron’s disappearance is somehow tied into the Penny Daugherty case.” His feelings were baseless, he knew, but he’d learned long ago not to ignore them. His grandfather, the wisest man he’d ever known, had told him once that they were often the result of the subconscious mind trying to call something to the attention of the conscious mind.

“When are you heading out there?”

“Right now. Want to come along?”

“Well, I’ve got a pretty light schedule, now that our Washington visitors have departed and Agent Lisowski is satisfied he has Penny’s killer behind bars.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Pick me up in ten minutes.”

Rivera pulled up in front of the BLM office building. Dunne was waiting there, standing next to a maintenance worker who was scrubbing the wall with a rag, trying to remove some red graffiti.

“What happened to your building?” asked Rivera as Dunne hopped into the pickup.

“Somebody tagged it with spray paint last night. It says, ‘Return Public Lands to the States!’ Second time this week we got trashed. The crazies are out in full force. We should have anticipated that and posted a guard. There are a lot of troublemakers converging on our little town these days.”

“I know. There were a couple of scuffles in town last night and one fist fight. Environmentalists parading with anti-grazing placards came upon some of those motorcyclists coming out of a bar. Words were exchanged, somebody pushed somebody, and then it got physical. City cops broke it up. One arrest—a guy from Pasadena. He quit his job as a school teacher to come here and support the cattlemen.”

“I noticed the folks with the placards were parading downtown again this morning. This time they have a police escort.”

“I wonder when all this will end.”

The sun was halfway up the sky when they arrived at the Harrison Ranch. They were invited into the Harrison home and sat in the living room, Rivera and Dunne on matching stuffed chairs and the Harrisons sitting close to one another on the couch. The room was furnished with rustic pieces. On the end tables were vases filled with freshly cut roses, no doubt products of the Harrison’s garden. A floral scent filled the room. On one wall were photos of Arabian horses, some with award ribbons attached to an upper corner of the frame. Another wall contained a photo of their son, Edward Tillman. He was wearing backcountry gear and holding hiking poles, apparently getting ready to ascend the mountain behind him in the photo.

Rivera started off tentatively. “Mr. Harrison, I’d like to take you back to this past Monday, the day you saw the MedEvac helicopter fly over your ranch. We have reason to believe you were at the mouth of the canyon earlier that day. Do you remember that?”

Harrison looked at his wife, then back at Rivera. “You know, all the days seem to run together in my mind. I’m usually out there once a day tending to the bees. Checking on the condition of the hives, collecting honey, and so forth. So yes, I’m sure I was out there that day.”

“It would have been the day we had that heavy rainstorm. Hailstones and lots of thunder. Do you remember that day in particular?”

Mr. Harrison looked lost. “I think so.”

“Do you remember getting into your truck, starting the engine, driving from the ranch to the mouth of the canyon?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

He didn’t sound sure. Mrs. Harrison reached over and held his hand.

“What did you do when you got there?”

“I think that day all I did was check the hives. I didn’t collect any honey.” He looked at his wife. “Eve, do you remember if I brought back any honey that day?”

“I don’t think you did.”

“Then I must have been there for only a few minutes, just checking on things.”

Rivera’s hopes for a crystal clear re-enactment of the scene by Mr. Harrison were fading. Harrison’s mental capacities didn’t seem up to the task. “Do you remember seeing anyone else out there? A kayaker on the river, a hiker, a ranger in uniform wearing a tan shirt and brown pants?”

Harrison shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’d like to be of some help but I just can’t remember seeing anyone.”

“What do you think?” asked Rivera as he and Dunne drove out through the canyon.

“I think the old guy’s brain cells and synapses are deteriorating. My uncle went through the whole dementia thing. His mind just didn’t function the way he wanted it to, At first you could see the frustration on his face when he tried to recall a name or a fact. Then, as the years went by, the frustration gave way to acceptance, as though he just got tired of fighting it. Didn’t try much after that. Finally he passed away quietly. Very sad for the whole family.”

“Think Mr. Harrison saw anything?”

“There’s no way to know for sure.”

When they reached the mouth of Beaver Canyon, Rivera pulled his vehicle off the dirt road onto a grassy area. “I noticed something driving in here that I want to get a closer look at.”

“What?”

“C’mon, I’ll show you.”

They got out of the vehicle.

Rivera pointed at the canyon wall, green with growth from the water seep. “Look at that seep. Notice anything unusual?”

Dunne stared at it. Shrugged and looked at Rivera. “Not really. What are you seeing?”

“I had the advantage of visiting a lot of springs and seeps when I retraced John Baron’s water sampling route. All the others were active with birds and butterflies and other critters coming to get a drink of water. This one doesn’t seem to have any.”

“You’re right,” said Dunne. “That’s unusual for a seep. Let’s go over and take a closer look.”

They walked to the canyon wall, entered the cool shade of the sandstone alcove, and stopped in front of the seep.

Rivera pointed at the pool of water at the bottom of the seep. “Look.”

Dunne squatted and inspected the pool. “That’s odd. All I see is a bunch of dead critters in there. Bugs and snails and grasshoppers. A few others I couldn’t name. I wonder what happened here. These seeps are supposed to be clear, fresh water, filtered through layers of sandstone.”

“Something toxic must have leaked into that seep. Or maybe it was put there on purpose.”

“Dunne stood up. “Sure looks that way.”

“First time I saw this seep, I wouldn’t have picked up on that. But after visiting all the others, the difference is noticeable. I’m going to get a sample of that water. Have it analyzed.”

“Good idea.”

Rivera walked to his pickup and extracted a box of clear plastic evidence bags. He returned to the seep, filled one of them with a sample of the water, and sealed it. “I’ll take this to the Steadman Company and have them do an analysis. See what fouled it.” He started back to his vehicle, then stopped. “Come to think of it, I might as well take some of these dead critters too. I’ll ask Amy if there’s anyone at the Dolores River Research Institute who’s an expert on desert fauna. Maybe we can get an enlightened opinion about why they died.”

20

RIVERA DROPPED OFF Adam Dunne at his office, then called Amy Rousseau. He told her about the dead critters he’d found in the seep and wondered if there was someone at the D.R.R.I who could take a look at them. He said he was interested in knowing what had killed them and anything else he could learn about them. She said there indeed was a scientist at the research institute who specialized in desert fauna. She would see if he might be able to help and would call Rivera back as soon as she had an answer.

Now Rivera sat in Priscilla Zimmerman’s office at the Steadman Company, explaining to her what he’d discovered at the Beaver Canyon seep, and how different that seep had looked compared to the other seeps on John Baron’s route.

“All the other seeps and springs were alive with activity—birds, bugs, butterflies, so forth. There was none of that at the Beaver Canyon seep. All we found was a collection of dead critters in the pool at the base of the seep.”

“That’s exactly why we run our testing program. If something is fouling the water, we want to detect that fact, identify the intruding substance, and take remedial action. Sometimes the problem is man-made, but sometimes it’s caused by a hazardous compound leaching naturally out of the surrounding rock.”

Rivera held up the plastic bag containing the water sample. “Could your lab run some tests on this and tell me what fouled the water?”

“Sure.” She took the sample from Rivera, left the office, and returned a couple of minutes later. “We’ll run a standard battery of tests and have the answer for you before noon tomorrow.”

“What could be leaching out of the rock that would cause something like this?”

“Lots of things. Arsenic, for one. It’s a powerful poison and not uncommon in this part of the country. Beryllium and selenium are a couple of others.” She thought for a moment. “Those same water sources were tested six months ago. Let me check the data base to see if any toxic compounds were detected back then.” She turned to her computer, tapped a series of keystrokes, and peered at the monitor. Shook her head. “Nope, there were no signs of any toxins six months ago. It was a perfectly normal seep.”

“What can you conclude from that?”

“If something toxic were leaching out of the rock and contaminating the water, I would have expected to see at least a trace of it in the previous sample. So, unless an animal came along and somehow fouled the water, its cause is likely man-made.”

“If it was man made, that raises the question of whether it was accidental or deliberate.”

“I can’t imagine it was deliberate. I know there’s been a lot of nonsense going on in the mountains recently, but I don’t believe anyone would resort to poisoning water sources.”

“I agree, but if you add a few out-of-town, anti-government crazies into the mix, there’s no telling what they might do to stir up trouble.”

She stared past Rivera at the wall behind him for a time, apparently in deep thought. “Have you found any sign of John Baron? Everyone keeps asking me about him.”

“Nothing yet, but tell me something, have you ever known Baron to do anything unusual or surprising? Anything that struck you as inconsistent with his normal behavior or character?”

“I was just thinking about that. But, no, I can’t think of anything. He’s always acted as a competent scientist and a gentleman. I’ve smelled marijuana on him a time or two, but that’s not unusual anymore for someone his age. He’s never been late for work and I’ve never heard anyone complain about him. He’s very dedicated to his grandfather and takes good care of him. No, I’d say nothing unusual or surprising.”

On the way back to his vehicle, Rivera’s iPhone buzzed. It was Amy.

“Good news, Manny. Dr. Zachary Sterling, a professor at Berkeley, said he would help us. He’s a worldrenowned scientist specializing in desert fauna. Critters, as you call them. He has two PhDs, one in philosophy from Oxford and one in biology from Harvard. He’s very intelligent. His dissertation concerned survival strategies used by threatened species. Dr. Smythe invited him here for a couple of weeks to lecture those of us on sabbatical and to review our work. We’re so lucky he’s here with us.”

Rivera rolled his eyes. He resented Amy going on and on like that about another man. She seemed a little too enthusiastic about this guy. It created in Rivera a pang of jealousy and stirred up his male competitive instincts.

“That’s great,” he managed.

“I’ll drive him to Moab this evening if you’ll spring for dinner.”

“I will. Could we meet at Pasta Jay’s at six?”

“Oh, good. I love their chicken parmigiana. And six would be perfect.”

“Adam Dunne also has an interest in this. I’ll invite him to join us.”

“See you there.”

21

MANNY RIVERA AND Adam Dunne sat at a table on the outdoor patio of Pasta Jay’s. It was a cool evening and the restaurant was filling up with tourists and locals.

“You think this guy will be able to shed some light on our problem?” asked Dunne.

“I hope so. Amy made him sound like some sort of desert fauna guru.” He looked at his watch. Amy and her scientist friend were already fifteen minutes late. He stood up and scanned the people approaching on the Main Street sidewalk. About a half block away, he spotted them heading his way. The scientist was walking with a confident stride. He was gesturing as though he had just made an important but humorous point and Amy was looking up at him and laughing. She was wearing form-fitting, white slacks and a lavender top. She looked as beautiful as he had ever seen her.

Unfortunately, the scientist had movie-star good looks. He was tall and tan, with dark wavy hair that hung to his collar. He looked like he worked out in the gym on a regular basis. Rivera estimated he was in his early thirties. He was dressed in pressed khaki slacks and a fresh white shirt with the top three buttons open. He was sporting a dark two-day stubble and worst of all, he had a damn dimple on his chin. Rivera pulled in his stomach.

Amy spotted Rivera and waved. They came through the entryway and approached the table. Rivera noticed the scientist had one hand around her waist and the other holding her wrist, sort of guiding her to the table. How gallant.

She gave Rivera a hug. Introductions were made and handshakes were exchanged. Dr. Zachary Sterling pulled out a chair for Amy and gestured for her to be seated. To Rivera, his manner was courtly, even affected. The seat he placed her in was across the table from Rivera and, of course, right next to Mr. Hollywood himself. Rivera considered changing the arrangement but decided to leave things the way they were. He needed Sterling’s help; no sense alienating him.

Sterling waved a finger at a young waiter who hustled over to the table, order pad in hand. The scientist spoke with his chin tilted upward, Amy watching his face. “The lady will have a glass of your best Chianti and I’ll have a margarita on the rocks. Instruct the barkeep to prepare it with Sauza Añejo tequila. Use only Triple Sec with freshly squeezed lime juice. And for heaven’s sake, not a grain of sugar. He turned to Rivera and raised his eyebrows, indicating it was Rivera’s turn to order.

Rivera ordered a glass of Chianti and looked at Dunne who was looking back at him and not doing a very good job of trying to suppress a grin. Rivera got the friendly barb—Dunne was enjoying his buddy’s obvious discomfort. Dunne ordered iced tea.

While they waited for the drinks to arrive, Amy talked about Dr. Sterling’s background and his education and his being selected as a Rhodes Scholar and how, because of his pioneer work in the role of survival mechanisms in evolutionary development, he’d been one of the youngest ever to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She looked up at Sterling from time to time as she spoke, and Rivera saw something in those glances that was—what?—adulation? The way a teenage girl looks at a rock star? Had this guy already swept her off her feet? Amy was a serious scientist, aggressive in the pursuit of professional accomplishment and recognition—Rivera knew that—so maybe she was interested in Sterling only as a scientific colleague. Maybe she was just impressed with his success in the scientific community. But maybe it was more than that.

Conversation about happenings at the D.R.R.I. dominated the first part of dinner, with Amy and Sterling doing most of the talking and keeping the conversation on a scientific theme. Topics such as science funding, opportunities in science, arcane publications Rivera never heard of, and the accomplishments and failures of their peers were discussed. Occasionally the two of them laughed, Rivera having no idea what was so humorous.

Then surprisingly, Sterling turned his attention to Rivera and smiled. He asked him about his background, about his family, and about why he’d moved to Moab. He wondered about life here and what the winters were like. He actually seemed cordial. Still, Rivera didn’t trust him and resented his attention to Amy and his condescending manner. But Sterling continued. He asked Rivera if he’d ever been to San Francisco. Rivera said no, but he hoped to visit someday. Sterling gave him his business card and said he hoped their paths would cross again in the future. Soon Amy and Dunne were out of the conversation as Rivera and Sterling engaged in a dialogue about life and travel and the beauty of the high desert. Rivera noticed Dunne was wearing that same irritating smile during the entire conversation.

After dinner, Sterling picked up his napkin with both hands and carefully dabbed at his mouth. “I understand you’re interested in my opinion regarding some high desert fauna you found at a seep?”

“Right. A few days ago, I visited a series of springs and seeps in the mountains as part of a missing person case I’m working on. Each water source was burgeoning with life. Except for one. It contained the remains of some dead creatures and, as best I could tell, live ones wouldn’t come near it. I brought some of them along to show you.”

“Splendid. Let’s have a look.”

Rivera extracted a transparent evidence bag from his shirt pocket. It contained a representative sample of what he and Adam had found at the base of the seep. He placed it flat on the table. Sterling and Amy leaned forward to get a closer look.

Sterling’s eyes enlarged. He opened the bag, extracted several snail carcasses, and inspected them. “My God, do you know what you’ve got here?” He held them in his palm for Rivera to see. Each of the shells was light brown in color and about half the size of a penny.

Rivera looked at it, shrugged, and produced a palms-up gesture. “That’s what we were hoping you could—”

“These snails. They’re Kanab ambersnails.”

Rivera looked at Dunne. Dunne’s smirk was gone. Now he was staring at Sterling with interest.

“What’s a Kanab ambersnail?” asked Rivera.

“It’s an endangered species. I need to know exactly where you found these snails.” He pulled a notepad and pen from his pants pocket. “Where is that seep?”

“It’s on the other side of the LaSals.”

“This is an incredible find. I need to know its exact location. I must study it and report the results to the scientific community.”

“Why is this so important?”

Sterling inhaled and exhaled audibly through his mouth, looked at Rivera with an expression of impatience and exasperation. “Because, Deputy, these snails are known to exist only in two places on earth, in a wet meadow near Kanab, Utah, and at a spring in the Grand Canyon. They’re considered a critically endangered species and their number is dwindling. If they also exist in the LaSals, why, that’s huge. I must learn about it. Report on it.”

Rivera sat back. His mind was buzzing with questions.

Dunne spoke. “The seep where we found those snails is at the mouth of—”

“Hold it, Adam,” said Rivera. “I think for the time being we’d better keep the location secret until we’ve completed our investigation.” Rivera suddenly felt in charge of the proceedings. The alpha male at the table. It was a welcome change. He was no longer the condescendee. “We’ll let you know in due course where that seep is. I hope you understand. Police business.”

Subsequent pleadings by Sterling went unheeded. Soon thereafter, Sterling looked at his watch. “We’d better get going, Amy. I’ve got to get an early start in the morning and it’s a long drive back to the Institute.”

Rivera gave Amy a hug and watched her go off with Sterling. He sat down and gulped down the rest of his wine. He looked at Dunne, who was smiling again.

“What’s so funny, Adam? You’ve had that irritating grin on your face all night long.”

“He’s a good looking dude, isn’t he?”

“I noticed.”

“Real good looking.”

Rivera was silent for a long moment. “You think maybe Amy has a romantic interest in him?”

Dunne laughed heartily and stood up. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Manny. Thanks for dinner. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He left the patio, shaking his head and laughing as he headed for his vehicle.

22

NIKOLAS OBLONSKY HAD been at work all day, carefully preparing a not-so-welcome mat for Congressman Matthew Monroe who was scheduled to speak at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center in the evening. In the morning, he’d called into the talk-radio show twice, pretending at first to be an environmentalist who wanted no commercial activities on federal lands and who, as an aide to Congressman Monroe, declared his undying allegiance to the man who said he was preparing legislation banning all such activities—not just cattle grazing in the LaSal Mountains, but all commercial activities on all federal land. He’d said the legislation would be introduced during the next session of Congress. That call produced a series of irate and angry calls decrying the plan as unfair and un-American.

Later in the morning, Oblonsky had called the radio station a second time, got himself in the call queue, changed his voice, and claimed to be a rancher in Monticello who planned to attend Monroe’s speech this evening. He urged all his fellow ranchers to do the same and protest Monroe’s planned legislation.

In the afternoon, he’d called the radio station a third time and made a long and impassioned statement with still another voice, reading from his carefully prepared notes.

“I live in southern Utah, on private land near Glendale in Kane County. Back in the nineties, President Clinton declared that a 1.9 million acre tract of federal land in southern Utah would be set aside as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He’d never visited the place and I’d wager, neither had his staff. Yet, from Washington D.C., such a declaration was made. That land covered major portions of several counties. Kane County, which is nearly 90% federally-owned land, took a major hit. Land that formerly was used for ranching, timber gathering, and mining was suddenly restricted from economic activity, including what was estimated to be the largest high-quality, low-sulfur coal mine in the country. It was a stunning financial blow to the county and the families who lived in these economically depressed communities.

“Congressman Matthew Monroe is coming to Moab this evening to give a speech, hoping to garner votes for his re-election. His father and his grandfather, both good men, would never have supported legislation to restrict commercial use of federal lands. They would never have sold out to the eastern liberals the way Matthew Monroe has done. He has no idea what it feels like to be unemployed or what it feels like for a working man to be forced to accept welfare to feed his family. He’s a disgrace to the Monroe name and the pioneer spirit of Utah.”

Oblonsky had known from his internet research that the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was a hot-button topic in southern Utah. His call triggered a long series of subsequent calls, each one arguing for the defeat of Monroe. Oblonsky had been so convincing during his monologue that his remarks were played back several times during the remainder of the afternoon and had become the main topic of discussion.

Now, an hour before Monroe’s talk was scheduled to begin, Oblonsky was gratified to see dozens of ranchers gathered in front of the MARC. Their dusty pickup trucks lined both sides of Center Street as far as the eye could see. They were milling about in front of the MARC, discussing Monroe and his proposed policies for banning commercial activities on federal lands. Oblonsky talked to some of them, pretending to be an interested onlooker. They had driven in from all over southern Utah to make their opinions known to Monroe. They looked to be the salt of the earth, good men who wanted to work to support their families, and who didn’t want to leave the land they loved to look for work in the oil fields of Montana and Texas. Not all were ranchers. Some were businessmen with mining and timber interests. Their mood was somber and Oblonsky detected a fearsome undercurrent of resentment in their voices.

Environmentalists with placards were gathered nearby, rejoicing at the news of Monroe’s proposed ban. They were young, loud, and exuberant. A leader in the group, one of the young men who’d come to protect the LMPA, was leading cheers in support of Monroe. Across the street were the motorcyclists who had come to town to support the ranchers. They were a tough looking bunch, dressed in their leathers and quietly staring at the environmentalists with sullen expressions. Moab city cops were out in force to quell any disturbances.

Earlier in the day, Oblonsky had slipped through a side door into the MARC and walked quietly to the speaker’s podium located on the stage. He disconnected the audio cable between the microphone and the amplifier, connected a tiny electronic device in series with the cable, and reconnected the cable to the microphone. The process took less than a minute.

The device was specially designed for him by a technician friend who owned an audio repair shop. He’d used it many times in the past during political campaigns. It was a standard tool in his dirty tricks bag. With a remote control unit in his pocket, he could sit in the audience and send a signal to the device that would replace the speaker’s words with a screeching sound, simulating an audio feedback problem. The device was also capable of simulating several other types of sound effects on command. Speakers found the interruptions annoying and distracting. Done at the right times, it would cause the speaker to become angry and lose track of the point he was trying to make.

Finally, the front doors of the building opened and the mass of attendees pushed through. Oblonsky found an aisle seat in the back of the auditorium and sat down.

Matthew Monroe came onto the stage after the attendees had been seated. There was a raucous applause from the environmental community when he appeared on stage and walked to the podium. He was smiling a politician’s smile and waving into the darkness of the room. He adjusted the position of the microphone and waited for the applause to subside.

Monroe told them how happy he was to be back in Utah, away from the chaos and in-fighting of Washington. He went through a litany of preliminaries, praising the people of Utah, the governor, the people of Grand County and Moab, and the city and county councilmen, several of whom were present. He went on describing and lauding the beautiful backcountry of southern Utah and how fortunate he was to represent the people who lived there. He reminded them of the upcoming primary election on Tuesday and the importance of voting.

“Not for you, you traitor!” shouted Oblonsky. “We know what you’re up to.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” said one of the environmentalists who was sitting in the front row.

Other attendees shouted out their views and the next minute was filled with loud arguments among members of the audience. Monroe stood there with a look of disbelief on his face. He waved his hands in a “calm down” motion.

“Please, ladies and gentlemen,” said Monroe as he tried to continue. “We’re here to discuss the issues in an orderly and respectful way. I want to hear your views and there will be plenty of time for questions at the end of my remarks. Your opinions are very important to me.”

The room quieted down. “I want all of you to know that I…”

Oblonsky pressed one of the buttons on his remote control and the rest of Monroe’s sentence was buried in screeching static.

The static ended. Monroe shrugged and smiled. “I’ll repeat what I just said. “I want each and every one of you to know that I…”

The static resumed.

Monroe’s expression revealed his annoyance. “I’m going to run a bill through Congress for some monies to upgrade the audio system at the MARC.” He forced a laugh and there was a smattering of laughter in the audience. “But, seriously, I want you to know…” More static.

Someone shouted something unintelligible from the audience and soon there were arguments among the attendees.

When the grousing tapered off, Monroe said, “I know how to fix this.” He walked away from the podium to center stage. He raised his voice to a shout. “I guess I’ll have to speak without a mike.”

The problem was, with the undercurrent of chatter in the audience, attendees sitting in the back half of the room couldn’t hear Monroe. People in the rear began shouting for Monroe to speak up. Some of the attendees got up and walked out. The motorcycle gang, sitting on the left side of the auditorium, all stood up and began hazing Monroe with unkind remarks. A police officer told them to sit down and be quiet. A few did; others continued the jeering. Soon others in the room were shouting and then someone threw an overripe tomato at Monroe. It splashed against the podium and splattered on his face. His smile was replaced by a look of shock.

Now the entire room was filled with loud voices. People were jostling one another, some trying to move to the front of the auditorium, others trying to escape to the rear. The police were scrambling, trying to calm down the crowd.

Oblonsky sensed the time was right. He pressed a second button on his remote control and the sound of a gunshot came across the sound system. Then another. Chaos ensued. Police drew their weapons and most of the crowd ducked to the floor. Monroe’s handlers ran onstage and spirited the congressman off the stage and out of the building to safety. Monroe’s speech was over.

Late that night, about two o’clock in the morning, Oblonsky drove to Monroe’s motel room and taped five strands of barbed wire across the door to his room. He then knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again, louder this time. A light came on.

“Who is it?” Monroe grumbled.

“Important message from the Speaker, Congressman Monroe.”

“What?”

Oblonsky heard a rattling of the door’s security chain. He backed away, holding a camera at the ready.

The door opened. Monroe was in his pajamas, hair mussed up, eyes squinting, a grumpy look on his face. When he saw the barbed wire, he became furious and grabbed a strand. Pulled it off and held it in front of him, angrily staring at it.

Oblonsky’s camera took twelve rapid-fire photos during that three second period. He then jumped into his waiting car and sped off, laughing out loud at Monroe’s facial expression. It couldn’t have worked out any better if he had scripted it himself.

Back in his motel room, he selected the best images and appended a caption to them: Congressman Matthew Monroe caught destroying fences again. He laughed at his own wit as he loaded them into a thumb drive. He hadn’t had this much fun in years. He used the computer in the motel lobby to forward the images to newspapers and television stations throughout Utah. He did the same with the national news media.

When he finished, he went back to his room, feeling a sense of satisfaction. Tomorrow, that photo would be on the front page of every newspaper in the state. It would be the main topic of conversation on the talk-radio shows. And it would make Monroe the laughing stock of Utah.

Oblonsky extracted a mini-bottle of bourbon from his suitcase, poured it into a plastic cup from the bathroom, toasted himself in the mirror, and took a long, satisfying drink. Four more days until the election. He was feeling good about his prospects for earning the bonus Wallace Lamont had promised him.

23

MOAB’S TALK-RADIO SHOW was filled with lively discussion as Rivera drove to the office on Saturday morning. He turned up the volume so he could hear every word. The dominant topics were the dreadful reception Matthew Monroe had received last night at the MARC and the hilarious photograph that was on the front page of most Utah newspapers. The photo was going viral on the internet.

Rivera grabbed a mug of coffee in the break room and went to his office. He sat down at his computer and accessed the Salt Lake Tribune’s website. He wanted to see the photo that everyone was talking about. He laughed and shook his head when it was displayed on his monitor, thankful he was a cop and not a politician.

His telephone rang. The caller was Priscilla Zimmerman at the Steadman Company.

“The lab just finished analyzing the water sample you brought in yesterday. The water has been polluted with cypermethrin. It’s a chemical found in many household insecticide products.”

“So the seep was deliberately polluted.”

“Right. Cypermethrin isn’t something that would leach out of the sandstone. It doesn’t occur naturally. It’s a manufactured chemical.”

“Okay, Priscilla. Thanks very much.”

“Any news yet on John Baron?”

“Nothing yet, I’m afraid.”

“I visited his grandfather yesterday. The poor man is worried sick. He misses John, of course, but he also needs someone to look after him. I contacted Social Services and they said you had already made arrangements for them to send someone to visit him every day and see to his needs.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure if he was able to take care of himself.”

“Will you call me if you learn anything about John?”

“I will. I promise.”

Rivera hoisted his feet onto his desk, sat back, and looked out the window at the LaSals. With so many things having happened at the mouth of Beaver Canyon, he wondered if there was some overarching theme that tied them all together. He needed to step back from the details, look at the big picture, and see if he could figure out what that theme was, assuming one existed.

First, Bucky Allen cuts a fence and drives some cattle over the edge of a bluff. Then Penny Daugherty is assaulted. Rivera arrives at the scene and spots Bucky leaving. Allen later claimed to be working for a man he couldn’t identify. John Baron disappears in that same area around the same time. And a seep nearby, populated with an endangered species of snails, is poisoned by someone. What could possibly tie all these events together? Rivera thought about it for a long time but could find no unifying theme.

He picked up the phone and called Adam Dunne. He informed him the seep had been deliberately poisoned and shared his hunch that something tied together the recent events that took place at the mouth of Beaver Canyon. Something they were missing. He said he was going back out there to look around some more.

“Manny, we’ve been all over that area. What more do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know, Adam. I just have a strong sense that I’m overlooking something. Maybe being there will help me think it through better than just sitting in my office.”

“And I’m guessing you’re calling your old friend Adam on this beautiful Saturday morning to see if he wants to go along. That right?”

“You’d sure be welcome.”

Saturday was the day Rivera usually took Bentley for a walk in the backcountry, and today would be no different. He went home, picked up his dog, then drove to Castle Valley and picked up Dunne at his home. They made the long drive to Beaver Canyon with Bentley sleeping in the back seat.

Rivera parked at the mouth of the canyon. When he opened the door, Bentley jumped out and sprinted down the road a hundred yards, turned around, and sprinted back. Rivera strolled with Dunne into the canyon.

“Bentley likes to run,” said Dunne.

“He does. And he seems to know when it’s Saturday. After I feed him and open the front door of the house, he runs to my pickup and waits with wagging tail. I’m convinced he knows how to read a calendar.”

They stopped at the place where Penny had been assaulted, then walked farther into the canyon to the seep. They inspected it again, now with the knowledge it had been deliberately poisoned. Bentley walked up to the seep, sniffed at the water, and jerked back his head.

“Do you think it was poisoned because it contained an endangered species?” asked Dunne.

“I’d guess so. Would the cattlemen have an incentive to eliminate endangered species from the mountains?”

“Possibly, if they thought the existence of an endangered species would be grounds for the BLM to reduce grazing further or eliminate it altogether. But there’s no grazing down here in Beaver Canyon.”

“What about the environmentalists? Would they poison it and try implicate the cattlemen?” asked Rivera.

“Man, I hope not. That would be contra to everything an environmentalist stands for.”

“Okay, the sequence of events that took place here that day goes something like this, as best I can figure it. Let me run through it and you see if you can make any sense out of it. First, Bucky cuts the fence and drives the cattle over the edge of the bluff. That happened about four miles up canyon. Penny gives chase. Bucky sees Mr. Harrison’s truck driving toward his ranch. Sometime around that time, maybe a little before, John Baron arrives at the seep to sample the water. Surely he would have noticed the dead critters.”

“Right, but only if they were dead at that point. It’s possible the seep was poisoned later.”

“Ah, very true,” said Rivera. “When we were out here the day after the assault on Penny, we looked at the seep. But I can’t remember whether or not there were butterflies and birds flying to and from the seep. Can You?”

Dunne shook his head. “I can’t remember either.”

Rivera thought about the significance of that question for a long moment, wondering how it might affect his mental model of the sequence of events. He could reach no conclusion. “So then Penny arrives. She’s attacked by Bucky or John Baron or someone else. Then I arrive and see Bucky leaving the scene. After that, John Baron is never seen again. All the while those events are happening, a resurgence of the Sagebrush Rebellion is taking place in the mountains and in town. Can you make any sense out of all that?’

Dunne thought for a long moment. “Here’s a possible scenario. Someone paid John Baron to poison the seep. While he’s doing the dirty deed, Penny arrives and catches him in the act. He hits her with a rock, not intending to kill her, so he can get away. Maybe she knew him from Moab. So he leaves the area for good.”

Rivera thought about that. Nodded. “Very possible. But from what I’ve learned about John Baron, that would be out of character. He seems like a good citizen. Anyway, why would someone pay him to poison the seep?”

Dunne shrugged. “No idea. Unless they wanted the Kanab ambersnails eliminated from the mountains.”

“Well, who even knew they were here?”

“John Baron would have seen them when he was collecting a water sample. But would he have known what they were? To most people, they’d just look like regular old snails. Who would know the difference?”

“Baron was working on a PhD in environmental biology,” said Rivera. “He could easily have been familiar with ambersnails.”

“Okay, so let’s say he knew what they were. Why would he poison them?”

“I can’t think of a reason. I also can’t think of a reason he’d be carrying poison with him on his rounds.”

“He might have spotted them six months ago—the last time he’d collected samples on this route,” said Dunne.

“So this time he brings poison to kill them. Could be. But that doesn’t answer the question of why he’d want to kill them in the first place.”

They reflected on that as they walked farther into the canyon. They stopped about fifty feet from the beehives. “I’m guessing Mr. Harrison was out here tending to his beehives around that time. Bucky spotted his truck heading back to the ranch,” said Rivera. “If only Harrison could remember something.”

They stood in silence looking at the beehives, watching the bees fly in and out, productively going about the business of making honey.

“Manny, I just noticed something strange,” said Dunne. “It’s something I should have noticed last time we were out here.”

“What?”

“See that beehive over there all by itself? The one Bentley is sniffing at?”

“What about it?”

“It seems out of place. My friend in Castle Valley who has honeybees keeps the beehives up against the cliff face of Porcupine Rim. I asked him one time why he kept them there instead of on his own five acre tract in the middle of the valley where they’d be closer to his house and easier to service. He said it was best for hives to get the morning sun because the warmth activates the hive and the bees get to work earlier and with more energy. As you know, Porcupine Rim is an east facing bluff. He also said it was best to keep them shaded in the afternoon because the heat of the afternoon sun can be destructive to the health of the hive. The rim allowed for morning sun on the hives and provided afternoon shade.”

“Okay,” said Rivera.

“Now, look at Harrison’s hives.” He pointed. “Those five over there are positioned so that they get the morning sun but are shaded by those cottonwood trees in the afternoon.” He pointed to the lone beehive. “The sixth one, over there by itself, is on the opposite side of the trees. So it would get shade in the morning and sun in the afternoon.”

Rivera looked at the placement of the beehives. It was true. There was nothing to shade the sixth beehive in the afternoon. He walked toward the grouping of five beehives, each one separated by about thirty feet, getting as close as he dared. A few curious honeybees buzzed his head and caused him to retreat a few steps. He studied the area. Close to where he was standing, he noticed a rectangle of matted dead grass interspersed with a few shoots of whitish-green grass. The dimensions of the rectangle matched the footprint of the beehives.

“Adam, I think that sixth beehive might have recently been moved from this spot right here. I wonder why it was moved.”

Dunne was approaching the sixth beehive. “Manny, the soil under this beehive looks like it was recently dug up.”

Rivera joined him. Now Bentley was close to the beehive, probing the soil with his nose, and jerking back each time a bee buzzed his head. “That’s odd,” said Rivera. He had a sinking feeling as he studied the freshly turned dirt. “Adam, we need to move that beehive and see what’s buried beneath it.”

“Yeah.” Dunne looked at him. “What about the bees?”

“Wait here. I’ll go see if we can borrow some of Mr. Harrison’s protective clothing. Maybe he’d even be willing to help us move it.”

“Good idea. I’m not in favor of getting stung.”

“I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t let Bentley get into too much trouble.”

Rivera went to his truck and began the drive through Beaver Canyon to the ranch.

He came around the last bend in the canyon and saw the Harrison house in the distance. The maroon pickup truck was gone, but the brown one was there. Good. Mr. Harrison was home.

Rivera parked in front of the house and got out. Mr. Harrison was sitting in a chair on the porch, hunched over with his head in his hands, as though he were in pain.

“Are you okay, Mr. Harrison?”

Harrison looked up. “Oh, I’m okay. Just old age.” He pushed himself out of his chair and stood up. “You want some iced tea? Eve drove into Moab to pick up her son, Edward. He’s back from his latest hike on that Hayduke Trail he’s always talking about.”

“Iced tea sounds great,” said Rivera. “I’m a little dry.”

“C’mon inside and I’ll pour you a glass. It’s Eve’s special recipe. She makes that—what does she call it?—sun tea, I think.”

Rivera sat in a living room chair and Harrison brought him a glass of tea. Harrison sat down in a stuffed chair directly across from the deputy.

Rivera took a sip. “Delicious,” he said, studying Mr. Harrison’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good.”

“Oh. I’m fine. Just got a real bad headache.”

Rivera put the glass down on the coffee table atop an embroidered coaster that looked like a sunflower. “BLM Ranger Adam Dunne is with me. He’s waiting for me at the mouth of the canyon. We have a favor to ask of you. We’re still trying to sort out some things that took place back there. We noticed some fresh dirt under one of your beehives. It looks like someone buried something there and then moved a beehive to cover the place they’d dug up. Anyway, we’d like to move it and see what’s buried under it. We were wondering if we could borrow some of that protective clothing you beekeepers wear.”

Harrison looked puzzled. Frowned. “Someone moved one of my beehives? Now why would they do that?” He seemed confused, lost in thought as though his mind was searching for a way to make sense of what he’d just heard. Trying to work it out. He took a sip of iced tea. “I’d better go with you and show you how to do it. The bees won’t like it if you dump the hive over. Neither will you.”

“We’d sure appreciate that,” said Rivera.

Harrison grunted as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Let me go in the back room and get some gear. Relax and enjoy your iced tea. I’ll just be a second.”

Two minutes later, Mr. Harrison returned to the living room without the beekeeping gear. Instead, he was holding a chrome-plated revolver in his right hand, pointing it in Rivera’s direction. “Now you just sit still and listen to what I have to say.” He lowered himself into his chair. “And don’t make the mistake of thinking the old guy doesn’t know how to use this .45-caliber Colt.”

“Mr. Harrison, you’re committing a felony—”

“Save your breath, Deputy, and just listen. I’ve got my back to the wall now. No sense pretending otherwise. So I’ve got a long story to tell you.”

24

HARRISON TOOK A deep breath and let it out. “First of all, I’m dying. I have an inoperable brain tumor. My wife and stepson know nothing about it. My visits to Grand Junction the past two years were to see a doctor there. Oh, I’d always come home with some supplies, like I’d gone there to do some shopping, but most of those trips were for the purpose of seeing the doc and undergoing tests.”

He sat back in his chair with a strained look on his face, as though organizing his thoughts. His eyes moistened. “I love that woman more than I could ever say. I’m twenty-seven years older than she is and I never was much to look at. We met at a horse auction in Durango. She was young and beautiful and I, like a damned old fool, fell in love with her. All we had in common was horses. I invited her to go for coffee that day, and she accepted. We had so much to talk about, we set up a dinner date for that night. After that, I asked her out every night and I’ll be damned if she didn’t eventually fall for me. We got married and moved to my ranch here. She had a son and brought him along. He was younger then, just a boy. Edward and I bonded quickly and he became the son I never had. I loved teaching him how to do things—caring for the horses, fixing fences, operating the tractor, shooting a rifle, everything a boy living on a ranch should know. Eve and Edward transformed my lonely, unhappy life into one of pure joy. Any happiness I ever had in my life, I owe to Eve.”

“Mr. Harrison, you can talk to me without pointing that gun in my direction. It might accidentally go off,” said Rivera.

Harrison lowered the muzzle a few degrees so the weapon was pointed at the floor a few feet in front of Rivera. “So then I go to Grand Junction a couple of years ago for a general physical. I’d been feeling tired a lot and wasn’t used to that. Figured it was probably old age and maybe I needed some vitamins or medicine or something. I was a little embarrassed about it. You know, with Eve being so much younger than me. I didn’t want her thinking what a mistake she’d made marrying an older fellow like me. I guess it was vanity. Anyway, that’s when I got the bad news about the tumor. There were some tests over the next few months, then I learned it was growing and inoperable. I kept the bad news to myself.

“I knew I wouldn’t be around much longer to provide for Eve, so I had to do something so she’d be taken care of for the rest of her life. This ranch has a world class setting here in the canyon and I knew it would fetch a good sum of money. I contacted a real estate broker in Denver and put it up for sale. Eventually a company that develops resorts made an offer. A little over four million dollars. I accepted the offer and was satisfied that Eve would be financially set for the rest of her life. The contract is still in effect and the Denver outfit is doing its due diligence. As the weeks went by, I could feel my condition worsening. I told Eve and Edward about selling the ranch, but I didn’t mention the tumor. No sense them worrying about something they couldn’t change. I said I was getting tired and it was time for us to move to the city and relax. She cried for a week. She said she loved this canyon and wanted to spend the rest of her life here. The boy felt bad for his mother and tried to console her. But I knew selling was the best thing for her, especially since I wouldn’t be around to tend to the upkeep of the place.”

He took several labored breaths. “Then, something happened that threw a damn monkey wrench into my plans. I was driving out to collect honey from the hives last Sunday afternoon. When I got there, I spotted one of those water sampling people filling a small vial at the seep. I walked over to chat with him, told him my stepson, Edward Tillman, used to do that sampling work, and asked him if he knew him. He did. They’d met a couple of years ago and gotten to know each other some. Then he stood up and said, ‘Sir, do you know there’s an endangered species living in this seep?’ He showed me those snails in the water. He called them Kanab ambersnails. Said he was working on his PhD in environmental biology and recognized them from a paper he’d read. He was very happy about the discovery, and said he intended to write a scientific article about it. Maybe even use it for his dissertation topic.”

Harrison looked away from Rivera. Shook his head. “I could see my whole real estate deal going down the tubes and with it my Eve’s financial future. There’d be no way the EPA would allow a paved road to be built through Beaver Canyon. My head was hurting real bad. I felt like someone was pounding on it. I became so frustrated and angry that, God help me, when that young man looked back into the seep, I picked up a rock and smashed it into the back of his head. I checked for a pulse. He was dead. Funny thing is I didn’t feel the least bit bad about it right then. I saw him as a threat to my family.

His eyes began to tear up. “I dragged him farther up the canyon, past the beehives, to a place where the soil was soft and deep. I used the shovel in my truck to dig him a shallow grave. I buried him and his backpack and the vial he’d filled with water. Even tossed in the rock I hit him with. I was tamping down the dirt when that BLM Ranger lady walked right up behind me and asked me if I’d seen a young man wearing shorts and a dark T-shirt in the area. Said he was cutting fences up on the mesa. Said he ran some cattle off a cliff. I knew right off he wasn’t the man I’d killed. Different clothing. Then she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was just leveling the ground to put in another beehive. But I looked at the dirt and saw there were still a few fingers exposed. I don’t think she recognized them as fingers right off but then I saw her bending over to take a closer look. I picked up another rock and cracked her head with it. Thought I’d killed her too but I found out later I was wrong. I was relieved when I heard she’d died without ever coming out of her coma.”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeves. “I figured maybe the authorities would think the guy who was cutting the fences killed her. I carried her to the river and left her there. As an afterthought, I put the rock I’d hit her with next to her body. I figured someone would find her body, right there next to the river. Maybe one of those kayakers.

“I went back to the grave where I buried the young man, put on my beekeeper protective gear, and moved one of the beehives on top of the grave. I figured no one would be getting too close to the bees, so the body would never be found. Then I heard thunder. It was about to start raining, so I got in my truck and drove back to the ranch. A couple of days later, after things calmed down and law enforcement was out of the canyon, I poisoned the water in that seep so those endangered snails would never kill off my real estate deal.

“I’d always known I’d do anything for that woman. I guess killing two people for her proves the point. Looking back at it now, I can hardly believe what I did. I kind of went crazy when I saw my real estate deal being threatened, after all the planning I’d done. When your head pains you nonstop, it can make you do crazy things.”

He thought for a long moment. “When you came to the ranch asking questions, I pretended not to remember anything. My memory had been starting to fade on me anyway, so faking it was easy and I knew Eve wouldn’t suspect anything. I don’t know how you figured out someone was buried under that beehive. But you did, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I guess I’ve gone and screwed everything up.” He massaged his temple. “This pain in my head has gotten unbearable the last few days, and the pills don’t help much anymore. I guess that’s everything I wanted to say.”

He stood up, forced a wry grin. “You know what’s odd, Deputy. I feel better now that I’ve told someone the whole story. Kind of like going to confession at St. Ann’s Church back when I was a kid. You wait here a minute. It’s time to make the pain go away.” He backed out of the room, his weapon still pointed at Rivera, and disappeared through the screen door in the rear of the house. Rivera jumped to his feet when he heard the clack of the door closing and drew his gun. He was moving across the living room when he heard a loud gunshot followed by the thumping sound of a body falling to the ground. He threw open the rear door.

Harrison was lying on the ground. He’d killed himself with a bullet to the head.

25

DUSK HAD DESCENDED on Beaver Canyon by the time the beehive was moved and the mortuary team had exhumed John Baron’s body from its makeshift grave. Dr. Pudge Devlin, Grand County’s part-time Medical Examiner, had arrived at the scene, examined the corpse, and gone through the formality of officially pronouncing the young man dead. Baron’s backpack, the glass vial he’d filled at the seep, and the rock he’d been struck with had all been removed from the grave and packaged as evidence.

After Baron’s body was loaded into a hearse and transported out of the canyon, Rivera headed back to the ranch with Bentley and Adam Dunne as passengers. Devlin followed along in his personal pickup.

“I’m sure glad you noticed there was something unusual about the placement of that beehive,” said Rivera.

“Thank Bentley. I probably wouldn’t have paid any attention to it if he hadn’t been over there sniffing at it.”

“He must have detected the scent of the corpse.”

“Shame about the Baron boy,” said Dunne. “Somebody’s gonna have to tell his grandfather.”

Rivera felt Dunne’s eyes staring at him. He nodded. “I guess that’s my job. I’m sure not looking forward to it.”

Nothing was said for the next mile. Rivera drove slowly, maneuvering around the potholes and rocks in the primitive road.

Dunne finally broke the silence. “I’ll ask my beekeeper friend to move that beehive back to its proper position. No sense having those bees suffer in the afternoon heat.”

“Good idea,” said Rivera. “I guess by tomorrow, the FBI will release Bucky Allen from jail, but he still has to answer for the fences he cut, the dam he busted, and the cattle he killed. It’s clear now that Bucky had been telling the truth, but that raises the question of who hired him.”

“Somebody was trying to stir up trouble in our little town. I’d sure like to know why.”

“Anyway, the Allen family will be happy to see Bucky freed. He’s a misguided soul, but at least he’s not a killer.”

“Yeah, but your favorite FBI agent won’t be too happy. Lisowski had it all wrong. He’ll have to retract whatever reports he sent to Washington and resubmit new ones. You think there will be a little egg on his face?”

Rivera smiled. “He’ll probably blame me. I’m the one who told him about Bucky being holed up in his family’s cabin.”

“This case might tarnish Lisowski’s rising-star image,” said Dunne. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

When they arrived at the ranch, Deputy Sheriff Dave Tibbetts, a young deputy who had worked with Rivera on several previous cases, was waiting for them. Tibbetts was standing next to the body of Mr. Harrison, now covered with a white sheet and circumscribed with yellow crime scene tape.

Dr. Devlin lifted the sheet, took a quick look at Harrison, and dropped the sheet back over the rancher’s head. “Okay,” was his only comment. “That second hearse should get here shortly. Nothing much to do but wait till it arrives.”

A half hour later, as the evening was cooling down and daylight was fading, Rivera spotted a maroon pickup with two occupants driving up the canyon road toward the house. When the truck stopped, Mrs. Harrison, wide-eyed with concern, jumped out of the pickup and ran toward the group. A young man whom Rivera assumed was her son, followed along behind her.

“What happened?” she said. Then she saw the sheet and the yellow tape. She shrieked. “Oh my God, is that Henry?” She ran toward him.

Rivera stepped in front of her, gripping her arms with his hands and holding her in place. “I’m very sorry. He took his life with a .45-caliber handgun. It’s not something you want to see.”

She screamed and tried to free herself, but Rivera wouldn’t release her.

“But why, why?” she gasped, as tears ran down her cheeks.

“He had an incurable brain tumor. He told me he didn’t want to go through the pain of a slow death.”

“But he never told me…”

The young man stood there with his mouth open, dazed and silent. Mrs. Harrison pulled away from Rivera and ran to her son. They hugged each other and cried in each other’s arms. Rivera watched from a distance, giving them their privacy.

Later, a hearse arrived at the scene and removed the body. Mrs. Harrison and her son were now sitting on a wooden bench under a cottonwood tree next to the house, watching the hearse slowly depart on the canyon road. Rivera walked over to where they were seated.

“There’s a lot you don’t know and I think you need to know the whole story. He talked to me about the situation he’d created for himself before he took his own life.”

“You were there?” asked Mrs. Harrison with a surprised expression

“Yes.”

“But why didn’t you stop him?”

“He was pointing a pistol at me. He wanted me to hear his story. Then he backed out of the house, closed the door, and took his own life.”

“What story? Why did he tell you and not me? I’m his wife.” She wiped her nose with a tissue. “What situation are you talking about?”

Her son put his arm around her.

“I’ll tell you everything he told me.” Rivera grabbed a nearby lawn chair and dragged it over, positioning it so he would be facing both of them.

He took a deep breath, let it out, and fixed his eyes on Mrs. Harrison. “He said any joy he’d found in life, he owed to you. He said he loved you deeply. When he found out about the tumor, he kept it to himself because there was nothing anyone could do about it, and he didn’t want to see you worrying. But he wanted to provide for you financially so you’d have a good life after he was gone.”

Mrs. Harrison listened intently, tears welling up in her eyes and running down her cheeks.

“He said that’s why he was selling the ranch. He’d gotten a good offer on it and it was under contract for something over four million dollars. He knew you loved the ranch but with him gone, he thought the upkeep of the place would be too much for you.”

She shook her head. “Henry was always thinking about me.”

“Last Sunday he drove out to tend to the beehives. He met a young man named John Baron who was gathering a water sample at the seep. Baron told him he’d found an endangered species of snails living in the seep. Your husband knew that would kill the real estate deal, so, feeling his family was threatened, he picked up a rock and struck Baron, killing him.”

Mrs. Harrison’s hand went to her mouth as she sucked in a breath. “No. I can’t believe it. Henry would never do that.”

Her son stood up, his face grief stricken. “Oh, no,” he said. He staggered over to a nearby tree and leaned against it, his face buried in his arms. “No, no, no.” He threw up.

His mother went to him. “Edward, are you alright?”

Now he was gagging. He threw up again. “It’s all my fault,” he said. “All my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, honey. How could it be?”

“But it is my fault, Mom. Don’t you see?” He began sobbing. “I knew you didn’t want him to sell the ranch. I put those Kanab ambersnails in the seep. I collected them on my hike through Grand Canyon. I knew the snails would be found by the water sampling people and I knew that would kill the real estate deal.”

26

THE DRIVE TO the Baron residence was painful for Rivera. He would be the bearer of crushing, unbearable news, a role he dreaded more than anything. He’d done it several times before—telling a couple their child was killed in an automobile accident, or telling a woman her husband had drowned, or telling the parents of a rock climber their son had fallen to his death. One time, he had to tell an older couple their only son had been murdered. It was a part of the job he’d never gotten used to and the one thing he feared most.

Rivera’s throat was dry. He looked at his watch. It was 10:04 P.M. He hoped Mr. Baron was still awake. He knocked on the front door of the Baron residence and waited, thinking he heard music coming from inside the house. Through a window, he could see a light come on. He heard the shuffling of feet, then Mr. Baron opened the door. Now the music was clear. It was Vera Lynn again. Mr. Baron had been listening to the music in the dark. This time the song was, I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Rivera removed his hat and looked into Mr. Baron’s eyes. Started to speak. Hesitated.

The old man stood frozen and stared at Rivera. “John’s dead, isn’t he?”

Rivera nodded.

“I guess I knew it from the look on your face. Come inside and tell me about it.”

When Rivera left the Baron residence, he was exhausted. He’d explained in detail to Mr. Baron what had happened to John and why. Rivera drove home, feeling a deep sadness. Mr. Baron had taken the news like a stoic warrior, but Rivera knew the man’s heart was broken. Now he would finish out his years all alone in the world.

Rivera drove home and parked his pickup in his gravel driveway. He unlocked the front door, entered, and was greeted by a tail-wagging Bentley. He fed the dog and the guppies, then extracted a bottle of Chivas Regal and a glass from the kitchen cabinet. The absurdity and unfairness of John Baron’s demise weighed heavily on him. And the image of his grandfather’s face upon receiving the news was something that would haunt Rivera for a long time. He sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a stiff one. Took a drink. Bentley, seeming to sense his distress, curled up at his feet.

Several sips of whiskey later, he could feel his body beginning to relax. Soon, there was a numbness in his cheeks and his heaviness of spirit began to fade. He reached down and stroked Bentley’s head, wondering if he’d done the right thing by getting into the law enforcement business. His thoughts went back to his childhood in Las Cruces, living with his parents and growing up with his sisters and brothers. His grandparents lived in the house across the street. Lots of his friends lived nearby and there was always something fun going on. Life was carefree. Growing up in the bosom of a close-knit community gave one a sense of warmth and security, an insulation from the horrors of life. It was at times like this he missed home the most.

27

A SHAFT OF sunlight slanted through Rivera’s office window as the sun peeked over the LaSal Mountains. He sat at his desk, having just completed his lengthy report, thinking this was no way to spend a Sunday morning. It had been a busy week and he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d unraveled the intertwined cases of Ranger Penny Daugherty’s murder and John Baron’s disappearance. The well-intentioned but foolish action of Mrs. Harrison’s son had produced a devastating effect on three families.

There was still one unsolved mystery on Rivera’s plate. Who had hired Bucky Allen and why? Rivera got up from his desk, grabbed his empty coffee mug, and headed to the coffee pot for a refill.

On the way, he spotted Bucky Allen who was retrieving his personal belongings from a deputy after the FBI had officially dropped the murder charge and released him from jail.

“Bucky, I need to talk to you. Let’s get some coffee and go to my office.”

Bucky looked concerned, nodded, and silently followed him.

“I’m glad all that’s over with,” said Bucky as he sat down in Rivera’s office. “I heard you were the one who found the real killer. I was afraid that FBI agent was going to ruin my life forever.”

“You’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself.”

He nodded. “I did some stupid things.”

“And you’re not out of the woods yet. You’ll be facing charges for the damage you did in the mountains.”

“My father talked to the ranchers involved. He said he would pay for the damages and they agreed not to press charges.”

“You’re lucky. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Life is to be enjoyed. But you can’t enjoy it if you’re always looking over your shoulder.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I’m curious about one thing though. How did you elude the search party up on South Beaver Mesa?”

“There’s a small cave in the cliff face overlooking Beaver Canyon, not far from the Castleton-Gateway Road. We used to play in there when we were kids. I climbed down to it and spent the night. The next day I fell in with some trail runners and stayed with them until I got to the trailhead where I’d left my Rubicon. From there I drove to the cabin.”

Rivera nodded, somewhat impressed with Bucky’s resourcefulness. “You got any interest in World War Two?”

“Huh?”

“Have you got any interest in World War Two?”

“We studied it in high school. History was my favorite subject.”

“I want you to start visiting an old gentleman who was a hero in that war. Visit him every day and ask him about his life. And if you don’t have time, make time. You’re still young enough to learn how to be a man, and Mr. Baron can teach you a lot about what it takes. And what it takes, you haven’t learned yet. Not even close.”

Bucky stared at Rivera, nodded. “I’ll do that.” He took a sip of coffee and thought for a long moment. “I think maybe that’s something I need.”

“He just lost his grandson—his only kin. He’ll be needing company. It’ll be good for him and good for you. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now, your attorney told me about the man who hired you. I want you to go through that again. I want to know everything you can remember about him.”

After Bucky Allen left the office, Rivera thought about the man who had hired him, wondering if he could be convicted of a crime. Maybe conspiracy to commit a felony. But could he be prosecuted when the charges against his fellow conspirator had been dropped? Rivera wasn’t sure. Also, how could anything be proven? Bucky had said he thought the man was wearing some kind of disguise. He pictured Bucky on the witness stand with the defense attorney pointing at his client and asking, “Is this the man who hired you?” The odds favored an acquittal. In any case, Rivera decided he’d let the local prosecutors worry about all that. His job was to find the guy.

He figured his best approach was to visit each of Moab’s motels and ask if anyone fitting the man’s description had registered. It was a long shot but worth a try. If that proved unsuccessful, he would try the automobile rental agencies in Grand Junction, the theory being that the man had an East Coast accent so he’d probably flown into the area, rented a car, and driven to Moab. Grand Junction was the closest large airport. Rivera knew the odds of locating the man were slim, but he hated loose ends. And this was a loose end.

As he left the office, he looked down the hallway into Sheriff Campbell’s office and saw FBI Agent Phil Lisowski talking to Campbell. Rivera was surprised to see the sheriff at the office on a Sunday. Extra duty for Campbell was a rarity as he spent most of his time on the golf course. He assumed Lisowski had called the sheriff and set up a final meeting before leaving town.

They were standing near the office door, as though Lisowski were just about to leave. Rivera paused for a moment, then decided to drop in on them and say hello. He knew he should just avoid the man, but something inside him wouldn’t let him do that. What was it? Ego? Revenge? Male competitiveness? Maybe he was just feeling ornery. Whatever the reason, Rivera wanted one last face-to-face moment with Lisowski.

He strode up to the two men and looked at Lisowski. “Are you leaving us, Agent Lisowski?” He attempted to produce a facial expression that was sincere and cordial.

Lisowski ignored him. He said goodbye to the sheriff, glared at Rivera, and stalked out of the building.

“Now what the hell did you do that for?” asked Campbell, frowning.

Rivera shrugged. “Just saying goodbye to the man.”

Rivera scratched the Ramada Inn off his list of motels and headed for the Best Western, the seventh one on his list. He turned on the radio in his vehicle. Even on a Sunday, Moab’s talk radio was alive with discussion about the primary race between Matthew Monroe and Russell White. It seemed that, at least in the minds of the callers, Russell White had surged into the lead.

Sammy Begay, Rivera’s Navajo neighbor who lived across the street, was manning the front desk at the Best Western.

Sammy smiled when he saw Rivera. “Hi, Manny. You out rounding up bad guys today?”

“Doing my best, Sammy. You behaving yourself these days?”

“Always. How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to locate a man involved in a case I’m working on. I need to ask him a few questions. Trouble is, he uses an alias, wears disguises, and moves around a lot. I’m checking with all the motels in town to see if anyone has seen him.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Well, that’s the problem. He was probably wearing a disguise, so I can’t be sure what he looked like when he checked in. He’s about six feet tall, middle aged, has an East Coast accent, and he’s missing part of his left index finger. And I’m guessing he probably pays in cash.”

Begay thought for a brief moment. “Hey, a guy checked in here a few days ago who was missing part of his index finger. I noticed it when he was signing the registration form.” He put his hand to his chin, thought some more. “Yeah, it was his left hand. I remember he wanted a quiet room so I put him in the rear. Let me check.” He tapped a few keys on his computer. “Yeah, here it is. Room 238. He checked in three days ago and is checking out today. Oops, according to housekeeping, it looks like he’s already gone.”

“Too bad. Did he make any calls from his room?”

Begay checked. “None.”

“Did he leave a vehicle license number?”

“It just says ‘No Vehicle.’”

“Did he produce an I.D.?”

“Homeland Security requires that now. Let’s see.” He studied the monitor. “Yeah, New York driver’s license. Name’s Andrew Mayerback.” He gave Rivera the driver’s license number.

“I assume he paid in cash.”

“Correct.”

“Has that room been cleaned yet?”

Begay consulted the computer. “Nope, not yet. You want to take a look at it?”

“I sure do. Have housekeeping hold off on that room for a little while. I’ll check it after I run that driver’s license number through the system. Be right back.”

Rivera walked to his unit, not really expecting the driver’s license to be a valid one. The man had been too careful to make a foolish mistake like that. He got on the radio and called it in. Sure enough, it was a counterfeit license. No surprise, there was a black market for stolen and counterfeit licenses in every big city. He returned to the motel office and obtained a key card for Room 238.

He found the room in the back of the motel, and entered it. He opened the drapes to allow the outside light to fill the room. The unit was completely empty. He looked under the bed, on the desk, and in the closet. Nothing. In the bathroom, he found several reddish strands of hair, except they weren’t really hair. They felt like polyester. From a wig? Maybe.

Tissues in the bathroom trash can were smeared with what he guessed was makeup. He left the bathroom and inspected the contents of the trash can by the desk. He found a Snickers candy wrapper, several safety pins, and a sheet of notepad paper which had been crushed into a ball. He extracted the paper, opened it, and smoothed it out on the desk. It appeared to be a to-do list. Every item on the list had a line drawn through it, as though each one had been accomplished. He read the list:

Call W. L.

Meet B. A.

Fence

LMPA

Dam

LMPA Exec.

Cattle

Posters, Fliers

MARC, RW

BLM Office

MARC, MM

Wire, Photo

Media

Rivera sat down on the bed. The items MARC RW and MARC MM must have referred to the speeches given at the MARC by Russell White and Matthew Monroe. The items listed as Fence, Dam, and Cattle no doubt referred to planned actions in the mountains, while LMPA, LMPA Exec, and BLM were actions which took place in town. B.A. was Bucky Allen. It was clear that someone had masterminded all the trouble that had been taking place in the mountains and in town. He pondered the list for several minutes. Who would compose such a list? It didn’t take him long to figure it out. Some political operative had been sent to Moab to do a hatchet job on Matthew Monroe.

He recalled reading stories about the dirty tricks performed on behalf of Richard Nixon back in the 1970s. They had worked and Nixon had been re-elected in a landslide vote.

Rivera had never seen the real thing before, but here it was, right in his town. And the dirty tricks seemed to have worked. White had overtaken Monroe in the polls after trailing by more than ten percent. Now it appeared White might actually win. Rivera recalled the photo that had gone viral on the internet, showing Monroe in his pajamas at the door of his motel room, angrily tearing down strips of barbed wire that had been taped across the door. He smiled. Politicians at work. No wonder nothing ever got done in Washington.

He stood up. The mastermind of the hatchet job would be long gone from Moab by now, his mission accomplished. Rivera decided there was no point in pursuing the matter further. This fellow wouldn’t be bothering the citizens of Grand County anymore.

28

RIVERA HAD JUST finished describing to Chris Carey the list he’d found in the room at the Best Western Motel. It was Monday morning and they were sitting on the patio of the Eklectic Café drinking coffee and eating raisin muffins.

“So the whole Sagebrush Rebellion revival was just something conjured up by a political operative?” asked a wide-eyed Carey.

“Looks that way.”

“I’ll be damned. And it was all motivated by political ambition?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, it looks like the scheme is going to work. Russell White is ahead by three percentage points in the polls and the election is tomorrow.”

“I’m glad all that Sagebrush Rebellion stuff is winding down,” said Rivera. “Once the protesters learned the whole thing was a hoax, many of them started leaving town.”

Carey thought for a long moment, then shook his head. “Henry Harrison killed two innocent people so his real estate deal wouldn’t fall apart. And his wife didn’t even want to sell the place. Incredible.”

“I’m guessing he was once a good man. Maybe the pain of his brain tumor in his brain turned him into a completely different person. It must be tough living with continuous pain, knowing death is the only way out.”

“Yeah, I guess so. What about the real estate deal Harrison had with the developer? Will that still go through?”

“That’s up to Mrs. Harrison now. My guess is she’ll want to keep the ranch.”

“Good. I’d hate to see that beautiful canyon torn up just so someone could make a lot of money.”

“Me too.”

“There’s one thing that puzzles me, though,” said Carey. “How could Mrs. Harrison’s son Edward be sure those Kanab ambersnails he’d relocated to the seep would ever be discovered by someone?”

“He used to have that water sampling job himself. He knew the routine, the route, and the schedule.”

Carey nodded. “So there was no doubt they’d be found. What will happen to Edward now?”

“I don’t know. I imagine he’s suffering a lot, now that he’s seen the results of what he did.”

“Will he be charged with anything?”

“If the EPA finds out what he did, they’ll probably file felony charges against him.”

“What do you mean, if they find out? Won’t he be reported?”

Rivera took a sip of coffee. Looked over the rim of the mug at Carey. Carey was an old friend and Rivera knew he could be trusted. “I had a long talk with Adam Dunne last night. We decided to leave the snail business out of our reports. The snails are dead, so reporting what happened would really serve no environmental purpose. Let the world believe Harrison just went crazy out in that canyon from the pain in his head. Edward Tillman blames himself for the deaths of three people, including his stepfather. He’s already suffered way more than any punishment the EPA could dole out.”

Carey thought, nodded. “Makes sense. Did Edward finish hiking the Hayduke Trail?”

“He still has one segment to go. I’m thinking about volunteering to do it with him.”

“Funny how life goes,” said Carey. “It’s so damn non-linear. There’s no predicting what will happen to you on any given day after you roll out of bed in the morning.”

“Very true.”

“Think about it. If that political operative had never come to town, Penny Daugherty would never have been in Beaver Canyon on that day. She’d still be alive. And if Edward Tillman had never moved those ambersnails to the seep, John Baron would be alive.”

Rivera nodded. “Yeah.”

“And Mr. Baron wouldn’t be all alone in the world.”

“Social Services will be looking in on him. So will Bucky Allen if he keeps his word.”

“Not the same as family.”

“I know.” Rivera thought about the old soldier. “He has vivid memories of better times. I think he lives in them every day.”

“You know, as a journalist, I’ve seen things like this my whole life. Sometimes good people do things where there’s no ill intent, but bad things result anyway. I think Edward Tillman’s actions fall into that category. It’s the realm of unintended consequences.” Carey looked at his watch. “What time is Amy coming?”

“She should be here by now. I hope she doesn’t bring that insufferable Dr. Zachary Sterling with her.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s a specialist in desert fauna. Good looking devil. Unfortunately, I’m afraid he’s attracted Amy’s attention.” Rivera’s thoughts went back to the dinner at Pasta Jay’s. Sterling had been so attentive to Amy and so worldly in his manner and knowledge. Amy had seemed to be impressed and receptive. Worst of all, his buddy Adam Dunne had been smiling all evening long, enjoying Rivera’s discomfort. Then, after Amy and Sterling had left, Dunne had ribbed him about ‘the good looking dude’ and laughed all the way to his car. Very irritating.

Carey looked past Rivera. “Here comes Amy now. You’ll be glad to know she’s by herself. And I’ve got to go. I enjoyed the conversation.”

Amy and Carey exchanged greetings as he left the restaurant. She walked to the table, gave Rivera a hug, and sat down. As usual, she looked beautiful.

“Great to see you,” said Rivera.

“Great to see you, too. So you’re not working today?”

“Nope. Took the day off.” Rivera’s words sounded flat to his own ears. Unenthusiastic.

Amy stared at him. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Where’s your new friend, Dr. What’s-his-name?”

“Zachary Sterling? He’s on his way back to San Francisco. He and his partner Anthony left this morning for the airport.”

“His partner? You mean besides having movie-star good looks and being a world-class scientist, he also has a business?”

She smiled. “No, silly. His partner. You know. His partner. Zachary and Anthony are a couple.”

Realization dawned in Rivera’s brain and he didn’t know whether to laugh or just sit there looking embarrassed. So Dr. Zachary Sterling was a gay man. There had been nothing to worry about all along. Now he understood Adam Dunne’s behavior at Pasta Jay’s the other night. Dunne had recognized right off that Sterling was gay, and he’d enjoyed watching Rivera’s reaction to the man, knowing Rivera hadn’t picked up on it. He’d been entertained all night long by Rivera’s obvious jealousy and discomfort. The next time he saw Adam Dunne, he would find a way to retaliate. Retribution was in order.

“Oh,” Rivera said, fumbling for something to say that wouldn’t reveal his utter ignorance of the situation. “Well, I hope they live happily ever after.”

His hand was on the table and Amy reached out and held it. Her face moved closer to his and her large hazel eyes looked into his eyes. “You’re the only man I want flirting with me, Manny.” She leaned forward and kissed him, lingering for a long tender moment.

He touched her cheek. “I’m glad to hear that.”

EPILOGUE

Washington, D. C.

Two Days Later…

WALLACE LAMONT SAT on the couch in his library feeling a sense of self-satisfaction. Matthew Monroe had been soundly defeated in the Utah Republican primary election. Another Lamont success to add to a long string of successes. He couldn’t wait to celebrate the occasion with his brother, Thomas, who was due to arrive any minute. He intended not only to celebrate, but maybe even gloat a bit. He enjoyed impressing Thomas with his political daring.

Evans, the butler, entered with a bottle of Dom Perignon in a silver ice bucket and placed it next to Mr. Lamont. He left and returned with two champagne flutes on a tray and placed them on the coffee table along with a stack of blue cocktail napkins and a bowl of gourmet cashew nuts. He inspected his work and left.

Wallace thought about Nikolas Oblonsky while he waited. He was an unusual fellow. After he received his bonus money, he was in such a hurry to fly home to Brooklyn to be with his daughter, that he’d had no interest in remaining for a celebratory drink. He’d left with a briefcase full of cash and said something cryptic on the way out—something about not being sure he wanted to continue in this line of work any longer. No matter, there were plenty of other political operatives. But in many ways, he would miss Oblonsky. He was a real pro and he’d done a first class job. The operation was a success and Matthew Monroe’s career as a congressman would be history come January. Now, Harkness and Lamont Industries would be awarded their contract. Wallace smiled, thinking about how much he loved the game.

Evans opened the door to the library and Thomas walked in. As usual, his expression was serious, almost glum. Thomas should learn to enjoy life, Wallace thought to himself.

“Come in, Thomas.” Wallace popped the cork on the champagne bottle and filled the two flutes. He picked them up and offered one to Thomas.

“Save it,” said Thomas.

“Please don’t tell me you want a diet Coke, Thomas. We won. Monroe is out. Let’s celebrate.”

“There’s nothing to celebrate, Wallace. I just learned the funding for our contract has been re-purposed. The Department of the Interior decided they could live with the old communications systems for a few more years. They’re spending the money instead on road repair in the national parks.”

Wallace placed the flutes on the table and stood up. Damn, he thought. All that effort for nothing. He produced a wry smile. “Well, Thomas, we gave it a good try.” He strolled to the window, hands held behind his back, and peered outside. In the distance, the Capitol Building shone bright white in the morning sun.

“What do we do now, Wallace?” asked Thomas.

“For us, this is a minor setback,” said Wallace. “You win a few and you lose a few. There will be plenty of other opportunities. After all, Thomas, this is Washington. The game goes on.”

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

EPILOGUE