Previous Manny Rivera Mysteries by Rich Curtin:

Artifacts of Death

A Murder Mystery in Utah’s Canyon Country

February’s Files

A Manny Rivera Mystery

Author’s Website:

www.richcurtinnovels.com

TRAILS OF

DECEPTION

ANOTHER 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 © 2013 Rich Curtin

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1489591508

ISBN-13: 9781489591500

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63003-245-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910232

CreateSpace, Independent Platform,

North Charleston, South Carolina

TRAILS OF

DECEPTION

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

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

1

DEPUTY SHERIFF MANNY RIVERA sat in his Grand County Sheriff’s Department Ford F-150 pickup truck and studied the demonstration from a half block away. The protesters occupied the corner of Main and Center Streets, right in the middle of downtown Moab. They were chanting, No more digging, no more digging, and pumping placards up and down in rhythm with the chant.

Rivera made a quick head count. There were forty-five of them, mostly young, about half men and half women. None were locals; he didn’t recognize a single face. He focused his binoculars on the placards. One read, Respect Human Dignity. Another said, Grave Desecration is Sick. A larger one read, Arrest and Prosecute Pothunters.

He lowered his binoculars, wondering why the demonstrators had chosen Moab for their activities. As far as he knew, there hadn’t been much pothunting taking place in Grand County.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the passenger-side window of his vehicle. Liddie, the teenage clerk who worked part-time at the Times-Independent, Moab’s weekly newspaper, was peering through the glass. He pressed the button and lowered the window. “Hi, Liddie. How are you today?”

“Hi, Deputy Rivera. I’m fine.” She pushed her hair away from her eyes, appeared apprehensive. “I just unlocked the office and found this message on the floor. Someone slid it through the mail slot last night or this morning. I think it might be important. I was going to walk it over to the Sheriff’s Office, but then I noticed you sitting here in your pickup.” She handed Rivera an envelope. “I made a copy of it for the publisher,” she said as she turned to leave.

“Okay, Liddie, thanks.” Rivera opened the envelope and extracted a folded sheet of paper with a typewritten message:

A MANIFESTO TO THE PEOPLE

OF THE FOUR CORNERS AREA

- Despite laws to the contrary, thoughtless, greedy individuals continue to ravage ancient-Indian graves in search of artifacts.

- Law enforcement is not doing its job. Arrests are few, prosecutions are rare.

- The digging must stop or there will be immediate consequences. We will see to it.

- You will soon learn that we mean business. Retaliation for pothunting will be carried out.

- Don’t make the mistake of assuming this is a crank message.

From: The Unrelenting

Defenders of Indian Rights

Rivera reread the note, then folded it up and placed it back in the envelope. He returned his attention to the protesters and studied each one of them, now taking a keener interest in the group. Two or three of the young men looked as though they had the potential to be troublemakers, but for the most part, the protesters seemed like clean-cut kids who were simply voicing their opposition to pothunters who desecrated ancient-Indian graves. They didn’t look much different from the young people who came to Moab for backcountry adventure. Rivera hoped the manifesto was just an idle threat made by one of the protesters for effect, but there was no way to be sure.

His cell phone rang. It was Millie Ives, the sheriff’s dispatcher. “Manny, we just received a call from a man who was flying an ultra-light aircraft over the LaSal Mountains. He reported seeing someone lying face down on a trail out on North Beaver Mesa. The pilot was getting low on fuel and couldn’t circle back to make a closer inspection, but he was able to give me the GPS coordinates.” She read them out and Rivera jotted them into his notepad. “Sheriff Bradshaw wants you to check it out.” Rivera briefed her on the activities of the protesters and the note Liddie had delivered to him, then turned north on Main Street and headed out of town.

He turned right on Highway 128, switched on his light bar, and sped through the curves which followed alongside the Colorado River. He hung a right at the Castle Valley turnoff and continued past red rock buttes and spires into the foothills of the LaSals, gaining altitude with each mile.

Well into the mountains, he turned left on Polar Mesa Road, a dirt road which headed northeast into a remote wilderness. Two bumpy miles later, he parked his vehicle in a cluster of juniper trees. He strapped on a daypack containing water, food, maps, a GPS receiver, a first aid kit, a digital camera, and other supplies. He locked his vehicle and set out at a hurried pace on a primitive trail that led south across North Beaver Mesa.

A half hour later, he reached the southern edge of the mesa and stopped. He wiped his forehead and compared the latitude and longitude displayed on his GPS receiver to the coordinates on his map. He was getting close. He turned left and followed the sandstone trail along the edge of the bluff overlooking Beaver Valley some four hundred feet below. Twenty minutes later, as he passed over the crest of a gentle rise, he spotted a man lying prone on the trail up ahead. He trotted up to him, knelt down, and checked for vital signs.

The man was dead, the victim of a bullet to the back and another to the head. Rivera crouched. He drew his service pistol and scanned the area, studying each rock and tree, looking for any sign of another human being. The mesa was quiet except for the chirping of unseen birds and the rustling of junipers and sagebrush in the breeze. A minute passed before Rivera satisfied himself there was no one else in the area. He re-holstered his weapon and turned his attention to the victim.

Rivera estimated the man had been dead only a few hours. He extracted the victim’s wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and scanned his driver’s license. The victim’s name was William Whitlock, age forty-eight, from San Francisco.

Rivera called the Sheriff’s Department from his cell phone, reported the situation, and requested the Medical Examiner and mortuary staff be dispatched. After cordoning off the area with yellow crime scene tape, he removed the camera from his daypack and began photographing the corpse and the immediate area. As he did, he wondered what in the world Whitlock was doing out here all by himself. He had no backpack. No water, no food, no map, no compass. Hiking the high-desert backcountry without an adequate supply of water was tantamount to suicide, especially in an area so remote that timely assistance from fellow hikers was unlikely.

Rivera emptied the man’s pockets. Besides the wallet, there was a set of General Motors keys, a plastic key card from the Big Horn Lodge in Moab, a few coins, and a handkerchief. His logical mind searched for a reason someone would shoot a hiker out in the middle of nowhere. The motive wasn’t robbery. The man’s wallet contained over six hundred dollars. He could think of no rational explanation.

While Rivera waited for the Medical Examiner to arrive, he examined the seldom-used trail along the edge of the bluff. It was barely visible, consisting of a subtle darkened indentation worn into the sandstone over the decades by the boots of passing hikers. Periodic cairns marked the route. He found nothing of interest until a distant blue object farther down the trail caught his eye. He walked toward it, finally recognizing it as a large backpack.

A folding trench shovel was fastened to the outside of the pack. He unhooked the shovel and set it aside. The backpack contained a half-empty three-liter bottle of water, trail mix snacks, a cell phone, a book of matches advertising a San Francisco restaurant, a map of the LaSal Mountains, a compass, two trowels wrapped in a dirty towel, a whiskbroom, and a camel-hair brush. A separate storage compartment in the top of the backpack contained a rigid cardboard box. He removed the box and opened the flaps. It contained something protected with several layers of bubble wrap.

Rivera lifted the object from the box, placed it on the ground, and carefully peeled away the bubble wrap. Under the protective plastic was a ten-inch ancient-Indian pot, white with black geometric markings, still caked with fresh dirt from its burial site. Whitlock was a pothunter, the very type of thief the protesters were railing against.

The threatening note left at the newspaper office instantly flashed in his mind. The demonstration in downtown Moab had just taken on new and sinister proportions.

2

MANNY RIVERA ASSISTED the Medical Examiner and mortuary staff in examining and removing Whitlock’s body, then set about searching the mesa for the victim’s vehicle. It wasn’t hard to find. The grey four-wheel-drive Silverado pickup with California plates was partially hidden in a cluster of scrub oaks on North Beaver Mesa, about a quarter mile farther down the dirt road from where Rivera had left his own vehicle.

He unlocked the pickup and searched the interior, finding a blanket, several state maps, a partially-consumed package of fig newtons, a sack of Purina Dog Chow, an aluminum bowl, and a one-gallon jug of water. The glove compartment yielded the usual assortment of ownership papers, receipts, tire warranties, and proof of insurance. The Silverado was registered in the name of William Whitlock.

Rivera’s mind was buzzing with questions as he navigated the curves of Highway 128, heading back toward Moab. Was it possible one of the demonstrators had carried out the threat suggested in the manifesto? Had Whitlock’s murder been an example of the “immediate consequences” mentioned in the note? The protesters had seemed like normal young people, energetic and intelligent, not unlike those who visited Moab to explore the surrounding canyon country. He shook his head. Had he misjudged them?

When he reached U.S. 191, he turned left and joined a caravan of four-wheel-drive vehicles heading back into town after a day of backcountry activities. Most carried either mountain bikes or kayaks. Some hauled trailers carrying dirt-covered ATVs. Their occupants would soon be filling the local watering holes and restaurants.

The sun had disappeared behind the Moab Rim, a two thousand foot red rock escarpment which loomed over the city. Layers of orange, purple, and crimson clouds hung in the late-September western sky, and the temperature was beginning to drop. He passed through the town center and noticed that although the demonstrators still occupied the corner of Main and Center Streets, their number had dwindled to a couple of dozen. Those who remained were distributing handbills to passing tourists.

Rivera found a parking space in front of the Big Horn Lodge and walked to the front office. He explained the purpose of his visit to a wide-eyed clerk and learned that Whitlock had rented a room two days earlier for a five-day duration and that he had made no outgoing calls. Rivera proceeded to Whitlock’s room and used the plastic key card he’d found in the victim’s pocket to unlock the door.

A search of the room yielded scant additional information about the victim. Rivera found clothing, a shaving kit, and a copy of Zane Grey’s Tales of Lonely Trails. On the desk was a briefcase containing catalogues from East Coast auction houses describing various types of ancient-Indian pottery and their estimated dollar values.

Rivera hopped into his vehicle and drove back to his office. He checked Whitlock for wants and warrants, finding none. Next, he composed a message to the San Francisco Police Department advising them of Whitlock’s murder and requesting all available information on the man. Then he checked the cell phone he’d found in the victim’s backpack. Whitlock had made no local calls.

Rivera called the curator at the Edge of the Cedars Museum in Blanding. The museum was home to a very fine collection of ancient-Indian pots from the Four Corners area, and the curator, a retired professor of anthropology from the University of New Mexico, was an expert on artifacts of the American Southwest. Rivera described the pot to him in detail and learned that it was of Fremont origin, black-on-white, and made using the coil-and-scrape method. It was between nine hundred and a thousand years old.

“It’s most likely a funerary vessel extracted from an ancient gravesite,” said the curator. “Artifacts buried with the deceased are believed to be signs of respect and best wishes for the journey into the next world. I’d say the pot is worth north of five thousand dollars to a collector, maybe as much as ten thousand depending on its condition. When you’re finished with it, I’d be delighted to display it here at the museum.”

“Thanks very much for the information,” said Rivera. “I’m not sure about the final disposition of an artifact in a case like this so I’ll have to get back to you on your offer to display it.” He hung up the phone. The cold, matter-of-fact offer bothered Rivera but he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because, up until this morning, the pot had rested in a grave as a tribute to the person buried there.

Rivera leaned back in his chair and hoisted his feet up onto his desk. He stared through his office window at the LaSal Mountains to the east, now bathed in pink light reflected from the clouds in the west. Clearly, Whitlock had been a serious pothunter. That was obvious from the catalogues in his motel room. It appeared he had driven from San Francisco to Moab, rented a room, and then set out in the mountains looking for a promising burial site to exploit.

He must have found one almost immediately, and that struck Rivera as odd. Ancient-Indian burial sites were hidden in out-of-the-way places and discovery was difficult and rare. How does someone living in San Francisco enter a remote mountain range in Utah and hike directly to an ancient-Indian gravesite? Either Whitlock was extremely lucky or he knew the site’s location in advance.

Dr. Pudge Devlin knocked on the open door of Rivera’s office and entered.

“Hello there, Manny.” The pot-bellied, jovial Devlin was the part-time Medical Examiner for Grand County when he wasn’t tending to more important duties, namely his Castle Valley vineyard where he grew Merlot grapes and made wine, most of which he consumed himself. His florid face wore a proud smile as he placed a bottle on Rivera’s desk. He rotated it so the label faced the deputy. “It’s from my winery, the latest vintage.”

Rivera read the label: Porcupine Rim Merlot. It was named after a prominent bluff overlooking Castle Valley.

“Well, thanks very much, Pudge.” Devlin was a good friend and one of Rivera’s favorite people in the county.

“You can share it with that nurse lady friend of yours,” said Devlin.

“I’ll do that.” Rivera smiled and nodded, wondering for an instant why he hadn’t yet heard from Vivian Ramos. She’d left Moab several days ago to visit her relatives in Taos, New Mexico.

“I figured you two would be married by now. How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Well, hell, that explains it. You’re already too old. She probably wants a younger man.” Devlin made a point of studying Rivera’s face. “And one that’s better looking.”

The deputy produced a wry grin.

Devlin grunted as he squeezed into Rivera’s visitor’s chair. “Either this chair has gotten narrower or I’ve put on a little weight since the last time I was in here.”

Rivera smiled. “It’s the same chair, Pudge.”

Devlin looked down at his ample belly and patted it with both hands. “Well, I guess I might’ve put on a few pounds. It’s the fault of that widow lady out in Castle Valley that keeps pesterin’ me. Always wants to come visit and talk and drink my wine. ‘Bout twice a week, she brings me a homemade pie. Blueberry, apple, banana cream, you name it. It’s those pies that are causing my waistline to expand.”

Rivera played along. “Why don’t you tell her to quit coming over?”

“I would but the pies are so damned good.”

Rivera laughed.

Devlin’s expression now turned serious. “Manny, I’ve completed the preliminary autopsy. It’s pretty straightforward. The victim was shot twice.” Devlin pulled two plastic bags from his shirt pocket, each containing a slug, and handed them to Rivera. “They look like nine millimeter but I’ll leave that to you experts. The first shot hit Whitlock in the back and entered the heart. He was dead in a matter of seconds. There were some lacerations on his face, probably from the fall onto the sandstone cap rock. The second shot entered the back of the skull, but the victim was already dead from the first shot. I found powder burns on the back of the head. Time of death was around noon today.”

“Okay, Pudge, thanks. Anything else?”

“There was a lot of dirt under his fingernails. I’m guessing that’ll match the dirt on that pot he dug up.” Devlin grunted as he pushed himself out of the chair and stood up. “That’s about it, Manny. I’ll have my formal report over to you in the morning.”

After Devlin departed, Rivera resumed his ruminations. He tried to formulate a mental picture of the sequence of events which had taken place on North Beaver Mesa. Whitlock was returning to his vehicle with a freshly dug pot in his backpack. Judging from the catalogues in Whitlock’s motel room, he must have known the pot had considerable value. At some point, he realized someone was following him. Concerned, he picked up his pace. The man pursued him. Whitlock might have started running. Perhaps he shed the backpack so he could run faster. Then he was shot in the back from a distance. He fell to the ground. The shooter walked up and shot him once in the head, probably just to be sure he was dead. Thus the powder burns on the back of his head. The killer departed. There were no footprints to be found which could verify this theory, since the edge of the bluff was sandstone cap rock.

Rivera was aware this was the second recent shooting in the LaSals. About three weeks ago, a man was struck by a bullet while hiking alone in the mountains. That incident had been attributed to a hunting accident, but now he found himself wondering if there might be a connection.

3

RIVERA WALKED DOWN the hallway and knocked on the open door of the sheriff’s office. Leroy Bradshaw looked up from the papers he was studying and took off his glasses.

“C’mon in, Manny. What have you got on that shooting?”

Rivera sat down in one of the brown leather chairs in front of the sheriff’s large walnut desk and briefed Bradshaw on the Whitlock case, starting with the call he’d received from the dispatcher and finishing with Pudge Devlin’s autopsy report. “It was a deliberate shooting.”

Bradshaw nodded. “Yeah. No one gets shot twice by accident.”

“And robbery wasn’t the motive. He still had several hundred dollars in his wallet.”

“I’ve contacted Larry Polk at the Forest Service,” said Bradshaw. “Whitlock was killed on Manti-LaSal National Forest land so they have jurisdiction. But Larry’s shorthanded and asked that we handle the investigation. So drop everything else you’re working on. This is your case.”

Rivera nodded. “Will do.”

“This couldn’t have come at a worse time. The fall tourist season is about to swing into high gear. If visitors think it’s unsafe to hike and bike the backcountry, it’ll damage the local economy in a hurry.”

“Maybe we’ll have a few days before word gets around.”

“I doubt it. A reporter from the Moab Times-Independent was in here thirty minutes ago pressing me for details on the murder. Tomorrow is Thursday. Our fine weekly newspaper will hit the stands in the morning and you know what’ll be plastered across the front page. That damned manifesto. Having a murder in the backcountry is bad enough. But if it turns out the protesters are behind it, then we’ll have a major crisis on our hands. The national press will be all over us.”

“It’s hard to believe the protesters would carry things that far,” said Rivera. “It just seems too extreme. Borders on insanity.”

“It’s not so far fetched, Manny. Remember all the pro-life demonstrations that took place at abortion clinics around the country? A few years ago, a zealous protester killed a doctor who worked at a Kansas clinic. And a couple of years before that, two employees were killed at a Pensacola clinic. Don’t underestimate the psychological power of a group of protesters on its individual members. Some people are irrationally susceptible to crowd influence.”

Rivera nodded but still had his doubts. He changed the subject. “Any idea why the protesters chose Moab for their demonstration?”

Bradshaw leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands across his stomach. Rivera studied his boss. He still had the penetrating light blue eyes and the thinning blond hair combed straight back, but Rivera noticed the belly wasn’t what it used to be. Bradshaw had lost a lot of weight since his wife’s funeral earlier in the year. Jill had fought a courageous battle against her cancer but succumbed in the end. Shortly thereafter, Bradshaw had decided he wouldn’t stand for reelection. When his current term expired next spring, he planned to relocate from Moab. Too many memories here, he’d said.

“I guess they picked Moab because it’s in the Four Corners area where most of the pot digging in the United States takes place. And Moab attracts lots of tourists, so the protesters can be sure their cause will get plenty of exposure. The organization sponsoring the demonstration calls itself the Heritage Preservation Society. They’re based in Santa Fe. Been around since the nineteen sixties. I understand they have a new executive director who’s tired of the organization’s wishes being ignored.” Bradshaw leaned forward, picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, glanced at it. “They’re passing out these leaflets announcing a lecture tomorrow night at the Moab Information Center. The executive director himself will be speaking.” He handed the announcement across his desk.

Rivera read it.

“Pothunters come in all sizes and shapes,” continued Bradshaw. “Some do it for the adventure of the hunt. Some are private collectors who want to add to their personal collections. And some do it for profit. Artifacts, especially intact pots, are worth a lot of money.”

“I haven’t heard of a whole lot of pothunting going on here in Grand County.”

“There’s been a lot more of it south of here, especially in San Juan County. But over the years, we’ve had our share. I remember back in 1990, when I was still a deputy, we had a case where a group of locals excavated over fifty cubic yards of material from a Polar Mesa cave they’d discovered. They hauled away more than five hundred artifacts including pots, stone tools, utensils, baskets, leather clothing and anything else they could find. Even removed some human remains. We’ve had a few other instances of pothunting in Grand County, but the Polar Mesa dig was the most egregious.”

Rivera nodded. “What can you tell me about that other shooting that took place up in the LaSals about a month ago? I was in Las Cruces visiting my folks when it happened so I’m not clear on the details.”

“There wasn’t much to it. Dave Tibbetts handled the case. A bullet struck a man named Buddy Milton in the head while he was on a solo hike. He’s still in a coma at the hospital. There was no apparent motive so Dave figured it was a just a freak hunting accident. The slug was never recovered. After striking the victim, it continued on its trajectory to who-knows-where. The case is still open, pending an interview with the victim after he regains consciousness. Could be there’s a connection but I don’t see it right offhand.” Bradshaw stood up. “Okay, Manny, keep me posted on your progress and let me know if you need any help.”

“Yes, sir,” said Rivera and stood up.

“One more thing,” said Bradshaw. “Denny Campbell is running unopposed in the upcoming sheriff’s election. So, come spring, he’ll be your new boss. He asked me if he could visit with each of my employees, just to say hello and introduce himself. I told him it would be okay, so expect a visit from him.” Bradshaw smiled. “But remember, he’s not the sheriff yet.”

Rivera nodded and left Bradshaw’s office, feeling a bit dejected. He would miss working for the man who had mentored him and taught him much of what he knew about investigative work. He’d brushed with Campbell a time or two in the past and wasn’t looking forward to working for him. He was an inexperienced, somewhat pompous fellow, exactly the opposite of Sheriff Bradshaw. And he’d had some unkind words to say about Bradshaw in the past, critical of the job he was doing, and claiming, before he learned Bradshaw wouldn’t run for another term, that law enforcement in Grand County was inept and out of control.

It was dark by the time Rivera left the building. He stopped at the City Market grocery store to pick up some dinner at the deli counter. He selected a few of his favorite items: fried chicken, coleslaw, corn on the cob, and brownies. Then he drove home and parked his vehicle in the gravel driveway of the two bedroom house he rented a few blocks from the center of town.

Before eating his own dinner, he fed the guppies that inhabited the ten gallon aquarium on his kitchen countertop and watched them eat. He liked having tropical fish for pets. They were never any trouble. They didn’t make any noise or mess on the carpet. And when one of them died, it wasn’t a cause for great sadness because they reproduced so rapidly. Losing a guppy was nothing like he imagined losing a cat or dog would be.

That thought reminded him of the sack of dog chow he’d found in Whitlock’s truck. Had Whitlock brought a dog with him into the LaSals? Was it still up there on the mesa, searching for its master? And if so, how long could it survive the cold nights at seven thousand feet with no food? And what defense would a city dog accustomed to the comforts of home have against a hungry mountain lion?

Rivera retrieved a can of Budweiser from the refrigerator and sat down at the small table in his kitchen. He unwrapped his dinner and began eating. As he did, he glanced at the bottle of Porcupine Rim Merlot sitting on the table. You can share it with that nurse lady friend of yours, Devlin had said. Rivera wished he was doing that right now. Unfortunately, Vivian was out of town. Thinking about her made him smile. They had been dating for over a year and he was very much smitten. He enjoyed spending time with her, talking, laughing, hiking, and exploring the backcountry. She was five feet six inches tall with green eyes, long dark hair, and a trim figure.

She’d only been gone a few days but already he missed her. She’d left town to visit her family in Taos and attend to some personal business about which she hadn’t elaborated. She’d never talked much about her life in Taos and always seemed to sidestep questions whenever he inquired. Eventually, he’d learned to accept that about her and avoided pressing her for details. In a way, it added to her mystery.

His thoughts meandered back to the Whitlock murder. Several questions had hung unanswered in his mind ever since he found the Fremont pot in the victim’s backpack. Whitlock’s chronology, since arriving in Moab, didn’t allow much time for exploring. So how did he know where to dig? And where exactly was the dig site? There were three more days remaining on his motel reservation. Were there additional sites he’d planned to excavate? And, of course, there was the over-arching and deeply troubling question: Was William Whitlock killed because he was a pothunter?

4

RIVERA OCCUPIED the usual booth in the far corner of the Rim Rock Diner and waited for Emmett Mitchell to arrive. Mitchell, a good friend, was a deputy sheriff in San Juan County, the county bordering Grand County to the south. He had fifteen years more experience in law enforcement than did Rivera, so Rivera liked to take advantage of his expertise and advice.

While he waited, he read with great interest the article on the front page of the Times-Independent. He wondered how they’d gotten a photograph of William Whitlock so fast. Rivera hadn’t even received a response from SFPD yet. The photo showed a smiling Whitlock in an open-collar shirt under the headline Hiker Murdered in Backcountry. The article reported the basic facts of the case and added that Whitlock was a multi-millionaire from San Francisco. No mention was made of the pot found in Whitlock’s backpack. Evidently the newspaper hadn’t yet uncovered that detail. According to the article, Whitlock was an adventure seeker who enjoyed prospecting for gold and collecting art, coins, and pre-Columbian artifacts. Having made a fortune as one of Microsoft’s earliest computer scientists and stockholders, he retired at age thirty-five to concentrate on his avocations. Rivera was impressed with how quickly Moab’s tiny newspaper was able to come up with facts he didn’t yet have.

In a separate page-one article, the activities of the demonstrators were described and a copy of the manifesto was published. As yet, no one had come forth and claimed authorship of the manifesto. The newspaper had interviewed a few of the protesters but none of them knew anything about its origin. Rivera was relieved to see there was no linkage suggested between Whitlock’s murder and the demonstration.

Betty, a waitress at the diner for the past fifteen years, appeared at his table and filled his coffee mug. “Heard your girlfriend left town,” she murmured. She was standing close to him, hip touching his elbow, smiling and slowly chewing her gum. At fifty-something, with a blonde beehive hairdo and a too-tight white uniform, she began her daily flirtation with him. “If you get lonely, you know where to find me.”

“Good morning, Betty.” He smiled, keeping his eyes on the newspaper and trying not to look embarrassed. She was the only woman who could make him blush.

The tone of her voice suddenly changed from sultry to surprised. “Hey, Manny, that guy was in here a couple of days ago.”

Rivera looked up at her. “What guy?”

“That guy.” She pointed to Whitlock’s photograph. “Why is his picture in the paper?”

“That’s William Whitlock, from San Francisco. He was shot dead in the mountains yesterday.”

“Oh, my word.” She covered her mouth with her hand. Looked at his picture again. “How sad. And to think he was just in here, smiling and enjoying lunch with his friend.”

“He was? Who was he with?”

“Some guy that comes in here every once in a while. I don’t know his name but I think he’s a local.”

“When was that, exactly?”

She thought for a moment. “Day before yesterday.”

“Betty, I need the name of the guy Whitlock had lunch with. It could be very important.”

“I’ll ask Patty Sue if she knows. They were sitting at one of her tables.” Betty left just as Emmett Mitchell arrived and slid into the booth.

Mitchell smiled. “I heard you’ve been assigned the Whitlock case.”

“Yeah. Just getting started.” Rivera briefed Mitchell on the facts of the case. “Whitlock was in here two days ago having lunch with some guy. Maybe a local. Betty is trying to get his name for me.”

Betty returned to the table with Patty Sue in tow.

“The man’s name is Max Sutherland,” said Patty Sue, a tall brunette in her mid-forties. “And he’s definitely a local. He lives on the same street I do.”

“Did you overhear any of their conversation?” asked Rivera.

Patty Sue stepped back and produced a look of mock astonishment. She looked wide-eyed at Betty, then back at Rivera. “Manny, I’m not an eavesdropper. I’m shocked you would ever think that. We waitresses at the Rim Rock Diner are highly trained to be discrete and professional. These booths are like confessionals to us. We never repeat anything we hear.”

Rivera smiled wryly and shook his head. “C’mon Patty Sue, this is important. Don’t make me put you in jail for withholding evidence.”

“Oooh,” said Patty Sue, smiling. “That sounds like fun.”

Betty squealed. “Oh, Manny, arrest both of us. Please. I wanna go too.”

“Yes, please, Manny,” begged Patty Sue, now bobbing up and down. “Please, please, please.”

Betty and Patty Sue stopped and looked at each other. Then laughed hysterically.

Rivera looked at Mitchell and rolled his eyes.

“You’re handling this interrogation really well, Deputy Rivera,” said a grinning Mitchell. “Mind if I take notes on your technique?”

Soon all four were laughing. The intermittent snorting that accompanied Betty’s laughter made the group laugh even harder. The other patrons in the diner stared at them with curious smiles.

“I think it might have been some kind of business meeting,” said Patty Sue, when the laughter was over. “You know, serious faces, low voices, and all that. I didn’t overhear any of it, but when I went back to refill their coffee, I saw Mr. Sutherland hand the other man a piece of paper. He unfolded it and studied it for a while, then removed a thick envelope from his shirt pocket and handed it to Mr. Sutherland.”

“How thick was the envelope?”

“About like this.” She held her thumb and forefinger about a half-inch apart.

“Okay, thanks, Patty Sue. That’s very helpful.” He jotted Sutherland’s name into his notepad.

Patty Sue departed and Betty pulled her order pad out from her pocket. “Both you hunks want the usual?”

They nodded and she left to turn in the order.

“I know a little about Max Sutherland,” said Mitchell. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “He used to live in San Juan County. Just outside of Blanding. He was a pot collector and trader. Almost certainly a pot-hunter as well. He was arrested on suspicion of violating the Antiquities Act several times but was always able to beat the rap with provenance papers showing the artifacts had come from private land. Then the infamous FBI raid on the pothunters and collectors of Blanding took place in 2009. Feds descended on the town in force. It was like a military operation. You remember that?”

“Yeah. It happened right after I moved up here from Las Cruces.”

“I’ll never forget it. I was right in the middle of it. There was a lot of history leading up to the raid. People in the Four Corners area have been digging up artifacts since the white man arrived and set up trading posts in the late eighteen hundreds. The digging started in earnest back in Richard Wetherill’s day when the American Museum of Natural History in New York began offering five dollars apiece for just about anything related to the ancient-Indian cultures. That was good money back then, so many of the area’s white settlers became pothunters. There was a wholesale excavation of ruins, graves, midden piles, and cliff dwellings. Pots, bones, clothing, sandals, anything and everything were dug up and shipped east by the box load. And, of course, pothunting still goes on today. It’s been going on for so long in my county that it’s become imbedded in the local culture.”

“Only now, the stakes are much higher,” said Rivera. “A good pot can be worth thousands of dollars.”

“Exactly. Kids around here learn at an early age to keep their eyes open for burial sites in the backcountry. It’s a practice that’s ingrained in them early in life. Anyway, the Federal Government passed a series of laws starting in the early nineteen hundreds prohibiting pothunting on federal lands. The laws were largely ignored and little effort was made to enforce them. So the digging continued, as well as the selling and collecting.”

“The locals paid no attention to the laws.”

“Right. They acted like they had a birthright to collect artifacts. Warnings about enforcement and prosecution went unheeded and ignored for years. The problem was particularly widespread in the town of Blanding so the Feds decided to set an example there. They sent in undercover agents who posed as buyers. The buyers got to know the locals, bought their goods, and learned the location of the sites where the artifacts had been obtained. The agents were wired and the conversations recorded. That went on for nearly two years. When they had enough information to prosecute the lawbreakers, they hit Blanding hard.”

“I remember. They flooded a town of only three thousand people with almost two hundred Federal agents.”

“Yeah. It was an invasion. Fully armed SWAT teams dressed in black. They scared the hell out of everyone in the town. The Feds arrested dozens of citizens, cuffed them, paraded them in front of television cameras, and confiscated their collections. Some of those arrested were Blanding’s elite. One prominent doctor tragically committed suicide after he was arrested. It was a gut-wrenching event for the town.”

“I’d hate to see that kind of trouble come to Moab.”

“We San Juan County deputies were ordered by the FBI to assist with the arrests, bookings, evidence collection, so forth. The town was angry at us for a long time. Many of them still are. And many of them hate the Feds to this day for what they did. Anyway, after the raid, Sutherland decided to move from Blanding to Moab. Away from the Fed’s prying eyes, I guess. I heard he’s quit pothunting but now sells maps to the ancient-Indian gravesites he’s located over the years. Graves in my county and yours. And a couple of counties on the other side of the Colorado River, too.”

“Aah. So that’s how Whitlock knew where to dig. Sutherland sold him a map. That must have been what their meeting was about.”

“Probably. Sutherland always struck me as kind of an odd duck,” said Mitchell. “He never seemed to have any friends. From what I’ve heard, he spent most of his time alone exploring the backcountry. Looking for gravesites, I guess. And apparently he found a lot of them.”

“How did he locate them?”

“He’s supposed to be an expert on the kinds of sites the Fremont and Anasazi sought out to bury their dead. At the base of a cliff, in a cliffside crack, next to an old ruin, so forth. He looks for areas with the right geological characteristics and explores them thoroughly. Knows what to look for.”

“Is what he’s doing illegal?”

“Well, he’s just selling maps. He doesn’t participate in the digging himself as I understand it. I doubt anyone could get a conviction unless Sutherland was directly involved in the extraction or sale of the merchandise.”

“Any idea how many maps he’s sold?”

“It’s an ongoing business for him. I hear he’s sold dozens of them.”

“Buying a map from Sutherland would explain why Whitlock was able to hike directly to a burial site without spending time searching for one.” Rivera thought for a moment. “I’ll pay Sutherland a visit right after breakfast. I need to find out exactly where Whitlock was digging.”

5

RIVERA DROVE TO the Sutherland residence on South 100 East Street. The small grey clapboard house of nineteen-fifties vintage was set in the middle of a shabby, grassless yard surrounded by untrimmed bushes. A side carport sheltered a dusty dark green Jeep Wrangler. He parked his pickup at the curb, walked up to the house, and rapped on the door. Waited. Rapped again, louder this time. Soon he heard footsteps.

The door opened part way and a thin man with weathered skin and a three-day stubble peered at Rivera through wire-rimmed glasses. He had a shock of uncombed grey hair and he wore jeans and a threadbare rust-colored T-shirt. He looked to be about sixty years old. The man forced a smile.

“Can I help you?”

Rivera introduced himself and said he wanted to ask some questions about an investigation he was conducting.

Sutherland’s smile faded. “Well, sure, Deputy. What’s this about?”

“May I come in?”

Sutherland hesitated a beat. Then with an expression of obvious reluctance, he pulled the door all the way open and motioned for Rivera to enter.

They sat in the living room, modest by any standard except for the collection of ancient-Indian pots which occupied tables, shelves, and most other horizontal surfaces in the room.

Sutherland seemed uncomfortable. He was the first to speak. “If this visit is about my artifact collection, I have provenance papers and receipts showing each piece was obtained legally. I was investigated by the FBI during the Blanding raid when I lived down there. They found no reason to indict me.”

“It’s a fine looking collection, Mr. Sutherland, but my visit is in regard to another matter. You had lunch the day before yesterday at the Rim Rock Diner with William Whitlock. Is that correct?”

Sutherland frowned. “Well, I don’t have to answer that. Where I eat lunch and who I eat it with is nobody’s….”

Rivera cut him off. “William Whitlock was murdered yesterday. So now your lunch meeting is my business.”

Sutherland appeared shocked. “Murdered? How? Why?”

“He was shot while hiking in the mountains. It’s the why I’m investigating. Now kindly tell me about your meeting with him.”

“Uh, Okay.” Sutherland paused, swallowed. “He’s an acquaintance of mine who’s a pot collector. He’s from San Francisco.” He spoke slowly, as if carefully selecting each word. “He came to Moab for a little hiking. He called from San Francisco and asked if we could meet for a late lunch. I suggested the Rim Rock Diner because I sometimes eat there myself. Just two old pot collectors saying hello and swapping artifact stories.”

“Is that all there was to it?”

“That’s it.”

“You were seen passing a sheet of paper to Whitlock. What was that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he asked me to pass him a napkin. I don’t recall exactly…..” Sutherland’s voice trailed off.

“Oh, come on, Mr. Sutherland. I need to know the truth. You gave him a piece of paper and he passed you an envelope. You sold him a map and he paid you cash. Isn’t that correct?”

“Okay, so I sold him a map. So what?”

“A map to where?”

“Just a hiking trail I thought he’d enjoy.”

“He paid you a wad of cash for a map of a hiking trail?”

“He didn’t pay me for it.”

“What was in the envelope he gave you?”

Sutherland hesitated, his eyes darting around the room, seemingly searching the walls for a credible answer. He shrugged and remained silent.

“Look, we know you sell maps leading to ancient-Indian gravesites. What I need to know is where that particular gravesite is located.”

“Okay. I may have sold him a map to a gravesite. So what? There’s no law against selling maps.”

“I’m investigating a murder. I need to backtrack his route. I’ll need a copy of that map.”

“No way. I have to protect my clients. If he was digging up a gravesite, he was breaking the law. Even if he’s dead, I’m not going to damage his name. Besides, it would be bad for my business reputation.”

Rivera was working hard to control himself and remain calm, but it was difficult. “I can get a search warrant.”

“I don’t keep copies of maps I sell.”

Rivera stood up. “You know, if we find that gravesite, and we will, you can be charged as an accomplice for violating the Antiquities Act.”

Sutherland produced a smug smile. “I’ve discussed all that with my attorney several times. There’s no way I can be held responsible for what Whitlock did. I assume my clients just want to see the graves, not dig them up.”

Rivera knew he was probably right. Disgusted, he walked to the door, opened it, and then stopped. It occurred to him there was one more way he could apply leverage. He turned back to Sutherland. “All right, Sutherland. Right now I’m going to drive to the center of town and tell that crowd of protesters about your little mapmaking scheme. Give them your address. Maybe they’ll clear off Main Street and move their demonstration to your front door. Solves the problem of them interfering with traffic on a busy thoroughfare.”

Sutherland’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that. It’s harassment. It’s ... it’s illegal.”

“Watch me.” Rivera left the house and marched toward his vehicle.

Sutherland quickly appeared in the doorway, his expression one of exasperation. “Hold it, Deputy. Okay, okay. C’mon back inside.”

Rivera stared at him for a long moment, then returned to the house.

“I said I don’t keep copies and that’s true,” a defeated Sutherland said. “But I can draw you a map from memory.” He extracted a pen and a blank sheet of paper from an old roll-top desk. He took a few minutes to sketch out the map, a muscle in his left cheek twitching as he worked. He handed the completed map to Rivera.

Rivera glanced at it, then glared at Sutherland. “This had better be right. If you send me on a wild goose chase, I’ll be back and you’ll be in handcuffs for interfering with an investigation.”

“It’s right.”

“Is this the only map you sold him?”

“I’ve sold him a few others in the past. But only one on this trip.”

Rivera left the house and walked to his vehicle, studying the map. The gravesite was at the base of a bluff in Beaver Creek Canyon, roughly two miles from where Whitlock’s body had been found.

6

THE TWO-HOUR DRIVE from Moab across the LaSal Mountains to North Beaver Mesa put Rivera in a better mood. Spending time in the backcountry was one of the things he loved about his job. It gave him a chance to get away from people and reconnect with nature. He couldn’t explain it even to himself, but the remoteness and the silence of the high desert’s vast landscape somehow allowed him to find his sense of place in the universe.

He parked in the same area he did the day before, exited his unit, and looked around. The mesa was carpeted with yellow and purple blossoms. Two ravens were circling high in a blue sky populated with puffy bright-white cumulus clouds. He inhaled deeply, the cool air redolent of sage and wildflowers.

He strapped on his daypack, locked his vehicle, and hiked on the trail he’d used yesterday—the trail which had led to Whitlock’s body. His objective was to backtrack Whitlock’s route from the spot where he’d been killed to the ancient-Indian gravesite shown on Sutherland’s hand-drawn map. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but he’d learned from Sheriff Bradshaw, one of the best investigative minds in Utah, the importance of establishing a precise chronology of events.

As he hiked, Vivian entered his thoughts as she often did. She’d told him she needed a break from everything. Her life as an emergency room nurse at the Moab Regional Hospital was high stress. She’d once said she felt the patients’ lives were in her hands and one mistake on her part could cause a fatality. Anyone would need a break from that kind of pressure.

He extracted his cell phone from his shirt pocket and began dialing her number. Then he stopped and clicked off. He had a strong desire to hear her voice, tell her about his hike, and describe the mesa to her, but he didn’t want to intrude on her retreat. Don’t try to reach me. I’ll call you, she’d said. She’d been kind of aloof and distant for several weeks before leaving Moab. He figured she just needed some alone time.

Rivera arrived at the place where he’d found Whitlock’s body. The yellow crime scene tape he’d secured with rocks was still intact, its loose ends flapping in the breeze. He continued hiking, passing the spot where Whitlock had dropped his backpack, and following the cairns that marked the trail along the south rim of North Beaver Mesa.

A mile later, he reached the edge of a tributary canyon that drained into Beaver Canyon. After consulting Sutherland’s map, he proceeded due north until he reached the head of the small canyon. He hiked into it, using it as a gently-sloped entryway into the much larger Beaver Canyon. There were two sheer pour-offs in the tributary canyon, eight to ten feet each, but the map showed hike-around routes for both of them.

A half hour later, Rivera exited the smaller canyon, entered Beaver Canyon, and stopped for a moment to study it. It was a quarter mile wide, with red rock cliffs rising four hundred feet on each side. Talus slopes consisting of broken rock which had fallen from the cliff faces over the millennia angled from the floor of the canyon up a hundred feet to the canyon walls. Beaver Creek, fed by runoff water from the LaSals, narrowly snaked its way down the center of the canyon. He turned right and headed upcanyon, toward the LaSal Mountain peaks.

Rivera soon spotted footprints in the sandy bottom of the canyon. A size ten pair headed upcanyon and an identical pair returned downcanyon. They had been degraded somewhat by the wind, but clearly matched the tread of Whitlock’s hiking boots. There were also paw prints heading in each direction. In places, they were stepped on by Whitlock’s boot prints and partially obliterated; in other places, they stepped into Whitlock’s boot prints, leaving an indentation. Whitlock had definitely been accompanied by a dog on his hike.

Rivera took note of a second pair of boot prints heading downcanyon. They angled across from the other side of Beaver Canyon and joined Whitlock’s boot prints. In several places, they stepped on Whitlock’s boot prints, suggesting he might have been followed as he left the canyon. Could the second set of prints have been left by the killer? Maybe. Of course they might have been left by an innocent hiker. Rivera photographed both sets of boot prints and the paw prints, then continued his hike.

A mile upcanyon, he spotted a large vertical crack in the north wall of the canyon just as the map indicated he would. At that point, he climbed to the top of the talus and stood on a narrow terrace which ran along the canyon wall. Junipers and rabbit brush had taken root and sprouted on the terrace where windblown soil had filled the cracks between the rocks.

After some searching along the terrace, Rivera found the gravesite. He knelt down on one knee and inspected it. It was a rock-covered grave which had been partially excavated. The rocks from one end of the grave had been lifted and placed in a neat pile a few feet away. The exposed soil had been removed, leaving a depression about eighteen inches deep. Brush marks in the dirt indicated Whitlock had exercised care in the excavation, removing the soil one thin layer at a time. A femur and tibia were exposed.

Rivera found himself wondering about the man who’d been buried there, what he did to subsist in the canyon, and how old he was when he died. Did he have a wife and children? What words were spoken during the burial ceremony? Or was the corpse a woman? As Rivera pondered these questions, the remains took on the suggestion of a real person more than just a forgotten set of ancient bones.

It was obvious Whitlock had worked slowly and carefully, presumably in an effort to avoid damaging any artifacts the grave might have contained. Since the grave was only partially opened, he must have known from experience it would take more than one day to complete the excavation. That would explain why there were three days remaining on his motel reservation. He’d planned to return to the site to finish the job.

Rivera spotted a small scrap of paper caught between two rocks at the undisturbed end of the gravesite. It was a remnant of a sheet of paper which had been burned, but several words were still legible. He recognized the handwriting as Sutherland’s. Rivera placed the scrap in an evidence bag. Whitlock must have burned the map after he found the grave. No sense keeping incriminating evidence.

Rivera photographed the gravesite and the surrounding area, then carefully descended the talus to the canyon floor. When he arrived at the bottom, he spotted something he hadn’t noticed earlier. Whitlock’s footprints showed he had actually continued upcanyon past the point where he should have climbed up the talus. Then sometime later, he’d returned. He must have inadvertently hiked beyond the grave location, then doubled back when he realized his mistake. Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe Whitlock took a sensible precaution by hiking past the grave location and then doubling back, just to make sure he was alone in the canyon.

During the long hike back to his vehicle, Rivera quickly reviewed what he had so far. William Whitlock, an experienced pothunter and collector from San Francisco, had called Max Sutherland and set up a meeting in Moab for the purpose of purchasing a map to an ancient-Indian burial site. Whitlock had driven to Moab and checked into the Big Horn Lodge. He’d met with Sutherland at the Rim Rock Diner and purchased the map. The next day, Whitlock set out across the LaSal Mountains to North Beaver Mesa where he parked his vehicle and hiked with his dog to the gravesite in Beaver Canyon. He partially uncovered the grave and extracted a Fremont pot. He packaged the pot in a box with bubble wrap, then began hiking back to his vehicle.

Sometime after Whitlock hiked out of the tributary canyon and reached the mesa top, he noticed that someone was following him. For some reason, Whitlock felt threatened, so he ran. Perhaps his pursuer had fired a shot at him and missed. Whitlock shed his backpack so he could run faster, but he wasn’t fast enough to elude his pursuer. A bullet struck him in the back and he fell dead. The killer walked up to him and fired a slug into his head, just to be sure. Then he left without a trace. No doubt the gunshots caused the dog to run off scared.

Was it possible a radical member of the Heritage Preservation Society had followed Whitlock from Moab, saw he’d desecrated a gravesite, and killed him to set an example? If that’s what happened, how did the killer know Whitlock had intended to dig for artifacts in the first place? No one knew his plan except Max Sutherland. And killing pothunters wouldn’t be in Sutherland’s best interest. They were his customers. Could someone from the HPS have been hiking in Beaver Canyon and seen what Whitlock had done? Was it just a chance encounter?

The sun was high in the sky and the air had become warm. Rivera made the long climb up the tributary canyon back to the mesa top and followed the trail along the edge of the bluff. His legs ached and his feet were sore. He sat down on a slab of sandstone to relax for a moment, catch his breath, and cool off. While he rested, a slight movement in the distance caught his eye. He studied the sagebrush flats and spotted what appeared to be a dark brown dog. The animal stared at him for a long moment, then turned and trotted off with its tail between its legs, disappearing into the brush.

Late that afternoon, Rivera arrived back at the office. His in-basket contained a report on William Whitlock from the SFPD.

Whitlock had been born in Nebraska and moved to San Jose after receiving a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Oklahoma State University. He went to work for a small software development company for a couple of years. In 1987, he changed jobs, deciding to work for a fledgling company called Microsoft. He bought stock in the company with his savings and continued to add more to his holdings as his salary increased. In the mid-90’s, as a young multi-millionaire, he quit working, moved to San Francisco, and began doing the things he loved. That included playing the clarinet in an amateur jazz band, hiking the backcountry, panning for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains, and investing in wildcat oil wells. He never married. He was generous with his money, supporting a number of children’s charities. Later in life, he began collecting ancient-Indian artifacts and soon developed an impressive collection of Anasazi, Fremont, and Salado pieces, many of which were on loan to California museums. According to the SFPD, Whitlock had an excellent reputation. There was no reason to believe anyone living in San Francisco had a motive to kill him.

Rivera glanced at his watch. There was just enough time to get over to the Moab Information Center to attend the lecture described in the leaflet Bradshaw had shown him. The speaker was Damon Dunstable, Executive Director of the Heritage Preservation Society.

7

THE SMALL AUDITORIUM at the Moab Information Center was filled to capacity. The front rows were occupied by the young people Rivera had seen at the demonstration. A few of them carried placards. Behind them were tourists and a few locals he recognized. All the seats had been taken and the side aisles were crowded with standing onlookers. He found an open spot in the back of the room against the wall.

As he waited for the presentation to begin, he felt a light tap on his arm. It was his friend Chris Carey.

“This could be interesting,” whispered Carey, grinning from ear-to-ear. Carey was retired from a career of newspaper journalism in Utah, but he still had an intense interest in local events and politics. Somewhat bored in retirement, he enjoyed informally assisting Rivera whenever he could.

Rivera nodded. “If you’ve got time, stop by the house for a beer later. I’d like to get your take on all this.”

“I’ll be there.”

Dunstable hadn’t yet appeared at the speaker’s podium. The protesters were getting restless. One of them started chanting, “No more digging, no more digging.” The rest joined in.

After a couple of minutes, the chant died off and a new one began: “We want Damon, we want Damon.” Soon they were standing, chanting louder, and waving their placards.

Dunstable walked to the podium and a roar erupted from the protesters.

He was fortyish, medium size, wearing a white shirt and dark slacks. His bolo tie was fastened with a large turquoise and silver clasp. He smiled broadly and waved with outstretched arms, seemingly revelling in the adulation. After a long moment, he motioned for the crowd to sit down, but the applause continued. He shrugged, his smile became a laugh, and he waited until the applause finally played out.

Rivera watched with interest. Dunstable reminded him of politicians he’d seen on television who act as though they’re in show business. He wondered if Dunstable was cut from the same cloth.

The crowd became quiet and everyone sat down. Dunstable moved to the microphone. His voice was strong and his words were razor sharp. “We’re here to make a statement to the entire country. A loud and unambiguous statement. From this day forward, we will not tolerate the digging of ancient-Indian graves for profit or any other reason.”

A roar went up from the protesters in the front of the room. They stood up and resumed chanting, pumping their placards. Camera flashes illuminated Dunstable’s smiling face. If publicity was what he wanted, he was sure getting it. There were four representatives of the media in attendance.

Locals in the audience glanced at one another with raised eyebrows. Moab had had demonstrations in the past but they’d consisted simply of a handful of people with signs, quietly standing near the giant pile of uranium mill tailings next to the Colorado River, demanding its removal. They’d gotten their way. But demonstrations with the noise and vigor of this one were new to Moab.

Finally, the attendees took their seats and the room grew quiet. Dunstable gave a speech that lasted forty-five minutes. He made several points, often interrupted with raucous applause by the occupants of the front rows.

Rivera jotted the main points of Dunstable’s speech into his notepad. There were eight of them: First, pot-hunters were basically grave robbers and should be shunned by society. Second, law enforcement was not doing its job apprehending these characters and in those rare instances when they did arrest one, the penalties were not sufficiently severe. Third, anthropologists and archaeologists were no exception to the rule. In fact, they were the worst offenders. Fourth, the HPS didn’t condone violence, but it was supportive of demonstrations. Fifth, members of the media have a responsibility to inform society about the evils of pothunting. Sixth, the federal government should provide substantial monetary rewards for whistle-blowers who identify violators of pothunting laws. Seventh, all artifacts, whether in museums or private collections, should be returned to their respective tribes. And eighth, artifacts in graves on private land should be no exception.

Dunstable emphasized the last point. “A private landowner doesn’t have the right to dig up an eight-hundred-year-old grave on his property any more than he has the right to dig up an eighty-year-old grave. If you buy a tract of land and find an old family cemetery on it, you can’t just dig it up. So what makes it okay to dig up an ancient-Indian grave?”

After the talk, there was a brief question and answer session. Most of the questions were asked by the media representatives and were related to grave digging, illegal markets, and artifact prices. One of the locals asked about the demonstration and pointed out that the protesters were blocking traffic and the noise was becoming a nuisance. Dunstable responded by saying he would talk to the protesters and ask them to be more considerate.

After that came a bombshell question from a Times-Independent reporter, apparently the only media representative in the room who had done his homework. “A man named William Whitlock was murdered in the LaSal Mountains yesterday. He’d just dug up an ancient-Indian grave and was leaving with a Fremont pot in his backpack. The manifesto written by one of your supporters and published in our newspaper said, Retaliation for pothunting will be carried out. Did one of your supporters kill Whitlock?”

There was a collective gasp in the room. The protesters looked at one another with expressions of shock and surprise. Now the room fell silent. All eyes were on Dunstable as the attendees awaited his response.

He appeared visibly shaken. “Well, uh, that’s the first I’ve heard of that.” He paused. “He was a pothunter you say? Are you sure?”

The reporter nodded solemnly. “No question about it. The Fremont pot in his backpack was still caked with fresh dirt.”

Dunstable shook his head. “Well, as I said, our society doesn’t condone violence.” He spoke in a low voice, seemingly trying to regain his composure. “But people are upset by all the grave desecration. Something like this was bound to happen. It was probably just a matter of time.”

The meeting ended and the attendees quietly filed out of the room. Rivera intercepted Dunstable and introduced himself. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

Dunstable nodded. They walked to a quiet corner of the room and sat down.

“Why did you choose Moab for your demonstration?”

Dunstable shrugged. “More tourists here—better publicity. If we did it in a quiet town, no one would notice or care.”

Rivera nodded. “Someone, probably one of your supporters, wrote a manifesto which contained an implied threat to retaliate against pothunters. Right afterwards, we have a murdered pothunter on our hands. What can you tell me about that?”

Dunstable appeared annoyed. “Well, I read the newspaper article but I don’t know anything about where that manifesto came from. Anybody could have written it. The Heritage Preservation Society is only trying to raise public awareness about a serious problem and put pressure on our politicians to change some laws and enforce the ones already on the books. Unfortunately, protests draw all kinds of people, some of them not entirely stable. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

“I may need to ask you some more questions in the next few days. Are you staying in town?”

“Me? No. I’m leaving in the morning. We have another demonstration scheduled for Saturday in Flagstaff and I have to get down there to give a speech at Northern Arizona University.”

“Do you have a cell phone where I could reach you if I need to?”

“Sure.” Dunstable took a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Rivera.

“How much longer will the demonstration last?”

Dunstable shrugged. “No idea. I guess it’ll continue until the protesters get tired and decide to leave town.”

As Rivera drove home, he wondered if Dunstable had been shooting straight with him. He had an uncomfortable feeling about the man.

8

RIVERA CHECKED HIS answering machine as soon as he arrived home. There were two messages. One was from a friend of a friend who was selling magazine subscriptions and couldn’t he please help her out with an order. She left a return number. The second was a wrong number and sounded like a fax machine trying to send a message. Unfortunately, there was still no word from Vivian.

Rivera was famished. He reheated some leftover pizza, sat down at the kitchen table, and ate a late dinner. About the time he was finished, he heard a knock on the door. It was Chris Carey.

“C’mon in, Chris. How about a beer?”

“Exactly what I need. I’m a little dry.” He smiled. “Standing for an hour and listening to Dunstable make a speech takes a lot out of a guy—especially an old man like me.”

Rivera smiled. Carey was sixty-six but didn’t look his age. He was medium height and lean, with a full head of graying sandy hair. Rivera retrieved two cans of beer from the refrigerator. “Let’s go sit in the living room and get comfortable.”

The furniture in the house Rivera rented wasn’t much to look at. It was obvious the owner had made no attempt to match the pieces. But if nothing else, the eclectic collection was supremely comfortable. Rivera sat down on the couch and motioned for Carey to sit on a nearby stuffed chair.

“Feels good to get off my feet,” said Carey, sinking into the cushions and exhaling audibly. He snapped open his beer and took a long swig.

“Well, what’s your impression of the demonstration?” prompted Rivera.

“I’ve talked to several of the protesters over the past three days. Some came from as far away as Chicago and Seattle. I spent a lot of time with them trying to understand their position. One in particular, a cute blonde coed from Ohio, was particularly informative. Her name was Bethany. We talked at length. I even held her placard for her when her arms got tired. She summed up their position very succinctly. They are not opposed to digging for artifacts in the general sense; they are opposed to grave desecration in particular.”

Carey took another swig of beer. “Bethany was at the lecture this evening. She was sitting in the second row. After it was over, she saw me outside the building and asked if we could talk privately. We walked up Center Street toward the library, away from the crowd. She was quite shaken. Like most of us, she’d learned that William Whitlock was a pothunter only when the Times-Independent reporter asked his question. She wanted me to know two things. First, she was returning to Ohio in the morning. She had no idea the demonstration would turn violent and was sorry she ever got involved. Second, and this is the important point, she said she’d spoken with one of the protesters on Tuesday who was bragging about a manifesto he’d written and intended to make public. He called himself Zolu. At the time, she just chalked it up to a guy trying to hit on her. But after learning about Whitlock, she wasn’t so sure.”

“Zolu?”

“Yeah.”

“No last name?”

“No. I’m sure it’s a pseudonym. And before you ask, she didn’t know where he was from.”

“Did she give you a description of the guy?”

“Yeah. She described him as handsome, in his mid-20’s. He was about six feet tall and muscular with long dark hair. He wore moccasins, a red headband, jeans, and an open leather vest with no shirt. He was dressed like an Indian.”

“I didn’t see anyone fitting that description in the crowd today,” said Rivera.

“No, he wasn’t there today. But he was part of the crowd on Monday and Tuesday. I remember seeing him. I figured he was one of those Indian wannabes. A white man who imagined he belonged to a tribe. Or wished he did. He stood behind the protesters, just watching. Kind of aloof and superior. Above it all.”

“I’ll see if I can find this character. Maybe he’s still in town.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open and give you a call if I see him.” Carey paused as if deep in thought, then changed the subject. “You know, I’ve been digging into the history of the Heritage Preservation Society. For many years they were kind of low key. Mostly a bunch of intellectuals. Philosopher types. They tried to educate people about the extent and ruthlessness of pothunting and persuade anyone who would listen that grave robbing was wrong, that it diminished the dignity of man and destroyed the history of a people. But the results of their efforts were meager. Their message wasn’t resonating with the citizenry because, I guess, the digging has been going on for so long that now it’s kind of accepted. So the HPS Board of Directors retired the old executive director and brought in Dunstable a year ago. He’s more of a firebrand and knows how to stir up the masses.”

Rivera nodded. “Dunstable strikes me as the kind of guy who might incite young folks to do things he wouldn’t do himself. He worries me.”

“Me too.” Carey tipped his head back and finished his beer. “But, you know, setting aside Dunstable for a moment, the Heritage Preservation Society is professing a point of view that I find kind of interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“First things first.” Carey held up an empty beer can.

“Right.” Rivera went to the kitchen and returned with two cold cans of beer. He handed one to Carey and sat down. Both men popped open their beers and took a gulp.

Carey returned to his point. “Our laws, starting with the Antiquities Act of 1906, prohibit digging for ancient-Indian artifacts on public lands unless a permit is obtained from the government. That prohibition includes national parks, national forests, BLM land, Indian reservations, and so forth. Any and all land in the public domain. The basic premise of the law is that digging for artifacts on public land is okay as long as it has a legitimate scientific purpose. The laws attempt to ensure that each dig is done properly and every step is recorded in a form suitable for study by subsequent researchers. The context of the artifact must be preserved—that means removing the covering soil carefully, one thin layer at a time, in an accurately measured grid. All finds, no matter how tiny, are documented as to location, orientation, and depth. Then they are photographed, catalogued, and preserved. So, permits are granted only to serious researchers with proper credentials and appropriate university affiliations. That pretty much restricts it to PhD-level anthropologists and archaeologists. The law is silent on the question of digging up ancient-Indian graves on private land, so that is considered legal. Unless state laws say otherwise, no permit is required. The owner can do as he pleases.”

Rivera nodded. “And that differs from what the protesters want.”

“Right. They don’t object to exploring for artifacts as long as it doesn’t involve the digging of graves. Digging in midden piles or ancient ruins for pots is okay with them. They have no interest in that. What they object to is grave desecration, permit or not, anthropologist or not, PhD or not. In fact, as Dunstable said, they consider anthropologists and archaeologists to be the worst offenders. They don’t want graves excavated anywhere, not even on private land. For them, it’s a question of human dignity.”

Rivera sat back. “So they’re well meaning but completely at odds with our laws as written.”

“Exactly. They want the laws changed. And enforced. I think they have a thoughtful point of view. And maybe a correct one. Where does one man get off digging up another’s grave for any reason?”

“I hadn’t looked at it that way. I guess our laws are based more on property rights—who has title to the land, and so forth. The position of the Heritage Preservation Society is based more on propriety.”

Carey nodded. “The other side of that coin is the question of whether man has the right to do what’s necessary to learn and understand his history. Do we have the right to enter Egyptian or Mayan pyramids and exhume the dead? Unwrap mummies? Mankind has been doing it for so long, it’s now generally considered an acceptable practice. We don’t give it a second thought anymore. It’s okay as long as it’s done within the law. But is it really okay? I mean it might be legal, but is it right?”

“One way or another, man’s natural curiosity will drive him to discover his own history. Maybe it’s just inevitable,” said Rivera.

“But when does grave desecration become historical excavation? I didn’t care for Dunstable but he did bring up a good point. If you buy a piece of property and find an old grave on it, do you have the right to dig it up? Suppose it’s thirty years old with a gravestone. I think we’d all agree that’s not okay. What about two hundred years old without a gravestone? Five hundred years? I mean, is it simply a question of how long the deceased has been in the ground? Is there some magic duration of time which must pass before it’s okay to dig? And if so, what is that duration?”

Rivera thought about that. Shrugged. “No idea.”

Carey raised his beer, stopped, then lowered it. He looked at Rivera and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You know, I’ve never really thought about all this before.”

Rivera nodded. “Neither have I.”

9

FRIDAY MORNING BROUGHT with it another beautiful fall day. Cumulus clouds hugging the LaSal Mountain peaks were back-lighted by the rising sun. The cool morning air was slowly warming up and Moab was coming to life. Main Street was filled with Jeeps heading out to the backcountry.

As Rivera drove to the Rim Rock Diner to meet Emmett Mitchell for breakfast, he reflected on last night’s conversation with Chris Carey. A strange and unsettling thought crept into his mind, something he’d never before considered. Like most Hispanics, he knew that his genetic roots, if he went back far enough in time, would trace to the invading Spanish Conquistadors of the sixteenth century and the North American indigenous tribes. He’d occasionally wondered which tribe or tribes he had descended from.

But now he wondered about something else, something which was improbable but entirely possible. Could the grave Whitlock had dug up two days ago have belonged to one of Rivera’s ancestors? Had Rivera been looking at the bones of one of his forebears? The thought gave him a chill. It transformed what was just a theoretical discussion with Carey into something very personal. And the more he thought about it, the more he found himself in sympathy with the protesters’ point of view.

As he pulled into the diner’s parking lot, his cell phone rang. It was Mitchell.

“Manny, I’ve just been called away on an urgent matter in San Juan County so I can’t join you for breakfast. Last night, an old grave in the Blanding cemetery was dug up and the bones of a deceased man exhumed. The bones were deposited at the front door of the Edge of the Cedars Museum.”

Rivera ate breakfast and drank coffee by himself, wondering if the Blanding grave desecration was a retaliation aimed at pothunters in the Four Corners area. It almost had to be. And he wondered if Damon Dunstable had something to do with it.

First, the demonstrators show up in Moab, then a pothunter is murdered in the mountains, and now this. A momentum seemed to be building.

Rivera had wanted to brief Mitchell on Dunstable’s lecture last night and get his take on the Heritage Preservation Society. Now that would have to wait. Instead, while he ate breakfast, he struck up a conversation with three young men at a nearby table who were planning a day hike on Cedar Mesa. Their goal was to find and photograph the ancient-Indian ruins on a promontory of mesa called the Citadel. A part of Rivera wished he were going with them.

As he drove through the center of town on his way to the office, Rivera noticed the protesters were once again occupying the area in front of the Moab Information Center. He pulled over to the curb a half block away and studied them, looking for someone who fit the description of Zolu. The protesters still carried placards but they seemed more subdued than yesterday. The revelation last night that a pothunter had been murdered must have given them pause. Their number had dwindled somewhat. And the young man who called himself Zolu was not present.

Rivera took a sip of coffee and leaned back in his chair. His office was small but the window facing the LaSal Mountains made it seem much larger. Looking at the mountains now, his thoughts turned to Vivian and their many hikes up there together. He glanced at the framed photograph of her prominently displayed on his bookcase shelves. A few weeks ago, he’d decided their relationship had progressed to the point where he could add her picture to the collection of family photographs he displayed in his office. In a way, the pictures kept his mind in daily touch with his parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and cousins in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he’d grown up. It occurred to him that maybe it was time for him to take Vivian down there to meet them.

He opened the case file on the Buddy Milton shooting and began reading it, looking for any possible connection with the subsequent William Whitlock murder. Halfway through the first page, there was a knock on his office door. Before he could say “Come in,” the door was opened.

“Got a minute?”

Rivera recognized the visitor immediately. It was Denny Campbell, Rivera’s soon-to-be new boss. He was an imposing figure, standing six feet four inches tall, with broad shoulders and a burr haircut. His blue eyes produced a penetrating gaze. He looked to be in his early fifties and carried himself with a military bearing.

Rivera closed the file, stood up, and smiled. “Sure, come on in.” He extended his hand.

Campbell came face-to-face with Rivera, towering five inches over him, and gave him a very firm handshake. “I’m making the rounds, trying to personally meet everyone in the department.” He sat down and so did Rivera.

“Well, welcome to the department,” said Rivera. This would be their first face-to-face conversation but Rivera had learned a few shadowy details through the gossip mill about Campbell’s past life. He was a former Detroit street cop who had retired and moved to Moab about eight years ago. He’d been shot twice in the line of duty, once by an informer he’d grown to trust. His wife left him for another man and he rarely saw his two grown children. Campbell came across as a man who was stiff, maybe even uptight, and one who wasn’t as confident as he wanted people to think.

“I’m looking forward to this election being over so I can get to work here in the department. You’re probably wondering if I’ll run things differently than Sheriff Bradshaw. The answer to that is affirmative. If I might be blunt, I think there’s a lot that needs to be done to improve department operations. Bradshaw is a good man and means well, but I’ve always had the impression he ran things a little loose around here. I want everyone in the department to know that I’ll be a fair boss but I’ll be running a tight ship. Everything by the book.”

Rivera nodded, thinking how different this man was from Sheriff Bradshaw. Bradshaw was the kind of boss everyone admired and loved working for. His employees gave maximum effort and tried to do everything right, not because they feared the consequences of a mistake, but because they wanted to please him.

“I understand you’re working on the Whitlock murder.”

“That’s correct.”

“What have you learned so far?”

“Nothing yet, except what’s been in the newspaper. I’m really just getting started.” Rivera knew Campbell had no business asking about the case. He wasn’t the sheriff yet, hadn’t even been elected. But it wasn’t Rivera’s job to lecture his future boss.

“Seems obvious Whitlock was killed by one of those demonstrators. I assume that’s where you’re concentrating your efforts.”

“That’s sure one possibility. But there may be others.”

Campbell frowned and slowly stood up. “Manny, I don’t believe in beating around the bush so let me be clear on one thing. When I said everything by the book, I was thinking about you in particular. You’re kind of a special case in the department. You’re a good investigator but you have a reputation around town of enforcing only the laws you agree with. Our job doesn’t allow us to pick and choose. We must enforce each law equally. No exceptions.”

Rivera raised his eyebrows, not knowing what to say. So he said nothing. But he felt an anger slowly rising within him.

Campbell continued his lecture. “When you work for me, all that’ll have to stop. Everything will be done in accordance with correct procedures.” Campbell walked to the door and opened it. He looked back at Rivera. “Keep me posted on the Whitlock case,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

Rivera was steamed. He sat there, staring at the door, working to suppress his anger. He’d learned the importance of that a long time ago. The hard way. As a teenager, he discovered that one of the older boys in town had been bothering his younger sister with unwanted advances. One day she came home crying, saying the boy had torn her dress. Rivera found the assailant and, in a sudden burst of anger, slugged him, blinding him in one eye for life. It was something he regretted to this day. Since then, whenever he felt an incipient anger, he learned to take a deep breath and suppress it. Let the moment pass. He knew the potential for another outburst was always with him, lurking just under the surface, waiting for an opportunity to explode if he let it.

He calmed himself down but still resented Campbell’s comments. Maybe what bothered him so much was that, deep down, he knew Campbell was right. Rivera had let infractions slide in the past if he thought enforcing the law would lead to an injustice. And he knew he would do it again if necessary. He didn’t sign on to a career of law enforcement to abandon fairness and human decency. The corners of his mouth turned up as he recalled a quotation from an American literature course he’d taken in college: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. As far as Rivera was concerned, that also applied to the law.

Working with Campbell was not going to be easy. Now more than ever, he hoped Bradshaw would change his mind and decide to run for another term. Rivera took a sip of coffee and looked out at the mountains. He decided to put Campbell out of his mind and force himself to concentrate on the details contained in the Buddy Milton case file.

Milton was hiking alone on a trail north of Mount Waas when he was shot in the head with a bullet of unknown caliber. The bullet grazed his head, fracturing his skull and leaving him in a coma. He was found by hikers the following day. He was rushed to the Moab Regional Hospital where his wound was treated and where he remained today, still unconscious. Reports from the hospital indicated he was stirring, on the edge of consciousness, and expected to survive. Hopefully they would soon have his statement about what took place that day.

Since the bullet that struck him continued on its trajectory, it was never found. No comparison could be made with the slugs extracted from Whitlock’s body. Milton was reputed to be a soft spoken, good natured man with no enemies. The shooting had been attributed to a hunting mishap pending an interview with the victim. A note in the file indicated that Milton’s sister Wilma kept a daily watch over him in his hospital room.

Rivera put the file down. Milton was shot nearly a month ago, long before the demonstrators showed up in Moab, so there was probably no connection between the two cases. But, in the interest of thoroughness, Rivera would check everything carefully.

He parked his vehicle in the Moab Regional Hospital parking lot and walked to the front door. Entering the building reminded him of the first time he’d seen Vivian. He’d been getting a fractured arm repaired after a fall on a rocky talus slope while he was trying to apprehend a criminal. Vivian was the nurse who had assisted the doctor in repairing his arm. They’d hit it off immediately and had been dating ever since. He had an empty feeling as he wondered again why he hadn’t yet heard from her.

A woman was sitting in Milton’s room thumbing through a magazine when Rivera entered. She introduced herself as Wilma Eastman, Buddy Milton’s sister. She was a petite brunette with hazel eyes, late-forties, and pretty. Milton was lying on his back in the bed, quiet and motionless. A feeding tube ran up one of his nostrils and an IV was connected to a vein in his arm.

“How’s Buddy doing?” inquired Rivera, inspecting the patient.

“The doctors are optimistic he’ll come out of the coma any day now. Right now he’s pretty quiet, but earlier this morning he was making noises like he was trying to say something.”

“How long has he lived in Moab?”

“He doesn’t really live here. He has a cabin at the Dolores River Research Institute. That’s been his home since they hired him three years ago. He comes into town three or four times a month. When he does, he stays with me and my husband.”

Rivera was vaguely familiar with the D.R.R.I. It had been established on a remote ranch in eastern Grand County three or four years ago. It was a not-for-profit organization that provided funding and quarters for scientists on sabbatical.

“Could you tell me a little about Buddy’s background?”

“Sure. We’re from Wyoming. We grew up on a ranch outside of Laramie. My husband and I moved to Moab fifteen years ago when he got a job at the potash mine. Buddy visited us a couple of times a year and loved the area, so when a job opportunity arose at the Institute three years ago, he jumped at the chance. He’s forty-six years old, two years younger than me. He learned electronics in the Army, then worked for the University of Wyoming in the buildings and grounds department. He can fix just about anything. That’s why they hired him at the Institute. He assists the scientists doing project work over there. While he’s in town, he does a lot of volunteer work at Mrs. Densford’s hospice. Helps with the patients, visits with them, tries to comfort them, that sort of thing.”

Rivera knew of Mrs. Densford’s work. She was considered the Mother Teresa of Moab. Asked nothing for herself, gave everything to others. He made a mental note to stop by the hospice when he got a chance and ask her about Buddy.

“Did Buddy ever mention a man named William Whitlock?”

Wilma shook her head. “Not that I recall.”

“Did he ever have any visitors from San Francisco?”

“Not as far as I know. If he did, he never mentioned it.”

“Did he ever mention a man named Max Sutherland?”

“No.”

“Did he ever have anything to do with the Heritage Preservation Society?”

“You mean that group of people protesting downtown? No way. Buddy would never have participated in that sort of thing.”

“Why not?”

“Some of the scientists at the research institute are anthropologists. For the past several months up until the time he got shot, Buddy had been helping them excavate an ancient-Indian site on the Dolores River. He’d hardly be in a position to protest.”

10

BACK IN HIS OFFICE, Rivera telephoned the Dolores River Research Institute. He spoke with the director and made an appointment to visit the facility after lunch. Just as he was getting ready to depart, his phone rang. It was Deputy Sheriff Emmett Mitchell.

“Manny, I’m sorry I missed breakfast this morning.”

“No problem. What’s new on the grave digging in Blanding?”

“Some hoodlum snuck into the cemetery last night and exhumed the remains of a man named Jeremiah Simpson who was buried there in 1905. He took Simpson’s bones to the Edge of the Cedars Museum and left them at the front door with a handwritten message that said, How does it feel to have one of your loved ones dug up? Stop desecrating Indian graves. As you know, the museum houses a large collection of ancient-Indian pottery from the Four Corners area. I’m guessing all this relates to the demonstrations in Moab.”

“No doubt about it.”

“Two of Simpson’s grandchildren and several of his great-grandchildren live in Blanding. They are quite distraught over what happened. One of them, a County Commissioner down here, is outraged. He says it’s an insult to him and his whole family.”

For a brief instant, an image of the femur and tibia bones exposed by Whitlock at the ancient-Indian gravesite in Beaver Canyon flashed in Rivera’s mind. Was that a lesser insult?

“Okay, thanks, Emmett. Could be there’s a radical fringe element of the Heritage Preservation Society at work. One of the protesters, a man who calls himself Zolu, claimed authorship of the manifesto threatening pothunters. We’re looking for him now. I’ll send you his description. And I’ll advise Sheriff Bradshaw to post a night sentry at our cemetery until the demonstrators leave town.”

Rivera hung up the phone and headed out to his vehicle, trying to fit last night’s atrocity in the Blanding cemetery into the pattern of recent events. First, there was the shooting of Buddy Milton nearly a month ago. He had been assisting anthropologists at a dig in the Dolores River valley. Then two days ago, the deliberate murder of William Whitlock, a pothunter shot possibly because he had been caught in the act of grave digging. And then, last night, the desecration in the Blanding cemetery. In this case, there was no doubt about the motive. The perpetrator had left a note explaining it.

Each event was related to pot digging in one way or another, but there were a lot of unanswered questions and loose ends. Why would someone take a shot at Buddy Milton before the protesters even arrived in town and made their demands known? And how was it possible that someone bent on revenge against pot-hunters just happened to be in Beaver Canyon at the very time William Whitlock was exploiting a gravesite there? And what had become of Zolu?

11

RIVERA PULLED INTO WENDY’S for a quick cheeseburger and french fries, then began the long journey to the Dolores River Research Institute. He drove north out of town, turned right on Highway 128, and followed the pavement alongside the Colorado River, heading upriver. It was a typical late-September day in southeast Utah. The air was crystal clear and large cumulus clouds marched across a blue sky. The asphalt bike trail which followed the meanders of the river was populated with bicyclists of all ages. A group of young men headed downriver in colorful kayaks.

Twenty-five miles later, Rivera reached the Dewey Bridge, one of only three places in Utah where a vehicular bridge spans the Colorado River. Just before the bridge, he turned right onto a gravel road and drove past the remains of the old wooden suspension bridge which, in decades past, had spanned the river. Wagons and vehicles had utilized it long before the modern concrete version was built. The old bridge had completely burned down due to a brushfire along the riverbank. Now, only the steel suspension cables and the vertical cables which hung from them remained, hanging in the air as if supporting a ghostly bridge.

Rivera followed the gravel road into a beautiful land of soaring red cliff faces etched into the entrada sandstone layer of ancient sediments. It was a decent road for about a mile, then it narrowed and its quality diminished, the gravel giving way to graded dirt. The prevailing terrain became more tortured, resulting in frequent twists and turns in the road. Rivera found himself wondering why anyone would establish a research institute in such a remote location. Downtown Moab would have been so much more practical and accessible.

He shifted into low gear and descended into a canyon, then crossed a narrow valley. His four-wheel-drive high-clearance vehicle was perfect for the back roads of Grand County. The engine growled as he climbed the switchbacks leading up the other side of the canyon. From there he carefully descended into a second canyon, narrower than the first.

At the bottom, he turned left onto a rutted two-track dirt road which led toward the Dolores River. Large trees in the canyon produced mottled shadows on the road. Perched on one of the branches of an elm tree was a great horned owl, a rare sight anytime but especially so in the middle of the day. The owl spread its enormous wings and flew off.

A half-mile farther, the road ended at a barbed wire fence strung across the canyon from wall to wall. The unpretentious entrance consisted of a steel gate supported with juniper fenceposts and a simple wooden sign painted with the letters: D.R.R.I. The gate was open.

Beyond the gate, the canyon became wider and now he could see the green shingle roofs of buildings constructed with spruce logs. He drove in and parked in front of the main building. He stepped out of his vehicle, stretched his back, and looked around. The facility looked deserted, except for a black cat which trotted toward him and greeted him with a loud meow. Rivera bent over and stroked the animal which purred and rubbed enthusiastically against his leg.

A man emerged from the building, smiling and waving. He walked toward Rivera with a slight limp.

“Greetings, Deputy Rivera. I’m Cecil Smythe. Welcome to the Dolores River Research Institute.” Smythe was a tall slender man in his sixties, with a pinkish face and only a few strands of grey hair remaining on top of his sunburned head. He spoke with a British accent.

Rivera shook his hand. “Thank you, Dr. Smythe. It’s a pleasure to meet you. As I told you on the phone, I’m investigating the murder of William Whitlock and I’d like to ask you a few questions, mostly about your employee, Buddy Milton. This is my first time visiting the research site, so I’d also be interested in learning a little about what goes on here.”

“Delighted. Let’s go inside and get out of this sun. We can sit down and talk, then afterwards, we’d be most happy to give you a tour of our humble Institute.”

They entered the living room and sat in comfortable ranch-style leather chairs separated by a hand-hewn spruce coffee table. Rivera noticed a framed photograph of a younger Smythe hanging on the wall. He was wearing a British military uniform with a chest full of ribbons.

Smythe introduced Rivera to his wife, Elizabeth, who offered tea.

“We drink it hot but I know many of you Americans like it with ice,” she said. “I can serve it whichever way you like.” She was a petite woman with grey hair and blue eyes.

“It’s a warm day. I’d like mine with ice, please, if it’s not too much trouble,” he said.

“Oh, my goodness, it’s no trouble at all. I’ll just be a second.” She left for the kitchen.

Rivera extracted a notepad and ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket and shifted his attention to Dr. Smythe. “How long has Buddy Milton worked here?”

“Buddy hired on right after Elizabeth and I arrived at the Institute. That would have been a little over three years ago. He was our first employee. We were looking for someone who was hard-working and versatile, a self-starter who didn’t require a lot of supervision. Someone who could build anything or fix anything. Buddy had a broad cross section of technical experience which was exactly what we needed because the projects conducted here are so diverse. He’s what we call a super-tech.”

“How many people are employed here?”

“There are just four of us working full-time. Besides me, that would be Buddy, my wife Elizabeth who keeps the books and handles the paperwork, and Angie who cooks the meals and does the housekeeping. The scientists working here are all temporary. Each has won a grant from the Institute to perform scientific work related to his or her individual specialty. Right now there are seven of them. Typically, they remain here anywhere from three months to a year. There are also a few student assistants, but their number varies from week to week. Currently there are three.”

Mrs. Smythe returned with two small trays resting on a larger serving tray. She placed one of the small trays in front of Rivera. It contained a tall glass of iced tea, a small dish with lemon slices, a bowl of sugar cubes, two scones on a plate, a fork, and a napkin. Dr. Smythe received a similar tray with steaming tea served in a cup and saucer.

“Thank you,” said Rivera. He hadn’t expected service like this out in the middle of the backcountry.

“You’re most welcome.” She smiled and left the room.

“I’m impressed that a research institute is able to operate in such a remote location. How did it originate?”

“The D.R.R.I. was established as a not-for-profit organization by Mr. Eldon Bishop who owns this ranch and lives on it. He’s had the property for forty years. He made a fortune in the oil exploration and production business. Four years ago, he founded the Institute, donating one hundred acres of his ranch and the funds necessary to construct these buildings. He also established the Eldon Bishop Science Foundation which provides financial support for the Institute’s operations and money to fund the grants we award to deserving scientists.”

“What motivated him to establish the Institute?”

“He’s always had an interest in science and technology. He enjoys using his wealth to help support promising ideas. He’s also quite generous with scholarship programs at a number of universities.”

“How large is the ranch?”

“There are thirteen hundred acres, four hundred on this side of the Dolores River and nine hundred on the other side. At one time, there was a large herd of cattle grazing on both sides, but not any longer. The herd was sold off a few years ago. Mr. Bishop is in his mid-seventies and spends virtually all of his time in his home here at the ranch. He’s confined to a wheelchair. There are a few head of longhorn cattle on the property but they’re more like pets than livestock.”

“Is Mr. Bishop’s house on this side of the river?”

“Oh, yes. There’s a small side canyon a short ways downriver where he’s had twenty acres fenced off. He lives in there in a very nice home with Ingrid, his girlfriend of thirty years. She’s a former nurse from Sweden. Blonde and still very attractive. She’s a great gardener and often brings us fresh produce. Victor Leatherman, the ranch foreman, lives nearby in a smaller home. He’s been working for Mr. Bishop for over twenty years. He looks after his house as well as the ranch and the animals. He takes great pride in the longhorns. When he has free time, he helps us with repairs here at the Institute.”

“Who decides which grant applications will be funded?”

“We have a Technical Advisory Board consisting of world-class scientists at top universities around the country. Grant applications are evaluated by the advisory board and they make funding recommendations to me.”

“What types of scientific work are you conducting?”

“It varies from year to year, depending on who wins the grants. But right now, we have two botanists, one lichenologist, two anthropologists, a sedimentologist, and a hydrogeologist.”

“What are the anthropologists working on?”

“There’s an important dig taking place about a half-mile upriver from here. Our anthropologists have found both Fremont and Basketmaker artifacts at a site in a side canyon that drains into the Dolores River. They’re hoping to get a fix on how long the Basketmaker people had vacated the site before the Fremont people moved in. If they can do that, they’ll have a better understanding of exactly when the Basketmakers abandoned the Dolores River valley and hopefully some hints as to why they left.”

“I’d like to take a look at that site before I leave.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did Buddy Milton spend much of his time at that site?”

“Yes, he did. Before he was shot, he spent quite a lot of time out there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Digging, platting, photographing. Whatever Dr. Wilhelm Freidrich, the scientist in charge, needed. When Buddy went into the hospital, Dr. Freidrich replaced him on a temporary basis with a student assistant, a young lady from Boise.”

“What else did Buddy do?”

“Anything and everything. Besides working on scientific projects, he performed building maintenance, equipment repair, grounds keeping, that sort of thing. He worked on most of our projects at one time or another. During his time off, he liked to hike solo in the mountains. He did that maybe once a week. I worried about that and tried to convince him to take along a hiking partner for safety’s sake. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said he enjoyed exploring alone, that having another person along would just spoil the solitude. Sometimes on weekends, he visited his sister in Moab.”

There was a knock on the front door.

“Come in,” said Smythe.

The door opened and a woman entered. She was in her late twenties, about five feet five inches tall, with large hazel eyes, honey brown hair with blonde highlights, a beautiful smile, and a great tan. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt, olive drab shorts, and hiking boots. The T-shirt said Plant Whisperer.

Rivera stood up.

“Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera, I’d like you to meet Dr. Amy Rousseau, one of our visiting botanists. She’s agreed to be your tour guide this afternoon. I’d do it myself but I twisted my ankle getting out of my pickup day before yesterday. Stepped on a rock and turned it, don’t you know.”

Rivera extended his hand. “Hi,” he said. He managed a smile and hoped he wasn’t gawking. They shook hands. Her hand was small and warm, and her grip was firm.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. Her gaze lingered on Rivera for a moment before turning to Smythe. “How’s the ankle today, Professor?”

“A little better, Amy, thanks. A couple of more days and I’ll be in tip-top shape.”

“I’m glad.” She turned to Rivera. “Ready for the grand tour?”

“I’m ready.”

12

RIVERA FOLLOWED AMY ROUSSEAU out of the Smythe residence. She led him across the hard-packed earthen parking area and through a stand of large cottonwood trees to a grouping of small log cabins.

“There are fifteen of these cabins for visiting staff members,” she said. “They’re small but they have all the essentials.” She walked to one and pulled open the front door. “This one’s not currently occupied.”

Rivera peered inside. The cabin housed a tiny kitchenette with an electric stove and microwave oven, a queen size bed, a desk, a television, and a couch. Through an open door, he could see a small bathroom. “Very nice quarters,” he said. “Did Buddy Milton live in one of these cabins?”

“Yes he did.” Her expression saddened. “We sure miss him around here. Not just his talents, but also his storytelling. In the evenings after dinner, when the staff gathered around the campfire, Buddy told us lots of funny tales about growing up on a ranch and learning everything the hard way. I hope he’s going to be okay.”

Rivera nodded. “I hope so, too. Where are you from, Dr. Rousseau?”

Her smile returned. “Please call me Amy.”

“Okay, Amy it is. Call me Manny.”

“Manny.” She said it slowly. “I like that name.” She blushed slightly. “I’m from a small town east of Albuquerque called Santa Rosa. I went to school at the University of New Mexico.”

“I’m from Las Cruces. I graduated from New Mexico State with a degree in Criminal Justice.”

They resumed walking. “Would you like to see our mess hall?”

“If you have time, I’d like to see everything.”

The mess hall, just like all of the buildings in the complex, was constructed of spruce logs. It had a large kitchen and an eating area with four long tables. Outside, there were chairs, a picnic table, and a large grill under a cottonwood tree. A maintenance building, a small library, and a meeting hall were located nearby. Amy gave Rivera a quick tour of each.

“Let’s hop in one of the community Jeeps and I’ll show you Mr. Bishop’s compound,” said Amy. “It’s beautiful.”

She drove Rivera downriver a few hundred yards to a small box canyon. Behind a split rail fence was a sprawling, obviously expensive, two-story Spanish-style mansion facing the Dolores River. It had tan stucco walls and a terra-cotta tile roof. It looked to Rivera to be over five thousand square feet. Large cottonwood trees and a green lawn surrounded the house.

“I’ve heard this place cost Mr. Bishop two million dollars to build. He lives here with his caretaker nurse. I’ve never been inside the house, but Dr. Smythe told me Mr. Bishop has a fine collection of French impressionist paintings. The ranch has a private landing strip on the other side of the river. Three times a week, Mr. Bishop has specially-prepared gourmet food and fresh fruit flown in from Denver. The man knows how to live.”

“How do you get across the river?”

“When the water’s low like it is this time of year, you can drive across a gravel bar in a four-wheel-drive high-clearance vehicle.”

“Have you tried driving across?”

“Not yet, but the river gets a little shallower each day. In a few more days, I’ll give it a try. I’d like to initiate a plant survey up there on Piñon Mesa.”

“How wide is the river at the gravel bar?”

“About fifty or sixty feet. There are only two places in Utah where you can drive across. Here and upriver at the Rutherford Ranch. If the river is running high, you have to drive to Colorado on the Interstate and then loop back through Piñon Mesa into Utah. Unless you have a vehicle like Victor Leatherman’s. He’s the ranch foreman. He has a pickup truck with huge tires and a super jacked-up suspension that can cross even when the river is deep with snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains.”

“That area on the other side of the river is called the Big Triangle,” said Rivera. It’s the Utah portion of Piñon Mesa. I laughed when I first heard about it. The Dolores River, heading northwest, flows into the Colorado River heading southwest. The two rivers cut off a triangular chunk of Utah from the rest of the state, about two hundred square miles, all in Grand County. There are no bridges anywhere in Utah where you can get across. L.D. Mincey, a retired Grand County deputy, used to have a sign in his office that said, The Big Triangle—You Can’t Get There From Here. It’s in my county and I’ve only been there once in my life. It should probably be part of Colorado.”

Amy smiled and nodded. “I know. It’s very odd.” She pointed to a modest log house in the distance, set off about fifty yards to the side of Mr. Bishop’s mansion. “That’s the original ranch house. Victor lives there now.” Near Leatherman’s house was a barn and several other smaller buildings nestled under a stand of cottonwood trees. The pickup truck Amy described was parked in front of the barn. It was a dark green GMC four-wheel-drive with a large camper shell mounted in the bed. A tall, slender man wearing a cowboy hat, plaid shirt, and jeans emerged from the barn and spotted them. He smiled broadly and waved at them with his hat.

Amy waved back. “That’s Victor,” she said. “He’s been a great help to me since I arrived here. He taught me how to drive a Jeep, gave me maps of the LaSals, and showed me all the back roads. We’ve gotten very close.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” As soon as the words escaped Rivera’s mouth, he regretted the question. It was too personal for someone he’d just met.

Amy laughed. “More like a father figure. He’s twice my age. But we have a lot of fun together. He comes to our campfire get-togethers, drinks beer with us, and joins in the fun. When Buddy’s not telling his ranching tales, Victor tells us stories about the history of the Four Corners area.” She paused in thought, then smiled. “But I think he does have a crush on me.”

“What a great place to have a ranch,” said Rivera, eager to change the subject.

“Anything else you’d like to see?”

“Do you have time to show me the Basketmaker dig?”

“Sure. Glad to.”

Rivera and Amy chatted as she drove upriver. They talked about New Mexico, their families, living in Moab, and life at the D.R.R.I. Conversation came easy and Rivera found he enjoyed her company and the openness with which she talked about her life. He learned that her specialty was plant taxonomy and that she had discovered two new species in the canyons on this side of the river.

Two anthropologists and a blonde student assistant were working at the dig site. An area ten feet by ten feet at the base of a cliff had been cordoned off with a string grid and the dig had penetrated about two feet into the ground. Trowels, brushes, screens, notebooks, and a tape measure lay at the edge of the excavation.

After Amy made the introductions, Rivera questioned Dr. Freidrich for nearly an hour about the dig, its purpose, and the results to date. He was impressed with Freidrich’s understanding of the region’s ancient history.

“Here’s the basic problem,” Freidrich said. “The early peoples of Europe, the Greeks and Romans for example, left a written record for historians to study. So we know what their lives were like, what they thought and what they did. But in the Americas, writing was nonexistent before the Europeans arrived. The Mayans left us a symbology that we can interpret but they were the exception. Most ancient-Indian tribes in the Americas left only petroglyphs and pictographs on rocks and canyon walls. Good luck trying to figure out what they mean. So the only way we have of finding out what was going on around here back then is to dig and try to interpret what we find. In this area, we have uncovered a small settlement with ancient-Indian gravesites from two different peoples—the Fremonts, and from an earlier era, the Basketmakers. It’s an excellent repository of historical and behavioral information.”

Rivera asked him what he thought about the protesters in Moab.

Freidrich sniffed. “They’re uneducated and gullible. If people like that had had their way, we’d have never learned anything about man’s early history. We’d be totally ignorant of our past and what our forebears had to cope with in order to give us the way of life we enjoy today. What good are artifacts if they’re left in the ground and never appreciated or understood by mankind? The demonstrators should all take a deep breath and go home.”

Before leaving, Rivera asked him about the 30-06 rifle leaning against the cliffside wall. Freidrich explained that recent events in the mountains had caused them to become more cautious.

When they arrived back at the compound, Amy parked the Jeep in front of the Smythe residence. She turned to Rivera. “Would you like to get together for coffee next time I’m in Moab?”

Rivera hesitated. “You know, I’d really like to do that but I’m kind of involved with someone. I wouldn’t want Vivian to get the wrong idea.”

Amy looked disappointed. “I understand perfectly. But if circumstances change, let me know. It’ll be my treat.”

Rivera thanked Dr. Smythe and Amy for their hospitality, opened the door of his vehicle, and slid in. He took one last look at Amy, waved, and drove off.

As he climbed the switchbacks out of the canyon, he thought about what he’d told her. I’m kind of involved with someone. But was he still? It had been a long time since he’d heard from Vivian.

13

RIVERA ENJOYED SLEEPING late on Saturday mornings, but today would have to be an exception. Larry Polk wouldn’t be in his office. Instead, he’d be at the Moab Golf Club, waiting for his usual seven o’clock tee time. Polk was supervisor of the Moab office of the U.S. Forest Service, responsible for the LaSal Division of the Manti-LaSal National Forest. That enormous area included the locations of the Buddy Milton shooting and the William Whitlock murder.

Rivera pulled into the golf course parking lot. He’d been there many times before, when he still believed he could learn to hit a golf ball straight. He finally gave up on the lessons, deciding that golf would never be his sport. But he still enjoyed visiting the place. The dark green fairways were nestled up against red rock cliffs, the contrast creating a gorgeous, almost surreal, landscape. It was a cool morning and the air smelled of freshly cut grass.

Polk was strapping his golf bag into a cart when Rivera spotted him.

“Good morning, Larry.”

Polk glanced up from the bag. “Well, hello, Manny. What brings you out here so early this morning?” In his mid-sixties, Polk was a scratch golfer, finishing second or third in the city championships each of the last six years. He was short and stocky with grey hair and a weathered face. Near retirement, it was no secret that he looked forward to golfing every day.

“Larry, I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about the recent shootings up in the LaSals. How long before your tee time?”

He looked at his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes.”

“Good. I’m investigating the William Whitlock murder. Everything seems to be pointing to a killing motivated by hatred of pothunters, but I’m just not sure. I’m also interested in the Buddy Milton shooting. I was wondering if you’ve had any reports of unusual activity up there. Anything at all out of the ordinary.”

Polk thought for a long moment. Shook his head. “Manny, I’m not aware of anything I would consider unusual. We’ve had the same kinds of lawbreaking we’ve always had. Poaching, lumber theft, cattle grazing without a permit, that sort of thing. Typical for national forest land. I’ve read the reports on both shootings and haven’t seen anything on our end that would suggest a connection, but you should talk with the ranger who covers that area. His name is Wilbur Jensen. He patrols the LaSals on a daily basis. Maybe Wilbur noticed something unusual up there.”

“I’ll definitely want to talk to him. How long has he been working for you? I don’t recognize the name.”

“He’s been on board for about seven months now. He’s an interesting guy. You’ll like him. He loves to explore the backcountry. He and his wife live in a motor home and change locations every nine or ten months so they’ll have new wilderness to explore. Before he worked in the LaSals, they lived in Monticello and he worked as a Forest Service ranger in the Abajo Mountains. And before that, they lived in Hanksville and he worked for the BLM patrolling the Henry Mountains. Earlier, I believe he was stationed with the BLM at Boulder Mountain. They moved to Moab to look after their daughter who lives here. Her husband was kidnapped in Mexico a few years ago and she’s very distraught. It’s a sad story. Anyway, Jensen is a great employee and knows his stuff. If there’s anything unusual going on in the LaSals, he’ll know about it.”

Rivera obtained Jensen’s cell phone number from Polk, called him, and arranged a meeting at the Eklectic Café on Main Street, a popular eating place with the locals.

It was well before noon, so the lunchtime crowd hadn’t yet arrived. Rivera and Wilbur Jensen picked up sweet rolls and coffee at the counter, then found a shaded table on the outdoor patio. Jensen was five feet ten inches tall with brown eyes and dark brown hair. He looked to be in his mid-fifties.

Rivera began the conversation with some get-acquainted talk, telling Jensen about his own background, how he grew up in Las Cruces as part of a large family, became a city cop there, then succumbed to the lure of the red rock canyon country and moved to Moab a few years ago. Jensen told Rivera about his own history, describing the many towns where he and his wife had lived and the backcountry areas they’d explored. Both were avid hikers. Jensen had an infectious enthusiasm as he described the mountains, canyons, and mesas they’d hiked and the wonders of nature they’d experienced. Rivera took an instant liking to him. He’d make a great hiking partner, Rivera thought to himself.

“How long have you lived in Moab?” asked Rivera. He took a bite of his sweet roll.

“About eight months. Marion and I live in a motor home. We change locations frequently so we’ll always have new terrain to explore.”

“What attracted you to Moab in particular?”

“Mainly the LaSals, but also that country around the Green River. It’s a great place to find solitude and relax the mind. We had another reason for wanting to move here, though. My daughter lives in Moab. She’s been very unhappy the last few years so my wife thought we should spend more time with her.”

Rivera was curious about the daughter’s situation, but didn’t want to probe into something that was none of his business. He nodded and said nothing.

Jensen must have sensed his curiosity. He took a sip of coffee and began elaborating.

“Debbie got married about three years ago to a young man from Los Angeles named Scott Pendergast. Originally, I tried to talk her out of marrying him. I didn’t think he was good enough for my daughter but Debbie was totally in love, so Marion and I went along with the idea. We helped her plan the ceremony and assisted with the finances. They went to Puerto Vallarta on their honeymoon. Damned if he wasn’t kidnapped by thugs demanding ransom money. Debbie was frantic. She received a phone call at the hotel. Pay us or we’ll kill him, they said. We insisted Debbie tell the kidnappers to contact me and that she come home immediately. Marion and I don’t have a lot of money but we followed their instructions. Every few months, they demand more and we send what we can. They still haven’t returned Scotty.”

Listening to Jensen’s problem made all of Rivera’s own problems evaporate into non-existence. “That’s an awful burden to be carrying around. Have you contacted the federal authorities?”

“We thought about it, but the kidnappers said if there’s any sign of the Feds, either American or Mexican, we’ll receive Scotty’s head by FedEx.”

Rivera shook his head. “That’s terrible.” He felt a profound sympathy for Jensen. “Can you be certain Scotty is still alive?”

“Whenever they call demanding more money, they put him on the phone. His voice sounds weak but it’s definitely him.” Jensen took another sip of coffee and waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sorry I got off on all that. That’s not what you came here to talk about.”

“No, but if you think of any way I can help with Scotty, just let me know.”

“Thanks very much. On the phone you said you wanted to know if I’d seen anything unusual up in the mountains in recent weeks. I’ve thought about that and all I can come up with is the two shootings. One shooting would be unusual. Two would be very unusual, especially within three weeks of each other. Everything else in the mountains has been normal, as far as I’ve been able to observe.”

“Any sign of illegal pothunting?”

“I haven’t seen any of it. Most of that takes place down in the canyons where the ancient burials took place. That’s outside the national forest boundaries, mostly on BLM land—out of my jurisdiction.”

“Well, thanks for the information. And let’s stay in touch. Maybe we can get in a hike one of these days.”

“Great idea.”

“And be careful up there until I find out what’s behind the shootings. Right now, we’re not sure. It might well be a radical element within the group of protesters demonstrating against pothunting, or it might be something else entirely.”

Jensen nodded. “I have been careful lately. Very careful. To tell you the truth, I’m a little nervous about going up there alone.”

14

RIVERA WAS BECOMING frustrated. He was beginning to wonder if he was making any real progress. Three days had passed since the William Whitlock murder and he still hadn’t formulated a cogent theory of the crime. In terms of a motive, all he had was a vague manifesto probably written by some character who called himself Zolu. Rivera needed to review the facts of the case and figure out his next move, but there was something else tugging at his mind. Something he wanted to do just to relieve his conscience.

He made the one hour drive back to North Beaver Mesa and parked his pickup in the usual spot. He checked the contents of his day pack for hiking essentials: water, snacks, maps, cell phone, matches, flashlight, GPS receiver, and compass. Then he strapped it on, grabbed the half-full bag of dog chow and the aluminum dish he’d found in Whitlock’s pickup, and set out across North Beaver Mesa.

When he arrived at the bluff overlooking Beaver Valley, he turned left and followed the trail along the edge of the mesa until he reached the spot where he’d seen the brown dog.

He took off his pack and filled the dish partway with chow pellets. He shook the dish from side to side producing a rattling sound, loud relative to the silence of the mesa. He figured that after three days in the wild, if the dog was still alive, it would be hungry enough to overcome its fear of strangers.

It didn’t take long. The dog appeared in the distance, peering out from behind a large juniper. It stood motionless for a long moment, ears erect, staring at Rivera. He rattled the dish again. The dog began slowly moving toward him, head hung low, licking its chops. It was a large dog, standing about two feet high, with a deep brown coloring. Its coat was dusty and covered with grass burrs. The dog stopped, seemingly torn between fear and hunger.

Rivera rattled the dish again. “C’mon, don’t be afraid.”

The dog advanced a few feet, then stopped. It looked from side to side as if trying to decide what to do. Then it resumed its forward motion. Now it was only thirty feet away. The dog stopped again. It was panting.

Rivera decided to try a different strategy. He emptied the chow pellets from the bowl back into the sack. Then he retrieved a bottle of water from his pack, filled the bowl, and set it down. He picked up the sack of food and his daypack and backed away about fifty feet. The dog trotted to the bowl and lapped up the water until it was gone. Then it looked up at Rivera.

“You want some food now?” Rivera rattled the pellets in the sack. The dog retreated a few yards and stopped. It salivated and swallowed as Rivera slowly returned to the bowl and filled it. Then he backed away. The dog ran up to the food and wolfed it down.

Rivera sat down on a sandstone rock covered with small patches of green, grey, and orange lichens. In a while, he would try to get the dog to follow him back to his pickup. If the dog trusted him enough to get in his vehicle, he would take him back to Moab. And then what? Maybe a friend or relative of Whitlock’s would come for the dog. If not, Rivera would try to find someone in town to adopt him.

Rivera shifted his position on the rock, now facing away from the dog and looking out over Beaver Canyon. He had a lot of thinking to do. So far, the only plausible motive that came to mind for Whitlock’s murder was retaliation for his pothunting activities. But there were several reasons why that was improbable. First of all, no one but Max Sutherland knew where Whitlock was headed in the LaSals. And secondly, the idea that a radical member of the HPS had, by chance, happened upon him while he was looting the grave seemed to stretch the boundaries of probability. Perhaps someone had overheard the conversation between Whitlock and Sutherland in the Rim Rock Diner and followed Whitlock into the mountains. But that presupposed the eavesdropper in the diner just happened to be a radical member of the HPS, also a stretch.

Rivera arched his back, slowly rocked from side to side, then raised his arms in a stretch. He loved the silence of the high desert. To him it was a place of refuge, conducive to quiet reflection and clear thought. A place to sift through ideas, sort things out, arrive at conclusions. A gentle breeze cooled his face as he watched a high-altitude jet aircraft slowly draw a white contrail across the blue sky. A raven glided below him in the canyon, its caws echoing off the canyon walls, punctuating the silence.

Rivera glanced over his shoulder. The dog was lying down next to the bowl with its chin on the ground and its eyes locked onto Rivera. Good, he thought, the dog was bonding or at least considering it. He returned his gaze to the canyon and resumed his thoughts.

What about the Zolu character? He was a young man who evidently identified with the Indian cultures. Not so unusual—many people admire Indian values. Love of family, respect for the environment, leading a life uncomplicated by the white man’s greed. The manifesto was a threat, but was it a serious threat or just some big talk? There was no way to know for sure. Rivera had asked Chris Carey to call immediately if he spotted Zolu, but thus far, there had been no word from Carey.

The wounding of Buddy Milton was still a big question mark. He’d assisted the anthropologists at the Dolores River Research Institute digging for artifacts at the Basketmaker site, but that shouldn’t have made him a target for assassination. One of the anthropologists would have been a more logical choice. Maybe the shooter didn’t know the difference between an anthropologist and a technician. It occurred to Rivera that he might be dealing with a killer who wasn’t very bright. Of course, Rivera reminded himself, the Milton incident might, in fact, have been a hunting accident and been totally unrelated to the Whitlock murder.

Rivera considered whether there were factors besides pothunting that might connect the shooting of Milton, the murder of Whitlock, the Blanding grave desecration, and Zolu’s manifesto, but nothing came to mind. Pothunting seemed to be the only common thread. Was it possible the events weren’t related to each other at all? Maybe, but his instincts told him to keep looking for connections. It would be too much of a coincidence for these four events to have taken place in the same area within a month of each other and not somehow be linked.

Rivera removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. His attempt to reach new conclusions based on the facts at hand was coming up empty. It was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without having all the pieces. What he needed were more pieces. Were there additional facts available that he hadn’t yet uncovered? He thought about that for a long time. The one thing he hadn’t yet done was visit the site where Buddy Milton was shot. Maybe that would produce more facts or at least suggest a new line of thought.

Rivera gave the dog more water and another ration of chow pellets. The dog now allowed Rivera to stroke him gently on the top of the head, but he cowered slightly and shivered as he was petted. Rivera noticed a metal tag riveted into the dog’s leather collar. It said Bentley and listed a phone number.

He wondered what Vivian would think of Bentley. Tonight was Saturday night, their usual date night. Why had he still not heard from her?

Rivera collected his things and began heading back to his pickup. “C’mon, Bentley,” he said. The dog followed along behind him.

15

WHEN RIVERA ARRIVED back at his pickup, he gave Bentley more water and another portion of food. He gently stroked Bentley’s head and talked to him in a reassuring tone. The dog’s fear seemingly diminished, he wagged his tail and tentatively licked the deputy’s hand.

Rivera wondered how to get the dog into the pickup. Should he try to pick him up or coax him or what? How do you get a wary dog to enter a strange vehicle? When Rivera pulled open the passenger-side door, the dog jumped right in. Problem solved.

Rivera got settled behind the steering wheel, drank some water, and opened his briefcase. He extracted the copy he’d made of the Buddy Milton case file and read through it. The place where Milton had been found by hikers was on a nameless trail in the woods north of Mount Waas. He recorded the GPS coordinates of the spot in his notepad, studied his map, then started the engine and drove off.

His route took him from the Polar Mesa Road to the Castleton-Gateway Road, and from there to an overgrown two-track which meandered through the woods toward Mount Waas. The quality of the two-track continually diminished, finally becoming impassable in a vehicle. He stopped, strapped on his daypack, and let the dog out. He continued up the narrow path on foot, the dog close behind.

Rivera proceeded for half an hour, periodically comparing his GPS coordinates to his map, until he reached the spot where Milton had been found. It was on a primitive north-south trail that wound around the east side of the mountain.

Now he was looking for something out of the ordinary. He hiked south on the trail for a quarter mile, carefully inspecting both sides of the pathway. It was typical LaSal Mountain forest land with a mixture of aspens and spruce trees rising above him and a ground cover of mountain shrubs and grasses. Here and there, narrow creeks gurgled across the trail as they descended the mountainside. Nothing seemed unusual. He returned to his starting point and hiked north for a quarter mile. Again, everything seemed normal. Disappointed, he turned around and headed back, the dog dutifully following.

Just before arriving back where he started, Rivera saw a ground squirrel dart across his path, run into the brush on his left, and disappear into its burrow. Were it not for the squirrel, he would never have noticed the unusual shrub growing there. It was unlike anything he’d seen before in the LaSals. And it looked like someone had been pruning it. He walked upslope from the trail and inspected the bush. Some of the cuts were fresh and some were healed over, suggesting the pruning had taken place over an extended period of time. He’d never seen a plant like this one. It was about four feet tall with dark green leaves, some of which had turned orange and some red. Clusters of red berries grew at the tips of the branches. He scanned the area and spotted a second bush of the same type. It too had been pruned. Further inspection of the area revealed no other plants of this type.

Rivera sat down on the trunk of a fallen aspen to consider his discovery. The dog sat next to him, panting heavily, its tongue dangling from its mouth.

Rivera wondered why anyone would be taking cuttings from these bushes. They were attractive bushes, so perhaps someone had taken sprigs to plant somewhere else, maybe as decorative foliage for a yard. But why had so many cuttings been taken? And why had they been taken over an extended period of time rather than just once? Rivera rubbed the top of Bentley’s head. The dog rewarded him with a wet tongue to the hand. Rivera reflexively wiped his hand on his pants.

Perhaps Buddy Milton himself had done the pruning. But why? Was there some project being conducted at the D.R.R.I that required the collection of various types of plant sprigs? Or had he been doing it for some other reason? He’d insisted on hiking alone so perhaps this was part of some secret personal project.

There was nothing in Dave Tibbetts’s report about the cuttings so he probably hadn’t spotted them. Or, if he did notice them, he didn’t think they were important. Tibbetts was a rookie deputy with little investigative experience, so it was possible he wouldn’t have attributed any significance to the cuttings.

Suppose someone other than Milton had taken the sprigs? If that were the case, it’s possible there was someone else in the area on the day Milton was shot, someone who might have seen something useful. Or maybe Milton had been shot by whoever had done the pruning. Rivera shook his head. Was his imagination beginning to run wild? Or was the lack of real evidence causing him to formulate nonsensical theories?

Rivera stood up and fished his Swiss Army knife out of his pants pocket. He cut a sprig off the bush, the sap producing an unpleasant odor.

16

RIVERA WAS ACQUAINTED with two retired botanists living in Moab. They were a married couple who had published several popular books on the flora of southeast Utah. He could easily have visited them on his way home and learned about the plant. Instead, he found himself far from home, driving through the front gate of the Dolores River Research Institute. He spotted Amy Rousseau sitting at a picnic table under the cottonwood tree in front of the mess hall. She was hunched over a laptop computer with a pensive expression, sipping on a glass of iced tea. He pulled to a stop near her and rolled down the window. She smiled broadly when she spotted him, put down her drink, and walked with a bounce to Rivera’s pickup. She looked even more attractive than he’d remembered.

“Want a dog?” Rivera deadpanned.

She laughed. “What kind of dog?”

“A big brown dog.”

She peered into the vehicle and studied the animal. “That’s not just a big brown dog. That’s a chocolate Labrador Retriever.”

“It is?”

“Yes. It’s a very fine breed. And he needs a bath. Where did you find him?”

“Up on Beaver Mesa. He belonged to the man from San Francisco who was murdered up there. According to the tag on his collar, his name is Bentley.”

“Hi there, Bentley.” The dog looked at her with expressive eyes and wagged his tail. “What are you going to do with him?” she asked Rivera.

“I’m not sure yet. First I’ll have to find out if the murdered man’s relatives want him. If not, I guess I’ll try to find someone in Moab who will take him.”

“Bentley’s a fine looking animal. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding a volunteer.” She paused. “If you’re looking for Dr. Smythe, I believe he’s inside the mess hall.”

Rivera got out of the pickup. “Actually, I came back here to see you.” Just as soon as he finished the sentence, he knew it would be misinterpreted.

Amy smiled demurely. “I’m glad,” she said in a soft voice.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” He reached into the truck and fumbled around for the mystery sprig. He extracted it and held it in front of her.

She looked at it, then at Rivera, her expression perplexed. “This is why you came back to see me?”

Rivera felt like he was sinking in quicksand. “Well, yes. You’re a botanist and I thought, um, you might be able to help me. I cut this from a bush near where Buddy Milton got shot. The bush and another one just like it had been pruned by someone.” Rivera spoke rapidly, trying to cover up his misstep. “Someone has been removing sprigs over an extended period. I was thinking that whoever took the cuttings might have seen something useful up there, something that could help in my investigation.”

She nodded, smiled wryly, and took the sprig out of his hand. Studied it. “It looks like a Rhus Trilobata Nutt. Not commonly found in the LaSal Mountains. Usually they grow farther south, in New Mexico and Arizona.” She handed it back to him.

“Any idea why someone would want to take cuttings from a plant like this?”

“It’s a plant that’s sometimes used by healing women in their cures. I don’t recall its purpose. Are there any curanderas in the area?”

“As a matter of fact, there’s a curandera living in Moab.” Rivera’s grandmother in Las Cruces had a lifelong friend who was a curandera. He had seen her cure a wide spectrum of maladies using natural herbal-based drinks and lotions. As a result, he grew up with an abiding respect for the curing power of curanderas.

As Rivera drove out of the compound after thanking Amy profusely, he glanced in the rearview mirror. Amy was standing there, hands on hips, watching him drive off. He thought about Vivian, wondered again why she hadn’t yet called him, and then thought some more about Amy.

“I don’t think that went very well,” Rivera said to the dog. Bentley looked up at him, yawned, then laid his head back down on the seat and went to sleep.

17

THE HOME OF ANGELA ORTEGA was a modest one-story stucco building with a flat roof in an older section of Moab. The yard was a desertscape of cactus, yucca, wildflowers, and some plants Rivera didn’t recognize. A purple 1990s-vintage Chevy pickup sat in the driveway next to the house. Rivera watched from his vehicle as an elderly Hispanic man left the house and started down the walkway toward the street, supported by a teenage girl who looked like she might be his granddaughter. The man walked slowly, taking small steps, obviously in some discomfort. They got into a dusty pickup truck and slowly drove off.

Rivera cracked open the windows of his pickup so Bentley would have a supply of fresh air. He hopped out of the vehicle, walked to the front door of the Ortega residence, and knocked.

The door opened and a small elderly woman with wrinkled brown skin appeared, supporting herself with a cane. Her eyes widened when she saw Rivera’s uniform but she managed a smile.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Rivera introduced himself and said he would like to ask her a few questions. She politely invited him inside and closed the door.

They sat in the living room. “I’m told that you are a curandera, a curing woman.”

“Yes. That is correct.” Her eyes studied his face. “Do you have an ailment you wish me to treat?”

“Uh, no. It’s not that. I’m working on a criminal case and I was wondering if you might be able to help me. Do you recognize this plant?” Rivera pulled the sprig out of his shirt pocket and held it up.

She looked at it and tensed up. After a long moment, she spoke. “Yes, I do. It’s called a skunk bush.” Her voice had a slight quiver.

“Is this type of plant used in cures performed by curanderas?”

She hesitated. “Well, yes it is. It’s used to treat toothaches and stop hair loss.”

“Do you know anyone who goes into the LaSal Mountains and collects sprigs from this kind of bush?”

“Why, no. That would be illegal, wouldn’t it?”

Rivera was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Around here, that plant only grows at the higher altitudes, up in the mountains. That would be National Forest land. Isn’t it illegal to harvest plants from a national forest?”

Rivera scratched the back of his neck. “I think that’s true only for endangered species or those that might soon become endangered. But that’s not my interest. I’m investigating a murder. As far as I’m concerned, whoever is taking cuttings from this plant is not breaking the law. There’s been no harm done. They can keep on collecting sprigs from those bushes. I’m just looking for anyone who might have seen anything unusual in that area lately. It could be a big help to me.”

Angela’s whole body seemed to relax. “Curanderas need many types of special plants for their cures. Many dried varieties are available at herb stores in Farmington and Cortez. Others can be ordered through the mail. But I prefer to harvest mine locally whenever I can. They’re fresher and more effective than the ones you can buy. Also, it saves me money.”

“Yes. My grandmother’s best friend is a curandera. I’m very familiar with the good work they do.”

She turned her head toward a back room and raised her voice. “Gilbert, come in here.”

A tall skinny boy in a T-shirt and jeans came into the room. “Yes, Abuela?” His long arms dangled by his sides.

She gestured toward the boy. “This is my grandson, Gilbert Ortega. I’m too old to go into the mountains anymore. Gilbert here collects my plants for me.” She turned to the boy. “Gilbert, tell the officer where you’ve been taking the skunk bush cuttings.”

Gilbert stated there were only two places he’d been able to find skunk bush. Using Rivera’s map, he pointed them out. One was on the south side of Mount Waas, the other on the north side. The north side location was the same spot where Rivera had seen the plants.

“About a month ago, a man was shot near there. That would have been the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. He’s still in the hospital, in a coma. He’s expected to live. I’m trying to learn more about the shooting, whether it was accidental or intentional. Were you up there that day?”

Gilbert hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

“Did you see anyone while you were there?”

“When I was cutting sprigs from the skunk bush, I saw a man hike by on the trail. He didn’t see me. He stopped, looked around, then went downhill off the trail. About ten minutes later, he came rushing back out, got back on the trail, and walked away quickly. Then I saw a second man come out of that same place, from downhill below the trail. He was moving fast. A minute later, I heard a gunshot. I got scared and went farther back into the woods. I hid out for about half an hour. Then I hiked through the forest back to my truck which I’d parked just off the Castleton-Gateway Road. I didn’t use the trail because I was afraid. It took me about an hour to make it back to my truck. I got in and drove home.”

“Did you recognize either man?”

“I’d seen the first guy up there before. Twice before, I think.”

Rivera reached into the Buddy Milton case file and extracted a photograph of Milton. “Was this the man?”

The boy peered at the photo. “Yes sir. That’s him.”

“Can you describe the second man?”

“It was dusk and it gets dark fast in the forest with all the trees blocking the light. I didn’t get a good look at his face, but he was a big guy. I’d say he was around six feet tall.”

“Can you estimate his age?”

“He looked like he was in good shape, the way he came rushing uphill out of the brush. So I’d guess he was a younger man, maybe in his twenties or thirties.”

“Anything else?”

“He was carrying something in his right hand. I think it was a pistol.”

18

RIVERA GLANCED AT his watch. It was too late in the day to drive back into the mountains and explore the area where Gilbert Ortega had seen Buddy Milton and his pursuer emerge from the woods. It would be dark by the time Rivera got there, so he decided to check it out tomorrow morning in the daylight. Now he sat in his vehicle in front of the Ortega residence, wondering if the other man Gilbert had seen could have been Zolu. Chris Carey had described Zolu as fit, in his twenties, and tall. It was a possibility.

Rivera slid the gearshift lever into drive and pulled away from the curb. He turned right, intending to return to the office. Then he noticed Mrs. Densford’s hospice up ahead on the left side of the street. Since Buddy Milton had just become a lot more interesting in his investigation, Rivera decided to pay her a visit and inquire about Milton’s volunteer work.

Rivera learned that Mrs. Densford was shopping at the City Market grocery store, so he spoke to one of the volunteers, a retired nurse. She explained that there were currently six residents at the hospice. Two were bedridden but he was welcome to visit them if he wished. Three were in the community room and one was sitting out on the back patio.

He strolled down the main hallway, glancing into each room as he passed by. In one of the bedrooms was a frail woman with white hair lying in bed with an oxygen feeder tube clipped to her nose. She was staring at the ceiling, seemingly alone in her thoughts. A middle-aged man in another bedroom lay in bed reading a book. In the community room, two elderly women and a young man sat in front of a television tuned to a soap opera. The young man had fallen asleep.

Rivera opened the rear door and stepped out onto a patio which overlooked a grassy backyard surrounded by esperanza bushes heavy with yellow and orange blossoms. An older man sat in a rocking chair, tossing small pieces of bread to a friendly squirrel. The man noticed Rivera, managed a smile, and nodded.

“How are you doing today, sir?” asked Rivera.

The man laughed. “Well, I’m in some pain. This dying business ain’t worth a damn.”

Rivera didn’t know what to say. “Can I get you anything?”

“No. But thanks. What brings you to the hospice? One of those old ladies in there rob a bank?” He tried to laugh, coughed.

Rivera wanted to smile but couldn’t. “I’ve heard a lot about Mrs. Densford’s hospice but I’ve never visited before. I thought I’d stop in to meet her but she’s out grocery shopping.”

“Mrs. D is an exceptional human being. And a great cook. She takes good care of us.”

“Do you know a man named Buddy Milton? I understand he does some volunteer work here.”

The man glanced at Rivera and produced a wry smile. “Buddy don’t come around here no more. He used to bring us our marijuana joints. And he didn’t charge nothin’ for them. They relieved the pain of my cancer a lot. But I guess he quit on us. Don’t know what happened to him. Maybe he moved away. We all miss him. And especially his marijuana.”

“Buddy’s in the hospital. Has been for over three weeks. He was shot in the head. Maybe a hunting accident. He’s been in a coma.”

The man stared straight ahead. “I didn’t know that. I figured he’d just up and left town. Guess I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. I sure don’t wanna get Buddy in no trouble with the law.”

Rivera knew full well that marijuana was against the law in the state of Utah. And not just for recreational use. Medical marijuana was also illegal. He left the hospice and returned to his vehicle, wondering if the law made any sense. What’s wrong with supplying marijuana to a dying person to relieve pain? After all, it’s just a plant. What could be more natural? When his great grandfather was still alive, his grandmother used to make a salve from marijuana buds and cottonseed oil to relieve the arthritic pain in his joints. She grew the marijuana in her garden.

Rivera went to his office and composed a message to the SFPD explaining that William Whitlock had a dog with him when he was killed. He requested they contact Whitlock’s relatives and friends to see if anyone was interested in adopting a brown male Labrador Retriever.

Before calling it a day, Rivera returned to the Moab Regional Hospital to check on Buddy Milton. He was still comatose. His sister was not in the room.

Rivera spoke to the nurse in charge and stated he would like to look through Milton’s personal items. He explained that it was part of an investigation into why Buddy had been shot. She nodded and used a small key to unlock the storage closet in his room.

Milton’s clothing had been hung neatly on hangers and his boots rested on the floor. A thick sock was stuffed into each boot. Rivera picked up the boots and studied them. They were expensive and well worn, exactly what one would expect of a dedicated hiker. On the top shelf were a faded John Deere cap, a cardboard box, and a daypack. He took down the daypack and unzipped it. It contained bottled water, a baggie full of trail mix, a map of the LaSal Mountains, and two aging apples. The cardboard box contained the personal items the staff had removed from Milton’s pockets. There was a wallet, some coins, a pocketknife, some keys on a ring, a handkerchief, and a plastic container of Skoal smokeless tobacco. Rivera carefully twisted the cap off the can of Skoal. Inside he found a dozen neatly-rolled marijuana joints.

He used his cell phone to call Milton’s sister.

“Did Buddy use drugs of any kind?”

“Absolutely not. He was a health nut. Wouldn’t even touch a beer.”

Rivera pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine. Buddy Milton was obviously a Good Samaritan. Helping to relieve the pain of terminally ill patients was a noble cause. Rivera decided he would not mention the marijuana in any of his reports. When Milton was well again, if he wanted to resume supplying joints to the residents of the hospice, Rivera would turn a blind eye. He knew exactly what his wise old grandfather back in Las Cruces would say: Following the letter of the law can sometimes be an impediment to doing what’s right.

Bentley followed Rivera into the house and began exploring it, sniffing the carpet and inspecting each room. Rivera put two cereal bowls on the kitchen floor, one filled with dog chow pellets, the other with water. The dog trotted back into the kitchen and headed straight for the bowls. While Bentley ate dinner, Rivera fed the guppies and checked his answering machine. There was still no word from Vivian. Her silence was beginning to create crosscurrents of worry and irritation within him.

He called Chris Carey and asked if there were any new developments with the protesters. Carey reported that their number had continued to dwindle. And there was no further sign of Zolu.

19

SUNDAY MORNING ARRIVED, but it wouldn’t be a day of rest for Manny Rivera. He fed Bentley, then took him out into the backyard and carefully extracted the grass burrs from his coat. Bentley stood patiently while Rivera used liquid soap and water from a garden hose to bathe him. When Rivera was finished, the dog shook himself vigorously, spraying water all over the deputy. Rivera looked away laughing, then finished the drying job with some old towels. Now Bentley’s coat was shiny and healthy-looking. Rivera put a pail of fresh drinking water in the yard and left Bentley there where he could rest in the shade of a Russian olive tree. Then Rivera hopped into his pickup and headed for the LaSal Mountains.

He parked at the end of the two-track road north of Mount Waas, strapped on his daypack, and continued up the trail on foot. A half-hour later, he reached the place where he’d found the Rhus Trilobata Nutt shrubs, or skunk bushes in the curandera’s lexicon. He left the trail and began descending the slope where Gilbert Ortega had seen the two men emerge from the woods. The absence of a clear-cut path forced him to hunt and peck around the trees and thick bushes.

He scanned the ground for footprints but was unable to find any because the forest floor was covered with leaves, pine needles, and rocks. But he did take notice of occasional broken twigs in the underbrush. He used those to guide his route.

Fifteen minutes later, he came upon a small opening in the forest canopy where the tree cover was less dense and sunlight reached the ground. A small creek trickling over moss-covered rocks flowed through the clearing. There he saw the reason Buddy Milton had been visiting the area. Twenty-four marijuana plants stood in two rows of twelve, one row on each side of the creek. Rocks had been moved to expose the moist soil in which the plants grew. They were healthy-looking plants, over six feet tall and heavy with clusters of large brown buds.

Rivera remained hidden in the brush for several minutes, scanning the area and listening for sounds in the silence of the forest. The man who had shot Buddy Milton was foremost in his mind. The rat-tat-tat of a distant woodpecker was the only discernable sign of life. He drew his sidearm, stepped out into the clearing, and approached the plants. Growing marijuana on federal land was illegal but wasn’t all that uncommon. Certainly it was less risky than growing it in your own backyard like his grandmother used to do.

He studied the garden. Some of the buds were nearly ready for harvesting; others would be ripe in the next few days. Several clipped stems on each plant indicated some of the buds had already been harvested. Milton had found a location for his marijuana garden he thought no one else would ever find. Nearly all hikers stay on the trails. They would have little reason to leave the trail and hike into the thick underbrush. But someone did. The man who had chased after Milton and shot him.

Rivera noted two sets of boot prints in the soft soil adjacent to the creek. One matched the tread he’d seen on Milton’s boots at the hospital. The other set of prints took him by surprise. After close inspection, they appeared to be identical to the boot prints left in Beaver Canyon by the man who had followed William Whitlock.

Rivera had just found a new piece of the jigsaw puzzle. He had no idea yet how or when it would snap into place, but he knew it was important. He holstered his weapon, extracted a camera from his daypack, and began photographing the marijuana plants and their arrangement alongside the creek. Then he took closeups of the boot prints, all the while being careful to step only on rocks to avoid leaving his own prints. Later, when he returned to the office, he would compare the second set of boot prints to those he photographed in Beaver Valley to be certain they were a match.

He heard the rustling of underbrush in the woods behind him, making his heart jump. He whirled around into a wide stance, drawing his weapon and pointing it in the direction of the sound. A mother skunk followed by a single file of five baby skunks trotted out of the trees toward the creek. When she spotted Rivera, her tail went vertical. A split second later, five little tails went vertical. The young ones were learning fast. Rivera backed away and gave the family a wide berth so they could quench their thirst.

This had to be Milton’s marijuana garden, the source of the pot he supplied to Mrs. Densford’s patients. But why on earth would the man who followed Whitlock in Beaver Canyon have been up here on the north face of Mount Waas? Had he somehow discovered Milton was involved in the Dolores River excavation of ancient-Indian graves and followed him up here to kill him? Was his motive the same, retaliation for pothunting?

Rivera left the clearing, climbed back up to the trail, and hiked to his vehicle. During the return trip to Moab, he thought about marijuana and the people who used it, recalling his days in college when most of his classmates had tried it at least once. Some had used it on a regular basis. He’d tried it himself a time or two but never cared for it. He much preferred beer.

Rivera considered whether to inform Wilbur Jensen of the marijuana garden growing on National Forest land. Probably he should. It was illegal. Yet, since the garden was Buddy Milton’s source of marijuana for the hospice residents, Rivera’s sense of justice told him he would be doing the wrong thing. If only Utah allowed the use of medical marijuana, Rivera thought, he wouldn’t be faced with such an ethical dilemma.

He returned to his office and transferred the boot print images from his camera to his computer. He compared them to the photographs he had taken in Beaver Canyon. There was no question about it—the second set of prints in both locations matched. Now he had a definite connection between the two shootings. It was clear the shooting of Buddy Milton was no hunting accident. Both the Milton incident and the Whitlock murder were motivated by revenge for pot-hunting. And, of course, so was the grave desecration in Blanding. It was looking more and more likely that Zolu was the guilty party.

Rivera picked up the phone and called Chris Carey to get an update on the protesters. Their number had dwindled to eight and Zolu was still absent. Carey said that none of them had remembered seeing Zolu or had any personal knowledge of him. Most said they were heading back home in a day or two.

Rivera decided he needed to step up his efforts to locate Zolu. He issued a state-wide advisory to all law enforcement personnel to be on the lookout for a man fitting his description. When Zolu had been seen in town by Carey, he was wearing moccasins. No doubt he also had hiking boots—everyone in this part of the country had at least one pair. If Zolu’s boots were a match for the prints in the photographs, Rivera would have his man.

20

SHERIFF LEROY BRADSHAW sat alone at his kitchen table staring into a bowl of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. He picked up his spoon, then put it back down, realizing he had no appetite. Jill had always fixed him a delicious sandwich prepared with homemade bread for lunch. He missed his wife for countless reasons and couldn’t understand why she’d been taken from him. Her cancer had undermined his life like nothing else could have. One thing was certain—when his current term as Grand County Sheriff was over, he would leave Moab and start life over somewhere else.

He had hoped the remaining months of his term in office would pass by quietly. Instead, a pothunter from San Francisco gets himself murdered at the very time the Heritage Preservation Society is in Moab conducting demonstrations against pothunting. Pressure from local politicians and merchants was ratcheting up fast as fears of a hit to the local economy grew.

The telephone rang. Bradshaw pushed himself out of his chair and walked over to the receiver hanging on the kitchen wall.

“Hello.”

“Leroy, this is Howard Cole calling.”

“Well, hello, Howard. How are you doing?” Cole was one of the wealthiest men in Moab. He and his wife lived in a large modern home overlooking Mill Creek Canyon. The home had been designed by a prominent California architect. By Moab standards, it was a mansion. He was also the brother of one of the County Councilmen.

“Leroy, this isn’t a social call. Anne and I just returned from our place in Aspen only to find that someone had broken into our home. Our collection of ancient-Indian pottery was stolen.”

Bradshaw dragged a chair over to where he was standing and sat down. “Was anything else taken?”

“No. Just the collection. The thief left a note. Here, let me read it to you: I am returning these sacred objects to the earth from whence they were stolen.”

“Sounds like the same person that dug up the grave in Blanding to make a statement against pothunting.” Bradshaw described the exhumation incident to Cole. “He might have also murdered a pothunter up in the LaSals. The protesters came to Moab to make a statement and they’re sure making it. Was there any damage to the house?”

“They cut the telephone line leading up to the house and jimmied open the back door. We have an alarm service but the signal is transmitted over the phone line, so the security company was never alerted.”

“I wonder how they knew you had an artifact collection,” said Bradshaw.

There was a pause. “Our house was featured in Architectural Digest a few months ago. The collection appeared in one of the photographs. Maybe that’s how they learned about it.”

“I’ll come right over, Howard. I’d like to take a look around.”

“Okay, Leroy. I’ve got close-up photographs of each pot that was stolen. We took them for insurance purposes. Judging from the note, though, I’ll probably never see those artifacts again.”

21

THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN would soon be dropping below the horizon and Zolu had much work to accomplish before darkness enveloped the forest. He had made four trips from his vehicle to this remote spot in the LaSal Mountains, each time carrying a few of the artifacts he’d stolen from that white man’s mansion. He’d wrapped them in newspaper and carefully placed them in his backpack for the quarter-mile trek into the woods.

Now they were all unpacked and resting on the ground. Ideally, he would have returned each piece to the exact location from which it had been dug up, but that was information he didn’t have, so this place would have to suffice.

He stood there, leaning on the handle of his shovel, wondering if he should dig a single trench in which to bury all the artifacts or give each piece its own burial site. He glanced at the sun. It would be more respectful to give each pot its own grave but there just wasn’t time. He began digging an eight-foot long trench about eighteen inches deep.

With the task halfway completed, he dropped the shovel and sat down on a nearby log to catch his breath. The evening air flowing down the mountains cooled his sweaty skin. He smiled. Damon Dunstable would be proud of him. When he’d called Dunstable a few days ago and told him what he’d done at the Blanding cemetery, Dunstable was ecstatic. The Executive Director of the Heritage Preservation Society himself said he was impressed with Zolu’s creativity and ingenuity. He’d said leaving the bones on the doorstep of the museum was a brilliant stroke, an absolute touch of genius.

Zolu wondered why he’d never heard that kind of praise from his father. All he’d ever received was criticism. Zolu had never been smart enough or hard-driving enough or polished enough to suit his father. When the wealthy old man had died four years ago, Zolu learned he’d been bequeathed nothing but a musty old collection of Dale Carnegie self-improvement manuals—one final insult from his father. That was the day he quit the University of Arizona and abandoned his studies in the history of the American Southwest. He dropped his name, Thomas Peterson, the name his father had given him, and became Zolu. That was the day he became Indian. A month later, he learned of the Heritage Preservation Society, met Damon Dunstable at a rally, and became one of his acolytes. Now he loved his life. He felt worthwhile and appreciated.

Zolu shot another glance at the horizon. The sun was disappearing. No time to waste. He got up and resumed digging.

When the trench was completed, he picked up a twelve-inch grey bowl with black geometric markings and carefully lowered it with both hands into the hole. He seemed to remember that the brass plaque in the mansion had said this one was of Anasazi origin. He felt a spiritual uplifting, as though he was making right a terrible wrong perpetrated by greedy white men.

He reached for a grey pot with black and orange markings, then stopped momentarily. He thought he detected a faint but familiar smell in the air. He sniffed again, concentrating this time. At first, he couldn’t place the scent. Then he recognized it and smiled. It reminded him of his high school days. His best friend had planted three marijuana plants along the back fence of his backyard, hidden among some tall flowering bushes. They learned how to harvest the buds and roll up joints and smoke them. Zolu wondered for a moment what in the world could be growing in the mountains that smelled so much like those marijuana plants. He shrugged. Nothing came to mind so he returned to his work. He couldn’t wait to finish the job and call Dunstable. He imagined the Executive Director would once again heap praise upon him for his cleverness and bravery.

He placed the grey pot into its final resting place. As he reached for a third pot, he thought he heard a twig snap in the woods behind him. He turned and studied the shadowy forest, remaining motionless and listening intently. The only sounds he heard were the pulsating buzz of nighttime insects and the rippling of a nearby creek. After a long moment, he decided it was nothing and returned to his work.

Then he heard another sound, much closer this time. His heart jumped and he whirled around. He saw the dark shape of a large man silhouetted by the faint light in the western sky.

22

AT SEVEN FIFTEEN on Sunday evening, Manny Rivera was back in his office, trying to fit a new piece of the puzzle into place. He’d read Sheriff Bradshaw’s report on the Cole residence break-in and the theft of the pot collection. The handwriting on the note left behind was identical to the one left with the bones on the doorstep of the Edge of the Cedars Museum.

Now Rivera had four crimes to think about. There was the Milton shooting, the Whitlock murder, the Blanding Cemetery desecration, and the Cole burglary. They all had one element in common: ancient-Indian pots. Zolu was his prime suspect but Damon Dunstable and other members of the Heritage Preservation Society could be complicit. Rivera needed to find Zolu quickly, but thus far, there had been no reported sightings of the suspect by Utah law enforcement personnel.

As he pondered his next step in the investigation, Rivera wondered if Milton’s shooter, clearly aware of the existence of Milton’s marijuana garden, might return to harvest the crop. Surely it was worth thousands of dollars. Why pass up an opportunity for some easy cash? Maybe there would be an opportunity to arrest him at the garden.

Rivera reconsidered. He didn’t have time to sit in the forest on a stakeout hoping the shooter would someday return. And he didn’t want to ask another deputy to take on the task since that would reveal the existence of the garden, Milton’s source of medical marijuana for the hospice residents. Another deputy might feel duty-bound to destroy the crop, despite the terminally ill patients.

There was, however, one person in law enforcement who might be willing to help him: Wilbur Jensen. Rivera judged him to be a good man and felt he would understand the importance of keeping secret the existence of the garden. He had his own problems and might sympathize with the problems of the hospice residents. The marijuana garden was located within the boundaries of the national forest, Jensen’s territory. Maybe Rivera could recruit Jensen to spend his time surveilling the garden, thereby freeing Rivera to pursue other avenues in the investigation. And if Zolu one day arrived to harvest the crop, Jensen could apprehend him and Rivera would have his man. It was a long shot but it seemed a sensible step.

Rivera decided to explain the situation to Jensen this evening and solicit his cooperation. But he needed to be cautious. He wouldn’t reveal the location of the garden until he had Jensen’s agreement to help. Rivera knew he was risking his job if what he was doing ever became public, but he wasn’t willing to do something he thought was fundamentally wrong when measured on the scale of human decency.

He dialed Jensen’s cell phone number and received the standard “leave a message” recording. Without elaborating, Rivera left a voicemail requesting a callback. Then he left the office and drove to City Market, where he purchased some groceries and assorted cans of dog food.

On the way home, he decided to swing by Jensen’s motor home to see if he might have returned. It was located in an RV park in Spanish Valley, just south of the Moab city limits.

Rivera spotted Jensen’s Forest Service vehicle parked next to the motor home. Good … he was home. Rivera hopped out of his pickup, walked to the side door of the massive home on wheels, and knocked. The door was unlatched and swung open.

Jensen was lying on the floor of the motor home, his head in a pool of blood. Rivera checked for a pulse. Jensen was dead.

23

RIVERA YAWNED as he pushed open the front door of his house and entered. It was nearly midnight. He’d been working long hours every day since he’d found Whitlock’s body on North Beaver Mesa four days ago. He opened the back door and Bentley rushed in, wagging his tail, wanting attention and food. The dog went over to the empty bowls on the kitchen floor and stood there, looking up at Rivera with what seemed to be an impatient expression. Rivera laughed out loud. He fed the dog and the guppies, then put two chicken pot pies in the oven for himself. He opened a cold beer, sat down at the kitchen table, and took a long swallow. It felt good to finally relax.

The Medical Examiner had pronounced Jensen dead as a result of blows to the head with a blunt object. The object was the heavy chunk of petrified wood lying on the floor of the motor home. The killer had apparently snatched it from a shelf which displayed a small collection of rocks, geodes, and crystals.

At the request of the Sheriff’s Office, the Utah State Police Forensics Lab had conducted the crime scene investigation. The theory of the crime was that Jensen knew his killer and invited him into the motor home. An argument ensued. The visitor became angry, grabbed the chunk of petrified wood, and struck Jensen on the head three times. The petrified wood and the door handle had yielded fingerprints, but they did not produce a match in the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

The gravel parking area around the RV had yielded no usable footprints or tire impressions. There were no witnesses and the neighbors had heard nothing. Jensen’s cell phone was not found in his RV. The backpack on the front seat of his vehicle was searched. It contained maps, water bottles, snacks, a book of Forest Service regulations, citation forms, a flashlight, matches, a GPS receiver, a snakebite kit, a pullover sweater, and assorted tools. But no cell phone. It was assumed the killer had taken it with him when he left. Perhaps it contained the killer’s own phone number. The absence of Jensen’s cell phone reinforced the idea that he and the killer had been acquaintances.

Rivera had had the unwelcome job of informing Jensen’s daughter, Debbie Pendergast, of her father’s death. He’d visited her in the house she rented only three blocks from the RV park. She was short and pretty with brown eyes and blonde hair. After she had calmed down and was able to talk, she’d called her mother who was in Toronto visiting old friends. A distraught Mrs. Jensen had said she would return to Moab as soon as she could make travel arrangements.

Sheriff Bradshaw had added the Jensen murder to Rivera’s case load, since he had intimate knowledge of the crime scene and had handled the preliminary work. In addition, he was the only deputy who had met and spoken with Jensen.

After dinner, Rivera fell into bed. He was too tired to consider whether Jensen’s murder was related to his current investigation.

24

MANNY RIVERA AND Emmett Mitchell sat in the corner booth of the Rim Rock Diner. Each had ordered the usual breakfast: eggs over easy, sausage, hash browns, wheat toast, and coffee. While they ate, Rivera briefed Mitchell on the bludgeoning death of Wilbur Jensen.

“Any reason to believe there’s a connection between Jensen’s murder and the two shootings in the mountains?” asked Mitchell.

Rivera sipped his coffee. Shook his head. “I’m not sure. William Whitlock’s murder and Buddy Milton’s shooting might be connected in two ways. They were both involved in excavating ancient-Indian burial sites. And both had been followed by the same man, according to the boot prints I found. Jensen was the Forest Service ranger covering the general area where both shootings took place, but that’s the only common thread between his case and the other two. As far as I can tell, he’s never had anything to do with pothunting. Seemed like an upright kind of guy.”

Mitchell nodded. “Jensen’s murder might be unrelated, but the timing seems a little too coincidental. I’d keep looking for a connection. We rarely have murders in this part of the country. Suddenly we have two murders and one attempted in less than a month.”

“Yeah, that occurred to me,” said Rivera. “Anything new on the grave desecration in Blanding?”

“Absolutely nothing. All of us San Juan County deputies are looking for that Zolu character, but no one’s come up with anything. If he’s in my county, he’s staying pretty well hidden.”

“He hasn’t been seen in Grand County since last Tuesday. He seems to have disappeared completely.”

Mitchell wiped his plate with a piece of toast and ate it. “I heard Denny Campbell has been visiting with all of Sheriff Bradshaw’s people. Has he been to see you yet?”

“He stopped by my office a few days ago.” Rivera smiled. “He filled me in on his management philosophy.”

“Well, just between you and me, I don’t care for the guy,” said Mitchell. “He has a bad habit of bullying people. And he has no background in investigative work. He spent his entire career as a patrolman in Detroit. I don’t know what makes him think he can be sheriff of a rural county.”

“Unfortunately, he’s running unopposed so I guess I’m stuck with him. I sure wish Sheriff Bradshaw would change his mind. It’s too late for him to get on the ballot but I’ll bet he could get eighty percent of the vote as a write-in candidate.”

Mitchell looked at his watch, gulped down the last of his coffee, and stood up. “I’ve got to run. Early meeting with Sheriff Zilic.”

Rivera finished his breakfast and just sat there motionless, staring into space. Betty stopped by his booth and refilled his coffee mug.

She patted him on the shoulder. “You look tired, Manny.”

Rivera chuckled. “Yeah, and it’s only Monday.”

“You need to make sure you get your sleep. It’s important, especially in your line of work.”

“I know. By the way, Betty, would you like to adopt a dog?”

She laughed. “I have cats. They’d never forgive me if I brought a dog into the house. I heard about your Labrador Retriever. Don’t you want to keep him?”

“I already have pets.”

“Oh, Manny, guppies aren’t pets.”

“Of course they are. You have to feed them and take care of them.”

“They’re not pets because you can’t pet them.”

“Well, I don’t know if you can or not. I’ve never tried.”

“And they can’t follow you around or jump in your lap. They’re definitely not pets.”

Rivera smiled. “I’m too tired to rise to the defense of my guppies but I’m sure they’d deeply resent that.”

Betty rolled her eyes and departed, leaving Rivera alone in his thoughts. He decided to stay at the diner and relax for a while, then go to the office, run through all the facts again, and try to make some sense of things. So far, his case had been drifting along in the foggy realm of conjecture. Maybe the Zolu character was his man, but the truth was he couldn’t even be sure about that.

The three hikers he’d met in the diner Friday morning were back, sitting at a nearby table. They were talkative and animated, reliving their hike to the Citadel ruins and planning today’s trek into Arch Canyon. He envied them. They had no worries, no responsibilities. Only the excitement of the next hike and the fun of each other’s company.

“How was the hike to the Citadel?” Rivera asked them.

“It was great,” said the young man with the blond hair. “The site looked like it was chosen by the ancients because of its view and because it was highly defensible. It’s out on a peninsula of a mesa, then up a rocky incline to get to the ruins. We climbed up there and took a look at the rooms they lived in. It was pretty cool. The rooms were small but the view was spectacular. There are sheer walls all around the mesa, dropping thousands of feet into the canyon below. There was only one way to get in and it would have been easy to defend in the event of an attack.”

His friend chimed in. “But we almost got lost hiking back to our vehicle.” He laughed. “Good thing I was entering waypoints into my GPS on the way in. We had to recall them to find our way back to the Jeep.”

Rivera wasn’t sure what that meant. Curious, he asked them about waypoints and how they were used.

The blond boy patiently explained it to him. Rivera learned that the hikers could, periodically during a hike, record the latitude and longitude of their location by pressing a button on their GPS receiver. Each coordinate pair corresponded to a single waypoint and the accumulated series of waypoints corresponded to the route of their hike. They could later use the recorded waypoints in reverse order to guide them out the same way they came in.

Rivera owned a GPS receiver but the only thing he knew how to do was read his latitude and longitude. Sometimes he felt like technology was leaving him behind.

The young men said goodbye and hurried out of the diner to their Jeep. Rivera watched them through the window as they drove out of the parking lot, all smiles, and headed south toward Arch Canyon.

Rivera finished his coffee, paid the bill, and drove to the office.

25

RIVERA UPDATED SHERIFF BRADSHAW on the Jensen killing, then grabbed a cup of coffee, closed the door to his office, and settled in at his desk. Bradshaw had been noticeably weary. The local merchants and county councilmen were pressing him to wrap up the murder investigations and make some arrests before the bad press devastated the economy. No one would want to come to Moab to explore the backcountry at the risk of getting shot by a madman. Rivera felt a mounting pressure. He needed to make some real progress. And soon.

Much had happened since Buddy Milton had been shot. Now it was time to try to sort out the facts and develop some ideas about why things had happened the way they did. Rivera’s logical mind considered things in chronological order, as he always did, searching for cause and effect relationships. First, Buddy Milton was found unconscious by hikers on a remote trail on the north slope of Mount Waas. While employed by the Dolores River Research Institute, he had been assisting archaeologists at an important dig alongside the Dolores River. During his free time, he often took solo hikes into the mountains. Apparently the purpose of these hikes was to harvest marijuana buds from his private patch of cannabis plants. He dried the buds somewhere, perhaps in his D.R.R.I. cabin or at his sister’s place, and later rolled up joints and distributed them to the people suffering from terminal illnesses at Mrs. Densford’s hospice.

Then one day, almost four weeks ago, someone had followed him into the mountains. As he was leaving his marijuana garden, this unknown person who was described by Gilbert Ortega as tall and young, encountered him, followed him for a short distance, shot him in the head, and left him for dead.

Nothing unusual happened for the next three weeks. Then, a week ago, the protesters began arriving in Moab. The man called Zolu, who claimed to be the author of the manifesto, was seen on the first two days of the demonstration, Monday and Tuesday. No one had laid eyes on him since.

On Tuesday, William Whitlock met with Max Sutherland in the Rim Rock Diner and paid him a wad of money for a map. The map provided directions to a previously undisturbed ancient-Indian gravesite in Beaver Canyon.

Wednesday morning, Whitlock set out with his dog to find the site. He successfully located it, dug up a portion of the grave, and retrieved a valuable Fremont pot. As he hiked back to his vehicle, he was followed out of the canyon by the same man who had shot Buddy Milton weeks earlier. The man caught up to Whitlock and shot him in the back and again in the head. The shooter must have learned that Milton had survived and he wanted to make sure about Whitlock. He didn’t want to repeat his mistake.

On Wednesday evening, Damon Dunstable delivered a lecture at the Moab Information Center decrying the practice of pothunting. During the question and answer session which followed, attendees learned that when Whitlock was murdered, he had a freshly dug Fremont pot stashed in his backpack.

Then, in the predawn hours Friday morning, the bones of Jeremiah Simpson were exhumed from the Blanding cemetery and unceremoniously dumped on the front steps of the Edge of the Cedars Museum. There was no doubt about the motivation for this ghoulish act; the accompanying note spelled it out. Like the shooting of Milton and the murder of Whitlock, this too was related to pothunting.

The demonstrations continued Friday, although with a more subdued tone. Damon Dunstable departed Moab in the morning and went to Flagstaff for another scheduled speech.

Early Sunday morning, Howard Cole discovered his residence had been broken into and his collection of ancient-Indian pottery stolen. A note left behind declared the pots would be returned to the earth. The handwriting matched the note left with Simpson’s bones at the Blanding museum.

Late that same day, Wilbur Jensen was found murdered in his motor home. This was the fifth crime in a one-month period. Was this one related to the first four? Jensen was not a pothunter, but he was a Forest Service ranger working in the LaSal Mountains, the same general area where the two shootings had taken place.

It was now Monday morning. A few demonstrators with placards remained in town but they seemed rather placid. For the most part, the demonstration had exhausted its energy.

What about Zolu? He could have committed the two shootings, dug up the grave in Blanding, and burglarized the Cole residence. But he would have had no reason to commit the fifth crime since Jensen was not a pothunter. Was Jensen killed for a completely unrelated reason?

The Jensen killing didn’t seem to fit in with the other crimes. Jensen was killed in town instead of in the mountains. The weapon was a blunt object instead of a gun. And Jensen had nothing to do with excavating ancient-Indian graves. Jensen’s wife was scheduled to arrive in Moab tonight. Maybe she’d be able to shed some light on the case.

Rivera tried to recreate the Jensen murder scenario in his mind. There was a knock on the door of Jensen’s motor home. He answered the door, saw someone he knew, and invited him to come inside. Probably there was an argument. The visitor smashed Jensen’s skull with the petrified wood, searched the motor home for Jensen’s cell phone, found it, and left quietly. No witnesses.

Why would the assailant be worried about the cell phone? Maybe Jensen used it to communicate with him, and the killer believed that he could somehow be traced through his phone number. Rivera had taken the necessary legal steps to acquire the records of Jensen’s cell phone calls from the telephone company. Most were made to his wife, his office, merchants in town, and his daughter.

There were also a half-dozen other calls made each month to a number in an Arizona area code. Upon further investigation, it turned out the phone number corresponded to one of those disposable phones containing limited minutes sold at electronics stores. Unfortunately, there was no way to identify who had bought the phone. And probably, by now, that phone had been destroyed along with Jensen’s. But one thing seemed certain: Jensen had known his killer.

Rivera now wondered about specifics of Wilbur Jensen’s on-the-job activities. He was responsible for a lot of territory up in the mountains, perhaps as much as three hundred square miles. Had he made someone angry by enforcing the rules governing grazing, timber cutting, or poaching? Had he run someone off from a mountain lake for fishing without a license? Those didn’t sound like reasons for murder. Yet something must have been going on up there.

As Rivera sat there, frustrated by his inability to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and tired from working long hours, his mind wandered out to the solitude of the backcountry. His thoughts meandered to the hikers he’d met in the Rim Rock Diner. By now, they’d have started their hike into beautiful Arch Canyon, nestled between towering red rock walls. They’d be pointing out wildlife and unusual plants to one another and discovering panels of petroglyphs and pictographs on the rock faces. He wished he were with them. He smiled and wondered if they were recording waypoints as they hiked into the canyon so they wouldn’t get lost on the return trip.

At that instant, it occurred to him that Jensen might have recorded waypoints in his Forest Service-issued GPS receiver. He hopped out of his chair, went to the evidence room, and retrieved the GPS unit he found in Jensen’s backpack. He studied it but had no idea how to retrieve any waypoints it might contain.

He drove to GearHeads Outdoor Store, a popular hiking equipment establishment on Main Street, and received a crash course from one of the employees on how to set waypoints in the GPS unit and later retrieve them. He was surprised at how easy it was, once someone explained it to him.

Back in his office, he began stepping through the waypoints stored in Jensen’s GPS unit like an expert. There were eleven files, each corresponding to a different route. Each file contained about a dozen waypoints. He listed the latitude and longitude coordinates of the first file on a sheet of paper, then plotted the corresponding points on a map of the LaSal Mountains. The sequence of waypoints started about halfway up Mount Tukunikivits and went downslope from there. Rivera figured the sequence of points represented one of Jensen’s standard surveillance routes. He plotted the second series. It originated about halfway up Mount Peale and from that point headed downslope. He continued working, until the waypoints in all eleven files had been plotted on the map.

He was baffled. He sipped on his coffee and stared at the map. Each of the eleven series of points seemed to radiate downward from a high point on a mountain slope. Odd, he thought. That sounded like a lot of uphill and downhill hiking. Not the way Rivera would have patrolled the mountains. With his curiosity aroused, Rivera left the office and hopped into his vehicle.

26

AS RIVERA STARTED his engine and began to pull away from the curb, he noticed Denny Campbell hopping out of his vehicle on the other side of the street. Campbell waved both arms, signaling the deputy to stop. Rivera stepped on the brake and rolled down his window.

“I haven’t heard anything from you on the Whitlock murder. What’s going on?” Campbell appeared annoyed. “I asked you to keep me informed.”

What Rivera wanted to say was, With all due respect Mr. Campbell, you’re not the sheriff yet. Instead, he said, “No significant developments yet.”

“Well, when something significant develops, let me know,” said Campbell.

Rivera nodded, then drove off.

He headed south out of Moab on Spanish Valley Drive and turned toward the mountains. He navigated the winding pavement of the LaSal Mountain Loop Road to higher and higher altitudes, finally reaching the Geyser Pass Road cutoff. There he turned onto the gravel and continued his ascent, the scree-covered peaks of the LaSals now looming closer. He reached Gold Basin Road, turned right, and followed it to its end.

He locked his vehicle, strapped on his daypack, and continued on foot with his map and Jensen’s GPS receiver in hand. For a while, he was able to follow a barely-discernible primitive trail to the higher altitudes, but eventually the location of the waypoints forced him to leave the trail. He continued climbing through the forest, navigating his way around boulders and spruce trees, wishing he were in better shape. Finally, after ascending two thousand feet on foot, he succumbed to his aching lungs and thighs. He sat down on a boulder, drank water, and relaxed for a few minutes. His view looking west was an immense landscape of canyons, buttes, and mesas that seemed to go on forever. Scenes like this one were the reason he’d moved to Moab.

When his heart rate and breathing returned to normal, he resumed his journey upward through the conifer forest. After another hour of rigorous hiking, he reached the highest waypoint on the mountainside, just a few hundred feet below the scree line. As he came out of the trees into a small sunlit clearing, he stopped in his tracks. Before him was a stand of marijuana plants in soil moistened by a running creek. It looked exactly like the one he’d seen north of Mount Waas, twenty-four plants arranged in two rows of twelve, one row growing on each side of the creek.

Sensing danger, he retreated into the woods and drew his weapon. He watched and listened. Self preservation was his instinctive reaction, but simultaneously, endless questions bombarded his mind. Why was the location of this marijuana garden recorded in Jensen’s GPS unit? Come to think of it, the first marijuana garden Rivera found seemed to correspond to a way-point in another chain, the one descending the north side of Mount Waas. Did the other garden belong to Buddy Milton or not? Was Jensen the one who shot Milton? Why was Jensen killed? Rivera sensed he was on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the case, but he could arrive at no conclusions about how everything fit together.

When he was satisfied there was no one else in the area, he emerged from the woods and approached the garden. He extracted his camera from his daypack and took several photographs of the plants and the surrounding boot print impressions in the mud. Then he stepped back fifty yards into the cover of the trees, sat down on a fallen limb, and studied his map more carefully. This stand of marijuana plants was the highest waypoint in the chain of points on the west side of Mount Mellenthin. The chain went downslope from here, each point being separated by a few hundred yards, and each point well off the trails used by hikers. He noticed that the series of waypoints followed the meanders of the small creek that descended the mountainside. He now expected to find a similar stand of marijuana plants at each waypoint.

To verify his theory, he hiked downslope, well off to the side of the creek, taking care not to leave any obvious footprints. Going downhill was easier on his lungs and legs, but finding a way through the underbrush was a continuing challenge.

At the next waypoint and the one after that, Rivera found the same kind of garden. Two dozen healthy marijuana plants growing in a small opening in the forest canopy, planted in cultivated, moist soil on both sides of the creek. He photographed the sites, then found his way back to a trail and returned to his vehicle.

As he drove out of the mountains, he made some quick calculations. There were eleven chains of way-points stored in Jensen’s GPS unit, each chain consisting of approximately twelve small gardens. If each garden contained twenty-four marijuana plants, that would come to over 2600 plants. Rivera had discovered a major pot-growing operation. And Wilbur Jensen had been right in the middle of it.

27

RIVERA RETURNED TO his office and closed the door. He leaned back in his chair and grunted as he hoisted his sore legs onto his desk. As he massaged his calves, he gazed out his office window at the stately and placid mountains from which he had just returned. Who could have imagined what was going on up there?

Before briefing Sheriff Bradshaw, he wanted to sort out the facts and get everything straight in his mind. His previous thoughts about the series of recent crimes had been wrong—totally wrong. Now, looking at the same sequence of events, he could see an entirely different picture.

Buddy Milton must have somehow stumbled onto the marijuana garden on the north slope of Mount Waas during one of his hikes. As a volunteer at the hospice, he took advantage of his discovery to periodically steal a few buds off the plants and roll some joints for Mrs. Densford’s hospice patients. One day, he was spotted at the garden by the “owner.” He was followed. The man let him get some distance from the garden, then shot him.

Three weeks later, William Whitlock was shot and killed after being followed by someone out of Beaver Canyon. The boot prints of the man who had followed him were the same as those found at the Mount Waas marijuana garden. Was there also a marijuana garden in Beaver Canyon?

Rivera unfolded his map of the LaSals and studied it. There was a chain of waypoints starting high on an eastern slope of the LaSals and extending down into Beaver Canyon. No doubt the gardens in the chain were located alongside trickling Beaver Creek, farther upcanyon from Whitlock’s dig. Up there, the canyon would be narrower, higher in altitude, and populated with junipers and brush where a marijuana garden could easily be hidden. Rivera recalled that Whitlock’s tracks had gone past the point where the map indicated he should climb the talus to the gravesite. Then, realizing his mistake, he returned to the correct spot. But during his detour, he must have gotten too close to the lowest marijuana garden in Beaver Canyon and been spotted by the man who left the second set of boot prints. As a result, he was murdered.

Two days later, a grave was dug up in the Blanding cemetery. It’s clear now that act was unrelated to the shootings. A man calling himself Zolu had bragged to a young lady that he authored the manifesto threatening pothunters. But his threat wasn’t about murder. He was talking about digging up a white man’s grave in retaliation for pothunters desecrating ancient-Indian gravesites in search of artifacts. Later, he placed an exclamation point on his threat by stealing Howard Cole’s valuable ceramic pots and leaving a note stating that he planned to rebury them.

Lastly, there was the murder of Wilbur Jensen. Wilbur was obviously a party to the marijuana growing scheme. The evidence was in his GPS receiver. He was killed, probably by a partner in crime, possibly over some disagreement related to the crop.

Rivera walked down the hall to Dave Tibbetts’s office and closed the door. He related what he’d discovered up in the mountains. Recalling his own investigative shortcomings early in his career, Rivera didn’t want Tibbetts, a young and fairly inexperienced deputy, to feel that he’d failed in his investigation of the Buddy Milton shooting. He also didn’t want Tibbetts to be taken by surprise and suffer any resulting embarrassment.

“I’d have missed it myself,” said Rivera, “were it not for a ground squirrel that ran across the trail into the brush. That made me notice a couple of unusual bushes which someone had been pruning. And that led me to the grandson of a curandera who had seen someone following Milton just before a shot was fired.”

Tibbetts thanked Rivera for the heads up.

“I’m going to brief the Sheriff now,” said Rivera. “I think you should join me and help with the briefing. After we fill him in, I think you should suggest we put a guard outside Milton’s room. His life might be in danger. He’s a threat to the shooter as soon as he comes out of his coma and starts talking. He might be able to identify his assailant.”

Tibbetts nodded. “Okay, Manny. And thanks again.”

Rivera and Tibbetts entered Bradshaw’s office and closed the door. Rivera spread his LaSal Mountains map across the sheriff’s desk and presented the facts of the case in chronological order.

When the briefing was over, Bradshaw sat back and thought for a long moment before he spoke. “This is a big operation. So, first of all, let’s do or say nothing about the marijuana in the mountains. Destroying that stuff is not as important as identifying and capturing the people responsible for growing it. Manny, talk to the curandera and her grandson. Make sure they understand how important it is not to reveal what they know. And keep that boy out of the mountains until this is over.”

“I’ll do that right away.”

“Then brief Larry Polk at the Forest Service. He needs to know what’s going on. Also brief Adam Dunne at the BLM. Some of the waypoints on your map go outside the National Forest boundary onto BLM land.”

“Okay.”

“Those waypoints also protrude across the county line south into San Juan County. I’ll advise Sheriff Anthony Zilic down there. Maybe he can assign Emmett Mitchell to give us a hand. We’ll all meet tomorrow morning in the conference room and lay out a strategy for capturing those responsible for the marijuana gardens. Let’s get together at nine o’clock.”

Rivera returned to his office and sat down. He felt a bit foolish. Now he could see why he had so much trouble fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. He’d been trying to tie all five crimes together into a single case related to pothunting when, in fact, all along he’d been dealing with two separate cases. He smiled at the irony. One case was about pothunters and the other was about pot growers.

28

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Rivera received a call from Marion Jensen, Wilbur’s widow. She’d returned to Moab from Canada and was in the motor home, packing up a few things before moving to her daughter’s house. She told Rivera she couldn’t bear to spend a single night alone in the motor home she had shared with Wilbur for so many years.

She sat with a box of tissues in her lap and a determined expression on her face. She said she wanted the people who had killed her husband and ruined her life to be caught and brought to justice. Then she sobbed uncontrollably for a full minute. After regaining her composure, she told Rivera she had some information he should know about.

“I know this is a bad time and I’m sorry to be troubling you,” Rivera said.

Mrs. Jensen dabbed her nose with a balled-up tissue. She was an attractive, athletic-looking woman, about fifty, with short blonde hair and rimless glasses. “It’s okay, Deputy Rivera. I want to do whatever I can to help you find Wilbur’s killer. But I hardly know where to begin.” She looked ruefully at Rivera.

He had no idea what to expect. He extracted a ballpoint pen and notepad from his shirt pocket. “Please, start from the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

Marion Jensen dabbed her nose again. “Three years ago, our daughter Debbie married a man named Scott Pendergast. They went to Mexico for their honeymoon. They stayed at a nice hotel in Puerto Vallarta. The third day they were there, Scotty was kidnapped.” She pointed to a framed photograph hanging on the wall. “That’s their honeymoon picture—the day before the kidnapping. Debbie was so happy. Just look at her face. She hasn’t smiled like that since.”

Rivera had already learned this from Wilbur Jensen but didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Marion’s thoughts. He glanced at the photograph. Debbie was wearing khaki shorts and a light blue tank top. Scottie had blond hair and wore shorts with a floral design. He was bare-chested except for a pendant hanging from his neck. They were standing on the beach with the greenish-blue ocean as a backdrop, holding hands and grinning.

“They look very happy,” said Rivera.

“After Debbie returned home at our insistence, we began getting telephone calls from one of the kidnappers. He spoke to Wilbur in broken English, but the message was clear. Do as they say, or we will receive Scotty’s head in a box. We were worried sick. They put Scotty on the phone during each call so Wilbur could verify that he was still alive. Wilbur said Scotty sounded frightened but otherwise okay. We thought they would ask for cash, but they didn’t. Instead, they wanted Wilbur to do favors for them. He never would tell me what kind of favors they wanted. He said it was better that way. Safer for me and Debbie. After three years of doing them favors, he finally decided enough is enough.”

Rivera nodded. “What happened then?”

“Saturday night, Wilbur called me while I was staying with friends in Canada. He sounded angry. He said he’d become fed up with the kidnappers’ demands. He told me they’d called for another favor. It would have involved leaving Moab and moving to Colorado. Instead of complying like he usually did, he told them Scotty would have to be delivered to him alive and in good health before he’d do them any more favors. He said he just couldn’t go on this way any longer.”

And that got him killed, Rivera thought to himself.

“I was scared to death. I didn’t know what they would do to poor Scotty. I never dreamed they’d come after Wilbur.”

Rivera hopped into his pickup and drove to the Forest Service office to talk with Larry Polk. Rivera had been wrong to think Wilbur Jensen was a criminal. Jensen had been doing “favors” because he had no choice. He wasn’t a willing participant in the marijuana growing scheme. Instead, he was being coerced under the threat of death to his son-in-law.

When Rivera had talked to Jensen at the Eklectic Café, Jensen lied when he said the kidnappers wanted money. Of course he couldn’t very well have told Rivera what they really wanted. In so doing, he would have exposed the marijuana growing scheme at the cost of Scotty’s life. Jensen had been used for his expertise in the backcountry. He was needed to locate places in the mountains where marijuana gardens could be planted, places off the beaten path which had sunlight and a source of water. It now appeared the gardens belonged to Mexican drug lords operating from south of the border.

When Rivera walked into Polk’s office, he saw a very distraught man sitting behind his desk. Rivera quietly closed the office door and sat down.

“Damn shame about Wilbur,” said Polk, shaking his head. “We’d gotten to be pretty good friends since he came here. I’m going to miss him.”

Rivera briefed Polk on the details of what he’d discovered in the mountains and Bradshaw’s plan for a meeting in the morning. He emphasized the importance of confidentiality. He also shared what Marion Jensen had told him about the favors Jensen had been forced to provide.

“It’s those damn drug cartels in Mexico,” said Polk. “I’m telling you, all that trouble is coming our way. You know, for years now, the cartels have been growing marijuana in the National Forests in California and the Indian reservations up in the Northwest. Growing it in the United States eliminates the risk of seizure at a border checkpoint.” Polk looked at his office door, then back at Rivera. He lowered his voice. “Don’t quote me on this, but if our politicians had a lick of sense, they’d legalize marijuana. The cartels are destroying Mexico and now all that corruption and violence is spreading up here.”

Rivera nodded. “How did they work it in the California National Forests?”

“It’s basically a farming operation. They plant tracts of an acre or two way back in the forests where no one ever goes. First, they find a flat piece of ground with good soil and plenty of sunlight. Then the seedlings are planted by illegal immigrants who work under the threat of harm to their families back in Mexico. The illegals live onsite all season, planting and tending the seedlings, cultivating the soil, adding fertilizer, and applying pesticides. They run PVC irrigation pipe from the nearest creek to water the plants. The pipe is buried so it won’t be spotted by surveillance aircraft. The illegals live in tents camouflaged with netting and stay with the crop until the buds begin to ripen. They harvest the crop and usually dry the buds right there onsite. After it’s dry, the marijuana is packaged and backpacked out to waiting trucks. From there it goes to distributors and ends up as dime bags on the street.”

“But this was different,” said Rivera. “They planted lots of very small gardens. Just a couple of dozen plants in each one. The gardens were separated from one another by a few hundred yards.”

“So if one garden is found, the entire crop isn’t at risk. It’s actually pretty smart. I’ve never heard of it being done that way before.”

“All of the gardens I found were planted far from the trails hikers use, in places where the forest canopy opens up enough to let sunlight in, and where the soil is kept moist by a creek trickling down the mountainside.”

“That would mean the gardens didn’t require full-time caretakers. Maybe someone comes by once a week to spray for bugs and make sure the plants are getting enough water. They’d spend five minutes there and leave. Not much chance of getting caught. Very clever.”

“But having small gardens spread all over the LaSal Mountains makes the harvesting a lot more difficult.”

“Yeah, but over the years, the DEA has greatly improved its airborne surveillance capabilities. They now use cameras to image the forest areas, then use computers to search the image files for shapes and colors that might be gardens. They also use infrared cameras to look for temperature differentials. Those large tracts are now easier to spot.” He reflected for a moment. “Now that I think about it, these smaller gardens are probably a response to the increased effectiveness of the DEA’s aerial surveillance program. How did you happen to find them?”

“I got lucky. After Wilbur was killed, I figured he must have made somebody mad. At the time, I was trying to connect his death to the pothunting business. I started wondering about his activities in the mountains, where he went, what his patrol routes were, so forth. I examined the waypoints stored in Wilbur’s GPS receiver. The way they were laid out seemed odd to me. So I visited a few of them and discovered the marijuana gardens.”

“Interesting.” Suddenly he smiled. “I remember the day we got the new GPS receivers for our rangers. Wilbur had just transferred to Moab from the Abajo Mountains office. He loved his new toy. It did everything the old one did but weighed only one-third as much. He was always looking for ways to reduce the weight of his backpack. He was almost fanatical about it. ‘I’ve got that thing on my back all day long,’ he used to tell me. ‘If I can reduce the weight half an ounce, I’ll do it.’ I’m sure gonna miss him.”

Rivera got up to leave. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said, and headed for the door.

29

SHERIFF BRADSHAW SAT behind his desk and watched Sheriff Anthony Zilic of San Juan County as he paced back and forth, expounding on the drug problem in America. Rivera sat quietly in one of Bradshaw’s office chairs and listened. It was thirty minutes before the nine o’clock meeting was scheduled to begin.

“Don’t let this leave the room, but I believe we’re losing the war on drugs,” said Zilic. “These marijuana gardens in the LaSals are just a symptom of a larger problem. I predict it’s going to get worse.”

“Yeah, I never expected to see this problem in Utah,” said Bradshaw.

“Me neither,” said Zilic. “But it’s here and we’ll have to deal with it. Sealing the border has had all kinds of unintended consequences. Honest Mexicans wanting to cross the border to find work so they can feed their families back in Mexico have found it nearly impossible. Twenty years ago they’d come and go as they pleased. They caused no problems. They were honest, hard working, and skilled in their crafts. After the border was sealed, they found it smarter to cross just once and stay here. Then they’d hire a coyote to bring their family members across and they would stay here too. That led to all kinds of issues … medical care, education, so forth.”

Bradshaw watched as his friend vented his frustration with the decisions made in Washington. He glanced at Rivera from time to time to gauge his reaction to what Zilic was saying, but Rivera’s expression didn’t change. He seemed interested but noncommittal.

Zilic went on. “We should just go ahead and legalize marijuana. That would solve all kinds of problems. The drug lords in Mexico would lose half of their revenues, the government down there would become a lot more stable, and the marijuana wouldn’t be growing up here in our mountains. We should treat weed like cigarettes. The FDA could regulate it and the IRS could tax the hell out of it to help balance the federal budget. Didn’t we learn anything from prohibition?”

Bradshaw smiled. Zilic, about thirty pounds overweight, had worked up a sweat. But he wasn’t finished.

“We should also set up a sensible work-permit system so Mexican citizens can come to the United States and work without having to wade across the Rio Grande in the middle of the night.” He looked at Rivera. “Manny, you’re Hispanic. Did your ancestors sneak across the border to find work here?”

Rivera appeared bemused. “It’s true, Sheriff Zilic, that my ancestors originally lived in Mexico. But they came to the United States without ever crossing the border.” Rivera waited.

Zilic looked puzzled. Frowned. “They came from Mexico to the United States without crossing the border?” He guffawed. “How the hell’d they do that? It’s impossible.”

“After the U.S. won the Mexican-American War in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Mexico ceded what is now New Mexico, Arizona, California and parts of a few other states to the United States. So one day, my forebears went from living in Mexico to living in New Mexico without relocating at all. They didn’t move north, the boundary moved south.” Rivera was smiling. “And they were automatically granted United States citizenship.”

Bradshaw chuckled.

Zilic blushed slightly. “Okay, okay, but you get my point. The damn Feds are handling the whole thing all wrong.”

Bradshaw decided it was time to get serious. “Tony, if this marijuana operation is as big as we think it might be, we may just have to call in the Feds. The DEA has more experience handling this kind of problem than we do. I don’t know about your deputies, but mine have never gone up against a Mexican drug cartel.”

“I’d hate to see the Feds come back, Leroy. The people in my county are still plenty sore at them for that raid in Blanding a few years ago when they blew into town and rounded up the pothunters. The citizens of Blanding still haven’t forgiven us local law enforcement types for helping the Feds with the arrests. If the Feds come back to San Juan County in force, it’ll just stir up that resentment again. I sure don’t need all that.”

Bradshaw nodded and looked at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock. We’d better move to the conference room and get started.”

Bradshaw sat at the head of the conference room table and looked around at the attendees. Zilic was on his immediate left, Rivera on his right. Around the table were Deputy Sheriff Emmett Mitchell of San Juan County, Investigative Agent Adam Dunne of the BLM, Deputy Sheriff Dave Tibbetts of Grand County, and Larry Polk of the U.S. Forest Service.

Bradshaw started the meeting by asking Rivera to provide a detailed briefing on the series of events which had taken place during the past month, starting with the Buddy Milton shooting. When Rivera was finished, the sheriff asked if there were any questions. There were none.

“Okay,” said Bradshaw, “The important thing here is to apprehend those responsible for the marijuana gardens. And I don’t mean just the gardeners. We want the people at the top. So the first order of business is covert surveillance until we figure out who’s involved and how they’re harvesting and moving product.” He looked at Zilic. “Would you agree with that, Tony?”

“Absolutely.”

“Every day or two, more buds on those plants ripen and become ready for harvest. So let’s have Manny stake out one of the gardens on the north side of the LaSals. Adam, you stake out a garden in Beaver canyon. And Emmett, you stake out one on the south end of the LaSals in San Juan County. Eventually someone will show up to harvest the buds. What we want to know is where they take them for processing and packing. Just let them do their harvesting and then follow them at a safe distance. Nothing else. When we know where they take the stuff, we’ll meet again and plan our next step. Okay?”

Everyone nodded.

“After the meeting, Manny can show you the locations of the gardens on his map. Meanwhile I’d like Dave Tibbetts to check out a few of the other chains of gardens to determine if they’re still active. I suspect they are but I want to be sure. So Dave, you’ll be doing a lot of hiking.” Bradshaw was silent for a moment as if in thought. “I want all of you to be very careful. We’re dealing with ruthless killers. Each of you should wear civilian clothing and act like a backpacker on a hike. Wear an armored vest under your shirt and conceal your piece. And use civilian vehicles. We don’t want a bunch of cop cars suddenly appearing in the mountains.”

“What about communications?” asked Zilic.

“Let’s all use cell phones but make sure they’re muted. If you want to communicate and find you’re in a no signal area, you’ll just have to wait until you leave the area and find a signal. Stay out of sight at all costs. We don’t want to tip our hand. And not a word of this to anyone outside this room.” He thought for a moment. “One last thing. The press has been all over us the last few days, wanting to know what’s going on, and whether the mountains are safe for hikers and bikers. The pressure has increased considerably since Jensen’s murder. Not just the local press but also the state and network newsrooms. They smell a big story. So make sure you’re not being tailed by an overzealous reporter looking for a scoop. We’ve got enough trouble on our hands without the press complicating our investigation.”

Two hours later, Rivera was positioned in the forest about two hundred feet from the first marijuana garden he’d discovered, the one where Buddy Milton had been caught stealing cannabis buds and gotten himself shot. From this spot, Rivera could remain hidden and still have a fairly good view of the marijuana plants through the trees and brush. He sat down on a soft bed of dead leaves and pine needles and leaned back against the trunk of a spruce tree. He placed his binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens on the ground next to him, then checked his cell phone to make sure it was muted.

30

RIVERA MOVED HIS SHOULDERS from side to side, scratching an itch on his back against the bark of the tree. The woods were quiet and the smell of pine needles and forest mulch permeated his nostrils. It was nearly noon and, as yet, no one had appeared at the marijuana garden.

He passed the time by watching a lizard with mottled yellow and brown skin who stood motionless on the side of a large rock, staring at a leafy bush. A patient reptile on the hunt for a meal. Like Rivera, the lizard was on stakeout, waiting for something to happen. But minutes went by and nothing happened. For lack of any action, Rivera soon lost interest in the creature and his thoughts turned to Denny Campbell. He assumed Campbell was a good man and wanted to do a good job for the community, but he struck Rivera as a man totally insecure in his role as a leader. People like that tended to compensate for their insecurity by micromanaging their employees. Doing things by the book was another way of saying, Don’t use your own good judgment. Rivera knew he would never be very good at adhering to the letter of the law. Campbell was right. That had never been Rivera’s style.

As a former big-city cop, Campbell would certainly have law enforcement experience. But big-city ways just didn’t work well in small towns. Big-city cops tended to enforce the law in an impersonal way on citizens who, for the most part, were strangers. Small communities like Moab were different. You had to handle problems with a softer touch because the “bad guy” you were dealing with might be the fellow who lives three doors down or serves as the usher at your church.

Rivera loved his job but wondered if he would ever be content working for a man like Campbell. That thought was such a dispiriting one that he returned his attention to the lizard. It was still in the same position on the rock, facing downward toward the bush. There was no motion except for the occasional shifting of a single eye to redirect its unblinking gaze. Soon, a small moth fluttered onto a branch of the bush. The lizard sprang downward with lightning speed, simultaneously grabbing onto the bush with its legs and snatching the moth in its jaws. Its patience had paid off.

Just then, Rivera heard the flapping of wings. A pair of mourning doves erupted from the brush adjacent to the marijuana garden and took to flight. Rivera quickly shifted his attention to the garden and saw the reason why. Someone had just arrived. Rivera raised his binoculars and saw the back of a man carrying a large black plastic garbage sack in one hand and a pair of hand shears in the other. After a cursory examination of the plants, the man clipped off a cannabis bud and placed it in the sack. He moved down the row of plants, carefully clipping and bagging each ripe bud. Rivera wished he would turn around so he could photograph his face.

When the man reached the end of the first row of plants and turned to start on the second row, Rivera got a clear look at his face. There was no need to photograph him; Rivera knew exactly who he was. Victor Leatherman, foreman of the Eldon Bishop Ranch, was in the marijuana business. Evidently his interests went beyond longhorn cattle.

Leatherman continued working, quickly and methodically. When he finished harvesting the ripe buds, he tied a knot in the top of the sack and stuffed it into a large backpack. He strapped on the backpack and disappeared into the forest in the same direction from which he had come.

Rivera followed, staying about a hundred yards back, and hiking off to the side of the trail in case Leatherman happened to glance over his shoulder. When Leatherman reached the two-track road where his pickup was parked, he unlocked the rear door of the camper shell, removed the garbage sack from his backpack, and tossed it inside. Then he hopped into his vehicle, turned it around, and drove down the two-track, eventually disappearing from view.

Rivera hiked to the two-track. He studied the tread pattern of Leatherman’s tires, taking several photographs. Then he hiked the length of the primitive road until it reached its connection with the Castleton-Gateway Road. There, he again studied Leatherman’s tire tracks. Instead of turning north and heading back to the ranch, he had turned south. Rivera considered that, concluding that Leatherman was probably on his way to harvest marijuana buds at some of the other sites in the mountains.

Rivera called Mitchell and Dunne, reported what he had seen, and gave them a description of Leatherman and his vehicle. That done, he hiked to the small lake where he had left his pickup. He hoisted himself into the cab and sat there, considering his next move. There was no point in trying to follow Leatherman. Why risk being seen? Rivera figured that when the foreman finished the day’s harvesting, he would likely bring the crop back to the ranch and unload it in one of the small buildings near Mr. Bishop’s house. The buds had to be hung up and dried before the marijuana could be sold. One of those buildings would be ideal for drying.

Rivera wondered whether Eldon Bishop himself might be involved in the operation, but that didn’t seem sensible. Why would Bishop risk his lifestyle and his reputation? He had all the money he would ever need. Still, if Leatherman was transporting the buds to a building not far from Bishop’s house for drying, surely Bishop would know about it. He was confined to a wheelchair but there was nothing wrong with his eyes.

31

RIVERA DROVE OUT of the LaSal Mountains through Castle Valley and turned east on Highway 128. His goal was to position himself where he would have an overview of the Bishop Ranch buildings. He wanted to see what Leatherman did with the marijuana buds when he returned to the ranch. That meant he needed to be high on the mesa overlooking the Dolores River Valley. He turned right just before the Dewey Bridge and followed the gravel roads to the top of Blue Chief Mesa. From there, he drove the primitive Dolores River Overlook Trail to its end.

Rivera parked at the overlook and walked to the edge of the mesa. He peered down at the Bishop Ranch some twelve hundred feet below. The river was a shimmering silver band flowing through a green valley nestled between soaring red rock bluffs. Three longhorns grazed in a rectangular field of alfalfa. He raised his binoculars and focused on the ranch house, then the barn and the outbuildings. He saw no sign of activity anywhere.

He slowly panned across the ranch and up the Dolores River, stopping when his line of sight reached the Dolores River Research Institute. He scanned the area, paying particular attention to the picnic table in front of the cafeteria. He hoped he might get a glimpse of Amy Rousseau sitting by the cottonwood tree, typing on her laptop. She wasn’t there.

He looked at his watch. It was nearly three-thirty. He figured Leatherman wouldn’t return until late in the day, so he decided he might as well make himself comfortable. He removed a folding camping chair from his vehicle, put on a ball cap, retrieved his camera, and sat down at the edge of the bluff. In the unlikely event someone happened along, he could claim he was an amateur photographer hoping to capture some award-winning photographs of the sunset.

Around six-fifteen in the evening, Rivera spotted Victor Leatherman’s vehicle coming through the front gate of the D.R.R.I. He watched through his binoculars as the vehicle turned left and continued toward the Bishop compound. But instead of turning into the compound, Leatherman turned right toward the river. He drove down the riverbank into the water and crossed the Dolores River into Utah’s Big Triangle country. From there, he headed upriver a short ways, then ascended a switchback road which snaked up the cliff face to the top of Piñon Mesa. He turned east and disappeared from view behind the juniper-covered rim.

Rivera put down his binoculars. He recalled that the Bishop Ranch included nine hundred acres on the other side of the river in addition to the four hundred acres below him. And Amy had said there was an airstrip on the other side. He considered that, deciding its remoteness and difficult access made it an ideal place for a marijuana exporting operation. Now he wanted to get a good look at that airstrip.

Rivera realized he couldn’t very well just enter the ranch and drive across the river, following Leatherman into the Big Triangle. He would be spotted by D.R.R.I. personnel and there would be all sorts of questions, thereby jeopardizing the surveillance operation. It would therefore be necessary to access the airstrip from the east by approaching it through Colorado. That would be a two hour drive from his current location and daylight would be gone before he arrived. He decided to begin surveillance of the landing strip in the morning.

As Rivera walked back to his vehicle, he heard the distant hum of a small aircraft. He turned around and scanned the sky. The plane was low, coming in from the south. He judged it was headed for the airstrip on the Bishop ranch. Through his binoculars, he could see the plane was yellow but it was too far away for him to identify the type of aircraft or read the tail number. He wondered whether the plane was delivering a gourmet meal from a fine restaurant to Mr. Bishop or picking up a load of marijuana.

Rivera arrived back at the Sheriff’s Department at eight thirty. Sheriff Bradshaw was still in his office, talking to Dave Tibbetts.

“Hi, Manny. Pull up a chair. Dave was just starting to fill me in on what he learned about the marijuana gardens in the mountains. Go ahead, Dave.”

“Well, there wasn’t enough time in one day to check all the gardens, but I wanted to check at least one in each of the eleven chains on Manny’s map. I figured if one garden in a chain was active, odds are they all were. Seemed to me the only reason the growers would abandon a chain would be if the creek supporting it ran dry. I left out three chains, the ones where Manny, Adam, and Emmett were staking out a garden. We already knew those were active. I checked the lowest garden of the eight remaining chains, figuring if the lowest one was getting a supply of water, they all were. I barely finished before dark. Turns out, every garden I checked was healthy looking and some of the buds in each had been harvested.”

“Okay. So we’re definitely dealing with a sizeable operation,” said Bradshaw. “What about you, Manny? You briefed me on the phone but let’s go through it again for Dave’s benefit. What did you learn today?”

Rivera described what he’d seen take place at the marijuana garden and later at the Bishop ranch. “I think tomorrow I should position myself on the other side of the river and learn what’s going on over there. I suspect the ranch’s airstrip is a key element in the operation. Since we’re right in the middle of the peak harvesting time, my guess is Leatherman will collect another truckload of buds tomorrow and bring them to the airstrip. I’ll watch what he does and report back.”

“Okay, but take Dave along as backup. That Big Triangle area is pretty remote. It would take us a long time to get over there if you needed assistance. Adam and Emmett didn’t see Victor on his rounds today, so we’ll put them at the same sites tomorrow to see if he comes around. I don’t expect we’ll learn anything new. It’ll probably just be some more harvesting. But I want to be sure we have a complete understanding of how the operation works before we move in. Also, I’m going to notify the DEA. It’s time to let them know what’s going on.”

32

RIVERA AND TIBBETTS drove out of Moab at sunrise wearing civilian clothing. They headed north in Rivera’s personal pickup to Interstate 70, then drove east to Fruita, Colorado. There they turned south and drove the switchbacks to the top of Piñon Mesa, entering the Colorado National Monument. They drove through the monument to the tiny hamlet of Glade Park and continued west for thirty miles on a road that transitioned from asphalt to gravel to dirt.

Somewhere out in the middle of a vast landscape of pinyon pine and juniper, they crossed the Utah state line and entered Big Triangle country. They bumped along in a southwesterly direction on a gradually deteriorating road, dodging potholes and descending staircases formed where the road sliced through strata outcroppings. Fifteen more miles and they reached a point a half mile east of the Bishop Ranch boundary. Rivera parked his vehicle well off the road behind a stand of junipers.

From there the two deputies continued on foot, reaching the ranch boundary where Rivera taught Tibbetts the correct technique for climbing through a barbed wire fence without getting snagged. They hiked on through dense juniper, brush, and pinyon pine until they arrived at a spot just east of the airstrip. There they concealed themselves in a copse of pinyon pines from which they had a clear view of the field.

Rivera scanned the area with his binoculars. The airstrip was a clearing of undulating grassland about a mile long and two hundred feet wide. At the south end of the field, a ragged red windsock flapped in the breeze. On the far side of the runway were two corrugated steel buildings, one large and one small, and an empty aircraft hangar.

The large building was about sixty feet long and twenty feet wide with a peaked roof and no windows. The double doors at the end of the building were closed. The smaller building was about thirty by twenty feet with a single window on each wall. An air conditioning unit was fitted into one of the windows. A pickup truck parked next to the small building suggested someone was present.

Except for a lone longhorn grazing near the large building, there was no activity at the site for several hours. Then, around noon, a man with dark hair tied back in a ponytail emerged from the small building, looked around, and walked toward the larger building. He stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at the steer. The animal bellowed and trotted off, disappearing behind the building. Ponytail laughed loudly. He slid open one of the double doors, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.

“Did you get a look at what was behind those doors?” whispered Tibbetts.

“No. I was focused on the man, trying to get a good look at him. I couldn’t see his face but he was at least six feet tall and, from the way he moved, I’d say he was a younger man. His hair was long and dark, so he easily fits Gilbert Ortega’s description of the man who shot Buddy Milton. And, except for the clothing, he could also fit Chris Carey’s description of Zolu.”

“Maybe Ponytail, Zolu, and the man who shot Buddy Milton are all one and the same,” said Tibbetts.

Rivera nodded. “Could be.”

“I got a glimpse of the inside of the building,” said Tibbetts. “That must be where they dry the marijuana. I saw rows of buds hanging by their stems from the ceiling.”

“So they harvest the marijuana in the mountains, bring it here by the pickup-truck load for drying and packaging, and then ship it out by aircraft,” said Rivera.

Tibbetts nodded. “Looks that way.” He glanced at the building, then back at Rivera. “Manny, we could move in on that guy right now. I could sprint to the building with you covering me. When he opens the door to leave, we’d have him.”

“No, Dave. The plan is to watch and acquire information. We need to be patient. We don’t understand the whole operation yet.”

“What’s to understand? They grow the stuff in the LaSals, dry and package it here, and fly it out to their markets.”

“Fly it where? To whom? Who owns the plane? Who’s in charge? Who ends up with the cash? If we shut down this growing and packaging operation but don’t get the top people, they’ll just restart somewhere else.” Rivera put his hand on Tibbetts’s shoulder. “It’s not like if this doesn’t work out for them, they can enter a different career field. This is the only thing they know how to do.”

Tibbetts thought for a while, then smiled. “You mean they can’t fall back on their engineering degrees?”

Rivera chuckled. “Now you’ve got it.”

It was a long day of waiting and watching without much happening. At two o’clock in the afternoon, Emmett Mitchell called and said Victor Leatherman had arrived at the garden he was surveilling and harvested the ripe buds. An hour later, Adam Dunne called and reported he’d seen nothing.

At five-thirty, Leatherman’s truck appeared on the road leading up to the airstrip from the Dolores River. He drove to the large building, stopped, and tooted his horn. Ponytail slid open the doors of the building, came outside, and talked with Leatherman through the open window of the pickup. Using a telephoto lens, Rivera took several photographs of Leatherman and Ponytail. Then Leatherman drove his pickup into the building and Ponytail closed the doors behind them.

33

VICTOR LEATHERMAN waited in his pickup as Lenny walked to the wall switch and turned on the floodlights, illuminating the interior of the large building and the thousands of marijuana buds hanging by their stems from the rafters. They removed the sacks of marijuana from the camper shell, emptied them, and began stripping the leaves off each stalk so that only the stem and bud remained. They hung the buds upside down by their stems on long rows of fasteners suspended from the rafters.

Lenny was a big man in his early thirties with an unusually large head and a round face. He was wearing bib overalls and always seemed to be smiling, exposing front teeth separated by a wide gap. His dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. His primary job was security for the marijuana gardens, but he also helped with the drying and packing operation. He was never without his Glock 17. Even now, Leatherman could see the hilt of the gun protruding from the pocket of Lenny’s overalls.

After the newly harvested buds were hung up to dry, the two men began taking down the older buds which had hung long enough to dry, a process which took less than three weeks in the arid high-desert climate. They carted the buds to a large metal table, sat down side-by-side, and separated the buds from the stems. Then they tightly wrapped the buds in white paper, forming brick-size packages which were stacked on a pallet.

Lenny let out a chuckle.

“What’s so funny, Lenny?”

“I killed another guy last night.”

Leatherman looked at him in disbelief. “You did? Why?”

“He got too close to one of the gardens.”

“Damn, Lenny. All this killing is gonna get us caught. Are you sure it was necessary? Did he spot the garden?”

“I don’t think so but I didn’t want to take a chance. He got too close.” Lenny laughed. “It was weird, man. The guy was burying old pots in a long trench he dug out in the middle of the forest. After I shot him, I buried him in the trench. I put the pots in there with him and covered him over with dirt. Then I piled rocks over the grave so the animals wouldn’t dig him up. The guy was dressed like an Indian. He must have been crazy.”

Lenny was the crazy one, Leatherman thought to himself. He was a loner who slept on a cot in the smaller building where he kept cardboard boxes containing his collection of assorted beetles. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy killing people, even when killing might easily have been avoided. But Lenny didn’t report to Leatherman, he reported to people higher up in the organization. So Leatherman had no control over his actions.

Leatherman knew he would be considered an accomplice to the killings if the marijuana operation were ever discovered. Earlier in the year, when he was recruited by Wilbur Jensen, he never figured murder would be involved. Jensen had described the opportunity as some harmless pot growing in the mountains. Since Jensen was the only law enforcement person patrolling the forest, it seemed like there was little chance of getting caught. Then Lenny showed up as security for the operation and everything changed.

Lenny seemed to enjoy recounting the details of each of his killings, as though Leatherman would be impressed. A month ago, Lenny discovered that someone was stealing buds from one of the gardens. So one day he waited at the garden for the thief to arrive. The thief turned out to be Buddy Milton. Lenny chased him away from the garden and shot him when he was some distance away. Lenny said Buddy never got a good look at him. Leatherman knew Buddy because he was an employee of the D.R.R.I. He was conflicted in his feelings about Buddy. He liked him and enjoyed listening to the stories he told to the staff sitting around the campfire, but he hoped he would never come out of his coma and reveal the existence of the marijuana operation.

The killing of the San Francisco man on North Beaver Mesa had seemed totally unnecessary to Leatherman. According to Lenny, the man had never actually seen the marijuana garden in Beaver Canyon. He just wandered a little too close to it. Victor figured Lenny had gotten the taste of blood from the Milton shooting, enjoyed it, and wanted more.

The next killing was ordered by the higher-ups. Wilbur Jensen, a skilled Forest Service ranger, had shown Leatherman the best places in the LaSals to set up the marijuana gardens. But then he started making demands. Lenny laughed when he said he’d paid the man a friendly visit in his motor home, then bashed in his skull with a rock. .

Leatherman was worried. “Lenny, that makes four people in a month. You’ve got to stop. You’ll bring the cops down on us for sure.”

Lenny looked at him and grinned.

Leatherman knew he was wasting his breath trying to reason with Lenny. He was beginning to regret his decision to become involved in the marijuana business. He had worked for Mr. Bishop for twenty years and liked him, but the pay wasn’t much and he’d never been able to accumulate a retirement fund. The marijuana opportunity was his only chance at retiring and buying a small ranch of his own. But there was no turning back now. If he tried to quit, they would surely kill him. There were only three possible outcomes from the course he had chosen. He would end up wealthy, in jail, or dead.

Wilbur Jensen had never informed Leatherman of his employer’s identity. Leatherman assumed it was a Mexican drug cartel but had no idea which one. He’d heard about the Zetas, the Sinaloa cartel, and the Juarez cartel. Perhaps it was one of those. Maybe Lenny would know.

“Lenny, who hired you?”

“Um, Mr. Felipe Sanchez. Do you know him?”

“Nope.” Leatherman had never heard the name before. Maybe Sanchez was the source of the envelopes containing two thousand dollars that arrived weekly in his mailbox. He didn’t need to know but he was curious. “Where are you from, Lenny?”

“Phoenix.”

“Is that where Mr. Sanchez found you?”

“Yeah, but he said I shouldn’t talk about it.”

“Who does he work for?”

Lenny looked puzzled. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “None of my business, I guess.”

34

RIVERA LOOKED UP when he heard the hum of an aircraft engine in the distance. He shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the sky. The plane was flying low, heading toward the airstrip from the south. He studied it with his binoculars. It looked like the one he’d seen yesterday.

The plane’s wings rocked back and forth as it crabbed toward the runway in a mild crosswind. After a single bounce, the craft rolled down the runway, its velocity diminishing as the pilot throttled back the engine.

The pilot made a U-turn at the end of the runway and gunned the engine, propelling the plane back to the buildings in a cloud of dust. He shut off the engine and waited in the cockpit.

Rivera recognized the aircraft as a Cessna 206, the same type of plane which was available for rent at Canyonlands Field, Moab’s municipal airport. He jotted down the tail number in his notepad.

“What happens now?” whispered Dave Tibbetts.

“I’ll bet a forklift comes out of the shed with a pallet load of packaged marijuana,” said Rivera. “They’ll load it on the plane and fly it off to market.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

A moment later, the doors of the large building were pushed open by Ponytail and the forklift emerged with Leatherman at the wheel. But the pallet it carried was empty. Leatherman drove up to the side of the aircraft and opened the passenger and cargo bay doors. He and Ponytail began unloading black plastic sacks from the plane and stacking them on the pallet.

Rivera and Tibbetts looked at one another.

“Boy, I don’t understand this,” said Rivera. “I expected the plane to pick up a load, not drop one off.”

“So did I,” said Tibbetts.

When the two men finished unloading the sacks, Leatherman buttoned up the cargo and passenger doors and waved in the direction of the cockpit. The pilot cranked up the Cessna’s engine, rolled to the south end of the airstrip, and turned around. The plane took off toward the north and disappeared over the horizon. Leatherman drove the forklift into the building and Ponytail closed the doors behind them.

“It’s getting dark,” said Rivera. “Let’s hike back to my pickup and drive to town. We’ll swing by the airport on the way.”

Rivera and Tibbetts pulled into the gravel parking lot of Canyon Country Aircraft. Before going to the office, they wandered back to the company’s hangar and peered inside. There were two yellow Cessna 206s parked there. One of the tail numbers was a match for the number Rivera had recorded in his notepad.

They walked to the office. Behind the desk was Ace Atherton, owner of the company. He looked up and smiled.

“Well, hello, Manny. Ready to take those flying lessons we talked about?” Ace was six feet tall and bald, with fading tattoos on his forearms. Now in his late sixties, he’d served as a Navy pilot during the Viet Nam conflict. He’d given up nighttime aircraft-carrier landings for a less exciting but more peaceful life in Moab.

“Hi, Ace. No, this is strictly business.” He introduced Dave Tibbetts, then looked around the office to make sure they were alone. “Ace, I need to know who rented one of your Cessna 206s.” He read off the tail number.

“A guy named Gabriel Funston.” Ace rustled through some papers on his desk. He picked one up and studied it. “He’s got a Grand Junction address. He’s been coming here four or five times a week for the past six weeks to rent a plane. Says he just likes to fly around the Four Corners area looking at the sights.”

“Does he file a flight plan?”

“Nah. He’s just a sightseer. Goes out solo and comes back about three hours later. Why, is there a problem?”

“Ace, I’m going to tell you something that has to remain absolutely confidential. If this gets out, it could jeopardize an important case.”

Dave Tibbetts interrupted. “Manny, the sheriff told us not to breathe a word to anyone.”

Rivera nodded reassuringly. “It’s okay, Dave.”

Tibbetts looked at Ace, then back at Rivera. Said nothing.

“Don’t worry, Manny, I won’t say anything. You have my word on it,” said Atherton.

“That Funston fellow has been using your plane to transport illegal drugs. I can’t go into details but it’s important that we learn his exact route. When he flies out of here, he lands somewhere, picks up the stuff, and then takes it to another site and drops it off.”

Atherton shook his head. “I had no idea. He seemed like a regular guy who just enjoyed flying. I’d like to help but I have no idea what his route is.”

“I’d like to conceal my GPS receiver somewhere in the aircraft. I’ll program it to record a waypoint every ten minutes. If we plant it tonight and he flies again tomorrow, I can retrieve it tomorrow night and learn his route.”

Ace thought for a moment, then nodded. “It should work. We can duct tape it under the copilot’s seat. The GPS signals will get through the windscreen without any trouble.”

As Rivera drove back to Moab, he noticed that Dave Tibbetts had become quiet and introspective for the whole trip.

“Anything wrong, Dave?”

“I was just wondering how you knew you could trust Atherton with that sensitive information.”

“I’ve known him since I moved to Moab. He’s a good man and a war hero.”

Tibbetts nodded, paused. “Yeah, but can you be sure? Maybe he’s involved in the marijuana operation himself.”

Rivera thought for a long moment. “Dave, sometimes you just have to trust people.”

After Rivera briefed Sheriff Bradshaw, he dropped Tibbetts off at his apartment. An ivory-colored moon, bisected by a horizontal layer of feathery grey clouds, looked large as it rose above the LaSal Mountains. Rivera headed home.

Rivera fed Bentley, the guppies, and himself, then sat in front of the TV and kicked off his shoes. He surfed through the channels but could find nothing that caught his interest. He shut off the TV and wondered what he would learn tomorrow night when he plotted out the waypoints from his GPS receiver. Besides the airstrip on the Bishop ranch, he could think of no other remote airstrips in the LaSal Mountain area. If Funston wasn’t delivering product harvested in the LaSals, where was it coming from?

35

RIVERA SKIPPED BREAKFAST at the Rim Rock Diner, opting instead for a couple of Clif Bars and some orange juice at home. He was preoccupied with the question of where the Cessna had picked up those sacks of marijuana buds. While paging through topo maps of the LaSals and munching down his food, he concluded that the aircraft had to have been collecting the sacks from a location outside the LaSals. It seemed like a plausible idea. And why not? If you’re in the marijuana growing business, why limit your operation to just the LaSals? There were plenty of other mountain ranges in Utah and Colorado.

The plane had approached the airstrip from the south. Maybe it had come from the Abajo Mountain area, just fifty miles south of the LaSals. He recalled that Wilbur Jensen had worked for the Forest Service in the Abajos before transferring to the LaSals. Could it be there was another network of marijuana gardens down there? He tumbled that thought around in his brain. Then he remembered that Larry Polk, Jensen’s boss at the Forest Service, had said Jensen was issued a brand new GPS receiver when he hired on in Moab. Rivera wondered if Jensen’s old GPS unit might contain waypoints corresponding to garden locations in the Abajos. It was a long shot, but an idea that held promise. So where was the old GPS unit?

Rivera got dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved dark green shirt, fed the animals, and drove to the residence of Jensen’s daughter, Debbie Pendergast. Debbie was at home, fixing breakfast for her mother. He asked to speak with them both for a moment.

“Come in,” said Debbie. Her eyes were red and swollen.

“If this isn’t a good time …”

“No, no, it’s okay. Come on in and please have a seat.”

Her mother appeared from a back bedroom and joined them. She looked at her daughter, then Rivera. “We’re both upset but Debbie’s been doubly devastated. Not only has she lost her father, but now she feels certain she’ll lose Scotty too. Without Wilbur to do their dirty work for them, they’ll have no further use for Scotty.”

Rivera nodded, knowing full well she was probably right. “I was wondering if either of you knew what became of Wilbur’s old GPS receiver. I didn’t find it among his things.”

Marion thought for a moment, then managed a smile. “I remember how excited Wilbur was when the Forest Service issued him a new one. I believe he gave the old one to you, didn’t he Debbie?”

Debbie laughed, then choked up. “Dad always wanted me to become an avid hiker like him and Mom, but I just couldn’t get interested. He gave me his old GPS unit but I never used it. I’ll see if I can find it.” She left the room, went toward the rear of the house, and disappeared into a back room.

Rivera looked at Marion. She was wearing a bathrobe and had dark circles under her eyes. “I’m so sorry to bother you with this but it could be very important.”

She forced a smile. “No trouble at all.”

Debbie returned to the living room with the GPS receiver in her hand. “I never even turned it on.” She handed it to Rivera.

“Thank you very much.”

Rivera drove to his office, closed the door, and sat down at his desk. He began extracting the waypoints stored in Jensen’s old GPS unit. He plotted the points on his topo maps. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The pattern of the waypoints was the same as he’d discovered in the LaSals, chains of points starting halfway up a mountainside and following a creek down the slope. Only these chains were not in the LaSals. They were in the Abajo Mountains in San Juan County, the Henry Mountains in eastern Garfield County, and Boulder Mountain in western Garfield County. Pretty much all of the high ground in southeast Utah.

These were the places Wilbur Jensen had worked for the Forest Service and the BLM before coming to Moab. Each time he changed locations, it was at his request. But the reason wasn’t a desired change of scenery for a hiking buff as he had stated. It was at the “request” of the men who held his son-in-law captive. They’d coerced Jensen into locating suitable garden sites in one mountain range, then had him move to the next one and repeat the process. Wilbur Jensen had been a slave to the drug lords for the past three years.

The marijuana growing operation was even bigger than Rivera had imagined. He gathered up his maps and headed for Sheriff Bradshaw’s office.

Rivera spread the maps across Bradshaw’s desk and explained what he’d learned. “Of course, there’s no guarantee these other sites are still active but we can check easily enough.”

“Let’s check just one site,” said Bradshaw. “If it’s still active, then probably they’re all active. I’ll call Sheriff Zilic and ask him to have someone discreetly check a site in the Abajos.”

“When will the DEA arrive?” asked Rivera.

“They’ll be here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Meanwhile, let’s just continue to observe, stay out of sight, and learn as much as we can about the operation. We still don’t have a handle on who’s running the show.”

36

RIVERA WASN’T LOOKING FORWARD to another long day of waiting and watching. But there he was, hiding in the woods east of the Bishop Ranch airstrip with Dave Tibbetts, waiting and watching. Fortunately, it was a cool day with a gentle breeze.

Rivera dialed Ace Atherton’s number. “Ace, it’s Manny. Did Gabriel Funston rent the Cessna for today?”

“He sure did, Manny. He reserved it for one o’clock. It’s in the hangar and your package is safely tucked away onboard.”

“Okay, thanks, Ace. Gotta go.” He clicked off.

So far, Leatherman, Ponytail, and Funston were the only persons known to be involved in the operation. There had to be others. There would be harvesters and security personnel in the other mountain ranges and a network of product distribution people selling the dope. And there had to be someone at the top running things.

Most of the day was uneventful. Only once did Rivera see any activity. Ponytail emerged from the smaller building and walked toward to the larger one. He was whistling an off-key version of Simon and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters. He slid open the door, entered, and closed the door behind him.

Rivera’s cell phone vibrated. It was Sheriff Bradshaw.

“Sheriff Zilic sent a deputy to check one of the way-points in the Abajo Mountains. It was active, and looked just like the ones you found in the LaSals. That means we can assume the Abajos, the Henrys, and Boulder Mountain also have networks of marijuana gardens. So be real careful. There’s a huge amount of money at stake here. They won’t hesitate to kill anyone who gets in the way.”

Just after five o’clock, Rivera noticed a plume of dust on the road leading from the Dolores River up to the airstrip. He focused his binoculars. It was Victor Leatherman’s pickup truck returning, no doubt, from another day of marijuana harvesting.

As Leatherman approached the large building, he tooted his horn twice. The doors were slid open by Ponytail, the vehicle entered, and the doors were closed.

Forty minutes later, the yellow Cessna glided onto the airstrip and proceeded to a spot adjacent to the building. Leatherman drove the forklift carrying an empty pallet to the side of the aircraft where he and Ponytail unloaded the plane and transported the sacks of marijuana to the building. The plane returned to the south end of the airstrip and took off to the north. It was pretty much the same sequence of events that had taken place the day before.

As dusk approached, Rivera and Tibbetts hiked back to Rivera’s vehicle. They drove out of the Big Triangle, crossed into Colorado, and descended from Piñon Mesa to Interstate 70. After re-entering Utah, Rivera sped toward the airport, anxious to recover his GPS unit and analyze the waypoints it had recorded.

At home that evening, Rivera retrieved his Utah Atlas, a book containing eighty-seven detailed landscape maps of the state. He sat down at his kitchen table and began unloading the waypoints from his GPS unit and plotting them on the maps. When he was finished, he studied the results. Gabriel Funston had taken off from Canyonlands Airport at one o’clock in the afternoon and flown west-southwest to an abandoned BLM airstrip on the Aquarius Plateau just southwest of Boulder Mountain. The plane remained there for ten minutes, presumably to take on yesterday’s harvest from the marijuana gardens on Boulder Mountain.

Then the plane headed east to another airstrip on BLM land located on Tarantula Mesa which abutted the west side of the Henry Mountains. Rivera assumed more product had been loaded on the plane at that point. From there, Funston flew east and landed on an old BLM airstrip located on the Dark Canyon Plateau, just west of the Abajo Mountains. And from there he had flown to the landing strip on the Bishop Ranch.

All three BLM landing fields were remote and accessible only via backcountry roads. Most likely, they were rarely used grass strips left over from the 1950s when southeast Utah was scoured by prospectors for uranium and other minerals.

Rivera sat back. He reached down and absentmindedly stroked Bentley who had curled up on the floor next to his chair. Rivera now had a complete picture of the growing, harvesting, and packing operations. Identifying the distribution channels and the people in charge would come next. He considered calling Sheriff Bradshaw but it was late. He’d brief him in the morning.

A knock on Rivera’s front door made him frown. He looked at his watch. It was eleven-thirty and he wondered who could be visiting at this hour.

He pulled open the door. Vivian Ramos was standing there, her eyes red as though she’d been crying.

“Vivian, you’re back!”

She stood there, looking at him, not smiling.

He stepped outside. “Are you okay?”

“Manny, I need to talk to you.”

37

THE NEXT MORNING, Rivera was up before sunrise. He’d been tired, yet hadn’t been able to get much sleep. He was going through the motions of feeding Bentley and the guppies, but his mind was on last night. Vivian had stayed only ten minutes, then walked to her car and drove off. He felt an ache in his chest as he tried to digest what she’d told him.

She’d said she resigned her job at the hospital and wouldn’t be coming back to Moab. She and her ex-husband in Taos had decided to try again. Well, he wasn’t exactly her ex-husband; they were still married but separated. That detail, as he thought about it today, angered him. Vivian had failed to mention any of this when she and Rivera had first started dating. She let him believe she was divorced.

Her story was short and to the point. Intellectually he could understand it, but emotionally it was painful. She’d separated from her lawyer husband because they weren’t getting along, always arguing about whether or not to have children. She wanted them, he didn’t. She left her hometown, her family, and her friends, and came to Moab on a kind of escape from her unhappiness. She enjoyed the quiet and remoteness of the canyon country and her relationship with Rivera had made it so much more fun. But as time went by, she missed her old life. When she returned to Taos for a visit, her husband told her he’d had a change of heart. He loved her and wanted her back so they could start a family. It was a chance for her to have the life she’d always wanted.

His mind was awash with emotional crosscurrents. He felt betrayed, foolish, and alone. The lecture he’d given Dave Tibbetts about trusting people popped into his mind and made him feel even more foolish.

As he tried to deal with his emotions, his intellect told him he would recover from the blow. It would take time, but someday he would be able to put her out of his mind. Because of the deception in their relationship, he realized he never really knew her. And if someday she decided she wanted to come back to him, he would have no interest. As his grandfather once told him: Once trust is lost between two people, it’s gone forever. Intellectually, Rivera could reason all this out. But he knew he would feel the pain for a long time.

His break-up with Vivian couldn’t have come at a worse time. He needed to concentrate on his work, now that they were getting close to shutting down the marijuana operation. Instead, he was mentally distracted. His mind felt numb. There was no time for breakfast at the Rim Rock Diner, so he ate a bowl of raisin bran at home and went directly to the office.

He entered Sheriff Bradshaw’s office. Sheriff Zilic was sitting there, drinking coffee with Bradshaw and discussing the upcoming meeting with the DEA.

“I have some new information,” said Rivera as he spread open his Utah map atlas on Bradshaw’s desk. He related how he’d imbedded his GPS unit in the Cessna 206 and tracked the pilot’s route. “These are old grass airstrips on BLM land adjacent to Boulder Mountain, the Henry Mountains, and the Abajo Mountains. The pilot, a man named Gabriel Funston who lives in Grand Junction, picked up product at each of the airstrips and flew it to the Bishop Ranch. It was unloaded there for drying and packaging.”

Bradshaw stood up. “Good work, Manny. I expect the DEA will want to take over from here.”

38

SHERIFF LEROY BRADSHAW invited DEA Agent Bill Masters to sit at the head of the conference room table. Masters looked like he could have been a linebacker for a professional football team. In his late forties, he was tall and muscular and seemed never to smile. He came across as all business. Bradshaw sat on his right with Sheriff Anthony Zilic on his left. Manny Rivera, Emmett Mitchell, Adam Dunne, Larry Polk, and Dave Tibbetts were seated around the table. A younger DEA agent who Masters introduced as Pete Castles sat at the far end. Bradshaw made the introductions and then asked Rivera to bring Masters up-to-date.

Bradshaw watched as Rivera used maps and photographs to make his presentation. He started at the beginning with the shooting of Buddy Milton a month ago and methodically worked his way up to the present, finally describing the route used by the Cessna to pick up harvested product. Rivera seemed distracted and tired but his presentation had been precise.

Masters studied the maps. “We’ll need your personal GPS unit and both of Jensen’s units. We’ll re-plot the waypoints on our own maps.”

“Okay,” said Rivera, remaining seated in his chair.

“Now, please,” said Masters in an impatient tone of voice.

Rivera looked at Bradshaw who nodded. Rivera got up and left the conference room.

Bradshaw decided to pause the meeting until Rivera returned. He didn’t want his deputy to miss anything.

Five minutes passed.

Masters looked at his watch and turned to Bradshaw. “Where the hell is he?”

Just then, Rivera pushed open the conference room door and entered. He placed the three GPS units on the table in front of Masters.

Masters looked at him. “What took you so long?”

“I had to log them out of the evidence room.” Rivera shrugged and sat down.

“Slow process, is it?”

“How do you want to handle the case from here?” Bradshaw asked Masters, trying to get him off of his deputy’s back.

“This is obviously a big growing and distribution operation. Not some locals trying to make a few bucks. We’ll be taking over the case from this point on. I’ll have a team arriving later today. Both Sheriff’s Departments will act in a support role. Anyone have a problem with that?” He looked at Zilic, then Bradshaw.

Bradshaw spoke first. “We’re happy to support. We want to rid our county of this problem.”

Zilic appeared sullen, remained silent.

Masters stared at Zilic. “What about you, Sheriff Zilic? Any problem?”

Zilic scratched the back of his head, then nodded with obvious reluctance. “I’m not crazy about the Feds descending on my county again, but I guess I have no choice here. We’ll support.”

“Okay, I want all local law enforcement to stay the hell away from that airstrip and out of the LaSals. Remain in Moab and wait for my instructions. My men should be here late this afternoon. We’ll take over surveillance of the airstrip and make an assessment. If we need assistance, you’ll be notified.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Bradshaw. “I’ve had two murders and one attempted in my county in the last month, all connected with that dope operation. We have reason to believe one of the men at the airstrip is the killer. I don’t want to see him slip away while you’re trying to get your people organized. We’ll continue surveillance until your men arrive and take over.”

“Listen, Sheriff Bradshaw, this is our case now.” Masters spoke slowly through a clenched jaw. “Your deputies don’t have experience handling these kinds of people. We do.”

“My deputies and Sheriff Zilic’s have done just fine so far,” said Bradshaw matter-of-factly. “We have a responsibility to the citizens of our counties to make sure the killer is brought to justice. We’ll continue surveillance at the airstrip until your agents are in a position to take over.”

Masters frowned at the table for a long moment. He exhaled audibly. “Okay, I guess I can’t stop you. But let’s be clear here. My goal is to apprehend the people at the top of this operation. You’re going against my direct orders. If your people screw things up and the big fish get away, there will be hell to pay.” His eyes locked onto Bradshaw. “I promise you.”

“We’ll stand down as soon as your people are in place,” said Bradshaw.

Masters stood up. “I’ll let you know when we’re organized and ready to take over.” He and the other agent strode out of the conference room and closed the door behind them.

After a moment of stunned silence, Zilic was the first to speak. “Ungrateful son of a buck. Manny handed him the case on a silver platter and not a word of appreciation. They act like we’re a bunch of bumpkins. Typical Feds. I detest ‘em.”

Bradshaw nodded. “It’s that Washington breeding. There’s nothing we can do to change it. So let’s get organized and do our job.” He looked at Rivera. “Manny, you and Dave resume surveillance of the airfield. Don’t let Ponytail out of your sight. Emmett, let’s have you station yourself on the road leading to the front gate of the D.R.R.I., right where it intersects with the Entrada Bluffs Road. That’ll keep you far enough from the Research Institute so your presence won’t raise questions in the minds of the staff members.

Mitchell nodded. “Okay.”

Bradshaw looked at Adam Dunne. “Adam, as a BLM agent, you’re part of the Federal government. You don’t want to get cross-ways with the DEA. Maybe you should stay out of this.”

“No way, Leroy. This is my territory. And my community. I want to be part of the operation.”

“Okay, good. Then let’s station you somewhere on the road leaving the airfield, heading east across Piñon Mesa. That’ll put you on BLM land, so no one could criticize you for being there. That way, we’ll have both roads leaving the airfield covered. If Ponytail leaves, follow him at a distance. See where he goes. Questions?” There were none. “Okay, get in place and stay out of sight. Our primary job is to monitor the operation. Remember, the goal is to identify the people at the top. As before, dress in civilian clothes and use your personal vehicles. Cell phones on mute. And one more thing, be sure to wear your body armor. No exceptions.”

39

AMY ROUSSEAU STOOD alone on the west bank of the Dolores River watching the clear water flow by and thinking about the deputy sheriff she’d met. He was intelligent and gentle. And very handsome. She’d never been drawn so strongly to a man before. She’d had a few high school infatuations and dated some men at the university, but it had always been superficial dating. She’d been so involved in her studies, having committed to earning a PhD in botany, that she’d never allowed herself to get involved in a serious relationship. Now she found herself wondering if she would ever see Manny Rivera again.

There was a gentle breeze blowing from the south, tousling her hair and bringing with it the scent of sagebrush. The river seemed calmer today, moving slower and with less rippling. The runoff from the mountains had diminished significantly the past few days and the water level had fallen. She could see the gravel bottom clearly. She judged it might now be possible to safely cross the river in one of the D.R.R.I. community Jeeps.

She walked to Dr. Smythe’s residence and knocked on the door.

“Good afternoon, Amy. How are you today?”

She smiled. “Fine, Dr. Smythe. How’s the ankle coming along?”

“Much better, thank you. It’s almost back to normal. How can I help you?”

“I was just looking at the river. It’s quite low and I think I can get across in one of the Jeeps. Care to join me for a tour of the other side of the ranch?”

“Love to. I’ve always been curious to see what it looks like.”

“Me too. Some day soon, I’d like to begin an inventory of the plant populations over there, particularly on top of the mesa. Maybe I can identify another new species or two.”

“Splendid. When shall we leave?”

“How about five minutes from now?

“I’ll be ready.”

Amy walked over to the mess hall and hopped into one of the Jeeps parked in front of the building. She checked the fuel level and then drove the Jeep to the Smythe residence. Dr. Smythe, wearing a pith helmet, was waiting.

“It’s a beautiful day to do some exploring,” he said as he hoisted himself into the Jeep.

Amy followed the dirt road to the river and stopped. They got out and stood at the water’s edge, eyeing the gravel bar on which Victor Leatherman frequently crossed the river.

“I think we can make it. What do you think, Professor?”

He studied the river, then inspected the Jeep’s ground clearance, then looked back at the river. Smiled. “Let’s give it a whirl. The worst thing that could happen is we’d get stuck out there and get soaked walking back to shore. Victor could always pull the Jeep out of the river with his tractor.”

“Okay,” said Amy, with a mixture of excitement and apprehension in her voice.

They hopped back into the vehicle.

“Tally ho!” said the professor.

Amy laughed, engaged the four-wheel-drive, and gingerly drove the Jeep down the shallow bank into the water. The front wheels reached the gravel bottom of the river, then the rear wheels touched bottom. Amy drove slowly, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. They moved across the gravel bar, the water slapping against the underside of the vehicle’s floorboards. When they reached the other side, Amy gunned the engine. The Jeep’s tires bit into the soil and the vehicle ascended smartly up the bank, now resting safely on dry ground on the far side of the river.

“There, no problem at all,” she said with a proud smile. “Welcome to the Big Triangle.”

“Well done, Amy,” said the professor, looking relieved and laughing at the same time.

They turned upriver, drove a quarter mile on the dirt road, and then began ascending the switchbacks leading to the top of Piñon Mesa.

40

VICTOR LEATHERMAN WAS SEATED in front of the metal table, wrapping dried marijuana buds in white paper and taping the brick-sized packages securely closed. He’d done this task so many times, it required little thought. His hands moved robotically while his mind was engaged in other pursuits. The radio on the table was tuned to KCYN, Moab’s “Canyon Country Radio,” transmitting from its antenna high in the LaSal Mountains. Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson were singing, Love Makes a Fool of Us All, a song that always reminded Leatherman of his first girlfriend.

He sat back, extracted a cigarette from the box of Marlboros in his shirt pocket, and lit up. Fannie had been his one and only true love. But she’d met another man with a more promising future and moved on. She’d told Victor he had no ambition, and as he replayed her words in his mind, as he often did, he had to admit to himself that she was probably right. There were no real pleasures or interests in his life. Ranching for him had become routine, a way of filling time until the end came.

He was forever burdened by the thought of what his life might have been like if Fannie hadn’t left him. Probably they’d be happily married with kids and grandkids, living in a house with a fireplace, and going to church on Sundays. And maybe he’d be engaged in some respectable occupation instead of working with a psychopath like Lenny, growing dope, and deceiving a fine employer like Mr. Bishop. Leatherman was feeling worthless. He wondered if he would ever do anything right in life, anything he could be really proud of. The only bright spot in his humdrum world was his new friend, Amy Rousseau. Maybe if he were a younger man …

The rumbling sound of the building’s door sliding open on its rollers interrupted his thoughts. Lenny strode in and approached him with a concerned look on his face.

“I just got a call from Mr. Felipe Sanchez.” Lenny reached over and shut off Leatherman’s radio. “He’s said he’s just a few miles away. Should be here around five-thirty. He’s bringing a two-ton truck on that road across Piñon Mesa to pick up a load of product. He wants eight pallets. And he needs a quick turn-around. They’re making a delivery in Denver tonight. We need to load the truck as soon as he gets here.”

“Okay,” said Leatherman. He dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his boot. “We have eleven pallets full and wrapped in plastic sheeting. They’re all ready to go.” He stood up. “I’ll get on the forklift and pick up a pallet load. As soon as they come into view, I’ll drive it outside and get in position to start loading.”

Lenny was nervously fingering his earlobe. “Mr. Sanchez said this is a major transaction so the big boss came on the trip with him. He said there can’t be any screw-ups. Everything has to be perfect.”

Leatherman walked over to the forklift, hopped on, and started it up. So the top man was coming. Maybe now Victor would learn which cartel he was working for. Not that it really mattered, as long as the cash kept coming in. But he was definitely curious.

He drove over to the finished pallets and gently inserted the tines of the forklift into the nearest one. He raised it off the floor and backed away from the wall. He drove it to the door, stopped, and looked at Lenny who was checking the magazine of his Glock. “All set to go,” Leatherman said.

Lenny checked his watch. “Wait here. I’ll let you know when I see them.” He pushed open the other half of the sliding doors and went outside, disappearing from Leatherman’s view.

41

THE SUN HAD DROPPED in the western sky and was disappearing behind the LaSal Mountains. Rivera was tired. He looked at his watch and wondered what was holding up the DEA agents. They should have been here by now.

He raised his binoculars and studied Ponytail who had emerged through the sliding doors several minutes ago and now stood in the shade of the building, his gaze affixed on the south end of the airstrip.

Rivera whispered to Dave Tibbetts. “He’s waiting for something. Maybe the Cessna is overdue.”

Rivera’s cell phone vibrated. It was Adam Dunne. “Manny, two trucks are slowly passing by my position on Piñon Mesa now. The first is a late model black GMC pickup truck with two occupants, both male. The second is a large tandem truck, about twenty-four feet long, with just the driver. It’s a Penske rental. Looks like a small moving van. They must be planning a major shipment. They’re headed your way.”

“Okay, Adam. Thanks.”

Rivera looked at Tibbetts. “We’ve got company coming. One black pickup with two male occupants and a large Penske tandem with just the driver. Ponytail must be waiting for them, not a plane.”

Tibbetts nodded. “Looks like they’re getting ready to make a big shipment. What do we do?”

“Nothing. We wait and watch.”

“But we can’t just let them drive off with a huge load of marijuana. Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“We stay put and wait. Remember how bad that road across Piñon Mesa is? It’ll take that truck two hours to get from here back to the pavement, especially carrying a heavy load. The DEA can intercept it any time they want. Meanwhile, we continue surveillance. Don’t forget, the ultimate goal is to capture the people at the top of the operation. And we don’t want to lose sight of Ponytail since he might be our killer.”

Rivera called Sheriff Bradshaw and explained the situation. “A large shipment is about to be loaded and trucked out. Where are the Feds?”

“They called and said they were delayed. I think they may have gotten lost in one of the canyons. Anyway they’re back on track now. Should arrive there in about thirty minutes. Is Ponytail still at the airstrip?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then just keep an eye on things. Wait there until the agents arrive and take over.”

Rivera saw Ponytail raise his arm and wave toward the south end of the airstrip. He looked through his binoculars. A black pickup came into view, headed across the airstrip toward the large building. The windows of the pickup were tinted dark but he could see the outline of a driver and a passenger. Soon, the tandem truck appeared, slowly lumbering across the airstrip behind the pickup.

“Here they come,” Rivera said to Tibbetts.

Ponytail ran back into the building, then reappeared, followed by Leatherman on the forklift with a pallet load of packaged marijuana.

When the pickup truck arrived at the building, it stopped. The driver hopped out, greeting Ponytail and shaking hands with him like two old friends. Leatherman waited on the forklift while the two men spoke.

The tandem truck made a wide semicircle on the airstrip and parked next to the pickup, its rear end facing toward the forklift. Now the tandem blocked Rivera’s view of the pickup, Ponytail, and his associate, but Leatherman and the forklift were still visible.

The driver of the tandem hopped out of the truck, walked to the rear, grabbed a leather strap and raised the back door. He climbed into the truck. From his angle, Rivera could see that the truck was empty except for a hand-operated pallet jack. Victor drove the forklift up to the truck, raised up the load, and inserted it into the back of the truck. Then he backed the forklift away and returned to the building. The man in the truck used the pallet jack to move the load from the rear of the truck to the front.

A few moments later, Victor drove out of the building with a second pallet load of marijuana. As he approached the truck, he abruptly stopped the forklift, stood up, and looked to the south end of the runway. He started waving both of his arms. Rivera’s eyes followed Victor’s line of sight to an approaching Jeep. More of the gang arriving? He looked back at Victor who had jumped off the forklift and was now running toward the Jeep, waving his arms frantically. Ponytail spotted him and immediately gave chase. Rivera quickly trained his binoculars on the approaching Jeep. He was alarmed to see Amy Rousseau behind the wheel and Dr. Smythe in the passenger seat.

“Dave, we’ve got civilians approaching the truck. Their lives are in danger. We can’t wait for the Feds.” He drew his weapon and pulled his badge from his pocket with his left hand. “Let’s go. I’ll take Ponytail and Leatherman. You move in on the others.”

Trying to use the tandem truck as cover, the two deputies sprinted across the airstrip directly toward it. When they reached the truck, Rivera turned left into the open and pursued Ponytail and Leatherman, while Tibbetts ran around the far side of the truck.

“Oh look, Dr. Smythe,” said Amy. “There’s Victor. He’s waving at us. Let’s drive over and say hello.”

“Maybe that truck is delivering a load of food and supplies for Mr. Bishop,” said Dr. Smythe.

Amy steered the Jeep down the airstrip toward the large truck.

As she got to within a hundred feet, Dr Smythe spoke loudly. There was concern in his voice. “Stop the Jeep, Amy. Something’s not right here.”

Amy abruptly brought the Jeep to a halt. “What’s wrong, Dr. Smythe?”

“Victor isn’t waving at us. He’s waving us away. He wants us to leave and quickly, I think.”

Amy froze.

Ponytail caught up to Leatherman and slammed the butt of his gun onto his head. Leatherman crumpled to the ground. Then he ran to the Jeep, pointing his weapon at the occupants. He waved his gun at them menacingly and shouted something Rivera couldn’t make out. Amy and Dr. Smythe got out of the Jeep at gunpoint.

Rivera was thirty yards away when Ponytail spotted him.

“Police, freeze,” Rivera shouted, continuing at a run.

Ponytail stepped behind his captives. “Stop or they die,” he yelled, pointing his gun at Rivera.

Rivera slowed to a walk, but kept approaching the trio. Suddenly, Ponytail fired at Rivera, striking him in the left bicep. Rivera stumbled and fell to one knee.

Amy bolted toward Rivera, crying, “Oh, Manny, you’re hurt.”

He got to his feet, shouting, “Get down, Amy. Get down.” He couldn’t get a clear shot at Ponytail because Amy was in the line of fire. He moved to his right, but she moved too, running toward him, still blocking a clear shot.

Ponytail grabbed Dr. Smythe around the neck with his left arm, using him as a shield. He fired again at Rivera, the shot whizzing past Rivera’s right ear.

With Ponytail directly behind Dr. Smythe, there was no way Rivera could get a clear shot at him. Then Rivera saw something he would never forget. Dr. Smythe stomped his heel on Ponytail’s foot, eliciting a painful yell and loosening the grip of his captor for an instant. With lightning speed, Smythe twisted his body to the left, slamming his left elbow into Ponytail’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. With surprising agility and strength for a man his age, Smythe grabbed Ponytail’s right arm, twisted it behind him, and jerked it up to his shoulder blades. With his free hand, he levered the handgun from Lenny’s grip. A solid punch to the back of the neck finished the job. Ponytail fell to the ground, face down and unconscious.

Rivera grabbed Amy’s arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine but you’re bleeding.”

Rivera looked at his arm. “It’s okay, just a flesh wound.”

He turned to Dr. Smythe. “Are you okay, Dr. Smythe?”

Smythe was brushing dust off the sleeve of his coat as if nothing had happened. “Yes, Deputy Rivera, I’m quite alright.”

“That was a nice piece of work.”

He produced a toothy grin. “I’m retired British Special Forces.” He gestured toward Ponytail. “I’ve tangled with tougher blokes than this one.”

Rivera turned around to check on Dave Tibbetts. Tibbetts had the driver of the large truck on the ground and was applying handcuffs to his captive. But the other two men had sized up the situation quickly and were now speeding across the airstrip toward the same road from which they’d arrived.

Rivera pulled out his cell phone and called Adam Dunne. “Adam, the two men in the black pickup are headed your way. Can you find a place to park your vehicle and block their exit?”

“Yeah. I know just the spot. The road passes through a narrow notch that’s been cut through a jagged rock outcropping. They’ll have a hard time finding a way around that.”

“Good, I’ll be following up right behind them. Be careful.”

“Okay, Manny.”

Rivera handcuffed Ponytail’s right wrist to his left ankle.

He looked at Dr. Smythe. “If he tries to get up, clock him again.”

“Gladly.”

Rivera then trotted over to Victor Leatherman who was sitting on the ground, rubbing his head. He cuffed him, wrist to ankle.

“That was a good thing you did Victor. You probably saved their lives.”

Leatherman smiled, but not at Rivera. He was looking at Amy.

Rivera hopped into the D.R.R.I. Jeep and headed toward Dunne’s position. As he drove, he made two calls. The first was to Emmett Mitchell requesting that he drive to the airstrip and assist Dave Tibbetts. The second was to Sheriff Bradshaw to explain what had just happened.

42

BLM AGENT ADAM DUNNE sped on the primitive road toward the notch. If he could block it before the drug runners arrived, they would be pinned in. Arroyos and rocky terrain on either side of the road would prevent them from driving off-road in search of another way around.

He reached the narrow notch and parked his pickup diagonally across the road so that there was less than a foot of clearance between the vehicle and the sandstone walls on each side. He shut off the engine, jumped out, and retreated thirty feet into the rocks. He drew his firearm and crouched, waiting in the fading daylight.

His cell phone vibrated. It was Manny Rivera.

“Is the road blocked?”

“Yeah. There’s no way they can get through.”

“They should reach your position in a couple of minutes. I’m two or three minutes behind them.”

“Okay. I’m in the rocks on the left side of the road.”

Dunne spotted a dust plume in the distance, and soon saw the vehicle. It was traveling way too fast for the type of road it was on. He hoped they would see his vehicle in time and stop before they slammed into it. After all, it was his personal pickup. He studied the road leading up to the notch. It was lower than the notch itself, rising abruptly just before the notch, so there was a fair chance the driver might not catch sight of Dunne’s pickup until it was too late. All he could do now was hope.

The pickup came roaring up the hill into the notch. The driver slammed on the brakes, and slid on the dusty road into Dunne’s vehicle producing a loud crunch and a cloud of dust. Steam erupted from beneath the hood of the black pickup.

Dunne drew his weapon and carefully moved through the rocks toward the wreck. He could hear two men yelling at each other.

“You idiot, I told you to slow down.”

“How was I supposed to know there was a truck parked in the middle of the damn road?”

“You’ve ruined the whole operation. Your man Lenny was in charge of security. He failed completely. And so have you. You’ve cost me millions.”

“You go to hell. You weren’t much help back there.”

“Why you ignorant …”

As he approached, Dunne could see the two men scuffling in the pickup. It looked like the driver was trying to strangle the passenger. A shot rang out and the driver slumped over the steering wheel.

The fading light, the dust cloud created by the wreck, and the steam from the fractured radiator prevented Dunne from getting a clear view. He pointed his gun at the vehicle. “Police! Step out of the vehicle, hands over your head.”

For a brief instant, a gust of wind blew the dust away from the wreck. Dunne had a fleeting image of a man aiming a gun in his direction. A shot rang out and Dunne felt a painful blow to his chest. He staggered backward, stabilized himself against a slab of rock, then fired three shots into the vehicle. He got a glimpse of a man jumping from the vehicle and disappearing into the juniper and pinyon pines.

Dunne was in great pain. He knew his Kevlar vest had saved his life but he felt like a couple of his ribs were broken. He tried to get up and pursue the shooter but the pain was too extreme. He slid down the rock into a sitting position and waited for Rivera.

Two minutes later, Rivera was at his side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. My vest stopped a slug. Hurts like hell.”

“What’s the situation?”

“There were two of them. After the wreck, the passenger and driver started arguing, then fighting in the car. The passenger shot the driver, then me. He disappeared into the trees on the other side of the road. I fired back but I think I missed him.”

“It’s getting dark. We’ll never be able to find him out there. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, but I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest by a mule.”

“I’m going to check on the guy in the pickup. Try not to move.”

Rivera climbed through the rocks, weapon drawn. As he approached the driver’s side of the pickup, he stopped and listened. Heard nothing except the pinging of the radiator as it cooled down. He reached through the open window, pressed his fingertips against the driver’s neck, and checked for a pulse. The man was dead.

Rivera called Sheriff Bradshaw, reported the situation, and requested the Medical Examiner and a MedEvac helicopter be sent.

“Masters and his people are at the airstrip now,” said Bradshaw. “The DEA is taking over. Needless to say, Masters is not very happy with us.”

43

RIVERA WAS SURPRISED his arm didn’t hurt. Last night, the hospital doctor had cleansed the wound, stitched it, and wrapped it in a bandage. This morning, he’d slept late and caught up on some errands. After a leisurely lunch at Buck’s Grill House, he drove through town on his way to the office to write his report and attend a meeting scheduled for four o’clock with Agent Masters. Moab was looking normal again. The protesters had gone home and the corner of Main and Center Streets had been reclaimed by those who came to Moab for fun and entertainment. Zolu, the protester who claimed to have authored the manifesto, had never been heard from again.

Rivera worked on his report most of the afternoon. A few minutes before four o’clock, he grabbed a mug of coffee in the break room and went to Sheriff Bradshaw’s office.

“Come on in, Manny. How’s the arm?”

“It’s fine. Healing up.”

“Agent Masters is on his way over. He should be here in a couple of minutes.”

“I’m guessing he’s not a happy camper.”

Bradshaw nodded, smiled. “You’re right. He’s angry the top man got away. Makes him look bad. His people are up there on Piñon Mesa right now combing the trees and brush looking for him. But that area’s huge. And a lot of the mesa is sandstone so there won’t be footprints to follow. It’s unlikely they’ll ever find him.”

“Yeah. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to slip away in that Big Triangle country.”

“Of course, Masters blames us.” Bradshaw’s eyes shifted, now looking past Rivera toward the open door of his office. “And here he comes now.”

Masters strode into the office without any form of greeting and sat in the nearest chair. His expression was a mix between worry and anger. “We haven’t had any luck up on Piñon Mesa yet. I’ve got a dozen men up there scouring that country.” He glared at Bradshaw. “You’d better hope we find him.”

Bradshaw nodded perfunctorily. “What about the three men captured at the airstrip? Have you learned anything from them?”

“The driver of the tandem truck is just a hired hand. Claims he didn’t know the job entailed transporting drugs. Lenny, the guy you’ve been calling Ponytail, won’t talk. We don’t even know his last name. But we’ve had some luck questioning Victor Leatherman. He’s looking for a plea deal and is cooperating with us. Eldon Bishop, his employer at the ranch, brought in his high-powered lawyers from Denver to help Leatherman craft a deal. Leatherman told us pretty much everything. He said Lenny is your killer. According to Leatherman, Lenny described how he followed and shot Buddy Milton and how he murdered the other three men.”

“Three men?” asked a surprised Bradshaw. “We know of only two. William Whitlock and Wilbur Jensen. Who was the third?”

“Leatherman didn’t know the guy’s name. Only that he was shot and buried up in the mountains.”

Rivera looked at Bradshaw and shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that one.”

“Leatherman said Lenny told him the guy was dressed like an Indian,” said Masters. “He was up in the LaSal Mountains burying some clay pots. My people found a shallow grave covered with rocks near one of the marijuana gardens while we were clearing out the crops up there. They’re exhuming the body now.”

“Zolu,” said Rivera. “So that’s why we haven’t seen him.”

“Who the hell is Zolu?” asked Masters.

Rivera filled him in on the young man and his activities.

“Well anyway, Leatherman said Lenny killed him because he got too close to one of the gardens,” said Masters. “And now, here’s the bad news. Lenny told Leatherman that Sanchez was his contact with the organization. Lenny was hired by Sanchez in Scottsdale earlier this year as security for the LaSal Mountain crop. Sanchez called Lenny yesterday and said the top man was coming along on this trip. The top man. That’s the one you guys let get away.”

“Now wait a damn minute,” said Bradshaw. “My people had to act. Civilians’ lives were at risk. They couldn’t wait for your people any longer. They had to break cover and move in.”

“You should have posted someone at the river to make sure civilians didn’t encroach.”

“Posting someone at the river would have raised a lot of questions in the minds of the D.R.R.I. personnel. The idea was to keep the surveillance secret. That’s the reason I posted Deputy Mitchell farther back at the Entrada Bluffs Road. I didn’t want people getting curious about what we were doing up there.”

“Well, it wasn’t a good plan. And the top guy got away. And you’ll be held responsible in my report to Washington.”

Bradshaw shrugged and smiled. “Fine,” he said. “You can use me as your excuse.”

Masters returned the smile. “Don’t worry, I will. Anyway, my people are clearing the marijuana crops from all four mountains as we speak. We used the waypoints stored in Jensen’s GPS units to locate the gardens. Of course, Sheriff Zilic had a fit because my people ‘swarmed into his county’ as he put it.” Masters laughed heartily, then continued. “Funston, the pilot from Grand Junction was arrested this morning. And we rounded up the gardeners and security people in the other mountain ranges. They were waiting at the airstrips to load today’s harvests, only to their surprise, the Cessna was manned by DEA agents. So the whole operation has been shut down except for apprehending the top man.”

Rivera was back in his office working on his report when Pudge Devlin walked in.

“Manny, I’ve completed the autopsy on Felipe Sanchez. It’s pretty straightforward. A single shot through the heart was the cause of death.” He handed a clear plastic bag containing a slug to Rivera.

Rivera studied it. “Looks like a 40-caliber.”

“There was someone else’s blood and skin under his fingernails. I’ve preserved samples for DNA analysis. Sanchez must have been in a fight to the death.”

“Yeah, he tried to strangle the guy who eventually shot him—the top man in the organization. Unfortunately, he got away.”

“Sanchez was clutching this in his right hand. It looks like some kind of necklace,” said Devlin. He handed Rivera a second bag containing a silver chain with an amulet hanging from it. The amulet looked like an ancient Olmec head. “I’m guessing it was worn by the guy Sanchez was trying to strangle.”

After Devlin departed, Rivera sat at his desk, staring at the necklace, wondering why it looked familiar.

44

RIVERA KNOCKED ON the front door of the Debbie Pendergast residence. Her mother, Marion, opened the door and invited him to come inside.

“Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Jensen, but I need some help.”

“Sure. Debbie’s out shopping. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No thanks. I’m a little short on time. Do you remember when I visited you in your motor home and we spoke about Wilbur?”

Marion raised her eyebrows. “Yes, of course.”

“You showed me a photograph of Debbie and Scotty in Puerto Vallarta on their honeymoon. Do you have that photograph here?”

“Yes. It’s in Debbie’s bedroom.”

“Could I borrow it for a day or two?”

“Sure. Let me get it for you.”

She left the room, retrieved the photograph, and handed it to him.

Rivera noticed her curious expression. “Just something I’d like to follow up on. It’s probably nothing.”

In his vehicle, Rivera extracted the necklace with the Olmec amulet Pudge Devlin had found clutched in Felipe Sanchez’s hand. He held it next to the photograph. It appeared identical to the one Scotty was wearing that day in Puerto Vallarta. Rivera’s shoulders slumped. Now he had a hunch that he hoped was wrong. He started up his pickup and headed for the hospital.

He entered Adam Dunne’s room. Dunne was sitting on the side of the bed with an impatient look on his face.

“Adam, how are you feeling?”

“I feel fine. I want to get out of this place but the doctor hasn’t come around yet to sign my discharge papers. I’m thinking about escaping through the window.”

“I’ll see if I can find him for you, but first, I want to ask you a question about yesterday evening.”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“I know it was getting pretty dark, but did you get a look at the face of the guy who escaped?”

“There was a lot of dust in the air but I did get a brief glimpse of him.”

Rivera pulled out the honeymoon photograph and pointed to Scott Pendergast. “Did he look anything like this?”

Dunne studied the picture. “His hair is longer but the face is the same. Yeah, that’s the guy alright.”

45

Two days later in Scottsdale, Arizona:

FOLLOWING A TIP from Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera of Moab, Utah, ten DEA agents dressed in black and armed with automatic weapons quietly moved through the darkness across a vacant field behind a luxury condo complex in northwest Scottsdale. Minutes later, they smashed open the back door of Unit 231 and swarmed inside, fanning out to each room in the five-bedroom four-bath unit rented by Scott Pendergast. Pendergast’s decapitated body was found sprawled on the floor of the master suite. On the bed were two suitcases haphazardly filled with clothing, as though the victim had been planning a quick departure. In the spacious, well-appointed living room, sitting atop the fireplace mantel, was the rest of Pendergast. His head was unceremoniously wrapped in a Sinaloa, Mexico newspaper. The attached note was in Spanish, and roughly translated into: A warning to others who would try to enter our business.

The message was unmistakable and the perpetrators, who must have left the newspaper as a not-so-subtle calling card, were undoubtedly members of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Agent Bill Masters and the DEA had finally gotten the top man in the marijuana operation, though not the way they’d expected.

46

RIVERA WOKE UP after sleeping soundly for nine hours. Bentley was at the side of his bed, licking his hand and welcoming him to a new day. He scratched Bentley’s head and rolled out of bed. He’d gotten used to having Bentley in his life.

After showering, shaving, and getting dressed, he fed Bentley and the guppies. Then he opened the back door and let Bentley outside to have the run of the backyard for the day. Bentley had become buddies with the German shepherd next door, and the two enjoyed racing up and down the fence line with each other.

Rivera went to his answering machine and played back the old messages from the past two weeks, searching until he found the right one. It was the call from the lady who said she was a friend of a friend and couldn’t he please help her by signing up for a magazine subscription. He dialed her number, and after some discussion, he subscribed to two magazines: Just Labs and Best Friends. He needed to learn more about the care and feeding of his new buddy. As of today, he would abandon his efforts to find someone willing to adopt Bentley.

Rivera heard a rap on his office door and looked up as Sheriff Bradshaw entered. Bradshaw closed the door and sat down.

“When the DEA exhumed Zolu’s body from the grave in the mountains, they discovered he’d been buried with the ancient-Indian pot collection he’d stolen from Howard Cole’s residence. It turns out Zolu’s real name was Thomas Peterson, from Tucson.”

Rivera thought for a long moment, then shook his head. “Zolu wanted to live his life like an Indian. In a strange way he got his wish. He ended up getting buried with ancient-Indian pots in a rock-covered shallow grave, the same way the ancient Indians buried their dead.”

“He still had his cell phone in his pocket when they dug him up. It showed several calls to Damon Dunstable, the Executive Director of the Heritage Preservation Society. We’ll never be able to prove it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Dunstable encouraged Zolu to commit his malicious acts to send a message to the pothunters of the world.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised either,” said Rivera. “I sized up Dunstable along those same lines.”

“I think I’ll call the HPS Board Chairman and fill him in on all this.”

“Good idea. Dunstable could have been a good role model. Instead, he helped ruin that young man’s life.”

Bradshaw nodded. “Scotty Pendergast was another one who ruined people’s lives.”

“Yeah, Wilbur Jensen lost his life, Marion Jensen lost her husband, and Debbie Pendergast lost her father and her husband.”

“And Whitlock and Zolu were killed. It’s incredible what greed will drive people to do. I’ll never understand it,” said Bradshaw. “Why can’t people learn that money really has nothing to do with how much you enjoy life?”

Rivera thought for a long moment. “My grandfather told me that bad decisions made early in life can carry hard consequences. I’ve never forgotten that.”

“Yeah. Scotty was actually a very intelligent fellow. Faking his own kidnapping and then using his father-in-law’s knowledge of the mountains to locate suitable sites for the marijuana gardens was evil and devious, but pretty clever.”

“And coming up with the idea for linear marijuana gardens was a real innovation. He must have learned from newspaper accounts that the large plots grown by Mexican drug lords in the California mountains were susceptible to detection by advanced surveillance systems. The small, linear gardens planted alongside stream beds solved that problem.”

“And, if one was found, the whole operation wouldn’t have been jeopardized,” said Bradshaw.

“With his brains, Scotty could have amounted to something.” Rivera took a sip of coffee and looked at his boss. “Have you decided what you’re going to do when your term as Sheriff is up?”

“I’ll be retiring and leaving Moab. I’m thinking about settling somewhere in northern New Mexico.”

“What will you do?”

“First I’ll take some time off to relax and think. Then maybe I’ll start my own practice.”

“You mean, become a private investigator?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure. I need to give it some thought. By the way,” said Bradshaw, standing up, “I heard Buddy Milton came out of his coma. He’ll be released from the hospital in a couple of days.” Bradshaw opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. He stopped and looked back at his deputy. “Nice job, Manny.”

Rivera entered the Moab Regional Hospital and walked down the hall to Buddy Milton’s room. Milton was by himself, sitting up in bed and drinking a glass of water. Rivera knocked on the open door, entered, and introduced himself.

“Nice to finally meet you, Deputy Rivera. My sister told me you visited while I was in a coma.”

“It’s nice to meet you too. A lot has happened since the day you were shot in the mountains and I’d like to tell you a little bit about it.” Over the next thirty minutes, Rivera described in detail the sequence of events leading up to the capture of Milton’s shooter and the dismantling of the marijuana growing operation. Then he added, “I spoke to a man at Mrs. Densford’s hospice who said you’ve been helping out over there.”

Milton became visibly uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah, I do what I can to help out. Mostly just visit and talk to the residents.”

“I want you to know that, for whatever reason, the waypoint in Wilbur Jensen’s GPS unit corresponding to the marijuana garden you were visiting was somehow deleted before the DEA came into possession of it. When they cleared the mountains of the marijuana gardens, that one remained untouched.” Rivera waited for some sign that Milton understood what he was saying.

Milton’s eyebrows went up a quarter of an inch. He stared at Rivera for a long moment, then nodded. “So I can begin helping Mrs. Densford again, as soon as I get out of here?”

“Right. Of course, we’ll have to trust each other not to mention this to anyone.”

“You have my word.”

Rivera turned and started toward the door.

“Deputy Rivera,” Milton called out.

Rivera turned. “Yes?”

“You’re a good man.”

“You are, too.”

Walking back to his vehicle, Rivera smiled as he remembered DEA Agent Masters chiding him for taking so long to retrieve the GPS units from the evidence room. If only Masters knew.

After lunch, Rivera picked up Bentley and headed toward the mountains in his pickup. He parked on North Beaver Mesa, then hiked with Bentley across the mesa and down the tributary canyon that led to Beaver Valley. From there, he proceeded up the valley until he reached the crack in the north wall. He climbed up the talus to the ancient-Indian gravesite that William Whitlock had defiled.

He took off his backpack, set it on the ground, and unzipped it. He removed a trowel and a cardboard box. Using the trowel, he pushed aside the dirt and dead grass that had been blown into the open half of the grave by the wind. He gently moved the exposed tibia and femur back into the hole. Then he opened the box and removed the Fremont pot that Whitlock had pilfered from the gravesite. He gently placed it into the grave, then covered everything over with soil. He moved the large rocks which had previously covered the grave back into place. Before he left, he knelt down and uttered a short prayer, apologizing to the corpse for the violation of his resting place.

He stood up. “Let’s go, Bentley.”

They left Beaver Valley, Bentley trotting along behind his new master.

47

The Following Sunday:

MANNY RIVERA SLOUCHED in his chair on the outdoor patio of the Eklectic Café, his hand hanging down and scratching Bentley behind the ears. Chris Carey sat across the table, grinning at him.

“You look a little tired,” said Carey.

“It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I feel like I’ve hiked a couple of hundred miles.”

“How’s the arm?”

“It’s fine.” He pulled up his left sleeve and exposed a large square of gauze taped to his bicep. Looked at it. “It was just a flesh wound. No structural damage.”

“I wish I was still a newspaper journalist,” said Carey. “I’d love to be writing up the Scott Pendergast story. It’s got so many angles.”

“I guess he just grew up with the wrong value system. Learned about life from the wrong people on the streets of Los Angeles. He turned out to be an evil kid without a conscience.” Rivera took a sip of coffee. “That’s where he met his cohort, Felipe Sanchez.”

“He was pretty ruthless, the way he married Debbie Jensen just so he could get to Wilbur Jensen and coerce him into identifying the best places to grow the marijuana.”

“Wilbur told me he never cared for Scotty and tried to talk Debbie out of marrying him. But his daughter was totally in love so he finally went along with the idea. Too bad Debbie didn’t listen to her father. Wilbur said he received periodic calls from someone with a Mexican accent, probably Felipe Sanchez, who told him he’d better cooperate or he would receive Scotty’s head in a box. It’s ironic how things ended up for Scotty.”

“Yeah. I guess, in a way, he had it coming.”

“I just hope Debbie and Marion can get their lives put back together,” said Rivera.

Carey nodded, took a sip of coffee. “By the way, I heard Damon Dunstable was replaced yesterday.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard that.”

“The Board of Directors of the Heritage Preservation Society met in emergency session and gave him his walking papers. They’re going back to the old method of making their point: educate and persuade.”

Rivera thought for a moment, smiled. “I think I’ll send them a donation.”

Carey laughed and looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going.” He finished his coffee and left.

Rivera looked up through the vine covered arbor at the blue sky. It was another perfect fall day in Moab. But something inside him gave him an unsettled feeling, something that hinted he was at a turning point in his life. He’d come to Moab because he loved the silent beauty of the vast red-rock canyon country and the way it gave him a sense of internal warmth and peace. Life here had been good to him. But now, he had a feeling of melancholy. The woman he’d trusted and loved was gone. And the boss he respected and enjoyed working for was leaving in a few months, soon to be replaced by a man he didn’t care for. He wondered what the future held for him.

Just then, he saw Amy Rousseau walking up the front steps of the café.

He stood up and waved. “Amy!”

She spotted him, produced a big smile, and walked over to his table. “Hi, Manny. How are you doing? And how’s the arm?”

“I’m fine and the arm’s almost healed.” He pulled out a chair. “Would you like to join Bentley and me for lunch?”

“I’d love to.”

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

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47