Rattlesnake Crossing

'I shouldn't have,' Marianne said now. The black hopelessness in her friend's words wrung Joanna's heart, made her want to weep.

'What do you mean, you shouldn't have?'

'I had no right,' Marianne said. 'I didn't know what I was talking about.'

'Of course you did. What are you saying, Marianne? What's wrong?'

'I've been here all night trying to pray myself, but I can't, Joanna. And it's not just the words that I've lost, either. It's more than that. Far more. How could God do something like this to us and to Esther? How could He make Esther so sick that the only way to save her is for some other mother's baby to die? That's not right. It's not fair.'

Marianne lapsed into a series of stricken sobs. For several seconds Joanna listened and said nothing. There was nothing she could think of to say. How could she go about comforting someone who was a steadfast friend and pillar of strength to everyone else?

'You'll get through this,' Joanna said finally.

'Yes,' Marianne choked, 'maybe I will. But how will I ever be able to stand up at the pulpit and preach about faith when my own is so totally lacking? How can I teach about a loving God when I'm so pissed off at Him I can barely stand it?'

Joanna smiled in spite of herself. Marianne Maculyea, the rock-throwing firebrand rebel she had known in junior high at Lowell School, was a firebrand still.

'If you're so totally lacking in faith,' Joanna pointed out, 'you wouldn't even acknowledge God, much less be pissed at Him. Now, have you had any asleep?'

Even as she asked the question, Joanna reminded herself of her mother-in-law. For Eva Lou Brady, a crisis of the soul was almost always rooted in some physical reality.

'No,' Marianne admitted.

'What about having something to eat?'

'Jeff brought me a tray from the cafeteria a little while ago, but I couldn't eat it. I wasn't hungry.'

'Is the food still there?'

'The tray is.'

'Eat some of it,' Joanna urged. 'Even if it tastes like sawdust when you try to choke it down. You're going to need your strength, Marianne. If you don't eat or sleep, you're not going to be worth a plugged nickel when you'll want to be at your best. If you're strung out because of lack of food or rest, you won't have anything to offer Esther when she finally comes out from under the anesthetic. She's going to need you then, and you'd better be ready.'

There was another stretch of silence and Marianne seemed to consider what she'd been told. 'I'll try,' she said at last.

Joanna saw two vehicles pulling up behind the Blazer-Dick Voland's Bronco and Frank Montoya's Crown Victoria. 'Good,' Joanna said. 'You do that. And remember, I'll be there either later this afternoon or else this evening. All right?'

'All right.'

'You hang tough.'

As soon as the call ended, Joanna stood with the phone in her hand. She thought about calling the Copper Queen Hotel directly and telling Butch that she wouldn't be able to see him that night, but she was afraid he'd talk his way around her. Instead, feeling like a heel and a coward to boot, she hunched in the code for the sheriff's department.

'Kristin,' she said as soon as her secretary came on the line, 'I don't have much time. Please call the Copper Queen Hotel and leave a message for Mr. Frederick Dixon. Tell him I won't be able to join him for dinner tonight. Tell him I'm going up to Tucson to see Jeff Daniels and Marianne Maculyea.'

'Got it,' Kristin said. 'Copper Queen, Frederick Dixon, and you can't make it for dinner. How're Jeff and Marianne doing, by the way? I had lunch with my mother. She was telling me about the transplant. I don't know who told her.'

I can guess, Joanna thought. And her initials are Marliss Shackleford.

'They're okay,' she said. 'At least they're doing as well as can be expected.'

Finished with the call, she tried to reassure herself that she had handled the Butch Dixon situation in a kind and reasonable fashion. He might be disappointed, but at least she hadn't just left him hanging for a change. Still, though

Her thoughts were interrupted by an excited shout from one of the S and R guys a good quarter of a mile away.

'Sheriff Brady,' Mike Wilson yelled, relaying the message. 'Come take a look at this.'

With Dick Voland and Frank Montoya both trailing be-hind her, Joanna hurried over to where Mike was standing. Several of the other S and R guys were already converging on the spot. Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal weren't far behind.

'What is it?' Joanna demanded when she finally reached Mike.

He pointed toward the ground. 'Look,' he said.

There, nestled between a pair of rocks and winking back the brilliant late-summer sunlight, was a watch-a gold-and-silver Omega. On the watch's pearlescent face behind the remains of a shattered crystal, the two hands stood stopped at 10:26. That was the time Sonja Hosfield had told her she remembered hearing shots. Around ten- thirty.

Looking around, Joanna saw the blood spatters and knew this was the killing ground-the place Katrina Berridge had fallen to earth. She looked up and caught Ernie's eye. 'Have you found any bullets?' she asked.

'Not yet,' he said. 'But we're looking.'

'Hey, Mike.' Terry Gregovich's voice shrilled out of the speaker on a small walkie-talkie fastened to the collar of Mike Wilson's orange hunting vest. 'I think we may have found something up here.'

All eyes turned from the watch and the blood-spattered ground around it to the majestic cliffs rising from the valley floor. There, barely visible and clambering over the rock face like so many orange-bodied ants, were the other members of the Search and Rescue team.

'What have you got, Terry?' Mike Wilson asked.

'No shells or anything like that,' Terry Gregovich replied. 'But I've got some funny little marks here in the dirt. Looks like they might have come from someone setting up a tripod. And some footprints, too. A couple of them might even be good enough to cast.'

Joanna closed her eyes. Now we're making progress, she thought. 'Great,' she said to Mike. 'Grab one of the evidence techs from the burial mound and get him over to Terry to make plaster casts. On the double. We lucked out that it didn't rain here yesterday, but that's not to say a storm won't blow through today.'

Joanna knew enough to be thankful. Considering the amount of space involved, it was more than luck that some-one had stumbled across the possible footprints on top of the cliffs and recognized their importance. It also crossed her mind that Terry Gregovich's skills and talents might be underutilized by his being permanently sidelined in Search and Rescue.

'Hey, Mike,' she said, 'do your guys carry binoculars?'

'We all do.'

'Ask Terry to look off the other side of the cliffs and see if he can see the ranch house at the Triple C.'

A few moments later, Terry replied in the affirmative.

'Now look off to the left of that,' Joanna continued. 'To the north. There's a well with a big pump on it with two dead cattle nearby. Can he see those from, there?'

This time the search took a little longer, but eventually it paid off. 'I can see them clear as a bell,' Terry said.

'That's it, then,' Joanna said. 'That must have been where he was when he started shooting. Good work, Terry. Great work, in fact. This may be exactly the kind of break we need.'

'So what should I do now?' Terry Gregovich asked.

'Don't touch a thing,' Joanna told him. 'Stay right where you are until the evidence guys show up with their