Rattlesnake Crossing

'Then I'll make like the Little Red Hen and do it myself,' Joanna said firmly. 'While I'm at it, I may stop by and visit both Hosfield and Scorsby. Maybe I can talk sense into one or both of them. The last thing we need is for all those wackos up around Cascabel to choose sides and start throwing stones.'

'Orr bullets,' Frank Montoya added.

'Right,' Joanna said. 'Now, what else is going on?'

'Just the usual,' Voland replied. 'An even dozen undocumented aliens picked up on foot over east of Douglas. A stolen pickup down in Bisbee Junction. Two domestics, one in Elfrida and another out in Palominas. A couple of DWIs between Huachuca City and Benson. In other words, no biggies.”

Joanna turned to Montoya. 'What's happening on the administration side?'

'Like I said before, those grievance hearings are set for this afternoon. I should have the September rotation and vacation schedules ready for you to go over by tomorrow morning, and next month's jail menus by tomorrow afternoon. Also, there are two new provisioners, one from Tucson and one from Phoenix, interested in bidding on coming our food supplier. I'm trying to set up meetings with their sales reps for later this week. You should probably be in on both of those.'

Joanna nodded. 'All right. Anything else?' Both deputies shook their heads. 'Okay, then,' she told them. 'Let's go to work.'

Voland and Montoya left Joanna's office. Running one hand through her short red hair, Joanna contemplated the hard nut of uncompleted paperwork left over from the day before when her private phone rang. It was a line she had installed specifically so family members-Jenny in particular-could reach her without having to fight their way through the departmental switchboard.

'Hello, Joanna,' Butch Dixon said as soon as she picked up the phone. 'How are things with the Sheriff of Cochise?'

Blushing, Joanna glanced toward her office door and was grateful Frank Montoya had closed it behind him when he went out. She didn't like the idea that anyone in the outer office, including Kristin Marsten, her secretary, might be listening in on her private conversations.

'Things are fine,' Joanna said. 'But I've barely heard from you the last few days. What's going on?'

'I've been as busy as the proverbial one-armed paper hanger,' Butch replied. 'Or maybe a one-legged flamenco dancer. What about you?'

Joanna recognized that his joking response was meant to gloss over the lack of real information in his answer, and that tweaked her. On the one hand, she couldn't help wondering if his being so busy had something to do with some other woman. On the other hand, since she and Butch had no kind of understanding, Joanna realized she had no right to question him, and no right to be jealous, either.

'Just the usual,' she said, matching the vagueness in his answer with her own.

'The usual murder and mayhem, you mean?' he asked. She could almost see the teasing grin behind his question.

'More meetings and paperwork than murder,' she admitted with a laugh.

That was one of the things that had dismayed her about being sheriff. Her officers often balked and complained at the amount of paperwork required of them. Joanna found that she certainly had more than her own fair share of it, but what seemed to chew up and squander most of her time, what she resented most, was the never- ending round of meetings. She despised the necessity of attending one mindless confab after another-endless, droning conferences where little happened and even less was decided.

'What are you doing tonight?' Butch asked.

'Tonight? Nothing, but…'

'How about dinner?'

'Where?' Joanna asked, trying not to sound too eager. Several times in the past few months, she and Butch had split the two hundred miles between them by meeting in Tucson for lunch or dinner, but she wasn't sure she wanted to make that trip on a weeknight.

'Eight o'clock in the morning comes mighty early,' she said.

Butch laughed. 'Don't worry,' he returned. 'I promise I won't keep you out late. I'll pick you up at the ranch at seven, I've got something I want to show you. See you then.”

'Wait a minute,' Joanna interrupted before he could hang up. 'What kind of dinner are we talking about? How should I dress?'

'Casual,' Butch said. 'Definitely casual.'

'This doesn't include going someplace on your motorcycle, does it?' she asked warily. Butch Dixon was inordinately proud of his Goldwing, but riding motorcycles was something Joanna Brady didn't do. And she didn't intend 1 start.

'No,' Butch answered. 'We won't be winging it. I'll have my truck. See you then.'

Just as Joanna put down the phone, her office door opened and Kristin marched up to her desk carrying that morning’s stack of mail, which landed on top of the previous day's leftovers. Shaking her head, Joanna dived into it. She wondered if she'd ever achieve the kind of organizational skill where she handled paperwork only once without having to sort it into stacks and piles first.

Kristin stood for a moment watching Joanna work, then she turned to go. 'Do me a favor if you would,' Joanna called after her. 'Look up the number for Clyde Philips over in Pomerene. Call him and ask if I can stop by to see him for a little while early this afternoon, say around two o'clock. And then double-check with Marianne Maculyea and see if we're still on for lunch.'

The Reverend Marianne Maculyea, pastor of Canyon United Methodist Church, was not only Joanna's minister, she was also her best friend. The two had known each other from junior high on, and once a week or so, they met for a girl- talk lunch at which they could let down their hair. In Bisbee, Arizona, the two friends were well known for their nontraditional jobs. As women doing 'men's' work, both were often targets of small-town gossip, jealousy, and criticism. Set apart from most of the other women in the community, they used their weekly get-togethers as sounding boards and pressure valves. Huddled in the privacy of one of Daisy Maxwell's booths, they could discuss issues neither could mention to anyone else.

While Kristin went to make the calls, Joanna settled in to answer the correspondence. Over the months, Kristin had finally accepted the fact that Joanna preferred to type her own letters on her own computer, rather than going through what she regarded as the cumbersome process of dictating them and having them typed. Dictation might have been fine for a hunt-and-peck typist like Sheriff Walter V. McFadden. For Joanna, however-a former insurance-office manager whose personal typing speed was about one hundred and twenty words a minute- dictation simply didn't make any sense. Whenever possible, the sheriff typed her own correspondence.

One after another, Joanna ripped through the letters, keying one letter in, printing it, and signing it before going on to the next. All Kristin would have to do when they landed on her desk was type the envelopes, stuff the letters inside, and run the stuffed envelopes through the postage meter.

An hour and a half passed with blinding speed. Later, on her way to the coffeepot in the outside office, Joanna stopped at Kristin's desk. 'Any luck with Clyde Philips?' Mlle asked.

Kristin shook her head. 'I can keep trying, but so far there's no answer at his place.'

'What about Marianne?'

'She says it's Cornish Pasties Monday at Daisy's, so she wouldn't miss it for the world.'

By eleven-thirty, Joanna was settled into one of the worn Naugahyde booths in Daisy's Cafe. Arriving ahead of Marianne, Joanna sat and waited, stirring her iced tea and replaying her conversation with Butch Dixon. There was a part of her-the old, loyal to Andy part-that enjoyed his company immensely but still wanted to hold the man himself at arm's length. Then there was the other part of her-the new Joanna-who didn't want to run the risk of losing Butch to someone else.

That was one of the reasons she was looking forward to this particular lunch with Marianne. She wanted to have the opportunity to discuss the Butch Dixon dilemma. Marianne Maculyea was a skilled minister and counselor as well as a trusted friend. Joanna hoped Marianne would help sort through some of her jumbled emotions and