Infiltrator

horse. The horse needed to be big. The Austrian was over six feet tall, big-boned and muscular, with the sort of sculpted muscle that only a scientifically designed exercise program can produce. His neighbors and employees thought he was a physical-fitness fanatic, which was true enough.

He'd gotten that way under mercilessly perfectionist instructors, though.

'What is she even doing here?' he demanded, steely blue eyes snapping, a muscle jumping in his strong jaw, visible even through the short beard he wore.

Epifanio Garcia, Dieter's overseer, rose from where he'd been squatting on his heels and shrugged, his dark walnut face bland. 'She's a cow, Senor von

Rossbach. She wants to be with her sisters.'

The cow in question was definitely not with her sisters at the moment, unless she was standing on them. She was chest-deep and possibly sinking deeper into a disgusting and smelly bog. The cow bawled her distress, big eyes rolling in terror, showing the whites all around.

'She's supposed to be locked up in a paddock,' von Rossbach said coldly.

'Some of them are escape artists, senor. This one is smart—for a cow.' Epifanio sucked his teeth and shook his head. 'That's not awfully bright, of course. Just smart enough to get into trouble.'

Grimacing, Dieter considered the cow. He had plans for her. She was supposed to be the mother of a hybrid that would produce meatier, fatter cattle that could endure the privations of the Chaco. He was awaiting a shipment of sperm from the King Ranch in the United States so he could get started. Meanwhile he'd ordered her and three others separated from the main herd so that they would stay healthy.

She was definitely sinking deeper. Judging from the tone of her last bellow, she knew it, too.

Dieter allowed himself an exasperated sigh. 'Well, I guess we'd better get her out.'

Epifanio, in a few economical movements, had his lariat dropping over the panicked cow's horns, down over her throat. He wrapped it a couple of times around his saddle horn and backed his horse, pulling the cow's head up and not

noticeably improving her mood.

'I don't really want to strangle her,' Dieter said. 'I just want to get her out.'

The overseer smiled and waved his arm expressively at the near-buried bovine.

'There's nothing else to drop a rope on, senor,' he said. 'I'm just trying to keep her from sinking any further. What we're going to have to do—'

'We're going to have to get in there with her,' von Rossbach agreed.

Epifanio nodded. 'And she's going to kick the hell out of us, too.' The overseer grimaced.

'Okay, strangle her,' Dieter muttered.

Epifanio gave his boss a sidelong glance, not sure whether he was serious or not.

'I know what to do,' Dieter said, dismounting.

He took his own rope, and after tying one end to his saddle horn, he handed his reins to his overseer. 'Don't let him walk off,' he said with a meaningful look, which Epifanio returned with one of cherubic innocence. Then von Rossbach walked toward the bog.

At the edge of the stinking, scum-covered quagmire he took off his boots and socks. He was certain to lose them to suction if he didn't. It should be safe enough to put his bare feet in the muck. There were a number of poisonous snakes and insects in this country, but in all probability very few of them could live under a meter of slime. He seriously considered taking off his trousers, but

decided that would make too good a story. Especially if he were to lose his underwear to the mud.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped in. It was cool and far from smooth, he could feel things sliding through his toes. Very quickly Dieter was up to his knees and realizing that the smell was even worse that he'd found it on the shore, as if the earth itself had developed a severe case of flatulence.

So this is where the bodies are buried. He'd been a village boy himself, born in an alpine hamlet where people were only a generation from living over the cow byres, but he'd left that as soon as he could. Twenty years in the big city had dulled his memory of how bad the countryside could smell.

He walked toward the cow, making soothing noises, but she reacted with a fresh panic attack. She thrashed and mooed, waving her head around on her strong neck as though trying to reach him with her horns.

Stupid beast, he thought. He was easily two meters away from her yet. They see differently, he reminded himself. Maybe I look a lot closer.

Dieter yanked one foot out of the mud with an audible sucking noise, holding his arms out for balance. He sank it back into the bog and leaned forward to pull out the other one, then flailed for balance as his leg plunged to above the knee. He stood still for a moment as the cow went wild.

I guess that would look threatening to a frightened cow, he thought. To her a human waving his arms with a coil of rope in one hand usually meant she was about to be knocked down, sat on, and branded. Probably not a happy memory.

Sometimes he suspected that they knew why human beings kept them around,

too. Pigs certainly did. He refused to have any of those on the estancia.

Grimly he pulled himself forward, forced to lunge now because he was up to his waist in muck. At last he grabbed onto Epifanio's rope and pulled himself along.

Finally he was there. The cow bawled for help, eyes rolling.

Dieter wound up and smacked her in the middle of the forehead with a massive balled fist; her head fell to the side with a drawn-out moo, like a tired squeaky toy. Then she lay with eyes half-closed, her steam-engine panting slowing to a steady deep wushhhh… wushhhhh.

Epifanio's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. Clearly those muscles weren't just for show.

Meanwhile, Dieter, up to his chest in mud, pushed the rope halfway around her loins. Then he dragged himself over to her other side, and after an unpleasant, and all-too-long episode with his nose almost under the stinking mud, he found the rope again and dragged it through. Then he labored back to the forequarters of the cow, squatting and reaching down until his hands closed around the big cannon bones. He clamped them tight, took a deep breath, then straightened, pulling with legs and gut. That drove him deeper, but eventually the mud gave way with a deep sucking sound, and the semiconscious cow came up to lie with its mud-caked forelegs flat on the surface of the swamp. Then he tied off the rope and signaled to his overseer to back the horses.

He held on to Epifanio's rope, and when they got into the shallows he pushed her over on her side and slid the rope down over her forequarters, allowing them to drag her out completely.

By the time she was on dry land she was starting to come to, but was very subdued. Her head wobbled on her muddy neck and she blinked in confusion.

'She's going to have a rotten headache, and a pretty sore stomach,' Epifanio observed.

'She's lucky she's feeling anything,' Dieter said. 'I think she would have gone under in another hour.'

'Less than that, senor. I almost went under myself once when I was young and so stupid I went in after a cow by myself.'

'Perhaps we should drain it,' Dieter said thoughtfully.

' Si, you could do that,' Epifanio agreed. 'But it would be a big, expensive job.

And at most we lose a cow or two a year to the mud. It would take a lot of cows to make such an expense worthwhile.'

Dieter gave him a considering look.

'Then I'll have to see if I can't think of an inexpensive way to do it.'

He tied his boot laces together and slung them over his saddle, then swung himself up with a grimace for the work it was going to take to clean his saddle.

To the annoyance of his horse, who whickered disapproval at the stench of its rider.

Well, I'm not going to walk barefoot through that grass, horse, with all those snakes and scorpions hiding in there. And I'm not going to ruin my boots from

the inside instead of the outside, he thought. You'll just have to get over it.

'I'll leave you to bring her back to the paddock,' Dieter said, and thumped his bare heels into the horse's