sloped shoulders that would generate a fluid stride. He got the gear out of the tack room, saddled the horses, and sat on the top rail of the paddock waiting for Jim's return. The first light of dawn revealed the ranch house. It was a territorial-style L-shaped adobe with thick wood lintels above the first-floor windows. The sloping roof had a series of dormer windows over a covered porch.
The porch light came on, and Jim hurried out with pistol belts looped over his shoulder, clutching two rifles.
'What did you tell your dad?' Kerney replied. He put the rifles in the gun boots and fastened a pistol belt around Jim's waist.
'I told him we were going after a predator,' Jim answered.
'Did you tell him it was the two-legged kind?' Kerney asked, smiling.
He buckled on his own pistol belt and swung into the saddle.
'I left that part out,' Jim answered.
They followed a sinuous creek bed through a moist, sandy wash into the mountains, cutting back and forth in hairpin turns through the shallow, fast running stream of a slot canyon. It was slow going as the horses picked their way over smooth, slippery cobblestones. Above them the early-morning sky turned blue, but the gloom of night still hung in the canyon, and rising mist from the stream created the feeling of a dreary winter's day.
At a fast-rushing pool they walked the horses up a steep bank past walnut trees stained dark by water, the limbs weighed down by moisture-laden leaves. Kerney remounted at the top of the bank and stopped to watch a Gila woodpecker light on an exposed rock in the pool.
It dipped down for a drink, and the red crown patch flashed at Kerney.
Then it dropped into the pool for a morning bath and flapped its striped wings.
Kerney rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked down at the wrinkled, sweat-stained, stinky shirt that badly needed washing. Reality hit: he was unemployed, under suspicion, and wearing all that he possessed. What little he owned had been blown up. Clothes could be replaced, but his grandfather's two Navajo saddle blankets and the pictures of his parents-the only mementos he had of his family-were gone forever. Even the championship rodeo buckle was probably nothing more than a lump of melted metal.
He looked ahead. Stiles had his eyes glued on Kerney's face. He forced a smile.
'Are you all right?' Jim asked.
'Fine and dandy.'
'You look ready to pound the shit out of someone.'
'That's a damn good idea,' Kerney allowed.
'I just need to find the right someone.'
Alan Begay stood in the ankle-deep Negrito Creek wearing waders and holding a portable pH meter with a probe. The high acidity reading wasn't a surprise, given the closeness of the tailings pile to the streambed. The return visit to the creek had been demanded by the landowner's lawyers as a delaying tactic. Alan already pretty much knew that the readings wouldn't change. He grunted and noted the result in his field book.
Begay's thoughts jumped ahead to the report he would write and the additional shit he would have to face from Sanderson's lawyers. The three mine sites along the creek on the Double Zero property were spewing contaminants into the water and threatening the fish downstream.
You'd think that a big-time Detroit millionaire who used the Double Zero as a retreat and hunting lodge wouldn't mind spending some spare change to clean up the pollution. No way. Sanderson was fighting the proposed sanction tooth and nail.
Alan heard a clattering of hooves and turned to find Jim Stiles and Kevin Kerney riding toward him.
They reined in and looked down at him.
'Hello, Alan,' Jim said.
'Jim,' Begay replied. He shifted his attention to Kerney. Kerney was a big man, and on horseback he looked even bigger. The expression on Kerney's face was grim. Alan braced himself for a chewing-out.
'I didn't mean to get you in trouble,' he said.
'You didn't,' Kerney replied gently, reading Alan's dismay, as he slipped out of the saddle.
'Tell me what happened between you and Gatewood.'
'He came to see me at my room,' Alan answered.
'He said Steve Lujan had been murdered, and that he knew I had talked to you. He wanted to know about our conversation, and I told him. I didn't know what else to do.'
'You did the right thing,' Kerney said.
'It didn't feel like the right thing,' Alan countered.
Stiles nodded in the direction of the switchback trail that led to the Double Zero headquarters. The ranch sat on a flattop mesa overlooking a confusion of deep gorges and sheer cliffs that slashed north and south.
'Any activity up above?'
'A plane flew in a little while ago,' Begay answered.
'It's still there.'
'Did you recognize it?' Kerney asked.
Begay shook his head.
'I just heard it. What are you guys doing up here?'
Kerney remounted.
'Stay put, Alan,' he ordered.
'More cop stuff?'
'Just stay put,' Kerney replied genially.
Begay grinned and snapped off an exaggerated salute.
'Whatever you say.'
The edge of the mesa, thick with pinon and juniper trees, gradually opened onto a meadow that stopped at a dirt landing strip. A silver twin-engine Beechcraft was parked next to a pickup truck. Behind the plane, built on a rock outcropping that served as the foundation to the building, was a long stone house. A split-log staircase curved over the rocks and up to the porch. Old-growth pine trees kept the house in deep shade. The place had a rustic, turn-of-the-century feel to it.
They stayed in the trees out of sight watching two men unload crates from the plane and carry them to the truck.
'What do you think?' Jim asked.
'Is either one of them your man?'
'Can't tell from this distance. Let's go see. We'll stay in the trees and work our way around back.'
They were halfway to the ranch house when the distant sound of choppers cut the silence. Kerney and Stiles looked up at an empty sky and back at the Beechcraft. The two men unloading cargo started scrambling-one to the truck, the other to the plane.
A third man came running out of the house and swung himself into the bed of the truck as it started to roll. The Beechcraft's engine caught and the plane turned to taxi down the runway.
Out of the sun, three assault helicopters, all in a line, popped over the east ridge of the mesa, moving at over a hundred miles an hour. The choppers swung in an orbit over the field, one dropping to block the pickup that was running for the cover of the trees. As the chopper touched down, a door gunner fired a burst in front of the truck. Eight men, four from each side, all in black SWAT uniforms, hit the ground running. It was no contest. The team swarmed the vehicle without firing a shot.
A second chopper landed almost simultaneously, cutting off the Beechcraft. Eight more men piled out.
Four surrounded the plane, pulled the pilot from the cockpit, and put him in a spread-eagle position on the ground. The remainder of the squad moved in on the house.
The last chopper circled and made a complete Jass over the mesa. The pilot spotted Kerney and tiles, veered away, and landed out of rifle range.
Eight more men spilled out and scampered into the trees.
'Nicely done,' Kerney said with admiration in his voice.
'Think we should surrender?' Stiles asked.
'That's a good idea. Let's make it easy for them.'
Kerney moved his horse into the open, raised his hands, and clasped them behind his head. Jim followed suit,
