'I know it. Maybe this isn't a good time for you to be looking for land.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' Kerney asked.
'Maybe better land will come on the market later down the road. Want to call it a day?'
'We've got one more to go?'
'Down by Three Rivers.'
'Let's check it out.'
Twenty sections south of Three Rivers were up for sale, running from the arid basin to the foothills that defined the western boundary of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Once, it had been part of the Albert Bacon Fall holdings that consumed a million acres from the Sacramento Mountains to the westerly San Andres Mountains.
Fall had been a senator from New Mexico before becoming Warren Harding's Secretary of the Interior. His political career ended with the famous Teapot Dome scandal, amid charges that he had engaged in shady deals regarding national petroleum reserves set aside for the Navy.
Kerney asked Dale to take the old road to the ranch headquarters. He wanted to see the rodeo grounds that had once drawn ranching families from throughout the area for several days of friendly competition. As teenagers, he and Dale had won the team calf-roping event three years running.
All that remained under the grove of trees were some rotting boards from the judging stand and a few fence posts.
'Those were good times,' Dale said, staring out the truck window as they drove slowly by.
'Yes, they were,' Kerney answered.
They got permission from the ranch manager to tour the land, and took off on a dirt road that wound into the hills. Good rains over the summer had greened up the terrain, but the ground was rocky, with sparse topsoil, and only patches of bunch grass thrived.
Below them, the Tularosa Basin, once a broad savanna, spread out to the far off San Andres Mountains. Not even a half century of protection by the military had restored the fragile basin from years of drought and overgrazing. Where knee-high grasses once grew, now mesquite, saltbush, and creosote bush crowded out the more fragile native vegetation.
Inside an open gate high in the foothills, Kerney and Dale walked the land, neither of them happy with soil so poorly suited to retain moisture. In front of them, the twin peaks of Sierra Blanca on the Apache Reservation dominated the skyline.
'Not much you can do with this,' Dale said with a shake of his head.
'It would take a full section to run one cow.' The short wail of a siren cut off Kerney's response. A four- wheel-drive bore down upon them, emergency lights flashing, and ground to a halt next to Dale's truck.
The man who got out of the truck and moved toward them wore a tribal police uniform shirt. In his mid to late twenties, he was five-ten, with an olive brown complexion and dark hazel eyes.
'Let me see some ID,' the officer said, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered weapon.
'Is there a problem, Officer?' Kerney asked, flipping open his badge case.
'You're trespassing on Apache land,' the officer said, dismissing Kerney's shield with a glance. 'I need a driver's license from both of you.'
Dale fished out his wallet while Kerney did the same. As he watched Kerney hand the officer his license Dale thought there was something familiar about the young man, but he couldn't place it in his mind.
'We didn't see a sign.' Kerney said.
The officer pointed to a placard fifty yards away and plucked the driver's license from Dale's hands. 'Wait here.'
'So much for professional courtesy,' Kerney said, as he watched the young officer stand next to the vehicle, open a citation book, and start writing.
'We're getting tickets?'
'Looks that way.'
The officer finished up and returned. 'You can either pay the fine by mail or appear in tribal court,' he said. The name tag over his right shirt pocket read OFFICER CLAYTON ISTEE
'Is the ticket necessary, Officer?' Kerney asked.
'Apache land, Apache laws,' Istee said, nodding at the open gate.
'I'll wait here until you leave.'
'Cocky young fellow,' Kerney said, as Dale fired up the truck and drove through the gate.
'Apaches don't like us much,' Dale said. 'Actually, he reminds me of you.'
'I was never that sassy.'
'Oh, really? I meant his looks. He looks like you. Didn't you notice
'You've got to be kidding.'
'Same deep-set eyes, same frame, same chin.'
The memory of Isabel Istee, his girlfriend during his senior year in college, ran through Kerney's mind. The only girl he'd been serious about up to that time, she'd dumped him without warning or explanation. Whatever her reasons were, it didn't matter anymore. Or did it? He shook his head. It wasn't possible.
'So, don't agree with me,' Dale said, misreading Kerney's reaction.
'Let's call it a day, Dale,' Kerney said, looking out the window, his thoughts still on Isabel.
'Whatever you say.'
Dale dropped Kerney off at the command trailer, where Kerneys unit, sporting four brand-new tires, was parked outside.
On the office desk Lee Sedillo had left a sealed envelope containing his car keys and a note. Nothing had come from the patrol officer's attempt to identify, the person responsible for the vandalism. Since the investigation team was staying at Kerney's motel, Lee had queried each agent about the incident. No one had noticed the damage. Because all personnel had left the motel before Kerney, Lee speculated that the crime occurred after the agents were gone and while Kerney was still in his room. Therefore, it was not a random act.
Lee and the agents were in the field conducting interviews. Kerney spent the remainder of the day poring over the information that had been gathered in the letter-bombing homicide of Marsha Langsford. He finished up by phoning the senior ATF and FBI agents who had supervised the investigation, in the hope that some important shred of evidence had been left out of the case files.
Both agents had concentrated attention on members of the American Indian Movement, a radical Indian rights organization, most famous for the shootout with U.S. Marshals and the FBI at Oglala, South Dakota, in the summer of 1976.
The feds had identified an AIM 'cell' that had remained active in the Four Corners region of the state on the Navajo Nation. It had two Mescalero members. On the telephone, the FBI agent kept circling back to the AIM group. But all the evidence showed that the group's concerns at the time were treaty rights, not reservation casino gaming.
When Kerney pointed out that no group had claimed responsibility for the letter-bomb attack, the agent dismissed his observation, arguing that the Apaches were secretive, warlike by nature, and therefore still suspect.
The ATF agent Kerney talked to grudgingly admitted that AIM had never been a suspect in any type of terrorist bombing. But that didn't hold him back from rattling on about the lack of cooperation he'd received from tribal officials during the investigation.
Kerney hung up feeling that both men wanted a quick and easy cowboy and Indian solution to the case and had conveniently blamed the tribe when their investigation stalled.
Before Kerney left to return to his motel room, Lee Sedillo arrived and informed him that the subjects known to have visited all the campgrounds on the days prior to the shootings were in the clear.
'Nothing suspicious at all, Chief,' Lee said. 'No connections with the victims, and no weak alibis.'
'Well, that's one rabbit trail we don't have to keep following,' Kerney said, as he walked to the door.
