before Barbara led her off on a game trail that wandered down to a distant stock tank on the flats.
The breeze had pushed away a light haze and the Jornada sparkled under a harvest-yellow sun. Barbara pointed out the bleak San Cristobal Mountains, named for a friar who'd died on his return journey to Mexico four hundred years earlier. The peaks cut into the sky like sharp incisors, blunted only by the towering expanse of the Black Range that filled a hundred miles of the horizon to the west. Sunlight bounced off the metal roof of a distant wine-processing shed near the railroad tracks that cut through the Jornada, past the remnants of Engle, once a thriving railroad and ranching community.
Water for the acres of adjacent vineyards on the tableland was piped across the desert from Elephant Butte Lake, the largest water impoundment reservoir in the state, which ate up forty miles of land along the Rio Grande.
'Is Kerney's heart still set on ranching once he leaves the state police?' Barbara asked, as they stood looking at the view.
'He hasn't been talking about it quite as much as he used to.'
'I would never say this to Dale, but I wish there was a way for him to slow down and not work so hard. Except for our trip to Montana for your wedding, we haven't been anywhere as a family for the last five years.'
Sara nodded, her thoughts turning to her father and brother on the Montana sheep ranch. 'The work takes its toll.'
'And you can't tell these kind of men that they might not be twenty years old anymore,' Barbara said, turning to look at Sara.
'And what about you? Do you want this kind of life?'
'I grew up with it,' Sara said.
'That doesn't answer my question.'
'I want Kerney to be happy.'
'He's going to have a lot of options open to him,' Barbara said. 'Maybe he hasn't considered all of them.'
'Do you think he's holding on to an unrealistic dream?'
'You two fit together like a hand and glove, Sara. If both of you were going to build a ranch together, I'd say go for it. Ranching may be hard, but it's a wonderful way to live.'
'I know it is,' Sara said.
Barbara smiled. 'Want some advice?'
'I thrive on it,' Sara said playfully.
'Help Kerney learn how to enjoy all that money he stands to gain from the sale of Erma's land. I don't think it's sunk in that he's going to be a rich man.'
'Convince him to give up the dream?'
Barbara shook her head. 'Heavens, no. But he could ranch in a small way, for the fun of it, and enjoy life without worrying about the price of beef on the open market, or the next drought, or the cost of doing business.'
Sara bit her lip and thought about it. 'I don't think he could stand the idea of being anything but a dirty-shirt cowboy.'
Barbara patted Sara's arm. 'Encourage him to change his attitude. Believe me, I'd be on Dale in a flash if we had the financial wherewithal to ease up a bit.'
'That might take some doing.'
Wind blew Barbara's hair into her face. She pushed it away and settled down on a large boulder. 'Do you really want to see Kerney sink everything into something so risky? His dream could turn into a disaster real fast.'
'I've thought about that,' Sara said, joining her.
'Would you be willing to give up your career to help him make a go of it?' The sky lost color as mare's tail clouds masked the sun. Sara twisted her West Point class ring with her thumb. 'No.'
'Neither would I, if I had a profession I'd worked hard to achieve and was good at,' Barbara said.
'Kerney doesn't change his mind easily.' Barbara giggled.
'What?'
'You have an advantage. He's desperately, completely in love with you.'
Sara's sparkling eyes smiled. 'He does seem to adore me.'
'Enough said,' Barbara replied. She stood and started back up the trail. 'You get no more sisterly advice from this gal.'
'That's it?' Sara asked jokingly.
'For now. Let's get back and serve up some of that chocolate cake you made, if it hasn't already been devoured.'
Kerney gave Sara a kiss, watched her enter the jetway, and left the airport wondering if he'd married a mind reader. They had stayed up half the night in the hotel room talking about the future, with Sara raising questions that had been bouncing around in Kerney's mind, giving him a voice to talk about his apprehensions about starting a ranch and leaving law enforcement for good.
Nothing had been resolved, but Kerney felt a weight had been lifted.
Sara had suggested a range of options to be considered, all of them centered around the notion of more time together, establishing a permanent home, sharing responsibility-if indeed she was pregnant for raising a child, and allowing Kerney to pursue his aspirations.
She'd driven the point home by noting that the army might be willing to send her to law school, which was something she'd planned to do anyway sometime in the future. That would mean three years of detached duty and the chance for them to be together over an extended period of time.
The idea excited Kerney, especially when Sara made it clear she would apply to the University of New Mexico, which had an excellent program, as her first choice.
He drove out of the airport parking garage toying with ideas he hadn't considered before. For years, in different ways and for different reasons, both of them had been nomads. Marriage hadn't changed that.
But now there was a possibility it could change, at least for a very large chunk of time.
Caught up in a delightful daydream, he barely heard his call sign on the unit's radio. He keyed the microphone and responded.
'Hobeck just pulled up at his residence, Chief,' the agent on stakeout said.
'Is his sister with him?'
'Negative, but a visitor has been waiting. I ran the plate on his car. It's registered to Pomeroy and Associates. I checked the phone book. It's a law firm. This guy's a suit, fifty-five years old or thereabouts, chunky, with thinning hair.'
'Give me your location and stand by,' Kerney said, wondering what prompted Hobeck to seek legal counsel, hoping it had something to do with Margie.
Hobeck's house was in an upscale neighborhood in the foothills overlooking Albuquerque. The subdivision had been started during the brief time Kerney had been married to his first wife and attending graduate school in the city. Back then, the original developer had scarred the foothills with roads, clear-cut the vegetation, and built houses overlooking the city that sat like exposed Monopoly pieces on a life-size game board. It was now a hidden residential oasis for the well-off. Mature trees sheltered the homes, neat rows of decorative shrubs were carefully pruned, emerald green grass bordered brick walkways, and trimmed vines climbed thick stone walls.
Hobeck's residence sat on two lots at the end of a cul-de-sac. Surrounded by carefully arranged groves of evergreen trees, it presented a vaulted cathedral-style glassed entry to the street.
Kerney walked up the semicircular driveway and rang the bell. Hobeck answered with a look of dismay. In the daylight, Kerney could see the signs of years of heavy drinking etched on his face. 'You have no business coming here,' Hobeck said. 'Where's Margie, Mr. Hobeck?'
'My family matters aren't your concern.'
'I would think you'd want your best friend's murder solved.'
