I Shall Not Want

headed up the mountain to meet with Isobel Christie in a high, sheltered meadow that straddled Christie and McGeoch land. Not that he was going to tell Raul that. 'I followed the stream that runs past our bunkhouse one evening. I was curious.'

Raul shaded his eyes against the strong rays of the morning sun as he followed the path of the water. 'You're crazy. I wouldn't get off my bed if I weren't getting-' He took a step forward, then another.

'Hello there. Aren't you forgetting your buckets?'

'What's that?' Raul's voice sounded different. Amado holstered his wire cutters and walked over to where the other man stood, a scant foot away from the crumbling edge of the stream gully. Raul pointed. 'There. You see that?'

Amado nodded. It was an odd shape, soft amid the sharp angles of rock and tree and spiky fern. Half hidden in a cluster of bushes and sucker vine. White and red against the brown and gray and green. He stooped, picked up a rock, and lobbed it as hard as he could toward the thing. A cloud of furious flies rose into the air. Something dead.

Raul's lips thinned. 'A cow?'

'I don't think so.' Amado stepped over the grassy edge, taking a moment to let his boot find a good firm hold in the gully's soil.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to take a look.'

'Forget it! Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with us! Leave it alone!'

Amado ignored him, making his way down the steeply angled slope step by step, pausing when too much earth crumbled beneath his boots. He reached the water and walked downstream a few yards, until he reached a wide and shallow spot. He forded the stream the same way he descended into the wash, slowly and carefully.

Downstream and downwind, he could smell it. His nose wrinkled and he turned his head without meaning to, overwhelmed by the sour-sweet reek of corruption.

'You're crazy! You'll have the police out here! We'll have to hide in the woods again!'

Amado dipped his neckerchief in the water and held it close to his nostrils. It helped some. He hiked up to where the bushes were dug into the slope with knotted half-visible roots that looked like old men's fingers.

He saw the flat green leaves and the starburst clusters of tiny white flowers. He saw the pale birch saplings trembling in the mountain's exhalation. He saw the dead thing. He saw the bloat, and the burst skin, and the white bone and the gray brain. He saw the place where an animal had chewn off the cloth and started to-

He turned away. Closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the acid rush of his stomach's contents. He retraced his steps downslope, recrossed the stream, and climbed the opposite side to the gully.

Raul just looked at him. He knew what it was. He had known since he first spotted it. His eyes pleaded with Amado to ignore what they had found. 'Let's just go,' he whispered. 'Finish the fence. We don't have to have seen anything.'

Amado shook his head. The…thing caught in the underbrush may have had a family. Had a girl. Had friends. Somewhere, someone was praying. Waiting and hoping and dreading.

'Let's go get the truck,' Amado said. 'We have to go back.'

IV

Clare attributed the sense that she was being watched to her general uneasiness. Standing in the McGeochs' barnyard, struggling to make light conversation with Russ Van Alstyne's sister, was not her idea of a fun way to spend a Friday morning. She kicked out her ankle-length skirt, surreptitiously checking to make sure she hadn't marked the black cotton with dust-or worse-from the barnyard. She had a Eucharist to celebrate at noon, and she didn't want to show up smelling like cow manure.

'So,' Janet said. 'I'm pleased Amado is working out for you. I mean, with his broken arm and all.'

'Mmm.' Where was the kid? Janet had called the bunkhouse's phone right after Clare arrived. That had been ten minutes ago. He knew they needed him at the church today. Or at least she thought he did. Giving him directions by reading out of a Spanish-English phrase book left room for misinterpretation.

'So… how's the lady who was driving them-him? The nun.'

'Sister Lucia. She's in rehab in Glens Falls. Broken hip. She sounded mighty peeved about it when I called her. They're keeping a close eye on her. She was pretty banged up for a woman her age.'

'Ah. Good.' Janet shoved her hands in her jeans pockets. ' Elizabeth 's down in Albany for a conference?'

'Diaconate training.' And what was with Janet? When they had met in the hospital, she had been to-the-point and self-assured. Very… Van Alstyne-like, Clare supposed. Now she was as jumpy as the proverbial long-tailed cat.

'It said in the paper you're having a choral concert tonight.' Janet twisted around as she spoke, looking in the direction of the old bunkhouse, hidden from their view by the massive barn.

'Yeah. Last one of the season before the choir disbands for the summer.' Clare blinked. It wasn't her imagination. That shadow, the one between the side of the barn and the milk tank. It had moved. 'Janet. Is that… Amado?'

The shadow detached itself from the barn and walked into the sunlight. No, not her employee. This clean-shaven man was a half-dozen years older, broader at the shoulders, with two whole muscular arms and the grimly determined expression of someone carrying out an unpleasant duty.

'My,' Clare said. 'You certainly got those legal replacement workers fast.'

Janet's mouth opened. Clare could see her casting about for a denial. Then she shut her mouth. Her face collapsed into lines of guilt and anxiety. 'You can't tell. I mean it, Clare, we could be seriously screwed if you told.'

Clare sighed. 'How long have they been here?'

'The first one got here the morning after the accident. The last one'-she flicked her fingers in the direction of the man crossing the barnyard toward them-'got in two days later.'

'Did you check their papers?'

'Of course we did!' Janet ran her fingers through her blond hair. Clare could see where her roots were coming in, sandy brown and gray like her brother's. 'They were all fakes. Just like the one Agent Hodgden showed us.'

The man was almost to them. 'Janet, have you and your husband thought this through? I mean, not just about the fines or what all you'll be liable for. What about Russ?'

'What about him?'

Clare put her hands on her hips. 'Playing dumb doesn't suit you.'

Janet exhaled. 'He's not going to find out. We keep them out of sight if someone's here.'

'Oh. You mean, like right now?'

'He's not supposed to come into the barnyard if he sees-' her voice switched abruptly from panic to control. 'Hola, Octavio. ?Que pasa?'

'Senora McGeoch,' he said. His dark eyes flickered toward Clare. She could see a resemblance to Amado, in his aristocratic cheekbones and his nose like an adze. She remembered what Paula Hodgden had said, about groups of men coming from the same village. If it was anything like Millers Kill, they were