Three miles back down the highway she came to a huge billboard. WELCOME TO OAK VISTA ESTATES, the sign read. MODELS OPENING SOON. Underneath, on the far side of a cattle guard, a narrow road wound off into the desert. Next to the cattle guard, propped against one of the uprights, was an orange-and-white hand-lettered sign. NO TRESPASSING, the sign announced. CONSTRUCTION VEHICLES ONLY.
Switching the Blazer into four-wheel drive, Joanna bounced across the cattle guard. She followed the narrow dirt track for the better part of a mile. By then she noticed that, although smoke from the slash burns was still rising in the brisk autumn air, the moving columns of dust she had spotted from farther up the road were no longer visible. She drove up to a construction shack behind which sat a row of transportable chemical toilets.
It was only when she arrived at the shack that Joanna realized why the earth-moving equipment was no longer moving. It was lunchtime. One whole wall of the construction shack-the shady side-was lined with dusty, hard-hat-wearing workers, all of whom sprawled in the shade, eating lunches out of lunch pails and brown paper bags.
One of the men, a muscular blond in his early thirties, stood up and sauntered toward her. He was stocky with the broad, bulging shoulders and bull neck of a chronic weight lifter. He swaggered up to Joanna’s unmarked Blazer, buttoning the top several buttons of a faded flannel shirt and grinning suggestively. Joanna rolled down her window.
“Hey, red,” he said, referring to Joanna’s bright red hair, “can’t you read, or didn’t you see the sign? It says ‘no visitors.’ Mr. Childers doesn’t want people who don’t belong hanging around here.”
Joanna pulled out her ID wallet and opened it. As soon as she did so, the extra badge she had picked up from the storeroom-the one she had planned to drop off for Junior-plummeted out of the wallet. It landed in the dirt with a tinny thank. Bent on retrieving it, Joanna bounded out of the truck. As she hit the ground, her ears were assailed by a series of approving catcalls from the other workers. Meanwhile, Mr. Weight Lifter beat her to the punch. When he handed the fallen badge back to Joanna, she was blushing furiously and still trying to offer him a glimpse of the other badge as well as her picture ID.
He chose to ignore both. “What’s the matter, little lady?” Mr. Weight lifter asked with a leering grin. “Are Crackerjacks having a run on badges these clays?”
At five feet four inches tall, Joanna Brady had spent a life-time being self-conscious about her height-or lack thereof-and being teased about it as well. Consequently, there were few terms that raised her ire more than a derisive “little lady,” although sarcastic comments about her hair color came in a close second.
“No,” she said frostily. “As a matter of fact, this badge came out of a box of Wheaties right along with my Colt 2000, my Glock, and my handcuffs. Care to tell me where I can find Mr. Childers?”
The leer retreated slightly but it didn’t disappear altogether. “He’s not here,” the man answered. “He went into town to grab some lunch.”
“Do you know what time he’ll be back?”
Mr. Weight Lifter raised his hard hat and swiped a grimy forearm across his forehead, leaving behind a muddy track on a sweat-stained brow. “Probably not before two-thirty or so. He believes in long lunches.”
Joanna dug in her pocket and pulled out a business card. “Tell Mr. Childers Sheriff Brady stopped by to see him,” she said. “Now then, one of my deputies is out here somewhere. Any idea where I’d find him?”
“The guy with the dog?”
Joanna nodded.
Taking her card, the man stuffed it into a shirt pocket that was scarred with the round telltale brand of an ever-present can of snuff. “Hey, you guys,” he called back to his fellow workers. “Anybody here know where that deputy went-the one with the big dog?”
One of the other men tossed a soda can past Joanna into trash can a few feet away. Dregs of soda sprayed out of the can, missing her dry-clean-only suit by mere inches. Evidently pleased with himself the guy favored Joanna with a gap-toothed grin as she dodged back out of the way.
“Up on the back forty,” he said. “Youse go straight up here and turn right at the barbed wire. It’ll take youse right to him.”
Dismissing her, the first guy ambled away. As he turned his back, Joanna noticed a sickeningly familiar bulge in his hip pocket. “Wait a minute,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He stopped, turned, and stared back at her disdainfully. “Are you talking to me?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s Rob. Rob Evans. Why? I notice you’re not wearing a ring. You interested in a date, maybe?”
Hoots of laughter erupted among Rob Evans’ fellow workers. Joanna didn’t smile. “I’m interested in knowing whether or not you have a permit to carry that concealed weapon,” she said.
Surprise spread over Evans’ face-surprise followed by dismay. He turned and looked down at his pocket, then back at her. “It’s not concealed,” he said.
“It is,” Joanna said. “It’s not readily displayed in a holster. It’s in your pocket and out of sight. That means it’s considered a concealed weapon and you’re required to have a permit. Hand it over.”
“My gun?”
“Either the gun or the permit, take your pick.”
For several long seconds, Joanna couldn’t tell whether or not Evans would comply. Finally he did. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a.22 handgun. Holding it gingerly by the barrel, he gave it to her. The Saturday-night special-a cheap knockoff-was such a non-brand name that Joanna didn’t recognize the label.
“It’s for protection,” Evans explained. “The job-site was attacked by rioters yesterday afternoon. We’ve got a right to defend ourselves. It says so in the U.S. Constitution-the right to have guns.”
Joanna wondered why it was that suddenly everybody in Cochise County was busy quoting the Bill of Rights to her.
“I’m familiar with the right to bear arms,” she said. “And while federal law allows for that, the criminal code of the state of Arizona specifically forbids the carrying of concealed weapons. Let me ask you again, Mr. Evans. Do you have a permit?”
“No,” he said, as his face turned beet-red. Seeing it, Joanna couldn’t tell if the heightened color came from anger, embarrassment, or both.
“How about a holster, then? Do you have one of those?”
“Sure. It’s in my truck.”
“Suppose you go get it,” Joanna said. “I can wait.”
Evans’ face turned that much redder. “It’s not here,” he hissed under his breath. “I came to work in a car pool this morning.”
While the other workmen watched in stony silence, Joanna expertly emptied the weapon of bullets. Then she slipped both the gun and the ammunition into her purse.
“Tell you what, Mr. Evans,” she said. “Here’s the deal. You can have your gun back as soon as you show up at my office in Bisbee with either a permit or a holster. Until then, I’m keeping it.”
“You can’t do that!” Evans bawled. “That’s unlawful search and seizure.”
“I haven’t written you up yet,” Joanna reminded him. “And I won’t, either, as long as you show up at my office within the next twenty-four hours to retrieve your weapon. In the meantime, I need to see some ID.”
Still grumbling objections, Evans dug out his wallet and handed over his driver’s license. While Joanna made a note of the number, she continued talking, speaking loud enough for everyone else’s benefit.
“As for the rest of you-” she told the gawking and fascinated onlookers, all of whom had long since given up any pretense of eating lunch. “I’m sure you all know from what happened yesterday that we have a pretty volatile situation on our hands. How many of the rest of you brought guns along to work today-for protection?”