Ten said nothing.
"But they're just going to have to wait in line," Luke continued. "I've got all the trouble you can handle right in September Canyon."
Without moving, Ten became fully alert. Luke saw the change and smiled thinly.
"You expecting some kind of trouble at the site?" Ten asked.
Luke looked at Carla. "Don't I hear Logan crying?" he asked.
"Why don't you go and check?" Carla offered.
The look Luke gave Carla plainly said he wished she weren't listening to what he was saying to Ten. She looked right back, plainly telling Luke that she wasn't leaving without a good reason. Reluctantly he smiled, but when he turned to Ten the smile faded.
"The sheriff called," Luke said. "There's a ring of pothunters working the Four Corners. They dig during the week and avoid the weekends when there are more people in the back country. They're professional and they're tough."
"How tough?"
"They roughed up some folks over in Utah. The Park Service isn't making any noise about it, but the back-country rangers are going armed these days. So are the pothunters."
"Want me to leave now for the site?" Ten asked.
"No. One of the sheriffs men is camping out that way, unofficially. But he's got to be back on the road early tomorrow."
Into the dining room came the clear sound of an unhappy baby. Carla put her hand on Luke's shoulder and pressed down, silently telling him not to get up.
"I'll leave before dawn," Ten said, watching Carla hurry from the room.
"The professor won't like that."
"I'll be quiet," Ten said dryly.
"Don't bother. She's going with you. That little Japanese rice burner of hers wouldn't get four miles up the pasture road, much less across Picture Wash to September Canyon."
Ten smiled rather wolfishly. "She's not going to like being trapped in a truck with me. Or are you sending Carla to ride shotgun?"
"Nope," Luke said cheerfully. "She's got two full-time jobs riding herd on me and the baby."
"That's the problem. We've all got too damn many full-time jobs and not enough hands."
"I put the word out at every ranch for three hundred miles," Luke said, stretching his long arms over his head. "All we can do is wait. Jason Ironcloud promised he'd start breaking horses as soon as his sister's husband is out of jail. Until then, he's got to take care of her ranch."
"What's the husband in for-the usual?" Ten asked.
"Drunk and disorderly."
"The usual."
Luke grunted agreement.
Ten rubbed his raspy chin thoughtfully. "Nevada called. He's pulling out of Afghanistan. He'll be home in a few weeks."
Luke glanced sideways at Ten. "Is he still a renegade?"
"All the Blackthorns are wild. It's the Highland Scots blood."
"Yeah. Outlaws to the bone. Like you. You don't make any noise about it, but you go your own way and to hell with what the rest of the world thinks."
Ten said only, "A few years of guerrilla warfare tends to settle down even the wildest kid."
"You should know."
"Yes. I should know."
Luke nodded and said softly, "Hire him."
Ten looked at Luke. "Thanks. I owe you one."
"No way, compadre. I should have been the man to shake the kinks out of Baker, not you."
A slight smile crossed the ramrod's face. "My pleasure."
Luke looked thoughtful. "Does Nevada fight the same way you do?"
"Wouldn't surprise me. He was taught by the same people."
"Good. He can trade off guarding September Canyon with you." Luke sighed and rubbed his neck wearily. "You know, there are days I wish Carla had never found those damn ruins. It's costing us thousands of dollars a year in manpower alone just to keep pothunters out."
"We could do what some of the other ranchers have done."
"What's that?"
"Sell some of the artifacts to pay for protecting the ruins."
"The September Canyon ruins are on your part of the ranch," Luke said, his face expressionless. "Is that what you want to do?"
Ten shook his head. "I'll give the land back to you before I sell off artifacts. Or I'll give the land back to the government if neither one of us can afford to protect the ruins. My head knows that ninety-eight percent of those artifacts aren't uniques-universities and museums are full of Anasazi stuff as good or better. Once the excavation has been carefully done, there's no good reason not to get back the cost of the digging by selling off some of the stuff."
"But?" Luke asked.
Ten shrugged. "But my gut keeps telling me that those artifacts belong in the place where they were made and used and broken and mended and used again. It's pure foolishness but that's how I feel about it, and as long as I can afford it, I plan on keeping my foolish ways."
Luke looked at Ten and said quietly, "If my drunken daddy had sold pieces of the Rocking M to anybody but you, I would have been in a world of hurt with no place to call home."
Ten stood and clapped Luke on the shoulder. "It was an even trade, compadre. Back then, I was in a world of hurt and looking for a home."
"You've got the home. What about the hurt? Still have that?"
"I got over it a long time ago."
"Then why haven't you married again?"
"A smart dog doesn't have to be taught the same lesson twice," Ten said sardonically. "I'm a hell of a lot smarter than a dog."
"She must have been something."
"Who?"
"Your ex-wife."
Ten shrugged. "She was honest. That's better than most. When the sex wore off she wanted out. By then I was more than willing. Next time I was smarter. I didn't marry just because my blood was running hot. After a few weeks the same thing happened, only this time the girl didn't want to admit it. I shipped out the first chance I got."
"That was a long time ago. You were a wild kid chasing girls who wereno better than they had to be. You're different now."
Ten shook his head, "You got lucky, Luke. I didn't. You learned one thing about women and marriage. I learned another."
Without giving Luke a chance to speak, Ten left the room. Behind him, Luke sat motionless, listening to the sound of Ten's fading footsteps and the soft thump of a closing door.
4
As the dirt road zigzagged across national forest lease lands and down the steep side of the high, mountainous plateau where the Rocking M ranch buildings were located, the land became more dry and the earth more intensely colored. Gullies became deeper, rocky cliffs more common, and the creeks and rivers widened into broad, often dry washes winding among spectacular stone-walled canyons. Juniper and pinon mixed with sagebrush, giving the air a clean, pungent smell. In deep, protected clefts where tiny springs welled forth, a handful of true pine trees grew next to cottonwoods. Along the canyon bottoms the brash thinned to clumps. Depending on altitude or exposure, juniper, pinon, cedar and big sage grew.
Diana watched the changing landscape intently, seeking the plants that were the hallmark and foundation of Anasazi culture-yucca and pinon, bee plant and goosefoot. On the higher flatlands she also looked for stands of big sage, which grew where the earth had been disturbed and then abandoned by man. Each time another nameless canyon or gully opened up along the rough dirt road, she looked at the unexplored land with a yearning she couldn't disguise.
"Stop it," Ten said finally. "You're making me feel like the Marquis de Sade."
Startled, Diana turned toward him. "What?"
"Don't worry. I'm not talking about the way you hug the door handle as though it were your last hope of safety," Ten drawled, giving her a sideways glance.