"Barrancones Spring."
"Perfect."
"Shane's got everything under control," Tom said. "I don't have to get back at all this afternoon."
He felt a twinge of guilt. He'd been relying on Shane far too much this past week.
They reached the bluffs and began climbing the narrow trail to the top. A hawk circled above them, whistling. The air smelled of cottonwood trees and dust.
"Damn, I love this country," Sally said.
The trail wound up the side of the mesa into the cool ponderosa pines. In half an hour they reached the top and Tom turned his horse to look at the view. He never got tired of it. To his left was the steep flank of Pedernal, and to his right the sheer orange cliffs of Pueblo Mesa. Below lay the irregular alfalfa fields along Canones Creek, which opened to the vast Piedra Lumbre Valley, one hundred thousand acres broad. On the far side rose up the stupendous outline of the Mesa of the Ancients, notched by
canyons-the beginning of the high mesa country. Somewhere, out there, lay the fossil of a fabulous Tyrannosaurus rex-and a half-crazy monk looking for it. He glanced over at Sally. The wind was blowing her honey hair and her face was turned into the light, her lips slightly parted in pleasure and awe.
"Not a bad view," she said with a laugh.
They continued on, the wind rustling through the sideoats grama grass that edged the trail. He let Sally ride ahead and watched her on her horse. They continued to ride in silence, the only sound the rhythmic creaking of their saddles.
As the country opened up to high grasslands of Mesa Escoba, she touched her heels to Sierra's flank and moved into a trot. Tom followed suit. They abandoned the trail, riding across the windblown grass, dotted with Indian paintbrush and lupines.
"Let's go a little faster," Sally said, giving her horse another nudge with her heel. He broke into an easy lope.
Tom kept pace. At the far end of the meadow Tom could see the cluster of cottonwoods marking Barrancones Spring, at the base of a red cliff.
"All right," cried Sally. "Last one to the spring is a rotten egg! Giddyap!" She gave Sierra one final touch of heel. The horse shot forward, stretching out into a dead run while Sally gave a whoop.
Knock, who always wanted to be in the lead, needed little urging to follow suit, and soon they were tearing across the meadow, neck and neck. Sally began to pull ahead, her hair streaming behind like a golden flame. Tom watched her fly, and he had to admit she was one hell of a rider. The two horses whipped over the grass and into the sudden cool of the trees surrounding the spring. At the last minute, Sally reined in and Tom followed; the horses leaned back and dug in like the well-trained reining horses they were, sliding to a stop. When he looked over, he saw Sally sitting on her horse, her hair wild, her white shirt partly open, having popped a couple of buttons, her face in high color.
"That was fun."
She hopped off the horse.
They were in a small grove of cottonwoods, with an old fire ring in the center
and a couple of logs for seats. Geniza.ro cowboys from days gone by had built a line camp here, with tables shaped from rough-hewn logs of ponderosa, a wooden box nailed to a trunk, a broken piece of mirror wedged into the fork of a tree, and a chipped enamel washbowl hung from a nail. The spring itself lay at the bottom of the cliffs, a deep pool hidden behind a screen of desert willows.
Tom collected the two horses, unsaddled them, watered them at the spring, and staked them out to graze. When he returned, Sally had spread out lunch on a thin blanket. In the middle of the table was a bottle of red wine, freshly opened.
"Now that's class," said Tom, picking it up. "Castello di Verrazzano, '97 Riserva.,”
"I snuck it in my saddlebags. I hope you don't mind."
"It's been dreadfully shakenup, I fear," said Tom in mock disapproval. "Are you sure we should be drinking at lunch? It's against the rules to drink and ride."
"Well now," Sally drawled in imitation of him, "we're just going to have to bend the rules, aren't we?" She tucked into her sandwich,
taking two great bites, and then poured some wine into a plastic glass. "Here."
He took it, swirled it around, and sipped, aping a connoisseur. "Berries, vanilla, hints of chocolate."
Sally poured herself a glass and took a good slug. Tom took a bite from his own sandwich and watched her eat. A green light filtered through the foliage, and every time a breeze blew the trees rustled. When he finished his lunch, he lounged back on the blanket they had thrown down over the soft grass. In the distance, through the cottonwoods, he could see the horses grazing out on the flats, dappled in sunlight.
Suddenly he felt a cool hand on his temple. He turned and found Sally was bending over him, her blond hair falling like a curtain.
"What are you doing?"
She smiled. "What does it look like?"
She laid her hands on either side of his face. Tom tried to sit up, but the hands gently pushed him back down into the grass.
"Hey . . ." he said.
"Hey yourself."
One of her hands slid inside his shirt, caressing his chest. She bent down and put her lips to his. Her mouth tasted of peppermint and wine. She leaned over him and her hair fell heavily across his chest.
He reached up to touch her hair, then stroked it and ran his hand down to the strong hollow of her back, where he could feel her back muscles moving. As he drew her down, he felt her slender body and soft breasts glide up against his.
AFTERWARD, THEY LAY next to each other on the blanket. Tom's arm was thrown over her shoulder and he was looking into her amazing turquoise eyes. "Doesn't get much better than this, does it?" he said. "No," she murmured. "It's so good it almost makes me afraid."
7
MADDOX STROLLED UP Canyon Road and rounded the corner at Camino del Monte Sol. A forest of hand-carved signs greeted his gaze, festooning both sides of the narrow lane, each trying to outdo the other in hand-crafted cuteness. The sidewalks were crowded with tourists decked out as if for a trip across the Sahara Desert, with floppy sun hats, water bottles strapped to their waists, and big-lugged hiking shoes. Most of them looked pale-faced and confused, as if they'd just emerged like grubs from the rain-rotten cities of the East. Maddox himself was going for the rich Texan look today, and he figured he'd gotten it down pretty good with his Resistol, boots, and a bolo tie sporting a manly, golfball-sized chunk of turquoise.
The road passed some old Victorian houses, converted like everything else into gallery space, windows gleaming with Indian jewelry and pots. He checked his watch. Noon.
He still had a little more time to kill.
He wandered in and out of the galleries, amazed at the sheer quantity of silver, turquoise, and pottery there was in the world-not to mention paintings. Art, Maddox felt, was basically a scam, as his eye took in one more window full of Day-Glo-colored canyons, coyotes howling at the moon, and Indians draped in blankets. Another easy way to make money, and all perfectly legal. Why hadn't he seen the opportunities before? He'd wasted half his life trying to make money the hard, illegal way, not realizing that the best moneymaking scams were all legal. When he was finished with this last job, he'd go one hundred percent legit, plow some money back into Hard Time, and maybe even look for investors. He could be the next dot-corn millionaire.
One gallery packed with enormous sculptures in bronze and stone caught his eye. The stuff looked expensive-just moving it would cost a fortune. The door
chimed as he entered and a young woman came clicking up on high heels, giving him a bright lipsticked smile.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Sure thing," he said, already hearing a drawl in his voice. "This sculpture h "-he ere
nodded at the biggest one he could see in the store, a life-sized group of Indians carved out of a single piece of stone that weighed three tons if it weighed an ounce. "If you don't mind me asking, how much is it?"
" Blessingway. That's one seventy-five."