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“Hey, Sheriff!” The voice came from over near the road where one of the volunteers had parked his old Dodge pickup. “I think you best come look at this.”

The fire chief helped the sheriff extricate the walker from a particularly swampy section and get back onto the hard-packed surface of the driveway, then the two of them headed for the road and the man who'd summoned him.

“What is it?” The moon was nearly full and the sheriff could see that the man was standing next to something dangling from the barbed wire fence that kept Mad Dog's buffalo herd from grazing the freshly sprouted wheat across the way.

“I'm not sure,” the man said. “Looks like some big old sawed-off shotgun. There's a webbed sling that appears to have got tangled up in the fence here, like someone in a hurry climbed out of the pasture and dropped this and then couldn't pull it free and didn't feel like hanging around to get it loose.”

The sheriff considered the ditch and decided against trying to wade across it. “You got a flashlight you can shine on it?”

The man did and the sheriff recognized it right away. It was a breach-loading M79 grenade launcher. Just like the ones troops were still carrying when he earned a Purple Heart in Southeast Asia.

***

A marked Tucson Police Department unit pulled up near the gate while the Sewa officer continued to question Heather and Ms. Jardine. The Tucson officers climbed out of their squad car and the Sewa captain sent one of his men to meet them. Heather picked up just enough of the conversation to understand they were arguing about jurisdiction. When an unmarked car glided in and deposited a couple of suits at the curb, the Sewa captain's face tightened and he stopped his interrogation.

“You two, go and sit on that bench over there.” It was back inside the gate. “Don't leave it. I'll be right back.”

The women didn't move to obey and he shot them a glare over his shoulder before intercepting the Tucson detectives.

“What do you think?” Ms. Jardine asked.

“I think we've got to be careful here. If we go in there and wait for him and he wins this argument, he just might detain us as material witnesses.”

“Yeah. This guy seems to have his heart set on your uncle as the killer.” Jardine shook her head. “You really think Mad Dog is here?”

“It sure sounds like it,” Heather said. “I mean, this guy knew about Hailey and the Mini Cooper.”

“So, what should we do?”

Heather's preference would have been slipping into the shadows and going to look for her uncle, but that wouldn't work. “Why don't you stay here and use my cell. Try Mad Dog. I know it's after two in Kansas, but call my dad next. He needs to know what's going on, especially if we get taken in. He might be able to make some things happen from his end.”

“While you do what?”

“I'm going to join that conversation. If somebody takes us into custody, I'd rather be in the hands of your big city pros than a tribal force we don't know anything about. It's too easy for little law enforcement agencies to let the legal niceties slide if that's more convenient. I don't think the Tucson Police Department will do that, especially if you've managed to let Dad know what's happening.”

Ms. Jardine agreed. She took Heather's cell phone and started punching numbers. Heather turned toward the street. She got a much angrier glare from the Sewa captain as she pulled her ID and introduced herself to the Tucson detectives.

“Welcome to town, Deputy English,” one of them said. “What's your interest in this?”

“We were in the process of establishing that,” the Sewa said. “Now, young lady, if you'd just go back over there with your friend and wait for me….”

Heather nodded toward the captain. “This man seems to think my uncle killed his officer. He's wrong about that, but he believes we're withholding evidence instead of cooperating. I thought maybe we should talk to you before he starts the water boarding.”

***

The sex shop was fresh out of breechcloths, but they had other things Mad Dog could strap on. A selection stood like a row of absurd stalagmites on a nearby display case.

At least they had body paint. Mad Dog decided on the large container of licorice, since he favored a nearly solid black look, except for vanilla lightning bolts. He bought some cherry, as well, to use as tint for the sand painting he wanted to make, and a little blueberry because he liked to mix that and vanilla to highlight the cosmological singularity, even if it wasn't traditional.

Mad Dog would have explained all this to the guy behind the counter, but the man seemed infected by a terminal case of ennui. What marginal interest he managed related to the items that Mad Dog might purchase, not how Mad Dog planned to use them. The guy at the magazine rack, though, moved from the bondage section to spanking—as close as he could get to listen in. Somehow, Mad Dog didn't feel like discussing Cheyenne religious concepts when a man wearing a raincoat on a cloudless evening hovered nearby.

“Anything else?” the counterman muttered.

“There is one thing.” Mad Dog could do with some corn pollen, but he was allergic to it. He'd discovered the perfect substitute, however. It was bright and sparkly and he'd first run across the product in a Wichita toy store. “I don't suppose you have any Genuine Official Magic Faerie Dust?”

The counterman's heavy eyelids lifted for the first time. He pulled away, ever so slightly. The guy in the raincoat suddenly decided to browse the most distant magazines, a section labeled FARM ANIMALS.

“No faerie dust?” Mad Dog had picked up on the men's reaction to the “f” word. He flopped a limp wrist in the counterman's direction and asked, “You probably don't have the unrated version of the
Brokeback Mountain
video, either?”

They didn't, and Mad Dog decided to stop amusing himself at their expense. “Just the body paints, then.” He paid cash and the counterman took it gingerly.

Mad Dog carried his bag of goods to the front door, where he found he couldn't resist one last barb. “Thank you so much,” he said in his best imitation of Truman Capote. “I'll be sure to recommend your wonderful establishment to all my friends.”

He minced out onto a deserted sidewalk and closed the door on a pair of horrified expressions. Mad Dog would have laughed, but a sudden flash of headlights reached around the building from the lot where he'd left his Mini. A police cruiser stuck its nose out of the lot and onto the sidewalk and an officer climbed from behind the wheel, cold eyes fixed on Mad Dog as the man reached for his side arm. The officer drew it, but he never managed to point it in Mad Dog's direction. Hailey flew around the corner and took it out of his hand. She passed Mad Dog in an explosion of claws and fur and disappeared around the opposite corner of the building, still carrying the weapon in her teeth.

Mad Dog followed her, as fast as his legs could carry him. It wouldn't take long for the cop to call in back-up. Besides, there was probably a shotgun clamped to the cruiser's dash.

***

What's a grenade launcher doing in Benteen County?” the fire chief muttered, but he couldn't be any more surprised than the sheriff.

His brother, Mad Dog, liked being the county's oddball, the guy who took a contrary stance on every issue. But, here, the worst that usually got him was a sharp retort or a nasty rumor spread behind his back.

“And who'd want to blow up Mad Dog's house?” the chief asked.

Who indeed, the sheriff wondered. Mad Dog had been especially annoying lately. Some out-of-state investors were partnering with the Benteen County Board of Supervisors to push for construction of an ethanol plant in Buffalo Springs. That could result in the biggest job hike in the county since the Gas–Food Mart decided to put on a night shift. And it wasn't just that an ethanol plant would offer new jobs. It could make farming in the county profitable again.

Mad Dog, of course, was against it. He'd been to every local meeting to argue that ethanol production wasn't really environmentally friendly. Sure, it replaced some petroleum in the marketplace, and with a renewable source, but it meant food wasn't being produced. And it took a lot of petroleum products to grow corn. Corn was the most profitable crop to turn into ethanol, so every acre involved in its production would have to be irrigated. Benteen County didn't get enough rainfall to grow it without help. The section of the Ogallala Aquifer under the county had receded from twenty to fifty feet in the last half century. Nobody knew how much farther it might drop. Or whether it might even run out all together. Except Mad Dog, of course, who was certain the ethanol plant would assure the aquifer dried up, after being further polluted by the fertilizers and pesticides that would be used on every acre.

As a result, some folks had been saying pretty nasty things about Mad Dog. Calling him the usual stuff, like pagan, and half-breed. Nutcase had been making the rounds, too. Sheriff English knew a couple of tough old farmers who'd like to duke it out with his brother. But he hadn't heard so much as a whisper about someone throwing a hissyfit and threatening his brother with serious bodily harm. And yet an old grenade launcher had been used on Mad Dog's house, most likely, with the expectation Mad Dog would be home at the time.

Sheriff English tried Mad Dog's cell phone again. Again, it immediately took him to Mad Dog's message box. That meant his brother was either somewhere without service or, as usual, had turned the thing off. Unless it had been somewhere in the ruined house….

The sheriff's daughters might know. One of them was in Tucson. She'd been planning this trip to attend Sandra Day O'Connor's lectures for months. The other, his would-be anthropologist, had called to tell him she was stuck in Lubbock this weekend. He checked his phone and discovered it was almost 2:30. Too late to call Lubbock, and half an hour into Saturday morning in Tucson. He didn't think he should call there, either.

And then he didn't have to, because his cell started chiming in his hand and he could see that Heather was calling him.

“Sheriff. I was afraid I'd wake you.” It wasn't Heather's voice.

“Ms. Jardine?” Who else would call from his daughter's phone? “Is something wrong?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. You picked up before the second ring.”

“My job is keeping me up late tonight,” the sheriff said. Then, “What do you mean not yet?”

“Heather thought you should know. We might end up being held by Tucson or Sewa Tribal Police tonight.”

The sheriff almost dropped the phone. “What?”

“There was a murder at the Yaqui Easter ceremonies. An officer got stabbed with a switchblade. It had a name on it, and then there are witnesses who say the killer was a big man with a shaved head who drove off with his huge dog in a Mini Cooper.

“Say,” she interrupted herself. “What's going on in Benteen County at this time of night that requires your attention? Where are you?”

The sheriff looked down at the gravel in the driveway beside what had been his brother's house. It glowed. Hunks of smoldering debris turned it golden.

“Looks like I'm at the other end of the yellow brick road Mad Dog drove today,” he said. “And I bet you don't have to tell me whose name was on that switchblade.”

***

The street Mad Dog ran down was lined with industrial buildings and chain-link fence. It offered no place to hide, which made him wonder how Hailey had managed to vanish again. At the first intersection, he zigged north, so he wouldn't be so directly visible from the street where he'd left the sex shop and the disarmed cop. That officer was going to be pissed. He'd get himself another gun and some back-up and come looking for Mad Dog all too soon.

This block proved no more conducive to hiding than the last. Mad Dog zagged at the next intersection, heading west, away from the street with the lights and farther into a dilapidated industrial zone.

Finally, midway down the block, he came on what had once been a house. Its front yard was paved for parking, now, but there were at least some shadowy spots against its cracked plaster walls where scraggly oleanders offered partial concealment. He ducked behind one with a few pale blossoms. He could see through the bush, which wasn't reassuring, but he needed a moment to consider where to go, and how, and what he might do when he got there.

It seemed likely that he would soon be going to jail. Or, accompanying someone from the coroner's office if they decided to shoot first, next time, before the wonder wolf could disarm them again and give him another chance to flee.

One block to the south, a car drove slowly west. Not just any car, judging from the bright spotlights it used to peer into lots filled with dirt and weeds and junked machinery behind razor-wire topped chain link. He could hear tires coming along this street, too. Reinforcements? If not now, soon.

He reached into his bag of merchandise, found the body paint, and swabbed his head, face, and hands with licorice. Rolled his sleeves down, too, though there wasn't much he could do about the plaid shirt he wore. Like camouflage, it contained a variety of colors and patterns. Unfortunately, none of them remotely resembled anything found in nature.

He ducked as the second car arrived. Spotlights turned his hiding place as bright as the surface of the sun. Mad Dog tried to make himself as undetectable as Hailey had become. The bright red patches of his shirt seemed to glow, reflecting the luminosity of that police spotlight.

The police car slowed. Stopped. The light pinned him against the wall.

Invisible, invisible, invisible, Mad Dog told himself. The blinding light moved on. The police car moved with it. And Hailey stood on the other side of the oleanders, whining with impatience and the clear desire that he follow her.

Well, hell. If she'd just succeeded in making them both undetectable to those cops, he'd follow her anywhere she wanted.