He opened his mouth to explain but I said, "People smugglers, I know."

"Yeah. But the regular folk are dangerous, too. They see you out here, they'll want to try and rescue you." He shook his head. "Don't let them see you jump, either. It's not just you I'm concerned about. Those who watch for us like to squeeze every drop of information out of witnesses. And when the lemon is squeezed, it's hard on the lemon." He waited until I nodded. "Right. Sunscreen and a hat and probably boots. I've been stabbed through athletic shoes by this damn prickly pear. Hell, the lechuguilla will get you through a leather boot."

He vanished.

I went and did as he said-sunscreen, hat, boots. He didn't mention the damn rattlesnakes.

I was just walking around. It was good to be out of the house and to feel the wind and sun on my skin. The gusty wind was shaking the brush and there were some tumbleweeds caught in the creosote that made a rattling sound, which is why I didn't hear the snake's rattle until I'd almost stepped on it.

It struck and I flinched away, to my room, and it landed on the carpet. In my room.

"Oh, shit!" I said and hopped up the rungs and onto my bed.

It was a little guy, with only a few rattles, but it had the triangular head. It was limestone gray with darker bands that had almost been invisible in the desert, but it stood out in stark contrast to my green carpet. It coiled up again and looked around. The room was colder than the southern hillside it had been on. It moved across the floor with that figure-S sideways motion, past one of my snowboarding boots and then went into the other boot, at the foot of the bed. I jumped down and stepped on the top of the boot, pinching it shut. There was a bumping, thrashing vibration which I could feel even through my hiking boot, but I kept my weight on it.

I bent down and kept the boot top closed with my hand while I took my foot off, then clamped it shut with both hands. My heart was still thudding but my breathing was slowing now. I was really glad it hadn't crawled into the cushions under my bed.

Back in the desert I tossed the boot away from me, about fifteen feet. It fell over and the snake spilled out rather agitated, shaking its rattle and moving its head around, looking for something to bite. I held my breath, ready to jump away if it came my direction, but it took off into the brush and I recovered my boot, putting it back in my room.

After that I saved the sightseeing for when I was standing still. While I moved, I kept my eyes on the ground.

I got pretty good at seeing a spot and jumping to it, even though I'd never been there. Three days later I could do it with binoculars, moving up to half a mile if I had good light. On the fourth day I found the pit.

I remembered splashing in the cold water there as a kid. I jumped back to the cabin and asked Mom if my memory was right, or was I imagining things. She said, "Jump there, to the rim above. I'll do the same."

When I arrived, Mom was there, a quarter of the way around the rim from me. I jumped to where she stood.

"Yes, this is the place." She scuffed the rock she stood on, right at the edge. "Your father used to drop terrorists off this point into the water. Well, about ten feet out, that is." She pointed down to the riot of green that covered the sandy island in the middle of the dark water. "Even when they couldn't swim they'd splash over to the island, but if you're not set right, dropping fifty feet into the water is rough."

"Have you ever done it?" I asked.

"No, when I took people here I just put them on the island." She looked at the expression on my face. "What's wrong?"

"I meant have you ever jumped into the water from up here?"

Mom laughed. "Oops. Uh, no. I tried several times but I always jumped away before I hit the surface. Scaredy cat, I guess. I tried breaking it down to smaller increments but I never managed higher than twenty feet."

I stepped up beside her to peek over the edge, then took an involuntary step backward and made a squeaking noise.

Mom looked concerned. "Huh. I didn't think you were scared of heights, Cent."

I glared at her. "I quite like heights. But I have this brand-new fear of being pushed."

"Huh? Oh-" She started laughing, then tried to stop, but couldn't. I glared harder and she laughed more. I held up my finger and she covered her mouth, trying to stifle the laughter but it wasn't working.

She turned away to try and get control of her expression and I pushed her off the edge.

FIVE.

Davy: Realty Millie chose the town, doing her research from a Minneapolis Public Library computer. Davy activated their cover.

The cover identity was actually old. Davy and Millie had been "growing" it ever since Cent was born. The family "Ross" annually paid state and federal income tax, social security, and capital gains tax from very healthy investments, filed returns, and purchased items by check and bank card every so often in the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

Millie had wanted the identity and funds for Cent's college years. Davy wanted it as a form of life insurance, in case anything ever happened to Millie or Davy, so Cent would have something, someplace to go to, someone to be.

But Cleveland was not the place they decided on.

Millie showed him her choice on the map. "I like this town. Only one high school so there won't be a poor school and a rich school. Generally conservative but that's offset a bit by good cultural and ethnic diversity. They have a moderate tax base for the school. Some crime, but well below big-city rates and, best of all, the local police aren't jack-booted thugs-the entire department has only ten deputies."

Davy asked, "What other law enforcement?"

Millie said, "There's a highway patrol unit in the county and, of course, on the rez there's the Navajo Nation Police. Also the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, federal marshals, and some FBI, but the nearest FBI field office is two hundred miles away, in the state capital."

"Military?"

"There might be a DIA unit at one of the Air Force bases but that's halfway across the state."

"Okay," said Davy. "I'll go check it out."

His nearest jump site was in Albuquerque. He joined a gambling junket heading across to Las Vegas, and left the tour bus on the interstate as it cruised past the exit.

He walked up the state road until he was well past the ramps and held out an arm, three twenties in his hand. He offered the money to the first person who stopped, in exchange for driving him the last thirty miles into town.

The man was going farther than New Prospect, but it was only a matter of an extra ten minutes for him to divert through town instead of sticking to the bypass. He dropped Davy where the road crossed Main near the hospital, thanked him for the "gas money," and drove on.

Davy bought the local newspaper at an Allsup's convenience store and jumped back to the Yukon to read it.

The lead story was about a hoped-for improvement in the local economy based on higher natural gas prices and new wells in the area. The high school football team finished six and six for the season. A local man was arrested for termiting homes.

Davy imagined a man introducing pale heaps of multi-legged insects into soft wood floors and walls, but further down the column, the reporter explained that termiting was the process of stealing fixtures, copper tubing, and copper wire from houses sitting empty.

For budget reasons, the town Christmas decorations were going up a week later than usual, and the school district was settling out of court in an ongoing lawsuit involving a false arrest.

Davy turned to the classifieds, which took up most of the rest of the paper. There were a lot of homes for sale, also cars, tractors, mowers, bicycles, kitchen appliances, and services of all kinds. The "Wanted to Buy" section was much smaller.

The real estate agents' paid ads, with head shots of the agents, ran down the edge of the classifieds. Davy cringed when the first agent, a dark brunette with her hair pulled tightly back in a severe bun, reminded him of Hyacinth Pope, the woman instrumental in imprisoning him on Martha's Vineyard.

It wasn't her, of course. This woman's apparent age was what Hyacinth's had been sixteen years before, and Hyacinth had spent that period in prison. He was willing to bet that Hyacinth didn't look the same, now.

Nevertheless he moved his thumb down the page and picked another woman Realtor whose hair was, to put it kindly, as far from dark, tight, and severe as possible.

He jumped to New Prospect's Main Street and walked east until he came to the Dunbar, an old hotel, newly renovated to a bed and breakfast.

They had a vacancy and he registered using the new ID (David Ross) and called Ms. Meriwether from his room.

"It's 'Mrs.' Martha also works," she told him on the phone. "Are you trying to sell a house?" She sounded unenthusiastic.

"Buying. We're relocating here in early January."

Cent had wanted to start school immediately. Davy had suggested the following school year, in the fall, "moving" in the summer. Cent hadn't bought it, but Millie talked her into the two-month delay. Davy still felt like he had lost the fight.

Mrs. Meriwether sounded surprised. "Oh! Right." She paused for a second. Davy could swear she was holding the phone away from her and taking deep breaths. When she spoke again she sounded suspiciously casual.

"What are you looking for?"

"Something close to the high school. Walking distance."

"Bedrooms?"

"Yes. Uh, bathrooms, too."

She laughed. "You're a riot. How many of each?"

He blushed. "At least two of each." He didn't really care. He had no intention whatsoever of sleeping in that house. Why, people could probably drive right up to it!

"And if I had something with more rooms? Would you look at that?"

"Certainly." Davy remembered the guy who'd been arrested for selling off the fixtures in empty homes. "As long as they haven't been 'termited.'"

"Of course not, Mr. Ross. I don't handle those kind of homes. When will you be in town?"

He glanced out the window. The street was darkening. He was one time zone east of the cabin, which put local time just after four in the afternoon. "I'm here now, but I was thinking about tomorrow morning, if that works."

"Certainly! Where are you staying?"

"The Dunbar Bed and Breakfast."

"Isn't that the cutest place! I can pick you up there and show you a few places and start you on the paperwork."

Paperwork? "What time?"

"Any time after 8:30."

"That works for me."

He returned to New Prospect the next morning and met the Realtor in the Dunbar's breakfast parlor. Her hair was as blonde and bouffant as her picture had advertised, like Dolly Parton in the eighties.

The paperwork turned out to be a credit application. He pushed it back across the table to Mrs. Meriwether without touching pen to it.

"Did you already arrange financing? I'm not one to brag, but I've gotten some awfully good deals, requiring very little down payment."

"We'll be paying cash," Davy said.

Mrs. Meriwether tried to say, "Oh," but her mouth just made the shape, not the sound.

Davy gestured to the waitress, pointing at Mrs. Meriwether's cup. "More coffee, please?"

By the time the waitress had refilled their cups, Mrs. Meriwether had recovered. "So you must've had good equity in your previous home."

Davy made a neutral, "Um."

"I'm sure we can find you some excellent candidates! Where will you be working? Do we need to think about that for your location? Not that anything in town is more than fifteen minutes away."

"Just close to the school. We're self-employed."

She raised her eyebrows and he felt compelled to add, "Consultants. We work with NGOs dealing with emergency relief efforts around the world."

Mrs. Meriwether nodded. "My church does some stuff in Africa."

"Oh? Where?"

"Africa."

Davy winced. Second largest continent. Over a billion people. Fifty-six countries. You could overlay all of the U.S., China, India, and Europe on Africa's landmass.

"Oh-Africa."

He'd promised Millie he wouldn't buy the first house he looked at or reject them all as unsuitable because of his "paranoid security concerns," so he stuck it out through six different showings, then asked to be taken back to the second one they'd seen, on Thunderbird Road, ten minutes' walk to the school, either through the woods, or along the road.

He picked that one because of its seclusion, because of its proximity to the high school, and because of his "paranoid security concerns."

While trees screened the house from the surrounding lots even in the winter, they weren't so close to the building that they would conceal anybody approaching.

He showed Millie the house in the early light the next morning, then met with the Realtor again.

"This is the most expensive home on my list," Mrs. Meriwether said. "But they took a job in the Bay Area and now they're paying two mortgages and have been for over a year and a half. I'm sure we can get them to drop the price by almost a quarter."

"That's okay. I'll pay the asking price."

"But the asking price was inflated. They expected to be lowballed! They've got some equity on their loan. It's not like they're upside down!"

Davy had to ask what that meant.

"When someone is upside down, or underwater, they owe more on their loan than the property is worth."

"Oh." He added these terms to "termiting." "So for over a year and a half, they've had to pay two mortgage payments?"

Mrs. Meriwether nodded her head. "Right. So they'll very likely take a substantial reduction in the asking price."

Desperate and running out of cash? At least they were employed, but that didn't mean they didn't need the money. "Are you afraid the deal won't go through if I offer to pay the asking price?"