The Change: Tales Of Downfall And Rebirth - The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth Part 53
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The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth Part 53

"Some people? Hiding? You mean criminals? Did someone steal something from La Padrona?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Grandfather Nathan nodded. Brett recognized the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth that meant the old man was hiding a smile. A smile, Brett realized, because Brett was asking questions. Nathan Tso offered a little more information as a reward.

"She feels that they stole themselves from her."

"Huh? Stole themselves? Did they owe her labor for shelter or something?"

"No. They were longtime members of her ranchero: a blacksmith and farrier, a talented seamstress, a mechanic and metalworker, and a nurse who had studied both at college and with the curanderas. Oh, and their children, six in all, the eldest a girl of fourteen."

Brett shook his head as if a fly had landed in his ear, but it was jarring thoughts, not a bug, that were making his head buzz.

"That doesn't make sense. People with those skills would have earned their keep and more. They'd be welcome anywhere. Grants or San Rafael would take them in. Heck, even if they weren't Indian, any of the Native communities would find their way to giving them a place, maybe even adopt them into the tribe."

"Very true."

Silence again. Brett forced himself to puzzle through the problem as once, long ago, he might have puzzled his way back along a badger's scattered tracks for nothing other than the pleasure of finding the way to its den. This trail was hard. Brett didn't like thinking about how humans interacted, about the things they did to one another, even to those who offered only kindness. But Grandfather Nathan was looking at him, his dark eyes amid their deep lines watchful and sad. The little smile had vanished.

"Slavery!" Brett burst out at last. "No! That's not possible."

When the world had ended, the Acoma elders had claimed to have had visions that told them that the transformation of the world was long-term. They'd immediately put people to work clearing out the cisterns, hauling tanks for additional water storage, and otherwise preparing for siege. They succeeded not only in holding the mesa and the immediate watershed, but also the associated villages of McCartys and Acomita. Both Acoma's security and its strength as a community made it a likely destination for people on the run.

Brett didn't want to believe it. "They've got to have run for some other reason. No one around here would tolerate keeping slaves."

"Who will stop the practice once it begins?" came the reply-as once, when Brett had been nine, the old man had asked what diverted the flow of water or why a mountain lion had turned aside when tracking a deer.

"Begins? Oh . . ."

Brett understood. He didn't like understanding, but he did. In these years following what he had heard people call "the Change"-as if it were a natural thing, like a woman going through menopause, instead of a soul-ripping end of the world-the way in which people lived had, well, changed. He didn't know what had happened in other parts of the world, but here water ruled as it always had done.

Before the End, most of the local population had lived and worked in Grants, a city of some eight thousand or so, about an hour west, as I-40 flies, from Albuquerque. After the End, Grants had made a rebound of sorts-unlike much larger Albuquerque, which, except for a narrow strip along the Rio Grande, had depended on modern technology for its water. Even so, much of the region's surviving population had redistributed, so that Grants was just another village.

The Indians had formed communities in Acoma, Laguna, and Zuni. The Navajo-the largest nation, whose vast reservation lands were mostly desert-had divided into smaller groups, often seminomadic, following their sheep wherever they could find grazing.

San Rafael, a few miles southwest of Grants, which boasted a good water source from the Ojo del Gallo springs, had prospered. Indeed, where water was concerned, San Rafael was doing better than it had before, since, as the water table had recovered from excessive urban and industrial use, the springs had flowed more strongly. Farming was good and the mixed population fiercely protective of their rights.

The same pattern was true for various ranches farther south, including areas that had been the El Malpais National Conservation Area, the Cebolla Wilderness, and the plains.

La Padrona had staked her claim southeast of the malpais.

"La Padrona," Brett said, thinking aloud. "She's Anglo, isn't she, despite the title?"

"That's right," Nathan agreed. "Annabella Andersen. Along with her late husband, Andrew, she ran the Double A Ranch."

"Late?"

"Drew Andersen died a bit over two years ago. From what I've heard, Annabella is determined to hold on to the ranch for their children-especially for her son, Andy. Andy's eighteen now. When his father died, he was young for grown men to take orders from-especially when his mama was a very pretty woman and might be presumed to be looking for a husband to run the ranch for her. There are those who say Andy's too inexperienced, even now."

"I met Drew Andersen," Brett said thoughtfully. "Worked there a couple of times when they were looking for someone to train young horses."

"Then you might have met one of the men they're hunting," Nathan said. "Did you meet their farrier?"

"Emilio?" Brett dredged up the name as if from a lifetime ago, rather than only three years.

"Emilio Gallardo," Nathan replied, offering the little smile of approval. "That's right. He and his wife, Felicita, have decided they would like to leave La Padrona's employ. However, apparently, La Padrona feels this would be a mistake."

"But Emilio and his family didn't come here?"

"No. Neither to the high pueblo or the lower villages." Nathan leaned forward. "I dreamed you would be the one to find them and help them get away. Then you came to my door and I thought this would be so. You see, the Acoma elders have forbidden interference."

Brett understood. "The elders don't want to stir up something with Double A. One ranch alone wouldn't be a problem, but those ranchers are all allied."

"Yes. The elders of Acoma strongly disapprove of the Double A's actions. However, they also must think about the welfare of the rest of our community. You are an honored friend, but not a member of the tribe. Their commands do not bind you."

Brett remembered Emilio Gallardo, remembered their long talks about whether horseshoes were necessary, about weighting shoes to achieve certain gaits, and how best to trim a hoof for different sorts of terrain. He'd learned a lot during those talks, including things he still used, things necessary. He shifted uncomfortably.

Perhaps seeing Brett's unease, knowing that pushing him would make the young man bolt, Nathan deliberately turned the conversation to other things: the new bow he was making, the promising harvest, the strong late summer monsoons. He asked little about Brett's life, letting the younger man volunteer information about the health of his animals, his battles with squash bugs, the effectiveness of the new cistern he'd built last winter. They shared a meal of squash and speckled bean stew with pork, accompanied by yellow corn tortillas and thick honey.

As soon as it was polite, Brett excused himself. He collected his horses and supplies from the lower village, then rode south. Off to the west, the black flow of the malpais stretched, a land as rough and pockmarked as the moon and-even to the majority of those who lived right alongside it-just as alien.

As he rode, Brett tried to distract himself from Nathan's news. He thought about how well his business had gone. The general store in lower Acoma had given him good value for the boots he'd made. The rabbit pelts hadn't traded for as much as last time, but that was to be expected. Rabbits were plentiful this time of year, and the boys and girls set to guard the crops kept their rabbit sticks ready. He'd bought a jar of a strain of beans said to grow well in high heat and low water. It was always best to buy seed stock early, in case the winter was harsh, and hungry folk ate their future.

Thoughts of the foals he'd been approached about training over the winter kept Brett's thoughts occupied for a while longer, as did the question of whether he could cut enough hay to support an augmented herd. Nonetheless, inevitably Brett found his thoughts turning to what had happened to Emilio Gallardo and his family.

Why did La Padrona think she could start keeping slaves? Slavery was one foulness that hadn't arisen in this region since the End. Indentured servitude, sure, and people who sold their souls to the company store, as the old saying went, but outright slavery? Not yet. Too few people and too harsh a climate to support idlers-and, unless kept after with a lash, slaves were idlers. They had no incentive to be otherwise.

"What would Leo have thought?" Brett wondered aloud, causing his buckskin's ears to twitch back in startled response. "Would he have obeyed the elders?"

Leo had been Nathan's grandson. He and Brett had been closer than brothers. Brothers only share parents. Brett and Leo had shared a passion for the wilderness and all the skills needed to survive in it. They'd met when they were eight, in a Cub Scout troop associated with their grammar school. Leo's family was Acoma, but they had lived in Grants. Leo's mom, who always seemed to be pregnant or nursing, ran a sort of informal day care. Leo's dad did whatever came to hand, mostly construction, but he was a fair hand with stock as well. He wasn't exactly lazy; nonetheless, even as a boy, Brett could tell that Leo's parents had a different attitude about making money. They wanted enough to get by, but didn't necessarily care about getting ahead.

When Brett and Leo had been nine, Nathan Tso had come to live with his Acoma kin. The old man-for so he seemed even then, although his hair was still mostly black and the lines on his skin not so deep-had seemed to know everything about what the boys thought was important. He'd taught them how to track, to ride bareback, to shear a sheep. Later, he'd taught them how to hunt and-more important-how to dress their kills, use every part, and respect the lives they were taking.

Brett and Leo dropped out of Scouts in favor of becoming Nathan Tso's acolytes. Brett, who had black hair and dark brown eyes, courtesy of his Italian-American mother and Black Irish father, grew his hair long and didn't think there was any higher compliment than being mistaken for Leo's brother-as he often was, although Brett was taller and leaner, his skin tanning with a hint of olive, rather than to red-brown. When the boys were fourteen and fancied themselves men, they had sworn an oath as blood brothers, with Grandfather Nathan as witness.

After high school, they'd both gone off to Albuquerque to attend UNM. Brett couldn't figure out what he wanted to major in, but was leaning toward something to do with animals and maybe a minor in anthropology. Leo had immediately declared a double major in accounting and computers, but then he'd always been good at math.

A soft whicker from Little Warrior, his buckskin riding horse, brought Brett back to himself. Twilight was gathering and they were nearly to where they had to turn off. Brett patted the gelding on the side of his neck. He knew the horse could probably have taken him home, but he instilled in any horse he trained a respect for the rough lands in which they lived. Horses were good people, but they also had far too much imagination. On the plains or in the forest, a runaway horse was in danger of nothing worse that wearing itself out or straining a tendon. Here, the consequences for the same moment of panic were nothing short of mutilation and death.

"Malpais" means "bad lands" in Spanish.

In most situations, that was a pretty good name for the place. Contrary to popular belief, the rough volcanic terrain that began in the vicinity of Grants and flowed its erratic course over many acres to the south and west was not the result of the explosion of Mount Taylor. El Malpais resulted from the periodic eruption of numerous small vents. The most recent flows, from Bandera and McCarty's Crater, had happened only three thousand years earlier.

This relative youth meant much of the lava was sharp and jagged. The malpais ate boots, ripped into the soft parts of a horse's hooves, and sliced open skin. A horse who decided to panic at a fluttering leaf or bolt when a quail exploded up from underfoot was likely a dead horse. Brett had trained his horses to expect him to be alert and attentive, providing them with the confidence they themselves lacked.

Brett gave Little Warrior another "thank you" pat on the neck, then turned to check on Pintada, his brown-and-white paint pack mare. Both horses were of feral stock, acquired through the BLM's adoption program. If asked, Brett had always agreed that the horses were mustangs, although he knew the question merited a more complicated reply. However, he knew that, whatever their breed, his horses were tough and resilient, possessing strong legs and solid hooves. They were also a lot less picky about their diet than most horses. Sure, they were small and scrubby, classic round-bodied Indian ponies, but they were descended from generations of survivors.

Nathan had taken Brett and Leo hiking in the malpais and surrounding back country. They'd explored the caves, discovering areas where ice could be found in the middle of summer and where bats hung like gently rustling leaves. There had been moss gardens growing beneath tiny skylights and pools fed one drip at a time as rain seeped down from above. Nathan had explained that these caves were actually tubes formed when the lava had begun to cool. The hot lava had flowed through, leaving an open space. Some of the tubes ran for miles-sixteen was the largest measured. Others were huge-over fifty feet in diameter.

El Malpais embraced green islands called "kipukas" within its black flow. The largest of these kipukas was called Hole in the Wall. The boys had been a little disappointed to learn that it wasn't the Hole in the Wall made famous by Butch Cassidy, but this Hole in the Wall was marvelous in its own right. It embraced some six thousand acres. Tales were told of outlaws using it as a staging ground and deserters hiding during various wars. Antelope had somehow found their way in, as had any number of smaller animals and a host of birds. When they were in high school, Brett and Leo had hiked in any number of times to camp, feeling as if they were in a world all their own.

After the boys had graduated from high school, Grandfather Nathan made them a present of a secret that-as Brett learned later-not even the park service knew. Nathan had learned the secret from an old cowboy, long ago when he himself had been just a boy. He told them that, even with the old cowboy's description, it had taken him several weeks to find the place. Working as a team, the boys found it sooner.

They were carefully tracing their way along the fifty-foot-high lava wall as they had so many times before, painstakingly examining every crack and crevice, looking for one that penetrated more deeply than the rest. They stabbed themselves on prickly pear and thorny cholla. They wore thick gloves thin while moving chunks of rough, pockmarked basalt. Then they had realized that one narrow crevice was a whole lot wider than it looked, the result of an optical illusion caused by the junction of two sections of stone. Wild with excitement, they'd probed into the crevice. Their hopes had crashed when they saw what seemed to be a solid wall ahead of them but, when they followed the passage to its end, they realized the crevice actually curved, transforming into what they now recognized as the end of a lava tube.

After going back for their lights and packs, they carefully made their way along the tube's length. Open sky vanished as the crumbling edges of the tube's uppermost reaches became entire. Even with flashlights, they stumbled over chunks of basalt or bits of detritus that had drifted down from the upper world. Several times they splashed into puddles that had formed in a low section of the passage. Slimy drips trickled from above, running down their faces and hair onto the bare skin of their necks like the chill fingers of some ghostly denizen of the darkness.

Their efforts were rewarded first by a distant flicker of light, then when the tube opened out into an oasis of green, an acre-sized meadow surrounded on all sides by walls of cracked, black rock that bent in at the top, as if cradling the meadow. The stream that ran across the meadow was marked by thicker and greener growth. Whooping with enthusiasm, they drank and refilled their canteens. After they had washed off accumulated grime, they set about exploring their new domain.

Across from where they'd entered, an odd jumble of rocks caught their attention. Trotting over to investigate, they discovered that someone had built a wall from irregularly shaped chunks of basalt. Off to one side, hidden by the angle of the wall, was a thick plank door. Opening it, they discovered a tidy cabin, constructed by walling up a section of cave. The rock overhang served as a roof and light came from deep windows with thick glass set into wooden frames. The cabin was quite large. Bunk beds were built into one wall, and the area near the fireplace was furnished with a pair of handmade chairs and a table. A channel carved into the floor carried a trickle from the stream that vanished beneath a farther wall.

A door to one side showed the way into a second cave, reached down a short passage beneath the overhang and walled in after the same fashion as the front of the cabin. This second area's purpose was evident from a manger containing a few pieces of desiccated hay and a scattering of brittle straw on the stone floor. From this side, it was easy to find the hidden door that let out into the meadow.

"That manger's oddly placed," Brett said, after they'd poked around for a time, discovering an old bucket with the bottom out, a burlap sack that might have once held grain, some chewed bits of leather. "Why build it into the wall that way? Why not just make it freestanding? That took a lot of extra work."

Bringing his flashlight close to the manger, Brett examined the thick planks carefully. He'd split planks from logs and, even when you knew the trick, it wasn't exactly easy. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set these planks, then anchor the manger to them. Eventually, Brett found the hidden latch. It was quite heavy and took a moment to work loose, but when he did the section of planking holding the manger swung on hidden hinges, revealing a second tunnel.

This tunnel was shorter than the one that they'd followed in from the edge of the malpais and ended in a huge green space, with trees.

"How big is it?" he asked Leo. Leo had a good head for such things. He always won when Grandfather Nathan asked them to judge area or volume.

Leo frowned thoughtfully. "Hard to tell with the trees, but I'd say twenty-five or thirty acres. You could keep horses here, a couple cows, even. The grass is good and thick."

"The stream probably feeds under the walls to here," Brett said. "I think that the tube we followed in, the first meadow, and this were all part of one lava tube system. This section was probably never entirely covered."

"Suspect you're right," Leo agreed. "Shame that Grandpa didn't show us this a few years ago. We could have had a lot of fun during high school. Now we're off to college."

"But we'll come back," Brett said.

They had, many times. After college, Leo had gotten a job with a big accounting firm in Denver. He'd been flying back to New Mexico for a Saint Patrick's Day binge at Brett's parents' Cloverleaf Tavern when his plane went down. There had been no survivors.

Brett and his horses made their way through the crevice, down the tunnel, and into the first meadow a lot more quickly than Brett and Leo had that first time. Working by lantern light, Brett had carefully cleared away all the loose rock so the horses would have safe footing. The little pools came and went with the seasons, but never became deep enough to provide an obstruction. He'd hammered flat the worst of the protrusions. The one thing he hadn't made easier to use was the hidden entrance. Indeed, he'd done what he could to make it harder to find without blocking access for the horses.

It had taken a long time, but Brett hadn't been in a hurry. Far from it. He had nowhere to go and wanted to go anywhere even less.

He was tired when he got in-more tired than he remembered being for quite a while. Still, Little Warrior and Pintada had to be unpacked, untacked, rubbed down, then turned out to pasture. The dogs and cats pretty much took care of their own meals this time of year, but they still wanted attention. The chickens needed to be shut away and the goats milked. There had been rain earlier, so he didn't need to haul water to his garden. He decided he'd pick first thing in the morning.

One of the things he'd treated himself to in Acoma was a large side of bacon. Brett cut off thick slabs, fried them up, then cooked eggs in some of the grease. The rest he put aside for another time. He'd also bought bread, something he rarely made himself. After the heavy meal and the long day's ride, he should have slept like a log. Instead, he lay awake, a cat on his pillow, another on his chest, the Pomeranian snoring by his feet.

He thought about Emilio Gallardo. About how he'd taught Brett about taking care of horse's hooves. How Brett used that knowledge every day, owed a great deal to what he'd been taught. He dozed and in those dreams Leo was still alive. He was upset at the decision the Acoma elders had made, trying to show them how wrong they were with a cost/benefit analysis painted on a hide, but resembling a power point presentation. He waved a long stick as a pointer and lightning shot out from the tips and became a red-tailed hawk.

The hawk spiraled up, riding the thermals over the malpais, circling wider and wider to the south. Far below, the hawk spotted a cluster of jackrabbits. No. Jackalopes, for they had little horns. The jackalopes were huddled near an upthrust bit of sandstone. They were wearing horseshoes.

Brett drifted with the hawk, sleeping in perfect peace until cockcrow. He rose at first crow, made a large mug of hoarded instant coffee, and went out to gather eggs, milk the goats, and make a quick survey of the garden for produce that would spoil if he didn't pick it. He fried more bacon, ate some with more eggs and soft goat cheese, then wrapped up a couple of thick burritos. These went with some freshly picked cucumbers in a box that, in turn, went into his saddlebags.

Brett let the chickens out, but only as far as the wire meshcovered enclosure he'd built to surround their coop. The goats protested being left in their run, but he didn't know if he'd be back before dark and, while the chickens would retire to their coop, the goats were much more confident of their ability to take care of themselves, something the coyotes sometimes took advantage of.

These chores taken care of, Brett went through the tunnel into the back pasture. Since he almost always brought a treat along, his small horse herd ambled over to greet him. While they were all busy with carrots, he slipped a halter over the head of Timpani, his choice for the day's work.

Timpani's owner had always said the mare was pure Arabian. Certainly, she had the Arab's high crest and delicate head. Her coloring was what the Old West had called steeldust, grey liberally sprinkled with darker hairs. Her mane and tail were a shadowy grey, darker than her coat, reminding Brett of gathering storm clouds. Although she played at being high-strung, Timpani liked work that demanded her attention and intelligence. Acting up was a sure sign that she was bored.

While he was tacking up Timpani, Brett had a serious chat with Rover and Fida, two dogs who had come to live with him that first winter. The pair looked as if they might have a lot of blue heeler-an Australian cattle dog-in them. There'd been a fad for the breed about the time everything went to hell, so they could well be purebred. Rover and Fida weren't pretty in the way border collies were pretty. Their coats were short, colored a bluish grey, and overlaid with black blotches. Their muzzles were somewhere between short and long, and held a good number of very white teeth. Rover's perked ears were neat upright triangles, but one of Fida's flopped, giving her a quizzical look. Their tails curved up over their backs.

Like Timpani, Rover and Fida liked having work to do. They were also completely convinced that they could handle the show without human assistance. When Brett told them to guard the place, they looked at him seriously, their alert ears and gently wagging tails saying: "Don't we always, boss?"

Next, Brett whistled up Xenophon. The mutt hauled himself from where he was sleeping in the shade of the cottonwood that grew near the cabin door. Xenophon was a long-legged, long-nosed, floppy-eared hound of no particular breed. His tail was long and straight; his coat an unremarkable shade of tan. What was remarkable about him was his sense of smell. Brett had picked him as a puppy from a litter sired by a male who-so his owner claimed-could track a rolling rock through a gully washer in the middle of the night. The bitch who mothered him could perform the same miracles-but with a head cold. Xenophon's biggest problem was that most of the time he was about as lazy as a dog could be. Even when he'd been a puppy, he'd preferred sleeping with his belly to the sun rather than romping about. Put him on a scent, though, and he'd follow until forced to take a break.

After securing the Pom and several of the older cats inside the cabin, Brett swung into the saddle. As Timpani walked purposefully in the direction of the exit tunnel, he checked his supplies: food, water, first aid kit, bow and arrows, knives at his waist and in his boot tops. He didn't figure he'd be fighting, but it was best to be prepared. He had a good lasso in easy reach, as well as odds and ends of wire, string, and suchlike tucked into his saddlebags. His best binoculars were in a case where he could easily reach them. Given that he had no idea what he'd find, if anything, he was as prepared as he could be.

Once out in the open, Brett directed Timpani to a sheltered rise where he could scan the area without being seen himself. Grandfather Nathan hadn't said how long the Gallardos and their friends had been missing from the Double A, but if riders had come to Acoma to ask questions, it probably had been a few days. Riders wouldn't have come asking unless the area had already been searched and nothing conclusive found.

And they wouldn't make that choice lightly, Brett thought as he methodically scanned the terrain, because they'd be giving away that La Padrona was starting to think of some people as her property.

Brett's inspection of the area didn't show him anything as obvious as a posse neatly displayed out in the middle of the tall grass or threading their way through the scatterings of pion, juniper, and other scrubby trees that were interspersed in copses through the plains. Last winter's rains had been good-by area standards-and the monsoons had established right on schedule, so there was as much green as brown in the undulating land.

Lowering his binoculars, Brett considered. The people I'm looking for probably chose to leave the Double A at this time precisely because they could count on water and a certain amount of cover. The ranch is south of here; access used to be off 117. Acoma's certainly the closest community, but the runaways might have figured that's where La Padrona would look first. In that case . . .

Brett reviewed a mental map. Options for people who didn't want to be returned to La Padrona weren't good. There were other ranching operations south of El Malpais, but the ranchers were loosely allied, respecting one another's brands and sharing resources. All Annabella Andersen would need to do was tell some tale about the Gallardos owing her and they'd be turned back. So not the ranches . . .

It would be a long trip, Brett thought, but if I were them, I just might consider going west, then north, up toward some of the settlements in the Zuni Mountains or even to San Rafael. The Double A riders have got to have figured that, too. So why haven't Emilio and his band been found? Even with a head start, if they have children with them, a bunch of determined cowhands should be able to catch up.

He felt a tingle run up his spine, just like it had when Grandfather Nathan had posed one of those questions that had been meant to teach him and Leo to track with their minds, not just with their eyes and ears.

What if they're still close by? What if something happened to slow them up? A lamed horse, an injured person, a kid with a bellyache . . . I can think of a dozen possibilities. At this point, the riders would be looking farther afield, not behind. I wonder . . .

He tapped Timpani on one shoulder. In response to the command, the mare began to pick her surefooted way down the slope. Xenophon rose, shook himself, and followed.

Suddenly, Brett felt as eager as initially he had been reluctant.

Grandfather Nathan . . . Did he know? When he said he'd "dreamed" I'd be the one to stop the Double A, I just translated his words into Anglo-as "imagined" or "hoped"-but what if he meant it literally? What if he prayed for a solution and this was the answer?

In a twisted way, it made sense. Why else would Grandfather Nathan believe Brett had a chance to intercept people who should have been long gone from the area? Back when everything stopped working and the clear Western skies had shown all too clearly planes plummeting toward the earth as their engines failed, the elders had prayed-as tradition said Acoma had always prayed-for the well-being of the world. They had been certain that the catastrophic events were not caused by a short-term flicker in the electromagnetic field or any of the other bullshit explanations Brett had heard bandied around in Grants.

Brett guided Timpani south, skirting trees and larger rocks, rather than riding in the open: not hiding, but not making it easy for him to be seen either. After the third time he'd scanned the horizon, Brett realized that he wasn't looking for people so much as a landmark-a large rock, surrounded by trees. He could see the shape in his mind, clear as if he'd been there before, but he was certain that he hadn't. Problem was, he knew how the rock looked from a hawk's eye view, but not from the side.

As they had ridden their aimless course, Xenophon had decided that they must be searching for something. In his methodical hound's way, he had concluded that the something wasn't a deer or a cow or badger's den, since they'd passed up several interesting options in those categories already.

For the last few miles, the dog had been playing a sort of canine twenty questions with his human. He'd cast widely back and forth along either side of where Brett rode, snuffling enthusiastically. When he found something that he thought was interesting, he would woof softly to draw Brett's attention. Brett would dismount and inspect the find, rejecting a dead squirrel, an old quail's nest, a tree that a bear had recently clawed, and a neatly buried bit of porcupine scat. When Xenophon woofed and gently scraped his paw where something else had been covered with dirt and pine needles, Brett expected more of the same.

What confronted him was a neat deposit of human waste, almost certainly from several people.

"Good boy!" Brett said, rubbing Xenophon's ears and rewarding him with a piece of bacon. "I don't think the Double A riders would all share a hole, but if I were traveling with kids and didn't want to leave sign, this is just what I'd do. Can you find the people who left this?"

Xenophon wagged his tail and began casting around, making the whining, snuffling noises that Brett translated as "I'm working on it." Brett had barely settled back in the saddle before Xenophon gave a short bark and lined himself up along what, to Brett, was a still invisible trail.

"Go slowly," Brett commanded and Xenophon, his tail wagging like a metronome, put his nose to the ground and led.