Chapter 20

I knew that the trail had come to the road, so I didn't waste time on the north side, but immediately crossed to the south – after checking for traffic. It would probably be hours before another vehicle passed by, but the one time I don't look is the one time someone will come by just when I'm crossing the road. I learned a long time ago that it's better to be too careful than not careful enough.

Natalie stayed by me, two or three yards away, as I walked 50 yards or so into the desert on the south side of the road and began making a big semicircle to the left – east. I knew she was looking for sign too, and I knew that while I was better at it than she was, her eyes would be useful. As we walked she said, "I like your wife."

"That's not always a common reaction." Only after I said it did I realize that I'd been redundant.

"I can see how she might turn people off. She's kind of cold ... but inside there's a very nice lady."

"That there is – not that I'm biased or anything." I stepped around a paddle cactus that was dying of something or other.

"No, you're not biased, not you." I was looking at the ground, but it sounded like Natalie was smiling. "You're so objective about her that everyone thinks you barely know her."

"You don't lie well," I said, smiling myself. "Or is it sarcasm I hear?"

"Oh, a wee bit of sarcasm. I heard and saw you both, though I tried not to eavesdrop."

"It would have been easier to be private in a city, wouldn't it? You could have gone in another room or something. But out here it would have been so obvious if you walked away that it would have embarrassed us both."

"That's what I figured. So I stayed, and tried not to hear."

I risked a glance over at her. She was walking slowly, as I was, her gaze concentrated on the ground. I looked back at the sandy soil in front of me. "I appreciate it, and I know Cecelia does too. We both dig privacy."

"I gathered as much. I also gathered that you really don't care who knows that you love each other."

"No, that we don't care about."

She was quiet for a while, and when she spoke again it was on another subject. "Do you think we're going to find anything over here?"

"I don't know, Nat. The logical thing is for our killer – if that's who we're tracking – to have gotten into a vehicle back there and drove off, and if that's what happened the trail's dead. But maybe, just maybe, he's gone on cross-country, and if so we'll pick him up again."

"Are you sure? The trail's been pretty faint."

"I found it, didn't I? I've followed it this far. I'll find it again, if it's here to find."

"You're sure of yourself."

"I am. I know what I can do, Nat, and how well I can do it. I don't like bragging, but if there's anything I'm an expert at, or at least have been an expert at, it's tracking in the desert."

"Okay, I won't argue with that." She paused. "Why do you call me Nat?"

"You don't like it? I tend to abbreviate names, especially those of people I like. I just did it automatically with yours. Sorry – I didn't realize—"

"No, Darvin, that's okay. I like it. It's just that I wondered – no one's ever called me that before."

"I guessed I jumped to that conclusion, didn't I?" I chuckled, still finding nothing on the ground to suggest a trail. "Yeah, it's just that I chop names down. Not all of 'em – I still call Rudy and Sara by those names, and my brother will always be Memphis to me, but a lot of 'em I turn into diminutives."

"I like it. I think I'll keep it in reserve for people I really like."

"If you want, or you can just leave it with me, and then forget about me when this little trip is over."

"Oh, I don't think I'll ever forget about you." I could hear the smile in her voice again. "You dress like a cowboy, you've got the most elegant and regal looking wife I've ever seen, your daughter looks like she stepped out of a Norse myth, and you're teaching me things about tracking that I'd never heard of. I couldn't forget you if I tried."

"Don't be so sure," I said. "I ain't all that wonderful, you know."

Something in my voice must have warned her, for she changed the subject again. "You grew up out here, didn't you?"

"Yeah. My parents died when I was four, and I came out to my camp – it's my camp now – when I was five, to live with my uncle and aunt. They were related to my mother, and my brother went to my father's relatives up on the rez in Washington. Tony and Anna raised me almost like one of their own children, and when they died they left me enough money to set up as a PI. I was in Oklahoma then. But yeah, I lived here from the time I was five till I was 21, and thought I had to see the world."

"And now you live in Albuquerque?" Of course the initial law enforcement response had gotten names and addresses from us, and Natalie would have had access to that information.

"Yeah. I might have moved on by now, but back in 94 I met Cecelia, and then we got married in 95, and we neither of us have ever wanted to leave the house and our friends."

"I've never had roots like that..."

I grunted. "I've got three sets of roots. There's the camp over there, where I grew up and where I wouldn't mind living all the time, if this weren't in the Preserve. There's the house in Albuquerque, which is dear to me because it's Cecelia's, and it's where we've lived our entire married life, and it's where Darlia lives. And then there's Leanna, where Cecelia's from, in Alabama. Her parents still live there, though they're in their 70s now, and though I hate all that humidity and greenery I'll always have roots there because of Mama and Daddy."

"I grew up a military brat," Natalie said, "and then when I went out on my own I joined the Park Service. I've been just about everywhere, and nowhere more than four or five years. I wouldn't know how to settle down if I had to."