She ducked back out the main door, checking her wrist with her flashlight. It looked like she’d been hammered with a nail set. There was no way she was going to get pecked again.

The henhouse was, essentially, on a low frame of stilts, with wooden latticework running around beneath, presumably to keep out predators. Kneeling, Corrie shined her light through the latticework, precipitating another chorus of fretful complaint. Beneath each nest was a litter tray, and—judging by the contents—someone had been delinquent in cleaning them.

“Thanks, Jesse,” Corrie muttered. Taking a deep breath, she squeezed her throbbing hand through the lattice, located Pertelote’s litter tray, and—gingerly but thoroughly—sieved its contents between her fingers. The result was disgusting and without evident result.

“Jesus!” Corrie turned her face to one side, trying not to gag. Was this just another half-baked deduction of hers, some crazy hope that her conversations with Gower—and his death—were not in vain? If Morwood saw her now … She pulled her befouled hand out of the litter tray with a curse. And as she did, the tray shifted ever so slightly in its casing.

Corrie paused. Then, grasping the near end of the tray, she pulled, pushed, then lifted.

It was the lifting that did it. The end of the tray moved up about an inch, and Corrie quickly felt beneath. Something was affixed there, protected by a second tray. It was too dark to identify for sure, but it felt like folded canvas. It would not fit through the latticework, and rather than risk damaging it, she raised the entire section of lattice and pulled it out from beneath.

She spent the next few minutes washing her hands in Jesse’s wrecked kitchen. Then—flashlight and the mysterious discovery in her lap—she sat out on Jesse’s front porch and took out her cell phone, preparing to make a call.

Fingers on the touchpad, she hesitated a long moment. And then she shoved the phone back into her pocket, walked briskly to her car, got in, put the bundle carefully on the passenger seat, and drove off into the night.

45

THEY HAD LOADED two horses into a trailer at dawn, at the home of Espejo’s parents, and then they had driven two hours northward through the mountains of the Mescalero reservation, on a maze of dirt roads that went from bad to worse, until the road ended at a tiny settlement called Muleshoe. It appeared to be abandoned. As they unloaded the horses, Nora could see the mountain range of Sierra Blanca looming above them, nearly twelve thousand feet high, covered with snow. They mounted up and set off, following a trail that wound through fir-clad foothills.

Being on the back of a horse reminded Nora of the dig she’d directed in May in the Sierra Nevada of California. She and her team had discovered and excavated a nineteenth-century campsite from the ill-fated Donner Party. While that had ultimately been a traumatic experience, to say the least, she loved riding, and being on a horse again was a pleasure. The landscape they were passing through, cathedral stands of Douglas firs alongside a burbling creek, was inspiring, and the air was fragrant with the scent of pine and wild geraniums. Espejo was a silent rider, which Nora appreciated. She had ridden with people who liked to talk, and being on horseback, that meant turning around in the saddle and shouting back and forth, which for her spoiled the experience.

But when her thoughts turned to the quixotic journey itself, she wondered what the hell she was doing. Despite the best that Adelsky could do, the work at Tsankawi had fallen behind and there was no covering it up. She’d had to ask Weingrau for yet another day off, and this time the president had not seemed pleased. She’d questioned Nora rather pointedly about what, exactly, she was doing for the FBI now. Nora found herself evading and hedging and explaining. She had to admit to herself that she’d been so drawn into the case that she was losing perspective. On top of that, the trip was a wild-goose chase. It was crazy to think Nantan was still alive. They were going to find nothing more than the remnants of his camp, if that, and maybe his bones. Watts was right: she was becoming too emotionally involved in the investigation. Corrie was a bit green, and could be a pain, but she was perfectly capable of handling things without Nora’s continued help.

By noon, they were well above ten thousand feet. The trail petered out, and the creek had turned into a runnel of water through a series of high alpine meadows filled with fall wildflowers. The Sierra Blanca peaks were closer now, rising above them like a wall. They finally emerged from the tree line on a beautiful grassy ridge. At the top, a sprawling view of the White Mountain Wilderness came into view, mountains beyond mountains as far as the eye could see. She doubted there were any other human beings within twenty miles—unless, of course, Nantan was still alive.

Here Espejo halted. Nora rode up beside him.

He pointed. “See those steep parallel canyons down there? Escondido Spring is supposed to be in the middle one, maybe five miles down.”

“Doesn’t look passable by horse.”

“From what little I remember of Nantan telling me about this place, it isn’t. We’ll ride as far as we can.”

He eased his horse forward, and they descended the far side of the ridge, the horses cautiously picking their way. The human trail had long vanished, but the horses instinctively followed a web of elk trails that led back down through broad meadows into the mouth of the canyon. Gradually the land became steeper and rockier, the walls closing in.