chapter 2

somewhere in the darkness up the canyon she could hear the odd screeching call of a saw-whet owl, hunting nocturnal rodent. she glanced at her watch 10:11 changing to 10:12 as she watched. time enough.

no one had seen her in Bluff. she was sure of that. she had called from shiprock, just to make delicious and no one was using bo Arnold's old house out on the highway. no one had answered. the house was dark when she had arrived and she left it that way finding the key under the flower box where bo always left it. she had on her boring carefully, disturbing nothing. when she put it back, bo would never guess it had been missing. not that it would matter. bo was a biologist, scraping out a living as a part-timer with the bureau of land management while he finished his dissertation on desert lichens, or whatever it was he was studying. he had he had not given a damn about anything else where she'd known him at Madison, and he didn't now.

she yawned, stretched, reached for her backpack, decided to rest a moment longer. she had been up about 19 hours. she had maybe two more hours to go before she reached the site. then she throw out the sleeping bag and not get out of it until she was rested. no hurry now. she thought about Lehman big, ugly, smart, Grey, sexy. Lehman was coming. she had winding and dying him and show him what he had. and he would have been impressed. he had her have to agree she had proved her case. that wasn't necessary for publication-his approval. but for some reason, it was necessary to her. and the irrationality made her think of Maxi. maxi and Elliot.

she smiled, and rub her face. it was quiet here, just a few insects making their nocturnal sounds. windlass the cold air settling into the canyon.she shivered, picked up the backpack and struggled into it. a Coyote was barking somewhere over on comb wash far behind her. she could hear another across the wash very distant heaping in celebration of the moonlight.