But the Plymouth didn’t angle left. It turned right and jolted slowly toward Chee’s patrol car.

He could see Mary at the passenger-side window, looking at the approaching car and then at him.

He cupped his hands and shouted: “Run. Mary. Run.”

She emerged from the driver’s-side door, running toward the new lava flow. She was carrying his 30-30 carbine. Chee raced toward the patrol car, doing what he could to keep out of sight behind the humps and hillocks of old lava. The Plymouth stopped and the driver got out. He was a blond man wearing a yellow jacket, and he raised his right arm and aimed the pistol he held at Mary Landon. It seemed to Chee to have a remarkably long and heavy barrel. The barrel smoked, or seemed to, but Chee heard nothing. Mary was in the new lava and out of sight. Chee’s plan took no thought at all. He would circle around the patrol can, find Mary in the new lava, and get the rifle. The blond man would think he was armed and wouldn’t come after him. The risks were relatively light. In the first place, the chances of being hit at one hundred yards by a pistol were small, unless the man was a hell of a lot better shot than most. And in the second place, a.22 bullet at that range wouldn’t be lethal. Chee ran.

The pain was sudden and intense. Chee stumbled, lost his footing, and fell to his hands and knees. The pain was in his left chest. A heart attack, he thought for one illogical moment. And then he felt blood running down his side and made a quick inspection. A bullet seemed to have struck a rib. He inspected the place with cautious fingers and grimaced with the pain. The bullet had apparently broken the bone. But he didn’t seem to be hurt in any critical way. No reason to change his plans, except for a more realistic view of the blond man’s marksmanship. He raised himself cautiously. He’d locate his adversary exactly, and then he’d resume his run toward the new lava, on a wider, safer circle.

The blond man was trotting directly toward him across the worn waves of gray stone, the long-barreled pistol held in front of him. Chee ducked. The blond either didn’t care if the Navajo policeman was armed, or knew that he wasn’t. Perhaps he had seen that Chee wasn’t wearing his holster. And now he came to finish the job, as he had finished it with Tomas Charley. Chee felt panic, choked it off, and started a scrambling zigzag run. He’d worry about reaching Mary Landon and his rifle later. Now the problem was to stay alive, to put some distance between himself and the blond, to find a place to hide. He vaulted over a ridge of stone and heard the sharp snap of a bullet whipping past him. He heard no gunshot. Behind the ridge, the lava had hardened into a wide trough perhaps five feet deep. Chee sprinted down it, the rib feeling like a knife in his chest. Then he heard the booming crack of a shot, and the whine of a ricocheting bullet. And then another, and another. Those were not the blond’s silent.22. It was the muzzle blast of his 30-30. The trough ended at a grassy pothole catch basin. He was back at Emerson Charley’s spring. Chee stopped and looked over the rim. The blond man was moving back toward his car, keeping low in a dodging run. From the escarpment of new lava, Chee saw a puff of blue smoke and heard again the cracking boom of the 30-30. Then the blond was behind Chee’s patrol can. For a moment Chee lost sight of him. Then he was visible again, getting into the Plymouth. The Plymouth backed around the patrol car with a squeal of tires on rock and then was jolting down the track, far faster than was safe for tires or springs.

About then Chee realized that his patrol can was burning. The flames came from under the rear of it, apparently fed by fuel leaking out of the gas tank. The fire mushroomed abruptly, engulfing the rear half of the vehicle. Chee watched it grimly. The tank was about half full as he remembered it – perhaps twelve gallons. There was another twenty in the auxiliary tank. When that heated up, it would go off like a bomb.

What had been Tomas Charley still knelt, forehead to grass. Chee walked past the body and picked up the sack containing the thermos of coffee and the picnic lunch. They had a long walk ahead of them. He spent another few minutes making a methodical search of the spring area for the box. Charley had said he’d left it in plain view on the rock just beside the water. There was no box now. Behind him, he heard the muffled boom of the gas tank exploding.

“Boy,” Mary Landon said when he walked up. “You Navajos give exciting picnics.” She laughed, but it was a shaky laugh. The fire flared up again with a whoosh of flame as a front tire exploded, and she raised her hand to shade her face from the heat. Her sleeve was torn and her wrist was smeared with blood from a long scratch on her forearm.

“You all right?” he asked. “Thank God you took the rifle with you.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Suddenly Mary Landon was furious. “Why wouldn’t I take it? Because I was stupid, that would be why. I’d just seen a tied-up dead body, and the man who must have killed him coming night toward me, and you yelling at me to run, and the rifle right there in the scabbard. Why wouldn’t I take it?” Her voice was fierce. “Because I’m a half-wit woman? I wouldn’t have said that if you’d taken the rifle. I’d take it for granted. But no. I’m a woman, so I’m stupid.”

“Sorry,” Chee said.

“What’s wrong with this damned rifle anyway?” Mary said. She handed it to him, which reminded Chee that his spare ammunition was in the glove box and would be exploding any minute.

“Let’s back away a little,” he said. As he said it, the 30-30 rounds began exploding, no louder than firecrackers.

“I’m a pretty good shot, I thought,” Mary said. “I was missing him a mile.”

“Sorry about that, too,” Chee said. “When I’m not using it I let the rear sight down.” He showed her, pushing the leaf sight up with his thumb and sliding the calibrated wedge forward to the 200-yard mark.

Mary looked from Chee’s thumb to Chee’s face, her glance asking: Is this man for real? She shook her head. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“Takes the strain off the spring,” Chee said lamely.

Suddenly she leaned against him. He felt her shaking. “Sorry I’ve been so bitchy,” she said, talking into his coat. “I’m not used to this.”

“Me either,” Chee said.

“That man back there. Was that Mr. Charley? The one you were looking for? He was dead, wasn’t he? Did that blond man kill him? Do you know what’s going on?”

“Yes,” Chee said. “And no. It was Charley. He was dead. And I don’t have any idea what the hell is going on.”

While he was saying it, Mary became aware of the blood on his shirt. Childish as he knew it was, being wounded made him feel a little less foolish. If the rib hadn’t hunt so much, and if he hadn’t had a five-mile walk back to the highway ahead of him, it would have been almost worthwhile.