Anna started to protest that she was in touch with herself, but the lie was too bold for her. "One more complication," she said and felt a wicked pleasure in having a real bomb to drop. "Christina Walters is my prime suspect in what I'm increasingly sure is the murder of the Dog Canyon Ranger."

There was a most satisfying silence on the other end of the line. Anna smiled.

"When I told Mother and Dad I wanted a playmate, I was hinting for a kitten," Molly said. "I liked being an only child. Do you hear this?" There was a shushing sound, then Molly's voice again. "That was me pouring myself a medicinal scotch and soda. You have till I finish it to fill in the rest of the story. Then I'm going to bed. Ready? Go!"

Anna told her largely conjectural story of love, lust, blackmail, and murder.

"How?" Molly asked flatly when she had finished. "Lured her lover upstream like a demented salmon and coshed her with a cactus?"

"Maybe," Anna said. "I've not done 'how' just yet. I'm working on 'why.' Christina Walters, my… friend… is the only real good 'why' I've got so far."

"Work on 'how,' " Molly advised. "Take my professional word for it: everybody's got ten good reasons to do away with everybody else. It's just nobody knows how. Do 'how.' "

There was an odd little clink, like a tiny distant bell. "That," said Molly, "was the last ice-cube hitting my teeth. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Anna returned but the line had gone dead.

8

look at the bright side, Gideon," Anna addressed the grouchy-looking ears as the horse dragged his feet, stumbling with childish ill grace up the Frijole Trail away from the barn. "Even with tack I probably weigh less than you'd be packing if you were working for Harland."

It was Thursday and Harland had his mule packer using Pesky and the mules to haul coolers full of food and beer into the trail crew where they were spiked out on the Tejas Trail in the high country.

Paul had sent Anna to ride the Guadalupe Peak Trail. Usually hot Thursdays in June were quiet. With temperatures creeping near the hundred-degree mark and no water available at any of the backcountry campgrounds, only the hardy and the foolhardy were packing in. But this Thursday was the annual Pentecostal Church 's fund-raising hike up the highest peak in Texas.

Churches from all over Texas, New Mexico, and as far away as Oklahoma participated. Every year somebody got hurt, half a dozen people broke park rules, and nearly everybody littered.

Anna began whistling "Nearer My God to Thee," and the horse pricked up his ears. "Gonna be a good day, Gideon," she said. "It's not every day you're guaranteed to be hailed as a hero or the anti-Christ or both by sundown."

The beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert had been smoothing the wrinkles from Anna's mind since she'd saddled up at eight a.m. The winds had finally stopped. There would be a reprieve from their incessant scour until probably November. Cholla-the skinny cactus which grew up in angular, spine-covered branches-was beginning to bloom. Festive pink blossoms the size of teacups and looking for all the world like they had been fashioned from crepe paper enlivened the uncompromising cacti. Mexicans called them Velas de Coyotes-candles of the coyotes. Prickly pear pads carried one, two, ten yellow blooms, and the grasses were rich with wildflowers.

In the midst of all this spiritual plenty Anna was annoyed to find herself once again thinking of death. "Molly said we must concentrate on 'how.' Think, Gideon, think." Anna spoke to keep Gideon awake. On the familiar trail from the Frijole ranch house to the Pine Springs campground-three miles he'd done a hundred times-Gideon tended to doze off while he walked. Then if anything-western diamondback rattler or monarch butterfly-woke him suddenly, he'd jump right out from under his rider.

"Okay, Gideon," Anna conceded. "I know you've only got horse brains for brains. I'll think. You listen.

"Quick 'whys.' Maybe in New York everybody has ten good reasons for killing everybody else but in West Texas we are somewhat more civilized. We like the personal touch.

"Water bar, old buddy.

Gideon's hoof crashed into the stone set crosswise on the trail and Anna patted his neck reassuringly. "Such a Nureyev you are, a veritable Baryshnikov.

"Okay. The 'whys' in short. Christina's still first with love, lust, and blackmail to her credit. Second, the mysterious Erik of legend and lore who kills with a Toyota. Karl coming in third with job envy. We'll squeeze Craig Eastern in fourth place because he's crazy and maybe crazy enough to kill to keep the moneylenders out of the temple-the developers out of Dog Canyon. Fourth and a half: Mrs. Drury with her insurance money. Rogelio fifth with his homeless prairie dogs." Gideon cocked one furry ear.

"What?" Anna demanded. "Who did I forget? Okay. No family favoritism. Last but not least, mother-in-law Edith, spurred on to violence by Emily Post over the grapefruit spoon in the ice cream incident.

"Pretty slim pickins', Gideon, my little hay-burner. All my suspects are your basic Caspar Milquetoast types."

Gideon snorted, blowing the flies and dust from his nostrils.

"Right," Anna conceded. "We were to do 'how.' "

For a while they rode without speaking, Gideon heaving great complaining sighs, Anna ignoring them. Two military helicopters out of Halloran Air Force Base flew over and Anna shook her fist at them. The airways over the wilderness were supposedly regulated but it seemed all the fly-boys fancied themselves the new Tom Cruise.

"'How' for Christina." Gideon started as if he'd been goosed with a cattle prod. "Aha! Caught you napping," Anna crowed. "Christina could've lured Sheila into the canyon any number of ways. A simple invite even. Sheila, being the stronger of the two, would carry the pack. Then… Then what, Gideon? Help me here. Aren't you a highly trained police horse? Knocked her over the head? No sign of head trauma. Poisoned her? That's got possibilities. Wait for the autopsy. Frightened her to death? Too farfetched. Drugged her, slathered her with catnip, and waited for a lion to finish the job?"

Gideon stopped, relieved himself in the trail, grunting with unselfconscious equine satisfaction.

"Fair enough," Anna admitted. "We'll drop the catnip angle and leave it at Christina/Poison. Who's next? Ah. Erik. Ditto Erik-if there is an Erik."

Anna fell silent. Had Christina spun her story from scratch, banking on the fact that Anna, a middle-aged woman, more or less alone, a widow without any close friends, would be an easy mark? A few compliments, some laughter, and she'd be so thrilled just to be paid attention to she'd bite anything, swallow it hook, line, and sinker?

"Wouldn't I feel a total horse's ass. Nothing personal, Gideon." The scene she'd painted made Anna cringe but she didn't believe it, not entirely. From long experience she knew that she wore her loneliness like armor. Very few people ever recognized it for what it was. To the casual observer it looked very like arrogance.

Sometimes it was.

"So: Erik, in a jealous rage, talks Sheila into coming to this secluded spot and: one; breaks her neck. Is Erik a big man? Two; injects her with poison. Is the ex-Mr. Walters a chemist or pharmacist?" Anna remembered Christina's mentioning investment banking. "Bored her to death with Ginny Maes and Fanny Maes? I've got it! Smothers her with his down sleeping bag, lays her gently in the saw grass figuring by the time she's found the water will obscure prints, tracks, and marks. Smothering's got possibilities. Wait for the autopsy.

"Karl's next, Gideon. Maybe you want to tune out so you don't have to hear your buddy slandered." Gideon wouldn't dignify that with an answer and Anna went on with her musings. "Karl could've gotten her up there on any of a dozen pretexts: undiscovered pictographs, rare plants. He's powerful. Smothering, neck snapping, it'd be a piece of cake. He wouldn't even break a sweat. Then carry her into the grass.