“Well, you promised to tell me about the Siesta Court Bunch party once we hit the road. When I mention it you get this expression-what is it, disbelief? Amusement? Disgust?”

“That was some party.” Nina shook her head. “Was it ever.”

“So? What do you think?”

Nina said slowly, “I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Paul laughed. “That bad?”

“Lord of the Flies bad. Deliverance bad.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“Well, I learned how to lap dance,” Nina said. She wet her lips and began describing the party, from Darryl’s mooning over Elizabeth to Tory walking out; the black-faced kids screeching through the woods; George’s tasteless jokes; Ted and Megan grinning beatifically from the sidelines; Elizabeth’s tape recorder. Paul burst into laughter here and there as she talked.

“Trust me, it wasn’t funny while it was happening,” Nina said. She finished with Britta and Sam on the plastic chair. Paul laughed long and hard at that one.

“Sam’s probably still sitting there in his plastic chair, holding his drink up with that look of horror,” Nina said.

“I can’t believe I let you two talk me out of going,” Paul said. “I wondered if there were any good parties left, and here I had the chance to go to the best one in ages.”

“But I’m not sure I learned anything about the arson. I didn’t look at one of the men and say, it’s him, like I thought I would. One of them, Darryl Eubanks, is a volunteer firefighter, which I suppose gives him an automatic place on the list.”

“What did you think of him?”

“A lunk.”

“I was looking for something more precise. More profound.”

“He’s dissatisfied, though he has everything-health, youth, a family, work, a home-he was hitting on one of the other women. He’s likable, though, and I kept watching him and reminding myself that a lot of my guilty criminal clients are likable.”

“Anybody else?”

“David Cowan is alienated. He has money. I suspect he’s obsessive, and these fires may be the product of an obsessive mind. He’s secretive, that’s what it is.”

“That’s interesting,” Paul said, “in an academic sort of way.”

“Well, George Hill is used to getting his own way, and he has a concrete grievance.” She told Paul how the Hills had lost their right to subdivide. “Danny worked for him a lot. If I had to pick, I’d say George, but then again, he’s got health problems and I can’t see him climbing a steep trail. I don’t know.”

“We’ll just keep gathering information, and you’ll be able to link up those impressions,” Paul said. “I think you learned a lot.”

“I think you better slow down.”

“Anything you know about this place we’re going? Cachagua?”

“Ca-sha-wa,” she corrected.

“But a hard g for agua?”

She shrugged. “It’s how we pronounce it here. Hmm, Cachagua. I always thought of it as this magical valley in the middle of the forest, timeless, quiet, the sun always shining. It’s sensationally beautiful and remote.”

“Can’t wait to see it, then.”

“But it’s probably not so quiet at the moment. Remember Ben mentioning the old dam up there? The San Clemente? The locals fish and hike there. The village, what there is of a village, is built right next to the dam. Well, there’s talk of putting in a bigger dam.

“Ah, you think the idea of a new dam has the locals worked up,” Paul said.

“Sure it does. The Salinas Valley growers are running out of water. The locals feel like the water’s being stolen from them.”

“We’re gonna wring the earth dry before we’re done,” Paul said. “The truth is we don’t think very well.”

“Hey, Paul. That last line is one of Ruthie’s Twelve Points.”

“So it is. They’re contagious.”

“Water is the big issue in the West. The South steals from the North. Las Vegas steals from the whole state and neighboring states too. Mono Lake is suffering. Salmon die in Oregon because the Feds divert water to the farms. There just isn’t enough fresh water to go around.”

“But it’s so hot and still here. I feel,” Paul said, giving the wheel a spin, “like someone heading into the waving fields of Iowa, one of those outposts where there should be miles of untouched neat rows of corn, American frontier, peace, and no issues.”

“Visit Iowa. I’m sure you’ll find they’ve got fights about pesticides, the end of small farming, whatever,” Nina said. “Meanwhile, California’s got its water fights.”

Stiff and impatient with the long drive, they arrived in Cachagua before noon. Even the spectacular views of forest, wineries, and horses along the way hadn’t diminished the feeling that they were riding into the Wild West, visitors to a place they did not belong. The village, a clearing in the woods with a couple of mom-and-pops and a dusty county park with a tot lot, had only one gathering place of note, the bar.

“Alma’s. I could use a drink,” Paul said.

She knew he meant a real drink, the kind that actually hydrated. They parked in full sun in the dirt lot, and Nina followed him through the door of the long, low brown shack.

After the blazing summer sun, the dimness and cool inside provided a haven. Four men already sat at stools along the bar, three grizzled from years in the outdoors, and one down at the end, gray-bearded but wearing a couple of gold rings in his right earlobe. All eyes turned toward the tourists who had driven up in a fancy red Mustang convertible. Paul gave the men a nod.

“Ice water,” he said.

“Ice water,” Nina echoed. She checked the menu chalked on a board behind the bar. “And nachos.”

Paul said, “And add a couple of turkey sandwiches on wheat.”

“White’s what we serve,” said the woman behind the bar, not unfriendly, but not smiling either.

“White’ll be fine.”

When the water arrived in drizzling, cold glasses, they drank thirstily. Down the bar, the three cowboys resumed what seemed to be a comfortable, ongoing discussion, with an occasional sideways glance toward them. They griped about the lack of jobs, the drought, the divorces, and the child support, and no fact went uncontested. While heated, the conversation was peppered with peevish humor.

After a suitable time, Paul asked the bartender what was going on with the dam. She answered, “Nothing bad has happened yet,” and retired to a stool by the curtain that led to the back, but the question set off the others at the bar. Nina quickly dubbed them Cowboys One, Two, and Three, since the three sitting together wore identically battered denims and work shirts, and from the smell of them, seemed to be taking a break from a morning of arduous outdoor labor.

“Smoke, dust, traffic, blasting, medical problems, strangers in the park… that’s what’s gonna be goin’ on if that damn dam gets built.” Cowboy One wore jeans that rode too low over scrawny hips. His drooping eyes looked permanently unhappy.

“It’s a Godzilla,” said Cowboy Two, a beat-up young man wearing a hard-used tan cowboy hat. All Nina could see of him was his mouth and chin. “And we’re Tokyo. It’ll lay waste to this town.”

“You know what they want to build?” asked Three, a short, plump man who squinted as if needing to protect sensitive eyes from even this murky light. His baseball cap and sunglasses sat on the bar. “A concrete wall two hundred eighty-two feet high, quarter of a mile long. That’s four hundred feet wider than Hoover Dam. You ever seen that?”

One and Two shook their heads.

“You get to Vegas, you’re not thinking about dams,” said One.

“Well, this thing is gonna drown one of the prettiest valleys in the Ventana wilderness. The Los Padres Dam already forces the steelhead salmon that run the river here to climb the highest ladder in the country to spawn. Destroy over a hundred acres of habitat, some of it wilderness. Spotted salamander. Steeleye. We can forget about fishing.”