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“Stone has it somewhere. Make a search,” he tells me, “room by room.”

“Got it,” I say without enthusiasm.

“You should be ecstatic.”

“About the casings? Yeah, it’s cool.”

“What’s up?”

“Just be straight, okay?”

“Always, buddy, you know that.”

“Do you have an agent tailing me? Because I can’t function that way, and frankly, I resent the hell out of it.”

“A federal agent?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“The cowboy? Come on. Good-looking, mid-thirties? He shows up at the corrals, working on the gather? Then he appears again, a mile from the farm, hitting targets like a pro?”

“At the same shooting range? You’re kidding. What kind of gun?”

“Don’t get excited. It was a hunting rifle, a .308.”

Your handler doesn’t tell you everything. While you’re alone and isolated undercover, the Bureau will be working things from the other end, putting operatives in place you don’t know about. They’ll say it’s for your safety, but it can make you paranoid fast.

“If you don’t like this guy, check him out,” Donnato says.

“I don’t like him,” I reply.

“Search his vehicle, for a start.”

“That would be difficult,” I say. “He’s riding a horse.”

Because there, in the heaviest torpor of the day, when stubborn fever becalms the air and the stringed vibration of the bees hits an even riper pitch, Sterling McCord is riding slowly down the sun-soaked lane on a bay, leading the white foal on a halter rope.

It’s the bay mare who rescued me, loaded up with the same silver-encrusted western saddle, but this time walking leisurely at loose rein with head low, flicking her ears at the flies. McCord’s posture is identical to when they were at full gallop, head tipped forward and shoulders relaxed, as if he is half-asleep.

He is wearing the high red-tooled boots and spurs, jeans, a clean white shirt, and the Stetson with the vintage cowboy crease. As the lazy clomping of horseshoes passes below me, I can see the tight copper bracelet on one strong wrist, a braided leather one on the other, and I have a clean downward angle of vision on the squarish hands with wide finger pads resting on the horn of the saddle—manly and competent hands you would entrust to complete the mission.

Whatever the mission might be.

I stay silent until he passes. Does he know without looking that I am here—the way Dick Stone knew when I first arrived?

“There’s something about this guy,” I tell Donnato. “He’s not who he appears to be.”

“What name does he use?”

“Sterling McCord.”

“We’ll check him out.”

I cannot tell if my partner of twelve years is telling the truth.

That is what I mean by paranoid.

Megan and Sara have gathered around the horseman in the shaded driveway.

“Look at that sweet thing,” Megan says, crooning over the foal. “You’re our new baby.”

McCord tips his hat. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

His eyes remain hidden in the shadow of the brim, but his skin seems to have acquired a darker tan, with deeper leathery lines, and the blond sideburns have grown long and rough. It occurs to me that in his outdoor life, he, too, is a creature of transforming elements, same as the eroding granite outcrop; unlike city folks, he wouldn’t try to put the brakes on aging, and he wears it well. He’s dropped the reins and the horse dozes beneath him. I like this touch: a knife in a leather sheath buckled to his thigh.

The foal has gained weight. Its sculpted head is up and alert, the bristly mane long enough to flop over, and the small pinkish hooves strike the dirt inquisitively. But the dark violet eyes are empty as mirrors.

“Does he have a name?” Megan asks.

“Geronimo.”

“You are cute as the dickens!” she tells the foal, and actually kisses it on the nose.

“Sara,” McCord calls from the saddle, “look at your boy.”

“He’s not mine.”

She is wearing skintight jeans that hit below her slack hipbones, and a gingham top somewhere between a bra and a bib.

The foal’s dark muzzle has shrunk to normal size, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, which it explores with eager lips.

“Sorry, big guy.” I laugh. “I don’t have anything