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wanted it to be true. “They came in late, and Mrs. Maestas was already in bed.”
    “Try Dolly’s cell again.”
    Mercy dialed the number. “Straight to voice mail.”
    Paco lifted his coffee cup, took a sip, and paused as if he was letting everything sink in. “Let’s all settle down. We can only go with what we know. Dolly could be in Limon. You know how bad cell coverage can be out there.” He took another drink. “Let’s assume she’s with these other girls. We can talk to her when she gets back.”
    “And if she’s not in Limon?” Marty asked.
    Paco was calm. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
    “One thing for sure,” Marty thought out loud. “She’s not with Jimmy Riley.”
    Tears filled Mercy’s eyes. But not for Dolly.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Opening day at ten thirty A.M. should have been Birdie’s busiest time. Hunters would be moving from where they had been in the early morning. Those who had game would be hauling the animals to camp and maybe heading into Brandon for breakfast at Saylor’s. Those who hadn’t filled would be on the roads seeking a new place for an afternoon hunt. Normally, Birdie would check licenses and keep count of dead deer.
    This morning, Birdie sped by trucks filled with men in blaze-orange hats and vests and never gave them as much as a nod. She knew Ray-Ray Jackson never missed opening morning, and he wouldn’t be one of the hunters on the roads.
    The rolling prairie always made Birdie think of some storybook giant’s table after a holiday meal. Folds and creases made by the great tablecloth covered the November fields in tones of gold and brown. Here and there ponds and stock tanks filled with dark water stood out like dribbles of gravy.
    On the far west side of the county, the giant’s younger brother had hidden the salt and pepper shakers beneath the cloth. Jumbles of cottonwoods and tamarack collected in the crinkles between the two high points, and deer thrived in the creek bottoms below.
    The two sections of ground belonged to the state, and hunting was open to any who dared the muck and tangles. That place on the map was called by a Spanish name. But Birdie always thought of a wrinkled old man’s backside when she recalled what the locals called it. Ray-Ray would be hunting in the Butt Notch, Birdie was sure. It was less than a mile from the old farmhouse he called home. And the same distance from the dead buffalo.
    And where she had found Jimmy Riley.
    Birdie turned off the county gravel onto a trail road. Weeds scraped the undercarriage as she bumped the truck along the two packed strips of dirt that followed the north fence line. A mile in, the trail zigzagged away from the fence and up the higher of the two hills.
    She stopped the truck before she reached the top, where the winds had taken down a dead cottonweed tree sometime last winter. Dried limbs stretched out over the trail road and spilled down the hillside. She killed the engine, sat for a moment, and listened. It was quiet. No gunshots, sounds of car engines, or distant tractors. Only the symphony the wind made over the prairie.
    Peaceful.
    But the image of Jimmy’s body wedged into her mind and stole away the thought as soon as it formed.
    Birdie took her binoculars from the glove box, opened the door, and climbed the last fifty yards to the top of the hill. Birdie didn’t get a body like hers from walking. Fifty uphill yards was torture. But binoculars beat shoe leather. From the top of the bluff she could get a good look at everything in the Butt Notch.
    A gunshot boomed from the jumble of the trees in the valley below. She scrambled the last few steps, dropped to her knees, and raised the field glasses to her eyes.
    *   *   *
    Ray-Ray Jackson wiped the blood from his skinning knife on a clump of dried grass. An inch of thick fat along back of the fork horn buck pleased him. Ray-Ray could have taken the older, bigger buck from the herd, but he had chosen the younger animal. From its small