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ensemble: a blue baseball-style jacket over a beaded white dress and heels. He looked uncomfortable in a suit that was much too large for his slender frame. They glanced up eagerly when I came in, but then gave each other a look of distress, as if they had been expecting someone else.
    My map had indicated that the segment of public lands where the Pueblo Peña ruin and the abandoned Indian school were located was landlocked on three sides. With the help of the county clerk, Nina Enriquez, I learned that a fenced federal training area abutted the south side of the section, the Tanoah Pueblo reservation lands bordered it due east, and a large spread owned by fifth-generation rancher Scout Coldfire and his wife, Lorena, rimmed the north. To the west, the canyon and the high desert beyond was all public land, most of it remote and inaccessible. Nina, who had been about to close the office for the day, looked up the Coldfires’ phone number for me before she locked the door to count the day’s revenue. “Boy, am I ready to go home today,” she said. “I had people in here all afternoon, one after the other. One guy had me look up five or six different properties because he was looking for an easement. Another one didn’t understand why we raised his taxes when he added two thousand square feet to his house.”
    As I was leaving the courthouse, the woman in the white dress, still waiting in the lobby with her beau, came up to me with a frantic look on her face.
    â€œOur friends did not arrive. It is almost time for the courthouse to close, and we cannot wait any longer. Please, miss, will you be a witness for us?”
    I opened my mouth to speak, but could not think how to reply. I was exhausted from a night without sleep; my arm and shoulder hurt from the bruises, scrapes, and splinters I’d received from being thrown by the horse; the bump on my head where the stirrup had smacked me was throbbing. I still felt disturbed by the nature of the crime I’d discovered, and I’d managed to put in a full day of work without complaining once. And I had another obligation to meet that evening before I could get into my Jeep and drive home to my little cabin, the request of this couple notwithstanding.
    My hesitation only upset the bride-to-be more. Tears welled in her eyes. “Please, miss?” she said, so softly that I read her lips more than heard her words.
    Judge Valerio opened the door from a small courtroom. “Jamaica! I didn’t know you were here. How are you?”
    â€œI’m okay, Judge Valerio, thank you.”
    He turned to the young man and woman. “Well, are we going to have a wedding or not? It’s time to go home.”
    They looked at me.
    â€œCan I get some water and take Mountain a drink first? He’s eaten some salty meat and he’s really dehydrated. The water I keep for him in my car is frozen.”
    Valerio smiled. “Oh, I see. You’re going to be their witness? Good! Well, just bring Mountain in and give him a drink, and he can be a witness, too! I’d like to see that wolf, I haven’t seen him since he was a pup. I’ll have my clerk look for something he can drink out of.”
    â€œI have a dish,” I said, heading out the door to the parking lot.
    Back inside, Mountain drank all the water in the collapsible dish and looked at me imploringly for more. “Sorry, buddy,” I said, “I don’t want you to bloat. You’ve already got a challenge with all that deer sausage to digest.” While Judge Valerio remarked repeatedly how big and beautiful Mountain had become, I silently prayed that the wolf wouldn’t send up a stink during the wedding ceremony as he had at the BLM.
    In the small county courtroom, Mountain and I and the judge’s clerk attended the wedding of the two young people who were desperate to marry that day. As I stood next to the bride, the wolf sat beside me, attentive to