Michael McGarrity - Tularosa

"That can only mean one thing. Kerney's taking you onto the missile range."

"Is that so?" she asked, unwilling to admit the truth.

"Hell, it was our favorite sport when we were growing up. I've bragged on it so much over the years, now my girls do it and give me grief when I crab at them to stop. It's gotten to be like a tradition." He pointed up the dirt road running past the ranch to the outline of a white sign by a cedar-post gate.

"There it is. White Sands Missile Range. Halfa mile away. The start of Rhodes Pass. It's our backyard."

"Did you and Kerney ever get caught?" Sara asked.

"Not once. Fifty-three hundred square miles is a lot of territory to protect. You'd have to put the whole damn Army inside the Tularosa to seal it off completely.

"Hell, we even used to try and get ourselves caught. Once in a while we'd let them Army boys catch a glimpse of us just to make the game more exciting, hoping they'd chase after us. I think they knew who we were and decided it wasn't worth the effort. There are ways into the range from here I bet the military have never figured out." He opened the gate, stepped inside the corral, and reached for a saddle blanket.

"I think the mare will do you." The mare stood passively, head lowered, while the gelding skittered away, spooked by Dale's sudden presence.

"What's the terrain like?" Sara inquired, unconvinced. Dale had the blanket in one hand and a saddle in the other, ready to cinch up the mare.

"Rough country. The mare's surefooted. You'll need that, especially in the mountains."

"She's slow, I bet," Sara countered, "and won't keep up with the bay."

She climbed the railing and joined Dale in the corral. She took the bridle off the fence post.

"I'll try the gelding," she announced.

"That's no horse for a lady," Dale said.

"Maybe I'm no lady," Sara said, picking up the bridle. She cornered the gelding and put the bit in his mouth, talking to him softly. When he took the bit, she worked her hand down his neck until he stopped snorting and put his ears forward. Still talking, she reached up for his mane and vaulted easily onto the gelding's back. The gelding trembled, bent his hindquarters almost to the ground, and started a counterclockwise spin. Sara leaned into the movement, her head low against the gelding's neck. After six rotations, the horse stopped twisting and settled into a mild canter around the fence perimeter. It had a comfortable, smooth gait.

"He likes to turn to the left," Dale allowed, pleased at the sight of a good rider. Sara patted the neck of the gelding and slid to the ground.

"He'll match the bay," she predicted.

"That he will," Dale agreed, walking to her with the saddle and blanket.

They saddled the gelding and loaded the gear on the swayback roan. From the looks of it, Kerney had brought all of the essentials for the journey and then some. He rejoined them as they were finishing up.

"The lady can ride," Dale remarked as he opened the gate to let the small caravan out of the corral.

"I'm not surprised," Kerney replied. He lifted his head toward Rhodes Canyon.

"Does the pass get much use?"

"Three vehicles a week is a traffic jam," Dale joked.

"Any regulars?"

"Military police. State Game and Fish. Some Bureau of Land Management types."

"Any one in there now?" Kerney asked, walking his horse to the dirt road. He stopped and mounted the bay. Sara was already astride the gelding. Dale nodded.

"Eppi Gutierrez went in yesterday. Manages the bighorn herd for Game and Fish. Should be back out in a day or two. How are you going in?" Kerney looked down at his boyhood friend and winked.

"Washout Gap, if it's still open."

"The worst trail in," Dale declared. "Why that one?"

"We're going to Indian Wells first," Kerney explained.

"Well, that's the shortest way." His hand ran down the withers of the bay.

"We'll be back no later than tomorrow morning, early," Kerney told his friend.

"I'll be looking for you." Dale moved his hand to the bridle to hold Kerney back. His voice dropped to a whisper.

"I don't know what made you come back, but I'm glad you did."

Kerney felt the horse under him and looked at the expanse of desert and mountains that ran out from the canyon below. The turquoise sky rolled with cumulus clouds, heavy and moist. He smiled at his friend.

"So am I. Thanks for the loan of the horses." Dale smiled back.

"Watch out for rain," he said, looking skyward.

"Yeah." Mountains tinged with red earth, richly forested in the protected canyons, rose to serrated peaks.

Only the clatter of hooves on the rock-strewn trail, the breathing of the horses, and the occasional call of the waking birds in the evergreen forest broke the silence. Kerney led them away from Rhodes Pass, down a gradual limestone staircase into a long, deep ravine that seemed to cut into the heart of the mountains with little chance of an outlet. There was no trail to speak of at the bottom, rather a confusion of loose rock, gravel, sand, and deadwood washed into the draw by countless flash floods. The gelding moved easily through the maze, relaxed under Sara's confident touch. The walls of the canyon were as finely etched as a delicate cameo, with veins of strata running through the rock at sharp angles. They continued down, descending into the shadows of narrow-walled bedrock, sidestepping large boulders polished smooth by torrents of floodwater. She saw absolutely no way out and wondered if Kerney's memory of the trail was flawed. A cluster of boulders, each taller than a man, blocked their passage. Kerney dismounted and motioned for Sara to do the same.

"The horses won't like this," he said to her. There was a faint echo that bounced off the walls.

"I'll walk them through." Sara joined him by the rocks. He pointed to a jagged cutout in the ledge, barely distinguishable in the indigo shadows, exactly the height of the large boulder embedded in the gravel.

The vent showed the crushing impact of the boulder, which had hollowed out a passage before recoiling off the wall. She peered into the opening; a slash of blackness with a gleam of light at the end. It rose precipitously on rough-hewn, chiseled steps, with scarcely enough room for a horse to pass. The packhorse won't make it, she thought, and turned back to see Kerney already busy un cinching the straps to the pack frame. She helped him unload and carry the gear through the opening. She walked in deep gloom for a good twenty paces before she could see her feet. The crevice widened to meet a small ledge on an abrupt precipice that dropped at least a hundred feet straight down.

Looking over the edge, she could see the faint outline of a trail.

"Where are we?" she asked, setting her cargo on the ground.

"Bear Den Canyon is below us. The ledge gives way to a good trail around the corner. Wait for me there. I'll get the horses."

"I'll bring the gelding through," she announced firmly. Kerney began to argue, thought better of it, and said, "If it suits you." The gelding made the journey nervous and snorting. Kerney left Sara holding the bridles and went back for the roan. Remounted and repacked at the trailhead, they rode down to the east, the blockading mountains occasionally dipping to give them a view of the immense Tularosa Valley and White Sands National Monument, sparkling brilliantly in the distance. North of the monument, huge manmade swaths cut into the desert floor defined the space harbor where shuttle pilots practiced landings. At the bottom, Kerney turned them out of the canyon floor and up a dry streambed that snaked back into the high country. Once again on a crest, they stopped to rest the horses.

The morning sun's heat shimmered up from the desert floor in waves. The blackness of the lava flow at the northern end of the basin spread across the valley. The Malpais, the Spanish called it, bad country, where a horse could break a leg and a rider could break a neck. Behind the sharp coils of lava, snow still capped the twin peaks of Sierra Blanca, the centerpiece of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, and in the depressions where the basin dipped, shallow salt lakes held the residual water of winter, not yet evaporated by the furnace of a summer sun. They moved beneath the timberline in old-growth evergreens, breaking into the open only once to cross another knuckled canyon before the final push to Indian Wells.