“What could the ranchers possibly have against a few parrots?” Angie asked.

Hacker shrugged. “There’s always the concern that as soon as the birds show up, someone will pull some endangered species stunt that will also endanger the ranchers’ time-honored grazing rights. Believe me,” he added, “when cowmen and tree huggers go to war, it’s easy for a guy like me to get caught in the middle and end up wearing a bullet in my chest.”

“A real bullet?” Angie asked nervously.

Dennis Hacker’s answering smile didn’t hold much humor. “Unfortunately, yes.”

He went on to tell Angie how his grandmother’s interest in birds had been passed on to him. Leaning back in the upright seat, Angie was happy to listen. Only when Dennis Hacker’s story ran down and he began to ask questions about her own background did Angie Kellogg grow uneasy once more.

“Where did you go to school?” he asked.

She knew this incredibly intelligent man had attended Cambridge University in England before coming to the United States and picking up graduate degrees in zoology from both Stanford and UCLA. Angie was a high school dropout. Since leaving school, what education she had achieved had come through reading books.

“Ann Arbor,” she said.

“What did you study?”

Angie lost it then. For a moment she could think of nothing to say. “Education,” she managed finally.

“Why are you a barmaid, then?” he asked.

“I tried teaching but I didn’t like it,” she said lamely.

She was relieved when the conversation wandered back to birds once more, with Dennis telling her about the wonderful displays at the Arizona/Sonora Desert Museum up in Tucson, especially the hummingbird compound. “It’s a shame you haven’t been there yet. Maybe that’s where we should go next. I’d love to take you.”

With lightning flickering far to the south, they left Douglas on what Dennis explained was the Old Geronimo Trail. “That’s where he surrendered, you know,” Dennis told her.

“Where who surrendered?”

“Geronimo,” he said. “That famous old Apache chief. He surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, just down the mountain from where we’ll be watching the hummingbirds.”

Dennis Hacker’s travelogue continued as they drove east. Angie was feeling at ease when the Hummer turned off one dirt road, bounced past something that looked like a walled-in cemetery, and came to rest beside a small, two-wheeled camper/trailer.

“What’s this?” she asked suddenly wary as Dennis switched the motor.

“Home sweet home for the next little while,” he answered cheerfully. “Come on in. It’s time for breakfast.”

“But I thought we were going on a picnic,” Angie objected. They were miles into the wilderness. Since leaving Douglas an hour earlier they hadn’t seen a single other vehicle. Dennis Hacker seemed nice enough, but the idea of going into this house with him alone…

He came around to Angie’s side of the Hummer, opened the door, and then held out a hand to help her down. “There’s plenty of time for us to eat before we head up the mountain. Besides, I can fix a much better breakfast here than I can over a campfire. It also means we won’t have to carry food and cooking utensils in our packs. Come on.”

Hacker’s gentlemanly gesture of extending his hand didn’t leave Angie much choice. Feeling trapped and scared and wishing she hadn’t come, she allowed herself to be led toward the trailer. There was no telling what he could do to her alone out here in the wilderness like this. Angie Kellogg had been with some pretty scary guys in her days as a hooker, but she had always been on her own turf in the city. If one of the johns or a pimp came after her there, all she’d had to do was run outside, screaming for help and knowing that, eventually, help would come. Here there was no one. If Hacker turned on her, what would she do?

Angie looked longingly back at the road, back the way they’d just come, but Dennis Hacker didn’t relinquish her hand. “That’s Cottonwood Creek Cemetery over there,” he said, leading her forward. “It’s an interesting place, but there’s not much to see in the dark. I’ll take you there later, after we come down the mountain. Here’s the step. Be careful.”

Opening the door with one hand, he guided her up a wooden stair. “Stay right here until I turn on the light.”

The light turned out to be a butane-fueled light fixture that hung over a tiny kitchen table. “Sit,” he told her. “As you can see, this place is too small for two people to stand at once, so if you’ll sit and supervise, I’ll cook.”

Angie eased herself into the little breakfast nook and peered around. The place was indeed tiny, but it was also neat as a pin. As she sat down, she caught a glimpse of a well-made bed in a loft tucked up over a built-in desk. The paneled walls glowed warm and golden in the softly hissing light.

“How do bacon and eggs sound?” he was asking. “And do you prefer coffee or tea? I’ve become Americanized enough that I drink coffee most of the time, but I still like to have a nice cup of tea first thing in the morning.”

“Tea will be fine,” Angie managed.

Watching as he bustled around the trailer-getting out pots and pans, setting a pot of water to boil-Angie noticed that Dennis was so tall he had to stand with his neck bent to keep from bumping his head on the ceiling. “Doesn’t that bother you?^” she asked. “Having to hold your head that way?”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it. In order to get a higher ceiling, I would have had to go for a bigger caravan-”

“Caravan,” Angie interrupted with a frown. “What’s that?”

Hacker stopped peeling potatoes long enough to grin at her. “Sorry. I mean trailer. That’s what you Yanks call them. This one happens to suit me. The short wheelbase makes it possible for me to take it almost anywhere I want to go.”

Within minutes, Angie was enjoying the delicious aroma of frying bacon and sipping strong, hot tea from a beautifully delicate bone china cup and saucer. The pattern on the cup showed a long-legged blue bird standing, regal and serene, among exquisitely painted pink and orange flowers. When her bacon, eggs, and hash browns (homemade, from scratch) showed up a little later, the food was arranged on matching and equally beautiful crane-decorated plates. The silverware was a mismatched jumble, but the dishes themselves were elegant and beautiful.

“Where did you get this wonderful china?” Angie asked.

Dennis Hacker smiled. “It’s called Kutani Crane,” he told her. “It’s Wedgwood. The set was a gift from my grandmother. Sort of a congratulatory gift for getting this job. It meant I didn’t have to go back home and sign up to work in my father’s shipping business.”

“Your grandmother must have chosen that pattern because she knew you liked birds,” Angie said. “That was thoughtful of her.”

Dennis laughed out loud. “No,” he said. “Grandmum chose it because she likes birds. Remember who got me interested in birds in the first place. Come on now. Eat up. It’s getting late. We’ll need to hit the trail pretty soon. I’ll just leave the dishes in the sink and do them when we get back.”

They were almost ready to leave when a phone rang. “A phone?” Angie asked in surprise when she heard it ringing.

Dennis nodded apologetically. “Sorry,” he said. “Speak of the devil. That’s probably Grandmother right now. She’s never quite gotten the hang of the time change. She usually rings up early Sunday mornings before I go out to take care of the birds. She likes to keep tabs on me.”

Angie tried not to listen as Dennis chatted with his grandmother. The idea of someone calling all the way from England to visit on the phone with someone sitting in a camper parked in the middle of nowhere in the Arizona desert seemed strange to her. But then, the things Angie Kellogg did would probably seem strange to most other people, too.

While Dennis was busy talking, Angie contented herself with examining an old framed but faded photo hanging on the wall between the table and the desk. In brown and sepia-tinged tones, it showed an endless line of hundreds of men dressed in heavy winter gear and loaded with huge packs climbing what appeared to be an almost vertical snow-covered mountain.