He fired up the engine, slapped the transmission in gear, and tore up the two-track toward the ridge, the three of us thrown back into the butter-soft bucket seats. “A Conquest, Knight XV—it’s handcrafted out of Toronto.”

As we flew across the prairie, I glanced up through the skylight. “What does something like this set you back?”

He shrugged. “Couple hundred thousand, I don’t know—the accountant said I needed to spend some money fast, so I did.”

When we made the top of the ridge, Omar wheeled the glossy black fortress to the left and stopped; we rolled down the windows to listen but didn’t hear anything. Vic leaned forward in the passenger seat and pointed down the valley. “There are some vehicles parked at the fence down there through a few cattle guards—you want to go check it out?”

Spinning the wheel, Omar drove down the slope to a better-maintained road and started off toward the area Vic had indicated.

She turned to look at me. “So, you know the deceased?”

Thinking it best to keep the visions to myself, I told her about the Moose Lodge encounter. “I had a couple of beers with him one time a few years ago.” I could feel her looking at the side of my face as I looked out the tinted windows. “There was a disturbance at the bar and when I got there it had settled down, so I had a beer with him. He was worried about some things, so we talked. It took a while for me to remember him.”

She nodded, not buying a word of it. “What was he worried about?”

“Nothing, getting old, the land, family, the usual stuff.”

“He should’ve worried about learning to swim.”

I recognized Dave Baumann’s weathered, light-blue Land Rover, emblazoned with the logo of the High Plains Dinosaur Museum, driving at high speed toward us. He slid to a stop alongside Omar’s rolling fortress. A quarter of a mile away, I could see another gate where two flatbeds were parked nose to nose blocking the entrance, with some people milling about; beyond that was a working backhoe.

I rolled down the window and was about to speak when the paleontologist began yelling to the young blonde-haired woman in the passenger seat. “They’re using a backhoe!”

I stared at Dave, an athletic-looking fellow with glasses, curly light-brown hair and beard, blue eyes, and an easy smile that made him popular with the young female scientists who sometimes came to intern at the private museum—they called him Dino-Dave.

“Excuse me?”

He took a deep breath to calm himself and continued. “They’re digging up one of the most valuable sites in recent history with a backhoe.”

“I’m no expert.” I sighed and glanced at both Vic and Omar. “But that’s probably not good.”

“No.”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“I am.” He studied me and revised his statement. “What do you mean?”

I had been involved in these kinds of conflicts where the university, the colleges, the museums, and the landowners quibbled about the exact location of digs, and I liked to get the full story before mobilizing the troops. “Is this official or something more loosely structured?”

“It’s a straight-ahead deal; I paid thirty-seven thousand dollars last year for the fossil remains.”

I opened the door. “I guess we’d better go over and take a look. Why don’t the two of you jump in here with us, Dave?” They did as I requested, and I thrust a hand toward the blonde. “Walt Longmire.”

She didn’t take my hand or return my smile. “Jennifer Watt.” She raised her small video camera and began filming through Omar’s windshield.

I shrugged and sat opposite the two of them—the behemoth vehicle had limousine-style rear seating—feeling like I was in some sort of executive conference room. “Tell me about the deal.”

Dave leaned forward as Omar drove south. “It was the standard arrangement with the landowner and the HPDM—that we would search for fossils, and anything we found, we would share the profits.”

Vic turned and looked at him. “I thought the museum was a nonprofit?”

He nodded. “It is at the end of the fiscal year, but when we first unearthed the jawbone last August and we needed more time, I thought we’d better cement a deal with the landowner.” He pointed toward the backhoe. “Just to make sure that exactly this type of thing didn’t happen.” He paused for a moment and pointedly sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

Vic threw a chin toward me. “Oh, the sheriff here got pissed on.”

It was about then that a round from some sort of small arms fire caromed off the cab, leaving a narrow but nasty gash on the windshield, and Dave ducked. “My God, they’re shooting at us again!”

I stared at the groove as Omar yelled back over his shoulder, “Ballistic armor glass.”

He hit the gas and barreled down the makeshift two-track toward the roadblock as I turned back to Dave. “They shot at you before?”

“You’re damn right they did!”

Another ricochet and Omar fishtailed to the side and gunned it again, in hopes that if we made it closer to the parked vehicles the shooter might be less inclined to fire. We stopped in front of the two flatbeds.

Vic drew her Glock, but I held out a hand, rose up, and got out the other side, just as an Indian cowboy charged up the hillside to slap what looked to be a bolt-action.22 from the hands of a teenage boy.

I walked around both trucks with my hands raised, quickly covering the twenty yards between us. “All right, I’m not sure whose property we’re on, but we need to stop the shooting right now.”

With one last, hard look toward the kid, the Indian cowboy turned as another, older man in a black flat-brim hat joined him. “Sorry about that, Sheriff . . .”

The teenager interrupted. “You told me to stand guard and not let anybody in!”

The Indian cowboy picked up the rifle and threw it to the older man with the black hat as Vic and Dave joined us. “I didn’t mean for you to shoot the sheriff.”

“What’s going on here?”

He smiled a wide grin. “Protecting our investments.” He slapped the teen in the back of the head, knocking off his straw hat, and gestured toward Dave. “You can shoot Dave if you want to . . .” The kid actually reached for the rifle on the older man’s shoulder. “Leave your uncle alone; I was kidding.” He then threw the bearded paleontologist a glance. “Kind of.”

I looked at where the bucket of the big CASE backhoe was scraping away the side of the hill. “You need to stop excavating. Dave here says that you’re going to do irreparable damage to the dig.”

The Indian cowboy lifted a hand and whipped off his own hat, raising it in a wide wave, his dark hair swooping around his head like a flight of crows. The sound of the heavy equipment halted almost immediately. He turned back to look at us, his perfect teeth contrasting with the tan skin of his handsome face as he extended his hand. “Randy Lone Elk, Sheriff. I don’t think we’ve met.” He gestured toward the older man holding the rifle. “This is my Uncle Enic.” He lip-pointed toward the teenager. “And the All-American sniper here is Taylor, my nephew.”

I shook the hand and gestured toward Baumann. “Dave here is concerned about the integrity of his site.”

“His site, huh?” He continued grinning. “Then he doesn’t know exactly where his site is.” He spread his arms and half turned, exemplifying the open country. “We are trying to draw some attention, and I guess it worked.” He gestured toward Dave. “These guys are attempting to get this fossil out of here before anybody could find out, but we’re renegotiating the deal.” He looked at me and then at Omar’s vehicle. “What the hell is that thing, anyway?”

I ignored the question. “Dave here tells me that you’ve been compensated to the tune of thirty-seven thousand dollars on this dig.”

Randy Lone Elk pointed a finger at Baumann’s chest. “That’s bullshit, and even if it wasn’t, thirty-seven thousand dollars is a joke, if not an insult.”