“Yep.”

Static. “Then you’re not going to get anything anyway.” He readjusted the phone. “I can locate a guy in Manhattan using his mobile in a third of a second, but out here in God’s country? You’ve got to be kidding.” He laughed. “If they were using a cell phone we could get an approximate location from the sending towers, and by approximate, I mean a couple hundred square miles, but since there is no cell service almost anywhere here in Wyoming, they won’t be using one—which means we get zippo, nada, zilch.”

“Thanks for your help.”

Static. “Any time.” There was a silence, but then he spoke again. “Look, I’ll contact NSA, but I’m promising less than nothing, okay?”

“Better than nothing, I guess.”

Static. “Over and out.”

I listened to the radio go dead and glanced up at the millionaire pilot. “Omar, how far to the site?”

The nose of the chopper dipped, and we jetted forward. “About two minutes.”

As we skimmed along into the rain and the windswept sky, I rapidly moved down the list. “Randy I’m giving a two on motive simply because he would have to kill his uncle as well to get anything out of it.” I thought about it. “But there was something Enic said about Danny being hard on Randy.”

Henry raised a finger in response. “Also, Enic is a Traditional and possibly more open to the idea of closing out something newfangled like the Cheyenne Conservancy.”

“I just don’t see those two agreeing on much of anything.”

“Around eight million dollars can soothe over a number of differences.”

I shook my head. “I’m still giving him a two.”

“Means?”

“Gotta give him a three on that.”

Opportunity?”

“Three.”

“Second place at eight.”

“Enic.”

“He knew about the relationship, and he’s been trying to help them.” I reached over and fingered the delicate glass of the bud vases, a strange thing to have onboard a twin-engine, light-medium helicopter, but it had come from Neiman Marcus. “He said something about Eva not being happy about the situation.” I sighed. “He gets the ranch, he gets the eight-million-dollar Jen . . . He gets everything.”

The Cheyenne Nation nodded. “Three.”

“He just doesn’t seem like the type; I get the feeling he wouldn’t kill his brother.”

“He struck you in the back of the head with the stock of a shotgun.”

“He could’ve shot me.” I acquiesced. “Three.”

“Means?”

“Three.”

“Opportunity?”

“Three.”

An eyebrow on the Bear crept up like a black caterpillar. “Need I remind you that the game is not Motive-Means-Opportunity, and Feelings.”

Boy howdy.

15

“Is it me, or have we stopped?”

The Bear nodded. “I think we are in the process of stopping.”

The Bell 430 eased to a hover over the dig site as the northwest wind buffeted the fuselage and Omar eased us downward, suddenly pivoting to the left, his voice a little too excited for my taste. “Sorry, that ridge was a little closer than I thought. We’re checking the immediate area from the air and then, if we don’t find anything, we begin the circle?”

“I’m open to ideas if you’ve got a better one.”

“Nope—just checking before I turn on the lights.”

Henry glanced at me as we swept the immediate vicinity, our eyes getting used to the sudden glaring light. “Enic is armed?”

I nodded. “With a single-barrel shotgun that looked as if it might’ve come off a Wells Fargo wagon.”

“Do you have an extra firearm, just in case?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“That’s okay, I do.” Omar’s voice assaulted us, along with the butt-end of a tactical shotgun, complete with a black nylon sling. “Benelli M4 with all the bells and whistles—nothing lives in two equal parts, unless you get attacked by earthworms.”

The Cheyenne Nation took the thing from the front passenger seat and held it gently in his hands, more than a little impressed with the sleek, matte-black 12-gauge. His fingers wrapped around the fore stock near the flashlight below the barrel, and he flipped on the high-intensity light.

“Shades of Vietnam?”

His eyes came up to mine, and he smiled as his free hand pulled the hood of the poncho up over the cloak of dark hair. “Just a little.”

“Hey, Omar, nothing moving around here—let’s proceed south by southwest and see if we can find a lineman in a hay shack, or something like that.”

I figured it was pretty much an impossibility that we might stumble onto the shack even with the lights, but I kept my eyes out the windows, as much as I didn’t want to, adjusted the mic, and spoke to Omar. “Follow the drainages; when we found the opening to the mine it was on a hillside with the shack on the ridge above it.” I’d just finished speaking when there was a loud thump, the aircraft shuddered, and the searchlights were entwined in a mass of wet, waving grass. “Did we just hit the ground?”

Omar’s voice sounded completely calm. “Just grazed a hilltop.”

My voice, on the other hand, was not so completely calm. “Let’s not do that again, okay?”

Henry glanced over at me, shook his head, and continued looking out the window.

“I know this area pretty well. I’ve hunted down here and we—”

There was another thump. “Damn it, Omar! Put another twenty feet between us and the ground, would you?” This thump had been different, though. The helicopter shuddered like before, but now there seemed to be an imbalance in the vibrations of the thing. “What the hell was that?”

“Shit.” I watched as Omar struggled with the controls, finally easing the craft back in an attempt to hover, but the chopper was having none of it and pitched to the side.

I slammed my shoulder against the door, clamped a hand onto the seat, and, glancing at Henry, noticed he had lost a little of his nonchalance. “What’s happening?”

“We hit something, or something has hit us.”

I pressed myself even further into the seat, if possible. “Are we going down?” He didn’t answer, but there was another shuddering thump and it seemed as if the helicopter was tipping forward even though we were still moving. “Are we on the ground?”

Omar answered. “We are, but we are sliding—better grab on to something.”

I reached for the seat in front of me, but we hit the side of the hill before I could hold on. I flew forward, taking Henry with me, and we tumbled into the cockpit with Omar, crushing him into the instrument panel as we flipped over the dash and lodged against the glass.

The good news was that we’d stopped moving.

I yanked my arm free as the Bear carefully placed the shotgun on the seat, then pulled himself into the copilot position and looked at Omar, who was piecing together a strip of flesh at the bridge of his nose that was leaking copious amounts of blood.

Henry disengaged himself from the copilot controls. “Are you all right?”

Omar nodded and started shutting the helicopter down. He gestured toward me. “Yeah, I guess. I was fine until Bigfoot planted a boot in my face as you two went over.” He reached down and hit a few more buttons and then spoke into the mic. “Absaroka County Control, we are down. Requesting assistance.” He keyed the mic again. “Absaroka County Control?” He listened for a moment and then pulled his trademark black hat from his head and ceremoniously dropped the headset to the floorboards. “Either we’re out of range, there is no reception, or the radio is FUBAR.”