Pepper broke the tense silence, rising lazily from his chair. Without a word to anyone he ambled down to the edge of the bayou and stood for a moment, apparently admiring the view. When he turned to come back, he looked up at Giff and said, «Company comin'. Me, I hears dat ol' Johnson outboard wit' the bad valve.»

Gifford swore, pushing himself to his feet and turning for the cabin. He returned with his shotgun, the twelve-gauge cracked open so he could shove slugs into it as he pounded down the steps and across the yard.

«Gifford!» Serena set her coffee cup down and ran after him. «Gifford, for heaven's sake!»

He managed to get one shot off before she reached him. The buckshot hit the water, sending up a spray just off the port bow of the game warden s boat. Perry Davis s voice crackled at them over a bullhorn.

«Goddammit, Gifford, put the gun down!»

Gifford lowered the shotgun but wouldn't relinquish it to Serena when she tried to pull it away from him. She ground her teeth and counted to ten and tried to call on her years as a counselor to cool her temper. Nothing helped much. She was furious with Gifford and she knew she was simply too close to him to ever be completely rational and objective in dealing with him.

The engine of the game wardens boat cut and the hull bobbed on the dark water a few feet from shore. Perry Davis stood behind the wheel, looking outraged and officious, his baby face flushed. Beside him was a middle-aged man, big and raw-boned with a fleshy face and a head of slicked-back steel-gray hair. He wore navy slacks and a striped necktie that had been jerked loose and hung like a noose around the collar of his sweat-stained blue dress shirt.

«You keep shooting at people and I'm gonna have to arrest you, Gifford,» Davis threatened, switching off the bullhorn.

Lucky, who had come to stand on Serena's left, gave a derisive snort. «You don't arrest nobody else. Why start with him?»

The game warden worked his mouth into a knot of suppressed fury. «Maybe I'll start with you.»

Lucky pushed his sunglasses up his nose and gave Davis a long, level look, smiling ever so slightly. «Yeah? You and what army?»

«I'll get you, Doucet. I can promise you that,» Davis said, thrusting a warning finger in Lucky's direction. «Crazy bastard like you running around loose. Folks aren't gonna stand for that forever.»

Serena could feel the tension humming around Lucky like electrical waves. The muscles in his jaw worked. He never took his eyes off Perry Davis and he never said another word. Yet, even from a distance of several yards, Davis felt compelled to back away; he moved to the back of the boat on the excuse of looking at the motor, trying to appear as if he had casually dismissed Lucky and their conversation. Gifford took advantage of the silence.

«Burke, you turn yourself around and get out.»

The big Texan let a phony grin split his meaty features. «I can't do that, partner. We've got business to discuss.»

«I've got nothing to say to you that can be said in front of a lady,» Gifford retorted. «I'm not interested in your offer. Go on back to Texas before I shoot you full of holes.»

«Gifford,» Serena said, schooling herself to at least appear calm and under control. «Why don't you invite Mr. Burke in? I'm sure we can settle this business amicably with a little plain talk.»

Burke gave an exaggerated shrug. «The little lady has a head on her shoulders, Gifford. I've said that all along. Isn't it about time you listened to her?»

It occurred to Serena that the Tristar rep had mistaken her for Shelby, but she didn't have the chance to correct him.

«I don't have to listen to anybody!» Gifford shouted, color rising in his face from his neck up. «I'm not senile, by God. I can make up my own mind. And if there's gonna be any plain talk, it's gonna come from the business end of old Betsy here,» he said, raising the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder.

«Gifford!» Serena shouted, lunging toward him. He squeezed the trigger as she knocked him off balance. The shotgun bucked as another deafening explosion rent the air. Water sprayed up against the hull of the game warden's boat, dousing Burke and Davis with a rain of mud and shredded vegetation. The two men ducked, covering their heads with their arms, then came up swearing.

Burke pointed a warning finger at Gifford. «I've had it with you, Sheridan. You're a crazy old man. There's been plenty of witnesses to that. I can get the sheriff out here. You can't just go around shooting at people who want to do business with you.»

«Hell,» Gifford said, wading out into the water, his fierce gaze fixed on Burke. «I said a long time ago they ought to open season on Texans. This state wouldn't be in the mess it's in if we'd 'a kept you greedy sons of bitches on the other side of the border!»

Serena eyed the muddy water with distaste, a tremor of fear snaking down her spine. Then she looked at her grandfather's back as he advanced toward the game warden's boat and forced herself to take the first step in, her shoes sinking into the muddy bottom. She grabbed Gifford by a belt loop on his jeans and tried to pull him back toward shore.

Burke had turned hot pink; his eyes bugged out of his head as if someone had suddenly pulled his tie tight enough to cut off his wind. «Keep it up, Sheridan! Come on, say a few more lines like that one! They'll sound real good at your competency hearing!»

Gifford tried to launch himself toward the boat, but Lucky stepped in front of him and planted a hand on his chest.

«C'est assez. Go on up to the house, mon ami,» he said softly. «Go on.»

The old man stood for a moment, grinding his teeth, his weight on his forward foot, his big hands twisting on the shotgun. The only other sound was Beausoleil playing «J'ai Ete au Zydeco» on the portable radio with inappropriate joy.

«Gifford, please,» Serena whispered behind him, pressing her cheek to his broad back as her feet sank deeper into the goo.

«Come on, Giff,» Pepper said from the bank. «He ain't worth the trouble.»

Gifford snarled a curse, jerked around, and waded back to shore. With Pepper whispering and gesturing animatedly beside him, he headed for the cabin.

Lucky's gaze settled on Serena. She was up to her knees in the bayou. The color was draining from her face and her eyes looked huge as she stared at him.

«Foute ton quant d'ici,» he murmured. «Go on, chere, get away from here. I'll take care of this.»

She backed away slowly, grimacing as the mud sucked at her shoes.

Lucky turned and advanced on the boat, wading right up alongside it until he was waist-deep in the muddy water. «This is no way to do business, M'sieu Burke,» he said, his low, rough voice just above a whisper.

Burke leaned down, bracing his hands on the side of the boat, his gaze intent on Lucky s face. «You tell your friend to start cooperating, then, son,» the Texan said, also speaking softly, as if the weight of the subject required a tone of conspiracy. «My company has gone to a lot of trouble to choose that site, and they mean to have it.»

«Is that supposed to be a threat?»

«It's a fact, son.»

The words hit him wrong. Burke's tone, his voice, his accent, his air of command, all conspired against him in Lucky's mind. For a split second he was back in Central America taking orders from a big Texan who had sold him down the river, a lieutenant colonel who had been using his covert operations team to make himself a bundle. Lucky had uncovered the man for the traitor he was, but not before spending a year in hell. That all came back to him in a flash, and the reins of control slipped a little through his mental fingers.

«You know, there's a lotta things I'm not too sure of,» he said to Burke, a chilling smile curving his mouth. «But there's one thing I do know for certain.» In the blink of an eye the smile was gone. He grabbed the knot of Burke s tie and gave it a yank, pulling the man down toward him so they were nose to nose. «I'm not your son.»