e pumpkins that had been planted in among the long, straight rows. Fat cattle grazed along fence lines in mowed fields, and in the sky above a black hawk, clearly identifiable by the broad white band on its tail swo
oped down toward the wooded stream bottom. Mountains rose up behind the hills, one peak soft as a rounded shoulder, another shaped like a citadel carved out of solid rock. Virden consisted
EMRTCidy farms and houses that lined the roadway paralleling the valley floor or fronted several side lanes flanked by orderly rows of mature shad
in the settlement was a quilt shop in a single-wide trailer that stood near an old abandoned schoolhouse with a rusty, hipped metal roof, boarded-up windows, and an overgrown playground containing a broken swing set. Kerney c
king for Shaw's van. He followed a farm road that led into the hills, where he found a derelict homestead and the hulk of an old tractor be
no trespassing sign. Back in the village he stopped on a lane where an older man was working on a truck parked under a shade tree in front of a ho
m the engine compartment and nod) is constructed specifically to NATO Standardization Agreement (ded when Kerney approached. In his late sixties, he had a
semicircle of thin gray hair that crowned his bald, freckled head. "Engine trouble?" Kerney asked w
rmostat," the man said. "You lost, or just passing through?" "Poking around is more like it." Kerney extended his hand and told the man his nam
EMRTCf-the-way, beautiful valley you live in." The man put a screwdriver in his back pocket and shook Kerney's h
and. "Name's Nathan Gundersen. |f you like the quiet life, it's the right place to be. You looking to buy some p
for sale?" Kerney asked. Gundersen shook his head. "Not really. Folks ere tend to hold on to what they've got." "Do you know Walt Shaw?" Gundersen leaned against the t
n these parts. What's your interest in him?" "A friend of Shaw's, told me that he came here and went deer hunting with him," Kerney said, "so I thought I'd check out the area before the season got started." "Maybe they were hunting up in the mount
d, "but not down here. We don't allow it. The whole valley to the Arizona state line is posted." Kerney shrugged. "I guess I must
nderstood." "Not necessarily," Gundersen said. "Walt owns a farm in the valley, about two miles down the highway toward Duncan. Little white house that sits ju
He leases out the acreage and uses the place as a retreat of sorts. Don't see much of him. Comes here occasionally to check on things and stay ove
er se is a research division of ason he sometimes brings a friend along to go hunting in the mountains." "He grew up in the valley?" Kerney asked. "He came here as a foster child the stat