Chapter 3

Soaring lower over the foothills, he caught sight of two men, gradually approaching each other across some of the foothill ridges. They both wore dark clothes, but only one carried a rifle. The rifle bearer crossed through a saddle and settled himself under a twisted tree. His actions piqued Manuel’s curiosity. What was he planning to do?

Then the other man crested the long hill to the northwest of the first man’s hiding place and stopped, partly concealed in a stand of scrubby creosote and burro weed. Down in the lower east-facing slopes, twilight had already come, although Manuel still flew in the last rays of sunlight, some two thousand feet over the lower terrain.