Here by the Bloods Read Free Page B

latest amendment, D-A-V-I-D, chiseled this very morning, marks what can only be Sheriff’s Christian name, while the fresh numbers recall a life that began some fifty years ago and ended, by a lone slug from a murderer’s forty-four, in 1-8-8-7.
    â€œIf I go before my dear Catherine, be sure I am buried here.” Sheriff said those words to me after the huge Mexican bighorn gave the place to us. I’d spotted the big male among the ewes, stone still, nearly invisible against the ashy rock slope. His eyes had me in his stare. I nodded just the slightest to tell Sheriff I had something.
    â€œI don’t see him,” Sheriff whispered.
    â€œHe’s there,” I said, even softer. “Just below that gray boulder.” A half minute passed before Sheriff let out a small breath that told me he saw the ram too.
    Sheriff brought up the Spencer and fired. The ram buckled, then recovered and skipped off. The ewes scattered. With Sheriff clamoring behind me, I tracked the ram for an hour, following the scant blood drops and faint click of his hooves over the rocks until the animal could run no more. He knelt down and waited for us. When we found him he was still breathing, his eyes open and at peace. This was a few yards from where Sheriff now lies. The big ram wanted us to have this place—we had earned it. He stayed alive long enough to make sure we understood.
    I thanked him and with my knife passed him on without suffering. I joined Sheriff at the edge of the overlook. “My God,” Sheriff said. “What a view.”
    As I stare out at it now, the panorama of the landscape appears much as it did on that day three years ago when we discovered it. The whole of the valley stretches in both directions to the horizon. To the south, the white houses and fertile fields of Agua Verde hug the banks of the river. The snaking, emerald water holds its hue even in the full glare of the sun. Clear air makes the town appear much closer than its true distance of twelve miles, but to anyone in Caliche Bend, the bloom of prosperous green that is Agua Verde lies across a dusty, inhospitable ocean of busted claims and broken dreams.
    Our neighbors to the north seem equally unreachable. The town of Heavendale, with its mines running rich with copper and turquoise, shimmers regally from its perch atop the foothills of the valley’s northward rising edge. Eight hardscrabble miles of high desert separate it from the Bend, which, after crossing, greet the weary traveler with a sign that reads: Heavendale—Closer to God .
    The Sangre de Cristo range rises like a spine to the west, straight across from me, bridging the whole of the valley and pinning those who live in it behind an impenetrable wall of cragged peaks, perilous ravines, and general misery. The Sangres swallow a man whole. They can wilt the heartiest frontiersman or freeze an entire mule train in its tracks. Billy goats starve in the stingy landscape while the punishing winds have been known to grind adobe huts into dust. Even the strongest Navajo hunters stay away from all but the lowest ridges—and even then, they venture into the Sangres only for a guarantee of a big reward, perhaps to finish off a wounded elk that could feed a village for a week. The Sangres were not put here to be crossed. They are here to be respected.
    The valley thrives at its extremities, protects its flanks, and in its barren and forgettable crotch, offers up the Bend. I tune my ears to the sounds of its discontent. I can almost hear the arguments brewing at the meeting hall, where this minute strident voices debate the proper course of action. It is a circus of frustration I will step into soon enough. But for now, my eyes fix on the Sangres.
    A wildfire, when it happens, coats the sky for miles in a billowy, ashen cloud. And a controlled brush burn or the clearing of timber leaves a choking thumb smudge of black. But the thin gray string of vapor rising from the