Fire Brand. Diana Palmer

can only print half. But we never give up until we get to the bottom of scandals. That’s the only way to do it, to be fair to everyone involved.”

      He nodded. “I can understand that. But meanwhile, a lot of damage has been done to my reputation.” He leaned back, looking every day of his sixty years. “You don’t know what a living hell it is to be at the center of a scandal, young lady. My family’s suffered much more than I have, but even if I’m cleared, the implication is still there. My career is finished, either way.”

      Gaby was getting cold chills, because she had a pretty good idea of what a scandal could do to even ordinary people, much less people in the public eye. Her background, if it were ever revealed, could do untold damage to the McCaydes.

      She snapped herself back to the present. “All I can promise you is that I’ll do a good story and that Johnny will put it in a prominent place. If you deny the charges and we can print your side of it, some people may listen.”

      “If you mean that, about an investigation, I’ll give you all the help I can, and so will my staff.”

      She nodded. “I can promise you that we’ll give it our best shot.”

      “Then, let’s get to it. Ask whatever you like.”

      It was a good piece—one of the best Gaby had ever done. And once it was in print, it would be a good time to leave the area for a while, until the heat died down. She never ran from trouble, but sometimes it was advantageous to walk around it.

      Johnny Blake was delighted. He took the few unverifiable bits of information he’d been given and handed them over to Lang, the paper’s investigative reporter. Like a bulldog with a bone to chew, the veteran journalist went straight to work. Lang had contacts that none of the other reporters did. His stock of sources read like a Who’s Who of organized crime, but he always got what he needed, with enough printable sources to support the story. Other papers had tried to lure him away with everything from company cars to incredible salaries, and one of the television networks had even dangled an anchor spot at him. Lang just plugged away at his desk, amused at his notoriety, and never gave it a second thought. Gaby liked him. He was an old renegade, with a shady past and plenty of grit and style. He might not be society, but he was a reporter’s reporter. He’d clear Guerano, and Johnny Blake would have his big story for the month. The only casualty might be Guerano himself, because it was hard to undo a public accusation. With the best will in the world, the dirt stuck.

      That night as Gaby packed she worried about encroaching on Aggie’s privacy, about interfering. She really was concerned, and knew she was just going to have to risk irritating her. The next morning she put two suitcases in her little white VW convertible, left her plants with a neighbor to water, and set out for Casa Río.

      The ranch was over twenty thousand acres in size, as many southeastern Arizona ranches were. The sheer immensity of open space was staggering to Eastern tourists. Even to Gaby, who’d lived here for years, the scope of it was almost unbelievable. One mountain was crossed, ending in an endless valley. That reached to another mountain, and beyond it was another endless valley, and so on. Cattle and horses grazed lazily beyond the highway, because open range was the law in Arizona. Considering the size of the ranches, it was understandable. Fencing thousands of acres would cost a fortune, and with the depressed cattle market, ranchers would certainly be hard-pressed to come up with the kind of money Gaby imagined it would cost.

      The thought piqued her curiosity. She and Bowie had never talked about the cattle operation at Casa Río. Her dark olive eyes narrowed as she drove down the endless highway toward Tucson. She wondered about the impact of an agricultural operation on Bowie’s cattle. Not only would the enormous project use great volumes of water—which was still scarce in this part of Arizona—but it would use pesticides that would leach into the soil and add pollutants to the precious water remaining. Arizona rivers, with the notable exception of the Colorado, mostly ran only during the rainy months, when there was flash flooding. Wells provided the majority of the water in southeastern Arizona. There had already been one television special which had alleged that there were toxins in the drinking water around Tucson. Perhaps some conversations with the local U.S. Soil Conservation Service office in Lassiter might be of benefit. Gaby could see that if she wanted to do a proper job on this story, she was going to be involved in a lot of research.

      She stopped to eat in Tucson before heading south through Tombstone to Lassiter. This was familiar territory. Lassiter was bordered on the east by the Chiricahua Mountains, where the Chiricahua Apache once reigned supreme. To the south and west was Tombstone, the site of the O.K. Corral gunfight, high atop its mesa. Far to the southeast was Douglas, on the Mexican border, and to the west were the Dragoon Mountains, where Cochise’s Stronghold was located. Near Bowie’s ranch was the famous Sulphur Springs Valley, once home to the Clanton clan, the archenemy cowboys who had faced the Earps and Doc Holliday at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. It was a fiercely historic area, and although Gaby had no roots of her own, part of her could understand and appreciate Bowie’s love of the land. But as she drove through the desolate country, dotted only here and there with an occasional ranch far off the road, she wondered if Bowie had considered the job potential the agricultural giant would present here. It would require not only laborers, but heavy equipment operators, technicians, engineers, clerical people, truckers, and packers. The people who worked there could spend their paychecks in Lassiter, which would raise the tax base and help increase services to the townspeople. The unemployment ratio in Lassiter had been high, because a number of small ranches had gone under in recent years. Unskilled labor had no place to go except to one of the cities of larger towns in the area. A few local people worked in Tombstone during Hellrado Days in October—the anniversary of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral—where the Old West was re-created for the benefit of hundreds of tourists. But that was seasonal work, and many people in the area needed jobs that would last year-round.

      The two sides of the story kept her mind busy all the way to Lassiter. She drove through it with a nostalgic smile. It was typical of most small Arizona towns—a combination of past and present, with adobe architecture in half its buildings, and modern design in the rest.

      The pavement was cracked in most places, and the people walking about reflected the poor economy in the way they dressed. There was a lack of entertainment facilities for young people, since most teenagers left Lassiter for work in other towns when they graduated from its one high school. She looked at the landscape and tried to envision Bio-Ag’s huge operation settling here. Irrigated fields would spread to the horizon and the desert would bloom. She sighed, smiling at her own vision.

      There were only a few shops in town these days, and half of them were boarded up from lack of commerce. The town had two policemen, neither of whom stayed too busy, except over the weekend when the local bar filled up and tempers grew short. There was a fire department, all volunteer, and a motel-restaurant. Several government agencies had offices here, some of which were only open part of the week. There was a newspaper—a very good one for a town that small—the Lassiter Citizen. And there was a radio station, but it was a low-budget operation with high school students manning the control room most of the afternoon and early evening. If Bio-Ag came, there would be some more advertising revenue for the media, and certainly plenty of newsworthy copy to help fill space.

      Bowie would fight it, with his environmental priorities, and there were enough special interest groups to help him. Bio-Ag would need an ally. She smiled, thinking of ways to circumvent Bowie’s efforts.

      The road wound around past the sewage treatment plant and reservoir; then, it became a straight shot out to Casa Río. It was visible in the distance, far off the main highway, on a wide dirt road with fields that combined wildflowers and improved pasture. Bowie’s Brahman cattle grazed in that area, where cowboys during roundup would draw straws to see who had to brave the thickets of brush to roust out the strays. Prickly pear cactus, ocotillo, cholla, creosote, sagebrush and mesquite were enough of a threat, without the occasional potholes and diamondback rattlers that could give a horseman gray hairs.

      On the other hand, there was clean air, open country, the most spectacular scenery on earth, and the glory of palo verde trees in the spring. There were red-winged blackbirds, sage hens, cactus wrens, and owls.