Many thanks to Chief District Ranger Ron Lewis and Chief District Ranger Barry Nelson, both of the Bureau of Land Management, who took time from their busy schedules to share some hair-raising adventures and to fill me in on how law enforcement for the Bureau of Land Management works. Any errors about procedure, equipment, and policy in this story are mine and not theirs.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Tony Hillerman for his help, encouragement, and generosity of spirit. And I am especially fortunate in having Cameron McClure for my agent. Her candor and insights made this a better book. Every writer should be so lucky.
My deepest thanks to the late Julian Battaile for creating a place where writers shared ideas in an atmosphere of civilized discourse, warmed by his gracious kindness, his wonderful baking, and his unfailing humor. To all those people who patiently read the many drafts of the emerging manuscript—to Robert D. LaRue, a fellow wordsmith and master of the well-formed sentence, to Kirk Showalter, who hears a clinker from afar, to Marilyn Slagle for her patient reading and rereading, and for lending me the memory of Hobbes, her cat—thank you. I’ll be back. And finally, to my wife, Jacque, without whose unflagging support and patience this book wouldn’t have found print.