Ill Wind by Nevada Barr

pumping diesel. “Her folks ought to leave her alone. I’m a giant. She’s a dwarf. We’re the variety that adds spice.”
    A blue Ford six-pac carrying five men in orange hard hats pulled up behind them in line for fuel. Ted Greeley was driving.
    “Well, if it isn’t my own personal ranger,” Greeley greeted Anna. “How am I doing? Running afoul of the law?”
    “Not yet,” she returned.
    He looked at his watch. “It’s early.”
    “Did Frieda get ahold of you about last night?”
    “She did. Damn near too late. You guessed it. The son of a bitch dumped sugar in the gas tank of my ditcher. If anybody’d fired it up I’d’ve been proud owner of a piece of shit retailing at close to a hundred grand. I’m none too happy one of my boys left the gate unlocked and I’m none too happy one of your boys didn’t catch it. I’d hate to think all my tax dollars are paying for are cute uniforms for pretty little rangers.” He winked and Anna managed not to spit in his open eye.
    Silva got out of the truck. He had his shirt on this time—a western cut with pearl snaps—but the tails were out, the cuffs not snapped, the collar open. He looked just tumbled out of a woman’s bed or ready to tumble into one.
    “ ’Morning, Ranger Pigeon,” he said lazily as he looked Anna up and down. Again she wasn’t flattered.
    “That ever work for you?” she asked.
    He didn’t even play coy. “More often than not. Is it going to work on you?” Silva removed his hard hat and ran a hand through his shock of black hair. “Or are rangers’ sex drives too low?”
    “IQs are too high,” Anna retorted.
    Everybody laughed but Silva. Anna guessed she’d struck a nerve. A smile broke slowly on Tom’s face but it never reached his eyes. She braced herself. She had the sinking feeling the repartee was about to take an ugly turn.
    All he said was: “Better watch it. I’m getting more and more eligible every day. By August I ought to be Bachelor of the Year. Ain’t that right, Ted?”
    Greeley didn’t return Silva’s smile.
    “Got to hop to it,” Silva said. “The boss wants to leave early to get in a round of golf. Me, I can’t play golf. I’m not over the hill yet.”
    “Come on,” Greeley growled. “I don’t pay you to chase—”
    Anna was sure he intended to say “pussy” but he saved himself at the last second.
    “—your tail,” he finished.
    “See you around,” Silva said to Anna as he put his hard hat back on.
    “By the way, I never did find out anything about that truck that ran you off the road,” Anna told him.
    “Was no truck,” Tom said as he turned away. “I was just jerking your chain.”
    He was wearing brown cowboy boots. But then so were Greeley and two of the others. So was Anna, for that matter.
     
     
    DREW finished fueling the truck and Stacy brought Bella to the gas shed. As he lifted her onto the high front seat their radios rasped to life.
    “Seven hundred, this is Beavens at Cliff Palace.”
    As one, Drew, Anna, and Stacy turned up the volume on their portables. The interpreters in the ruins seldom called in unless there was a problem.
    “Lockout,” Drew offered.
    “Let’s hope,” Stacy said.
    “Shhh.”
    “Cliff Palace, this is seven hundred. Go ahead,” Frieda’s voice came over the air.
    “We’ve got a little girl here having trouble breathing. She doesn’t look too good.”
    Anna and Stacy began to run for the patrol car. Anna flipped on the vehicle’s lights and siren. “Nothing like starting the day off right.”
    “Jesus. Not another one.”
    The anguish in Stacy’s voice startled a laugh from Anna. “Hey, it’s something to do.”
    The two-way road to Cliff was narrow and twisting with no shoulders. Despite lights and sirens, tourists plodded ahead, refusing to give right-of-way.
    Trapped behind an RV, Anna and Stacy crawled along at twenty-three miles an hour. Anna grabbed the public address mike and turned up the volume. “Pull to the right, please.