Silence again. “I talked to them, trying to figure out why they left. They said it was because they figure he’s disrespectful of the earth, and if you was Indian too, I reckoned you’d know what they meant.” The man sounded puzzled. “I don’t get it, but they feel pretty strong. They say he’s disrespectful of the ancestors too; the way they carry on sometimes, you’d think he was out there every day bulldozin’ down churches or something.”

“Well, I think I can understand how they feel,” she replied, trying to think of a way to give this apparently well-meaning fellow some insight. “Imagine how you’d feel if some punks got into the graveyard where your grandparents are buried and wrote graffiti all over the gravemarkers.”

“I guess I’d get pretty hot about it,” Morse admitted. “I guess they are too, then.”

“Could be.” She checked her watch again. “Mr. Morse, thank you. If you have anything more specific to tell me, call me collect, all right?”

“That’ll be fine,” he said cheerfully. “Glad I could help. G’night, Miss Talldeer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Morse.” She hung up; unfortunately, the man hadn’t told her anything she hadn’t already heard from Sleighbow. Getting steamed about something and doing anything about it were two different things. And this still sounded more like a terrorist action than something concocted by a disgruntled employee. People who hated your guts came after you personally with a gun; they didn’t blow up a bulldozer and take out only fellow employees.

Well. It had been a long day, and it was likely to get a lot longer. She’d better get on the road again.

The phone rang just as the Calligans were halfway through dinner. Toni Calligan started, her hazel eyes going wide, and pushed away from the table to grab it before it disturbed her husband. But Rod waved her back to her seat, before she could get up.

“I’m expecting a call,” he said. “Go ahead and eat; this won’t take long.”

He left his dinner on the table, knowing that if it did take longer than he thought it would, Toni would automatically take his half-finished plate off to the kitchen to rewarm it. He had her well trained.

He picked up the phone on the extension in his office just as it got to the fourth ring. “Calligan,” he said, shortly. If this was a siding salesman—

“Smith,” said the voice on the other end. “You wanted more information, I got it for you.”

Rod took down notes as Smith rattled off a short biography of this “Jennifer Talldeer” who had been assigned to him. Mother, father, brothers, grandfather living with her—there didn’t seem to be a lot of leverage there, except for strong-arm tactics, and it wasn’t at that level yet.