“I’m cutting tomorrow. Hilario’s bringing someone who wants to see a real old-fashioned cutting.”

The fire chief led Oppy and Joe around the remains of the transformer. He was a civilian named Daley. Smoke had turned to a film of ash on his face, rubberized coat and boots. He coughed up phlegm dark as tar. Both high-voltage poles were charred and iridescent. Burned cables and wire floated on mud. Joe imagined that Daley was conducting the tour out of professional habit, as if they were stepping through the smoking bricks of a tenement.

“This is really what I wanted to show you and the sergeant.” Daley picked out of the mud a carved zigzag, half blistered gold, half blackened wood.

“The dancers had those at the pueblo,” Oppy said.

“It’s a lightning wand. It’s supposed to bring lightning,” Joe explained. “Did it?”

“People saw the bolt hit,” Daley said.

Oppy looked impatiently in the direction of his office. When he glanced back, he was smiling. “Joe, arson by Indian wand is your department. You handle this. I can walk from here.”

“I heard some calves are being cut in Santiago tomorrow,” Joe said quickly. “I ought to be there in case any of them are hot.”

“Cows and wands are definitely your crucial responsibility. Just make sure you’re at the La Fonda by eleven. We have visitors coming.”

Oppy stepped out of the mire, slapped soot off his hat and headed in the direction of the administration building.

“Arson is what Captain Augustino says,” Daley told Joe. “He’s got a dozen of these sticks from different fires. Brush fires. He’d be here now, but he’s down at Trinity.”

“This is not an incendiary device,” Joe said and took the wand. “It’s a stick. Someone threw it in the fire. You have a lot of Indians up here.”

“They really think they can bring lightning?”

“They think they make the world go round.”

Joe noticed that the paint that remained on the wooden head had a micaceous glitter, a fancy Taos touch.

“If you say so.” Daley spat, grinned and wiped his chin. “Hell, you should know.”

20

Three hours of riding brought Joe to the far side of Santiago Canyon. There the foothills between the canyon and the mountains rose in swells of yellow rabbit brush. He had taken Oppy’s horse, the tall bay called Crisis. The stallion hadn’t been taken out for a month and it ate up the distance with an eager lope.