Shoshone, like most of the desert resorts in the area, sat on a thermal hot spring that poured hundreds of gallons of water a minute out across the desert, and had done so, without letup, for decades. The runoff formed a creek that meandered under California 127, borax pans covered with grass and scrub, throwing up thick fringes of cattails along its banks.

They rode across the creek and into the dry desert beyond, coming Snally to a borax-topped decline. With some prodding, the horses slid down the decline. They rode in shadow through the Death Valley sage of a quiet gully, glancing at each other and smiling but saying nothing.

The gully spread out onto a broad plain and the sage gave way to hummocky yellow salt grass. Part of an old narrow-gauge mining railway ran to their left, rails rusting on a long embankment of cinders and gray dirt. Birds called out in the stillness and a thick rat snake slid its meter length through the scrub.

"All right," Stella said, reining her horse up short and facing him. "I'm just about cured. How about you?"

Edward nodded. "This sure helps."

She sidled the pinto closer to him and patted its shoulder. "I've lived here all my life, with a few years at school and traveling. Europe. Africa. Peace Corps. My mother and sister and I have done everything we could to keep the town together after my father died. It's become my life. Sometimes it's an awful responsibility—you wouldn't think that, would you, since it's so small? But it weighs on me. Mother takes it in her stride."

"She's a wonder," Edward said.

Stella leaned her head to one side, looking sadly at the gravel. "You know, I said I was a radical. It was my sister who was the real radical. She went to Cuba. She has a complete set of Lenin and Marx on her bookshelves. She loves Shoshone as much as I do, but she had to leave. We think she's in Angola. Lord, what a place to be now. Me, I'm just a capitalist like all the rest."

"Hard on your mother, I guess."

"Who, me or my sister?" Stella smiled.

"I meant your sister. I suppose both of you."

"What about your family?"

"None to speak of. My father vanished more than twenty years ago, and my mother lives in Austin. We don't see much of each other."

"And your connections at the university?"

"I'm not sure I'll stay there, now."

"No long-term plans?"

Edward brushed at a buzzing horsefly and watched it veer across the hummocks until it vanished. "I don't see why."

"Mother and I have been making plans for selling mineral rights. We'll redo the town's sewage line with a government loan, but this extra money—that could keep the town going for years, even if the tourists keep flocking over to Tecopa."

"The big resort."