“Then she has to take the blood oath.”

“I’m not a child,” said Bonnie, “and I refuse to take any blood oaths or play any little-boy games. You’ll just have to trust me. If you don’t I’ll turn you all in to the Bureau of Land Management.”

“She’s got us by the balls,” Smith said.

“And no vulgarity either,” she said.

“Testicles,” he said.

“Grab ’em by the testicles, and their hearts and minds will follow,” the doctor said.

“I don’t like it,” Hayduke said.

“Tough,” Bonnie said. “You’re outvoted three to one.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Peace,” the doctor said. “I assure you she’ll be very useful.”

The doctor had the last word. After all, it was he who would be financing the campaign. He was the angel. Avenging angel. Hayduke knew it. And the expense was great. Ninety dollars for a decent sleeping bag. Forty dollars for a good pair of boots. Even the price of pinto beans had gone up to 89 cents a pound. By far the biggest expense, however, was not supplies but simply transportation over the immense, rugged and intricate expanses of the Southwest, with gasoline selling at 49 to 55 cents per gallon and a new truck tire (six-ply heavy duty) at least $55. Plus the air fare for the doctor and his Bonnie—$42.45 each, one way, Albuquerque to Page.

Many of these expenditures could be itemized as business expenses, tax deductible, by Smith (Back of Beyond Expeditions), but even so the initial outlay was heavy. The good doctor provided the cash, which Smith seldom had available, and wrote most of the checks. Explosives, of course, were tax write-offs; Doc would list them on his IRS return as ranch improvement costs—for the little 225-acre tax shelter he owned out in the Manzano Mountains east of Albuquerque—and as assessment work on a cluster of mining claims he also held, in the same area.

“Gloves!” Hayduke demanded. “Gloves! No fucking monkey business without gloves!”

So Doc bought everyone in the crew three pair each of top-quality buckskin gloves.

“Sno-Seal!” (For boots.)

He bought Sno-Seal.

“Sidearms!”

“No.”

“Guns!”

“No.”

“Peanut butter!” said Bonnie.

“Guns and peanut butter!” Hayduke roared.

“Peanut butter, yes. Guns, no.”

“We gotta defend our fucking selves.”

“No guns.” Doc could be stubborn.

“Them fuckers’ll be shooting at us!”

“No violence.”

“We gotta shoot back.”

“No bloodshed.” The doctor stood fast.

Again Hayduke was outvoted, again by a vote of three to one. So for the time being he kept his own weapons concealed, as best he could, and carried only the revolver hidden in the inner pocket of his pack.

Doc bought six cases of Deaf Smith organic peanut butter, an unblanched, unhydrogenated product manufactured from sun-dried peanuts grown on composted soil without benefit of herbicides, pesticides or county agents. Seldom Seen Smith (no relation) and Hayduke distributed the peanut butter strategically about the Colorado Plateau, a jar here, a jar there, all the way from Onion Creek to Pakoon Spring, from Pucker Pass to Tin Cup Mesa, from Tavaputs, Utah, to Moenkopi, Arizona. Rich brown peanut butter.