I swatted an annoying fly and thought about Mae’s drawings, letting my mind whorl around. Drawing. Mae. Art. Angie. Angie’s words during lunch. Art is more than the subject, medium, or application of paint. The artist might be conveying a message . . .

Mae couldn’t speak, but she might have been trying to communicate through her drawings. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the sketches. Each one was signed and dated, although I didn’t remember the exact dates, only that they were close to the time I believed she died.

When I’d shown the drawings to Angie, she’d arranged them by date. The first had been the two dogs by the stream, then one landscape, the men in the cloud, Roy, the sheriff, the second landscape, Sam, and the self-portrait.

Think about them in order. Her dogs. Pets? Only friends in the world? Faithful. Loyal. If she drew her pets, her animals, why didn’t she draw the mule? So something about the dogs. I picked up a piece of straw and gnawed on it.

Maybe I needed to approach this from another angle. The first drawing in the series was the dogs. Her message started with that. The first thing she noticed was . . .

I threw away the straw, picked up some twine, and wound it around my hand. Forensic analysis of writing was so much easier. I knew words were an attempt to communicate thoughts. I didn’t know that Mae was saying anything in her art. She may have just been drawing for pleasure.

I tied the twine into a bow. I have nothing to lose by assuming a message.

Back to the dogs. They were by the stream. Was it important that the dogs be by water? Dogs playing in the water, drinking from the stream. . . . the stream that flowed past the mine. I’d followed it down to here.

But the miner had blown a hole in a vent, and now a geyser spewed boiling water and minerals into the creek.

The temperature and taste would have changed, and the dogs would have reacted.

A puzzle piece dropped into place. Either Mae noticed the dogs’ reaction to the change, or she saw it, tasted it as well.

“I did it,” I whispered. “I know what you wanted to say.”

The next drawing was the landscape with the snag. I couldn’t be positive on this, but I’d bet that snag was close to the mine. If so, the second piece of the puzzle was the location of the problem. She would have followed the stream to the mine.

I raised my arms in a Rocky Balboa moment while the opening music played in my brain. Da da-da da, da da DA da da!

I pictured the third drawing. It made sense.