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There’ll be an investigation.”
    “But why would someone shoot my Daddy?” Jennifer asked. “Were they mad at him?”
    Joanna groped for an answer. “I guess,” she said. “I don’t know why else they’d do such a terrible thing.”
    Walter McFadden returned from his intelligence-gathering mission. Joanna turned to him questioningly, but he bent down so his lean, weather-beaten face was on the same level as Jennifer’s.
    “Is that your dog over yonder in your Mama’s car?”
    Jennifer wiped the tears off her face. “Yes, sir. Her name is Sadie.”
    “See that truck over there, the one there by the sign?” Jennifer nodded. “The man driving it is one of my deputies,” McFadden continued, speaking directly to the little girl as though no one else existed. “Do you think you could help your Mama by going with him and taking that Sadie dog of yours back to the house?”
    Jennifer stiffened and scrunched closer to her mother. “Why? Where’s my Mom going?”
    “They’re about to load your daddy into the ambulance,” Walter McFadden said softly. “They’ll be taking him into the hospital in Bisbee for evaluation. From there he may go by helicopter to Tucson.”
    “I want to go, too.”
    Walter McFadden shook his head firmly. “No,” he said. “Tonight your Mama’s going to have enough to worry about without having to look after you as well. Did I hear you say your grandmother’s back there at the house?”
    “Yes. Grandma Lathrop.”
    “Good,” McFadden said. “You stay with your grandmother tonight. Believe me, hospitals are no place for little kids in the middle of the night. In the morning, I’ll come get you myself and take you there.”
    Jennifer started to object, and so did Joanna, but she knew Walter McFadden’s assessment was correct. It was going to be a long night of waiting and worrying. She’d be better off alone.
    “That’s right, Jennifer,” she said. “You go on back to the house.”
    “But I want to help,” Jenny insisted. “I want to be with you.”
    “You heard Sheriff McFadden. Taking Sadie back home will be a big help. She can’t stay here in the car all night.”
    Meantime the emergency medical technicians had carried Andrew Brady’s stretcher down the wash to a place where the bank wasn’t quite as steep. The ambulance moved down the road and met them where they emerged from the brush.
    Once again Jennifer tried to pull away. “I want to go see my Daddy,” she insisted, but Joanna didn’t let go.
    “No, Jenny. You can’t.”
    Within a matter of seconds the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance and the vehicle pulled away with its siren gearing up to full-pitched howl.
    Walter McFadden took Jennifer’s hand and led her toward the pickup. “You know Deputy Galloway, don’t you Jennifer? He’s a good friend of your daddy’s.”
    Jenny nodded. “Good,” McFadden continued. “He’s the one who’ll take you and Sadie home. Will that dog of yours bite?”
    “No. She’s not mean.”
    “Well, let’s go get her then.”
    Together the three of them hurried back to the Eagle where Joanna released the imprisoned dog. Sadie was ecstatic to see Jennifer, but she was also wary of going anywhere near Ken Galloway’s pickup. Only when Jenny finally climbed into the bed of the strange vehicle and called to the dog did Sadie allow herself to be coaxed into it as well. Jennifer grabbed the dog around the neck and held her close.
    “I’ll ride here in back with her,” the child announced. “That way she won’t be scared.”
    Joanna bit her lip. “That’s good,” she managed to murmur as Ken Galloway’s pickup pulled away taking both the dog and the child with it. Down the road they heard the already speeding county ambulance rumble over the last cattle guard on High Lonesome Road and turn onto the Double Adobe Cutoff. Seconds later, after crossing the last cattle guard there as well, it turned onto Highway 80. The noise of the siren faded behind the