Trilby by Diana Palmer Page A

expression had told her he dealt with the murderers. She turned her attention to the ground, looking at the sandy soil. “Does much grow out here?” she asked idly.
    “The Hohokam, the Indian people who once inhabited this land before the time of Christ, were an agricultural people. They learned to grow corn in clumps, and to irrigate the land. They had a system of government and a religion that was far ahead of their time. They may have existed as a culture for thousands of years.”
    She stared at him with renewed respect. “How do you know all that?”
    He chuckled. “McCollum,” he said simply. “It pays to have an anthropology professor for a friend. He’s very good at his job. He stays with me when he’s exploring ruins in the area. He comes several times a year when he’s teaching.”
    “I like him. I didn’t realize he was an educator,” she said.
    “Yes. He teaches anthropology and archaeology at one of the big colleges up North.”
    “It must be interesting. Do you go with him when he looks for ruins?”
    “When time allows.” He shoved one hand in the pocket of his slacks and slanted a look down at her from under the wide brim of his hat. “Do you like archaeology?”
    “I know very little about it,” she admitted. “But it’s interesting, isn’t it?”
    “Very.” He put out a lean, tanned hand suddenly and stopped her in her tracks. “Be still a minute. Don’t talk. Look there.” He pointed toward the bushes, and she felt her heart racing. Was it a rattlesnake? She wanted to run, but just as her feet got the message from her brain, a funny, long brown bird went scampering from under the bush to dart across the road.
    She laughed. “What is it?” she exclaimed.
    “A roadrunner,” he told her. “They hunt and kill snakes.”
    “Well, bully for him.” She chuckled.
    “Snakes are beneficial, you silly child,” he chided. “Bull snakes and rat snakes and black snakes don’t hurt anything. They eat rats and mice. And a king snake will kill and eat a rattler.”
    “I don’t want to look at one long enough to identify it,” she informed him.
    He shook his head. “Come on.”
    He led her off the trail eventually, and into a shady area where a stream cut through the forest floor. Huge, smooth boulders ran up from the stream toward the mountains.
    “This is an old Apache camp,” he told her. “It isn’t on the reservation, of course, but they still come here sometimes. Naki likes to camp here when he’s rounding up strays. He’s marvelous with horses.”
    “Does he wear war paint and headdresses?” she asked innocently.
    He glared at her. “He’s Apache,” he said. “Apaches don’t wear feathered headdresses like the Plains Indians. They wear a colored cloth band around their foreheadsand wear their hair shoulder length. They don’t live in tepees like the Plains Indians, either. They live in a sort of round or oblong lodge called a wickiup.”
    “Do people out here hate the Indians?” she asked.
    “Some do. There have been times when we were allies with them, and even with the Mexicans, to fight off the Comanches when they tried to come south and conquer us.”
    “Oh, my!”
    “And the Confederate flag flew over Tucson once, during the Civil War,” he said, chuckling at her. “A lot of Southerners settled out here in Arizona. You should feel right at home.”
    “I wish I did,” she replied quietly, and meant it. She stared down at the soil. “There aren’t any cacti right here.”
    “Plenty out on the desert, mostly saguaro,” he told her, “and organ pipe. Those saguaro are huge and heavy. They have a sort of woody skeleton inside. One can kill a man if it falls on him.”
    “What are the tall, thin ones?”
    “Ocotillo,” he said. “Mexicans use it to build thorny fences.”
    “We have prickly pear cactus in Louisiana,” she said.
    “Do you?”
    “Not in Baton Rouge,” she said, grinning.
    He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “Do you