Avenging Angel by Rex Burns

besides their own that Wager could see in the hundred miles of broken horizon. He recalled reading somewhere about the upheaval of these mountains now out of sight behind them, the newest version of the Rocky Mountains. Here, they must have lifted out of some shallow sea, sending oceans of churning, carving waters through layers of sandstone shelves and loose sediment, knifing first a fissure, then a gully, then a canyon as the fall of water became steeper and its grit abraded faster and deeper through the colored rock: red from iron oxide, the black of lava ash, pale yellows of bleached ocean sands, the thin green of copper or sulphur ash. What streams remained now twisted their way to join the Colorado, their muddy, boiling water draining from the snows of the mountains behind. Here and there they dammed a lake, whose own gigantic size was dwarfed by the spread of empty rock and vacant sky. Then the water once more became a thin vein, sheltered from the thirsty sun by towering cliffs, and rushing to reach the Gulf of California before it disappeared into the dry air or hungry sands.
    “This here’s an arm of Escalante Canyon.” Their road ran straight out on a nose formed by one of the benches, then branched off into more steep switchbacks. “That way takes you over to Lake Powell and the Indian reservations.” He pointed to a purple notch on the horizon. “This way’s the road toward Green River—except you can’t get all the way there by car. We’ll get to the bottom pretty soon.”
    But by the time the dirt track finally leveled out, Wager felt himself numbed by the glare of sun bouncing off the tilted rock surrounding him, the ceaseless rush of hot wind, the endless shifting of canyon walls that slowly drew closer to the road. Even the swirl of dust devils spinning across the dotted waste failed to startle him awake anymore. Dulled by the heat and the motion, eyes heavy from squinting against the sun, he felt suspended, as if he were a fixed point, and the rock and sand and glare swung and jolted past him.
    Winston turned off the larger track onto a two-rut lane that occasionally disappeared entirely as it wound upward and through a saddle between steep red cliffs, then down again over lurching wind-polished slabs of rock. “Here we are.”
    Ahead, like a mirage, Wager saw a startling swath of green ridged by irrigation ditches. A line of flickering Lombardy poplars ran beside the main ditch leading from the river into the maze of field branches. At one end of the clearing, masked by the sun-blanched green of willows and the taller, restless leaves of cottonwoods, a collection of buildings and sheds and pens sprawled in the shade.
    “It looks deserted.”
    “They know we’re coming—we raised plenty of dust coming through the notch.” He added, “I hope he ties up them damn dogs.”
    Gradually the trees revealed a two-story square house sitting like a carved block of stone in the deep shade. As they approached, a single figure walked slowly into the whiteness of sunlight and stood motionless for the ten minutes it took the truck to wind down the wall and across the rough canyon floor. When they finally pulled up to the man in a swirl of pink dust and clatter, he nodded once, wide straw hat bobbing down and up briefly, and said, “Orrin.”
    The newsman nodded just as curtly. “This here’s Gabe Wager. He’s a lawman from Denver, Zenas. I brought him because I trust him. You can too. He’s got some pictures. Gabe, Zenas Winston.”
    The fully bearded man did not offer to shake hands. Like Orrin, he was slender but broad-shouldered, and there was some similarity in the nose and especially the dark eyes. Wager couldn’t see much of his mouth or chin beneath the squared-off beard.
    “All right, then; come on in.” He turned abruptly and raised his voice to the unseen but noisily wailing dogs, “You, Pious! You, Leo! Hush up!”
    They followed the man’s work-stiff stride into the shade of the