HEAT SHOCK: Excerpt As the high desert wind whipped through her hair, she kept asking herself the same question: Why, after her Utah experience and despite her pledge never again to become entangled in another patient's personal problems, was she here? She'd thought about sending someone she trusted to check on Stone's birds, but she hadn't, and she suspected it was because even at the age of thirty-eight, she was still trying to prove that in spite of being my den she fully understood the ideals of truth and honor. That regardless of being a black Amerasian half-breed, her word could be trusted. Now, instead of enjoying two hard-earned days off, hiking the Grand Mesa as she'd planned, she was eating dust and speeding along too fast for the terrain in order to soothe her conscience and keep a promise to a dying old man. The map Stone had sketched for her on he back of a patient progress sheet had been drawn remarkably to scale. The map, frayed at the edges from her repeated references to it, detailed exactly where Stone had hidden his prize gamecocks. The birds couldn't survive beyond the end of the week without her help, he'd told her in a fit of frustration during another of their spirited visits. Once she located his hideaway south of Dominquez Canyon, she would have to check the birds' water bottles and replenish them, restock their food jugs with pellets, and hose down the dropping pans in the bottoms of the cages. "After that you can check out their health," Stone had commanded. Carmen rose out of the saddle and throttled back as she approached the rugged backcountry that Stone had warned would eventually turn into a sea of shale. Threading her way through pockets of sharp, loose rock, she worked her way up a hill to the ridge that Stone claimed protected his birds from "contamination by the outside world." Although Stone hadn't explained why his gamecocks were tucked away in such desolate country, and she'd never come right out and asked, she suspected the ruse was because he either owed someone money or was dodging the law. Easing the dirt bike to a stop on the ridge, she found herself gazing down on stands of aspen that framed several acres of flat irrigated land. The cages that Stone had assured her would be there glimmered in the sun. The bare rock she'd been avoiding on her way up the hill petered out a few yards beyond the summit, giving way to a downslope blanket of wildflowers, stunted sagebrush, and willowy grass. Carmen checked her saddlebags to make certain the bottled drinking water she was carrying was secure. Then, in a rush fueled by a sense of adventure she hadn't felt in years, she gunned the bike's engine, kicking up dirt as she roared downhill. The acreage below looked less inviting than it had from above. The trees seemed sparser, the grounds less fertile, and the confining cages rusted and dull. Weaving her way through a stand of aspen, Carmen cruised to a stop, killed the bike's engine, and walked slowly along the rows of cages that housed a menagerie of preening, pecking, scratching, forlorn-looking birds. She peered into each cage: a white-speckled pinto, a big red, a dusty-brown bird with its right eye swollen shut, and next to it a stately black, then an undersized bantam. Only now could she begin to appreciate how Stone made a living. Wondering how he could bring himself to profit from such a brutal sport, she paused at an empty cage near the middle of the cell-block-style layout and pulled back the door. A moth fluttered out. Startled, she stepped back, fanned the moth away, and continued her inspection. The next two cages were also empty. After two more cages, housing roosters with badly sheared combs and partially detached beaks, she was almost ready to forget her promise to Stone, get on her motorcycle, and leave, when out of the corner of one eye she spotted a mammoth bird staring at her from the shadow of its cage. It was russet, with enormous legs and a disproportionately thick neck, and its comb brushed against the top of the cage. Carmen stared, amazed at the bird's size, then picked up a twig and ran it across the cage door. The big cock continued eyeing her but did not move. The bird in the next cage, startled by the noise, began pecking furiously at its food dispenser. She checked -- out of food and water. Looking around her, she spotted the funnel-shaped food pellet bin and the hundred-gallon water tank nestled in the protective shade of an aspen stand, just as Stone had described them. She had taken two steps beyond the line of cages when a loud crack erupted from the west. A second later, she heard a whistling and then a thwack at her feet, followed by another crack. She knew the way of bullets, which outrun the noise of their own firing and can kill you before you even hear the shot. © Robert Greer Buy the book from Amazon or an independent bookstore.