Rattlesnake Crossing

"It might," she conceded. "Je

"When should I show up?" Butch asked.

"Make it an hour," Joa

"Make it half an hour," he countered. "I'll go buy the groceries."

Butch was as good as his word. He showed up with his Outback loaded with groceries five minutes after Joa

Joa

"Sheriff Brady?" Tica Romero said. "I'm sorry to bother you at home, but we have a problem here."

"What kind of problem?"

"There's a convoy of eighteen-wheelers parked in front of the department. We've got a man and woman screaming something about unlawful imprisonment, and then there's a whole bunch of pissed-off truckers who claim the woman-who happens to be married to one of them-is the naked hitchhiker who's been ru

"Call Dick Voland," Joa

Butch gri

EPILOGUE

The Monday after Ryan Merritt's death was hot and muggy. It was like the aftermath of any other natural disaster. The end of Cochise County's spree killer brought with it a flurry of funerals.

Early that morning, Clyde Philips was laid to rest in the Pomerene Cemetery after a moving service conducted by Belle's pastor at the First Pentecostal Church of Pomerene. And up the road at the Triple C, after a service in the Benson L.D.S. church, Jake Hosfield was laid to rest in the family plot. Alton had wanted to bury Ryan Merritt-a boy the tabloids were already labeling the "Cascabel Kid"-in the family plot as well, but his wife wouldn't hear of it. After a brief but heated battle Alton had acceded to her wishes.

When the younger boy's service was over, Alton took off alone on what had once been Jake's ATV. He rode it all the way to the edge of the river, stopping only when he was sure he was safely out of Sonja's sight. Then he spent a heartbroken half hour scattering the ashes of his other son, his firstborn. As he scattered the ashes, he also turned loose his lifelong dream of one day handing over his hard-held family spread to one or both of his sons. A lesser man might have taken his own life that afternoon, but that wasn't Alton Hosfield's way. When he finished what had to be done by the river, he went back to the house and his wife and tried to go on.

A few miles away, across Pomerene Road at Rattlesnake Crossing Ranch, Daniel Berridge and his sister, Crow Woman, conducted a private ceremony for Katrina Berridge, burying her in a grave the two of them had spent the night digging by hand. A photographer for People magazine tried to crash the ceremony, only to be driven off by what he later called "a shovel-wielding maniac in a black squaw dress and moccasins."

After a short service at a funeral home in Tucson, Ashley Brittany's remains were shipped back to her home in southern California for final burial. Ruben and Alicia Ramos heard an aging priest celebrate their son's burial mass at a small parish church in Benson.

The last of the funerals that day, the one scheduled for three o'clock in the afternoon at Bisbee's Canyon United Methodist Church, had nothing at all to do with the Cascabel Kid and everything to do with Joa

Esther's casket was tiny and white. Dwarfed by banks of flowers, it was covered by a blanket of white roses interspersed with sprigs of greenery and baby's breath. While Joa

Moments before the three o'clock starling time, the last few people began filing into the front pew, the one that had been reserved with bands of black satin.

Jeff and Maria

Beyond De

At last the organist stopped playing. In the hushed and expectant silence of the room, with no other sound but the distant rumble of the air-conditioning unit, Joa

"The first hymn today isn't listed by number in your program," she said. "I didn't think that was necessary, because it's one we all know by heart."

Down in the front pew, Butch Dixon shook his head and tapped his ear. Seeing that, Joa

Joa

Enough time had elapsed since Andy's funeral that she could no longer remember any of the specifics of that service. What she was left with was the sense that whatever words Maria

The voices of the congregation rose in unison, finishing the first verse of the childhood hymn and marching inexorably into the second:

Jesus loves me. He will stay

Close beside me all the way.

If I love Him when I die,

He will take me home on high.

Up to then, Maria