 It was sharp at the wheel of the pickup truck where he bounced over the pair of sometimes parallel ruts studded with stones the size of bowling balls. It was called a back road. For the better part of two miles before he cut lights and motor and whispered that if Gaines was going to get stuck at all, it was sure to happen in a dry wash just around the next bend. I told him to wait and went ahead on foot. He was right. Gaines was stuck in more ways than one. His car was up to its hubcaps in sand and his wallet up to its stamp compartment in blackmail, conducted by his ex-wife's murderer with the same lever she'd had. The letter.