She snorted and climbed the rear-mounted stairs into the Chieftain.

Havel admired the view that presented, waited for everyone else to get in, and followed. He made discreetly sure that everyone was buckled up-it was amazing how many people thought money could buy them exemption from the laws of nature. Then he slid into his own position at the controls and put the headphones on, while he went through the checklist and cleared things with the tower and got his mind around the flight plan.

That had the bonus effect of keeping out the Larssons' bickering, which was quiet but had an undertone like knives. It died away a little as the two piston engines roared; he taxied out and hit the throttles. There was the usual heavy feeling at the first surge of acceleration, and the ground fell away below. His feet and hands moved on the pedals and yoke; Boise spread out below him, mostly on the north side of the river and mostly hidden in trees, except for the dome of the state capitol and the scattering of tall buildings downtown.

Suburbs stretched northwest for a ways, and there was farmland to the west and south, a checkerboard between irrigation canals and ditches that glinted in quick flashes of brilliance as they threw back the setting sun.

He turned the Chieftain's nose northeast. The ground humped itself up in billowing curves, rising a couple of thousand feet in a few minutes. Then it was as if they were flying over a mouth-a tiger's mouth, reaching for the sky with serrated fangs of saw-toothed granite. Steep ridges, one after another, rising to the great white peaks of the Bitterroots on the northeastern horizon, turned ruddy pink with sunset.

Some snow still lay on the crests below and under the shade of the dense forest that covered the slopes-Douglas fir, hemlock, western cedar-great trees two hundred feet tall and spiky green.