Paul tucked the notebook back in his pocket and Anna edged toward the door. "Thanks, Paul," she said, though she was unsure of what she was thanking him for. Everybody always said "Thanks, Paul." Maybe, she thought as she banged out the screen door feeling anything but grateful, one just felt obliged to him for caring.

Paul Decker cared that his people were happy.

Unfortunately there usually wasn't a damn thing he could do to ensure that they were.

"Be fair," Anna said half aloud, trying to temper her anger with words. Leave it alone, she told herself.

Mind racing too fast for her feet to follow, she found herself stopped under the pecan trees on the flagstone walk outside the ranch house. Overhead, the leaves made a pleasant clacking. Beyond the stone fence, where the overflow from the spring spilled out into the field, was a line of bright green. Grass following the moisture till it disappeared into the earth a hundred yards out. To the right were the small hay barn and roofed shed for the stock animals. Two big brown rumps were visible near the manger.

On impulse, Anna canceled her plans to spend the afternoon trying to make order out of the chaos in the Emergency Medical Supply cabinet. She vaulted the stone wall and let herself into the paddock from the side gate.

Karl Johnson, a currycomb lost in his enormous hand, was grooming Gideon, a big chocolate-colored quarter horse with one white foot. Karl looked like an almost classic ogre from out of a children's fairy tale. Six-foot-six inches tall, he weighed nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. Wiry reddish-brown hair curled out from nose, ears, the top of his uniform shirt, and sprang from his massive skull. His nose was pug to the point of absurdity, as if a button had been sewn on the square lumpy face when the real nose had been lost.