Jill watched Zach from the corner of her eye. He didn’t notice. He was looking at each canvas with the eyes of a scholar and the body of a brawler.

If he’d been a painting, she’d have wrapped him up and taken him home.

But he wasn’t, so she concentrated on a large canvas filled with colorful Indian braves and stalwart cavalrymen in blue coats and hats that had been tattered by weather and war.

“My professors would scream,” she said, “but this painting really speaks to me. Guess I’m a natural-born plebe.”

Zach glanced at the painting, then found its page in the catalog. Along with a brief biography of the artist, there was a price range the canvas was expected to bring.

“You’re a plebe with great taste,” he said. “That’s a Howard Ruckelshaus. It’s expected to bring between a million and a million-two. If there are some heavyweight Ruckelshaus collectors at the auction, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the bidding blow right through a million and a half. That’s what auctions are all about-excitement and record prices.”

Jill stared at Zach, saw that he wasn’t kidding, and went back to looking at the paintings. She spent a long time on a bigger-than-life portrait of a drenched, exhausted cowboy in a yellow slicker hauling a saddle in one hand and a bridle in the other. In the corral behind him, his weary horse had its head down, eating a freshly broken bale of hay.

“I’ve been there,” Jill said. “So tired you see double. But the horse has to be fed, watered, and rubbed down before you crash.”

“Code of the West?”

“Code of the ranch. Animals first, humans second.”

The next painting that stopped her was an epic canvas, fresh and vivid, like it had just come from the artist. The canvas showed the driving of the golden spike that symbolically joined the transcontinental railway across the United States. Well-fed Anglo men were congratulating each other on completing an important job.

Yet the focus of the painting was not the successful men in business suits, but rather a large group of Chinese workmen who had been shunted off to one side. They were allowed to witness the event their sweat had made possible, but they weren’t included in the congratulations.

Jill made a small sound and studied the workers. Their faces were individual, unique, subtly heroic, without the bland sameness of the businessmen. Like the cowboy’s horse, the Chinese were bone-tired; unlike the horse, no one was going to see to their needs.

“Remarkable,” she said. “The technique and composition are classical European, yet the Chinese men remind me of nothing so much as the clay army of Xian. Individually human and universal man at the same time.”

“The artist is a Chinese immigrant. Lives in Tucson.” Zach skimmed the catalogue. “Someday he’ll be recognized as the great artist he is. Assuming galleries and collectors can get past a Chinese man painting the old West.”

“That kind of bigotry is disgusting.”

“So are a lot of things that are real. But don’t feel too bad-this canvas is expected to sell in the low six figures. Not bad for a dude who just turned forty.”

Jill laughed softly.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“Just me,” she said. “I have a fine arts degree from one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States, yet many of these paintings are utterly new to me. I hadn’t realized how blatantly Eurocentric my fine arts education was. Most of my professors never got closer to America than Warhol’s Campbell soup can and Jackson Pollock’s premature ejaculations.”

Zach made an odd sound. “I take it you’re not a Pollock fan.”

“I could give you chapter and verse on Pollock’s importance to world art, his daring artistic vision, his slashing intellect, his blah blah blah. Yet his work never spoke to me on any level, including the intellectual. Neither did a lot of English pastoralists, but at least it was possible to admire their technique.”

Zach started to say something, then sensed a person approaching behind them. He turned with startling swiftness and saw a tall, trim man with salt-and-pepper hair that brushed the collar of his dark blue blazer.

Ramsey Worthington had risen to the bait.

35

SNOWBIRD

SEPTEMBER 15

11:28 A.M.

I’m Ramsey Worthington, and you are…?” he asked.

Jill turned to face Worthington. He looked more European than American West. His voice was refined, carefully modulated, with just enough of a British accent to suggest high culture as defined by PBS.

He didn’t offer his hand.

“Names aren’t important,” Zach drawled. “Isn’t that what dealers always say? ‘It’s the quality of the art, not the name of the artist’ that matters.”

Worthington’s blue eyes narrowed. “What is this about?”

“A Thomas Dunstan that was last in your custody before it was ‘lost,’ mutilated, and finally destroyed,” Zach said.

Worthington’s eyebrows shot up in what looked like genuine surprise. “Mutilated? Destroyed? What on earth are-”

“But the lost part doesn’t surprise you, does it?” Zach cut in.

The door buzzer sounded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Worthington said.

Christa Moore opened the door. Several people walked in. Their clothes ranged from shabby casual to casual chic. All of them had the bearing that said they could afford anything that took their fancy.

“I’ll be real happy to explain,” Zach said. “I’ll even use little words and a loud voice. You want that here or in your office?”

Worthington looked at the newcomers. He knew them. High-level collectors giving a final review to some of the auction goods.

The collectors were also high-level gossips.

“My office,” he said curtly.

The dealer’s office was a sharp contrast to the spacious, neat gallery. Painting after painting was stacked in ranks against the walls and inside specially made cubbyholes. Shelves were buried beneath bronzes and carved marble.

Zach recognized an intricate Remington bronze of a cowboy astride a lunging horse. An original, numbered Remington was worth bragging about. The aged, bent cardboard tag attached to the statue by wire attested to the work’s authenticity.

Jill’s hands itched to pull out paintings and look at them. A single glance at Zach’s face told her that wasn’t going to happen. Worthington didn’t look real outgoing, either.

“Now, what’s this nonsense about a ruined Dunstan? All provenanced Dunstans are accounted for and in excellent condition.”

Zach gave Jill a subtle signal.

Showtime.

“My great-aunt, Modesty Breck, sent out a canvas for appraisal. My adviser”-Jill nodded to Zach-“believes it found its way to you. The painting was reported as lost. Recently it was, ah, returned to me. In shreds.”

Worthington frowned. “I remember the painting. Hillhouse sent it to me. I sent it back. I’m sure the receiving and shipping forms are filed, if it matters to you. As for the rest, it’s neither my affair nor my responsibility.”

“Forms can be filled out and filed by anyone with a seventh-grade education,” Zach said. “They’re worthless as proof of anything worth proving.”

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Jill said earnestly to Worthington. “The destruction of the canvas really angered him.”

Worthington gave Zach a wary glance.

Zach gave him two rows of hard white teeth.

“I came here because I wanted to know what you thought of the painting,” Jill said.

“It’s not my practice to discuss privately held paintings with anyone except the owner.”

“No problem,” Zach said. “Modesty Breck is dead. You’re talking to her grandniece.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Worthington said automatically. “But that doesn’t answer the question of ownership.”

“I’m her heir,” Jill said. “Would you like a letter from my lawyer? A death certificate from the coroner? Testimonial from an elder in-”

Zach spoke over her, “I know it upsets you to talk about it.” He squeezed her shoulder-hard-and turned back to Worthington. “So what did you think of the painting?”

“Surprisingly good,” Worthington said. “Reminiscent in many ways of Thomas Dunstan’s work. But the lack of signature, plus other issues, made the painting an unlikely Dunstan. Very unlikely.”

“Issues, huh?” Zach said. “Such as?”

Jill’s smile asked Worthington to be more polite than Zach was being.

“Just how are you ‘advising’ Modesty Breck’s heir?” Worthington asked.

“Any old way she wants it,” Zach drawled. “She’s real upset by her loss. You’re real busy with your auction. The quickest way to get rid of us is to answer our questions.”

It took Worthington about four seconds to come to the same conclusion.

“The historical record is the first issue,” he said. “By comparison to other artists, Thomas Dunstan painted remarkably few works. So far as we know, every single one of those paintings has been authenticated and accounted for. His heirs have been very jealous of his reputation. They guard his heritage very closely.”

“And make money doing it,” Zach said.

“There is nothing unusual about paying for expertise.”

“Since when has being someone’s heir made the heir expert on anything?” Zach asked.

“It’s called droit moral, and I have no time to explain it to you,” Worthington said impatiently. “The second issue is that the subject of the painting is unlike anything in Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné.”