Prologue
The August sun reigned on the plains of northern New Mexico, tormenting the denizens of the small towns that peppered the barren North American savanna. Only the roughest of flora and fauna were alive; the antelope and the juniper, the jack rabbits and the sage brush. The towns themselves resembled their surroundings; well-worn Chevrolet and Ford pickups dominated the dirt roads in and among them, the buildings were stout and painted bland colors, and the people themselves dressed plainly and lived practically. Some wore flannel shirts, belt buckles and cowboy hats; others, shorts and black Warrior Wear t-shirts.
One such town was the whistle stop of Geronimo. A small inholding on the Jicarilla Apache reservation, it was the only thing between US route 550 and the reservation's main town, Dulce, an hour to the north. Along the main road through town were two gas stations and a pizza parlor, the only commerce around and the primary gathering point for almost anything in that area of the reservation. Behind them were dirt streets with rundown homes lining them, double-wides and modulars more common than place-built houses.
Outside the town limits, dirt roads snaked with the terrain, leading back to ranches owned by fourth- and fifth- generation residents of the little town. Pastures surrounded them, grazed by Herford and Angus cattle, a few hundred head to each ranch. Above them, the relatively rich lived in two-stories houses on a ridge, called Blue Ridge by the locals for no apparent reason, but even they forwent expensive Lincoln and BMW sedans in favor of Audis and Volvos that were better able to traverse the dirt roads leading to their residences.
And, finally, on a slight rise north of town, two blue cinder block buildings stood proudly along the road, one after the other. The larger of the two was a U-shaped building, with a catwalk connecting the arms and parking lots on two sides. Next to it was a stadium, and a field painted for high school football, with the words "Geronimo Titans" in the end zones, wrapped in a brand-new rubber track. The stands had room for twice the student body, and usually filled up on Friday nights in the fall.
