SPECULATION

 two days later Sam was back at the paradise will. something about the deal bothered him. upon reaching home in the middle of the night after finding the corpse Sissy had informed him quietly she had known the dead man in altar. when asked how she recognized him she said it was the homemade belt he wore, she had made it.  he was the father of some of her friends there. he sometimes worked as a coyote to feed his family.  she stated he wasn't a bad man but felt he ws a man who would cross the line if he needed to.  sam had contacted the sherrifs office with the information. but the tire tracks still bothered him. so he had ridden back there . the smell still lingered there as he squatted ext to the tire tracks. there was only one set. and they went into the bombing range. no one drove there, if you did you became a target for the pilots who practiced there. one set of tracks, and it looked like they were leaving. sam stepped into the leather and turned his hose making a circle around the well and corrals. there had to be a set arriving. after a hour of slow searching he found a partial tire track. it also came from the bombing range but the cattle milling around the corrals had tromped out the evidence. sam returned to the set that he could see the best. he sat looking south into the bombing range. his curiosity mounting his horse involuntarily started walking , following the tire tracks.  the tire tracks beelined south following the buffer zone of the bombing range. after 3 hours of riding same came to the old Johnson ranch. it had been abandoned years before when the bombing range was set up.  the concrete water storage tanks had been used for practice targets and showed the abuse with pockmarks and broken concrete.  the remnants of a fire were against the side of the old storage tank. it was warm. the tracks now turned east and started slong a long unused two track. in the distance sam could make out a small plume of dust over a black dot moving slowly along the trail. that trail would eventually lead back to the road that ran north to south through the vekhol valley.  just as sam turned his horse to head cross country and to intercept the vehicle  he heard the sound of a airplane coming up from the south.  he trotted his horse to a rise for a better view.  the air lanes in this area ran east to west. any air traffic coming from north to south or from the south were either military or  illegal activity. as sam sat his horse a small slow moving plane came into view from the south. as it flew over the black vehicle a package was dropped from the plane . the plane circled and headed  back south. the black vehicle had stopped and sam could see people out moving around. this explained a lot. he turned the horse and struck a long trot in a north east direction to intersect the road. he wanted to know who was in the black vehicle!!