T .R., or at any rate his pilot, had the courtesy to put the chopper down at a decent remove from where Rufus had parked his trailer, and downwind. So Rufus’s vehicles did not get pelted with little rocks and coated with dust, those being the two main constituents of this part of Texas: about midway between San Antonio and Laredo, five hundred miles east of the Flying S Ranch. It was 6:30 in the morning of what promised to be a clear but not excessively hot day. According to the schedule, which had been worked out to an amazing level of detail by T.R.’s staff, Rufus would have the boss’s undivided attention for three hours, after which there would be something called a "hard stop." Rufus didn’t know what a hard stop was, and given the way these people talked about it, he was afraid to ask. He had visions of being physically ejected from the chopper’s side door at 9:30 sharp if he failed to complete the agreed-on program of activities by that instant.