The site might as well have been on Mars, rather than tucked in the South Dakota Badlands. Shane was still sweating from the fifteen-mile bike ride, which was nearly vertical in some places along the lonely trail and eventually led to the abandoned mine. They'd finally reached the spot known by the other endurance riders as Sheer Drop. It was a cliff of gray rock, striated with layers of black and white, studded with one lone tree standing sentinel against the sky. The view was spectacular. Even in his preoccupied state, Shane recognized the magnificence of the canyon below, twisting and brushy, and the hills with their covering of wind-tossed grass. The air was scented with the tank of newly fallen rain on long-parched ground.