by M. K. Wren
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Oh, Bury Me Not
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
Oh, Bury Me Not
By M. K. Wren
Copyright 2014 by Martha K. Renfroe
Cover Copyright 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 1976.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by M.K. Wren and Untreed Reads Publishing
Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Cat
A Multitude of Sins
http://www.untreedreads.com
Dedicated with thanks to Mildred and Leonard Davis of the White Horse Ranch, and Lani Davis of the Alvord Ranch; with hearty appreciation to Sam Burt; with sorrow to Bridgie Sitz, who will never read it; and with love to Cassie Drinkwater, the gentle and generous abiding spirit of Harney County.
Oh, Bury Me Not
M. K. Wren
CHAPTER 1
The rain should make Mr. Flagg feel right at home.
Beatrice Dobie trudged the half block from the bookshop to the post office, galoshed, raincoated, her freshly permanented and auburned hair preserved in plastic. Just yesterday. She squinted ahead through spattered bifocals. She’d had her hair done yesterday, so what could she expect but rain today?
It was a fine rain that seemed half fog, but could soak the unprepared to the skin in a few minutes, and Holliday Beach, which tourists inevitably called “charming” in the summer, looked like a woebegone rural slum on this late September day. She passed the Gold Star Realty office, anticipating the space separating it from the beauty shop where her determined pace allowed her a brief glance between the buildings and over a jumble of roofs to the rim of the sea. She looked out at the ocean washing this Oregon shore and thought of Conan Flagg, thousands of miles away in Kyoto on the opposite shore.
Metaphorically, of course. On the authority of Rand McNally, she knew Kyoto didn’t literally overlook the sea. Anyway, Mr. Flagg wasn’t there now. He was on his way home, perhaps approaching Hawaii….
The post office floor was puddled with water. She picked her way across it, smiling at Mrs. Higgins, nearly unrecognizable in her rain gear except for her astonishing girth balanced so irrationally on thin-shanked legs.
“Mornin’, Miss Dobie. Wet ’nough for you?”
“Well, we needed the rain; it was a dry summer. At least, for the coast.” She went to the bookshop box; the combination was too familiar to necessitate concentration.
“Junk mail,” Mrs. Higgins sighed. “How ever does a person get on so many mailing lists? But I guess junk’s better’n an empty box. You heard from Mr. Flagg lately?”
Miss Dobie smiled faintly as she examined the bookshop mail. She’d answered that question for the ladies of Holliday Beach, young and old, in weary repetition during her employer’s two-week absence. “He’ll be home this afternoon, Mrs. Higgins.”
“About time. Never knowed a young feller to wander around so much. Where’d you say he was off to this time?”
“Japan. He was…” She paused, distracted by the red-inked message “Private and Urgent” on one of the letters, finishing vaguely, “He was on a consultation project.”
“In Japan? What was he consulting about over there?”
“Oh, it had to do with some Hokusai woodcuts. Art works. By the way, I got in some new Phyllis Whitneys for the rental shelves.”
Mrs. Higgins beamed. “Well, I’ll come look ’em over.”
When Miss Dobie had the bookshop open and Mrs. Higgins ensconced among the Gothics, she unlocked the door behind the counter: Mr. Flagg’s office. He called it that; she privately referred to it as his lair. A Hepplewhite desk; a Louis Quinze commode accommodating a small bar and stereo tape deck; paneled walls crowded with paintings; a richly patterned Kerman on the floor. Meg’s favorite claw-sharpening spot. One snagged corner was evidence of his indulgence.
But Miss Dobie didn’t begrudge Conan Flagg his indulgences or extravagances. He could afford them, and she knew that the Holliday Beach Book Shop—and, ergo, Beatrice Dobie—must be counted among them.
His chief extravagance came trotting in then, announcing herself with a hoarse, demanding meow. Miss Dobie, preoccupied with sorting the mail, assured her, “Meg, I’ll get your breakfast in a minute,” but the cat wasn’t convinced. She jumped up onto the desk, knocking the neat stacks of mail into shambles.
And that was purposeful. Meg could walk a two-by-four laden with crystal without disturbing one precious piece if she were so minded. The grande dame of the bookshop—so Miss Dobie regarded this sapphire-eyed, blue-point Siamese aristocrat, as did Meg’s faithful following. But she had a lot to learn about noblesse oblige.
“Shoo!” A shout and clapping of hands sent her out into the shop, ears flat, and Miss Dobie irritably began resorting the mail, her frown deepening when she came across the letter that had caught her eye at the post office; the one marked “Personal and Urgent.”
It was for Mr. Flagg; the return address, G. W. McFall, Black Stallion Ranch, Star Route, Drewsey, Oregon. The slanted Running S brand was emblazoned above it
The Black Stallion was a name to conjure with in the annals of Oregon history; half a million acres in Harney County, the largest ranch in the state, for a century the domain of the McFalls, and Aaron McFall was as much a legend in his own time as Henry Flagg—Conan Flagg’s father and the founder of the Ten-Mile Ranch—had been.
G. W. McFall. That would be George, Aaron’s oldest son. Mr. Flagg had been best man at his wedding, but that remembrance didn’t elicit her frown, nor was this the first time his name had come to her attention lately.
The frown was for the red-inked “Urgent,” for the repeated phone calls, and for the clippings she’d carefully extracted from the Portland Oregonian during the last two weeks.
She separated the clippings, reading the headlines. FRONTIER FEUD ERUPTS IN HARNEY COUNTY. SHADES OF HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS. This a clever and condescending column written by a man whom she doubted had ever ventured out of the suburbs of Portland. The last one,
dated yesterday, included a photograph of a stackyard, the mountains of hay reduced to smoking ruin. MCFALL-DRINKWATER FEUD FIRED BY ARSON.
She sighed prodigiously. Mr. Flagg just might have to get out his private investigator’s license.
*
The black XK-E pulled up to the curb at four-thirty. Beatrice Dobie, at her post behind the counter, put aside The Antiquarian and looked out through the front windows, smiling to herself. Before Mr. Flagg could cross the short distance from his car to the shop, the Daimler sisters, Adalie and Coraline, cornered him, joined a minute later by Marcie Hopkins, a nubile fifteen-year-old. Even crotchety Olaf Svensen paused for a grumbling greeting, while inside the shop, the remaining customers emerged from the nooks and crannies and gravitated toward the entrance.
Miss Dobie knew Conan Flagg’s secret: he was kind to old ladies, truly kind, and to ladies in general, actually. His country boyhood was betrayed in that. She’d grown up on a farm in Iowa where children were taught to say—and think—“Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir,” and she understood that courtesy, which was so ingrained as to seem innate.
But he didn’t show his rural upbringing outwardly. In fact, he looked out of place here, stepping out of that low, sleek car. Another of his indulgences. She was convinced he wouldn’t know a carburetor from a carbuncle; he simply considered the XK-E beautiful.
He was still dressed for travel, and rather elegantly, she decided. She seldom saw him in anything but comfortable slacks and sweaters, and perhaps that was why he looked so intriguingly foreign now; lean and dark, high cheekbones, raven-black hair, and eyes with a slight Oriental cast. But that was his Nez Perc heritage, and it so submerged the Irish, it should have stamped him irrefutably American; true American.
He escaped Marcie and the sisters Daimler and retreated into the shop, only to be met by more well-wishers, and while he dealt with the friendly onslaught, Miss Dobie let her thoughts wander into a small fantasy. Conan Flagg freshly returned not from an esoteric inquiry into the authenticity of a series of Japanese woodcuts, but from a romantically secret foray as a special agent of G-2, Army Intelligence.
That was years behind him, he always insisted. Still, it was one of the few personal secrets her employer shared with her. That and his private investigator’s license.
At length, catching the look of appeal he sent her between smiling pleasantries, she bestirred herself to disperse the last of the greeting party, while he escaped to the privacy of his office, where he stripped off his coat and tie and sank into the leather chair behind his desk, venting a sigh of relief when the front door finally closed. Miss Dobie secured it by putting up the “closed” sign, then crossed to the office door and paused there.
“Well, Mr. Flagg, it may be redundant, but welcome home.”
He called up a smile. “Thanks, Miss Dobie. How are you? And where’s Meg? Snubbing me?”
“I’m fine, and Meg’s probably sulking upstairs. The Duchess is displeased, you know, with your absence.”
“As usual. Well, I’ll bring some chicken liver tomorrow. That should put me back in her good graces.”
“Probably. How about a cup of coffee? The pot’s on.”
“If it weren’t, I’d know the Apocalypse was approaching. Yes, I’ll have some coffee.” He looked around the room with a curious sense of mental vertigo, seeking some elusive touchstone in this accumulation of cherished products of work and pleasure and years.
Jet lag. He surveyed the waiting stacks of mail and found the prospect of sorting through them mindboggling. By tomorrow morning, this intimately familiar world would be itself again, but now it seemed paradoxically alien. He watched Miss Dobie as she handed him a mug of coffee and settled in the chair across the desk from him. He could anticipate almost every laconic comment and weighty sigh, yet she seemed a virtual stranger.
“Well, Miss Dobie, any news?”
Her shoulders came up in a predictable shrug.
“Well…that depends on what you consider newsworthy. How was your trip? Did you connect with Mr. Morishi?”
“Yes. He made all the crooked ways straight, and fortunately speaks beautiful English. With an Oxford accent. I’ll have to call Halsey.” He frowned at his watch. “Tomorrow. It’s the middle of the night in New York.”
“Not quite, but he can wait another day for his report. The prints are authentic?”
“Definitely. Morishi nearly wept when I left with them. If Halsey’s interested, he could triple his investment.” He paused, his attention caught by the words “Personal and Urgent” on one of the envelopes. At first he dismissed it as another missive from his cousin, Avery Flagg. Conan had made him chairman of the board when the Ten-Mile Ranch was incorporated, which spared him the mental drudgery of running the business, but not Avery’s periodic outbursts of fiscal hysteria.
Then he recognized the Running S brand.
“What’s this?”
“Well, I guess that’s one item you could call news. I was going to tell you about it as soon as you caught your breath. It’s from George McFall.”
That was self-evident and told him nothing. He tore open the envelope. The letter wasn’t typed, although the stationery was a businesslike bond with the Black Stallion address printed at the top.
“He’s called three times this week,” Miss Dobie added. “He would’ve called you in Kyoto if I’d had a phone number.”
Conan didn’t comment on that barb, too distracted by the cramped irregularity of the writing.
Miss Dobie elaborated: “He wasn’t just being friendly, either. He sounded like a man with his back to the wall.”
“George? I find that hard to imagine.”
“Well, everybody gets his back to a wall sooner or later,” she observed sagely. “Anyway, he wants you to call him as soon as you can, and he doesn’t care what time of the day or night it is.”
That kind of insistence from a man notable for a calm, unruffled approach to life was alarming. Conan began reading the letter, but Miss Dobie wasn’t through yet.
“It probably has something to do with that feud. I saved some clippings for you.”
“What feud?” He glanced at the clippings, but they seemed as meaningless to him as a Japanese headline.
“Well, the McFalls and the Drinkwaters—I guess their ranch is close to the Black Stallion—”
“Yes, the Double D. It borders the Black Stallion on the west.”
“That’s it, the Double D. Anyway, they’re having a good old-fashioned feud; cutting fences, flooding hay fields, even poisoning cattle.”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Sounds like some reporter’s been watching too many Westerns.”
“I’m afraid not, and it’s getting serious. That last item, the arson, I saw a film story on the news yesterday. A thousand tons of hay went up in smoke.”
He felt a chill at that, and “serious” struck him as a sadly inadequate term for a disaster. The fall stores of hay were put aside to see the herds through bitterly cold winters. Losing them could mean starvation for hundreds of head of cattle and bankruptcy for a rancher.
He returned to the letter, and apparently Miss Dobie had had her say; she remained silent while he read it.
Dear Conan,
This is sort of like a Dear Abby letter—I never thought I’d be writing one, and I never thought I’d be looking for a private eye, but I am now. I need help, and you’re the only private eye I know, and I figure if you can’t trust your best man, who can you trust?
I’ve been trying to phone you, and I asked Miss Dobie to tell you to call me as soon as you get home, but thought I’d better write in case she forgets. It’s about this feud. Sounds outlandish, I know, but I guess that’s the only way to describe it. You know Pa, and Alvin Drinkwater is just as stubborn and cantankerous as he is. I don’t know what’s really going on, but I’m afraid if I don’t get this thing straightened out, somebody will end up dead.
I’ll need help to get to the bottom of this. I wa
nt to hire you to do some proper investigating, and I’m not just after some friendly advice or sympathy. I need some answers and I’m willing to pay whatever it costs to get them.
I know this probably doesn’t make much sense, but there’s no use trying to explain the whole thing in a letter. Just call me as soon as possible—please.
Thanks,
George
It didn’t make much sense. Conan read the letter again, then methodically folded it. George McFall afraid and freely admitting it—that was what didn’t make sense. Conan studied the clippings briefly, then put them in the envelope with the letter.
“I’ll have to call George this evening,”
Miss Dobie nodded over her cup, with the hound-on-a-scent look she always got when he was on a case. He didn’t bother to remind her that he hadn’t taken any cases yet.
“When did you first meet George McFall?” she asked. “Playing Cupid at Stanford?”
He managed a laugh. “There was no Cupid involved. Fate, perhaps, in the shape of George’s ineptitude on the ski slopes, and Laura was rather spectacular in white.”
“You mean nursing white or wedding white?”
“Both.” Five years ago. It seemed longer, and it had always seemed a paradox that he and George hadn’t been brought together by the common experience of being scions of two of the largest ranches in the state. They’d met in a totally different environment, and even in another state; Stanford University, where Conan was auditing a course in ethology conducted by a visiting European scientist. But George wasn’t a passing sampler in the groves of academe; he was working conscientiously toward a degree in business administration. As heir apparent to a domain conservatively valued at three million dollars, he took his responsibilities very seriously.
Conan sometimes wondered if George hadn’t considered Laura part of that responsibility; that it behooved him to bring home a bride to ensure the continuity of the dynasty. Not that he hadn’t been thoroughly in love with her. In that, perhaps, he lost sight of his obligations to a degree. The dynasty might have been better served by a bride bred to the land.