by Kieran York
Hertha’s hand chained with Royce’s as they ran splashing into the lake. Royce’s skin rippled and her teeth chattered, but the water’s temperature impacted her less than she feared. The sensation was one of euphoria as she began her swim. Hertha was in front of her, and she made a futile attempt at catching the vet. When Royce finally caught up, Hertha’s arms orbed her waist. She pulled Royce into the depth and Royce felt their breasts brush. Hertha laughed and dunked the deputy repeatedly. Then she darted away. When Royce’s head bobbed out of the water, she had lost sight of Hertha. Paddling, she was frightened that Hertha might have hit an undercurrent or become tangled in debris. She panicked. She then observed Hertha and Hertha’s outstretched hand.
“Come on, paleface.” Hertha pointed to the roped soap that hung around her neck. The soap dangled between Hertha’s full breasts. “Need to suds your bod?” she asked playfully.
Royce gasped for air as she dog-paddled. “Am I supposed to use it attached to you?” she dared ask.
Royce saw a glimmer of desire, but thought it was probably only the vet’s way of frolicking. Hertha lifted the rope necklace from her head. She was standing, breast-high in the water. As Royce approached, she removed the soap and tossed it in Royce’s direction. Royce trapped it against her abdomen and began washing. Royce chided, “Women are always giving me the old soft soap.”
“There is one difference,” Hertha refuted. “I’m offering the suds and a back rub as accompaniments.”
“Squeaky clean?” Royce inquired.
“Absolutely, deputy. Now, let’s go for some warming.”
Hertha waded to shore, followed by Royce. They neared the roaring fire. Even the blankets they had spread were warm, and as they eased onto them, the women felt heat. Royce grabbed a stack of dry towels and tossed one to Hertha. “Here, let me get your back,” she offered. Royce felt the sensation of Hertha’s body under the fabric. When Hertha took the towel and dried Royce’s back, her caressing pats sent shivers.
After both were dry, Royce threw a blanket over Hertha’s shoulder. The women crouched next to the blazing campfire. Hertha’s shawl blanket circled her body as she knelt. Rubbing her hands together, Hertha brayed, “Not so bad once your body gets used to it.”
“It was no warm shower.”
“No.” Their eyes tethered. “But nice now.”
“Yes.” Royce wanted to break their eye contact. But she also wanted to read the contents of Hertha’s dark eyes. She wanted to see beyond their thick sable lashes and piercing loveliness. Royce realized that she wanted to come to terms with her own desire. The thought raided her soul. She wondered why she hadn’t seen all the woman that Hertha was. She wanted to understand how she could have been too blind to see Hertha.
Royce desired Hertha but knew that she couldn’t show it. After all, three white men had violated Hertha’s mother. Royce hesitated, feeling a reticence to have her actions misinterpreted. Hertha wasn’t the type of woman to respond to having the moves made on her. And it wasn’t Royce’s style. Royce sedately resumed a friendly smile. She wanted Hertha to feel safe with her.
By the time her teeth stopped chattering and her body stopped shivering, Royce had directed the conversation from fishing to law enforcement. Then on to arrowheads and any other comfortable topic.
“Now,” Hertha bantered, “shall we discuss world events of the day, or see if the tent has warmed?”
Royce entered the tent. She heard Hertha throwing more wood onto the fire. Royce unwrapped the sleeping bags and rolled them out.
Hertha entered. “Here, let me help,” she offered. Her nude body moved to Royce’s side. As the zipper sissed, Hertha nonchalantly suggested, “We could double the sleeping bags. They’re compatible.” Hertha quickly added, “It would conserve warmth.”
“So would dressing in layers and layers of clothing.”
“Royce, is that what you’d like?”
Cautiously, Royce’s gaze lowered to the tent’s floor. “No. I’m afraid you’d bolt and run if you knew what I’d like.”
Hertha’s lips curved. “You really think I’d go running through the night away from you?”
“Something like that.” Royce’s face flushed. She issued a sheepish grin.
“I haven’t made love for a very long time. Perhaps it’s what I need. And you need to be held. Loved.”
Royce reached and her palms cupped Hertha’s chin. “It’s much more than that. I’m experiencing a feeling I never knew about.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“No one could bribe the spirits with as many offerings as I have to make you love me. I know that you still have feeling for Valeria. But tonight is a sharing that we both need. There need be no obligation on either part.” Hertha’s fingers glided over Royce’s shoulders and then lifted up behind her back. Her tender kiss hushed Royce’s objection about Valeria.
“Royce, time will give us both the answers.” Hertha drew back. “Until then we can’t promise to belong to one another. Only to share ourselves.”
“Do you want for us to belong?”
“Completely. But never at a cost to you. I don’t want you to ever doubt your decision. I don’t want any promises about the future until you’ve confronted your emotions.” She paused a moment. “Royce, for now it has to be incomplete. Perhaps it’s love’s blank space and time will fill that emptiness. Our fates write our stories.”
Their lips met. Royce experienced a rushing warmth. Both women trembled with each touch. Royce speculated that it was only a prelude to the power of what each of them felt.
Looking into Hertha’s face, Royce realized that Hertha wouldn’t believe the words of love. Royce was determined to show her. Then, abruptly, Royce stalled. She feared this embrace. This was not some fraudulent somatic bliss. Their eyes clashed. Hertha’s expression was one of total vexation. “Royce, why are you so frightened?”
Royce’s eyes closed. “When our skin touches ... it’s just so different.”
“Is that wrong?” Hertha pursued.
“I’ve just never felt love that began on the inside. The kind that starts deep and moves outward toward the flesh.”
“Why did you pull away?”
“I’m not sure.” There were a myriad of reasons and they all skirted explanation. “This is just overwhelming. Maybe I’m frightened of losing your love.” She wondered if her fear was connected to the danger she felt. Her parents had shared a reverential love. They had lost that love. The thought of their loss had always staggered Royce.
“I told you that I have no expectations. And you won’t lose my love. In my heart, I already belong to you. When I offered my love, I offered myself. There’s a Ute bonding ceremony where the spirit and flesh of two people are tied together for eternity. It’s too difficult to translate. We say that it’s walking together.” With great reflection, she expounded, “It’s the hearts that walk together on the same path. As one always. You have my vow that when you’re ready, I’ll be at your side to walk with you. I want our paths to be together. To be one.”
A sliver of moonlight splashed through a crease in the tent’s window. Royce had never been part of any love of this depth. She had never been the recipient of love’s full embrace.
***
Royce slipped quietly from their morning curl of arms and legs. She started the campfire and put on the coffee. While it brewed, she considered the night’s love wrap. The wedging together and the tempo of their bodies seemed somehow familiar. Even waking in the tuck of one another’s arms was a known intimacy. It was an instinctual waking. Royce knew the way Hertha’s hair would spray against her own shoulder. She knew how Hertha’s skin would feel when she caressed it. She knew the faint scent of love that combined with alpine blossoms. There was even a retentive knowledge of Hertha’s soft breath against her neck.
And why wouldn’t she know the morning, she mused. They had known the night as if they had memorized one another’s bodies and hearts. Their torsos
gently wound together and their limbs braided through the night. Their love seemed choreographed by some unknown destiny. A memory that directed them to please one another. For it had surely gathered them together, laced them, and placed some invisible imprint upon their hearts. Royce was mystified. But pleasantly so, she smiled.
She unwrapped a package of trout that she’d taken from the cooler. Moving the coffee over, she placed the trout—in sleeves of aluminum foil—onto the hot grill.
“Nothing like freshly caught trout in the morning,” Hertha remarked. She slipped a sweater over her head and finished zipping her denims. She then leaned down and planted a kiss on Royce’s neck. Her arms encircled the deputy’s shoulders.
Royce’s hand gathered up Hertha’s. She kissed it tenderly. “Hope Smoky didn’t wake you.”
They watched as Smoky growled at a black-shinned hummingbird. “No. She was so good last night I didn’t even know she was in the tent.”
With a wispy smile, Royce murmured, “I doubt that I would have been distracted if a grizzly had been there.” She had wanted to tell Hertha how complete the night had felt. She couldn’t. “Plenty amazing.”
“Well, the trout are steaming. Time to mix up some corn bread.” Hertha mixed the batter and poured it into a shallow pan. While Royce readied the coffee, and flipped the fish, the corn bread baked.
After the breakfast was eaten, Royce broke her silence. “Hertha, I don’t need to see Valeria again to confirm my love for you. I do love you.”
“I don’t want any morning-after declarations of love.” Hertha’s response was curt; her eyes were stern. “You’ve never been able to walk away from her before. Not really. You might not be able to now.” Her tone softened. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Hertha’s smile bloomed across her face. “I’m frightened that you might bolt and run if you knew what I want.”
Royce glanced down at her long legs in their faded denim covering. They weren’t running anywhere.
***
Royce waded into the stream with great delicacy. She cast her line. When the lasso loop snapped along the top of the current, she knew that she had hooked another fish. “That’s our limit,” she yelled over to Hertha.
Hertha was watching the acrobatic leaps of the fighting rainbow trout. “That’s the one that has been flirting with your lure all morning. A huge one.”
After the fish had been landed, Royce motioned to Hertha. “Do I get a victory kiss?”
They moved through the current and met halfway with a clasp. Their kiss lasted several moments. Royce’s lips paused on Hertha’s temple. “Want to rest over on the bank before we head back to camp?”
“That would be nice.”
Smoky was leaping, stumbling from stone to stone as she followed. “Well, Smoky didn’t scare off too many fish. We caught our limit.”
The women plunged down onto the tundra. Royce dipped her hands into her pant pockets. “No more butterscotch.”
“Ray says Molly is bringing him butterscotch now too. Must be a family comfort tool.”
“My dad used to give me rolls of butterscotch. I think it was because he liked the flavor.” Royce hesitated, and then added, “Ray will be released when we catch the killer.”
“He thinks you’re terrific. He told me that you must have some Indian blood.”
Royce felt discomfort. She didn’t want to fail in her effort to save Ray. She hungered for butterscotch. She wondered if she’d stuck an extra piece in her watch pocket. She pulled out the button that Smoky had found. “Just Yancy’s button. I meant to return it.”
Hertha took it from Royce. “Don’t bother. It’s ruined. Look at how the holes are split.”
Royce reached for it and inspected it. “As if it were pulled in a struggle.”
Royce’s eyes batted rapidly and her skin rippled with a sudden chill. “On no,” she droned. Her shoulders sagged and she moaned, “God, no.”
“What’s wrong?” Hertha cradled Royce in her arms. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”
“My father always said that the most obvious clues are often the most difficult to detect.” Royce’s leap to her feet was quick. She grabbed Hertha’s arm. “Come on. We need to get back.”
“Royce?”
“I can’t explain now. But Luther didn’t kill Trish. His brother did. And we’re in danger.”
Chapter 23
They broke down the camp in great haste. Hertha questioned, “You mean the sheriff?”
“Yes. It’s all making sense now. Yancy drove onto Gran’s property the night before Smoky was poisoned. He brought me out the department Blazer. He could have pitched that box of poison near the cabin, knowing that Smoky would find it.”
“You’re talking about the poisoning. I don’t follow.”
“Yancy hated Wolfe. Wolfe had bitten him. Yancy hates dogs; he’s terrified of them. And there wasn’t a price tag on that rat poison box. It might have been taken from the department’s storeroom, I’ve seen rodent poison placed where we keep the records. Yancy has access to that storage area.”
“Why would he have gone to the trouble of poisoning Smoky? Wolfe was the dog that bit him.”
“Yancy carefully planned the murder site and had to keep me away from the scene. He knew I had been trained at the police academy in Denver and was experienced in evaluating crime scenes. He had it planned down to the perfect area where detection would be difficult. A place that would be easily sanitized. His military training would have assisted him in selecting a place where Trish couldn’t have escaped his assault. To safeguard, he didn’t want me there. If my dog had been poisoned, I would be absent from the crime site.”
The women were rapidly rolling their tent and bags. “What about the button?” Hertha quizzed.
“The way the button was broken triggered my memory. It was broken in a struggle. The place where Smoky found it would have meant that it flew at a certain projectile for a great distance. A button doesn’t pop off and fly that far if the material isn’t being pulled with the kind of strength that someone being strangled would have. It was several feet from the trail where Trish’s body was found.”
“A button doesn’t seem like enough evidence to prove he’s guilty.”
“Not alone it doesn’t. But Yancy never showed a tattoo on his arm. He said it was too lewd for a public servant. When I arrived at the crime scene, he rolled up his sleeves. He would only do that if he had a greater sin to cover up. Greater than the embarrassing tattoo on his arm. And it was chilly, I even went back to get my jacket. But he wouldn’t chance putting his uniform jacket on, even though it was a very cool day. The drifter might have recalled it.”
“You think he also killed the drifter?”
“Yes. Osborn was killed because he saw what he thought was an elk or a deer. I kept pushing for a hypnosis session. The drifter might have recalled that it wasn’t an animal but a man behind those bushes. Our uniform jackets with their tan pile-collars could be mistaken for an animal. For that reason we change our coats to a bright color during hunting season. Yancy was on duty, and during the early morning hours would have worn his coat. But he needed agility if he was going to strangle someone. He would have left his coat off until after he killed Trish. He probably left it with his motorcycle. After the murder, he returned, put it on, and then heard someone on the trail. He went back to check and was spotted by the drifter, who thought he was an animal. The motorcycle. Under hypnosis Osborn might have recalled hearing the distinctive sound that a cycle makes. Yancy lied about having his cycle out earlier this year. Part of his cover was that there wasn’t a motor vehicle in the area. The drifter mentioned that right away.”
“Which was part of their evidence against Ray. He was on foot.”
“Exactly. And now Yancy realizes that I know he was lying. He also knows that I would question it. It’s all coming into focus.” Roves- stood and lifted her pack. “That’s how it went down.”
“Yancy let Ray out so that he would have someone to blame for Osborn’s death. He certainly had given it thought.”
“Right.” Royce nodded. “It’s called premeditation. And premeditated murder is very, very punishable.”
“Why did he give Luther an alibi?”
“Yancy’s magnanimous offer wasn’t for Luther’s sake. It was for Yancy’s own alibi. Luther stood there and challenged me to prove him guilty. Difficult task, as he knew he wasn’t guilty. A miserable human being, but legally innocent of murder. He thought I was needlessly harassing him. And another thing, Trish met someone to discuss something. One would assume it would be midway. If it were Luther she was meeting, they would have selected a spot between Crystal Village, where Trish was staying, and the Chandler Ranch, where Luther was. The gulch is midway between Timber City and Crystal Village.”
Haphazardly Hertha grabbed the cooler’s cover and clamped it tightly. “But that isn’t proof positive.”
Lifting the opposite end of the cooler’s handle, Royce rushed her words. “No. But Laramie knew that Yancy did the killings. If I hadn’t taken him seriously and had let it slip to Yancy, it would have signed Laramie’s death warrant. He spoon-fed me information, testing me. He gave me the bullet shells from the gun that killed my father. He had found them. He’s done the cleaning up at the Bell Ringer for two decades. He found them in the trash there. Everyone knows that Yancy has been hanging around Faye’s Bell Ringer for years. That was a safe place to pitch the bullet shells. He probably used an impounded gun taken from the evidence vault. No one would think to examine a weapon that had already been confiscated at the time of the crime’s commission.”
“So you think Laramie was right and Yancy killed them all?”
“Yes. Plenty amazing, all right. But yes.” She checked her hand revolver and slipped it into the fishing tackle box. When they arrived back in Timber City, she would strap it on. She would keep the tackle box near on the return trip, in case. But Yancy probably wouldn’t expect them to leave this early in the day.