The Wild Turkey Tango (Jackrabbit Junction Humorous Mystery)

by Ann Charles

  “Sí,” Manny said, “but a Bisley Colt with mother-of-pearl handles was his one true amor.”

  “A Bisley Colt is a far cry from that dainty little palm pistol.”

  “Maybe he got it for one of his women,” Kate said.

  “You’re telling me that Kate shot a hole in my Jeep with a gun that once belonged to Pancho Villa?” Claire shook her head. Thank God Joe hadn’t stolen a Tommy gun from an Al Capone collection and left it lying around for Kate to find.

  Mac leaned forward, catching Grady’s eye. “Did Villa have his initials on any other guns in the collection?”

  “Nothing was mentioned in the report I read, but it wasn’t the initials that tipped me off, it was the inscription written in Spanish on the underside of the barrels.”

  “I must have missed that,” Kate said.

  “It’s pretty small and partially worn off, plus it looks like part of the design,” Grady told her. “I didn’t see it at first either, but it’s mentioned in the description on the report the museum filed. Once I got out a magnifying glass, it was mostly legible.”

  Ronnie touched Grady’s arm, drawing his gaze. “What’s it say?”

  “Viva México?” Manny asked.

  Grady shook his head. “Viva los Dorados!”

  “Ahhh,” Manny said nodding.

  “What are los Dorados?” Deborah asked.

  “The Golden Ones—they were Villa’s personal guard.” Manny explained.

  “His elite fighting force,” Grady added.

  “Pancho Villa, huh?” Claire asked, thinking about how Joe’s clues often worked. “What did you say the name of his favorite pistol was?”

  “A Bisley Colt,” Chester said, scraping his plate clean. He looked up at her and did a double take. “Why do you have that look on your face, girl?”

  “What look?”

  Mac grinned. “The one that says you’ve locked your teeth onto something.”

  “Claire,” Kate pushed Mac back to see her better. “What is it?”

  “X marks the spot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know those old graves I showed you way back in the dry gulch that extends behind the R.V. park?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember the grave with the crooked cross? The one with the name carved into the wood?”

  Kate gasped. “Bisley!” She clapped. “Ha! I knew it! All through dinner I kept seeing a crooked X in my head, trying to make sense of it. It must have been that old cross.”

  Claire turned to Mac. “We have to go dig up that grave.”

  “Right now?”

  “Of course right now. The sun will be setting soon.”

  “If there is anything buried back there, it’s not going to go anywhere before morning.”

  Kate looked at Mac as if he’d grown two heads. “You’d be able to sleep tonight without knowing what’s buried there?”

  “Mac can sleep through anything,” Claire said.

  Kate tossed her napkin on the table. “Claire, you drive and I’ll dig.”

  “You’re not digging, Katie, you’re pregnant,” Ronnie said. “I’ll dig.”

  “Hold it right there!” Grady said in his sheriff’s voice, freezing everyone in their places. “Nobody is digging up any graves in my county.” He pushed away his plate of uneaten sawdust meatloaf and green toenail gelatin, his narrowed gaze moving around the table until they landed on Ronnie. “At least not until I get a piece of pie.” A smile rounded the corners of his mouth. “And a little whipped cream.”

  Ronnie licked her lips. “Just a little?”

  Wanting to get out to that grave, Claire volunteered to dish up dessert for everyone.

  Deborah joined her, playing pie delivery girl. “So, your sister has managed to hook the county sheriff,” Deborah said quietly to Claire.

  “Yep.” Claire finished slicing the coconut pie into eight pieces before moving on to the other two. She set two pieces of cherry aside for her and Mac. “Whether it’s good or bad for the rest of us remains to be seen, but he seems to really like Ronnie.” Not to mention that he’s a smart ally to have if someone else came gunning for her sister.

  “How’d you like my distraction?” Deborah asked when Claire handed her a plate of coconut pie to take to the dinner table.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got him to stop focusing on Kate locking up his deputy pretty quickly there, don’t you think?”

  Claire pulled back in surprise. “You mean you’re not really mad at Ronnie for hooking up with Grady?”

  Deborah shrugged. “I worry that she’s rebounding. But I’m learning that you girls are going to live your own lives no matter how I carry on about your choices.”

  “Is that the cognac talking?”

  “Maybe a little, but Manny’s been working on me, too. You girls have quite an advocate in your new stepfather.”

  Claire smiled as her mother walked away. Another Thanksgiving dinner was almost wrapped up. Disaster had been narrowly averted several times during the meal and they’d live to see another day.

  “What are you smiling about, Slugger?” Mac came up beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, dropping a kiss on her temple.

  “Our family.”

  “They’re all nuts, you know.”

  “Yeah. They sure are.” She shoved a piece of cherry pie at him, spritzing the top with whipped cream. “Now hurry up and eat. We have some grave digging to do.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time they made it to the R.V. park, it was well past dark o’clock. Claire and her flashlight led the way back into the dry gulch beyond the park’s fence line. She knew the lay of the land better than anyone else in their grave digging crew.

  Chester, Manny, Deborah, Gramps, Ruby, and Aunt Millie had all stayed back at Ruby’s place, enjoying some games of Euchre in the warm, well-lit rec room. Jessica had shown an interest in coming along until she found out digging would be involved and figured they’d make her do most of the work since she was the youngest. Claire didn’t steer the kid’s speculation in any different direction. She’d rather Jessica not be there to squeal at any weird noises coming from the surrounding scrub brush or see what—if anything—they pulled out of the ground.

  “How much further?” Kate asked.

  Claire had tried to talk her pregnant sister out of coming along, but the nutso had insisted. After all, she’d claimed, if it weren’t for her wanting to rescue the wild turkey they wouldn’t be going on a treasure hunt tonight. When Butch had heard Kate’s plans, he’d closed up the bar and joined them rather than try to talk sense into her.

  “Why?” Claire glanced back at Kate. “Are you getting nervous?”

  “No, these boots are killing me.”

  “I told you to go home and get your sneakers.”

  “There was no time. I know you too well. You wouldn’t have waited for me.”

  Kate was right. Claire was tired of waiting for everyone else. The more she thought about Joe and his history, the more curious she got about what they might dig up.

  If anything, a doubt-filled voice said in her head.

  “Don’t get your hopes too high,” she warned Kate. “This could be another one of Joe’s wild goose chases.”

  “And how does that compare to a Morgan sisters’ wild turkey chase?” Grady asked from the back of the group.

  Claire grinned, enjoying the Sheriff a lot more when he was joking rather than threatening jail time. “There’s less pie involved.”

  “I’m hoping for less gunplay, too,” he shot back.

  “Ronnie,” Claire called over her shoulder as she stepped around a prickly pear cactus. “Remind me to sic Mom on your going-steady partner again when we get back to Ruby’s.”

  Grady’s groan echoed off the steep walls. Or maybe the sound came from Mac and Butch groaning in agreement.

  They trekked through the narrowing gulch for another ten minutes, dodging more prickly pear and cholla cacti. Th
e moon was down to a sliver. Full stomachs from dinner and pie slowed their progress.

  As they neared the bend where the old grave marker had been driven into the desert floor at the base of the wall, Claire heard a rattling sound coming from the brush up ahead.

  Something huffed at her.

  She paused and sniffed, picking up traces of a pungent, musky scent.

  “Javelina,” Mac said, drawing up next to her. He shined his beam around the scrub brush and cacti. “Over there.”

  “I count fourteen,” Butch joined them.

  “Oh, look!” Kate pointed her light in the direction of the herd. “There are two babies. Aren’t they cute?”

  One of the larger ones huffed at them again.

  “Where’s the grave marker?” Grady asked when he and Ronnie caught up.

  “Over where those javelinas are hanging out.” Claire searched the desert floor with her flashlight. “There, see it?”

  Mac stepped toward the herd and clapped his hands several times. The javelinas darted this way and that, then turned and scuttled further back into the gulch. When the last one was gone, Mac led the way to the wooden marker.

  “X marks the spot,” Ronnie said as they stood around it. She sounded like her nose was stuffed up.

  Claire shined the light on her. “Why are you plugging your nose?”

  “Those javelinas are smelly.”

  “They’re not that bad,” Claire said.

  “Your sense of smell has sucked ever since you got sprayed by that skunk,” Kate said and then giggled. “You stunk for days after that.”

  Having been at ground zero when the skunk had lifted its tail, there hadn’t been much Claire could do at the time besides bawl like a cow stuck in the mud. “Not all of us can smell like roses all of the time, brat.”

  “You always smell like roses to me, Slugger.” Mac patted her on the butt and then hefted the shovel he’d brought along. “How about we see what sort of loot ol’ Captain Joe buried before Long John Silver gets here and tries to steal it out from under us.”

  Shovel at the ready, he waved Butch over, who was carrying Ruby’s pickax. Together the two of them dug into the hard desert soil under the crooked grave marker. After several minutes, Grady took a turn swinging the pickax, giving Butch a rest.

  Claire offered to help, which earned her three male scoffs in response. “Hey, I do this kind of hard work every day while you pretty boys are keeping your fingernails clean.”

  “Damned woman,” Grady said with a crooked smile, leaning on the pickax. “This early in the dig and you’re already insulting our manhood.” He shook his head at Mac. “She’s been taking notes from her older sister.”

  “She learned from the best,” Ronnie told him and then dodged his hand, putting Kate between them as he reached for her.

  “For ground that was supposedly dug up before,” Mac said switching the shovel for the pickax, “this is some hard-ass caliche.” He slammed the pickax into the dirt barely making a dent.

  “We need a widow-maker,” Claire said, wishing she’d thought to bring the pointed, heavy pole along with them.

  “I already have a pregnant one right here,” Butch joked, thumbing in Kate’s direction. That earned him a sock to the shoulder from his baby momma.

  “What’s caliche?” Ronnie asked.

  “It’s a sedimentary rock that’s been hardened into a sort of natural cement with …” Claire paused. “What’s the stuff that binds with other materials in caliche, Mac?”

  “Calcium …” he swung again, “… carbonate.”

  “Forget the widow-maker,” Grady said with a grunt, using the shovel’s head to try to chop down through the caliche. “We need a backhoe.”

  “Whenever you boys need me to step in and take over,” Claire crossed her arms, taking one of the Sheriff’s favorite stances, “just give a holler. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Mac shucked his jacket. “Keep it up, Slugger, and I may take you up on it.” He tossed his jacket at her to hold. “You do have one hell of a swing.” His gaze lowered to her hips, his smile cocky, and then he returned to his own swing.

  Lots of sweating and cursing later, they were still coming up empty. The guys stood back, taking a breather.

  Claire shined her flashlight into the knee-deep hole. “There’s nothing here.” Damn it, Joe had fooled her again.

  “Maybe they just need to dig deeper,” Kate said.

  “No, this is too easy.” Claire rubbed her forehead.

  Mac coughed. “Easy, she says.”

  “Joe never makes things so simple,” she continued.

  “You almost sound like you respect him,” Ronnie said, joining her at the empty hole.

  “Respect? No. But I do enjoy a challenge.” She shined the light on the grave marker with BISLEY carved into it, wondering what Joe had been thinking when he set this up. “And Joe rarely lets me down.”

  Kate picked up the grave marker. “If it’s not here, why did he name this grave after Pancho Villa’s favorite gun?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Joe who made the marker.” Butch took the wooden cross from Kate. “Maybe it was whoever owned the park before Joe.”

  “X marks the spot,” Claire whispered, shining her flashlight on the two other wooden crosses. Neither had any name carved into them. Was the BISLEY grave a red herring?

  She pointed her flashlight back at the hole. The caliche ran deep. They were already a few feet down and there was no end in sight. Mac was right—the ground hadn’t been dug up any time in recent history.

  Mac came up next to her, staring down into the shallow dent they’d made in the rock-hard desert floor. “You don’t think he was making a play on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, do you?”

  “There are no UNKNOWN marked graves.” Grady said what Claire had been thinking.

  She replayed the end of that movie in her head, remembering how Tuco had run around and around the huge graveyard. “I don’t think so, Blondie,” Claire said to Mac, using Clint Eastwood’s nickname from the movie.

  Ronnie’s teeth started to chatter. “I’m freezing my ass off back here. How about we figure this out when the sun is shining?”

  “I told you to grab Mom’s leather coat.”

  “No way, not after you found a condom in the pocket of her other jacket. I’d rather get frostbite.”

  “You’re not going to get frostbite in the Sonoran desert, spaz.”

  “X marks the spot,” Kate said in a disgruntled tone. She was festering again. “I don’t like Joe’s games.”

  “I don’t like his crimes,” Grady said, handing Ronnie the flannel jacket he’d taken off earlier when he’d been digging. “Here, use this to keep warm.”

  The jacket was huge on her, making her look like a little girl. After sniffing the collar, she shot Grady a flirty smile. “Thanks, Sheriff Hardass.”

  “What do you say, Slugger?” Mac kicked at the chunks of caliche-cemented dirt they’d piled next to the hole. “Keep digging or try again later?”

  Claire shined her light in a circle around the gulch, glancing up the tall dirt walls. Ghostly scrub bushes shivered in the cold breeze, their thorny barren branches scratching at the hardpan soil. A tumbleweed rocked back and forth, caught on a prickly pear cactus. A strong gust whipped through the mini canyon. The NO TRESPASSING sign quivered as the wind whistled through the bullet holes peppering it. A plastic bag stuck on a piece of barbed wire fence half buried in one of the walls rustled in rhythm with the wind’s periodic drafts.

  Claire pulled her jean jacket tight at her throat, trying to keep the cold breeze from reaching down inside her collar. Maybe she should have grabbed her mom’s coat. “I suppose we can head back to—”

  Wait a second!

  She hit the NO TRESSPASSING sign again with her beam of light.

  Kate moved beside her. “What do you see?”

  “Look at the pattern of the bullet holes.”

  Her sister gasped. “X marks the s
pot.”

  “Sheriff,” Claire said, “could a derringer with .22 caliber rounds make those holes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mac,” she started.

  “I’m already on it, Slugger.” He crossed the gulch and thrust his shovel blade into the sandy soil at the base of the sign. Butch took the pickax from Grady and joined him.

  The desert floor was much softer here, mostly sand left behind from storm runoff. Butch didn’t have to swing the pickax even once, so he took a turn with the shovel instead. Almost four feet down, the shovel blade hit something metal, and it wasn’t the sign post.

  They all huddled around Butch, watching as Grady lowered himself to his knees and reached down into the hole to brush off what looked like an old ammo box. Words were stenciled on the top.

  “What’s it say?” Ronnie asked.

  Claire handed Grady her flashlight.

  He dusted the lid more. “250 Rounds,” he read. “And then it lists a ‘Lot’ number.” He blew at the dirt. “The rest of it is scratched off.”

  “Grady, you lift while I leverage it,” Butch said, wedging the shovel blade under the edge of the box. “Ready?”

  Grady nodded.

  “Watch your fingers.” Butch put his weight onto the handle. “Holy shit, this is heavy.”

  Mac got down next to Grady. While Butch worked the shovel, the other two hauled out the metal box with a lot of grunting and swearing. The size of it reminded Claire of her grandfather’s old Army footlocker, only a little more square than rectangular.

  Kate shined her light on the padlock that sealed the box shut. “Grady, give me your gun.”

  The Sheriff laughed. “For the second time tonight, Crash Morgan, that isn’t going to happen.”

  “Stand back,” Butch said. He stepped between Kate and the box. A couple of well-placed strikes with the shovel blade and the lock was history.

  “Well,” Mac said, looking at Claire. “Who wants to have the honor of opening it?”

  Everyone else followed his lead, turning to Claire.

  “I say we let Crazy Kate do it,” she said, putting her arm around her little sister’s shoulders. “After all, she’s the one who started it all by packing heat on our trip to Yuccaville this morning.”