The Thirteenth Skull

by Bonnie Ramthun

  “The game is afoot!” Lucy whispered to Eileen. They plunged into the trees behind the dog.

  Chugwater, Southeastern Wyoming

  Joe looked longingly at the bottle of pills ’Berto had given him. Then he put them in his backpack and shoved the pack to the floor of the Mustang. His head ached so badly he thought it might actually explode, like something out of a bad horror movie. But the pills made him sleepy and tired. Sleepy and tired was not the prescription for the long, straight stretches of Wyoming that lay ahead of him.

  Sleepy and tired was certainly not what he should be while driving around in ’Berto’s car. ’Berto’s darling, a lovingly restored powder blue ’67 Ford Mustang convertible, had an engine that kicked like a rocket jet at the slightest pressure on the accelerator pedal. Joe had never driven ’Berto’s car before today, though he’d driven around with ‘Berto many times. He still couldn’t believe ’Berto was lending him the most precious thing he owned.

  “Might save your life, Joe,” ’Berto said, waving off Joe’s offer to return the keys. “This car can outrun the wind. Don’t have too much fun.”

  Now Joe was sitting in a Chugwater, Wyoming gas station and there was no way the fat man and his friend could have followed him. Joe was wearing ’Berto’s clothes, driving ’Berto’s car, and was wearing ’Berto’s Ray Ban sunglasses and a soft baseball cap that covered the bandage on his head. Even so, he was paranoid all the way north from Colorado Springs until the traffic started to fade away close to the Wyoming border.

  Joe opened a can of soda pop and swallowed some ordinary aspirin. He rested the cold soda can against his cheekbone. The impact that had split a twenty-stitch gash in his head had given him a hell of a shiner below his right eye. At least he’d had a good shower and a shave before he left ’Berto’s place. ’Berto had designer taste in clothes, too. Joe was wearing some sort of soft, loose cotton trousers and a button-up shirt. Joe never wore clothes like that. Another reason why the fat man and his friend were certainly left in the dust.

  Eventually, of course, Joe was going to have to go back to Colorado Springs and his job. When he did, he had every intention of going in as the hunter, not the hunted. Joe took a long swallow from the can of soda and started the Mustang’s engine. The July sun flooded the Wyoming prairie with light and made the highway shimmer in front of him. The Mustang roared happily as he muscled it back on to the highway and headed north towards Eileen.

  Chapter Six

  The Reed Ranch, Wyoming

  The morning was warm and sunny. The woods were green and gold and magical. A unicorn would not seem out of place in those woods. Lucy dodged around a branch and wanted to swing right into the tree like Tarzan, swing into the tree and follow Zilla by leaping from one to another. Hank seemed weightless on her hip. He had a good hold on her. His legs were wrapped around her hips and his little hands were entwined in her hair. He was grinning madly.

  Zilla was in the lead, followed by Eileen. She chased Zilla through the trunks and the crunchy green plants that she’d told Lucy were called kinnikinnick. Kinnikinnick, what a hilarious name. Lucy was caught by laughter again, caught but good, and she couldn’t let go or Beryl and Jorie might hear her. Sound carried incredibly far in the enormous empty stretches of Wyoming. There was no traffic, no people talking, no lawn mowers or building air conditioners or construction machines. There was nothing but the wind in the pines and the thin cry of a hawk, and Eileen’s running footsteps three trees ahead of Lucy.

  “Wait, Zilla, slow down,” Eileen said urgently.

  Ahead of Eileen, Lucy could see Zilla’s feathery tail wagging. She’d stopped immediately when Eileen called her. Her little body shivered with the effort of holding still. Lucy caught up to Eileen and Zilla and she put a hand on Eileen’s shoulder, struggling to catch her breath.

  “Let me take Hank, if he’ll have me,” Eileen said. She was grinning, hair tangled. She was enjoying this as much as Lucy. She reached for Hank and to Lucy’s surprise her little boy held out his arms to Eileen. He settled in on her hip and looked intently at her face. He didn’t smile and Lucy prepared herself for an outthrust lip and a wail of anguish. Instead Hank turned his attention to Zilla. He pointed at her and kicked at Eileen’s hips like a rider trying to get a horse to trot.

  “You okay?” Eileen asked Lucy. Lucy raised her arms above her head, free of Hank’s weight, and took a deep breath. She felt like she could outrun Zilla now. She nodded. “Zilla, track!”

  Zilla bolted, her paws digging up trenches in the pine needles that covered the ground. Eileen and Lucy followed. Hank made little crows of excitement as he watched Zilla’s wagging tail.

  The trail that had begun as a straight line now began to waver. Zilla slowed down, too, her sensitive nose buried in the fragrant pine needles of the forest floor. She sniffed and snuffled, then raised her nose and sniffed the air. Eileen came to a stop well back, letting Zilla have space. Lucy stopped at Eileen’s shoulder. Eileen pointed at her feet. Lucy looked down and saw a rust-red splotch on the kinnikinnick leaves at Eileen’s feet. The splotch was dried blood and Lucy felt a surprising rush of satisfaction. They really were tracing Dr. McBride’s steps.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Eileen murmured to Lucy. “Look for anything he might have dropped.”

  But it was Zilla who found what Dr. McBride had hidden. Her tail suddenly started wagging so fast it was a white blur. She barked sharply, then stopped and took a strange stance. She stood on her three feet and leaned forward, almost toppling over her one front leg. She quivered, but she didn’t move, and her nose stayed absolutely still.

  “What is she doing?” Lucy said. She gathered Hank from Eileen’s hip without taking her eyes from Zilla. Hank put his arms around her neck and she kissed his cheek. He was watching Zilla, his eyes round and fascinated.

  “She’s pointing,” Eileen said. She put her hands at the small of her back and stretched, absently massaging the muscles, relieved to be free of Hank’s weight. “Look where her nose and her eyes are aiming and you’ll see what she’s pointing at. I didn’t know she knew how to point. Maybe Dad’s training her to be a bird dog.”

  “Can we get her to track again?” Lucy said. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Zilla. The little dog was absolutely still, except for the faint trembling of her body. Even her tail was stiff, thrust straight behind her as though she were trying to turn her entire body into an arrow.

  “I think she still is tracking,” Eileen said in a low voice. She produced her gun with the effortless ease that Lucy found amazing. Lucy felt like one of the Three Stooges when she drew her gun. Eileen held her gun as though it were a part of her. “Let’s see what she’s looking at. Stay here, okay?”

  “Okay,” Lucy said. She shifted Hank on her hip and saw another splotch of blood in front of her. This one was big, far too big for a cut or a scrape. This was a lot of blood, blood that came from a human who was dying as he stumbled through these woods. Lucy felt ashamed suddenly of her delight in the beautiful day and the company of her friend and her little boy. Dr. McBride didn’t deserve to be dead, with no way of ever enjoying again the beauty of the blue Wyoming sky.

  “Lucy,” Eileen called. “Zilla, come.” Zilla broke her stance and leaped forward to join Eileen. Eileen was standing in front of a lightning blasted tree, Lucy saw as she joined her friend. The giant old tree had broken in half and taken a whole section of woods with it when it crashed to the forest floor. The pile of dead and rotting trees were covered with kinnikinick and small shrubs. A row of shelf mushrooms grew along the trunk of the largest tree. A squirrel chattered madly at them.

  Behind the splintered trunk of the old tree there was a hollow made of broken trees and shrubs. A nest of red mushrooms spotted with white grew at the foot of the old tree trunk.

  “Don’t touch those,” Eileen said as Lucy and Hank joined her. “They’re poison.”

  “Okay,” Lucy said. She looked at the splash of dried blood that spread across some p
ine needles at the front of the natural cave. How could anyone lose that much blood and live? Oh, that’s right, he hadn’t. Flies buzzed in the quiet air.

  “You okay?” Eileen said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good. I’m going to crawl in there. Hang on.”

  Eileen stepped over the blood patch and crouched down. She edged into the cave, a space barely large enough to contain her, and stopped.

  “Do you have anything made of cloth that I can use?” Her voice was muffled and strained. Lucy unzipped her small fanny pack and dug out a disposable diaper. She always carried a few diapers and wipes. If she didn’t, she needed them, without fail. She leaned forward and placed the diaper into Eileen’s outstretched hand, the only part of her that was visible from the tiny cave.

  A moment later Eileen was backing out of the cave, holding an object wrapped in the diaper. In her other hand she held a bundle wrapped in a scrap of tarp. Lucy had seen those tarps at the archeological dig. Eileen stood up and shook her head rapidly back and forth, making her dark red hair fly madly about her head.

  “Don’t tease me, just check me for spiders,” she said nervously.

  “Eileen Reed is afraid of spiders,” Lucy said, brushing at her friend’s shoulders and hair with her free arm and laughing. Hank patted at Eileen’s shoulder, giggling. “No spiders, you wimp.”

  “I’m not afraid of spiders, I’m terrified of them,” Eileen said. She was grinning, her eyes blazing with excitement. “Guess what I have in this here diaper?”

  “Show me,” Lucy commanded.

  “No,” Eileen said. “Not where Hank can see. It’s the murder weapon.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said. Hank, who was ignoring the adult talk, reached for Zilla.

  “Let’s walk away from this area very carefully,” Eileen said. “I think the sheriff will rope this place off too. Then I can show you the thing in the diaper. And we can both look at whatever is in this tarp.”

  “Okay,” Lucy said. “Lead the way.”

  Eileen walked ahead and Lucy very carefully followed in her footsteps. Once they were over a gentle hill from the downed trees Eileen stopped in a small clearing. The late morning sun was bright and warm. Indian paintbrush flowers nodded their bright red heads above the grasses of the meadow. Lucy could hear the low buzzing of bees. Hank wiggled to get down and after a careful look around, Lucy let him.

  “Zilla, good girl!” Eileen said. “Go play.” Zilla immediately began her ecstatic reunion dance with Hank. She jumped and twisted and Hank giggled and ran in circles, chasing her. “We’re really close to the ranch house,” Eileen said in a low voice. “It’s just over that rise at the end of the meadow, there.”

  “Let me see,” Lucy said. Eileen opened the diaper. Lucy stood with her head close to Eileen’s and they peered within, as though they were checking an extraordinary poop from her little boy, one so spectacular that it simply had to be seen. There within the diaper was the most horrible looking stone knife Lucy had ever seen. It was a length of shiny dark obsidian that had been chipped until it was double-edged and sharp. The rock was streaked with thick, chunky red stuff at the point. Lucy swallowed hard. This wasn’t a bloodstain, this was gore. There were pieces of Jon McBride on that knife, along with his blood. Lucy looked away.

  “The fatal wound was made with this knife, I think,” Eileen said.

  “Looks Aztec,” Lucy said faintly, looking at her son and the little three-legged Border collie and trying hard not to pass out. They were trying to catch two white butterflies that were doing a complicated sort of dance above the meadow flowers. “So McBride carried it off with him. Why? And what’s in the tarp?”

  Eileen carefully rewrapped the stone knife and laid it at her feet. Then she cradled the bundle in her arm and unwrapped the tarp. They both gasped. The object within the tarp, revealed to the sun, caught the light and flared like a torch with every color of the rainbow. Lucy squeezed her eyes to slits against the reflected light.

  “Is that a diamond?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Eileen said. She sounded like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “It couldn’t be, could it? It’s as big as my head.”

  The thing in the tarp was made out of some perfectly clear substance, life-sized, and carved into the shape of a human skull. The eye sockets looked up at them mockingly, the teeth bared in a death grin. It was the most beautiful thing Lucy had ever seen, and the most terrible. Draped around the top of the skull, like a crown, was an oval of gold set with dully flashing gems. The largest one looked like an emerald as big as Lucy’s thumb. The tight-fitting crown was grimed with dirt but the skull itself was as clean as though it had been polished minutes ago.

  “Treasure,” Lucy whispered. “We’ve got ourselves a problem, girlfriend.”

  “We sure do,” Eileen said. She wrapped the tarp around the skull and looked at Lucy. “Whoever stabbed Dr. McBride wanted this stuff badly enough to kill for it. Now we have it.”

  There was silence between them. In the meadow, Hank panted and giggled and chased Zilla and the butterflies. The sun felt hot on Lucy’s dark head. She felt her heart pick up speed, but in a good way. Eileen couldn’t keep her solemn expression any longer, and she grinned at Lucy. Lucy smiled back.

  “We’re going to be harder to kill,” Lucy said.

  The Reed Ranch, Wyoming

  “You moved evidence,” Sheriff Richard King said furiously. Eileen kept her relaxed pose against the family room fireplace mantle. This took her enough effort that a line of sweat ran down the small of her back. The day had only gotten hotter, the way mid-July days can get, and the family room was packed. Tracy, who was sitting with Paul on the piano bench, had opened the French doors and turned on the fans but the room was still warm.

  The crystal skull sat on the mantle, crowned with the dirty circlet of gold and gems. Jorie Rothman and Beryl Penrose sat side by side on the leather couch. They were still grimy from the buffalo jump dig although they’d washed their faces and hands. They couldn’t keep their eyes off the skull. Beryl, in particular, seemed to have disconnected entirely from the crowded room. Her round face was distant, her eyes focused on the glimmering skull.

  Howie Magnus and his friends crowded together on the other couch and the two armchairs. Howie was clearly enjoying the whole scene, his strong musician’s hands laced over his knees and his eyes bright with interest. His brother-in-law, Jimmy, sat composed and mute as a statue to his left. Nolan Simmons, the comedian, and the software tycoon, Mark Plutt, slouched in the armchairs like little boys called in from their summertime play. Lucy stood next to Tracy and Paul. She’d put Hank down for a much-needed nap and had just entered the room. She folded her arms and glowered at Sheriff King.

  Sheriff Richard King didn’t notice her attention, though Eileen thought that he would be a smarter man if he would. She wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Lucy’s smoldering glare. King was angry, but he would have been angry if he’d walked through the door and Eileen and Lucy had been sitting in white dresses, drinking iced tea and leafing through Vogue magazines. He had it in for Eileen, and her discovery of the crystal skull and the murder weapon only added fuel to the fire. He had grown taller and had filled out since high school. His dark blond hair was receding but it looked good on him. His skin had cleared up and if not for his expression of bitter anger, he would have been quite a nice looking man. Eileen sighed to herself.

  “I had no choice,” Eileen said calmly. “We had no idea if we were being watched or followed. Once we found the knife and the skull—”

  “How did you do that, anyway?” Mark Plutt asked. Sheriff King turned his narrow, furious face to Mark. Mark Plutt, software tycoon, didn’t blink at the sheriff’s angry gaze.

  “Just an accident,” Eileen said blandly. “We were talking a walk through the woods back to the ranch house and Zilla got all excited.”

  “I see,” Mark murmured, with a blandness that mocked Eileen.

  “Th
at’s moving evidence,” Sheriff King said.

  “Certainly, and under the circumstances we were justified,” Eileen shrugged. “We were under conditions of imminent threat. If we left without the objects who knows if they would have been there when we returned? I didn’t want to stay there alone, or leave Lucy and Hank there, either. We needed to stay together.”

  Tracy stirred on the piano bench and Eileen saw Lucy put a gentle hand on her shoulder. There was a sudden, sharp tang of fear in the air. Unless the murderer was a drifter with intimate knowledge of the Reed Ranch, the murderer was in the room at that very moment. No one else could have killed Dr. McBride. Eileen saw glances, lowered eyes, and a slight drawing away, one from another.

  “I’ll have to see where the objects were left,” King said. “And I’ll have to secure the items as evidence—”

  “In my safe, sheriff,” Paul Reed said, right on cue. Eileen breathed a mental sigh of relief that her father had come home early enough for her to prep him. Sheriff King didn’t hate her dad. Paul would succeed where she would certainly fail.

  “What? Mr. Reed, you know I have to—”

  “I’ve seen the evidence room at the station, sheriff,” Paul said calmly. “A ten-year-old with a good crowbar could break in there. This object is priceless.”

  “I could get oh, five or six million or so on Ebay, no questions asked,” Nolan Simmons commented. Howie’s comedian friend nodded appreciatively at the treasure. “That’s just for the crown. I don’t know what the skull would fetch.”

  “It belongs in a museum!” Jorie said hotly, unconsciously aping the movies, a line said many times by fictional archeologist Indiana Jones. A wave of smiles enveloped the room and Jorie looked around, confused, and then realized what she’d said. Her face flushed scarlet all the way to the roots of her hair. This made her look even more fetching, Eileen thought sourly. She caught Lucy’s eye and quickly looked away from Lucy’s bright, cynical smile. She didn’t want to start laughing.