by Lynn Sholes
He came around his desk, eyebrows arched in disbelief. "And the contents?"
"Ten-eighty is gone."
"My God!"
"Is everything all right, grandfather?" The girl closed her computer.
"Wait here."
"May I go with you?"
His mind was focused on the break-in, and it took him a moment to respond. "Stay by my side."
The three marched down a long hall lined with glass panesoffices on one side and a series of medical examination rooms on the other.
Arriving at a heavily fortified set of double doors, the director swiped his ID card before entering. Continuing along another corridor, this one lined with doors but no windows, they finally entered a large room marked Evidence at the end of the hall.
Endless shelving held thousands of legal-size boxes. At the back of the room, the director and his assistant stopped where a handful of other lab technicians dressed in white medical coats had already gathered.
Sitting on the floor against the wall was a blue safe about the size of a kitchen dishwasher-its door agape. It contained only one shelf, which was empty.
The director glared at the safe while he pulled nervously at his mustache. "It would have to be ten-eighty."
"What is it?" His granddaughter touched his arm. "What was stolen?"
The assistant turned to her. "The human remains of teneighty."
"Was ten-eighty someone famous?"
The director hesitated, then stared into the eyes of his granddaughter. "Infamous."
AMBUSH 1876, NEAR THE ARIZONA
TERRITORY-MEXICAN BORDER
GROVES CLIMBED TO THE top of a rocky outcrop and cupped his hands around his eyes. The glare from the morning sun blazing over the mountain peaks made it painful to keep them open. He had left Calabazas before dawn with his newly purchased wagon, mules, and supplies. Ten miles from town, as he entered the foothills of the mountains, he pulled up in a ravine and climbed to the top of the outcrop. Squinting, he saw a faint trace of rising dust on the horizon, dancing in the morning light. Two riders.
He knew it would be slow going, and he couldn't outrun them. The wagon could only follow passable trails and roads. He could wait here and make a stand. But they wouldn't try anything until they were sure he had led them to the source of the Spanish gold. Instead, he would let them follow him deep into the mountains, perhaps even to the lost valley. He needed to get them to a place where their bodies would never be found.
After three days, Groves entered a mountain pass that he remembered was a few miles north of the lost valley. Mercifully, he had seen no sign of the Apaches. Back in Calabazas he'd heard that troops from the Sixth Cavalry out of nearby Fort Huachuca had captured or killed a large war party. He hoped it was what was left of the Indians who had ambushed the Federales. Only a handful of them had returned to the cave that day and died in the earthquake. If the Apaches were out of the way, things could be a lot easier and safer. But Groves was sure that if any of the Indians were still around, the last thing they would do would be abandon their treasure.
Then again, it occurred to him that they may not want the treasure for its value as much as to simply steal it from the white man, depriving their enemy of having it. If the Indians meant to trade or sell any of it, they would have done so long ago. And who would they sell to? Still, he planned to keep a sharp eye out for any signs of those murdering savages.
As for the two riders, they kept their distance, lagging back until they became no more than shadowy forms among the mountain trails and forests.
Groves backed his wagon into a well-concealed gap between two rock walls. He unhitched his mules and removed the tools and supplies. Strapping the equipment onto the backs of the two animals, he filled his backpack with enough food for three or four days. He had his Colt Schofield .45 and had bought a Sharps "Big Fifty" buffalo rifle with a scope from the blacksmith in Calabazas-a guaranteed kill at one-thousand yards. With everything ready, he and his mules began the hike up the winding trail over the last few miles to the lost valley and the Apache gold.
Groves entered the valley mid-morning. It was as he remembered. He saw the thick stand of trees at the base of the cliff hiding the narrow gap and entrance to the cave. Many of the trees were leaning at odd angles or toppled over. Debris from the earthquake cluttered the valley floor. The river had reestablished its course and seemed to be flowing unhindered.
Groves led his pack mules into the trees and tied them up. Even from a distance, he smelled the stench of decomposing fleshthe banditos and Apaches along with their horses. By the time he worked his way to the clearing at the base of the cliff, he found the source of the stench. Although wild animals and buzzards had feasted on the bodies, there were still plenty of remains left to cause bile to rise in his throat. It was all he could do to keep from puking.
He slipped past the corpses to the base of the cliff. A portion of the rock wall had collapsed in the tremors, and the narrow gap in the cliff leading to the cave entrance was partially blocked. He climbed to the top of the rock pile and looked down at the passage-it was clear. In the shadows beyond was the entrance to the treasure cave. As long as the cave had not collapsed, all he needed was to blast away the obstructions at the base of the cliff and get on with his task.
Groves had already decided to start with the gold dust-something that was untraceable and easy to exchange for money. Once he had enough he would buy up a parcel of land near Calabazas and build a house with some sort of fortified structure to store the other treasure. And from there, he could expand into ranching, cattle, maybe even mining. Pykes could help him with that.
Judging from his memory of the treasure, he felt it could possibly take as many as a dozen trips. But that long a stretch might be too dangerous. He reconciled himself to the fact that he'd just get as much out as quickly as he could. With a smile of satisfaction, he climbed down and moved back into the trees, retrieved his two mules, and continued south out of the lost valley. By this time tomorrow, he would be ready to deal with the two riders.
Groves lay on the same ledge overlooking Renegade Pass from where he had witnessed the massacre of the Mexican soldiers. It was late afternoon and the shadows grew long and dark. His neckerchief, wrapped around his nose and mouth, filtered the nauseating stench of the rotting corpses below. Tired from the long trip, he was about to doze off when he heard the clatter of hooves. The sound preceded the rider long before he appeared around a bend in the canyon. Only one man.
Groves wondered if this was one of the two men trailing him or someone else. Had the pair decided to let one go into the pass first to see what would happen? What if they had found his tracks leading into the trees back at the lost valley?
Maybe he was about to be ambushed.
He slipped the .50 caliber shell into the single-shot Sharps and used the scope to bring the rider into the crosshairs. Groves pictured the stacks of gold in his mind, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger.
In the confines of the canyon walls, the Big Fifty sounded like a cannon, its echo seeming to go on forever before finally mingling with the echo of the galloping horse's hooves on the stone. The riderless animal ran south and finally disappeared around a bend. Through the scope, Groves saw the crumpled body of the rider on the ground. Even at a distance, it was obvious that the big gun had blown off most of the man's head.
"Sorry, mister," Groves whispered. "Them's the breaks."
He waited motionless, listening for sounds of the other rider. All he heard was the whistle of the wind through the pass. He wondered if he should go after the dead man's horse, but decided against it. If he showed up back in town with the man's mount, there would be too many questions. He'd have to be satisfied with his two mules for now. Soon, he could afford as many mules and horses as he wanted.
Groves stood and slung the Big Fifty over his shoulder. He was about to make his way back along the ridge to where the mules waited behind a thick grouping of trees when he heard the crunc
h of boots on loose rock.
"Murderin' bastard!" A man stepped from the trees.
Groves dragged in a breath at the sight of the Colt in the man's hand. "Listen, mister-"
"Where's the gold?" The cowboy's eyes burned with malice.
"What gold?"
"Don't play dumb with me." He took a step forward.
"Don't do nothin' foolish." Groves raised his hands. "We can make a deal."
The stranger took another step forward. As he did, one of the mules wandered out of the trees-it had come untied. The cowboy turned at the sound.
Groves pulled his pistol and fired, hitting the man square in the chest, a cloud of smoke belching from the barrel of his Schofield .45. He watched the cowboy collapse to his knees, eyes now filled with fear. Groves raised his gun to fire again. But as the man fell forward, he squeezed off a single shot.
Billy Groves felt the impact of the bullet slam into his gut like a white-hot sledgehammer. In disbelief, he dropped onto the rocky ledge.
THE STRANGER 2012, MIAMI
SENECA AWOKE AT MID-MORNING instead of her usual 6:30. She'd gotten to bed late, but still it was unusual for her to sleep in. The medications must have done their job. She lay in bed staring blankly with a jumble of thoughts. Daniel, the whole scene in Mexico, the SUV with the orange fog lights, lost luggage, and that message on the machine.
Groaning, she rolled away from the window and the light that sliced through the blinds. She tried to go back to sleep, but her internal clock was set to 6:30 and she'd already blown past that. Still, she didn't want to get up. The day was just going to be shitty anyway, so why bother.
Thirty minutes later she finally lugged herself out of bed.
The shower helped wash away the uncontrolled crying, but not the heartbreak of knowing that when she got out, she would still be alone. Her mother would have ordered her to get up, go outside, and blow the stink off. Brenda Hunt had a way of going straight to the core.
As Seneca dressed, she started forming a mental checklist of the day's tasks. She had already spoken with her editor a number of times from her hospital room in Mexico. Even though she wanted to go back to work right away, he had insisted on her recuperating at home, then slowly getting back into her routine when she was mentally and physically ready. She promised him that a story would come out of all this, but his response was to let it go, "You don't have enough for a story," he told her-always his favorite line to push her harder for more material. So her first order of business was to call and check on her luggage. If the bags were found, at least she would have some of her data to use for the article.
Five minutes later, after getting the bad news, Seneca dropped the receiver in the cradle. She was usually good with hunches, and her best intuition was that her bags weren't delayed, they were lost for good. Was this the way the rest of the day would go?
She felt as if she were slightly hung over, sluggish, depressed, and she anticipated the onset of a bad headache. Maybe taking a combo of the medications had been bad judgment. In the bathroom, she cupped her hand under the faucet and took a drink. After an English muffin washed down with Diet Coke, she dressed, donning a baseball cap to hide the scalp wound, and headed out. Might as well get the most painful task of the day over with first.
"How's my mother doing?" Seneca spoke to the short, pudgy nurse whom she had come to know since her mother's admission to the facility six months prior.
"Some days are better than others."
"And today?"
The nurse shrugged.
Seneca gave her an "I understand" nod and continued down the hall of the Park View Nursing Home to her mother's room. God, she hated these kinds of places and had detested having to put her mother in one. But inevitably it came to the point that for her mother's safety and well-being, it had to be done.
Brenda sat in a chair by the window, staring out, a stuffed toy dog in her lap, clear tubing just under her nostrils delivering oxygen. She was frail, and her skin papery, blotched with deep purple bruises; a result of the prednisone medication. A tray sat on the stand beside the bed, food untouched. The room smelled of stale perspiration.
"Mom?" Her mother turned, and Seneca's heart sank. She could read the disconnect in her mother's eyes. Residing in those gray eyes that had once been a sky blue was a haze that probably mimicked the fog in her head.
"Belle, did you bring the cards?" Her voice sounded hoarse and weaker than normal.
Seneca's body responded with a demand for a large intake of breath. She took the breath and spoke on the outflow. "Mom, it's me, Seneca." She drew close and stooped beside her mother.
Brenda tilted her head. "The cards? We can't play without the cards."
Seneca had often listened to her mother reminisce of Belle, another free spirit in a passel of Brenda's college friends who had, among many other adventures like sit-ins and protest marches, headed to Woodstock back in 1969 for three days of peace, love, music-and of course drugs. Breakfast in bed for 400,000, her mother liked to say. That was a quote from somebody, but she could never remember who said it at the festival. The other favorite cliche was that if you remembered the sixties, you weren't really there.
It was hard to look at her mother now-hair completely gray and unkempt, arthritic knobs on her finger joints, sagging flesh along the jaw line, the raspy voice of an ex-smoker, and those vacant eyes. Her lips were dry and cracking. Long gone was any trace of the vibrant, passionate woman's activist with a taste for the wild side.
"No, Mom, it's me." She gently held her mother's chin with her hand to keep her attention. "It's Seneca. Your daughter. Why aren't you eating? We talked about this last time I was here. Remember?"
She knew her mother was somewhat of a drama queen and not eating might be a ploy for attention. For an instant a mix of anger and frustration flared inside. "You know the emphysema isn't going to kill you, you're going to let yourself get so damn weak-"
Seneca hadn't come to fuss with or chide her mother. It just made her so angry that she was losing the only person left on the planet who loved her or gave a shit about her-at least Brenda had at one time when her
Her mother stared blankly, and Seneca couldn't help but ask, "How did you stay so tough all your life? What is it that kept you so confident and independent? Until you got sick I never saw a flicker of doubt in yourself, or a moment of indecision. Always so damn strong. Why didn't I get those genes? Sometimes I think I'm going to cave in." She turned away from Brenda. "Shit, who am I kidding? I'm a train wreck." She stifled her tears. "Mom, Daniel-"
"I think Belle cheats. But I let her win. It's important to her that she wins." Just those few words left Brenda sounding winded.
After several more seconds Seneca released her mother's chin and took her boney hand. "Are they taking care of you, Momma? Are you having a good day?"
"Yes, but I was hoping to play cards."
Seneca moved to the edge of the bed and sat. "I hope you're having a good day." She patted her mother's hand. "I think you'd be proud of me. I had one helluva couple of weeks, but I'm still vertical." That was a dumb saying, she thought, but true.
It was so odd trying to engage Brenda in conversation when the woman didn't even recognize her. Her mother had become a stranger. There were days she had unpredicted moments of clarity. At first there had been stretches of lucidity, but those dwindled over the years to what were now infrequent sparks that the disease quickly extinguished.
Seneca had no idea how to hook a tiny part of her mother's mind and pull it into reality. After a brief pause, she started again. "I just got back from Mexico. Do you remember I told you Dan and I were going to get married down there? Do you remember that?"
"Did you order the ear candles?"
Seneca scored her bottom lip. Before the diagnosis of Alzheimer's, her mother had owned a New Age and alternative medicine shop. Ear candles were a part of the inventory.
"Yes. They've been shipped."A white lie. The shop was sold over a year ago. It h
ad never been lucrative, but it paid the bills. She looked at her mother and felt that now-familiar uneasy churning inside. "But I'll double-check on it to be sure. Wouldn't want to be without ear candles."
Seneca stood, bent, and kissed the top of her mother's head. "I love you, Momma," she whispered. "And miss you."
"And don't forget the Echinacea. Flu season is coming."
"Right." Seneca paused. "I'll take care of everything."
"I'm so thirsty."
Seneca reached for the plastic water pitcher on the nightstand. It was empty. Not only empty, but desert dry. When was the last time it had been filled? She lifted the plastic cup and found it in the same condition. "Son-of-a bitch."
She grabbed both the pitcher and cup. "I'll go get you some water."
Brenda Hunt smiled at someone, but Seneca knew it wasn't at her.