by AmyFleming
“You need to follow me exactly,” Mr. Dredger said. “There are a lot of tunnels and shafts dug into this mountain from the gold rush days. You could easily fall into one. I know this trail is safe.”
He led the way to the top of a cliff. When he helped Charlotte dismount, he stood close enough so her body slid along his.
Mr. Dredger immediately apologized. “You’re so lovely,” he said. “I can’t stop myself from thinking about what it would be like to touch you.” His voice was kind and then he said, “But you can trust me to be a gentleman, Charlotte.”
She looked at him. Truth be told, he was attractive, but she could not get over a married man speaking to her this way.
He had turned and led her down a path leading from the cliff to a ledge below.
“I found this ledge when I was mining this property. There’s a cave at the back of it where I worked a vein of gold. The gold is all gone now, but it’s how I got my start in Montana.”
Charlotte looked around and then out over the valley.
“This is my special place, Charlotte. We can see the whole valley, but no one can see us. I love to come here and wonder about the beauty of it all.”
Charlotte could see the steeple of the church in Bandit Creek but the rest of the town was hidden behind the trees.
“It’s breathtaking, Mr. Dredger.”
“Call me Otto,” he said. “I feel like we can be friends.” Mr. Dredger pointed out the creek below. “The other side of the creek is the Branigan ranch. My land is everything on this side of the creek.”
He continued to point out landmarks. “The main road runs further south, and that little trail along the creek goes out to the Ellis mine. It’s a back road. They use it when they want to move things without a lot of attention. The Ellis brothers don’t know I can see everything that goes by on the road from this ledge.”
He pointed to a waterfall down below the ledge and he explained, “It’s called Deadman’s Falls. Branigan’s father was found there five years ago. Probably some miner robbed him and dumped him in Bandit Creek. Then his body washed up at the foot of the falls.”
Charlotte peered down into the gorge. She could see the waterfall below and the trail snaking around the falls. Part of the creek was frozen over, but the waterfall splashed onto the snow and ice and left a track of water over the frozen ice.
Charlotte leaned out over the edge. Playfully, Mr. Dredger pushed her a little further and she had to grasp hold of him for safety.
“Charlotte? Do you feel what I feel?” he whispered, as he pulled her closer. “I’ve got you. You’re safe with me,” he said. He tried to give her a kiss but she turned her face away.
Charlotte righted herself and pushed herself away from him, away from the edge. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the ledge as possible. Really, what was Mr. Dredger thinking? She felt outraged, but she didn’t know what to say to him, here alone on the ledge. She turned and ran up the path to the top of the cliff.
“Let’s ride down and see the waterfall,” she said.
Mr. Dredger’s playfulness was gone when he lifted her back onto her horse. Charlotte wished she didn’t need his help. It felt a little creepy. They were both quiet as they rode down the cliff and around to the waterfall.
The sun was as warm as a spring day. They could hear the trickle of melting ice dripping onto the trail.
Charlotte saw a navy blue patch in the melting snow. “Look at that,” she said. She was stuck up on her horse and had no intention of letting Mr. Dredger help her down again. Mr. Dredger got down and poked at the blue fabric with a stick. Charlotte rode closer. There were some tuffs of brown hair sticking out of the snow. She could see the outline of a body, face down in the ice and snow. Seeing the body was shock enough. Charlotte felt her stomach heave when she saw that the arms of the body were bound with a cord.
“Oh my God,” Charlotte cried. “It’s Eileen McArthur.”
“Go back and send out a couple of the boys,” Mr. Dredger directed. “I need some help here. He pushed more of the snow away. “We’ll bring her back to the ranch to bury her.”
“Okay,” she said. “And then I’ll go and get the sheriff.” She rode away. She could hear Mr. Dredger say something, but she just kept on riding.
Charlotte stopped in the ranch yard just long enough to tell the two ranch hands Mr. Dredger needed them out by Deadman’s Falls. Then she wheeled her horse around and took the road to Bandit Creek.
*****
Charlotte rode straight to the Sheriff’s office. She felt like an idiot stuck up on that horse and cursed the saddle. The deputy, Frank Waters, saw her through the window and came out to see what she wanted.
“I need to see Alec -- the Sheriff,” she said.
A moment later, Alec Forrest emerged from his office.
“Get me down off this stupid saddle,” she said. She could not keep the anger out of her voice. This sidesaddle was driving her crazy. He couldn’t help but laugh at her predicament. He helped her down and steadied her with a hand on either shoulder.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I was out riding with Otto Dredger. He was showing me the waterfall at Deadman’s Gap. Miss McArthur was there. She’s dead. She’s been buried in the snow all this time. Mr. Dredger and a couple of the boys are bringing her body back to the ranch right now.” Charlotte felt herself becoming more and more hysterical as she related her tale.
He didn’t look like he was laughing now. He was serious and concerned. “Can you ride back to the ranch with me?” he asked.
Charlotte thought of Mr. Dredger’s hands sliding over her body. “I will never ride sidesaddle ever again, even if it means I’ll never ride a horse again.
He sighed. “Okay, I’ll get my car and drive you back.”
Chapter Sixteen
At the ranch, Charlotte followed Alec into the house.
“I understand you’ve found a body,” Alec said to Mr. Dredger who nodded.
“I’ll need to see it right away. And where you found it in the first place.”
“Sheriff, I’m sorry we dragged you all of the way out here,” Mr. Dredger said. “There’s been a drowning.”
“I need to look at the body,” Alec repeated.
“It’s out in the barn. It’ll stay colder there. I sent a couple of the boys out to make a box for her.”
“You’re arranging for the burial?”
“It’s the least I can do. She lived with us and I feel responsible for her.”
Alec nodded before he went out the door. Charlotte, still wearing her coat and boots, followed the two men. Out in the barn, Lee and Straws were hammering some lumber into a box.
“Where is she?” Mr. Dredger asked.
Lee pointed towards the wagon. “Still in the wagon, Boss. We had to put her on her face, because her hands were frozen behind her back. I had to chop her out of the ice,” Lee said. Charlotte shuddered, thinking about the woman frozen into the ice.
Mr. Dredger held the light for Alec to see the body. Charlotte caught a glimpse of the white hands.
“It’s been four weeks. I’m surprised the animals didn’t get to her,” Mr. Dredger said.
Alec tried to lift up one of her hands. It was still frozen and wouldn’t move.
“What do you think happened to her?” he asked Mr. Dredger.
“She probably walked too close to the river and fell in,” Mr. Dredger said.
“You think she drowned?” Charlotte interrupted.
“Of course I do,” Mr. Dredger replied. “What other explanation is there when she was in the water like that?”
“But her arms were tied together, bound with a rawhide cord,” Charlotte said.
Both men turned to look at her.
“You’re saying she was murdered?” Alec asked.
“I saw a cord,” Charlotte said.
Alec turned to Lee. “Was there a cord on her hands?”
“Yeah, there was a leather
strap. I cut the strap off so we could fit her in the box.”
Alec picked up the piece of leather that lay beside the body. “Is this it?”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff Forrest.”
Alec turned it over and looked at it. “You can find these on any ranch. Not much of a clue to who did this,” Alec said. “Turn her over,” he said to the two cowboys.
Neither seemed like they wanted to touch the body, but they did so, turning her gently.
Charlotte gasped. The face was a frozen mask with the mouth open and the eyes closed. Grotesque. But the hair on the corpse was still frozen and, amazingly, was perfectly held back by two tortoise shell combs. She would never forget that frozen face.
Mr. Dredger heard Charlotte’s gasp. “Charlotte, you don’t want to see this. Go back in the house.”
Alec climbed up into the wagon. He knelt beside the dead woman. “Hold that light closer,” he said.
He ripped open the woman’s coat, the ice crackling as he broke through the blue fabric. The woman’s shirt was white with the stain of blood near to her heart. Alec put his finger in the hole in her breast. “She didn’t drown. She’s been shot.”
He tore away the blouse. “No doubt about it. Get me some pliers, boys, and a knife.”
Lee found a pair on a workbench. Alec dug around with the knife, and then used the pliers to pull out a bullet.
“Oh, yeah, she’s been shot alright.” Alec climbed out of the wagon.
Mr. Dredger raised his light to get a better view of the dead body. “What’s this?” he asked. Around the dead girl’s neck was a chain threaded through a gold ring. “Looks like a wedding ring,” he said as he snapped the chain from around her neck.
“A wedding ring?” Alec looked at the gold ring and chain in Mr. Dredger’s hand.
“I’m sure she wasn’t married,” Mr. Dredger said. “It’s one of the things we find out before we hire a new teacher. Maybe it belonged to her mother. I’ll put it with the rest of her things. In case her family comes to claim them.”
Alec nodded. “That ring is the least of her worries now.”
“We’re through here,” Mr. Dredger said, turning to Straws and Lee. “Put her in the box.”
The two cowboys gingerly lifted the corpse into the wooden box.
“Close it up boys,” Alec directed and they placed the pine lid onto the coffin. Charlotte’s last view of the dead woman was a flash of brown hair around the frozen mask of her face.
She followed Alec and Mr. Dredger back into the house and into Mr. Dredger’s den.
“Miss Fraser,” Alec said. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
“I felt like I had to, Sheriff. She could have been me. I could have been her. She was the teacher. I could be dead like that.” Charlotte knew she was making no sense. Her hands began to shiver and then her whole body began to shake. She was afraid she was going to start crying.
“After what she’s seen today, she needs something to steady her nerves.” Mr. Dredger took his bottle of bourbon and three glasses from the cabinet. He filled two of them to the top. Then he filled one half full, and gave it to Charlotte.
“Here girl, drink this. It will stop the shaking.”
“Are you going to be okay, Charlotte?” Alec asked. He reached over and chaffed her hands gently. “That was an awful sight in the barn.”
Charlotte only nodded, grateful for his concern.
Mr. Dredger gave another glass to Alec Forrest and leaned back in his leather armchair. “If that doesn’t beat all,” he said. “The teacher shot on her way home from school.”
Alec turned again to Charlotte. “How did you find the body?”
The discovery of Eileen McArthur’s body had jolted Charlotte into action. The shock had driven her to ride back to the ranch and then into town to get the sheriff. Now back at the ranch, sitting in den, Charlotte felt drained. She tried to collect her thoughts about what had happened that afternoon.
“We were out riding,” she began. “The sun was shining and the snow was starting to melt.”
“Where did you see the body?”
“We were riding the track from the top of the cliff down to the river. I saw her near the waterfall...” Charlotte said. She saw the picture of the woman again in her mind. “At first, I could just see some blue fabric and I called out to Mr. Dredger. He got off his horse and poked at it with a stick. I rode closer to see. Then I could see it was a person.”
“So what happened next?”
“I was riding sidesaddle, so I couldn’t get off the horse. I wanted to help her. I didn’t know she was dead. Then I saw that her clothes were frozen into the ice. And that’s when...”
Charlotte stopped talking. She kept seeing the body frozen into the ice. She felt freezing cold herself, thinking about the body. Charlotte started again, “that’s when I knew she was dead.”
“Did you know who she was?”
“Looking at her clothes. They were navy blue.” Charlotte pictured the sight, navy blue coat surrounded by snow and ice. “I knew it must be Miss McArthur.”
“How could you know what color her clothes were?” Alec asked.
“I saw a picture in my desk. It was a couple, a man and a woman. Someone had painted colors over the picture, you know, to make the skin look like flesh tones. Her dress, coat, and hat were all navy blue. When I saw the body, I knew it was her. I mean, who else could it be?”
“Anyway,” Charlotte continued, “I came back to the house and sent two of the cowboys out to help Mr. Dredger.”
Alec turned to Mr. Dredger. “Of course, you recognized the body.”
“Of course I did. She was the teacher. She lived under my roof.” He shook his head sadly.
“When did you see her last?” Alec asked.
“At dinner, the night before she disappeared.”
“Did she seem all right?”
“I remember saying to Eliza after dinner, that girl seems out of sorts. She was playing with her food and upset about something.”
“Was that usual?”
“No, no, not at all. We made her part of the family. My wife, the girls, they loved her.”
“What happened the day she went missing?”
Charlotte watched Mr. Dredger as he spoke. “She went off to school in the morning,” he said. “She always walked to school with the children. The children came home at the usual time, but she wasn’t with them.”
“Why didn’t you report she was missing? Why didn’t you tell me this three weeks ago?”
“I thought she’d run away when she didn’t come home with the children. Besides, the whole town knew she was missing.”
“How did everyone know, Mr. Dredger?”
“Well, she didn’t go to school the next day. I rode into town to tell the children to go on home, the teacher wasn’t coming.”
“All right, so she didn’t come home from school. What time was that?”
“I don’t rightly know. I was out taking care of the cattle. When I came in for dinner the children were home but Eileen...” he paused and cleared his throat. “Miss McArthur wasn’t with them.”
Alec nodded and paused for a minute. “What did you do?”
“By the time we were finished dinner, it was dark. I went out with a light to guide her in, but I never saw her -- not until today.”
Alec’s tone became very matter of fact. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to hurt the girl?”
“No one had any reason to want her dead,” Mr. Dredger said. “She was a schoolteacher and a good one. The parents all said the children liked her.”
“No one at all?” the sheriff asked.
Mr. Dredger’s tone was certain. “No one,” he said. “I warned her not to go up the road towards the mines. Often there’re miners coming and going on that road. I warned you too, didn’t I, girl?” He looked over at Charlotte.
Charlotte’s voice was gone and she could only nod.
“Usually it’s payday, when they come int
o town,” Alec said.
“Maybe it was Luc Branigan. He’s always hanging around these young teachers. And Miss MacArthur wasn’t showing any interest in anyone. A proud woman, a little standoffish, if you know what I mean.”
“Did she go to dances or parties?”
“Nope, not a one. She taught school and went to Church meeting on Sunday. And she was a big help to Eliza.”
“How did Branigan meet her?”
“His brothers and sisters go to the school. Sometimes I’d see him driving her home with the children. He’d drop her where the road turns into my place.”
“Why wouldn’t he bring her up to the house?”
“Branigan’s not welcome on my land. He’s a cattle rustler.” Mr. Dredger looked like he had a sudden thought. “Maybe the teacher saw something that made her suspicious. Maybe she saw Branigan branding some of my cattle with his mark. Yes, it must have been Branigan. He shot her to keep her quiet.”
“I’ve told you before Otto, there’s no proof that Branigan is a rustler.”
“You’ve never really looked into it, Sheriff.”
“Otto, we don’t want a range war in these parts. Nothing good ever comes from saying another man is a cattle thief.”
“But this is a whole lot more than cattle rustling. It's murder.”
Alec was silent for a minute. “I see your point, Otto. I’ll have a look at Branigan’s cattle -- see if there’s any rebranding going on.”
After Alec left, Mr. Dredger turned to Charlotte. “Are you feeling better?”
Charlotte nodded weakly. She took comfort in the whiskey.
“Thank you, Mr. Dredger. I’m a lot better now.”
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning when Charlotte went into school, she recognized the box at the front of the room where her desk normally was. It was the box that Straws and Lee hammered together the night before. It was Eileen McArthur’s coffin.
Guess there wasn’t going to be any school today. All of the desks had been moved to one side. Someone had moved the benches around to create rows in front of the coffin.
Charlotte felt drawn to box at the front of the room. She couldn’t believe the lid was off the box and someone had repaired the damage to Eileen McArthur’s clothes but nothing could be done with the face, which was still frozen in a mask. Charlotte could not believe the coffin was open. Her coat was securely fastened, not that it would do her much good now. Charlotte recognized the coat and skirt from the picture she had found in her desk drawer.