Kyla pressed her lips together, but opened the passenger door and gestured for Kris to proceed her. The girl scrambled over the back of the seat with impressive agility and crouched down on the narrow backseat as if afraid someone would drag her back. As I started the engine, Kyla settled herself in the front seat and turned to look at the girl.
“I thought your name was Kale or Arugula or something like that,” she said, demonstrating her full range of empathy and mad people skills in a single sentence.
Kris opened her mouth as though to explain, but I interrupted, “Nope, it’s Kris. Aunt Gladys’s daughter.”
Seeing us pull away, the pack of boys raised a shout and ran after us. I stepped on the accelerator and left them in a cloud of caliche dust. Kyla looked out the rear window with the same expression she’d use when seeing an unflushed gas station toilet.
“What do they think they’re doing? Are they going to run behind us all the way?”
“They’ve been begging for a ride in the back of the truck since we got here, and my mom promised them they could go the next time someone went out,” said Kris, raising her head to look at the receding boys. She gave them the finger, and then turned around with a sigh of relief. “So where are we going anyway? And do we have to go back?”
“We’re returning to the scene of the crime,” Kyla answered. “See if any more dead bodies are lying around.”
I flinched. Kris was just a kid. What if such casual talk of death upset her? Having a relative, however distant, murdered might be traumatic for a teenager.
I needn’t have concerned myself.
“Cool,” she said instantly. “Do you think the body’s still there?”
I glanced at her in the rearview mirror and wondered just how many genes she shared with Kyla.
“We can only hope,” returned my cousin. “Hey, are there any bullets back there? We could take turns with the rifle on the way back. I haven’t shot anything in a long time.”
Kris vanished for a moment behind the seat and we heard rustling sounds as she poked around. She popped back up like a prairie dog a minute later. “Two boxes, but one’s half empty,” she announced. “Can I shoot too?”
“Sure,” said Kyla magnanimously.
“We’re not shooting,” I said at the same time, with a frown for Kyla. “We’re just looking around.”
“She wants to see if she can find her boyfriend,” Kyla explained to Kris in a knowing tone.
“I don’t blame her,” said Kris fervently. “Have you seen that guy?”
“I know, right? And she didn’t even want to invite him.”
I could feel Kris’s incredulous stare burning into the back of my head as we approached the gate to the next field. “What’s wrong with her?”
“You know, I’m right here,” I protested before Kyla could spill my secrets to this teenage pest. “I can hear you. Anyway, get out and open the gate.”
“I hate opening gates,” she grumbled, reluctantly opening her door.
“Then you should learn to drive a stick shift.”
The caliche pit was deserted when we arrived—no body, no police tape, no Colin. I pulled close to the edge and we got out.
“Are you sure this is the place?” asked Kyla.
“I’m sure.”
“Do you think we’re allowed here?” asked Kris, looking around nervously.
“It’s our land,” answered Kyla. “Well, it’s Uncle Herman’s land. We can go where we want.”
“They would have left a guard or at least some tape if they needed to preserve the scene,” I added.
“Where was the body?” they asked in unison, and then laughed.
I stared hard at Kris, trying to see through the makeup and the piercings.
“What?” she asked nervously.
“I’m trying to determine if you two are actually evil twins separated at birth.”
From behind Kris’s back, Kyla glared at me, but I thought Kris looked pleased, and I caught her throwing surreptitious glances at Kyla from then on. I know her posture improved significantly by the time we returned to the truck.
Despite their morbid interest, it took a few moments before we found the nerve to walk down into the pit. In the daylight and without the presence of the dead man, it did not seem as sinister and creepy as it had in cold moonlight. The refuse pile along the back wall of the pit no longer hid menacing shadows and looked like what it was—completely worthless junk. The remains of a dead cow, rotted away to little more than a skeleton covered in ragged strips of hide, explained the horrible odor from the night before. The white powdery caliche was scuffed with dozens of boot prints made by the police and whoever came to remove the body. I wondered who did that out in the country. It seemed unlikely that an ambulance or hearse could make it over this rough ground, but I really hoped they hadn’t tossed Eddy into the back of a pickup truck.
Shoulder to shoulder, Kyla and Kris hurried to the epicenter of the footprints and stood staring at a dark spot on the ground the size of a quarter. Reluctantly, I joined them, feeling like a ghoul.
“Wow. Well, not much to see is there?” said Kyla, sounding disappointed.
I frowned. “You’re right. He can’t have been shot here. There’s not nearly enough blood.”
“Isn’t there? How do you know?”
“I guess I don’t. But I went deer hunting once with Dad and Uncle Kel a long time ago and there seemed to be a lot more blood than this.”
“So what does that mean?” asked Kris.
“That I think he was dumped. Actually, Colin thought that, too,” I added, suddenly remembering something he had said.
“That’s stupid. Who would shoot someone and then drag them all the way out here? It’s not that easy moving a grown man. Even that little bastard Eddy must have weighed at least a hundred and fifty pounds,” said Kyla.
I looked around. We really were in the middle of nowhere. The empty sky stretched over us, clear and bright. The light breeze rustled through the branches of the trees, tugging at the dead leaves, rattling the dry branches in a halfhearted way. In the distance, the dull sound of the highway a mile away was barely audible in the silence. A single overgrown track led through the trees, but otherwise this place was barely accessible. It certainly couldn’t be seen from the road.
“If you had to hide a body, this isn’t a bad place,” I said slowly.
“It wasn’t hidden though, was it? It was right out in the open,” protested Kyla.
“But what if the killer was interrupted before he could finish? Say he brought the body here intending to bury it. Everywhere else on the ranch is basically solid rock, except for the wheat fields, and you wouldn’t want to bury a body where it could get plowed back up. But it wouldn’t be too hard to dig in caliche. You dig a hole, cover up the body, then pull old junk over the top. No one would ever find it.”
“I know who I’m coming to if I ever need to kill someone,” said Kyla. “You’ve spent way too much time thinking about this.”
I couldn’t tell if she was appalled or impressed.
“But how would anyone know this was here?” asked Kris. “The caliche pit, I mean.”
Kyla met my eyes, and I knew what she was thinking. Everyone in our family knew about it. I could still see Kel pointing the shotgun at Eddy in the kitchen, trembling with rage. I determinedly shied away from the thought.
I said, “Lots of people might know about this place. Anyone who ever hunted here could have seen it. In the summer, they lead trail rides out this way because it’s fun going through the trees. Plus someone got a bulldozer back here to dig the pit in the first place.”
“Yeah, fifty years ago,” said Kyla. “Look at all the junk. This pit has been here a long time.”
“Well, it hasn’t been that long since someone dumped that cow carcass,” I pointed out. “It still reeks. And it would have taken a truck to pull it here.”
“I suppose.”
We spent a few more minutes lookin
g around, but other than the dark smudge of Eddy’s blood, there was nothing to see, or at least nothing to give us any insight into what had happened. The elaborate pattern of footprints and tire marks were almost certainly those of the authorities, although even if the killer’s tracks were present, they would have needed to be marked with neon lights and tap-dancing raccoons to mean anything to the three of us.
On the way back to the truck, I saw a movement in the trees and stopped. Kyla bumped into me.
“What the hell?” she asked.
“One, you rear-ended me, so it’s clearly your fault, and two, shut up. I thought I saw something.”
Kyla and Kris both stopped and followed my gaze to the scrubby line of mesquite and cedar to our right. The feathery leaves of the mesquite had turned bright yellow in the autumn air, dark branches splaying out every which way, wicked thorns exposed to the light. The cedars grew thick, providing dense green cover, and beyond them, the real trees began—oak, hackberry, sumac, and elm, all reluctantly fading into brown, gold, and rust. Tiny brown birds flitted in the branches, and from hidden depths a mockingbird sent out a single liquid trill, but otherwise I could identify no living thing. Nevertheless, the small hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Fear grows quicker than a virus in a petri dish and is twice as contagious. It raced through me like an electric charge, then leaped to Kyla and Kris in the next heartbeat.
“Get into the truck,” I said quietly.
“What do you see?” demanded Kyla.
“Nothing. Just get into the truck.”
I should have known better. If I’d told her to run over to the trees to find out who or what was watching us, then she might have returned to the truck. As it was, she gave me a withering look and started forward, her ridiculous boots wobbling ever so slightly on the uneven ground.
“Grab the vests from the backseat, will you?” I called to Kris over my shoulder as I hurried after Kyla. During hunting season, Kel and Elaine made a point of keeping bright orange vests in all the ranch vehicles. No one was supposed to be hunting on the Smoke Quartz this morning, but there was always the chance that poachers might have sneaked through the gates.
I caught up to Kyla. “What are you doing?”
“No one has the right to be out here spying on us. I want to know who the bastard is. Besides, we have every right to walk wherever we want.”
“Yeah, well Eddy had the right to be out here last night, too, and it didn’t help him.”
She grabbed my arm and pointed. “Look!”
I followed the line of her finger. “I don’t see anything.”
“Come on,” she urged. “I saw something.”
Kris ran to catch up with us holding the bright orange vests. “Here,” she said breathlessly. “There were only two.”
“Put one on,” I told her and took the other, proffering it to Kyla, who just rolled her eyes. I slipped it on myself.
“What did you see?” asked Kris.
We ignored her and moved forward. I took comfort in knowing that we were certainly not going to surprise whoever it was. Ahead of us a twig snapped, and we froze.
“It’s probably just a deer,” I said in a low tone. “We should go back.”
Kyla stooped for a stone the size of a grapefruit and hurled it with surprising force into the middle of the densest growth.
Something erupted from the bramble, leaped skyward in a soaring graceful arc, and was gone. With a cry Kyla started forward, but I grabbed her arm.
“Don’t!” I said.
“What was it?” asked Kris, so close her shoulder bumped mine. “I couldn’t see!”
“That,” I said, “was a mountain lion. And trust me, we do not want to get any closer. Let him run.”
“Mountain lion?” asked Kyla, and stopped trying to pull away from me. “Seriously? I didn’t think we had any of those here.”
I nodded. “Technically, this is part of their natural territory, although they’re rare. I just can’t believe we haven’t heard about it before now. Every rancher in the county should be talking about it.”
We turned and started back to the truck, glancing uneasily over our shoulders as we went.
“They don’t attack people, do they?” asked Kyla.
“It’s highly unusual, but they can,” I answered. I wasn’t really worried about being attacked by the animal, especially since it had seemed intent on getting away from us, but something else was bothering me. “Don’t you think it’s weird seeing two different animals out here that don’t really belong? That kudu isn’t even from this continent, and now a mountain lion.”
Kyla shrugged. “T.J. runs an exotic animal ranch, remember, and his place isn’t very far. I bet you anything the ku-whatever got out of its pen. We’ll have to ask him.”
“And the mountain lion? I seriously doubt exotic ranches deal with predators. They could never control them.”
She shrugged. “Coincidence. He probably ranged outside his normal zone because of the drought, and all the activity got him stirred up.”
This actually made sense and made me feel better. I could feel my pulse start to slow. “Maybe. I guess there have been a lot of hunters in the area in the past few weeks.”
“Not to mention murderers and police and us. Anyway, I’m glad that’s all it was. For a minute there, I thought…”
I glanced at her, then nodded. “Me, too.”
I knew we’d both been afraid the killer had returned. Which was ridiculous, because who would come back to the scene of the crime? Unless, of course, the killer did not know the murder had been discovered and had returned to bury the body. After all, no one could have anticipated a truckload of out-of-towners coming across the body in this isolated place.
Kris looked puzzled. “What? You thought what?”
“Never mind. Let’s go find Colin.”
* * *
By the time we returned to the ranch house, three vehicles had arrived and were parked in a neat row beside the yard gate. The first, I was pleased to note, was Colin’s Jeep. The second was a white Ford F-150 with the gold seal of the sheriff’s department emblazoned on the doors and the word “police” stamped in two places on the tailgate. The third was a silver Ford Escape that I did not recognize. I pulled the ranch truck onto the grass beside the Jeep, and we got out.
Kris looked at the cars with an odd expression. “Think I’ll head over to the RV,” she said, and hurried away.
I watched her go with some concern. A man was dead, a girl was missing, and the police were in the house. When I’d been her age, nothing on earth could have kept me from finding out what was going on inside. The presence of an unknown car alone would have been enough to quicken my pace toward the house, not away. So was it just a desire to avoid strange adults or was she trying to avoid the police? Apart from her appearance, nothing about her suggested that she was anything other than an average teen with average teen angst and average teen rebelliousness. Now I paused to consider whether she might have something to hide. However, I decided there was no way she could conceal anything in her bunk in the RV without one of her brothers or nephews discovering it within microseconds, and followed Kyla inside.
In the big dining room, Uncle Herman was holding court at the head of the massive oak table. He sat stiffly upright on a wooden chair clutching his ornate cane, his walker beside him, his perfect posture making him look less like a frog and more like a great horned owl, all eyes and tufted hair. At the seat to his left sat Sheriff Bob Matthews, looking both tired and exasperated—a not uncommon combination when speaking to my relatives. Sheriff Bob was in his mid-fifties, tall, spare, and weathered, with a white mustache and hollow cheeks. His build was that of a high school boy who’d shot up to basketball player height before the rest of him could catch up. His fingers and teeth were stained yellow from years of coffee and cigarettes and his voice rasped like a hoarse crow’s, but for all that he was well liked and respected in the town. The kids in particular loved him a
nd called him Sheriff Bob, which is how I’d been introduced to him and how I always thought of him.
Across from Sheriff Bob, Uncle Kel and Aunt Elaine sat shoulder to shoulder. Elaine’s hands were hidden below the table, but from the doorway I could see she was shredding a tissue, a sure sign of nervousness. When Kel’s grandmother had first become ill and Elaine had started taking over chores, the old woman had hounded Elaine unmercifully. Sometimes after a family dinner, the floor around Elaine’s chair would be littered with a miniature snow flurry of little white scraps of tissue fluff. I hadn’t seen her resort to tissue shredding since the old lady had died.
On the other side of the room, Colin leaned casually against the door frame, one long leg crossed over the other, listening intently to the conversation. He looked up as Kyla and I walked in, and gave me a brief smile, warm enough to linger in his eyes even after his lips relaxed. I felt my heart give an extra soft beat. He returned his gaze to the conversation at the table, but I knew he was as aware of me as I was of him. I quietly crossed behind the table and went to his side, to find his hand waiting to take mine. The warmth of his fingers, the muscle of his arm against mine, the faintest scent of clean shirt and soap rising from his skin were completely mesmerizing. My only comfort was in knowing that I was having the same effect on him. He straightened subtly, and I felt his thumb move along my wrist in a caress.
Across the room, Herman was sounding annoyed. “I don’t understand what y’all are on about. Aren’t you here about my birthday? Ninety-five today. That’s the story here. What is all this other nonsense?”
Sheriff Bob was trying to maintain a patient tone, but I could hear the underlying edge to his words. “Now, Herman, everyone is just pleased as can be about your birthday, but this here is about Eddy Cranny and Kel. It’s been going around that Kel pulled a gun on Eddy yesterday. Pointed a shotgun at him and threatened to blow him to kingdom come is how I heard it.”
Herman laughed and turned a hazy eye on Kel. “Damn, boy, didn’t know you had it in you. Wish I’d been around. And you, Bobby”—here he pointed a finger in the direction of Bob’s chest—“so what if he did? That little sumbitch had it coming, and it ain’t illegal to point a gun at vermin.”
Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) Page 9