Jackrabbit Junction Jitters

by Ann Charles

  As he rose to his feet again, his boot bumped against the dead man’s right hand, knocking it forward a couple of inches and turning it palm-side up. He bent down to return the hand to its original position and noticed a short piece of thin rope trailing out from the palm.

  With a light tug, Mac freed the rope from the miner’s hold. The piece was slightly frayed at both ends and braided in an unusual pattern. It reminded him of the sandal Claire had found in the same bag as the mummy hand.

  He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled his small flashlight free. Under closer inspection with the halogen light, he was fairly sure this was the piece missing from the heel portion of the sandal, but he couldn’t be sure until he got back to Ruby’s. He stuffed it into his front pocket.

  The sound of claws scratching on wood boards made Mac flinch in surprise. He stared at the wall of boards, his skin prickling. Something on the other side of those boards wanted to pay its respects to the dead man sprawled at Mac’s feet.

  After several seconds, the scratching stopped.

  Mac remained frozen, staring at the powder gray nail heads dotting the slabs of pine. He waited for the ruckus to start up again, telling himself it was only a rat or porcupine or some other desert creature.

  Silence reigned.

  With one last glance at the dead man, he started toward the rock pile, but stopped two steps later and spun back around.

  He again focused his light on the boarded up wall. Except for a small spot of rust here and there, those nail heads looked new, unmarred by time. But if this was the missing mine owner, this guy must have died over a hundred years ago. Iron nails should have rusted by now.

  Mac crept over to the wall and shined his flashlight on several of the nail heads. They were definitely not one hundred-year-old nails.

  He examined the boards, realizing they didn’t have that cracked and aged appearance of century-old wood either. He shined his light on the end of one board where it abutted the timber beam, looking for signs of wear, and instead found a price tag stapled to the rough end. Faded, but still visible, were the words: Creekside Supply Company.

  Somebody else had been in this part of the mine before, and within the last couple of decades at that. Somebody who had ignored the dead man lounging just feet away while hammering up boards.

  Had it been Joe? He’d owned the mines for a little over a decade before dying. It could have been the owner before Joe too, or even the owner prior to that guy based on how long the hardware store had been in business.

  And why had someone wanted to block off the remaining section of the tunnel?

  The scratching started again down near his feet, louder, more determined.

  Mac stumbled backwards, almost landing on his ass for the second time that night.

  Regular old packrat or not, there was something about standing next to a dead man while listening to the sound of something wanting to get into the tomb that made Mac’s upper lip sweat in spite of the mine’s cool temperature.

  His curiosity about what was on the other side of the blockade ebbed, his bones and joints aching. Besides, he needed the crowbar from his truck to break through the wall; the pry bar was too long. He stuffed his flashlight into his shirt pocket and crawled up the pile toward the hole without looking back.

  Tomorrow, he’d return, crowbar in hand, and find out what was hiding behind those boards.

  He ducked through the hole, carefully wiggling through.

  His pack sat on the floor on the other side, rumpled and dusty, a mirror of himself. He rubbed his burning eyes. As he bent over to lift his pack, his small flashlight slipped out of his shirt pocket and bounced on the stone floor. The battery cover broke open and the two AA batteries spilled out, rolling in different directions across the floor, disappearing into the shadows.

  “Shit.” Mac dropped onto his hands and knees next to his pack. He pulled off his hard hat, searching for the escapees with his hat light. One battery lay in a crevice along the base of the wall. Mac stuffed it in his pocket and clambered toward the rock pile.

  Half way there, he noticed a footprint.

  It wasn’t his.

  He sat back on his heels, staring down at the wavy-lined imprint. It hadn’t been here earlier when he’d climbed through the hole to spend some quality time with the dead miner.

  He shined his light across the floor toward the main adit. Several more prints with the same tread design headed to and from the edge of the rock pile. They were too big to be Claire’s or Jess’s, and nobody else at the R.V. park had a clue how to get up to the mine.

  That meant one thing—while he’d been messing around on the other side of that hole, he’d had a visitor.

  Shit! Blood roared in his eardrums.

  He shoved his hard hat back on his head, his gaze darting around the shadows that wavered at the edge of the beam of his hat light. Sweat beaded on his skin.

  Who had come for a visit and why?

  Adrenaline pumping, Mac scooped up his pack and ran toward the main adit.

  There was one thing he was certain about: Tomorrow, when he came back to the mine, Ruby’s Smith and Wesson would be keeping him company.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morning sunlight shone through the cell window, the bars striped the glowing square onto the concrete floor.

  Kate rubbed her eyes, which felt like they’d been dipped in Tabasco sauce, and struggled to her feet. Her body ached. Between the floor and the cell’s single cot, she’d opted for the unforgiving concrete.

  She would’ve needed to be vaccinated and flea dipped before even sitting on the stained mattress, which reeked of sweat, urine, disinfectant, and a hint of something she didn’t want to decipher.

  She glanced at where her sister slouched in the corner of the cell. Early this morning, sometime between when the crickets stopped chirping and the mourning doves started cooing, Mr. Sandman had whopped Claire on the head with a sandbag. Kate’s mind, on the other hand, had been too full of whirling dervishes to catch any shut-eye.

  Wrapping her hands around the cool bars of her cage, she stared out through the open steel door that divided the jail cells from the civilized section of the police station. From where she stood, she could see three oak desks and a tall reception counter. The glass entry doors, front window, and waiting area were hidden from her view.

  Sheriff Harrison sat behind the largest of the three desks, his fingers clacking away on a computer keyboard. His dark hair curled slightly over his forehead, his jaw clean-shaven. Arizona ruggedness in the flesh.

  The spicy bay rum scent of his aftershave wafted through the doorway on air-conditioned currents.

  Kate shot him full of holes with her eyes. It wasn’t fair of him to come in this morning looking as if he’d slept on clouds, showered under a Costa Rican waterfall, and floated to work on a magic carpet.

  She cleared her throat, wishing she had a gallon of mint-flavored mouthwash. “Excuse me, Sheriff?”

  The clacking stopped, but the sheriff’s gaze remained fixed on the computer screen.

  Kate added several scoops of sugar to her tone before continuing. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you’d heard back from Butch yet?” Miss America had never sounded so sweet.

  The sheriff squeezed the bridge of his nose. “It’s only been twenty minutes since the last time you asked.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “And you can see from your cell that I’ve been sitting at this desk, typing away for every single one of those twenty minutes.”

  “That’s true, but—”

  “Have you seen me pick up my phone even once?”

  “No, however—”

  “As I told you the last three times you asked, I will let you know as soon as I—”

  A buzzing sound from the front door sensors cut him off.

  He looked up from his computer and a smile spread across his craggy face. His chair scraped on the linoleum as he stood. “It’s about goddamned time!�
��

  “Well, good morning to you too, my little ray of sunshine.” Butch’s voice filtered into the cell room.

  Kate’s pulse ramped up. She ran over and kicked Claire’s flip-flop. “Get up! Butch is here.”

  Claire jerked awake, knocking the back of her head on the cinderblock wall in the process, and rattled out a string of colorful curses.

  Back at the bars, Kate strained to catch a glimpse of Butch’s face. But short of squeezing her head through the bars, he remained just out of sight.

  “What took you so long?” Sheriff Harrison asked Butch.

  “The speed limit. Some idiot posted 55 mile-per-hour signs every other mile from Safford on.”

  The sheriff’s grin widened even further. He meandered over to the reception counter. “Real funny, Valentine. I’ll be sure to remember your sense of humor the next time you ask me to let you off with just a warning.”

  Valentine? Kate frowned. That had been the name on the fake license that had fallen out of Butch’s wallet a couple of weeks ago.

  “What’s with the frown?” Claire stepped up next to Kate. “We’re about to get sprung.”

  “The sheriff just called Butch ‘Valentine’,” she whispered.

  “So. Maybe that’s Butch’s nickname.”

  “Or his birth name. That was the name I saw on his license.” Her gut churned. If she had been wrong about something as basic as the man’s name, what else was she wrong about?

  “Jesus.” Claire leaned her head against the bars. “Don’t tell me you based your Butch-Is-the-Bad-Guy theory on something as flimsy as a different name on his license.”

  “It could have been a fake I.D.”

  “Damn it, Kate.” Claire shoved away from the bars and paced to the other side of the cell and back. “Let it go. Butch is not Dr. Evil. He’s just a bar owner—and some kind of cactus dealer.”

  Shit. If Claire was right, Kate would need a crane to remove her foot from her mouth.

  “You’d better fix this mess you made,” Claire said, “because I like going to The Shaft.”

  The jangling of keys sounded like a chorus of angels to Kate’s ears.

  “Well, girls, it’s your lucky day.” Sheriff Harrison shot Kate a cockeyed grin as he swung open the cell door. “Remember, darlin’, third time’s a charm. If I get you in here again, you may be leaving in shackles.”

  Avoiding his stare, she stepped past him through the doorway. Kate scanned the room for a certain blue-eyed bar owner. The waiting area stood empty.

  Claire pushed past her and beelined for the women’s restroom.

  Kate approached the reception desk, familiar with the sign-for-her-valuables routine after her last performance of the Folsom Prison Blues in Sheriff Harrison’s Read-’Em-Their-Rights Resort. She couldn’t wait to go home and steam herself clean under Ruby’s showerhead.

  The men’s room door on her right creaked open. She glanced over. Butch strode toward her. Besides the muscle twitching in his jaw, he gave her no hint as to the depth of the hole she’d dug for herself.

  “Hello, Butch.” She offered a slight smile.

  “Kate,” he replied with barely a nod.

  Wringing her hands, she stammered, “Umm, thanks for … for not pressing charges against us, uh … you know, for last night.”

  The sheriff chuckled from behind her. “I told you that new security system would work better than a pack of Dobermans. These two had no idea they’d even tripped the alarm.”

  “Whew!” Claire stormed out of the women’s restroom. She glared at the sheriff. “You need to explain to Deputy Droopy that giving me a bottle of Coke and then not allowing me to use the restroom is cruel and unusual punishment. It’s no wonder your jail cells stink like piss.”

  The sheriff’s lips twitched. “I’ll talk to my deputy about your concern.” He pushed a piece of paper across the desk toward her and held out his pen. “If you’ll just sign here, I’ll give you back your personal items.”

  Claire signed the paper, handed the pen to Kate, and then turned to Butch. “I’m sorry about all this.” She gestured toward the jail cells. “Did Kate explain why we were at your place?”

  Kate busied herself with signing on the dotted line, her forehead and neck roasting. “Not exactly.”

  The door buzzer rang again. Kate looked up from the paper and found Chester’s shit-eating grin. Manny followed on Chester’s heels, his smile even toothier. A groan escaped her throat before she could swallow it.

  “We’ve come to transport the convicts back to Jackrabbit Junction,” Chester announced to the sheriff.

  “Did we miss the strip search?” Manny asked.

  Claire grinned and lightly punched Manny on the shoulder. “What are you guys doing here already? We just got cleared not five minutes ago.”

  Plopping down in one of the green vinyl waiting room chairs, Chester answered, “Butch stopped by on his way back from Phoenix to let us know you’d need a ride home.”

  Kate’s stomach took another turn on the Tilt-O-Whirl. If only she had the ability to spontaneously combust at will. Suffocating under a hippo-sized mass of mortification, she mouthed thank you to Butch.

  He gave another hint of a nod in return, his gaze dogged.

  “Please tell me Mom isn’t waiting in the car.” Claire peered out the front window.

  Kate’s head throbbed at just the thought of listening to her mother’s high-pitched rebuke all the way home.

  Without looking away from the Wanted pin-ups hanging on the bulletin board, Manny said, “She planned on riding along until Chester mentioned that we were stopping for some booze and condoms on the way.”

  “Here you go.” Sheriff Harrison slid two boxes across the desk.

  “What kind of booze are we talking about?” Claire snatched up her grandmother’s ring and slipped it on her finger.

  Kate could use a little liquid courage of her own, especially with Butch standing mere feet from her. She clipped on her earrings and stared out at a passing station wagon to avoid his gaze and her guilt.

  “Hey, Chester,” Manny said. Papers rustled. “Isn’t this the señorita who could do that trick with peppers? The one who tied you to the bed and then ran off with your wallet and autographed Willie Nelson bandana?”

  “That’s her all right.” Chester sighed. “What I wouldn’t do to see her pepper trick again.”

  “On that note,” Butch said, heading for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Grady.”

  The buzzer hummed and Kate watched the door close behind him.

  “Go after him, Kate.” Claire nudged her toward the door.

  “I already apologized.”

  “But you didn’t explain anything.” Claire grabbed Kate by the elbow, her fingers punishing, and dragged her over to the doors. “Go clean up the mess you made.”

  She shoved Kate outside.

  The sun’s rays, hot and bright, made Kate feel like she’d landed under the burger warmer at McDonald’s. The outside world stunk of heated tar and diesel exhaust, which was like exotic perfume after that jail cell.

  She shielded her eyes and looked across the street to where Butch was opening the door of his pickup.

  “Butch, hold on!” She jogged across the street.

  He waited, leaning against the side of his truck, his expression unreadable.

  She skidded to a stop in front of him. “Listen, I need to talk to you.” She moved closer to him as a cement truck rattled by behind her.

  For the first time since he’d stepped out of the men’s restroom, his lips curved upwards. But the grin didn’t reach his eyes. “What’s there to talk about? You tried to sneak into my house, tripped my alarm, busted out one of my garage windows, broke into my greenhouse, and ended up in jail. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I did any of those things?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, I’m curious. But I figure anything you say will just piss me off more.”

 
Kate held his stare in spite of her face blazing.

  “The way I see it,” he said, “the best thing for me to do is say ‘adios’ to you and the frustrations that come as part of your packaging.” His eyes drifted south. “No matter how much I like the packaging.”

  “Surely, you don’t mean to—”

  “Goodbye, Kate.” With a mock salute, he climbed into his pickup and started it up.

  “Butch, wait!” She pounded on his window.

  He rolled down the window. “What?”

  “Give me just fifteen minutes. We could go get a coffee—you drive and I’ll talk.” She clutched the windowsill of his truck. “Please.”

  For several silent seconds, he stared straight ahead, his forehead crinkled. Then he blinked and looked down at her. “No, Kate. We’re done.” He shifted into gear. “Take care of yourself.”

  Her hands shaking, Kate stepped clear of his tires as he slowly rolled forward. The sun pummeled the top of her head as she watched his taillights until he turned left and slipped out of sight.

  Oh, God, what had she done?

  A horn blared behind her. She looked over her shoulder. Manny’s Chevy Tahoe sat idling in the middle of the street, the back door open. Head hanging, she sulked toward the Tahoe—her ferry to Hades.

  * * *

  “I hope you’re happy!” Deborah’s voice dragged Mac from a shallow slumber.

  He opened one eye. Claire’s mother stood scowling down at him, her lips pinched tight. Mac groaned and rolled away from her onto his side, pulling the cool cotton sheet up over his head.

  “MacDonald Garner, don’t think you can turn your back on me and pretend I’m not here.” Deborah yanked the sheet down. “This is all your fault.”

  Growling, Mac glared up at her. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your bad influence on Claire.”

  He sat up, all hope of catching another hour of sleep washed away by Deborah’s senseless ranting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, nor do I care.”

  Thank God, Claire took after her father.

  He stood, adjusted his boxer-briefs, and strode toward the kitchen in nothing but the thin piece of cotton covering his ass. Modesty be damned—he needed some caffeine to keep from saying something he shouldn’t to Claire’s mother.