“Once,” she said, “we needed each other, but we failed, both of us. You walked out when I needed you. I did the same to you.” She stopped as sadness threatened to overtake her. “You told me, that day I went to the cemetery, that you were sorry. I’m sorry, too, for turning away when you came to me.”
He closed his eyes. His face wore a stricken expression. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does to me.” She gathered her courage. “I want to stay, at least for a while longer. Once we had something special. I’d like to find it again. If you want the same thing, then you must tell me,” she said in a strained voice. She couldn’t keep the tremor out of it. She stared at the man on TV, his mouth moving but no words coming out.
“What if we don’t find it?” Judd asked. “Then what?”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully.
She held the despair at bay. Somewhere in her heart, she believed he loved her, but the years of separation would take time to heal. If he never trusted her enough to let that love show, then she would have to accept that.
Uncertain and afraid, she nevertheless went to him, taking a seat beside him on the sofa. She needed the comfort of his nearness. He put an arm around her and held her close.
“Stay,” he finally said. “We’ll take each day as it comes.”
“Yes.” She’d have to accept that…for now.
Tracy walked along the bluff. Behind her, Rafe paused and inspected the spot where Judd had gone over the ledge. She stopped and waited for him. After wiping her face with a handkerchief, she took a long drink from her canteen.
“Who else has been up here?” Rafe asked.
“Sterling helped me find Judd.”
“Um, this must be his print then.”
“It couldn’t be. It’s rained since then.”
“Then someone else has been scouting around. Here’s where he stopped and looked at the place where the rock broke off.”
She went over and examined the area, dropping to her haunches beside the young cop. When he pointed, she saw the prints, side by side, the boot heels digging deeper into the thin dirt beside the rocky outcropping.
“Whoever it was, he was sitting here just like we are, checking the evidence.”
Goose bumps ran up her neck. She glanced behind them uneasily. It was unnerving that a killer might be on the loose and watching everything they did. He had already tried to put Judd out of the way.
Briefly, Tracy wondered if the wolf monster had thought the sheriff was more of a threat than she, the forensic expert. Or was the person merely in a panic and trying to scare everyone away from the spot?
She studied the land. There was more evidence to be found. She could feel it in her bones. She had to smile at her own play on words.
“I want to check around at the limestone knob. Somehow I think we’re overlooking something.”
“Right.”
Rafe gave her a hand up, and they trudged along the steep slope to the “egg rock”, as she’d dubbed it to herself. She knelt and peered under the jutting edge of the overhang. It formed a cozy little cave. High enough to sit in. For a short person. Such as a kid.
“Um,” she said.
“What?”
“This would make a neat cave for a kid to play in. As an adult, they’d remember it.”
Rafe nodded. “I follow you. Someone who found the cave when they lived in the area as a kid might come back to it if they needed a place to hide something.”
“Right. Let’s do some more digging.” She took her rock pick and began testing the floor of the shallow cavern. To one side, where the crack in the overhead limestone admitted water, she found dirt. She realized that erosion had formed a runoff channel, which had filled with dirt and debris over time. She began excavating.
“Let me,” Rafe requested when she grew tired. He took over the job of breaking the hard soil and moving it out from under the rocky overhang. She sifted through it, but found nothing.
“Be easy,” she said. “If there is bone, I don’t want to shatter it.”
“No problem.” He handled the pick almost tenderly.
Two hours later they took a break.
“So, looks like things are back on for you and the sheriff?” Rafe asked as they each drank a cold soda from a cooler he’d toted up from his truck.
She smiled. That was the question on everyone’s mind, it seemed. The townsfolk weren’t hesitant about voicing it, either. Lily Mae had announced the news for all and sundry at the Hip Hop Café when Tracy and Judd had joined the widow for dinner two nights ago.
“For now,” she admitted.
“And tomorrow?” he asked softly.
She managed a smile. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”
“Yeah.” He stared out at the lush valley, lost in his own thoughts, which Tracy thought were sad.
Before she had time to reflect on the man who’d been abandoned in the woods by his family, she detected a movement at the far edge of her vision. Every nerve in her body sprang to instant alert.
Without speaking, she reached over and touched Rafe’s arm, then let her hand drop to the rock pick beside her.
He glanced at her in question. Seeing the warning on her face, he, too, became alert to possible danger. “Where?” he asked in a low, conversational tone.
She cut her eyes to where she’d seen the shadowy form behind a thicket of pine and chaparral. Picking up her cola, she drank from the can and let her gaze roam the woods to her left. She realized she and Rafe were totally exposed on the rocky knob.
A face appeared above the tangled brush under the trees. The man had tanned, leathery skin, with a hatchet of a nose, the bluest eyes she’d ever seen and the wildest hair—half gray, half russet, the shade of rusted metal. He looked like a madman.
She gasped.
Rafe whipped a glance at her, then in the direction she was staring. “Oh,” he said. A smile turned the corners of his mouth upward. “Homer, come on out,” he called.
The man emerged from the thicket, his manner suspicious of them, as if he considered them interlopers on his terrain.
His clothing was old. It fit loosely on his bony frame. Tracy had the impression of a man who was slowly fading away, until nothing would be left but a lonely spirit. It was an odd thought.
“Hey, Homer, I’m Rafe Rawlings. You remember me? We met when you were prospecting over on our ranch a few years ago.”
The old man drew himself up with a show of dignity. “Of course I remember. I’m not daft.” He grinned unexpectedly. His teeth were surprisingly white and even. “Although lots of folks would like to think that.”
“This is Tracy…” Rafe paused and looked at her.
“Roper,” she said. “Tracy Roper.” She remembered him vaguely. She and her father had run across him in the woods a few times while they were looking for artifacts.
Homer nodded. “I knew your father. He still teaching?”
“Yes. What are you prospecting for—gold?” she asked.
His face immediately took on a secretive, wary expression. “Maybe, maybe not,” was his response. He obviously didn’t like the question and was suspicious of the person who asked it.
“Or sapphires,” Rafe suggested. “There used to be a mine in these parts, but the stones weren’t gem quality. Homer, were those your boot prints I saw over by the bluff where Judd went off?”
“I was just looking,” the man said at once. “I didn’t do it.”
“I know. I just wondered—did you happen to be up here when that happened?”
Homer glanced around the woods, but didn’t answer.
“Did you see anyone?” Tracy asked.
The old mountain man shook his head in denial. “It wasn’t a person,” he said in a near whisper. “It was…something else.”
“What?” Rafe asked, his tone a little harder.
“One of the spirits,” Homer informed them. “They don’t like people in their territory.”
; “Is this their territory?”
Homer quickly scanned the area. “You know it is. It’s sacred ground. You shouldn’t be here. Sometimes I can calm them down, but not always.”
Tracy wondered how long the old man had roamed the woods. He looked ancient, but age was hard to tell on a person who had spent a great deal of time outdoors. Exposure to the elements aged one excessively.
“You couldn’t calm this one?” Rafe persisted.
“No.” Homer came closer. He seemed worried. “It was a different one. I’d never seen it before.”
She noticed his boots were new and wondered if someone had bought them for him. Indians had a special respect for eccentrics and such. Perhaps some of them watched out for the old prospector.
“You two had better be careful,” he advised. He turned and walked back into the woods, disappearing into the trees.
“An oddball, but harmless,” Rafe said.
Tracy hefted the rock pick. “Well, back to work.” She didn’t have much hope of finding anything. Her confidence in the project had evaporated. “This is the last day I spend on the case,” she said.
“Hmm.” Rafe clearly didn’t believe her. “You’re as dedicated to finding your artifacts, as you call ’em, as Homer is to finding that old sapphire mine.”
“Nope, this is it. I’ve had it.” She knelt and slammed the pick into the rocky crevice just beyond the rock overhang. When she pulled it free, a chunk of stone slid aside, revealing an eroded area underneath. Mostly out of idle curiosity, she dug the dirt out of the groove in the limestone.
The pick hit another object. Careful now, she scraped the dirt and leaf mold away. A white, rounded object became visible.
“I’ll be damned,” Rafe muttered beside her. He began working with her, removing the soil with his hands as she loosened it.
The object soon became visible. It was a skull.
They worked slowly, freeing the bone from the soil packed around and in it. When Tracy lifted it from its bed, it came out intact. She turned it over.
Chill bumps raced along her scalp.
The back of the skull showed a pattern of distinct fractures that radiated outward like a starburst. A few chips of bone were missing. “Here’s where he was hit.” She showed Rafe.
After emptying the dirt from the brain pan, she put the skull in a bag, then sifted through the soil. She found some short hairs similar to those she’d found before. That was it.
A crack of thunder had them scurrying to finish. “That’s it,” she said after they’d dug out the entire runoff channel.
They left at a trot, hurrying to beat the rain they could see in the distance like gray curtains obscuring the hills. At Rafe’s truck, Tracy jumped in and laid her new knapsack—a gift from Judd—on the floor. She kept the bone bag in her lap.
In town, Rafe let her out at the police station. She dashed inside with her treasures, feeling much like she thought the old hermit might feel if he found his mine—buoyant of spirit and full of excitement.
The case was all but solved. The skull had a full set of teeth still attached. Now it was a matter of matching them.
She was assuming the cowboy was a local man, not a drifter who’d been passing through, and therefore had dental records in town. Another conclusion based on gut feelings rather than evidence, she acknowledged.
Judd wasn’t in when she arrived. The secretary said he was out on a case with Sterling. A child was missing.
“A child? Who?”
“The little boy who lives next door to Judd.”
“Jimmy? He was on a camping trip with his scout troop,” Tracy said, recalling the fact. “He and his friend, Mark.” A terrible fear seized her heart and wouldn’t let go. It was the way she’d felt when they’d searched for Thadd those many years ago.
“Are you all right?” The secretary stepped closer.
Tracy nodded. “Yes. I need to call Winona.” She went around Judd’s desk, set the bone bag and knapsack on the corner and picked up the telephone. “Winona, have you heard about Jimmy?” she asked as soon as the woman answered. The secretary left the room.
“Yes. There was a news flash on the radio a moment ago.”
“Can you come?” Tracy asked.
“Of course.”
“Meet me at the house…Judd’s place,” she clarified. “The soccer ball is there. Maybe you can pick up something from it.”
“There’s no need. I already am,” the psychic said.
Tracy realized Winona was getting something now. She waited, hardly breathing, until the vision was over.
“Yes, a hole, darkness,” Winona said. “A mine…air…yes, the air shaft…wait, something else…the woman…the two-faced woman…” She was silent, then said, “It’s hopeless. It’s all mixed up. I can’t sort through the images.”
Tracy sighed in disappointment. Fear gnawed at her. Jimmy, with his sunny disposition, had entertained Judd so sweetly. The world would be a lesser place if he died.
As if echoing her worries, the thunder rumbled again. “Oh, no, the rain,” she muttered. She said goodbye and ran to the outer office. “Where is Judd? I’ve got to go to him.”
“He’s out at the Kincaid spread. Here, I’ll show you.” The secretary got out a map. “That’s where the kids are camping, near the spring that feeds the stock pond in this section. Take the mountain pass, then turn right at the old Baxter ranch. There’s a sign.”
“Thanks.” Tracy rushed to her car and took off. She wanted to be with Judd. If Jimmy wasn’t found—she wouldn’t allow herself to think of him as dead—then Judd would need her. He’d feel responsible for finding the boy and seeing that he was safe.
It seemed hours, but finally she arrived at the Baxter ranch road. Several cars were already there, so it was no problem finding the spot. She found Judd and Sterling sectioning off a map for the search routine.
Mary Jo Kincaid was pouring coffee, made on a portable burner. She had boxes of cookies and doughnuts on a camping table beside the huge coffeepot. Two scoutmasters stood close by, wearing identical worried expressions. Dugin Kincaid was there, too, looking rather at a loss.
Tracy spoke to Mary Jo, accepted a cup of coffee and went to stand by Judd. He didn’t speak, but rested a hand at the back of her waist while he finished giving orders for the search.
In ten minutes the search parties left, each squad commander carrying a walkie-talkie. Judd stayed by the radio to take their calls and give further orders. While the search was on, parents arrived to collect their sons and were asked to return home rather than stay and clog the access road.
As night and the storm drew closer, the desperation of the search-and-rescue team became quietly dogged. A horse-and-dog patrol scouted the ravines at the base of the mountains, while the other searchers formed a phalanx that moved steadily through the woods, each person in sight of the next so that no bit of ground was overlooked.
When night came, the workers were called in. It would be too easy to miss an unconscious child in the dark. Tracy prayed that the storm would hold off. So far, it had.
She milled around while Judd gave orders for the next day’s search, which would begin at first light. He unrolled two sleeping bags in the back of the truck. He and Tracy slept there that night, curled together against the cold.
Lily Mae came out with bacon and eggs and biscuits the next morning. “You’re a godsend,” Judd told her.
“Nothing keeps the spirits up like hot food,” the widow said, not missing a beat in her self-appointed duties. She handed him and Tracy steaming cups of coffee to go with their meal, then went to Jimmy’s mother and forced her to eat. She looked as if she were staring death in the face. The Kincaids arrived with more coffee and doughnuts.
The search continued.
Tracy was more and more concerned about Judd. His face held a pasty grayness under his tan. His eyes were haunted by memories neither of them could keep at bay. They’d been through this eight years ago, and the pain was just as
sharp now.
Sometimes she felt like railing at an indifferent God who would let a child be hurt; at other times she prayed feverishly. Mostly she sat by Jimmy’s mother, quietly staying close.
“How did you stand it?” the woman asked at one point. “When it was your child…how could you bear it?”
“You just do. It’s hard, but you do. Don’t give up hope. It’s early yet.” Tracy looked at the leaden sky and prayed hard that the rain would hold off another day.
They waited at the camping site, listening to the reports of sectors being covered by the searchers. It was noon on Saturday when they got word.
“He’s here! He’s alive!” a sector boss yelled from the radio.
Jimmy’s mother put her hands to her face.
Judd listened to the report. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll move down there to plan the operation.” He signed off and spoke to the waiting group. “Jimmy fell into an air shaft of an old mine while he was out exploring. One of the dogs took a point on it. The boy answered when the men called down the shaft. Now we have to get him out. Let’s go.”
They packed up and headed for the new site. The old mine was in one of the ravines, a rough area of steep-walled minicanyons and loose, rocky soil. Tracy felt her heart sink as she thought of cave-ins and various other dangers.
A mining expert was brought in by helicopter. “Too dangerous,” he said in answer to a question on digging out the collapsed tunnel from the abandoned mine. “The ground is unreliable. The best bet is to have someone go down the shaft, tie a rope around the kid and haul him out.”
“How?” One of the Boy Scout leaders asked.
“The person would have to be lowered headfirst into the hole.” The engineer measured the width of the shaft.
Someone gasped. Tracy glanced up, to see Lily Mae clamping a hand over her mouth. The widow’s first husband had been caught in a rock slide. His horse had lost its footing and fallen over, crushing the man as they slid down the mountain in a tumble of rocks.
“It would have to be someone small,” the engineer continued, studying the diameter of the hole, “someone who can think in a dangerous situation.”
Montana Mavericks 04 - The Once and Future Wife Page 18