by Marja McGraw
~ * ~
Pete woke me early the next morning, too early in my opinion. He was ready to face down Cowboy Bob, and nothing was going to stop him.
“I’ve decided I’m going to approach him myself,” he said. “I’m not going to let you meet with him by yourself.”
I was brushing my hair, and I saw him tuck his gun in his waistband again. Although I wanted to, I didn’t say a word. Instead, I changed the subject.
“I really want to take another bath and wash my hair today. Although, I have to say that without hair spray and gunk, my hair seems to be staying clean longer. Interesting.”
He wanted to get going and ignored me, for the most part. “I’ll bring water up later.”
Before we left, we checked Bubba. It appeared that the bite on his neck had festered and broken open. We saw a small amount of blood and puss on the floor where he’d been lying. He wasn’t drooling anymore. I gave the big lug a hug and added dry food to his bowl after I took a cloth and cleaned his neck. We let him out to do his business and I put him back in the house. I didn’t want him to go with us this time.
We took the now familiar trail through town, past the Newton farm, and up the incline. I heard the horse whinny as we approached the cabin. It sounded like he was behind the building.
“I’m going to see if the horse is in a corral or something before we knock on the door.” I left Pete in the trees and made my way behind the cabin. The horse was in a small corral, but something else caught my eye and it took great control not to laugh. I hurried back to the trees.
“Pete, you’re not going to believe what I found. Cowboy Bob is more citified than he tries to let on.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a brand new four-wheel drive SUV parked behind the cabin. And it’s a fancy one. Must have cost him a pretty penny.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
“You wait here. I’m going to go take a look.”
Just as he disappeared around the back, the door opened and our illustrious cowboy stepped out front. Something about his demeanor told me he was about to walk around back to use the outhouse. I had to stop him before he took Pete by surprise.
“Uh, yoohoo,” I called out, “Mr. Cowboy, we need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The sun was thinking about waking up and I had a good view of the cowboy. I saw him reach to his side, as though going for his gun, but he wasn’t wearing it. I’d taken him by surprise.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, none too happily. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“I’m here because we want our car part back. You can’t keep us here forever. I don’t know why you did this in the first place. This whole thing has been just plain stupid, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you, young lady.” He sounded angry and yet resigned at the same time. “You folks just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
“Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I walked toward him, taking slow steps. “We ended up here because we got lost, and then we couldn’t leave because you disabled our Jeep. What’s the matter with you? Are you nuts or something?”
Cowboy Bob started to laugh. “No, I’m not nuts. I thought you’d followed me up here, and I thought you were after my claim.”
“Your claim?” Pete asked, walking back to the front of the house and taking long strides toward the cowboy. “You son-of-a – ”
“Pete,” I warned. “Let’s not make things worse.”
He scowled at me just before he punched the cowboy.
I rolled my eyes and sighed.
The sun had made up its mind to join us and I could see the cowboy’s face clearly. He looked surprised. He picked himself up off the ground, but he didn’t try to fight back, even though he was bigger than Pete. Pete had the age advantage.
He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t have on his gun, and he wasn’t sitting on his horse. He didn’t really have anywhere to go to get away from us. “You might as well come on inside and have some coffee while we talk. We do have some things to discuss.”
I glanced at Pete. He had his hand at his back by the waistband. He lowered it, seeming to realize he probably wouldn’t be needing his gun.
We followed the cowboy inside the cabin.
“I was about to fix some breakfast. Are you hungry?”
I was stupefied that he’d even ask that question. “Are we hungry? Are we hungry? We’ve been stuck in this old ghost town for seven days now. Other than a can of tomato soup and some margarine, we’re pretty much out of food. Of course we’re hungry, you lunatic!”
“Sandi,” Pete warned, following my example. “The man just offered us some food. Don’t tick him off.”
“Oh.”
“You wanna tell us what this is all about?” Pete asked. He glanced toward the cook stove. “You can cook while we talk.”
“By the way, what’s your name?” I asked. “I’m tired of calling you Cowboy Bob.”
“Cowboy Bob, huh?” He smiled, and his face lit up. He had straight white teeth and had obviously spent time in a dentist’s office. They were almost too perfect. He was a nice looking man when he smiled.
Up close though, I had a feeling he might be older than I’d originally thought. I guessed him to be in his late fifties or early sixties.
“I’m Jacob Mack. You can call me Jake.”
“Oh,” I said in surprise, “you must be related to Daniel Mack.”
His face registered his own surprise, and he narrowed his eyes at me. “How would you know that?”
I saw Pete reach his hand behind him, and I shook my head, letting him know he wouldn’t need his gun.
“I’ll explain later. For right now, let’s get down to business. And keep cooking. The smell of that bacon is making my stomach growl.”
“First, tell me how you now about Daniel.”
I sighed. He wasn’t going to tell us his story until I told him. “We’re staying in the sheriff’s house. We found some records he left about murders that took place in this town. He mentioned Daniel Mack a number of times, and we found a map that showed who owned each home. This was Daniel’s cabin. Okay?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Murders? I do recall stories about Daniel and the other folks leaving because of some kind of crimes. I thought it was just talk.”
“That’s why everyone left so suddenly? But why didn’t they take their possessions?”
“Look, you two, let’s take one thing at a time.” Pete wasn’t in the mood for chit chat, although I didn’t consider our conversation small talk. “Why did you strand us here?” In fact, he sounded angry again.
Jake held up his hands, as though to ward off Pete’s temper. “Let me explain. I grew up hearing stories about Uncle Daniel saying he’d struck it rich up here in Wolf Creek and that he’d found a sizable vein of gold. He said he left a map in the cabin because he planned to come back one day. He never did. He died fairly young and all he left were a few letters and a map to Wolf Creek. When I retired, I decided to see if his stories were true. My wife passed on a few years ago so there was nothing to keep me in the city.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I was an accountant.”
“You don’t look like any accountant I ever met,” Pete said, sounding suspicious.
“I’ve been up here for over six months. I grew a mustache and let my hair grow. I only go into town when I absolutely have to. I’m finding I enjoy the solitude of this place, but I have to use a Laundromat, and I have to stock up on food. Last winter was hard because sometimes I couldn’t get down the mountain.”
He lifted the pieces of bacon out of the pan and replaced them with eggs. He had water boiling on a back burner, and he set the pot aside. Pouring grits into the pot, he began to stir.
Walking over, I took the spoon from him. “You watch the eggs and I’ll take care of the grits.”
He s
miled at me.
“That still doesn’t answer why you stranded us here,” Pete said.
“I thought somehow you’d figured out what I was up to and you’d followed me here. Then I saw you searching all the houses, and I thought you were looking for the treasure map.”
Pete and I glanced at each other. We’d wondered if he was suspicious of us searching the homes.
“We weren’t,” I said.
“Then what were you doing?” he asked.
“I told you we found the sheriff’s records. Under normal circumstances, we’re private investigators. I wanted to solve Wolf Creek’s mystery and figure out who killed the women.”
“Women? So there really were murders committed here. Tell me about it.”
“Come on, you two. Let’s finish one story before we start another.” Pete was miffed, and probably very hungry.
“I have one question, though. You’ve been acting so weird toward us, and yet this morning you seemed to give up. Why?” I had a lot of questions, but this one was uppermost in my mind.
“It seemed like the right time. I know your boyfriend has a gun, and he hasn’t tried to shoot me. And the two of you never tried to follow me up into the mountains. If you were after my gold, you probably would have tried to get rid of me.”
“We’re not after your gold,” Pete said. “We just want to get out of here.”
“I was just trying to scare you folks off. I figured if I scared you enough, you’d just up and leave when I made sure you found your relay.”
“We would have left a week ago if you hadn’t taken the ignition relay,” Pete said.
“I know that now. But at the time I really thought you’d followed me up here. By stranding you, I believed that once you were able to leave, you’d get out as fast as you could.”
“Well, that’s just dumb,” I said.
Both men turned to look at me like I was the dumb one. Maybe it was a guy thing. I wondered if Pete really understood Jake’s reasoning.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I set the pot on the edge of the stove and walked to the front door. “Why didn’t we see your SUV before this morning?” I asked, turning back to the men.
“I parked it away from the cabin. In case you found this place, I didn’t want you to steal my car. And, frankly, now that I’ve met the two of you, I do feel pretty silly. I guess I got carried away with gold fever.”
“I guess you did.” Pete sounded disgusted.
I smiled. “Well, I’m glad that’s over with.”
“Not quite,” Pete said. “Where’s our ignition relay?”
“Be right back, uh… What are your names?”
“I’m Sandi and this is Pete.”
“I’ll be right back, Sandi. Will you take over and cook the eggs?”
He’d started scrambling them, so I finished the job. He walked out the front door, and it was a few minutes before he returned. I had a feeling he’d finally made his trip to the outhouse, but that was something I didn’t really want to think about.
I found some mismatched dishes and set them on the table, and I’d just finished serving up the food when Jake returned. He handed the small square relay to Pete.
“Sorry, man,” he said. “I guess I got carried away with the Old West thing and the gold fever.”
Pete nodded at him, but he didn’t say anything.
“I enjoy a good mystery,” Jake said, while we ate. “As a matter of fact, I have several paperback books in the SUV. There’s not a whole lot to do here in the evenings. Tell me about these murders.”
“First, I have a question,” I said. “Why didn’t you go through all of the old houses? I’d think your curiosity would have gotten the best of you.”
“Simple. I wasn’t interested in anything but the gold. I knew from the family stories that the map was somewhere in the cabin, and that’s all I cared about. How did you two manage to find it?”
“We learned that some of these people had hiding places in their houses when we searched them. I could see that the length of the floor boards differed, and that’s when I found the hidey hole.”
“Ah. Now tell me the story. Uncle Daniel told his sister a little about what happened, but he got the sense he was upsetting her, so he let it go. I don’t think murder was something that people generally sat in the parlor and talked about in those days. Even though she didn’t know the details, his sister passed the story down. She might have acted scandalized, but she knew a good story when she heard one.” He flashed those perfect teeth at me again in the form of a smile.
I told Jake how we’d found the sheriff’s records, and about all the killings. He listened to every word, appearing genuinely interested. I went on to tell him who the suspects were, and I added the part about his uncle’s letter.
“So the sheriff believed him when he said he was innocent. That’s good to know.” Jake finished off his eggs before sitting back.
“Thank you, Jake. This breakfast was worth more than you know.” I’d eaten every bite, including the grits. I’d never had grits before. They weren’t bad with a little sugar on them.
Pete finished, too, and he sat back with his arms folded across his chest. He still wasn’t happy with Jake, or his explanation. He believed him, but he wasn’t happy with him.
“The thing I can’t figure out is why everyone left in such a hurry and why they didn’t all take their possessions with them.” Before we left, I hoped to figure that one, along with the murders.
“I can tell you why my uncle left, but I can’t help you with the rest of the town.”
“Why did your uncle leave?” I asked.
“The sheriff may have believed he was innocent, but he wasn’t sure about the rest of the town. Since he was always disappearing, he was afraid they’d think he was up to no good. Something else happened besides the women being murdered, according to my uncle. Maybe it had to do with that. The story is that it had to do with some cowboy who died here.”
“There was a cowboy who was passing through, and he died, too,” I said. “The doctor said it was an accident, but the sheriff wasn’t so sure. I’d be willing to bet your uncle passed right by the guy’s campsite. Maybe the people in town thought he was responsible.”
“That could be. When he moved back to northern California, he told his sister he’d come back here someday, but not until things quieted down.”
Abruptly, Pete stood. “Sandi, let’s go.”
I stood, too, ready to leave.
“Are you leaving the mountain today?” Jake asked.
Pete glanced at me.
“No, I hope not. I’d like to find a resolution to the murders before we take off.”
Pete sighed and shook his head. “I know when I’m licked.”
Chapter Thirty
“Pete, if you really want to leave, we can. I’d just hoped to finish things up before we drive away.” We were walking back through town, heading for the sheriff’s house.
“How much longer do you want to stay?” he asked.
“Just long enough to finish the sheriff’s book and take a look at the saloon and the cemetery. I’m almost done with the records. I would have finished reading last night, but I was too tired and I couldn’t focus on the words. For some reason, the sheriff’s writing has suddenly become almost illegible.”
“Okay, one more night. I’ll fix the Jeep while you read the sheriff’s notes. We’re going to have to leave early though, because we’re out of food.”
I heard the sounds of an approaching horse behind us and stopped, turning around. I half expected to see a gun pointed in our direction, but such was not the case. Jake rode up next to us and stopped.
“Thought you might be needing this.” He handed a bag to Pete.
“What is it?” Pete asked.
“Food. Enough to get you through the next couple of days.”
“Okay,” I said. “At least you’re redeeming yourself a little.”
Pete took the bag and grunted. “Thanks
.” It seemed to take quite an effort to spit the word out.
“I had a feeling you might be staying on while Sandi figures out a few things. Somehow she reminds me a little of my wife, and that’s what she would have done.” He turned the horse around and headed back in the direction of the cabin.
“Maybe he’s not such a bad guy,” I said, tentatively. I didn’t know where Pete’s mind was on this man.
“He’s an idiot,” he replied. “Anyone who’d strand us here and try to frighten us is an idiot. The only thing that saved him was the fact that he didn’t scare me. He just pissed me off. It was obvious he wasn’t really trying to shoot us.”
“Oh. I see.” I didn’t want to push it and ask how he’d arrived at those conclusions.
When we returned to the house, we found Bubba had eaten and was ready to go outside again. He seemed mostly back to his old self.
“What about my bath?” I asked. “Would you help me bring up some water?”
“I’ll do it. You start reading the book so we can get out of here. I’m ready to go home.”
Pete brought some water up from the creek and I began heating it. He went back for more and when he returned, I heated that, too. I poured it in the tub and added some cooler water because I’d made it too hot. I found my shampoo and soap, and Pete left to repair the Jeep.
In my entire life, no bath had ever felt as good as this one. I continued sitting in the tub, even after the water cooled off.
We’d resolved the issue with Cowboy Bob, or Jake, and we had food. We wouldn’t have to starve or eat any more fish. I was happy.
Climbing out of the tub, I dried off and put on a pair of fresh jeans I’d been saving, glad that I’d over-packed. Between those and a clean shirt, all was right with the world. Well, almost. I washed my hair, and then everything really was right. I let it dry naturally while I sat down to read the last of the sheriff’s notes. I had to concentrate. His handwriting had definitely taken a turn for the worse. I could hardly make it out.
I read the first paragraph and sucked in my breath. My eyes filled with tears and I understood why his writing had changed.