Texas Gothic

by Rosemary Clement-Moore

  “Plain old human,” said Mark. “That much we can tell in the field. Dr. Douglas is doing a few preliminary measurements before we take everything to the lab.”

  “Are you sure you should be discussing this?” Ben asked. “Shouldn’t you check with your boss?”

  Mark gave him a sharp glance, but I was so used to intervening for my family that I responded before he could.

  “Phin and I are staying just a few miles away.” I realized I’d mirrored Ben’s belligerent stance, and hastily dropped my arms. “If someone was killed here, we should know about it.”

  “It’s not a crime scene.” Mark’s friendly demeanor returned as he told me, “At least, not a recent one.”

  His tone, I think, was meant to be reassuring, but factoring in ghosts and all, I said, “ ‘Recent’ is a relative thing.”

  “Our guy has been in the ground a very long time.” He jerked his head toward the excavation. “Come and meet Dr. Douglas.”

  Phin fell in beside Mark, peppering him with eager questions as they started toward the dig. “You said ‘guy.’ Is that a nonspecific colloquialism, or have you actually determined it’s a male skeleton? You get that from the pelvic bone, right?”

  Mark’s answer began with a “Yes, and …” But I lost the rest of it because I was distracted by the dogs, who were eyeing the excavated square of earth with an anticipatory glee that made me very nervous. I hated to miss anything, but Lila and the others had been shockingly obedient, and I figured my luck would run out any moment.

  “I’d better secure the dogs,” I said, not to anyone in particular, except that Ben was still standing there. “I’ll catch up.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said, probably because he knew it would annoy me.

  “Suit yourself.” I’d come prepared with a drawstring sports pack, and I dropped it from my shoulders as I called for Lila to follow me. The rest followed her, and somehow I wasn’t surprised that the cowboy stalked after us, too.

  “Where’s your horse?” I asked. I’d seen the bulldozer and the UT van, and now I noted that, in addition to the people excavating the dig, there were several other tanned and work-hardened men hanging out by a cluster of pickup trucks. But no horses or horse trailer.

  Ben paused, like he was searching for anything snide in the question. Which was fair, I supposed. Finally, when we’d reached a mesquite bush substantial and shady enough for me to tie up the dogs, he answered. “I was only riding yesterday because we were herding the cattle out of this area and into the next pasture. And rescuing strays from neighbor girls gone wild.”

  Funny how with all that had happened I was still able to blush about that. I pretended I was holding back a retort when really I just couldn’t think of anything witty. At least, not while I struggled to extract a leash, any leash, from the nylon snarl I’d pulled out of my bag, which would have been a lot easier without the blushing.

  I thrust the mess into Ben’s hands. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

  He took them, too surprised to refuse. I got out a collapsible bowl—Aunt Hyacinth didn’t stint when it came to her pets—and a bottle of water. Bear scootched his furry bulk into the shade and slurped up the water as soon as I’d put it down.

  When I straightened, wiping my hands dry on my jeans, Ben held out the first leash, looking extremely grumpy about it, like I’d tricked him into helping me or something. “Are you going to tell me what you’re really up to?”

  I clipped the leash to Bear’s collar, then knotted it around a thick, thorny branch. “Who says I’m up to anything?”

  “Call it a hunch,” he said, and handed me the other two leashes. “Don’t scratch yourself,” he added.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I said, reaching into the mesquite to tie up Lila and Sadie.

  “If you say so.”

  I promptly impaled myself on a gargantuan thorn. I hissed at the sting, then pressed my lips together over a curse.

  “Did you say something?” Ben asked, too blandly not to have heard me.

  Gritting my teeth, I backed out of the bush, ignoring the pain in my arm, as well as the one in my backside. Or I would have if he hadn’t been standing in a way that blocked my path, unless I wanted to push aside one of the mesquite branches and risk another scratch. As if I weren’t irritated enough, the close quarters emphasized everything I didn’t like that I liked about him. It wasn’t just that he was muscular and tan, with broad shoulders and big, long-fingered hands. It was that I’d seen him ride that horse, and I knew his brawn wasn’t just for show. There was something practical and capable about that strength that made my insides flutter in an extremely galling way.

  Get a grip, Amy. You are not a fluttery sort of girl.

  Maybe it was a question of contrasts. I’d only dated high school boys, though I did have an ongoing flirtation with the barista at my favorite coffeehouse, who was majoring in prelaw at UT and promised we’d go out after I’d graduated, only Phin had dragged me here, so once again it was all her fault that I was overwhelmed by the overwhelming not-in-high-school–ness of Ben McCulloch.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, looking down at me from quite close quarters. His eyes weren’t bright blue at all but rather steely, which suited him better than something more cheerful. I sternly told myself that my prelaw friend with caffeine benefits was probably a lot smarter than him, and that smart was what I liked best.

  “No, I didn’t say anything,” I answered, glaring up at him. He wasn’t even that tall, really. He just seemed that way from so near. Really near.

  He tightened his mouth like he might have wanted to smile at my evasion. “I mean, what are you doing here? Is your whole family made up of nosy busybodies?”

  Actually, we were. My aunts and cousins were up in each other’s business all the time. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Who wouldn’t be curious? You’re acting like they’re digging up the lost Ark of the Covenant in your back forty acres.”

  He gave me a sidelong squint. “Do you think that’s a possibility?” I let my glare answer for me, and he raised his hands as if surrendering, though obviously he was not. “I’m just saying. You Goodnights have a track record as eccentric meddlers.”

  I folded my arms, calmly, like we were just shooting the breeze. “You know, Phin told me about the ghost rumors in town. That it’s some old story that resurfaced because your construction crew found a skull in the ground. I don’t see how that could reasonably be Aunt Hyacinth’s fault.”

  His snort wasn’t quite as rude as yesterday’s. “Nothing about your family is reasonable.”

  “You don’t even know us,” I said, determined not to lose my temper today.

  “I know there isn’t any reason for you to be here other than morbid curiosity.”

  Despite everything, that made me laugh. “Jeez, McCulloch. Isn’t that enough? I can’t be the only one with an addiction to the Discovery Channel. It’s like a forensic detective show in my backyard.”

  He seemed surprised by my laugh, and I had to admit, I hadn’t exactly been Little Miss Sunshine up to that point. After a considering pause, as if searching for artifice, he said, almost with humor, “My backyard, actually.”

  “Fine. I’m trespassing.” I dropped my arms and refilled the dogs’ bowl before capping the water bottle. “If you’re going to run us off, can I at least get a look at the cool stuff first?”

  “You swear you’re just here to satisfy your curiosity?” he asked, still skeptical.

  I drew an X over my chest and raised my right hand, careful what I said, because oaths have consequences. “My motives are pure.”

  If I was lying to anyone, it was to myself. I wanted nothing to do with ghost hunting or rumors of haunting, but the apparition, its reaching hand and gasping mouth, was never far from my thoughts. It had only moved to the corner of my mind, where the morning sun couldn’t reach.

  Ben seemed satisfied, and he stepped back to let me pass. As I did—ignoring the tingle w
here my shoulder brushed his—I added, for the hell of it, “But I can’t promise my sister won’t get a wild hair and decide to experiment with raising the dead.”

  His brows shot back down; they were extremely expressive, really. “You aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are.”

  “Who’s joking?” I said as I headed toward the dig site and the uncovered grave by the river.

  8

  ben and I made our way toward the bottom of the hill, where I could see Phin and Mark talking. I was almost more worried about missing something interesting than anything Phin might be saying. After all, I’d just suggested she might raise the dead. Clearly the Goodnight way was rubbing off on me.

  The site below consisted of a six-foot-square hole that had been partitioned off into smaller squares. A couple of people were on their hands and knees around the trench, combing through it with small trowels and brushes. Beside that, a handful of students sifted through a pile of dirt that the bulldozer had scraped up; literally sifted, each using a box frame with a wire screen across the bottom, like a sieve.

  We had almost reached the cleared area when the sound of an engine made us both stop and turn. A pickup had pulled in behind the SUV my sister had left in the middle of the gravel road, and if I were a whimsical person, I would say the truck gave a throaty diesel grunt of irritation as it backed up and cut across the grass.

  It parked near the other trucks, where the ranch hands sat on the tailgates, some of them smoking, some watching the dig, nobody working. A sandy-haired man got out; he was dressed in the cowboy uniform—jeans, twill shirt, sleeves rolled up, T-shirt visible at the neck. His skin was tanned and weathered, making it hard to guess his age, but he seemed old enough to be Ben’s dad. So curiosity kept me where I was.

  Truck Guy strode up to Ben, looking harried. “Got a call that the fence needs repair out in the north quarter. If the bone folks are going to be digging here the rest of the day, I’ll take these guys”—he nodded to the idlers by their trucks—“and get to work on it. No sense in their standing around here doing nothing.”

  Ben nodded, all businesslike. “Go on. The professor said they’d be done today, but I don’t know what time. Fence has got to be fixed, and it’ll take you an hour to get over there anyway.”

  The man, arms akimbo, glared at the river like it personally offended him. “And God knows we’ll never get anyone to work late after last night. Hang that Goodnight woman and her stories. Making life difficult even while she’s on the other side of the planet.”

  Two things I noted, standing there being ignored: Ben McCulloch seemed to be in charge, at least nominally, despite the difference in their ages. And I liked Truck Guy even less than I liked Ben McCulloch, who at least had the grace or good sense to look mighty chagrined right then.

  Ben cleared his throat. Truck Guy’s gaze flicked my way, and I realized he’d either just seen me, or dismissed me as one of the dig crew. I knew when he became aware of his mistake—boy, there must have been some kind of loot-in-mouth disease in the water—because he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on, hiding his expression.

  Ben seemed to weigh his options, then realized he only had one. “Steve,” he said without inflection, “this is Amy Goodnight. She and her sister are staying at the farm while Ms. Goodnight is away. Amy, Steve Sparks is our ranch manager.”

  Mr. Sparks weighed his options and settled on a nod, one hat tip short of a movie western gesture, and a formal “Miss Goodnight.”

  I responded in kind, with a chilly “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sparks.”

  “You girls doing okay there at the farm?” The question surprised me until he added, lengthening his drawl with a measure of sarcasm, “Not having any trouble with ghosts, I hope.”

  “Just the usual amount of trouble,” I answered, adding an overly sweet, screw-you sort of smile. I was only obliged to be polite to my elders to a point.

  With less awkwardness than you’d have thought, Ben shot me a look, then hurried his manager on his way. “Thanks, Steve. Get the fence done today, and hopefully we’ll be able to go back to work here tomorrow. I’ll call you after the university folks clear out.”

  “Sure thing.” Sparks gave a tight nod to Ben, then to me, before heading toward the trucks. He didn’t seem too happy with the dismissal, but I couldn’t tell if it was because it came from someone so much younger than him, or because he’d been caught out looking like a jerk. I suspected it was the first thing. And that I might have been unfair in thinking Ben was the only one likely to tell Deputy Kelly he should pay Phin and me a call.

  In any case, Sparks gave a sharp whistle and a circular, round-’em-up wave of his hand, and the loitering men pushed off their perches to join him.

  I turned to Ben. “My. What a charming lot y’all are over here.”

  “Don’t start, Amaryllis.”

  He crammed a lot of editorial about my family into my dreadful name, and I decided to give him the point. Pots, kettles, etc. Except that my family was charming. Literally, in some cases.

  Besides, I had more important questions. The Texas Monthly article had said this place was big. But I hadn’t considered the practical reality of that until Ben’s comment about travel time. “It’ll take an hour to get to the fence in the north quarter?”

  He pulled his Stetson down a bit, hiding his expression, his bland tone an accusation. “It does when you have to go way out of your way to get across the river.”

  In other words, another old problem he was laying at Aunt Hyacinth’s door. “It seems to me that you’ve needed a bridge for a while,” I said, “and it’s just bad luck you decided to build one on top of some poor soul’s unmarked grave.”

  My own words gave me a moment’s chill, but Ben didn’t notice. “We offered to build a bridge at the Goodnight bend,” he said, not chilly at all. Just the opposite. “Construction would have been much easier there. We would have paid the entire cost in exchange for access. But your aunt refused.”

  I didn’t point out that if she didn’t need a bridge, the offer wasn’t as generous as all that. On the other hand, it did seem odd of Aunt Hyacinth to be so unneighborly. “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

  His biting glance let me know what he thought of those. “So this was already taking longer than it could have,” he continued, “and that was before it turned into an episode of Bone Detectives.”

  “Gosh,” I said, “it’s really disobliging of someone to be dead right where you want to build your bridge. Maybe this ghost everyone’s talking about just wants to apologize for ruining your summer.”

  “There is no ghost. It’s the crazy neighbors who stir up rumors about him who are making my life difficult.”

  I jabbed back, because there was that word again. “Must be annoying, having one thing you’re not the boss of. Don’t you have parents?”

  His hesitation lasted a fraction of a second, but it was weighted and taut, and there was no missing the quick clench of his jaw before he tried to play tension off as annoyance. “Of course I have parents. Man, you’re nosy.”

  He must be telling the truth. The magazine article had named his parents. But there was something stricken in that pause. Something that made me blurt out, without knowing why, “I’m sorry.”

  He stopped walking and looked at me, his gaze somehow confused and closed and wary at the same time, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Not a fair target, either, but something deep and out of bounds. And I was sorry.

  I waited for him to tell me to butt out of his personal business, his ranch business, to just butt out in general. Only, when his glance finally dropped from mine, what he said was “You’re bleeding.”

  “What?”

  “Your arm.”

  I bent it to look. A string of crimson droplets had oozed from where I’d scratched myself on the mesquite tree. The blood collected into an unimpressive trickle, and a lonely drop fell from my elbow and onto the earth, making a tiny spot in the limestone d
ust.

  The blood sank quickly into the soil, looking like a rusty raindrop, turning the pale dirt to umber. It was nothing. Just a drop from a scratch that barely hurt anymore. There was no reason that my vision should sort of go cloudy and dim around the edges.

  Only for a moment. Just long enough for the last person I wanted to detect any weakness, to, well, detect weakness.

  “Are you okay?” There was concern in his voice, and that, irrationally, annoyed me.

  “Fine,” I said, and scuffed the drop between us with my shoe, erasing the spot and mixing my blood into the dirt. But the movement put me off balance, and the landscape seemed to tilt to the left.

  Ben grabbed my elbow, too close to the scratch, and the hot sting steadied me as much as his support. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  “No! Jeez, I’m fine.”

  “Uh-huh.” His disbelief was obvious. “I see. You’re one of those girls.”

  His tone put my back up and righted my world. I yanked my arm from his grasp. “I am not one of those girls.” I was not fluttery or queasy. I’d gotten plenty banged up on the soccer field, and I was the one the family came to for patching in that gap between a Band-Aid and an ER visit. I mean, I was pre-med, for heaven’s sake.

  “Whatever you say.” He raised his hands, and I saw, mixed with the dust and dirt there, some of my blood, too.

  “Hang on,” I said, before he could move. “Someone’s going to think we’ve been sparring with more than words.” Rummaging in my bag, through the mostly empty water bottle, a tube of sunscreen, and lip balm, I found what I wanted. The small plastic bottle had a Goodnight Farm label on it, and when I popped the lid open with my thumb, Ben backed up a step.

  “What is that?” he asked, with a mix of snark and genuine suspicion. “Some kind of potion?”

  I held it so he could read the label for himself. “Antibacterial gel. Mostly alcohol, lavender, and tea tree oil.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Stop being such a baby.” I gestured for him to put out his hand so I could squirt the stuff onto it.