Buch lesen: «The Rancher's Daughters»

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Yellowish-brown shards rose to the surface at the edge of Donovan Russell’s shovel. They were a startling contrast to the hard mud-brown dirt he’d been digging in.

“Should have left well enough alone,” he muttered.

After a few run-ins with local special interests—okay, one rabble-rouser with amazing dark brown eyes, on a mission—the Baer custom-built house was finally back on schedule but a bit over budget. Not that money mattered. Just last night George Baer had called asking for a circular driveway along with one that led to the backyard and a three-car garage. As the site architect and builder, Donovan had merely said, Yes, sir, we can do that.

Looking at the marking paint that now highlighted where the circular drive might go, Donovan decided maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so annoyed at the one spot where the dirt curved upward and kept his imagined drive from being level.

Annoyed was one thing; acting on it another. A backhoe would have been easier to use on this alkaline clay-based dirt that threatened to bend his shovel. Yes, it was that hard.

“I overreacted,” Donovan muttered. Not that there was anyone to hear him. He was miles from the nearest neighbor and living alone in a camper.

Adding a circular driveway would not take that much time, and if he needed to start his next custom job a few weeks late, no one would protest. In his line of work, behind schedule was a way of life. One he personally didn’t appreciate.

Donovan hated when his schedule changed. Still, the change was on Baer’s dime, and Donovan’s goal was to please the customer. Someday, he wanted to please himself, build homes, tree houses, businesses that matched their environment, were one of a kind and affordable.

He had two years left with Tate Luxury Homes. He’d promised to finish his contract and pay off his debt to Nolan Tate, and he’d keep his word. Breaking up with Olivia Tate had been a serious step backward in recovering from a poor career choice. The breakup had, however, been a huge step forward in finding peace.

Not that he’d experienced much peace lately.

His next job was in Palmdale, California. The sun was more polite there. After that, three jobs in Florida. Then, the freedom to choose where, when and how often he worked.

He dug the shovel in a bit deeper, ignoring the sweat gathering at his hairline.

A Nebraska boy through and through, Donovan couldn’t believe that at five in the morning in June the Arizona sun was able to stretch out her fingers with an extremely heated “I’m here for the rest of the day” massage.

Fine, tomorrow he’d start work at four.

Who would choose to live in this heat? Almost immediately, he smiled. His favorite special-interest advocate was a slip of a woman named Emily Hubrecht. She’d shown up at the job site the first day, spouting something about the property next to the Baers’, empty and neglected, that had yielded some Native American pottery a few decades ago. She was sure more was to be found, maybe even a burial ground, and that the home he was building might prevent a historic discovery of epic proportions.

Her words, not his.

He had, however, enjoyed the few weeks she’d poked and prodded the land. Emily was more entertaining than the men working with him. She’d found no proof, and so his permits had been given.

She hadn’t changed her way of thinking.

It was something they had in common. They could see potential even in the dirt on a forlorn piece of the Arizona desert.

When she’d scowled at the permits in his hand and raised defiant eyes to his, he found himself promising, I find any arrowheads, pots, or bows and arrows, I’ll give them right to you. He’d do it, too, because it was the right thing to do.

The dirt gave way to something with more substance as Donovan gently nudged with his shovel.

Bones.

A brief sorrow washed over him at the thought of some long-ago child standing over an aged Fido and saying goodbye. Maybe it was time to get a four-legged companion. Not that Donovan was ever lonely. He was far too busy for that.

At least that’s what he told himself late at night in a tiny camper with one bed, one table, a minuscule kitchen and a bathroom so small that taking a shower meant one foot in and one foot out of the tub.

Except for the heat, Donovan enjoyed his time here. This part of Arizona was rich in history and the kind of rural lifestyle he’d grown up with. Everyone knew each other. He’d not been in town more than two days before the waitress at the Miner’s Lamp knew his favorite meal and the grocery store manager knew what brand of cereal he preferred. Even the Hubrecht family, save Emily, seemed to like him. Her father had built the Lost Dutchman Ranch’s main building and kept asking Donovan for advice on updating.

Then, too, Donovan had received a dozen invitations to church, even from the enchanting Emily, and one marriage proposal. He’d nicely refused them all.

Moving the shovel, he unearthed another bone. The Baer home stood a good twenty miles from its nearest neighbor. Strange place for a dog to be buried. A homeless mutt might have died on the spot, but this was somewhat deep and definitely had been here awhile.

Smokey Begay, the construction crew’s foreman, parked on what would someday be a real driveway. Stepping from his truck, he squinted, and then came to stand beside Donovan. “What are you doing?”

Eerie how the man knew every time Donovan needed something, whether it be advice, a tool or simply another hand to get a job done quicker.

“Baer wants a circular driveway, too,” Donovan explained. “I thought I’d dig a rough outline.”

“Why did you stop digging?”

“Bones,” Donovan said, only this time he wasn’t thinking of a crying boy and a beloved dog.

Smokey took a step backward, his demeanor going from curious to stoic in a blink. “This is not good.”

“I tend to agree.” Over the years Donovan had found old toys, bullets and once a vintage pair of glasses—very Benjamin Franklinish. He kept those on the dashboard of his truck.

Donovan pushed his shovel deeper in the hard dirt, his gut already telling him what he didn’t want to know. “Dogs do have femurs?” he asked Smokey hopefully, his question more a statement.

“Yes, but not even a Great Dane would have a femur like that,” Smokey said.

It took only five minutes to uncover the human skull.

* * *

Emily Hubrecht finished pinning the flyer advertising Apache Creek Library Celebrates Sixty Years to the bulletin. Then, she put up a separate flyer about the hour of Native American storytelling she’d be donating to the library to help with the festivities.

It had been a while since she’d made time to do what she loved most: storytelling. During the school year she visited the sixth grade for American History Month. Every once in a while, she’d get a call from Phoenix or Tucson asking for her services. In reality, most of her storytelling happened as she guided the museum’s visitors up and down the aisles. That didn’t feel like storytelling, though. It felt more like a documentary narrative.

Outside, gravel crunched, heralding visitors. Emily watched as two people exited the minivan that had parked in front of her museum. She waited for a dozen kids to burst from the doors but not even one pigtailed head showed.

So far today, twelve patrons had signed the museum’s register. Emily wanted, prayed for, a hundred and fifty. How could people not fall in love the with Apache Creek’s artifacts, history and folklore?

She blamed the museum’s name. The Lost Dutchman Museum. Really? Only a small portion of the museum dealt with old Jacob Waltz—nicknamed the Lost Dutchman—and his irrelevant, misguided contribution to the history of the Superstition Mountains. The majority of displays had to do with the ancient and not-so-ancient inhabitants who’d left behind tangible relics and folklore.

The woman from the van was dressed to the nines and didn’t look the type to be impressed with old mining paraphernalia or Native American treasures. She seemed more suited to a Porsche than minivan. Emily moved closer to the window. Ah, a rental.

The man appeared much older, wearing white pants and a suit jacket. Those pants would stay clean sixty seconds in this museum immersed in history and dust.

They entered the foyer with a sense of entitlement. Emily didn’t mind. These were the kind of tourists who might spend money on one of the many books in the tiny gift area, maybe even buy a Native American woven blanket. “May I help you?”

“We’re looking for pieces from old movie sets?” the man answered. “To buy. We heard John Wayne liked this part of Arizona, and I’m a collector.”

“We did have many Westerns shot here,” Emily began. “Not just John Wayne, but Audie—”

“Just John Wayne,” the man said firmly.

Emily shook her head. “I’ve a few things from the days when Westerns were shot here but they’re not on display yet and none are for sale.”

The couple turned away without even glancing past the foyer, heading for the exit.

Emily tried again. “We’ve got Native American artifacts thousands of years old and—”

They closed the front door behind them before Emily could try enticing them with her storytelling skills that would transport them to another era.

“John Wayne would appreciate my artifacts and stories,” Emily muttered and glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. She closed at four, when the sun shot past high and went to burning. Most tourists would be thinking of eating and returning to their hotels for a dip in the pool.

She headed back to the Salado room. It was tiny compared to the rest, with just a few bowls and farming utensils on display. After unlocking the glass cabinet, she pulled a pair of gloves from her back pocket, put them on and then retrieved a tiny reddish bowl with faded black-and-white paint etched on the sides. As she walked back to her office, her fingers gently gripped the bowl, reveling in an artifact from such a distant era.

Who had it belonged to? A young bride, a grandmother, a wife in charge of feeding many? Emily was half–Native American, from the Hopi tribe, and was writing her family’s history. One of her many projects. Her father said she’d get more done if she could settle on doing one job at a time.

She didn’t like the word time. Time was something you could run out of, like her mother had. Emily didn’t want someone a thousand years from today to say, Yes, I’ve heard of the Hopi, but really, all they left were a few belongings we can fit in this tiny corner of the room. Emily wanted the world to know about her mom’s family from the Kykotsmovi Village, near Holbrook. She wanted to paint with words the Soyal ceremony when young girls received their kachinas. She wanted the Hopi Butterfly Dance to live on through storytelling as well as practice.

When she made it back to her desk, she took out a box and started fitting packing paper inside. She was lending the bowl to the Heard Museum in Phoenix. They were doing a display of forgotten tribes and had contacted her just two weeks ago, wanting to find out what she knew.

They read her paper on the Salado. Her first published piece as a college student majoring in Native American studies. The curator hadn’t even known she was a local, hadn’t known she was the new curator of the Lost Dutchman Museum.

A tumbleweed scooted across the parking lot and disappeared down the same road as the minivan.

Emily secured the bowl, sure that it wouldn’t suffer a crack even if the Phoenix Suns used the package for basketball practice, and after taking off her gloves, headed for the tiny break room, thinking she’d eat lunch although she wasn’t hungry.

The phone rang before she managed three steps.

“Emily,” Sam Miller said. He was part of the four-man police team that kept Apache Creek safe.

“What is it, Sam?”

“They’ve uncovered bones at the end of Ancient Trails Road, the Baer place.”

An epic house in the middle of nowhere. There’d been protests, mostly from Emily, who filed petitions about protecting the wilderness and the land that was once home to the Native people. She’d managed to delay a permit until she had a chance to look over the property. She just knew it had been a Native American village centuries ago. All her research pointed to that spot. The architect, one Donovan Russell, had taken to saluting her should she come close, as if she were some...well, never mind that. And, at least saluting was preferable to the irritated look he’d given her the last time she’d filed a protest.

“How old?”

“Old enough. It’s a skeleton, and it’s been there awhile and could be a Native American.” He didn’t sound happy.

She’d been right all along.

The Baers were building right where an ancient settlement had thrived. There had to be a plethora of artifacts just waiting to be found.

What if today was the day?

Emily didn’t smile. Chances were the location had already been compromised. Now, Donovan Russell would have to listen. If he’d damaged the skeleton or anything surrounding it, he’d have desecrated a venerable object.

A felony!

He should have listened to her.

Chapter Two

Emily stepped from her truck, giving a quick appraisal of the area—brown dirt, cacti and the distant Superstition Mountains—before heading for Officer Sam Miller and royal-pain Donovan Russell.

Sam she’d known forever. He was still the too-tall, never-quite-fitting-his-frame boy, now a man. When he was hanging around her oldest sister, Emily figured he’d turn into a professional skateboarder or something like that. Instead, he’d gone away to college and come back with a degree in criminal justice and hired on as a cop.

“Care to help?” she said to him.

Sam half smiled. He wasn’t overly fond of dead bodies and happily turned them over to her or immigration—usually immigration because this area had more than its share of illegal immigrants hurrying through and falling victim to the weather or bad circumstances. He was much more comfortable dealing with the mundane.

He’d already cordoned off the area around the skeleton. Both he and Donovan stood by the edge of the tape, talking. Judging by the looks on their faces, they’d been discussing her.

“When did you find the remains?” she asked.

“About five thirty this morning,” Donovan answered. She wouldn’t exactly call him welcoming.

“I was roughing out a circular drive,” he continued. “There was an upheaval in the dirt bothering me so I decided to smooth it out. Took me over twenty minutes to get about four inches dug. That’s when I started unearthing bone shards. Next thing I knew, I had a skull.”

“You touch anything?”

“Just the shovel. Once I’d uncovered enough to realize what I had, I called the police.”

Sam Miller added, “Jamal Begay was here.”

It took Emily a few seconds before she responded, “Jamal was here?”

“He got here a few moments before I found the skull,” Donovan stated.

“Bad timing.” Emily knew Smokey. He was a good man, with a family, and superstitious as all get-out.

Both Sam and Donovan nodded.

It was a very clean site. The dirt was packed hard, no footprints. Then, too, this skeleton had been around awhile, so even if there were any disturbances in the area, chances were they’d be recent. She took out gloves and removed two baggies from her jean pockets. Sam came to stand beside her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for the medical examiner?” Donovan asked.

“Why?” Emily looked up at him. He couldn’t be more different than Sam. He was taller than she was, but then, who wasn’t? She put him at five-ten, all muscle and what her father would call a scrapper. His honey-brown hair was cut short, and he had an impish smile.

Usually. He looked a little pale right now. Finding human bones tended to have that effect.

“You think I can’t handle this?” She rather liked the displaced look on his face.

“I told you Emily is who we call,” Sam said.

“In case the remains prove to be Native American,” Donovan agreed. “Tell me they’re not.”

She stepped over the cordon tape and bent down next to the remains. “Too soon to tell.”

“But don’t we need a medical examiner to—”

Sam interrupted, “We’re too small to have our own medical examiner. If this turns out to be a crime scene or not a Native jurisdiction,” he nodded toward Emily, “we’ll call the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office.”

“What have you done so far?” Emily asked Sam.

“Photos and call you.”

“What’s next?” Donovan’s voice implied he didn’t want to know.

“Finish digging up the body, take more photos, probably call in an entomologist, sieve the grave, search a grid for belongings.”

“Entomologist?” Donovan queried.

“I’m not skilled enough nor do I have the tools to determine the true postmortem interval. We’ll want to know the time of death.”

“How long will that take?”

Emily smiled. “Oh, you’re going to be stuck with me for a long time.”

* * *

Gloating, that’s what Emily Hubrecht was doing. Turning to Sam, Donovan again asked, “You sure she’s the one you had to call?”

Sam nodded as they watched Emily head back to a Lost Dutchman Ranch truck that rivaled Donovan’s in size. One foot on the back bumper, she hopped twice on the other foot in order to swing her body over the tailgate. Emily might claim to be five foot four, but Donovan knew better. He’d put in enough cabinets to gauge who could reach the top shelf and who couldn’t. Emily was a footstool short, making her a hair over five foot three.

She opened the tool chest that stretched across the bed of her truck, pulled out a large black canvas bag and tossed it to the ground before jumping down to retrieve it. She handled it with ease and was already standing beside the skull before Donovan thought to offer to carry it for her.

“She worked up in South Dakota restoring an Indian burial ground that grave robbers had desecrated,” Sam said. “She has a degree in cultural anthropology and knows more about bones than anyone else in town.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Small town?

“And why—”

Sam interrupted, “It also makes her qualified to help work a crime scene. If we have one.”

“Might not be a crime scene,” Emily said. “Could be somebody who just lay down and died of old age.”

Donovan looked at the area that had already been cordoned off. “Why here? It’s the middle of nowhere.”

She gave him a look only a female knew how to form. “This wasn’t always the middle of nowhere.”

Of course she’d bring up her supposed village and how the home he was building encroached upon the remnants. Those had been her words.

“She’s especially good with old bones,” Sam said. “The department keeps her on retainer.”

Oh, how Donovan wished he’d found a dog.

They watched her for a moment as she took photos and drew a few pictures in a small notebook. There was something intimate, respectful in her movements. But just the thought of working so closely with a skull, let alone the makings of a whole skeleton, gave Donovan the heebie-jeebies.

He cleared his throat—no way did he want Sam to think him a wimp—and quietly asked, “So, Navajos avoid the dead?” He wasn’t really thinking about Smokey; he was thinking about Emily. She was Native American but must not be Navajo because she wasn’t leaving. It didn’t surprise him that she was the one who Sam had called.

“Something about the good leaving with the soul and the evil remaining with the body.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, clearly honoring what Smokey and a few of the other construction workers believed. He wondered if it was what she believed, and if so, why she’d chosen such a career path.

Come to think of it, he wasn’t quite certain what her career path was. At first, when she’d been all over him with petitions and threats of cease and desist, he’d thought she was some sort of activist. But, when she had finally handed him a business card, it stated that she was a “storyteller.” Whatever that was. Then, he’d found out she was also the curator at the Lost Dutchman Museum. Two weeks ago he’d gone to the Lost Dutchman Ranch for dinner, and she was waiting tables. If not for her, he’d have made it his favorite stop. The locale was perfect, the food great, and he liked Jacob, the owner and Emily’s father. But, quite frankly, he didn’t trust her not to put really hot sauce in his food.

“Who are you today?” he asked.

She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Curator? Waitress? Storyteller? Pseudo medical examiner?”

“Civilian forensic consultant to the Apache Creek PD.”

He almost chuckled, almost asked her if she was old enough. Wisely, he didn’t. He was already on her bad side, and annoying her wouldn’t get him back to work any quicker.

Donovan knew exactly what Emily hoped to find. He just couldn’t remember the name of the tribe she was so enamored with. He thought a moment. It wasn’t one of the common tribes. He’d never heard it until she’d started poking around, getting in his way, insisting that Baer was building on a historic gold mine.

At least that’s how she’d put it after she accused him of encroaching on her remnants.

Sam’s phone sounded, and Donovan heard just enough to know that the police officer had obtained some sort of search warrant for excavating the body.

This was going to turn into a major hassle, Donovan just knew it. He headed back to his company truck and snagged a bottled water from his cooler before leaning against the door to study Emily. To think, just an hour ago he’d been happy because everything was on schedule. Now, he was down to a... Donovan tried to stop thinking the term skeleton crew.

He couldn’t.

Smokey, acting as if he was late for an important meeting, had left the premises not two minutes after the bones surfaced. He’d called his two cousins, coworkers, and they weren’t coming back any time soon. Only one of Donovan’s team showed up. John Westerfield had arrived ten minutes before Emily. He’d spent most of the time sitting in his truck, talking on the phone and no doubt trying to convince his wife that it wasn’t his fault he wouldn’t be working today. This wasn’t the type of job that paid if hours weren’t put in. He’d not been a happy man when he drove away.

Donovan would have to ask Emily how to get his crew back and working.

“So,” Sam Miller said, hanging up his phone and going to one knee by Emily, careful not to disturb anything, “you find any personal effects yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ve just begun.”

“You find bodies often?” Donovan asked. George Baer had extolled the lack of crime in Apache Creek. It was one of the reasons he and his wife were retiring here.

“Enough,” Sam said. “We’re what you’d call a high-intensity drug trafficking area.”

“Marijuana?”

Sam shrugged. “Along with whatever else will sell.”

“So,” Donovan said, “I might not be looking at a burial ground but instead a drug deal gone wrong?”

“Could be. I’ve never discovered a burial ground. I’ve also never discovered a whole skeleton. When I find drug deals gone wrong, they’re usually a bit more ripe.”

Emily made a face. Donovan looked over at his camper. All one would need was a pair of scissors to break in. Not something he wanted to think about. He decided to change the topic somewhat. “Would Smokey be just as put off by Anglo remains as Native American?”

“Pretty sure,” Emily said. “Good and evil don’t care the race.”

Donovan nodded, took out his cell phone and walked toward the home. The sun followed him, burning his arms and reminding him that it was high noon and well past break time. He’d been doing nothing but standing around the past hour or so. No reason to be tired.

Stepping inside he took in the fresh-paint smell, the hint of wood and the white dust particles that were everywhere. Sometimes when he got off work and showered in his camper, the top of his head looked like the before commercial for a dandruff shampoo.

Yesterday he’d been inside the house working on baseboards with a portable evacuative cooler blowing on him. His crew, all locals, had been painting and making fun of him. Didn’t bother him. They didn’t turn red three minutes after working in the sun. Three of his crew were Navajo and then he had John. They were all good workers, talented and easy to get along with. They all thought the house going up at 2121 Ancient Trails Road a bit extravagant for the parts, but didn’t care. They were working.

Exactly what Donovan wanted to be doing at this moment. Usually, when it got to this stage in the process, he relaxed.

But, he realized, he’d not relaxed at all during his time in Apache Creek. It had been one thing after another. Thanks mostly to Emily Hubrecht.

Quickly, he called George Baer and told the man about the skeleton. George’s only questions were “Can they halt progress?” followed by “Can they reclaim the land?”

“I’m pretty sure they can halt progress, temporarily. You’ll need to contact a lawyer for more information. The officer in charge of the case doesn’t think they can reclaim the land. You might, however, be responsible for the cost of moving the body and anything else discovered.”

Silence. Anyone else, and Donovan would assume they were assessing cost. Not George Baer. He’d be thinking about time and possibly media exposure. The man liked his privacy. Thus the end-of-the-road residence in out-of-the-way Apache Creek, Arizona. It was a custom-build situation unlike any Donovan had ever worked on before.

After Baer told him to do what he had to do, Donovan disconnected the call and stayed in the kitchen, looking out the window at the talented Miss Hubrecht. Even on her knees digging up bones, she managed to look beautiful. Long black hair was caught back in a ponytail that swayed while she used both a brush and a small shovel-like tool to free the skeleton without damaging it.