Lone Heart Pass (7 page)

“Sure. Glad to help,” Charley answered, knowing he'd be working later into the night to make up the time.

The Thatcher kid's voice cracked with excitement. “Mind saddling two horses, Mr. Collins? Like Lauren said, I'm traveling with her.”

Charley turned and saw the boy walking tall and serious. Charley gave the kid his due. “Happy to. I can always use another man who can ride.” He offered his hand. “The canyon can be tricky.”

“Glad to help.” Thatcher shook hands. “Might as well. I've been helping Lauren at the sheriff's office all morning.”

Charley had an idea there was far more to the story, but he didn't ask.

“I'm going, too,” Jubilee announced. “Just give me a minute to get my new boots on and find that hat with the strings on it.”

“But...” He tried to think of a reason for her not to tag along, but saying that his ears could use some rest from her constant questions didn't seem polite.

Her stare locked on him. “I'm going.” She turned around so fast he had no doubt the discussion was over.

Charley fought down a groan. He'd be willing to bet his boss hadn't been near a horse in years. He'd bought a gentle one for her while he was at the auction buying cattle and she'd yet to touch the mare.

Five minutes later, when the others climbed into the saddle, Jubilee walked to the wrong side of her mount.

“This side,” he whispered.

“Of course. I knew that.” She circled around.

She seemed so determined. He whispered a few instructions as he placed his hand on her backside and shoved her up into the saddle.

She stared down at him with angry eyes. Before she could comment, he slid his hand along her leg and shoved her boot into the stirrup. “Try to hang on to the reins, Jubilee.”

Now she looked too angry even to speak. Which Charley decided wasn't a bad idea.

When he passed Thatcher, he whispered, “Stay close to the lady and make sure she doesn't fall off.”

“Will do, boss,” Thatcher answered as he saluted.

As Charley expected, the kid rode as if he'd slipped from the birth canal directly onto a saddle.

On the mile ride to the pass, Lauren and Thatcher stayed on either side of Jubilee, giving her pointers, but she bounced up and down all the way. Charley had a feeling her shoulders wouldn't be the only things red tonight.

As they entered the pass, Charley looped a lead rope from her horse to his saddle horn. Within minutes they had left the morning sun and ridden into the cool darkness of the passage. The walls on either side shot toward the heavens, and a slice of light slid down the rock, showing off the beauty of the stone that had stood silently against the weather for more than a million years.

When anyone spoke, the words echoed off the passage walls, bouncing back and forth like dueling chimes.

Every time Charley glanced back, Jubilee looked terrified. Her hands had a death grip on the saddle horn and her eyes were wide. But her back was straight and she didn't cry out or demand they stop.

“You're doing fine,” he offered, but she didn't look at him.

Lauren's calm voice whispered from behind them. “I remember how frightened I was when I rode through this pass for the first time. The night was cold, but I wanted to see the moon cross the opening above. There is a legend that if you see the full moon while in the pass, your heart's wish will come true. Only that night I was too scared to wish for anything, even though my Pop was with me.”

From behind her, Thatcher added with a laugh, “I'd be scared if the sheriff was with me right now. I get the feeling he's worrying his brain trying to come up with one more thing I'm doing wrong.”

Charley laughed, remembering when he was in his teens and felt the same way about Dan Brigman. Only since he'd been back from college, somehow they'd become friends. Dan had even asked him to help out a few times, manning a road block one night, rounding up drunks after a barn party and, once, directing traffic at a funeral for a ninety-year-old O'Grady. They'd had ten family cars that day. Charley didn't want to be a deputy, but he didn't mind being the sheriff's friend.

After several minutes of silence, Jubilee whispered from just behind Charley, “It's like we're walking among ghosts in here. Like we don't belong. Like this is a passageway only for the gods.”

“Trust me,” Charley whispered back. “If anyone were in here with us, ghost or human, we'd know it. I heard once that outlaws used this pass to disappear into the canyon.”

Thatcher didn't help the tension by adding, “This would be a great place for snakes to hide. If it were warmer, we could probably find a whole nest curled up sleeping the day away.”

When no one commented, he added, “You know the young ones can be as deadly as the big ones. I saw a rattler not yet a foot long kill a pup once. Bit him on the nose.”

When no one joined the conversation, Thatcher started whistling softly.

Everyone took a deep breath when they made it to the other side. The small canyon, no more than a few hundred feet deep in this spot, opened out with colors ribboning the rocks and the first brush of wildflowers along the base.

Lauren and Thatcher took the lead, winding down to the bottom of the canyon so they could follow the shallow creek. From there they could look up and spot the sheriff easier.

Charley held back until Jubilee rode even with him. “You did good in there,” he encouraged. “Don't worry about snakes. I've never seen one in the passage.”

“Thanks. I wasn't worried about snakes. Or wishes, for that matter,” she said, her lips still white around the edges, showing her lie. “Only one thing I do need to say to you before we go any farther. Don't put your hands on me again. I can manage on my own.”

“You got it, lady,” he snapped as he nudged his horse ahead of her without looking back to see if she followed.

All he'd done was help her up. She acted as though it was an assault. With his luck, she'd have him arrested when they found the sheriff.

A few moments later, Lauren yelled, saying she'd spotted her father.

Sheriff Brigman was riding toward them on a huge bay Charley recognized as part of the Kirkland stock.

Lauren handed him an envelope and the sheriff instructed her and Thatcher to walk their horses down along the stream to search for anything that didn't look as if it belonged in the canyon. Then Brigman headed up the trail.

Charley waited, halfway between the bottom stream and the top ledge of the passage. He knew he needed to stay close to Jubilee no matter how much she wanted him to keep his distance.

Glancing back, he saw her slowly picking her way down to where he waited. The sheriff reached him first and Charley was glad of the opportunity to ask a few questions with no one around.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

Brigman touched his hat in greeting. “Thanks for bringing Lauren down. Knowing her, she filled you in.”

“She did, but she didn't seem to know how the guy died. Natural causes, or something suspicious?”

Brigman tapped the file against his leg. “Coroner said he was in his late sixties or early seventies, signs of a hard life, lots of old scars and tattoos, no dental care, probably heavy drug use at one time.” He looked straight at Charley. “But someone had to be with him. Someone wrapped him in the burlap sacks. Maybe they didn't kill him, but the man did not die alone. So, why didn't whoever was with him simply turn him over to the police? The only reason I can come up with is that whoever was there either killed him, or caused his death.”

“Any hint as to cause of death?”

“Blow to the head. Caved the side of his skull in.” Brigman paused as if thinking through the crime. “Strange thing is the coroner said it looked like someone beat him after he was dead. Bruises, cuts, even dents all over him. A little blood soaked into the burlap, but not as much as would have if the heart had still been pumping. Some of the cuts must have happened after he'd been wrapped and tied up like a mummy.”

“That doesn't make sense.” Charley knew the kick of a horse could easily break bones or crack a skull, but why would someone put a dead man in sacks and then beat on him? Or, why would anyone leave his body here in the canyon?

Both men swung from their saddles as Charley asked, “Exactly where did you find the body?”

The sheriff pointed to a small ledge twenty feet to the left of them. It was not more than six feet wide or deep. “He was laid out on his back like someone put him on display. I saw no trail of how he got there because of the hard rain that hit the other night. Mr. Norton, the man who found him, said he remembered seeing drops of blood around, but it was all washed away before I got here.”

Brigman paced, thinking aloud. “The trail is too narrow for a four-wheeler, so whoever brought him here had to have carried him.”

“Or brought him out here alive. Killed him. Then beat the body bloody and left before the rain even started.”

“Possible,” the sheriff agreed. “Or he could have used a horse to transport the body. If so, he would have been on Hamilton land. He would have used the pass. Any other way in would have been too public for too long. Someone would have seen him.”

Charley shook his head. “I've been working for Jubilee Hamilton for a week. I can't see the entrance to the pass from the headquarters, but I was working outside. I would have heard anyone crossing the land pulling a trailer. On horseback he might have stayed in the trees that run along the windbreak almost to the pass entrance.”

Brigman frowned. “The man hadn't been dead more than a few hours. He was probably left in the canyon about twilight. Most of the hikers would have been gone by then. Norton grew up around here; he knew the trail so he'd let his kids stay late in the canyon.”

“So no clues?” Charley tried to think why someone would kill an old man and leave his body out here by a trail hikers used. He must have wanted the body found. Maybe he wanted to make some kind of statement?

Or whoever did this was planning to come back and bury the body when the rain stopped. There were spots where the ground was soft—easy to dig a grave. There were caves, too. This unfortunate fellow probably wasn't the first body buried out here.

Charley remembered that about ten years ago a science class looking at rocks had found a skeleton buried with handcuffs like they'd been on the man when he died.

“One clue,” the sheriff said as he pulled a plastic bag from his vest pocket. “When we moved his body, this was underneath. One joint.”

“Drugs?” Before Charley could say more, his boss's horse brushed his shoulder.

He turned and lifted his arms in an offer to help her down, but the last thing she'd said about not touching or helping her crossed his mind. Patting her mount, he lowered his hands, hoping the sheriff didn't notice the coldness between him and Jubilee.

Charley simply stood, holding the reins as she tried to swing out of the saddle with at least an ounce of grace.

The horse shifted, widening his stance on the uneven ground. Jubilee's body slammed against Charley as she lowered. The full impact of her moving against him shook him. He forced calmness far beyond what he thought possible as her soft parts moved against him, reminding him he may have sworn off women, but he wasn't immune to them.

As her boots crunched against the rocky ground, the horse moved away, and Charley felt the loss of her pressed against him like a sudden blow.

Jubilee had the nerve to look at him as if their accidental brush had been a conspiracy. As though Charley and the horse had planned the whole encounter.

He held open his palms as if to say he had nothing to do with it. At least this time, if she accused him of anything, he could use the sheriff as a witness.

Only when Charley glanced at Brigman, the sheriff looked as though he felt sorry for him, rather than planning to come to his defense.

Charley swore to himself again he'd have nothing to do with any woman. Even the crazy ones had the ability to mess with his mind.

He told himself she could stay or go. He didn't care. All that mattered was the job and he needed this one to last long enough to save a little more money.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lauren
Brigman
February 27

L
AUREN
SHADED
HER
eyes as she looked up toward her pop. The beauty of Ransom Canyon surrounded him, framing the man in his element. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His Stetson and boots grounded him to this place. A man the town depended on. A sheriff well respected. A father she could always count on.

Only today he looked as if he had the worries of the world on those shoulders. Something was bothering him. The problem seemed deeper than one body in the canyon. He seemed to be waiting, a lone man standing on guard against a storm he knew was coming.

Thatcher's comment about the locked drawer worried at the corner of her thoughts. Was it possible her father carried a secret? All her life she'd thought him an open book. If he didn't tell her something, it was police business. She'd never known him to harbor a secret. Maybe it was nothing. She'd ask him about the drawer and he'd explain it. Simple as that.

Charley and Jubilee were over by Jubilee's mare, but her father had turned toward the ledge where they'd found the body.

She'd glanced over the coroner's report. She felt as if she knew everything her father did about the case, but he looked deep in thought. The pieces didn't fit. Too many clues were missing. She could almost hear him saying,
Put the details together and it'll all make sense.

Thatcher rode toward her father. When the horse couldn't move fast enough on the uneven trail, he jumped down and crossed the rocky slope like a mountain goat. “Sheriff.” His one word echoed off the canyon walls. “I think I found a clue.”

Lauren rode to them. She reached her father as he slowly unfolded what looked like an ad from the local grocery store. The paper was dirty, with dried mud flaking from it as Pop opened it carefully. It had been in the sun and weather several days because the once brightly colored ads were faded. There was writing on the corner, but it was too smeared to make out more than a few letters.

“It's a clue, right?” Thatcher was moving back and forth with excitement like a metronome.

The sheriff slipped the paper in a plastic bag. “It might be. I'll take a look at it back at the office, but Thatcher, it's probably only a piece of trash someone left.”

“I know. You got to look down a lot of rabbit holes before you find supper.”

Lauren laughed. Sometimes she swore Thatcher had grown up a few centuries before her, even though he was younger than she was.

After they left the canyon, Lauren took Thatcher to his junker of a pickup and waited to make sure it started before she drove back to town.

The kid hadn't stopped talking all day. He must have thought she was close enough to his age to make them buddies. In truth, Lauren could barely remember being in her midteens. She wanted to tell him how painful the next few years would be. She couldn't imagine him fitting in. School was full of cliques and groups, but there probably wasn't a snake-killing-dirty-hair gang. Dante would have added another level of hell in
Inferno
if he'd known about high school when he'd written his poem.

She decided to go back to the county offices and work, hoping Pop would drop back by his office, but he was probably too busy. As sheriff, this place was his responsibility, and someone had dropped a body off in his county. Or worse, they'd killed an old man and left him on display. Lauren had a feeling her pop wouldn't sleep until he found the answers.

About seven, she locked his office and headed home alone. As she drove down the incline to the lake, she couldn't stop smiling. Somehow this little lake community next to Crossroads always seemed to welcome her. The winding road. The sparkles on the lake at sunset. Home.

Everyone her age talked of leaving, but not Lauren. She had a strong feeling that when she finished school she'd be back living here. The only problem was, what would she do?

Lucas Reyes crossed her mind. She'd had a crush on him since she was fifteen, and now, six years later, he still lingered in her thoughts and dreams. When they'd seen each other at Tech, all Lucas could talk about was stretching his wings in some big city. He'd be a lawyer. He'd wear suits. He'd be rich before he was thirty.

“Another reason we'd never work,” she whispered to herself as she pulled in front of her home. “He had dreams and I can't find mine.” No matter how many bricks he piled up between them, Lauren had the feeling she'd always long for Lucas. Tall, good-looking, brilliant Lucas who made his dreams come true but somehow never wondered what her dreams might be. They'd talked of someday but the bond between them now was as thin as thread.

If they were meant to end up together, shouldn't they spend time together, talk often, share dreams?

She opened a can of soup and ate half while flipping channels. Back at school she never had time to watch TV. There always seemed to be something else to do.

Curled in her favorite fuzzy blanket, she drifted off, only to dream of the old man wrapped in burlap. She'd only seen the pictures of the wrapped body, but somehow he haunted her.

Somehow, the dead man blended with her memory of being trapped in an old house that was falling down around her. She'd been Thatcher's age when the accident happened, but that night had never left her.

She'd never forget the panic, the dust filling her lungs so thickly she could barely scream as the floor crumbled beneath her feet. In that second she saw Reid Collins jump out the window, heard Tim O'Grady's body crashing down below and felt Lucas's hand close around her wrist. For a moment she'd swung in the air, then, slowly he'd pulled her until she was balanced with him on a few inches of wood that had held. He'd folded her tightly against him, this boy she barely knew then. Their lives had blended that night, for her anyway. They'd become friends. Somehow in the horror of that night they'd bonded. She owed Lucas Reyes something, and even if they'd grown apart in college, Lauren knew that someday she'd pay him back for saving her life. A blood oath. Sometime she'd save his life. She'd repay the debt.

When she jerked in her dream and woke up, Lauren knew it would be hours before she'd trust sleep again. She walked out on the deck, facing the lake, and tried to shake off how helpless the dream had made her feel. She was twenty-one, in her last year of school, but she had that feeling of standing on two inches of wood just as she had at fifteen. Only now she had no one holding her. No one telling her which way to jump. Her mother wanted her to get a master's in business; her father was hoping she'd pick law school.

If she could talk to Lucas, he'd tell her what to do. He was three years older and had always seemed wise. Only he'd graduated. She didn't even know his address now. Not that she'd seen him often when they were both in school. Lucas Reyes was always in a hurry and rarely had time to even talk on the phone.

The lake in winter always seemed lonely, Lauren thought, as she picked her way along the rocky shoreline. Even after the few rains this month, the water level was still down.

“Lauren.” Someone whispered her name.

She turned and saw a lone figure in a hooded jacket. A cane rested against his side.

She didn't need much light to see her best friend. Tim O'Grady had grown a beard over Christmas break and she couldn't help thinking he looked like a young Hemingway. Maybe he was. He'd told her he'd finished his second novel, but he'd never let anyone read a word.

When she'd asked what it was about, he'd simply said “Life.”

Moving across the uneven ground, he used his cane for balance.

She stood still as he walked toward her. As always, when she saw Tim, a part of her saw the goofy, red-haired six-year-old trying to cheer her up. She was five and had just moved to the lake with her father.

“What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?” His voice seemed to blend with the wind that tickled against her throat.

She giggled. “You still using that old pickup line, Tim? No wonder you're out here alone.” She couldn't tell if he smiled.

“Heard you were home this weekend.” His voice seemed low, as if he hadn't talked to anyone in days. “I'm guessing it's no fun at Tech without me there.”

She agreed. “You're right. No fun since you graduated. Why don't you come back and sign up for grad school? I haven't had a cheap chicken fried steak since you left.”

He shook his head. “I'm too busy.”

Lauren wanted to ask about his writing, but Tim never talked about it, or worse, he made jokes about what he was doing.

She offered a hand to her friend and they walked to the water's edge. “Do you come out here every night?” she asked, thinking she could smell whiskey on his breath.

“Pretty much. I have trouble sleeping. Occupational hazard all writers suffer, I've been told.” Tim laughed more at himself than at anything funny. “Tell me what's happening at Tech. I miss living in the beehive.”

“Nothing.”

“And your roommate, Polly, how is she?”

“She's dating an engineering major, but every time I get back from home she asks about you.”

Tim shrugged. “We weren't meant to be, Lauren. A one-night stand that somehow lasted a few weeks.”

Lauren nodded. Tim was the kind of guy who had a hundred first dates and very few second. He rarely took anything seriously.

Tonight, with a watery moon bobbing on the water, she felt as though they were dancing around a conversation, not really having one.

“What is it, Tim? What's wrong?”

He let go of her hand and just stood there looking straight at her as if she was part of the landscape and not his oldest friend.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“I'm working on a new book. I moved out here to the lake after my parents took off to paint in France for a year. I was thinking it would be my refuge, my writer's retreat. Only, lately, the story in my book is taking me over. I can't crawl out. It's like the novel is real and my life is the make-believe.”

Lauren cupped his face. “Tim, have you been drinking?”

“Always. At first to slip out of reality for a while and set my imagination free, but lately, it's been the other way around. I'm living in the book and sometimes feel like I might forget to breathe in real life.”

Lauren felt a sudden cold and didn't know if it was coming from the lake, or from her heart. She put her arms around Tim and held on tight. Nothing he said made sense but she knew he was in trouble.

She held him for a long time, thinking of how they used to swim together in the lake as kids, how he showed her around when she came to college a year after he. She remembered the long talks they'd had at night, sitting out on a rock that rested halfway between his parents' house and hers.

Without a word, she slipped her hand in his and took him up to the house.

He was eating the last of the soup she'd made for supper when her father came in the door thirty minutes later.

“Hello, Sheriff.” Tim clanked his spoon into the empty bowl. “Haven't seen you for a while.”

Dan Brigman pulled off his service weapon and locked it in the safe in the entry closet. “Hello, Tim. Heard you were writing a mystery this time.”

Neither Tim nor Lauren were surprised that Pop knew what was going on. If Tim told one person in town what he was working on, the whole town knew. That was Crossroads. A town too small to hold a secret.

“Yeah, but I'm having trouble with the plot. No mysteries ever happen around here.”

Lauren handed her father a cup of coffee and whispered, “Sorry, Pop, your supper vanished.”

He nodded and turned to Tim. “I got a mystery for you.”

Lauren saw Tim's entire body come to life. Pop had hit the “I'm interested” button in his brain.

For the next hour Pop told him all about the body left in the canyon, even showed Tim the notes. They went through every possible theory of what might have happened. Tim was fascinated.

“Strange thing is, you'd think the body would be easy to ID. About seventy years old, tattooed, drug user. No arrest record. No match on a driver's license.”

“Details,” Tim encouraged.

“Average height, slim build. The few hairs he had on his head were dirty white. Two heart-shaped tattoos on one arm, both with the names inside blacked over by what looked like a homemade job. One wrist tat that was faded but looked like it said Surrender to the Void. A joint under his body. Any of that fit together?”

“Sure,” Tim leaned forward to the edge of his chair. “The guy's had two broken hearts. Hated the loves bad enough to have them scratched off his hide. Also he was single when he died. Men that age, who have a wife, tend to round out from good meals. As far as the writing on his wrist, maybe the old guy was an early space jockey. Sounds like something a pilot might say.”

Tim kept following his thought pattern as he pointed at the sheriff. “You're thinking it's unlikely some drug gang would hire a man that old, or kill him somewhere else and drive all the way to Crossroads, navigate a dirt road toward that spot in the canyon, walk him down in the dark, kill him, beat him up and then put him on display.”

“Right. That would put the pieces together in order, but a gang wouldn't go to so much trouble. They'd just bury him or toss him in a Dumpster.”

“So if drug dealers didn't kill the guy, who did?” Tim was taking notes on the back of an envelope he'd pulled from the trash.

“I have no idea.” Pop laughed. “If he lived around here, folks would know him. Someone would have reported him missing.”

Tim shook his head. “He could have lived alone. Maybe even grew his own pot. There are a few little settlements out by the Breaks where folks who want to be invisible live. I've seen them at the fair and the trade days where people sell their junk so they can buy someone else's junk. Most live alone in one room cabins or old trailers.”