Sloan’s house wasn’t but a mile down Main Street where it crossed Arizona Highway 101. Although it was in the countryside, it was also within walking distance of the Gilded Lily. Only two properties sat between him and the old town. One belonged to Silvia Mills—eighty-eight and spry—and the second belonged to Mike Addison, who now owned the old sheriff’s office and jail bed-and-breakfast. Mike was seldom at his property; his ranch overseer was a good man of mixed Mexican, American and Indian descent, Barry Garcia. Neither Mike nor Silvia ever had any trouble at their properties.
Sloan’s house was ranch-style and had been built in the 1860s, first as a one-room log structure, and then gradually, as the years had gone by, as a far larger home. The front door still opened into the main section of the house, a parlor with leather and wood furniture, Indian artifacts, a stone fireplace and a stone counter that separated it from the kitchen. Beyond that was a screened-in porch with a pool; to the left were two bedrooms and to the right was a master suite. It was a comfortable home and had always been in his family. Wherever he chose to go in the future, he’d hang on to the house. Johnny Bearclaw, an Apache who’d come to help his grandfather before Sloan made it home, still lived here. Johnny’s wife had died of cancer and he had no children; running Sloan’s property and working with the horses seemed to be a good life for him. He had an apartment above the barn, which was about an acre back on the land. He looked after the house and grounds and the two buckskin quarter horses Sloan kept, Kanga and Roo.
It was late. Sloan had been out far longer than he’d expected, not thinking he’d actually stop by the Gilded Lily for dinner. But as he’d driven through town from the sheriff’s office, the theater had beckoned him—mainly because he was fascinated by their visiting artist.
And he did have to eat. That was a fact. He knew he’d been rude, so maybe taking a few minutes to be...not rude would be a smart idea. He reminded himself that Logan would never have sent him his own Krewe member if she weren’t good. He’d gone to Logan because they both knew there were forces in the world that weren’t obvious, that weren’t necessarily seen by everyone. Logan had sent him Jane, therefore Jane was good.
It wasn’t good that bothered him.
It was the fear that finding the skull was all some kind of catalyst, that something evil had begun—or come to the surface—when the skull was found. Dread had been building within him and he’d sensed it, felt it in the air, almost smelled it...but been unable to pin it down.
Maybe that was why he’d wanted the damned skull out of town!
They weren’t dealing with a current tragedy, accident or murder. Whatever had happened to the living, breathing person they now sought to identify, it had happened way before they could make an arrest or bring any responsible party to justice. So why his concern?
He didn’t know.
He walked into the kitchen and opened his refrigerator. For a moment he froze, brought to full attention as something plopped onto the counter next to him.
He refrained from pulling his gun and smiled to himself, shaking his head.
“Cougar. Where were you? Sleeping on top of the fridge?”
He stroked the pitch-black cat with the huge gold eyes that sidled up to him.
“Sorry, how inconsiderate of me. I’ve eaten, you haven’t. Hang on, okay?”
Sloan found the cat’s bowl, which was shoved up against the cabinets beneath the sink, and filled it with cat food, then checked the automatic water dispenser he had for his pet. It was still almost full.
“You needed sustenance and that comes first. I was just going for a beer.”
The cat meowed; he was darned loud for a cat. Very talkative. He’d found Sloan, rather than the other way around. One day, he’d been on the doorstep and Sloan had taken him in. The fliers he’d posted around town hadn’t produced an owner, nor had the ad he’d placed in the paper. Cougar had become his. He was huge, maybe part Persian or Maine coon, and he deserved the name “Cougar.”
Once the cat was cared for, Sloan pulled a beer from the refrigerator and went back to the parlor.
He eased into one of the two plush leather chairs that sat in front of the fire, although tonight he didn’t have a fire going. He closed his eyes for a minute; when he opened them again, he saw that he wasn’t alone.
The man who sat next to him was ageless. His hair was long and dark and barely graying. He wore jeans, a calico shirt and a cowboy hat. His facial structure was fine and proud, his expression stoic at all times.
It wasn’t Johnny Bearclaw. Johnny never entered without knocking.
It was the “visitor” he’d first met when his grandfather was dying. Longman. In talking, he’d learned that Longman had ridden with Cochise and had been his great-great grandfather on his mother’s side. He had come for his grandson, Sloan’s grandfather—and to see that his great-great grandson learned how to help the living cross the great plain to the great lands beyond.
Only, when Sloan’s grandfather had died and crossed the plain, Longman had not. He chose to remain behind and torment Sloan. At least that was how Sloan saw it.
He managed to keep from groaning out loud. He held his silence, waiting for the spirit of his ancestor to speak.
Longman didn’t say anything for a while. He stared at the hearth as if a fire was crackling.
“Evening,” Sloan said at last, raising his beer to Longman, who nodded gravely, then continued to stare as if deep in thought, mesmerized by dancing flames that weren’t there.
“An artist is doing a rendering of the woman whose skull was discovered up at the theater,” Sloan began. “She’s a very good artist.” She was. “I don’t know why, but I feel I’ve seen the woman in her drawing, and it bothers me. But that’s impossible.” He didn’t add that he was bothered by Jane Everett, as well. She could be all business, and yet courteous at the same time. She’d clearly gone through all the right training. She was truly stunning and he had to admit he was attracted to her in a way that was definitely physical but much more. Maybe it had to do with how she moved and spoke, or the depth of passion and care that seemed to lie beneath the surface.
He was worried about her. Again, he didn’t know why. She was no doubt proficient at protecting herself.
Longman looked at him. “And?” he asked.
“And...and that’s it. Oh, there’s the usual. Caleb Hough is acting like an idiot over his son being arrested. The kid is okay, though.”
“But you’re worried.”
“Yeah, I’m worried.” He didn’t say that Hough wasn’t his major concern at the moment; it was Jane Everett. Strip away the FBI appearance, the tailored business attire, and Jane Everett looked as if she could be a model for an elegant line of lingerie.
That didn’t explain why he was afraid for her. In fact, there was no reason for anyone to be afraid in Lily. The town had kids who drank too much and a few adults, like Caleb Hough, who thought they were money kings. There weren’t even any high school gangs in Lily and, for the most part, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics and old Euro-Americans—everyone—got along just fine.
Longman turned back to the hearth. “When you feel the wind, my boy, it means it is blowing from somewhere. Remember that. Too often, we forget that we need to pay heed to the sights and sounds that tease the air. If you feel wind, Sloan, then you must look for the storm, for surely it is coming.”
“A storm? To Lily? When?” Sloan asked.
“A storm, a change, a shake-up. The ground is always quiet before the earth erupts. First, men feel a rumble, and if they don’t heed the warning, they fall through the cracks.”
Great. Really great. All he needed was a cryptic ancestor. Longman was on his mother’s side. His dad’s people had been a no-nonsense mix of English and Norwegian. But, of course, this land had been in his mother’s family for generations. Longman was his mother’s great-grandfather, and it was her father who’d raised him. This house was on old Apache land, it was natural, he supposed, that his last full-blooded Apache ancestor should come to his parlor to watch invisible flames.
Then, of course, his dad’s family had its share of the unusual, as well. The bad, the good—and those who’d just disappeared into thin air.
As if reading his mind, the specter of his dead great-great grandfather looked at him thoughtfully. “You think you’ve seen the woman in the picture because you have. You’ve seen pictures of her many times—even old photographs. In fact, those pictures have been seen by everyone in Lily. You believe they found the skull of Sage McCormick, your father’s great-grandmother.”
Yes, it had been in his mind. Of course!
“You knew her?”
“I often saw her perform from the back of the theater. I was allowed in. We were tolerated in Lily—my people, I mean. When the wars still raged and Native peoples were rounded up, many of us were part of the community here. I remember when Sage McCormick came to Lily. I remember her presence onstage. I remember her laughter, and that she was kind. I remember when she fell in love with your father’s great-grandfather, and I remember her daughter, your father’s grandmother, as she grew up.”
“So that’s it,” Sloan said. “I knew the picture because I’d seen the woman Jane depicted dozens of times. She’s my great-great grandmother. And I’ve avoided acknowledging this—because I never wanted to know how she died. It’s the distant past now, but I guess the stories always made me want to believe she went to Mexico and lived happily ever after in a world where she could be herself.” He sighed. “And if there is a ghost in her room at the Gilded Lily, I wanted to believe that it wasn’t her—or that she returned there after her death. Does that make sense?”
There was no answer. Sloan looked over at the chair. Longman was gone.
Maybe he had never been there. Sloan didn’t know. He had never known if he created spirits with whom he could earnestly debate the dilemmas in his own mind or if they actually existed.
But now...
Cougar, still in the kitchen, suddenly let out a screech. The cat was almost as good as a watchdog. Sloan jumped to his feet. He headed straight to the kitchen and saw that the cat was standing by the door to the screened-in porch, his back arched.
Sloan strode across to the door, set his hand at his waist over his gun, and yanked the door open.
No one there.
He looked out at the far stretches of his property. Sparse trees grew here and there, low and scraggly. His land stretched out in back until it came to a row of foothills that skirted the mesa where Lily was situated. To the left, he saw the stables and the paddocks, and all seemed quiet. A light burned upstairs in Johnny Bearclaw’s apartment. He heard one of the horses whinny.
He had ten acres—a big enough spread if someone wanted to hide there.
He walked out to the stables, turning on lights as he entered. Kanga and Roo whinnied again as he approached their stalls, stepping up to the gates to receive attention. Sloan patted the horses, speaking to them softly. Kanga was almost twenty, and she was as friendly as a dog and loved human interaction. Roo was “the young un,” at twelve. He was Kanga’s only offspring, bred from Fierce Fire, an award-winning running quarter. Sloan wasn’t much on rodeos, but occasionally he brought Roo out to show. He didn’t enter competitions, but Roo could turn on a dime, and Sloan liked to let him strut his stuff now and then.
The horses didn’t seem skittish. Then again, they did like human contact and Sloan had enough visitors out here that they wouldn’t be skittish if they’d heard someone walking around the yard.
Maybe the cat had seen demons that haunted his feline mind.
As he stood by the stalls, his cell phone rang. He answered it quickly.
“Hey, you down there?” Johnny Bearclaw asked.
“Yeah, it’s me, Johnny.”
“You been there awhile?”
“No, I just came out. The cat was freaking out over some noise or other,” Sloan said.
“I was about to come down,” Johnny announced.
“You heard something?”
“It sounded as if the horses were a little restless. I’ll be right there.”
Sixty seconds didn’t pass before Johnny came hurrying down the steps from the overhead apartment. He wasn’t a tall man; he stood maybe five-ten, but he was barrel chested and had broad shoulders and huge hands. Johnny could tenderly serve a dying man soup—or tackle the meanest bronco. His dark eyes were narrowed as he said, “Oddest thing. I just had the feeling someone was around. Strange as hell. Then heard Kanga there neighing and stomping. I saw the light spill out over the paddocks and called you. Does anything seem to be amiss?”
Sloan shook his head. “Let’s take a look around for the hell of it, though.”
“Could’ve been a coyote who thought better of it. ’Course, we don’t have any chickens around here, anyway. A coyote would have figured that out pretty fast,” Johnny said.
“We’ll split up. I’ll go east, and you take the west,” Sloan told him.
Some brush on either side separated Sloan’s property from his neighbors, but like him, his neighbors had paddocks and stables; they all put up picket fences in front of their homes, but they didn’t bother with gates. No one cared if someone rode over someone else’s land.
That meant there wasn’t far to go and not many places to look.
Sloan met Johnny at the rear of the stables. “If someone was snooping around, they’re not here now,” Johnny said. “My money is on a coyote.”
“You’re probably right.” Sloan looked off into the night. Behind them, the foothills were purple in the moonlight.
“’Course, if anyone was around here and they knew the place and wanted to disappear...” Johnny began.
“They could just head out back behind the hills,” Sloan finished.
“Not much there now but desolation,” Johnny said. “The old mine entrances were blown out with dynamite years ago.”
“Coyote,” Sloan said. “Thanks, Johnny. Get some sleep.”
“Yeah, you, too, Sloan. Everything going all right?”
“Yep.”
“That artist come in?”
“Yep.”
“She any good?”
“Yes, very good. Well, see you tomorrow, Johnny.”
“Hey, bring her on out. The horses could use some more exercise.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sloan agreed.
He waved good-night to Johnny and returned to the house. He seldom set the alarm, but he did that night.
When he lay down to sleep, he felt a thump at the foot of the bed. He smiled. There was nothing unearthly about that thump; it was Cougar, settling down for the night.
He wondered why he still felt so disturbed. He’d probably had a hunch from the beginning that the skull might have belonged to Sage McCormick. The story had seemed off to him—women might leave their husbands, but from what he’d read about Sage, she wasn’t the type to walk out on a child.
Still, she had been dead for a hundred years.
But, like Henri, he was concerned. Why had the skull shown up now? Where had it been?
And where was the rest of Sage McCormick?
He thought that when he slept he might be plagued with dreams of the late 1800s—dreams in which outlaws rode down Main Street in a cloud of dust and flying sagebrush. Or that he’d dream of the Gilded Lily, a dream in which Sage McCormick took the stage, belted out a musical number...and then demanded that he find the rest of her body.
He didn’t dream anything of the kind.
Instead, he saw Longman seated cross-legged on the top of a sand-swept dune. Jane Everett stood next to him. She wasn’t in her bureau suit; she wore a long white gown that might’ve been appropriate in the late 1800s or in a show...like The Perils of Poor Little Paulina. Her hair was flowing around her face and shoulders, caught in the same breeze that swept the white gown around her body. She was listening intently to Longman. Sloan wanted to tell her that Longman wasn’t real, that he was a ghost or a figment of his—Sloan’s—imagination. He was a small portion of all that had made up Sloan’s past, a man he’d heard about from his family, one who was wise and careful and ready to face the world with his slow wisdom, whatever the world might bring.
Jane didn’t know that, couldn’t know it, and yet her features were both troubled and animated as the two conversed. She needed to find something out, and it seemed she believed Longman would help her.
She continued to stand next to Longman, heedless of herself, of her environment.
Sloan was mounted on Kanga, far below them, and as he watched, a shadow composed of desert sand began to sweep out of the earth and form a barrier between him and the other two, Jane and Longman. It grew darker as it rose in a frenzy—and it seemed to form the image of a man as it whirled closer and closer to where Longman sat and Jane stood. He shouted out in warning but they didn’t hear him. He spurred Kanga, but no matter how hard he rode, the danger moved ahead of him. He had to reach them before the swirling dark shadow enveloped them....
He woke with a start. He was sweating as he lay there, as if his physical exertion had been real.
Sloan looked around his darkened room. Nothing had changed. The cat, curled at his feet, stared at him with his wide eyes.
Sloan glanced at the clock on his bedside table and saw that only minutes had passed since he’d gone to bed. Wonderful—he was dreaming about a woman who’d come to town for a few days. Granted, the population here was small. But...
She would be an unusual and striking woman regardless of where she was. He would’ve found her intriguing and sensual, and his libido would have been piqued anywhere he might have met her. He just hadn’t admitted it yet.
With a groan, he threw his head back on the pillow. He was dreaming about Jane Everett. He would’ve expected a great dream about hot sex on a balmy beach. But no, he was dreaming about dark forces swirling around, ready to engulf them all.
It was going to be a long night.
* * *
As usual when she went online, Jane found herself browsing far longer than she’d intended. She discovered that she had a ton of email waiting for her.
One was from Logan. Everything okay out there?
Yes, fine. I’ll finish up in a few more days, she typed. She went on to describe the town of Lily, and the people she’d met. She refrained from saying much about his friend, the sheriff. At the end she added, Anything on the rise? Do I need to be back sooner?
She shut down the computer; if there’d been an emergency, Logan would have called her.
She rose, stretched and looked around the room. Nothing in it had changed, nothing had moved and she hadn’t heard even a creak in the old floorboards around her. The clock on the mantel told her she’d managed to spend several hours on the computer.
Too easy to do.
She stood and walked into the dressing room and then the bathroom.
The mirror was clear; no words remained, not even the hint of a smudge.
Jane slid out of her clothing and into a pair of pajamas that consisted of a tank top and loose trousers. She pulled the bedcovers down and noticed that a blanket lay on the trunk at the foot of the bed. It didn’t seem cold in the room so she left it where it was. The bed stretched out invitingly. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Brian how tired she was.
When she lay down to sleep, she hesitated for just a minute.
“Good night,” she said softly. “And I apologize for anything I might have said about Sheriff Trent. He seems upset about what’s going on. I believe he’s a decent human being.”
Once again, nothing moved or changed in the room. Jane closed her eyes and wondered if she’d stay awake all through the night, waiting to see if something was going to happen.
She tossed and turned and half woke in the wee hours of the morning, feeling a chill. She was too tired to actually get up and do anything about it. She thought about the blanket, but she couldn’t make herself move.
Moments later, she felt warm again and fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
The alarm on her phone went off at 7:00 a.m.
She woke up. Light was filtering through the drapes and she lay there luxuriously for a few minutes, surprised that she’d slept so well.
Rising, she showered, brushed her teeth and dressed in a black pantsuit, a blue shirt, her holster and gun and jacket.
It wasn’t until she picked up her computer bag and supply box that she looked back at the bed.
The blanket lay there, neatly stretched out over the bedspread. The blanket that had been on the trunk.
The blanket she hadn’t reached for because she’d been too tired to move.
She must have moved. She must have retrieved it in her sleep.
But she hadn’t.
She couldn’t help shivering. Yes, even knowing that some remained behind in spirit when death had claimed their earthly forms, she could still feel that eerie sense of disquiet, of fear.
But she’d learned long ago to accept it.
And really...
What a nice gesture.
“Thank you,” she said aloud. “Thank you so much. I was cold, and you made me warm, and I had a great sleep.”
There was no response, but she hadn’t expected one. Yet as she walked to the door, a rush of cold air swept by her. If felt as if something, someone, was hurrying through the dressing room.
She started to follow. As she did, there was a knock at her door.
She glanced at her watch; she was late. Wonderful. Sheriff Trent had felt compelled to come up and make sure she was ready.
“Just a minute!” she called.
She followed the draft that had seemed to touch her and walked into the dressing room.
This time, there was no steam coming from the bathroom. She didn’t need to go that far.
There was a message on the mirror at the dressing table. It was written in her lipstick; it looked as if it had been written in blood.
TELL THEM THE TRUTH
Puzzled rather than scared, she ignored the chill that seemed to touch her.
The truth about what?
“But I don’t know the truth,” she said.
She watched as the tube of lipstick she’d left out on the table began to float in the air and write out more letters.
YOU WILL
BEWARE
TRICKSTER
“Jane?” a woman’s voice called from outside her room. So not Sloan, after all.
“Coming!” she said.
She hurried to open the door and found Alice Horton. In jeans, a tank top and sneakers—her hair scooped up into a ponytail—Alice looked way more like the girl next door than she did a wicked vamp. But, of course, she was an actress, and she seemed to be pretty good. She could probably play just about any character.
“Hey, Alice,” she said. “How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. I thought I’d come up and get you. Jennie talked Sloan into having a cup of coffee, but he’s getting a little restless,” Alice told her.
“Thank you. I’m on my way. Give me one second.”
Jane left the door open and went back for her purse and bag; she hesitated and dashed into the bathroom, anxious to see if there was another message.
There was.
HELP PLEASE HELP US
* * *
As he drove to the station, Sloan was smiling to himself. He didn’t realize his passenger had noticed until she asked, “What’s so amusing, Sheriff?”
He glanced her way quickly, glad of the dark glasses that hid his eyes.
“Oh, nothing.”
“You’re grinning from ear to ear,” Jane said.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”
Jane let out a sigh of aggravation. “Come on, now you have to tell me what you were thinking. It’s only fair!”
“First I should tell you I’m not rude or macho or politically incorrect—most of the time.”
She laughed. “Okay, I believe you. But now I know there’s a really politically incorrect thought running through your head, so you have to tell me.”
“Uh, well...you’re not what I was expecting. Not what I figured you’d, um, look like. Being a Krewe member and all...” His voice trailed off.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind!”
“No! Tell me!”
“You make me think of a TV show. Like those crime shows where the medical examiner is a beautiful woman who whispers gentle things to her corpses. You know, like, ‘You poor, poor baby, what did they do to you?’ Or a crime show where the detectives are dressed by Versace or some other designer.”
She stared at him as if she were about to explode.
“I didn’t mean to be offensive, Agent Everett. It was a compliment,” he insisted. “You’re just—I mean, you must be a little aware that you’re...beautiful.”
She gazed at the road ahead, a slight smile playing on her lips. “Well, that part of your statement is quite charming, so thank you. But I don’t whisper sweet nothings to corpses,” she assured him. “And I only wish I had a wardrobe by Versace.”
He winced. “I’m sorry. I guess, even if we know better—and I do—we all expect a forensic artist to be an old man like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew from the Muppets or... I’m not helping myself here, am I?” he asked.
“No.”
“Let me try again. Agent Everett, you look very nice today.”
Her smile still teased at her lips as she turned to him. “Hmm. Does that mean I looked like hell yesterday?”
“No. I just...hey, sorry. I told you! I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Her smile became an honest laugh. “It’s all right. I prefer to avoid stereotypes—as an artist and a law enforcement officer. But you...”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Sheriff. You. Spend much time at the rodeo? Or, wait—walking down Main Street for a quick-draw contest with a bad guy?”
“What?”
“Well, you know, you look the part. Rugged Western hero. Gunslinger. Tough guy.”
He grinned. “So I’m a stereotype?”
“Oh, you definitely could be. But...are you?”
He didn’t have to answer; they’d arrived at the sheriff’s office. But even as he exited the car, Deputy Chet Morgan came hurrying out of the office. “Heidi Murphy just called, and she sounded pretty hysterical. She took a group out on a trail ride and they found a body.”
“A body? Did she call 9-1-1 for an ambulance?” Sloan asked quickly.
“She did, and an ambulance is on its way out. But Heidi was insistent that there’s no need. Says the corpse is practically mummified and that she knows dead from alive. I was going to head out there.”
“I’ll take it, Chet. Why don’t you hold down the fort with Betty and Agent Everett,” Sloan told him.
Mummified? Were remains from the past showing up all over the place?
“I’d like to ride with you on this, if you don’t mind,” Jane said.
She was wearing her sunglasses and her perfect face was stoic. Sloan thought of the dream that had plagued him the night before.
“It’s better if you stay here, get your work done.”
She didn’t have an argument and she knew it as well as he did. She was a federal agent on loan, and a body in the desert was his territory. He’d be calling in the county coroner, and if someone had been killed recently, the state police would probably come in on it, too. But...she was a fed.
“Please. I understand. But I’d really like to ride along on this,” she said.
He wished she hadn’t been so polite, that the tone of her voice hadn’t shown her complete respect for her position—and his.
The dream had been ridiculous. Brought on by the fact that he’d been back home too long without meeting a woman who really appealed to him. So, just because he was afraid for her, and because he was so attracted to her, he was about to be a jerk.
He checked himself. “Sure. If you wish. Chet, where are they?”
“They’re by that replica Apache village. She was working with a second guide, Terence McCloud, and she’s having him take the tour on back. She’ll be waiting for you. And I’ll warn you—she’s freaking out. She didn’t want to hang out by a corpse.”
“I’m on my way.”
He started back to the car without saying anything to Jane.
She followed him, slipping into the passenger seat as he held the door.
Once in the car, he turned to her. “This isn’t just a ride-along. It really means ride. The trail area where Heidi found the corpse is out back from where my home is. We’ll drive to my place and get the horses. You ride, don’t you?”
He hoped she’d say no.
“Yes, I ride.”
Of course she did.
He called Johnny Bearclaw as he drove, asking him to saddle Kanga and Roo.
“Kanga and Roo?” Jane asked as he rang off.
“I didn’t name them,” he said. “My grandfather got them from an old friend years ago. Kanga is a mare, Roo is her colt. They’re good horses,” he said briefly.
They were good horses. Despite that, over the years, one or the other of the two had lost a rider—they could turn so sharply. They never hurt anyone; riders just slid off.
He wondered if he was hoping she’d take a tumble...and not be able to come with him.
At his property, he walked around the house and straight to the stables, where Johnny had both horses saddled and ready to go.
Sloan introduced Johnny and Jane. They were cordial to each other, and Johnny smiled, honestly happy to meet Jane. She was easy and relaxed, and Sloan was forced to admit that he was the only one who seemed to be awkward with her.
She admired Kanga and Roo and, naturally, Johnny was pleased.
“We need to get moving,” Sloan said. “I’ll take Roo. Johnny, give Jane a hand up, will you?”
The horses were both seventeen hands tall. He swung up on Roo, leaving Jane to ride his beautiful grande dame. She tended to be a slightly smoother ride. Roo sometimes thought he was still a colt.
Jane politely accepted Johnny’s hand but straddled Kanga with agility. She knew how to ride, just as she’d said.
He kneed Roo, and they started off at a long, smooth lope to the rear of his property and onto the trails beyond that led through the foothills. She followed easily at his pace. A half mile into the ride, through desert, rocks and scraggly brush, they connected with the standard trail the stables used for their rides.
They passed one of the entrances to the old silver mines, then the Old Trading Post set up by the stables, where no one actually worked but a few vending machines could be found, and finally reached the Apache village the stables had created as a halfway point on the ride. Although the Apache had never lived in this little array of tepees, they’d set up some placards that accurately described life for Natives of the area; they’d also been hired to fashion the tepees and fireplaces, drying racks and weapon stands that formed the village.
He saw Heidi sitting forlornly on a rock near the placard that gave a history of Geronimo. She held her horse’s reins loosely and looked as if she was on the verge of tears.
“You’re here! Thank God! Oh, Sloan, you’re here!” she said, rising. Heidi was thirty-three, thin and athletic with short-cropped blond hair and dark brown eyes. An excellent rider, she often borrowed Roo when she entered barrel-racing competitions. Although Sloan had no interest in being part of a rodeo, he didn’t mind lending Heidi his horses. She was calm, assured and competent, not to mention friendly and garrulous—a great tour guide. She didn’t own the stables or the tour company, but she did the managing and scheduling.
He dismounted, aware that Jane was doing the same behind him.
“Heidi, you called 9-1-1? Where’s the body?”
“We’re right in the middle of no-road-ville. I’m assuming the med techs are coming by horse-drawn wagon. But I told them—oh, they were being ridiculous. They kept telling me to try emergency procedures, artificial respiration. Sloan, he’s dead. I mean, dead. I am not putting my lips on a corpse!”
“Heidi, they weren’t here. Their job is to save lives,” Sloan told her. “Where—”
“Over here, Sloan,” she interrupted, walking around behind another pile of rocks. She glanced back at Jane. “Uh, hello.”
“This is Agent Everett,” Sloan said.
“Oh, hi, nice to meet you. You’re the artist, right? You make faces out of skulls.”
“Something like that,” Jane said.
Sloan had reached the corpse. He stopped, staring at it incredulously.
As Heidi had reported, the corpse was just about mummified. Brown leathery skin stretched so tightly over the skull and bones that it seemed like an eerie caricature. A dusty old hat sat on the corpse, which was propped up against a rock almost as if he’d sat down to take a nap—and never awakened. He was dressed in dust-covered pants, an old shirt and a vest; it appeared that he’d been buried beneath the sand for years and dug up to sit on the trail.
“See! And they wanted me to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! Gross! He’s—I mean, he’s real, right?”
Sloan hunkered down to study the corpse more closely. Jane knelt beside him, studying the dead man in silence.
“The clothing is certainly old. Handmade, I think,” Jane said. “I’m not an expert on this, but it does look like the cloth is incredibly fragile—almost disintegrating—and that this man has been dead for years....”
Right. He might well have died around the time Sage McCormick disappeared—only to appear again in Lily as a skull more than a hundred years later. What the hell was going on here? Another macabre joke? Or were these dead showing up for a different reason?
“Who would do this?” Heidi demanded. “Who would dig up this poor guy and put him here? It’s so creepy! I can’t believe I stayed here waiting for you. I thought...I was so afraid he’d move. I never could have stayed if it was night!”
Sloan took a pen from his pocket and gingerly touched a darkened spot on the shirt. It was difficult to see clearly, but it seemed that the corpse had taken a slug in the chest.
“Poor fellow was shot a hell of a long time ago,” Jane noted.
Sloan felt a vibration and heard the rumbling of the horse-drawn wagon as it arrived on the scene. Two emergency techs jumped out of the covered wagon that was kept at the stables for emergencies in the desert. They could also bring helicopters, but most often, the wagon made its way to the desert. He knew many of the county techs but not all, and he didn’t know these two.
Sloan stood. The men approached, both of them staring at the corpse.
“Well,” the older one said.
“I told you I couldn’t revive him!” Heidi said.
“This is a waste of time for us,” the younger man said. He looked at Sloan. “I’m sorry, I mean...well, this is unusual.”
“Why did no one believe me when I said dead, dead as a doornail?” Heidi asked.
“Heidi, sometimes people think they’ve found a dead person when people are unconscious or in a coma. We always try to hope for life first,” Sloan said. He introduced himself and Jane, and the med techs did the same.
“I don’t know what protocol is here,” the older man, who’d introduced himself as Gavin Bendle, said. “I get the feeling this guy’s been dug up as some kind of a joke. I almost feel as if...we should just rebury him here. No muss, no fuss.”
“I say bring him to the medical examiner’s office. They can make the call there,” Sloan said. “You’ve already got the wagon out. I’m sure historians and anthropologists will want to examine the corpse before...before he’s reburied, I guess.”
“This is Lily,” the younger man, Joe Rodriguez, murmured.
Sloan laughed. “Right. And the town has no morgue. Our dead go to the county.”
“Can I go back?” Heidi asked hopefully.
No one answered her. They were all staring at the corpse.
“I’m afraid to try to move it,” Joe admitted.
“Might break,” Gavin agreed.
“Maybe we should get some kind of scientist out here,” Joe said.
“Maybe I could go back?” Heidi asked again.
Sloan turned to Heidi. “Of course. I’ll get a formal statement from you later.”
“A formal statement?” Heidi repeated. “I took out a trail ride. I saw this corpse sitting here. I called it in. That’s my formal statement.”
“He’s pointing,” Jane said suddenly.
“What?” Sloan asked.
“See how his hand is lying there? It looks as if someone arranged him so his fingers are pointing...in that direction,” she said.
She rose, walking in the direction in which the fingers pointed.
Sloan followed her. He didn’t see anything at first. Neither did Jane. She seemed perplexed.
“He’s definitely pointing this way,” she said.
“The tepee,” Sloan suggested. The tepee that stood a few feet from him was real; it just hadn’t ever been lived in by an Apache. Sloan ducked down and entered. There were cold ashes where a central fire would have burned. Indian blankets were rolled against the sides, and old cooking utensils had been set up as if ready for use.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Then Sloan realized he was breathing in a scent he’d learned all too well over the years.
The scent of death.
He walked toward one of the blankets and tugged at it.
A corpse rolled out.
He felt Jane behind him. She didn’t scream, but behind her, Heidi let out a terrified yelp. “Oh, my God! It’s another dead man!”
Gavin and Joe came in behind her.
“No!” Heidi said. “Oh, God!”
“It’s a fresh one,” Gavin muttered.
And so it was.
They had an old corpse....
Pointing the way to a new one.
What the hell was going on in Lily?