The Rancher's Daughters

He followed her back through the living room and foyer and out to the crime scene. Except for the cordon tape and markers, it was just a hole.

“I’d think it was ready for a hot tub if it wasn’t in the front yard,” Donovan tried to joke.

She, apparently, didn’t think he was funny.

“So, what are we going to do first?” he queried. She didn’t answer, just stood looking down at where the skeleton used to be.

The whole thing spooked Donovan somewhat. He just wished he could, in good conscience, fill the hole back in. Without meaning to, he stepped too close to the edge of the hole so a few kernels of dirt fell back into the grave.

Emily’s eyes grew big.

“What?”

“I can’t help but think of Ecclesiastes and ‘the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.’”

He nodded, thinking she was a whole lot more connected to the earth and to family than he was.

“Just think,” she said softly, “some mother, wife, sister, daughter, might be waiting for the return of a man who no longer lives. He’s been buried in this shallow grave and forgotten.” She never ceased to surprise him. Compassion was a trait he knew he needed to develop.

“The only clue to his identity,” she continued, “a knife that looks identical to one my father owns, down to the initials.”

“A knife your father still has,” Donovan reminded her. It somewhat amazed him that their roles had switched, and now he wanted to stop work and help her. The woman whose job it was to ruin his day, either by producing a five-page petition with the names of Apache Creek residents who didn’t want their view marred by a minimansion, or by going to her knees next to what could have been the ancient bones of a Native American, claiming there might be more and gloating that she’d be here a long time.

He almost wished it had been a Native American skeleton. Then, her father wouldn’t be under suspicion.

“It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” she muttered.

“Hey, I grew up on a dairy farm in Mytal, Nebraska. I know a lot about haystacks. I know which cow needs to maintain her weight, and where to spread the hay, and—” For the past two months, she’d been a thorn in his side always ready to battle. He liked that Emily better. This dejected one was out of character. Still, his attempt to encourage her didn’t seem to be working.

Her expression was so serious that he knew he had to help. It surprised him, the sudden need. “I watched the authorities all last week. I know where they looked and where they didn’t.”

It took her a moment. He watched as she inhaled, a big breath that seemed to fill her. Then she drew herself up to her full height and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

John Westerfield chose that moment to make the mistake of coming outside to see what they were doing. Donovan should have texted him and warned, Avoid front of house until I call you.

“You can help,” Emily informed John, running to her truck and retrieving trash bags that she quickly handed out.

“She’s always been a bit high maintenance,” John said.

Donovan believed him. For the next two hours, they walked a square mile, what Emily called a grid, slowly. She told them to pick up anything that didn’t belong, anything suspicious. He doubted the old shoe, candy wrappers, beer can or piece of tire he’d stowed in his garbage bag was going to help.

John’s contribution was a page from an old newspaper, ripped in half, and a dozen bullet casings, which he wanted to keep.

Her cache wasn’t much better. She also had candy wrappers, plus ten beer cans, what appeared to be a section of tarp and thirty-five cents.

Still, she looked quite happy.

When she drove away, he realized he’d only seen her smile twice, when she first saw the bones and now leaving with her trash.

He slowly walked back to the Baer house. He understood ceramic tile more than he did women.

* * *

Tuesday morning, Emily got to the museum early. She had a lot to do. At the trustees meeting, she’d been encouraged to plan some kind of activity to get people to the museum, similar to the library’s celebration of its sixtieth birthday this coming Saturday.

She knew for a fact that the library had more funding than she did—maybe because they made money on overdue books.

She also knew that unless she got more private funding, the museum would be in danger of closing down. Her biggest enemy was its location. The Lost Dutchman Museum was part of eighty acres of land and only this tiny portion had been donated to the city. The rest belonged to the Pearl Ranch, and Emily didn’t know the Pearl who still owned the land. He or she didn’t live in Apache Creek, hadn’t in decades.

After walking the museum’s main room and ascertaining that all was well, she sat at her computer and researched other museums in Arizona. Comparatively, she curated at a very small one. Most of the museums that had special events were bigger, and in every case those events called for bringing exhibits from other museums in. The Lost Dutchman Museum was so tiny that lending a small Salado bowl was really something. She’d only be able to ask for something small in return.

That wouldn’t generate visitors.

If she were to have some sort of event, it had to be museum themed.

Unlocking the door, she flipped the sign to Open and wished there were a line waiting.

Back at her computer, she checked emails. Some were from college students who’d been passed her name by their professors. She answered a few questions and for the others, she provided names of people who could help.

Two people queried about job openings.

She managed not to laugh.

The Heard Museum sent her a photo of her Salado bowl. It looked lost among the others being displayed.

At the end of more than three dozen emails came a query that surprised her. In the United States there were very few museums that centered only on Native American artifacts. Her final email was from the curator at the Native American Heritage Museum, asking if she was looking for work and included a job description that advertised a salary three times larger than what she was making in Apache Creek.

Not wanting to be rude, she sent a thank-you.

Not even for three times the money did she intend to move. Apache Creek was in her blood, and her blood lived in Apache Creek.

With that, she looked up and smiled at the museum’s first visitor of the day.

Six hours later, at four, she closed and locked the door. On the computer, she filled in the daily accounts, entering the number of visitors, what souvenirs sold—the Lost Dutchman Gold Map was the top seller, followed by pens shaped like a pickax—and her hours.

Then she headed home.

“You working the floor tonight?” Elise queried her at the front desk. Emily’s whole life she’d walked through a dude ranch front desk and down a hallway to where the family lived. The family was getting smaller, though, with Eva, and soon Elise, moving.

Granted, both weren’t moving far.

“Yes.”

“I rented out two of the cabins as well as one of the rooms. I expect we’ll be a little busier tonight. Did Sam call and say if anything you found yesterday while walking the Baer place was helpful?”

“No, he hasn’t called.”

Elise shook her head. “I spent a long time talking with Cook. He has no clue if he attended the Prescott Rodeo all those years ago. He says they all blur together after a while.”

“Probably for Dad, too. What year would that have been? Did Dad remember?”

“He says nineteen seventy-eight or nine.”

“Sounds about right. Dad would have been in his twenties.” Emily took off down the hallway. On each side were photos. A few were of a twenty-something Jacob. Her favorite showed him on a horse in full gallop heading for the camera. His hat was on, but you could see his longish hair breezing from the sides. He leaned forward slightly. His face was mostly in shadow, but no one could fail to notice its beauty.

She’d said that once to her dad, almost to the very word.

Men aren’t beautiful, he’d responded.

Mom thought you were beautiful, Eva had piped up. If Emily remembered, that had been the year Eva went off to the university, driving back and forth every day to Tempe because she couldn’t bear to leave the ranch.

Elise and Emily were a little more willing to spread their wings, but both had flown back.

In a matter of minutes, Emily was out of her museum shirt and khakis and into her blue Lost Dutchman Ranch shirt and jeans with a black apron tried around her waist.

The dining room was at the back of the main house. Picnic tables held guests, visitors and employees. The atmosphere was meant to be fun and relaxed. They did not serve a four-star meal. Tonight’s menu was barbecue pork, beans and potato chips. All homemade by Cook, who’d traveled with Jacob on the rodeo and retired at an early age to work at the Lost Dutchman. His specialty was Mexican food, but actually there wasn’t a food type he couldn’t produce.

Meals were served buffet style with only one server walking around, taking orders, and making sure all the guests had what they needed.

At the back of the restaurant was a game room, mostly a kids’ area, complete with a television for watching movies or playing video games. This late in June, as hot as it was, they didn’t get many kids.

An hour into her shift, Emily’s cell sounded. She took it out and checked the screen: Jane de la Rosa. Looking around, she noted her dad sitting at his favorite table with one of the families who’d checked in today—strangers becoming friends—and Jilly Greenhouse, who lived in the house closest to the Lost Dutchman Ranch. Ducking into the kids’ game room, she answered.

“You’ll never guess! Never,” Jane said.

“Aren’t you working?”

“Yes, though we’re pretty slow tonight.” Jane worked at the Miner’s Lamp, the rustic restaurant in town. It had been around even longer than the Lost Dutchman Ranch.

“What do you want me to guess?”

“I waited on a man tonight. He’s still here. He’s an EPA inspector out of Phoenix—don’t ask me what EPA stands for—who came to check some sort of levels at the Baer house.”

“Okay...” Emily tried to figure why this was news. Since the groundbreaking, Donovan had had one inspector after another at the Baer place.

“Well, I heard this guy on the phone. I guess the levels of something called radon gas were high.”

“And that’s bad?” Emily queried.

“Bad enough that when Donovan called Baer with the news, Baer apparently said to halt construction.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe for good,” Jane said. “The inspector was on the phone with his boss. He sounded a bit surprised. I’m wondering if Baer’s getting fed up. I mean first it’s you protesting, then it’s a skeleton and now this.”

Emily should have felt elated, should have jumped for joy, but all she could picture was the brown-haired man who’d walked in the hot sun for hours picking up an old shoe and plenty of beer cans just because she’d asked him to.

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