Carnosaur Crimes (30 page)

Ansel agreed. “You mean that Abernathy didn't want Dawes or his Indian heirs to ever come back in the future and say that the property belonged to them.”

“Exactly. And proof of the first Dawes Land Patent didn't seem to exist until I found it misfiled in the BLM archives. To tell the truth, I was lucky to find it at all.”

“Do you think the BLM knows the truth about the property's history and is attempting to hide it?” Ansel asked aghast.

“I can't accuse the whole agency of that, but the defective, amended Land Patent renders the Abernathy-Dover, and BLM contracts null and void. Technically, the Dawes Land Patent still stands. The property legally belongs to Robert Dawes and his living heirs,” Noah concluded.

Ansel frowned. “And so if the BLM never owned the land, they can't lease it. That”s going to be quite a shot in the gut for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't bode well for the Big Toe town council either. They can't lease something from someone who can't lease it to them.”

“True, but it gives the council a bargaining edge. They may be able to recoup their investment in the museum remodel, plus past lease payments, business expenses, and museum revenues. They contracted with the BLM in good faith and may have been a victim of federal incompetency or outright fraud. It's not what you were looking for, but it's definitely going to save the dinosaur tracks.”

Ansel sighed, then had a thought. “Could you find Dawes' living heirs?”

“Not me personally, but I have resources at my disposal that could. Why?”

“It's some helpful information I can hand the town council along with the bad news.”

“All right. I'll see what I can do if you mention my name and number to the town council. I would be very interested in representing them in any legal pursuits,” Noah unabashedly announced. “This kind of governmental tomfoolery gets my dander up.”

“Agreed. Great job. I'll get back to you in a few days”

“Please wish Chase a fast recovery for me. Goodbye, Ansel.”

Ansel pushed the cell into her pocket just as Pearl flew out the ICU doorway, her eyes wide. “Ansel, come quickly,” she rasped.

Fear galvanized Ansel's body, and she could barely speak. “Daddy?”

Pearl grinned. “Lordy, yes. He opened his eyes and he's asking for you.”

Chapter 39

“Stolen food never satisfies hunger.”

Omaha

Ansel guided Chunky through the small cottonwood stand, then halted him with a tug on the reigns. The swollen Red Water River lay directly in front of her, and across the bend was the Big Toe Natural History Museum. Water sped along the riverbed. Today was the first morning in three days without showers, though the sky was leaden and full to bursting with low tumbling clouds. More runoff and the river would overflow completely. It didn't matter. She had to cross it before the sun was up and someone saw her.

Nothing had changed on the BLM land except the terrain was soggy, and green shoots of prairie grass peeked out amidst the brittle, brown vegetation. Otherwise, the museum was still closed, and the fence still chained and locked. Ranger Eastover had told her during the airplane rescue that Broderick would be gone by now, but she didn't want to get the woman in trouble by getting caught on restricted property a second time.

Because she risked arrest, Ansel had opted to approach the land on horseback via a more circumspect route. This isolated, adjacent property was U.S. Forestry land and publically accessible if you knew how to find it. Her truck hauling an Arrowhead horse trailer was secreted behind the cottonwoods and invisible to anyone across the river.

Ansel kicked her heels against the buckskin's ribs, and he paced forward obediently. There was no incline leading into the river, just a sudden line of agitated water flowing speedily along. It was probably about ten feet in the middle of the hundred-foot wide crossing. Not optimum conditions, but quite doable with a fast swimming horse, Ansel reckoned. Chunky got one hoof into the river and stopped.

“Hup, Chunky,” she urged, tapping her heels against his barrel body.

He didn't budge, just stood with ears pricked and nostrils flaring as he sniffed in muddy water scents. Ansel knew he wasn't scared. He'd be swinging his head from side to side or backing up if that were the case. Chunky was an experienced water crosser. He was being ornery.

Ansel turned Chunky away from the river. She purposely walked him all the way back to the cottonwood line, then cantered him down to the riverbank again at another angle and place so he could view the waterway from a second perspective before going in.

This worked. Chunky went straight into the cold water without hesitation and plunged forward when the bank dropped off into deep waters. Foamy waves slapped against his broad chest as his legs kicked against the current trying to tug them downstream.

Water coursed up to Ansel's hips and a tiny bell of alarm went off in her head. The old primal fears wanted to run rampant, and she herded them back by concentrating on getting the horse across safely. A week ago she could never have accomplished this feat, and a sense of pride welled in her chest. She was in command of her phobia for the first time in her life.

They reached the other bank and Chunky got his footing, confidently pulling his weight onto the rocky incline. Streams of water poured off Ansel and the saddle as they hit land. It splattered loudly on the flooded sandstone ledge. Ansel halted Chunky and peered down. The dinosaur tracks were near them but under three inches of swirling, opaque water. She couldn't see them at all.

A couple of heel taps and Chunky cantered over the incline onto the slightly mushy grassland. In seconds Ansel had reached her destination – the Allosaurus sculpture. She positioned Chunky sideways to the dinosaur's chest and leaned over the saddle to inspect its bumpy, dark brown-black skin. With the buckskin's added fifteen hands of height to her upper body length, she was staring eye-level at the model's lower chest, its clawed forearms just above her.

The puncture she'd noticed before on the pebbly skin wasn't easy to see because the area had been badly charred. Only sunlight glinting off silver that she'd previously seen from exactly the right angle had given it away. It would have been easy for the forensics team to miss it.

Ansel pulled a pen-knife from her jean pocket and used the swivel blade to dig at the ashy crust of melted rubber. When she pried deeper into the fiberglass undercore, her blade struck something solid. She continued to enlarge the hole and exposed silver metal. It was wedged in good, and it took her a while to realize that the metallic blob was of much larger diameter inside the Fiberglass than out. Eventually, she released the large-headed object, and it fell into her hand.

It was a bullet. One of those wicked jacketed types with expanding heads that could penetrate almost anything and lodge deep inside flesh without leaving an exit wound. The head had mushroomed outward from the lower cylinder portion, leaving a jagged-edged pedestal of metal. She guessed it to be a forty caliber, barrel loader type of ammunition suitable for revolvers, and it created more questions than answers.

Who had fired the bullet and why? What did it have to do with Noble Dawes' attempt to steal the fossil tracks and the potential theft of his ancestors' land? Everyone believed that the Indian's death was caused by the rupturing propane tank. Were they wrong?

Ansel pushed the bullet into her pocket, reigned Chunky over to the riverbank, then stopped on the fossil ledge. Water gurgled around Chunky's hooves. She still couldn't see the tracks, but in her mind's eye she remembered the terrible two-foot long saw cut as she'd originally seen it.

She'd attributed the other disfigurements and pock marks along the ledge as the result of flying shrapnel. There had been only that one narrow and whitish, skidding chip that looked peculiar. In retrospect, she imagined it was just the sort of mark that a high velocity bullet skidding across stone might make.

Ansel looked behind her. It wasn't that far from the ledge to the sculpture. She looked across the river toward the cottonwoods. It was entirely possible that somebody hiding in those trees had fired a shot toward the ledge which ricocheted and hit the Allosaurus. Despite so much rain, she needed to search the cottonwoods for sign of earlier disturbances or human activity.

Ansel nudged Chunky, and they entered the river again. In less than two minutes, they had crossed the waterway and were on solid land. This time the cold waters chilled her to the bone and wearing weighty, water-laden clothing didn't help. She needed to change into some spare clothes stashed in the truck and warm up, but first she'd check the tree line for clues.

As she walked Chunky through the first compact growth of cottonwoods, she heard the unmistakable click of a cocking gun to her left side. In an instant, she yanked Chunky to a halt and peered anxiously in that direction.

Agent Broderick, out of uniform, was standing beside them with a revolver gripped in his right hand and a Cheshire Cat grin plastered across his face. Several thoughts spun through Ansel's head. First, every time she turned around, somebody was pointing a gun at her. Second, her Colt pistol was in the truck, though she doubted a gunfight with Broderick would be advisable, especially since he had a short rifle scope attached to the firearm barrel. Bolting wasn't an option at the moment.

“Get off the horse,” Broderick ordered without preamble.

“You have no authority here,” Ansel challenged. “This is public forestry land.”

His grin morphed into a lethal scowl. “Don't start your Indian princess bullshit with me.”

Ansel tightened her grip on the reins and Chunky's ears flattened against his head. Broderick's rough tone wasn't sitting well with the gelding. “What's your problem? You're not even supposed to be here.”

Broderick leveled the gun at her chest. “I saw you across the river. You've been trespassing on BLM land.”

It was her turn to smile. “You mean Indian land. In case you didn't know it, I've found out that parcel has legitimately belonged to a Crow Indian family since eighteen eighty-seven. Somebody messed up with the land sales since then. The Bureau doesn't have any rights to that parcel. You're going to find out all about it tomorrow. I've made sure of that.”

Broderick actually stepped back from her in utter shock, but the revolver was still poised in her direction. “Shit,” he hissed. “I can't believe you did this to me. Everything I've planned for months was about to gel, and you've blown it. All your God damned snooping. I should have gotten rid of you when I had the chance,” he raged, his face turning redder by the second.

Ansel watched his accelerating anger with amazement. She didn't know what he was talking about. Unless...

“You know about the land? My God, you were the one that tried to hide the original Dawes Land Patent records in the state BLM files. But why?”

“Because it was my ticket to bigger things. I found out about the property months ago. I even went to Noble Dawes and told him about it,” Broderick seethed. “I tried to help both of us. Him to get what was rightfully his and me to share in his good fortune. I would have been a media hit and gotten a good promotion to boot.”

“This was all about a better job?” Ansel asked with disgust.

“A great job. We're talking about a BLM promotion to state director. I deserve it, but do you think Noble appreciated my information. No, all that has-been, rodeo clown wanted was revenge. Some sort of Indian justice. He focused on the dinosaur tracks and saw dollar signs. I just helped him along with that idea to keep him quiet.”

Ansel racked her brains for a means of escape as she talked. “So you gave him the concrete saw and the goggles and sent him off to vandalize the museum property. All the while you were planning to shoot him from these cottonwoods across the river.”

“I didn't have to shoot him. I just had to hit the ledge and make a spark. The propane tank was rigged to leak. Made it look like some horrible accident blowing a thieving jerk to bits, which is essentially what he was.”

“Did you use that revolver?”

Broderick's left hand grabbed the Chunky's reins near the bridle, and the horse shook its head unhappily as he moved next to Ansel's side. The bore hole of the agent's gun came closer, too. It was only inches from her thigh.

“Do you know what a platinum tip hollow point does to bone this close up, Miss Phoenix? Not to mention that it will go through your body and into your horse's belly. I saw you at the dinosaur. Give me the bullet you found or I'll give you the one in this barrel.”

“I have to reach into my jeans to get it.”

Broderick sneered. “Go ahead, but do it slow.”

She pried open her right pocket and pulled out the slug. Reluctantly, she passed it to his open hand. Her leg muscles tensed.

“Good girl.” He stepped away, gun pointed toward her chest again. “Now dismount on my side of the horse.”

Ansel adjusted her seat as if to swing her opposite leg loose of the stirrup and dismount beside Broderick, then instantaneously changed tactics, freeing her left foot from the stirrup instead. Her sideways kick was well aimed. Her boot heel hit Broderick square in the groin. He dropped the gun, grabbed his genitals with his right hand, bullet and all, then bellowed in rage and pain at the same time. His left-handed grip on Chunky's reins, however, remained intact.

One hard kick on the horse's side by Ansel sent Chunky bolting forward, but Broderick didn't release his hold. He was yanked along with the gelding in a half-run, half-drag skid across the cottonwood copse as he fought to maintain his balance.

Ansel urged Chunky to pick up speed through the timber and lashed at Broderick's face with the reins in an effort to make him let go. Broderick was tenacious – grunting, cursing, and trying to pull her out of the saddle. For several yards, progress was slow as they both ducked low-hanging limbs and got whipped or slashed by leafy limbs.

Ahead, Ansel saw a humongous pile of dead fall blocking Chunky's path. They couldn't possibly jump it, and there was no way to go around given their blind plunge through the tree stand with a two-hundred pound man leeched onto the side. The decision of what to do became moot as Chunky saw the debris and bucked to an immediate stop, front legs locked rigid and hooves shoveling up dirt in a death-defying slide.

The world spun as Ansel flew over Chunky's head in a free-flight roll. She landed hard on the dead fall with a sharp cracking sound that she thought might be her spine. When the dust settled, she realized that she was lying flat on her back and relatively unhurt except for more bruises. The soft, rotten debris had actually saved her from serious harm.

Ansel lifted her head and stared past her boots. Broderick had regained his composure and looked furious as he approached her, hands fisted into grapefruit-sized knots of bone. He was going to kill her with his bare hands.

“Freeze,” screamed a male voice from behind Broderick. “or I'll shoot.”

Ansel's eyes scoured the trees. She couldn't see anyone, but there was no way she could miss the withering look Broderick gave her before grabbing Chunky's reins. He was going to make a run for it. As he attempted to manhandle the gelding into a position where he could quickly mount, Chunky threw back his ears and rolled his eyes. A keening neigh echoed through the cottonwoods before Chunky whipped his head around and bit Broderick on the shoulder. This time the crunch of bone was very real. Broderick screamed and dropped to the ground as a torrent of blood gushed from his wound.

Suddenly, a handful of men wearing camo SWAT gear swarmed through the trees. One of the men bearing an assault rifle reached Broderick first and, after assessing that the target was down and unarmed, relinquished his weapon to bend down and attend the fallen man.

“Are you all right, Ma'am?” asked another husky officer as he helped Ansel up from the dead fall.

“I'm fine. Are you from the Sheriff's Department?” She hoped momentarily that Reid would be there soon.

“No. I'm Agent Farmer. DOI. We came in to find you.”

“The Department of Interior?”

“That's right,” replied another voice behind her. “I sent them.”