Devil's Claw (49 page)

Abruptly, Kelly Martindale sat down. After that, Mrs. Lambert saw to it that the evening turned into the usual kind of campfire high jinks. There were games and songs and even an impromptu skit. Finally, a little after ten, she told the girls it was time for lights out and sent them off to their tents.

“It’s so early to go to bed,” Dora muttered, as she and Jenny approached their tent. “I never go to bed at ten o’clock. I’m going for a walk.”

“You can’t do that,” Jenny said. “You’ll get in trouble.”

“Who’s going to tell?” Dora demanded. “You? Besides, I need a cigarette. If I smoke it here, Mrs. Lambert or those two snooty college girls who think they’re so rad might smell the smoke and make me put it out because I might start a fire or something. You wanna come along?”

Jenny was torn. On the one hand, she didn’t want to get in trouble. On the other hand, she wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet, either. Not only that, their tent seemed to be far enough away from the others, that it was possible no one would notice if they crept out for a little while.

“I’ll go,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “But first we’d better climb into our bedrolls and pretend like we’re going to sleep.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll bet Mrs. Lambert will come around to check on us, that’s why.”

“Okay,” Dora grumbled. “We’ll do it your way.”

It turned out Jenny was right. Ten minutes after they lay down on their bedrolls, they heard the stealthy rustle of shoe leather approaching through dry grass. Moments later, the light from a flashlight flickered on the outside of the tent.

“Everybody tucked in?” Faye Lambert asked.

“Tucked in,” Jenny returned. With the tent flap closed, the stench of Dora’s body odor was almost more than Jenny could bear. She could hardly wait for their leader to go away so they could slip back out into the open air.

“Well, good night then,” Mrs. Lambert said. “I’ve made out the duty roster. The two of you will be cleaning up after breakfast. Is that all right?”

“It’s fine,” Dora told her. “I’m better at cleaning up than I am at cooking.”

The lantern light disappeared. Jenny listened to the sound of Mrs. Lambert’s retreating footsteps and then to the slight squeak as the door to the motor home opened and closed. Kelly Martindale and Amber Summers were sleeping in their own two-man tent. Mrs. Lambert would spend the night in the motor home.

“Shall we go then?” Dora demanded.

“Wait a few minutes longer,” Jenny cautioned.

Ten minutes later, the two girls cautiously raised the flap on their tent and let themselves out. Walking as silently as possible, they slipped off through the scrub oak. While waiting in the tent, their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. Once outside, they found the moonlight overhead surprisingly bright. Walking in the moon’s silvery glow, they easily worked their way over the near edge of the basin. Within minutes they were totally out of sight of the other campers. At that point, Dora sank down on a rock and pulled two cigarettes out of the pocket of her denim jacket.

“Want one?” she asked.

Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Come on,” Dora urged. “What are you, chicken? Afraid your mom will find out and put you in jail?”

For the second time that evening, Jenny was aware of the burden of being the sheriff’s daughter. She wanted nothing more than to be accepted as a regular kid. This dare, made by someone she couldn’t stand, was more than Jennifer Ann Brady could resist. “Okay,” she said impulsively. “Give me one. Where do you get them?” she asked, as Dora pulled out a lighter. She lit her own cigarette first, then she lit Jenny’s.

“I steal them from my mother’s purse,” Dora admitted, inhaling deeply. “She smokes so much that she never misses them long as I only take a few at a time.”

Jenny took a few tentative puffs, holding the smoke in her mouth and then blowing it out again. Even that was enough to make her eyes water.

“That’s not how you do it,” Dora explained. “You’re supposed to inhale—breathe the smoke into your lungs—like this.”

She sucked a drag of smoke into her lungs, held it there, and then blew it out in a graceful plume. Jenny’s game effort at imitation worked, but only up to a point. Moments later she found herself bent over, choking and gagging.

“You’re not going to barf, are you?” Dora Matthews demanded.

“I think so,” Jenny managed.

“Well give me your cigarette, then. Don’t let it go to waste.”

Jenny handed over the burning cigarette. Embarrassed, she stumbled away from where Dora sat, heaving as she went. Twenty yards farther on, she bent over a bush and let go. In the process she lost all her popcorn and Orange Crush from the campfire along with the lunch Eva Lou Brady had packed for her ever so carefully. Finally, when there was nothing left, Jenny lurched over to a nearby tree and stood there, leaning against the trunk, gasping and shivering and wishing she had some water so she could get the awful taste out of her mouth.

“Are you all right?” Dora asked from behind her. She was still smoking one of the two cigarettes. The smell of the smoke was almost enough to make Jenny heave again, but she managed to stave off the urge.

“I’m all right,” she said shakily.

“You’ll be okay,” Dora told her. “The same thing happened to me the first time I tried it. You want an Altoid? I always keep some around so Grandma can’t smell the smoke on my breath.”

With shaking hands, Jenny gratefully accepted the proffered breath mint. “Thanks,” she said and meant it.

The two girls stood there together for some time, while Jenny sucked on the breath mint and Dora finished smoking the rest of the remaining cigarette. When it was gone, Dora carefully ground out the butt with the sole of her shoe. “I wouldn’t want to start a fire,” she said with a laugh. “Somebody might notice. Then we would be in trouble.”

They were quiet for a time. The only sound was the distant yip of a coyote answered by another from even farther away. Then, for the first time that evening, a slight breeze stirred around them, blowing up into their faces from the valley floor below. As the small gust blew away the last of the dissipating cigarette smoke, Jenny noticed that another odor had taken its place.

“There’s something dead out there,” she announced.

“Dead,” Dora repeated. “How do you know?”

Jennifer Ann Brady had lived on a ranch all her life. She recognized the distinctively ugly odor of carrion.

“Because I can smell it, that’s how,” Jenny returned.

The slight softening in Dora’s voice when she had offered the Altoid disappeared at once. “You’re just saying that to scare me, Jennifer Brady!” Dora declared. “You think that because they were saying all that stuff about Apaches killing people and all, that you can spook me or something.”

“No, I’m not,” Jenny insisted. “Don’t you smell it?”

“Smell what?” Dora shot back. “I don’t smell anything.”

Jennifer Brady had seen enough animal carcasses along the road and out on the ranch that she wasn’t the least bit scared of them, but she could tell from Dora’s voice that the other girl was. It was a way of evening the score for the cigarettes—a way of reclaiming a little of her own lost dignity.

“Come on,” Jenny said. “I’ll show you.”

Without waiting to see whether or not Dora would follow, Jenny set off. The breeze was still blowing uphill, and Jenny walked directly into it. After watching for a moment or two, Dora Matthews reluctantly followed. With each step, the odor grew stronger and stronger.

“Ugh,” Dora protested at last. “Now I smell it, too. It’s awful.”

Their path had taken them up and over the ridge that formed one side of the basin where the troop had set up camp. Now, the girls walked downhill until they were almost back at the road that had brought them up into the basin. And there, visible in the moonlight and at the bottom of the embankment that fell down from the graded road lay the body of a naked woman.

“Oh, my God,” Dora groaned. “Is she dead?”

Jenny’s neck prickled as hair on the back of it stood on end. “Of course she’s dead,” she said, wheeling around. “Now come on. We have to go tell Mrs. Lambert.”

“We can’t do that,” Dora wailed. “What if Mrs. Lambert finds out about the cigarettes? We’ll both be in trouble then.”

Jenny was worried about the same thing, but the threat of getting in trouble wasn’t enough to stop her. Neither was Dora Matthews.

“Too bad,” Jenny called over her shoulder. “I’m going to tell anyway. Somebody’s going to have to call my mom.”

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