Heart Of Gold (18 page)

“Do
you have to call the cops?” Cort asked.

Buddy
nodded. “Even though these look like old bones and we have a permit to dig
on this site, we'll need to have the state police come and confirm this isn't a
crime scene. If this proves to be a Native American burial ground, which is
unlikely given the lack of ceremonial artifacts so far, we'd also tell the
appropriate tribal authorities. I'll go get on the horn right now.”

As Buddy
left for camp, Cort came in for a closer look. “How long ago did he
die?”

Carter
cocked her head as she considered the bones. “Going by the look of the
bone and the composition of the soil, which was deep and seemed undisturbed,
I'd say it was a long time ago. I'd also guess he'd been buried.”

“Buried?”

“I
suspect further excavation will show this to be a shallow grave. Someone either
killed him or found him dead and rolled the body into a hole.”

“Creepy,”
Ellie murmured. “What are you going to do now?”

“Nothing
until the state police get here. It's tough not to keep digging though. I'm
really curious to learn more about this man. Hopefully, we'll be able to find
some clues to his identity.”

“Don't
hold your breath for a driver's license,” Cort said wryly.

Carter
smiled. “Buttons, buckles, bullets, and coins will tell us a lot if we
find them. If he's as old as I think he is, anything cloth or leather would
have mostly rotted away, but the metal hangs around. Maybe we'll get lucky and
find something personal.”

She
thought of Winship's cross.

To
Carter's surprise and delight, it wasn't long until Ivan showed up at the site
with two state policemen. They were strapping young men, dressed in gray
uniforms, and they seemed to know Ivan really well. The staties made a thorough
but expedient review of the find and declared that the dig could proceed.

“Thanks
for coming so quickly,” Carter said as they were about to leave.”I was
thrilled you got here so soon."

The
taller of the two smiled at her. “We'd do anything for Mr. Farrell. We
take care of our own.”

Her
curiosity must have shown on her face because he explained, “I’m Gertie
McNutt's nephew's kid and my partner's Ivan's second cousin once removed."

“We're
just one big family up in these parts,” the other officer said. “Say,
you think you're going to find any other skeletons?”

She
shrugged. “Maybe. I hope so.”

“And
what about the gold?” The guy's eyes lit up. “We've been hearing
about that fortune all our lives. How it's up here somewhere.”

Carter
smiled. “Who knows? I'm really more interested in the people.”

“Have
you seen Red Hawk?”

The man's
partner rolled his eyes. “Come on, McNutt, of course there's hawks up
here.”

“I
mean the Indian. My grandmother always said that Red Hawk haunts the Farrell
peaks. During the day he flies in the form of a bird, but at night he comes as
a ghost. I remember hearing stories about people coming up to this site and getting
scared away by him. He doesn't like visitors, apparently.”

“Aw,
leave it will you?” The taller one offered Carter a wink. “You just
call if you find anyone else. We'll come running.”

Carter
thanked them again and waved as they left.

“They
were nice,” she said to Buddy. When she looked over at him, she was
surprised at the frown on his face. “What's the matter with you?”

“No
one told me about a ghost.”

“Aw,
come on. You don't believe in that kind of stuff, do you?”

“Maybe
I do.”

Ellie
laughed. “C.C., don't get him started. He'll have nightmares.”

Buddy
shot his daughter a mock glare. After Ellie and Cort ambled over to where
Carter had been digging before, he dropped his voice.

“Seriously,
I've noticed that someone's been walking around camp at night. There are fresh
tracks in the mornings.”

Carter
frowned while a stab of fear went through her. “Are you sure you know what
to look for?”

Her
friend shrugged. “Just keep on your toes. No telling who's roaming this
mountain.”

Carter
was feeling disturbed as they all settled down with their shovels and their
buckets. Soon, however, the find captured her full attention. Working steadily
until the light dimmed, and pausing only to photograph her progress, she peeled
away the skeleton's blanket of sweet-smelling earth. When she'd exposed the
area from his feet all the way up to his sternum, she stopped. It was getting
difficult to see and she was cramping up from her efforts. Besides, she didn't
want to reveal the man's skull to the night. It just didn't seem right. He'd
had enough darkness and deserved to be welcomed out of his rest by daylight.

Carter
put her shovel and her brushes aside and surveyed her work with satisfaction.
There were indications that the skeleton was from the Revolutionary period.
She'd found brass buttons interspersed among the ribs and vertebra which
indicated the man had been a British soldier. They were lucky he'd been buried
in his uniform.

“Bones
are in good shape, aren't they,” Buddy commented.

“He
is a fine one,” she agreed, getting to her feet.

“So,
what do you know?”

“The
pelvic bone confirms it was a male and the metallurgic finds suggest he was a
Brit. There's evidence here,” she leaned in and pointed to a part of the
rib cage, “that he may have died of a stabbing. Either knife or bayonet.
The rib pattern is disrupted and you can see several bones broken in a manner
consistent with that kind of trauma.”

Ellie and
Cort wandered over.

“Did
I heard something about a stabbing?” the girl asked.

Carter
nodded. “It appears as if he might have—"

“Been
murdered?” Cort interjected.

“Died
by knife wound.”

“Then
he could have been murdered. By the Indian,” he prompted urgently.

“You
need a heck of a leap to get to that conclusion.”

“But
he was a British soldier, you said so. And from the Revolutionary period. So he
could have been one of General Farnsworth's men.” The kid was
growing more excited with every word. “Maybe the gold's around here,
too.”

“Perhaps.
But right now, we need to focus on what we've found. Will you grab that tarp?
We better get him covered up.”

Cort
brought over a stretch of blue plastic, and they covered the exposed skeleton,
nailing the corners into the ground with stakes.

“I
wonder if he'll start haunting us because we disturbed him,” Ellie said
softly.

“You
don't have to be afraid,” Cort reassured her. “From all the stories
I've heard, the dead don't hurt anyone. They just kind of float around.”

“Actually,
I was kind of looking forward to it. I may not like looking at the bones, but
ghosts are cool.”

Cort
cocked his head, giving the girl serious consideration. Abruptly, the kid
grinned, as if struck by a thought that pleased him.

“Well,
if you do get scared, you can come down and stay at my
house.” He glanced awkwardly at Buddy. “All of you. I mean now that
Candace is gone, it's just me and him.”

Carter,
who had begun to pick up her trowels and other tools, struggled to keep moving
naturally.

“Since
when?” Buddy asked.

“Today.
Uncle Nick put her on the train this morning. It was really sudden and she
didn't look happy about it. I don't think she's coming back. Ever.”

“What
gave you that impression?”

“Uncle
Nick came back whistling. He always does that, whenever he gets rid of
them.”

Carter
forced her hands to continue their work, while wondering what in the hell she
was getting herself into.

* * *

Nick was
in the kitchen, eating with Gertie and Ivan when Cort came through the back
door.

“The
skeleton's cool,” the kid announced as he retrieved a glucose monitor from
a special cupboard. Inside were syringes, test strips, and medicines. “And
he may have been murdered.”

“Good
lord,” Gertie said, pausing with her fork in the air. “Who told you
that?”

“Carter.”
He waited for the machine to calculate his blood sugar level and then injected
himself with insulin. When he was finished, he took a seat in front of an empty
plate. As Gertie passed a serving dish of lamb toward him, he shook his head.
“No thanks, I already ate. You know, Carter's totally cool. She knows
everything. She's really smart. And you should see what the bones look like.
They're really amazing.”

Nick kept
his voice noncommittal. “Maybe I'll go up and take a look.”

Maybe?
Hell, he'd been ready to head up the mountain as soon as he'd returned from the
train station, but he'd forced himself to wait. He wanted to give her a day to
set that Buddy guy straight.

Which
meant at the crack of dawn tomorrow, he was putting on his hiking boots.

When
Gertie got up to bring over an apple pie for dessert, Ivan and Nick helped
clear their plates.

“That
Ellie girl is very nice,” she said while sitting back down. “She's
your age, isn't she?”

“Yeah.”
Cort turned the color of cherries.

“Do
you like her?”

“Gertie!”
Ivan hissed, as he picked up the coffee pot and a few mugs. “You don't go
intruding on a man's private thoughts like that.”

His wife
shrugged and put a slice of pie in front of her husband's seat. “If I
hadn't cornered you in that diner, we never would have gotten married. You'd
have pined after me for years, stuck in your seat at that counter like your
pants were nailed down.”

Now it
was Ivan's turn to get red in the face.

“I
would have said something eventually,” he mumbled while filling his wife's
mug.

“Deathbed
confessions don't count.”

“I
don't know about that,” Nick said, accepting his slice. “They're
likely to be honest.”

“Only
way too late,” Gertie argued.

Cort
looked up at his uncle. “It matters more if you hear it sooner. My mom
always told me she loved me. Except for that last time she left. She meant to,
I think. But they were late and.. .” Everyone froze around the table. Cort
glanced around, embarrassed. “Anyway, I'm glad she'd told me a ton before
she didn't come back.”

The kid
looked down and played with the fork and knife in front of him.

Ivan
reached over and gave Cort's shoulder a squeeze. If anyone else had reached out
to him, he would have bolted from the table. They all knew it. The kid was
strung like a wire but, after Ivan touched him, he seemed to settle a little.

Nick
watched, envious. It was hell, being so far away from his nephew, not being the
one to comfort him.

Sifting
through the years, reaching back into the nether regions of his mind, Nick
remembered when he'd been upset as a boy. Like Cort, Ivan's silent, powerful
love had been the only thing he'd let touch him.

He'd been
eleven at the time. His dog had gone after a porcupine and had been stuck by
hundreds of quills. He'd found the mutt curled up against the garage, moaning
out of a bleeding mouth. Nick had reached out a hand, desperate to help, only
to be bitten hard. Recoiling, with tears rolling down his face from the pain in
his hand and his fear for the dog, he hadn't gone to his father or mother. He'd
gone looking for Ivan.

Nick glanced
down at his palm, seeing the scars, which were now so faint. He'd needed
stitches and the dog had needed Ivan's steady hand with a pair of pliers. After
the ordeal was over and the quills were out at last, the mutt had come to lie
next to Nick, who'd been put to bed. Seeking to comfort the animal, Nick had
stroked the dog's head gently with his good hand.

As the
evening wore on, Gertie had brought him dinner, which he couldn't stomach, and
his mother had popped in on the way to a party, looking elegant and smelling
good. As usual, her eyes had been empty when she'd kissed him on the cheek, but
Nick hadn't cared. He hadn't wanted consolation from her anyway.

In the
dwindling light, he'd been far more concerned about the arrival of his father.
As soon as he'd seen the bite, his father had demanded that Ivan shoot the dog.
With his hand still bleeding, Nick had begged him to reconsider but the man had
pushed him away in frustration, saying that dogs could be replaced.

Nick had
waited and waited for the end to come: He'd barely been breathing, looking back
and forth between the dog and the door.

When it
finally opened, his eyes had gone wide. Ivan stood silently in the doorway.

Nick's
throat swelled shut and he'd hardly been able to speak. “You gonna shoot
him?”

“No.”

There had
been a long silence between them.

“You
sure?”

“Yup.”

As tears
of relief fell onto his pillow, Nick had turned his face away. He hadn't wanted
Ivan to see him cry, didn't want to seem like less of a man,

Ivan had
shut the door and taken a seat in a chair across the room. He'd leaned back and
crossed his feet at the ankles, like he had nothing else he needed to do,
nowhere else he needed to be, even though it was late and he had a family of
his own to get home to.

Trying to
be as quiet as he could, Nick had kept on crying until he didn't feel so dizzy
with relief. The dog was alive because Ivan had saved it and Nick felt saved,
too. It was a miracle.

Still,
he'd been ashamed of his weakness, of his tears.

When he'd
woken up the next morning, Ivan was gone, but on the bedside table was an eagle
feather. The symbol of courage. An Indian warrior's pride.

It was
the kind of gesture a boy never thinks of again, but the man he becomes never
forgets.

Coming
back to the present, Nick focused on Cort. He wished, like nothing else, it
could have been his hand that eased the boy's suffering.