Texas Gothic

7



right after breakfast—mine and the livestock’s—I set out with the dogs into the kind of sweet, dew-spangled Texas morning that nearly made up for the blistering heat that would come later. The first of July, you could still hope for a few temperate hours if you got up early enough to enjoy them.

Phin was not there to see it. My knock on her door was met with an indecipherable complaint. I called that I was going without her and took the barely audible grunt as acknowledgment. I had no doubt she’d catch up, probably by car. The dogs weren’t part of my plan, but once I’d laced up my hiking sneakers and slathered myself with sunscreen, they had worked themselves into such a frenzy of anticipation, I didn’t have the heart to leave them behind.

Since I had neither instructions for how to reach the site nor Phin’s uncanny sense of direction, my idea was to head along the river until I found the dig. And there my plan ended. I didn’t like freewheeling it, but I had to keep up momentum or be hogtied by my own arguments.

On one hand, it would have been weird not to be curious about the discovery. Maybe a bit macabre, but I didn’t think even Phin could wrangle an invitation if the professionals didn’t think the dig was more history than homicide. I’d have felt no conflict about heading over the fence at all if it weren’t for the ghost.

Given my family’s reputation, even the rumor of a ghost complicated things. Deputy Kelly’s visit had invoked my paranoia about judgmental authority. As long as the Goodnights were quirky but harmless, that was okay. But if someone got the idea we were involved somehow? Maybe it was far-fetched to worry, but there had been an officer of the law on the doorstep last night.

Only, it wasn’t just a rumor. Something had appeared in my room. Maybe it was the same entity as the storied ghost of McCulloch Ranch or whatever had caused the ranch hand’s fall the night before. But even if those were fiction, the ghost beside my bed had been fact.

A chill swept over me despite the warm air, and I congratulated myself for spoiling the morning.

I focused instead on the barn and the greenhouse and the dew-sequined foliage as the dogs and I walked along the rows of fragrant herbs and down the hill into the lavender fields—my favorite part of the farm. This had once been a vineyard, one of many in the area. But Uncle Burt had turned the land from grapes over to my aunt’s ventures when they got married, and it had worked out pretty well for everyone.

When we reached the river, I turned northwest, upstream. The graveled path turned into two parallel wheel ruts cut into knee-high scrub grass. They led to a barbed-wire fence and a five-rail gate between Goodnight land and the McCulloch place. The grass had grown up around the bottom, so I didn’t bother to pull the gate open. The dogs went easily through the rails, and I braced my hands on the top, my foot on the bottom, like they were the rungs of a ladder.

Curiosity welled up in me like the fizz in an ice-cold Coke. Excited curiosity, the kind that had made me take a flashlight to the haunted river in the middle of the night all those years ago. And that made me nervous. My carefully laid-out boundaries existed for a reason. I didn’t like how fuzzy they got when I spent too much time in the Goodnight world.

Who was I fooling? Visiting the dig was like poking around a fire-ant mound. And whether it had a ghost that was real or rumor, I’d have to go carefully not to get stung.

While I was at it, why didn’t I just admit that climbing the fence into McCulloch property—by (secondhand) invitation—was a sort of spit in the eye to McCranky for (maybe) setting the sheriff’s department on me.

Oh, and by the way, I sure thought about him a lot for someone I never wanted to see again.

Whose fence you are about to climb.

Jeez Louise, that settled it. I had to do something just so I would stop talking to myself.

I hauled myself over and joined the waiting dogs.

Committing to an action seemed to ease the knot in my stomach and quiet the voices in my head. With a new spring in my step, I set off along the cattle trail beside the river embankment. The dogs snapped at dragonflies and explored the shrubs for rabbits, except for Lila—the part-time search-and-rescue dog (when she wasn’t fleeing from goats)—who trotted ahead, nose in the air, then back to make sure I was following.

The land certainly didn’t look like a likely spot for a haunting. The breeze carried the smell of dust and sage and juniper. Later in the day, the sunlight would bleach everything to austere brown and beige, but at the moment the colors were all contrast—puffy white clouds and seamless blue sky, pale limestone outcroppings and rich umber and deep green live oak and mesquite.

In the spring the rugged hills were carpeted with wildflowers, and in the summer it was stark and hot, but the rivers made green ribbons of respite from the heat. As I picked my way up the hill, avoiding cactus and cow patties, I could see why getting cattle to the other chunk of McCulloch land might be a problem. As the land went higher, the river ran faster and deeper, cutting into the rock and making a natural fording impossible, unless you were part mountain goat, part amphibian.

At the crest of the next hill, Lila gave a bark and started down the other side, leaving a puff of white dust in her wake. Sadie took off after her, and even Bear looked tempted to desert me. It seemed I’d managed to find the dig.

And then I had a horrible thought. Dogs plus dirt plus bones equaled an excavation nothing like what the University of Texas had in mind.

“Oh hell.” This was not going to keep me under the McCulloch radar.

I sprinted up the hill; the first thing I saw on the other side was a big yellow bulldozer, parked in a cleared space by the river, looking abandoned in the middle of its work. I took it in with a glance, along with a van with the burnt-orange UT logo, a canopy pitched to shade folding work-tables, and a handful of people digging in the dirt like kids in a sandbox.

Lila and Sadie were still running full steam ahead. In desperation I gave a shrill two-fingered whistle—a useful thing I’d learned on a soccer field. It stopped all three dogs like I’d superglued their paws to the ground.

The dogs weren’t the only ones startled into stillness. Heads turned, as they say. Baseball caps, wide-brimmed straw hats, and one Stetson I recognized—oh effing hell—all swiveled to stare up the hill.

I’m sure I made an unimposing picture in my T-shirt and cutoff shorts, my hair in pigtails. On the other hand, I was fully clothed, so this was a marked improvement over yesterday.

Nothing to do but brazen it out. “Lila, Sadie!” I didn’t bother to yell at Bear, because he had only gone five steps and was looking very ashamed of himself. “Stay right there.”

I made my way down the steep slope, which was full of loose scree that made my descent anything but graceful. But I stayed on my feet, more or less, and caught up with the dogs at the bottom.

Ben McCulloch crossed the field on an intercept course. He did not look happy to see me. There was a shocker.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mr. Personality stopped in front of me, his hands resting on his hips, which should have looked prissy but didn’t. It made him seem imposing, which I was sure was his aim.

But I needled him anyway. “Were you born a cranky old man?”

The dogs swarmed around him, holding no grudges, beating his legs with their ecstatic tails. He ignored them and glared at me. “What happened to ‘see you on the other side of never’?”

Slayed with my own words. “I didn’t know you’d be here. And as it happens,” I began with dignity, intending to tell him I was invited. But it occurred to me that “we” were invited might well be Phin’s interpretation and not the mysterious Mark’s intent. And that would have been humiliating. So I finished lamely, “I was just taking a walk.”

He gave me a look of exaggerated suspicion, and feeling like a coward, I busied myself calling the dogs to heel. “Stop that. Sit, Lila.”

To my shock, she did, and what Lila did, the others imitated. Ben raised his brows, but he looked more sarcastic than impressed. “They’ve learned some manners since yesterday. What did you do, cast a spell?”

If I could have cast a spell, it would have been to wipe that snide curl off his lip. I hadn’t forgotten the deputy’s visit.

But I had forgotten about the ranch hand until just then. “How is your guy?” I asked. “The man that went to the hospital.”

He looked confused, but that might have just been from the rapid-fire change of expressions on my face: anger, realization, chagrin, worry. His made its own progression: bemusement, surprise, irritation, then finally grudging admission. “He’s recovering. Cracked ribs, mild concussion. Lots of bruises.” Then, even more reluctantly: “Thanks for asking.”

And then, because he couldn’t be nice for a millisecond, he asked, “How did you know? Did you see it in your crystal ball?”

“No,” I snapped. “Don’t you think I would have better things to spy on in my crystal ball than your ranch?”

He shrugged and adjusted his stance, hooking a thumb in his belt, oh-so-unconcerned. “Well, you don’t have anything better to do than to trespass on it.”

I drew my words out sweetly. “I just wanted to stretch my legs. We have such an itty-bitty two hundred acres, and y’all have such a big, fine place over here.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re a lot sassier with your clothes on, Underwear Girl.”

While I struggled for a riposte to that, a young man joined us—a tanned Latino god in jeans and a worn-thin T-shirt. For a startled moment, my brain had no room for anything but appreciation, until I saw his amusement and curiosity. He’d definitely heard what Ben had just said. And I definitely wanted to die, but not without taking McCulloch with me.

“Hi,” said the newcomer, sounding very collegial for a deity. His razor-sharp cheekbones were sunburned and his straight blade of a nose was peeling. Human after all. “Are you Amaryllis?”

Ben’s brows shot up, and I saw the first hint of a smile from him. At my expense. Of course. “Amaryllis?”

“Amy,” I corrected, my arctic tone daring him to make something of it.

The other guy held out his dirty hand, then brushed it off on his equally dirty jeans before offering it again. “Mark Delgado. I’m an intern on this dig. I met your sister in the store yesterday. She isn’t with you?”

I wondered if he didn’t look a little disappointed. Phin was nuts, but she was pretty and delicate and strawberry-blond. And magic clings to her; it gives her a sort of charisma. People sense it, but they dismiss her eccentricity as genius. Or the blondness.

“So, your sister found out about the dig yesterday,” Ben said, after watching our exchange, “and you just happened to be walking your dogs in this direction?”

“Oh, I invited them,” said Mark, throwing me a rope and cutting me loose in my lie with the same unwitting sentence. “Since Phin seemed interested and they are your neighbors.”

I thought about bluffing it out, but the sound of truck tires on gravel made it pointless. The dogs woofed in greeting as the Trooper rolled to a stop at the end of the current road, well above the river excavation and future bridge.

Ben lifted one brow, and said with pointed understatement. “This must be her now.”

The door opened and slammed shut. “Hey, guys!” Phin paused to pet the dogs, then joined us, smiling when she saw me. “Oh, Amy, good. I knew you’d figure out where it was.”

I ceded this round to Ben. And judging by his grin, Mark seemed to find us all very amusing. Behind them, I could see that work on the dig had dwindled to just a pretense with a lot more stares on us than on the ground.

“I’m glad you both found us,” said Mark. “I realized this morning I hadn’t told you how to get here.”

“Oh, I always know where I’m going,” said Phin, with a careless shrug.

“That’s handy,” said Mark, looking charmed.

“Extremely.” She ran her curious gaze over Ben. I saw him echo the gesture, and something in my chest tightened in a way that I didn’t like to analyze. Normally, I compare well to my sister and cousins. Phin might have been elfin and blond and quirky, but I could rock a soccer field and a C-cup. Okay, B and a half. And some guys, I’d been told, liked freckles. At the moment, however, Phin wasn’t covered in dust and dog hair and sticky sunscreen.

“You must be Benjamin McCulloch.” She inhaled to go on, and without a shred of psychic powers I just knew she was going to say something unfortunate. Like “Funny, you don’t look like a humorless SOB.” Or “My sister couldn’t stop talking about you last night.”

“So, Mark!” The words burst out in a way-too-loud way that made all three of them stare at me. I dialed back the volume and went on. “McCulloch is acting like we’ve crossed into Area 51. Is it an alien skeleton you’ve found?”

He grinned. I liked his ready smile and sunburned nose. The impact of his good looks was fading, making him seem more approachable. Certainly more than Mr. Personality and his scowl of doom.

“Plain old human,” said Mark. “That much we can tell in the field. Dr. Douglas is doing a few preliminary measurements before we take everything to the lab.”

“Are you sure you should be discussing this?” Ben asked. “Shouldn’t you check with your boss?”

Mark gave him a sharp glance, but I was so used to intervening for my family that I responded before he could.

“Phin and I are staying just a few miles away.” I realized I’d mirrored Ben’s belligerent stance, and hastily dropped my arms. “If someone was killed here, we should know about it.”

“It’s not a crime scene.” Mark’s friendly demeanor returned as he told me, “At least, not a recent one.”

His tone, I think, was meant to be reassuring, but factoring in ghosts and all, I said, “ ‘Recent’ is a relative thing.”

“Our guy has been in the ground a very long time.” He jerked his head toward the excavation. “Come and meet Dr. Douglas.”

Phin fell in beside Mark, peppering him with eager questions as they started toward the dig. “You said ‘guy.’ Is that a nonspecific colloquialism, or have you actually determined it’s a male skeleton? You get that from the pelvic bone, right?”

Mark’s answer began with a “Yes, and …” But I lost the rest of it because I was distracted by the dogs, who were eyeing the excavated square of earth with an anticipatory glee that made me very nervous. I hated to miss anything, but Lila and the others had been shockingly obedient, and I figured my luck would run out any moment.

“I’d better secure the dogs,” I said, not to anyone in particular, except that Ben was still standing there. “I’ll catch up.”

“I’ll wait,” he said, probably because he knew it would annoy me.

“Suit yourself.” I’d come prepared with a drawstring sports pack, and I dropped it from my shoulders as I called for Lila to follow me. The rest followed her, and somehow I wasn’t surprised that the cowboy stalked after us, too.

“Where’s your horse?” I asked. I’d seen the bulldozer and the UT van, and now I noted that, in addition to the people excavating the dig, there were several other tanned and work-hardened men hanging out by a cluster of pickup trucks. But no horses or horse trailer.

Ben paused, like he was searching for anything snide in the question. Which was fair, I supposed. Finally, when we’d reached a mesquite bush substantial and shady enough for me to tie up the dogs, he answered. “I was only riding yesterday because we were herding the cattle out of this area and into the next pasture. And rescuing strays from neighbor girls gone wild.”

Funny how with all that had happened I was still able to blush about that. I pretended I was holding back a retort when really I just couldn’t think of anything witty. At least, not while I struggled to extract a leash, any leash, from the nylon snarl I’d pulled out of my bag, which would have been a lot easier without the blushing.

I thrust the mess into Ben’s hands. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

He took them, too surprised to refuse. I got out a collapsible bowl—Aunt Hyacinth didn’t stint when it came to her pets—and a bottle of water. Bear scootched his furry bulk into the shade and slurped up the water as soon as I’d put it down.

When I straightened, wiping my hands dry on my jeans, Ben held out the first leash, looking extremely grumpy about it, like I’d tricked him into helping me or something. “Are you going to tell me what you’re really up to?”

I clipped the leash to Bear’s collar, then knotted it around a thick, thorny branch. “Who says I’m up to anything?”

“Call it a hunch,” he said, and handed me the other two leashes. “Don’t scratch yourself,” he added.

“I’m not an idiot,” I said, reaching into the mesquite to tie up Lila and Sadie.

“If you say so.”

I promptly impaled myself on a gargantuan thorn. I hissed at the sting, then pressed my lips together over a curse.

“Did you say something?” Ben asked, too blandly not to have heard me.

Gritting my teeth, I backed out of the bush, ignoring the pain in my arm, as well as the one in my backside. Or I would have if he hadn’t been standing in a way that blocked my path, unless I wanted to push aside one of the mesquite branches and risk another scratch. As if I weren’t irritated enough, the close quarters emphasized everything I didn’t like that I liked about him. It wasn’t just that he was muscular and tan, with broad shoulders and big, long-fingered hands. It was that I’d seen him ride that horse, and I knew his brawn wasn’t just for show. There was something practical and capable about that strength that made my insides flutter in an extremely galling way.

Get a grip, Amy. You are not a fluttery sort of girl.

Maybe it was a question of contrasts. I’d only dated high school boys, though I did have an ongoing flirtation with the barista at my favorite coffeehouse, who was majoring in prelaw at UT and promised we’d go out after I’d graduated, only Phin had dragged me here, so once again it was all her fault that I was overwhelmed by the overwhelming not-in-high-school–ness of Ben McCulloch.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, looking down at me from quite close quarters. His eyes weren’t bright blue at all but rather steely, which suited him better than something more cheerful. I sternly told myself that my prelaw friend with caffeine benefits was probably a lot smarter than him, and that smart was what I liked best.

“No, I didn’t say anything,” I answered, glaring up at him. He wasn’t even that tall, really. He just seemed that way from so near. Really near.

He tightened his mouth like he might have wanted to smile at my evasion. “I mean, what are you doing here? Is your whole family made up of nosy busybodies?”

Actually, we were. My aunts and cousins were up in each other’s business all the time. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Who wouldn’t be curious? You’re acting like they’re digging up the lost Ark of the Covenant in your back forty acres.”

He gave me a sidelong squint. “Do you think that’s a possibility?” I let my glare answer for me, and he raised his hands as if surrendering, though obviously he was not. “I’m just saying. You Goodnights have a track record as eccentric meddlers.”

I folded my arms, calmly, like we were just shooting the breeze. “You know, Phin told me about the ghost rumors in town. That it’s some old story that resurfaced because your construction crew found a skull in the ground. I don’t see how that could reasonably be Aunt Hyacinth’s fault.”

His snort wasn’t quite as rude as yesterday’s. “Nothing about your family is reasonable.”

“You don’t even know us,” I said, determined not to lose my temper today.

“I know there isn’t any reason for you to be here other than morbid curiosity.”

Despite everything, that made me laugh. “Jeez, McCulloch. Isn’t that enough? I can’t be the only one with an addiction to the Discovery Channel. It’s like a forensic detective show in my backyard.”

He seemed surprised by my laugh, and I had to admit, I hadn’t exactly been Little Miss Sunshine up to that point. After a considering pause, as if searching for artifice, he said, almost with humor, “My backyard, actually.”

“Fine. I’m trespassing.” I dropped my arms and refilled the dogs’ bowl before capping the water bottle. “If you’re going to run us off, can I at least get a look at the cool stuff first?”

“You swear you’re just here to satisfy your curiosity?” he asked, still skeptical.

I drew an X over my chest and raised my right hand, careful what I said, because oaths have consequences. “My motives are pure.”

If I was lying to anyone, it was to myself. I wanted nothing to do with ghost hunting or rumors of haunting, but the apparition, its reaching hand and gasping mouth, was never far from my thoughts. It had only moved to the corner of my mind, where the morning sun couldn’t reach.

Ben seemed satisfied, and he stepped back to let me pass. As I did—ignoring the tingle where my shoulder brushed his—I added, for the hell of it, “But I can’t promise my sister won’t get a wild hair and decide to experiment with raising the dead.”

His brows shot back down; they were extremely expressive, really. “You aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are.”

“Who’s joking?” I said as I headed toward the dig site and the uncovered grave by the river.