Gun-Shy Bride

“She called the sheriff on me. Does that answer your question?”

Ruby was ablaze, cursing Pepper Winchester clear to Hades and back, not that it was anything new.

“I’m sorry, baby,” her mother said. She finished her coffee and got up to rinse the mug in the kitchen sink. “But don’t feel too bad. It isn’t like she was close to any of her kids or her other grandkids. She’s just an evil old crone who deserves to live like a hermit.”

McCall didn’t tell her mother that she felt a little sorry for Pepper Winchester—anyone who’d seen the in her eyes at the mention of Trace’s name would have been.

Ruby checked her watch. “I’m going to be late for work.” She looked at her daughter as if she held McCall responsible. “Promise me you won’t go back out there.”

McCall was saved by the ringing of her cell phone. She found it where she’d dropped it last night and checked caller ID. “It’s my boss.”

“Then you’d better take it,” Ruby said. “Stop by the café later.”

“If I can,” McCall said and waited until her mother disappeared out the door before she took the call, fearing that her morning was about to get worse.

“YOU’RE UP EARLY,” Buzz Crawford said from the deck of his lake house as Luke joined him.

“Haven’t you heard? Poachers never sleep.”

Buzz chuckled. “You’re right about that. Catch any lately?”

He’d spent the night down in the river bottom patrolling. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway after his visit to McCall. This morning he’d caught a few hours’ sleep before coming by his uncle’s.

“A few,” he said, distracted at the thought of McCall.

Buzz shook his head. “You’re too easy on the bastards. These guys around here aren’t afraid of you. When I was warden, they knew if they broke the law I’d be on them like stink on a dog.”

Luke had heard it all before, way too many times.

“So how’s the fishing been?” he asked to change the subject. It was one of those rare April days when the was already in the fifties and expected to get up as high as seventy before the day was over. The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, cloudless and bright with the morning sun.

Buzz, who was sitting in one of the lawn chairs overlooking Nelson Reservoir, said something under his breath Luke didn’t catch and was thankful for it.

“Help yourself to some coffee, if you want,” Buzz said, handing Luke his cup to refill.

“Thanks.” Luke stepped into the kitchen and poured himself a mug, refilling his uncle’s before returning to the deck.

A flock of geese honked somewhere in the distance and he could see the dark V of a half-dozen pelicans circling over the water. The ice had only melted off last week leaving the water a deep green.

“Walleye chop,” Buzz said as Luke handed him his coffee, indicating the water’s surface now being kicked up by the wind. “The fish’ll be bitin'. Since you’re not going to catch any criminals anyway, you might as well come fishing with me.”

Luke ignored the dig. “Can’t.” But spending the day fishing did have its appeal. “I have to work on the house or it will never get finished.” He had a couple of days off, and he planned to get as much done as possible.

“I’ve never understood why you bought that place back,” Buzz said, shaking his head. “It was nothing but work for your father. I’d think you’d want to start fresh. No ghosts.”

Is that how Buzz saw the past? Full of ghosts? It surprised Luke. The old homestead was his mother’s family’s place. He’d lived there his first seven years his parents before their deaths and cherished those memories.

“You hear about those bones found south of town?” his uncle asked, then swore when Luke said he hadn’t. “You never know what’s going on,” Buzz complained. “Anyway, it seems Rocky Harrison found some bones and was going on about them at the bar and somehow Eugene got arrested.”

No mystery there, Luke thought. Eugene getting arrested had long ceased to be news.

“Rocky swore the bones were human. Probably just some dead animal. I thought for sure you might have heard somethin'.”

Luke watched a fishing boat against the opposite shore, the putter of the motor lulling him as he wondered idly why his uncle would be so interested in some old bones.

PEPPER STOPPED IN FRONT of Trace’s bedroom door, the key clutched in her hand. She’d had Enid lock the room, wanting it left just as it was the day her youngest son left it.

Had she really thought he’d return to the ranch? He’d been a day short of twenty the last time she saw him. He’d promised to come to the birthday party she was throwing for him. All of the family would be there and had been warned to be on their best behavior. She had planned the huge party and, even though the two of them had fought, Pepper had been so sure he wouldn’t miss his party for anything.

“You old fool,” she muttered as she slipped the key into the lock. She’d had her first child at seventeen.Trace had come along unexpectedly after her doctor she couldn’t have any more children. She had thought of Trace as her miracle child.

She realized she hadn’t thought about her other children and grandchildren in years. They’d resented Trace and her relationship with him. Their jealousy had turned her stomach and finally turned her against them.

With a grimace, she realized she could be a great-grandmother by now.

The door to Trace’s room opened. Air wafted out, smelling stale and musty and she could see dust thick as paint everywhere as she stepped in.

The bed was covered in an old quilt, the colors faded, the stitching broken in dozens of places. She started to touch the once-vibrant colored squares but pulled her hand back.

Her eyes lit on the stack of outdoor and hunting magazines piled up beside the bed. Trace had lived and breathed hunting. He’d been like his father that way.