Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch

As much as she hated it, Dana was still a wreck after seeing Hud again. She’d hoped to get to work at the shop and forget about everything that had happened this morning, including not only what might be in the old well—but also who. The last thing she wanted was to even be reminded of her birthday. It only reminded her that Hud had remembered.

“Hud’s back,” she said, the words coming out in a rush.

Hilde stopped dead so that Dana almost collided with her.

Her best friend’s surprise made her feel better. Dana had been worried all morning that everyone had known about Hud’s return—and just hadn’t told her to protect her. She hated being protected. Especially from news like that. If she’d known he was back, she could have prepared herself for seeing him— Even as she thought it, she knew nothing could have prepared her for that initial shock of seeing Hud after five long years.

“Hud’s back in the canyon?” Hilde whispered, sounding shocked. The Gallatin Canyon, a fifty-mile strip of winding highway and blue-ribbon river, had been mostly ranches, the cattle and dude kind, a few summer cabins and homes—that is until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed at the foot of Lone Mountain. But the “canyon” was still its own little community.

“Hud’s the new temporary marshal,” Dana whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

“Hello?” came the familiar voice of Margo from the back of the store. “We’ve got candles burning up in here.”

“Hud? Back here? Oh, man, what a birthday present,” Hilde said, giving her another hug. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I can imagine what seeing him again did to you.”

“I still want to kill him,” Dana whispered.

“Not on your birthday.” Hilde frowned. “Does Lanny know yet?” she whispered.

“Lanny? Lanny and I are just friends.”

“Does Lanny know that?” her friend asked, giving her a sympathetic smile.

“He knows.” Dana sighed, remembering the night Lanny had asked her to marry him and she’d had to turn him down. Things hadn’t been the same between them since. “I did something really stupid. I told Hud I was engaged to Lanny.”

“You didn’t.”

Dana nodded miserably. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Margo called from the back room. “Major wax guttering back here.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Dana said, and she and Hilde stepped into the back of the shop where a dozen of Dana’s friends and store patrons had gathered around a cake that looked like it was on fire.

“Quick! Make a wish!” her friend Margo cried.

Dana closed her eyes for an instant, made a wish, then braving the heat of thirty-one candles flickering on a sheet cake, blew as hard as she could, snuffing out every last one of them to the second chorus of happy birthday.

“Tell me you didn’t wish Hud dead,” Hilde whispered next to her as the smoke started to dissipate.

“And have my wish not come true? No way.”

HUD WATCHED RUPERT, the glow of the coroner’s headlamp flickering eerily on the dark dirt walls as he descended into the well. Hud tried not to think about remains down there or the fact that Brick might have investigated the disappearance. Might even have known the victim. Just as Hud and Rupert might have.

Rupert stopped the pulley just feet above the bones to video the scene on the bottom of the well. The light flickered and Hud looked away as he tried to corral his thoughts. Sure as hell this investigation would force him to deal with his father. The thought turned his stomach. The last time he’d seen his father, more than five years ago now, they’d almost ended up in a brawl, burning every bridge between them—both content with the understanding that the next time Hud saw his father it would be to make sure Brick was buried.

When Hud had decided to come back, he’d thought at least he wouldn’t have to see his father. Word was that Brick had moved to a place up on Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone—a good fifty miles away.

The wind seemed cooler now and in the distance Hud could see dark clouds rolling up over the mountains. He turned his face up to the pale sun knowing it wouldn’t be long before it was snowing again. After all, this was January in Montana.

The rope on the pulley groaned and he looked down again into the well as Rupert settled gently on the bottom, the headlamp now focused on the human remains.

Because of the steep sides of the well, the body was contained, none of the bones had been scattered by critters or carried off. The coroner had pulled on a pair of the latex gloves. He opened the body bag and began to carefully fill it with the bones.

“Good thing you didn’t bet with me,” Rupert said. “I’d say the bones have been here closer to fifteen years.” He held up a pelvic bone in his gloved hands. “A woman. White. Late twenties, early thirties.”

In the light from the headlamp, Hud watched Rupert pick up the skull and turn it slowly in his hands.

“Well, how about that,” he heard Rupert say, then glance up at him. “You got a murder on your hands, son,” the coroner said solemnly. He held up the skull, his headlamp shining through a small round hole in the skull.

“The bullet entered this side, passed through the brain and lodged in the mastoid bone behind the left ear,” Rupert said, still turning the skull in his hands. “The bullet lead is flattened and deformed from impact but there will be enough lands and grooves to match the weapon. Looks like a .38.”

“If we could find the weapon after all this time,” Hud said. He let out an oath under his breath. Murder. And the body found on the Cardwell Ranch.

“Get one of those containers out of my rig so I can bag the skull separately,” Rupert said, his voice echoing up.

Hud ran back to Rupert’s truck and returned to lower the container down to him. A few minutes later Rupert sent the filled container up and Hud found himself looking at the dead woman’s skull. A patch of hair clung to the top. The hair, although covered with dirt, was still reddish in color. He stared at the hair, at the shape of the skull, and tried to picture the face.

“You think she was young, huh?” he called down.

In the well, Rupert stopped to inspect one of the bones in the light from his headlamp. “Based on growth lines, I’d say twenty-eight to thirty-five years of age.” He put down one bone to pick up what appeared to be a leg bone. “Hmm, that’s interesting. The bony prominences show muscle development, indicating she spent a lot of time on her feet. Probably made her living as a hairdresser, grocery clerk, nurse, waitress, something like that.” He put the bone into the body bag and picked up another shorter one. “Same bony prominences on the arms as if she often carried something heavy. My money’s on waitress or nurse.”

Few coroners would go out on a limb with such conjecture. Most left this part up to the forensics team at the state crime lab. But then, Rupert Milligan wasn’t like most coroners. Add to that the fact that he was seldom wrong.

“What about height and weight?” Hud asked, feeling a chill even in the sun. His father had always liked waitresses. Hell, his father chased skirts no matter who wore them.

Rupert seemed to study the dirt where the bones had been. “I’d say she was between five-four and five-seven. A hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty pounds.”

That covered a lot of women, Hud thought as he carried the container with the skull in it over to Rupert’s pickup and placed it carefully on the front seat. All the teeth were still intact. With luck, they’d be able to identify her from dental records if she’d been local.

He tried to remember if he’d heard his father talking about a missing person’s case about fifteen years ago. Rodrick “Brick” Savage loved to brag about his cases—especially the ones he solved.

But then this one wouldn’t have been one he’d solved. And fifteen years ago, Hud had been eighteen and away at college. He wondered if Dana had mentioned a missing woman in one of her letters to him. She’d written him every week, but the letters were more about what was happening on the ranch, I-miss-you letters, love letters.

Leaving the skull at the pickup, he went back to watch Rupert dig through the dirt on the well floor. The coroner slowed as he hit something, then stooped and shook dirt from what he’d found.

Hud felt his chest heave as Rupert held up a bright red high-heeled shoe.

AFTER THE BIRTHDAY party and in between customers, Dana defied Hud’s orders and told Hilde about what Warren had found in the old dry well by the original homestead’s foundation.

Dana was sure the news was all over the canyon by now. But still she’d waited, not wanting to say anything to anyone but Hilde, her best friend.

“He really thinks the bones are human?” Hilde asked with a shiver. “Who could it be?”

Dana shook her head. “Probably some ancestor of mine.”

Hilde looked skeptical. “You think the bones have been down there that long?” She hugged herself as if she could feel the cold coming up from the well just as Dana had earlier.

“It’s horrible to think that someone might have fallen in and been unable to get out, died down there,” Dana said.