Secret of Deadman's Ravine

He’d just reined in his horse on a narrow ridge, the sides falling dangerously toward the old river bottom when he caught sight of something light blue in the rocks far below him.

REPORTER GLEN WHITAKER couldn’t believe his timing. He made it to the Whitehorse Community Center just as Arlene Evans was unloading the pies from the front seat of her pickup.

“Let me help you with those,” he said.

Arlene was a gangly woman with an elongated horsy face and laugh that was more donkey’s bray. That alone would have put off most people, but there was also a nervous energy that at best made him jittery and at worse made the hair stand up on his arms.

“Violet, say hello to Glen,” Arlene ordered.

“Hi, Glen,” said a shy and bored voice behind him.

He turned to see Arlene’s daughter, Violet.

While better looking than her mother, Violet was still plain to the point of pitiful. Next to her mother, Violet seemed almost catatonic. “Hey,” he said.

He’d always suspected that Arlene fed off other people’s energy because, like her daughter, Glen found that after a matter of minutes around Arlene he barely had enough energy to escape. And right now escape was exactly what he wanted to do.

“Violet and I can get the pies if you’ll open the front door,” Arlene said, handing off a pie to her daughter then picking up another before kicking the pickup door shut in one smooth movement.

He had to almost run to get the community center door open before Arlene. They both had to wait for Violet, who moved like sludge.

“Violet, why don’t you get Glen a piece of the coconut-custard right away,” Arlene said. “He looks like he could use it.”

Violet nodded as she wandered off to do as she’d been told. Already trained to obey, she’d make someone the perfect wife, Glen thought. Just not him. At forty, he’d never married. His mother said it was because she’d spoiled him.

“Any news on Eve Bailey?” he asked.

“Apparently not,” Arlene said, as she shot a look at the somber group of women waiting in the community center.

All the women looked in his direction, then went back to visiting among themselves or occupying themselves with the needlework in their laps. Glen had never understood it. He was nice enough looking, but for some reason people didn’t seem to pay any attention to him.

Feeling like the invisible man, he drew out his notebook and pen as he and Arlene took a seat in a quiet corner and waited for Violet to bring the pie.

“It’s a shame,” Arlene was saying in a hushed voice so the others couldn’t hear. “She has been through so much and now this.”

“Eve?” Glen asked, wondering what was keeping Violet.

“Lila,” Arlene whispered, glancing in the woman’s direction. Lila was cleaning the sink near the back door, stopping periodically to look out, as if she hoped to see her daughter.

Glen wasn’t interested in Lila Bailey. No story there.

“Her husband left her, you know. Oh, she tells everyone he moved into Whitehorse to be closer to his job, but we all know the truth.”

Arlene took a breath and Glen jumped in, hoping to get some background material, “So what brought Eve Bailey back here?” He watched Arlene shift gears. Apparently she was just getting warmed up on the Lila and Chester Bailey story.

“A man,” Arlene said flatly. “It’s the only thing that brings a woman her age back to the ranch. You know she’s thirty-two. Just two years younger than my Violet.”

An old maid in Arlene’s eyes.

“I heard she became an interior designer.” Arlene lifted a brow as if to say what a waste of time and education that was. “You can bet some man broke her heart and she came running home with her tail tucked between her legs.”

Glen wrote on his notepad a new headline: Jilted, Whitehorse Woman Returns Home Only To Die Alone In Missouri Breaks.

Violet slid a plate with a large piece of coconut-custard pie in front of him and sank into a chair as if the chore had spent all of her energy.

He glanced at her as he picked up the fork. “Thanks.” She stared back with large, liquid, colorless eyes, but with just enough expectation in them to make him nervous. It hit him then that she would want to get married even more than her mother wanted her to. Marriage would be the only way to make her mother stop trying to hoist her off on men. Any man.

As he took a bite of pie, he noticed Arlene had stopped talking and was staring toward the front door.

A man in his early thirties who Glen had never seen before stood in the doorway as if looking for someone but not seeing them, turned and left, letting the door close behind him.

“Who was that?” Glen asked, seeing Arlene’s obvious interest.

“The fella who’s renting the old McAllister place,” Arlene whispered. “Bridger Duvall. Sounds like the name of an actor. Or a name he just made up. No one knows anything about him. Or why he rented that old farmhouse, since he hasn’t shown any interest in raising a thing. He was downright rude when Violet and I went out there to welcome him to the area.”

Glen could well imagine what Arlene’s welcome visit was all about—and no doubt the man had, as well, the moment he laid eyes on Violet.

“I wonder,” Arlene said slowly. “You know he showed up about the same time Eve returned to town.” Her eyes widened. “What if he’s the man who broke Eve Bailey’s heart?”

And this, Glen thought, was how rumors got started.

SHERIFF CARTER JACKSON felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared down into the ravine. The spot of light blue hadn’t moved and, from this angle, he couldn’t tell what it was but he had a bad feeling it was Eve Bailey.

He raised his binoculars. The light blue moved. He felt his heart lift like helium. Eve Bailey rose from where she’d been almost hidden in the rocks. He watched her work her way slowly up the slope head down, oblivious to him standing high above her. She climbed the rocks with fluid if exhausted movements.

Carter found himself grinning, overjoyed that she was all right, glad he would be able to take good news back to the Whitehorse Community Center.

Now that he knew she was alive, though, he wanted to wring her neck. What the hell had she been thinking riding out like that yesterday afternoon? Maybe more to the point, what was she doing down in that ravine to begin with?

“I’ve found her,” he said into the two-way radio. “She looks like she’s all right. I’m going down to get her out. Bring the horse to the top of the ravine.” He gave a reading from his GPS.

Titus Cavanaugh came back over the radio an instant later, sounding equally relieved. “We’re not far from you. Glad to hear the good news.”

Carter dismounted and, taking his pack with his rescue gear, started to work his way down the rocky slope. His earlier exhilaration at seeing that she was alive was dampened at the thought of what her reaction would be to seeing him. It had been years, but he doubted she would have forgotten the way things had ended between them.

Eve had taken off for college right after high school graduation and he hadn’t seen her since. He knew she’d come back for holidays to see her parents and sisters, but she’d made a point of avoiding him. And since he lived in Whitehorse, he’d had no reason to go out of his way to see her.

In fact, the way even the mention of Eve set Deena off, he’d stayed as far away as he could from Old Town—and Eve Bailey.

He was pretty sure Eve hated him. Not that he could blame her. Or maybe she hadn’t given him a thought since the day she left.

He wished he could say the same.

As he cut off her ascent up the rocky ravine, he realized he was nervous about seeing her. This was crazy. Hell, it had been years. She’d probably forgotten that night in the front seat of his old Chevy pickup behind her parents’ barn.

Just then she looked up and he knew Eve hadn’t forgotten— or forgiven him.

Chapter Four