Secret of Deadman's Coulee

by B. J Daniels

  There’d been something between them from the moment she’d punched him in the nose in grade-school recess to the first time he’d kissed her, something she’d mistaken for love long before she’d given herself to him in his old Chevy pickup.

  She brushed a lock of hair back from her face, knowing she must look a mess. “Go on and say it. I know you’re dying to. I was an idiot for riding this far out yesterday without any provisions.”

  “You don’t need a lecture,” he said quietly. “You’ve been through enough.”

  So true, she thought, studying him. Problem was he had no idea what she’d been through. Not years ago when he dumped her for Deena Turner—certainly not last night.

  Carter said nothing as he reached into the pack again and this time took out a pair of rolled-up jeans, a flannel shirt and jacket. “McKenna got these for you from your house.”

  She stared at his handsome face for a moment, the devoured candy bar like a lump in her stomach. Tears burned her eyes. She’d been so scared, so afraid she’d never get back to the ranch, never see the people she cared about again that she hadn’t realized how much she’d scared her family and neighbors. Of course, they would be worried sick about her.

  If it had been anyone but Carter who’d found her, she would have wept with joy at being rescued. But she couldn’t break down, not with Carter—and trying not to cry had left her raw with emotion.

  She took the dry clothing, desperately needing to get moving before she couldn’t anymore. The sugar from the candy bar was trying to jump-start her dog-tired body, but knowing that she no longer had to push herself to get home again all she wanted to do was curl up on a warm rock and sleep for a week.

  “The…underwear is in the jacket pocket,” Carter said, sounding almost shy as he turned his back to let her change.

  She couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d handed her her clothes. She’d been naked then, though, and even more vulnerable than she was now.

  The warm, dry clothing felt wonderful, although it took her a while to get her wet clothes off, her movements awkward and slow. She realized how close she’d been to hypothermia, how close she’d been to dying if she’d stopped even to rest too long earlier.

  As she pulled on the jacket, she hugged herself, feeling warmer for the first time in what seemed like days.

  With a start she remembered what she’d left in the pocket of her wet jeans. Quickly she checked to make sure Carter’s back was still turned before she reached into the front pocket of her dirty torn jeans and, with shaking fingers, transferred the rhinestone pin she’d found in the plane to her clean jeans pocket before saying, “All done.”

  He turned to look at her. “Better?”

  She nodded, fearing he could see the guilt written all over her face. But maybe he didn’t know her as well as she knew him. Maybe he never had.

  He handed her another bottle of water, picking up the empty one from where she’d placed it on a rock and putting it back into his pack.

  She opened the cap and took a long drink, trying to get control of her emotions. She could feel the weight of her old feelings for him heavy in her stomach. Just as she could feel the sharp edges of the rhinestones poking her upper thigh, prodding her conscience.

  She dug for anger to steady herself, recalling the morning she reached school to find out that after being with her, Carter had been with Deena Turner. Deena had told everyone at school and announced that they were going steady. Nothing hurt like high school, she thought, but even the memory couldn’t provide enough anger to balance out her guilt.

  She had to tell Carter about the plane.

  Even if it meant betraying her own family.

  CARTER STUDIED EVE, worried. He knew her too well, he realized, even after all these years. One of the things he’d always liked about her was her directness. She said what was on her mind.

  But he could see that she was fighting more than exhaustion, as if trying too hard not to let him know just how bad last night had been. The fact that she hadn’t said anything made him fear she was in more trouble than being caught without her horse in a storm in the Breaks.

  “I am curious how you lost your horse, though,” he said as he stuffed the dirty clothing she’d rolled up into his pack. “You get bucked off?”

  Her head jerked up, her dark eyes hot with indignation. “You know darned well I haven’t been thrown from a horse since I was—”

  “Nine,” he said. “I remember.” He remembered a lot of things about her, including her stubborn pride—and the moonlight on her face their last night together.

  Her eyes narrowed as if she, too, remembered only too well things she would prefer to forget.

  “McKenna told me that you and your mom had words just before you rode out yesterday,” he said.

  “McKenna,” Eve said like a curse. “Did she also fill you in on what it was about?”

  He shook his head. “Apparently she didn’t hear that part.”

  Eve gave him a wan smile. Nothing more.

  “How’d you come to be way down there? It’s not like you to end up without your horse in the bottom of a ravine.”

  “You don’t know what I’m like anymore,” she snapped, looking back down the steep rocky slope.

  “Okay, if you don’t want to tell me…” he said as he slung the pack over his shoulder.

  “I found something.” She said it grudgingly.

  He looked down at her, hearing something in her voice that instantly set his heart racing. She was biting down on her lower lip, looking scared. “What?”

  “Hey down there!” Errol Wilson called from the top of the gulch. “Everything all right?” A shower of small rocks cascaded down just feet from them.

  “She’s fine,” Carter called back, irritated at the interruption. “Make sure everyone stays back. The ground is unstable and breaking off up there.”

  “Sure.” Errol sounded disappointed, either that the rescue adventure was over already or that Carter had shooed him away.

  When Errol stepped away, disappearing from the edge, Carter turned again to Eve. He’d seen Eve Bailey vulnerable only once before. He shoved aside the memory of her in his arms, her bare skin pressed to his, the windows steaming up on his old Chevy pickup….

  “You found something?” he repeated.

  She rubbed her ankle, wincing as if it hurt. “I found a body.”

  He felt his stomach clench even as he told himself she had to be mistaken. He’d had his share of calls from residents who’d uncovered bones and erroneously thought they’d found human remains.

  Eve shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe it herself. She drained the contents of the second water bottle before she spoke. “It was in a plane that had crashed in the ravine.”

  “An airplane?” he echoed as he looked down into the deep gorge and saw nothing. If there’d been a plane crash out here, he’d have heard about it.

  “It was a small one, a four-seater,” she said, her voice sounding hollow. “It’s been there for a long time.”

  “Where?”

  She glanced to the west. “Back that way. I’m not sure how far. I lost track trying to find a way out of there. But I’ll know the ravine when I see it.”

  He hoped so, but the ravines all looked alike and in the state she was in…“The pilot was still in the plane?” he asked, thinking about the body she’d said she found.

  “Not the pilot,” she said without looking at him. “One of the passengers.” She raised her eyes, locking with his for just an instant before she looked away again.

  She’d found a crashed airplane in a ravine with the body of one of the passengers still in it and she hadn’t said anything about it until now? The old Eve Bailey would have blurted it out the moment she saw him.

  But then he and the old Eve Bailey had been friends. Lovers. The old Eve Bailey would have trusted him.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn’t know her anymore. But he knew that wasn’t the case. Bec
ause just looking into her face, he’d seen that she hadn’t wanted to tell him about the plane.

  The realization shocked him. Why would she keep something like that to herself?

  He took a breath and let it out slowly. “You say the plane looked as if it had been there for a while?”

  “Thirty-two years.”

  He sat down on a rock across from her so they were eye to eye. “What makes you think it’s been there for thirty-two years?”

  She continued rubbing her ankle for a moment before looking up at him. “There was a logbook in the cockpit. The last entry was February seven, 1975.”

  Carter couldn’t believe this. His grandfather and father, both crop dusters, lived and breathed airplanes. They would have known about a missing plane. There would have been a search for the plane and, when found, the body removed even if it was impossible to get the plane out.

  Unless the plane had never been reported missing.

  He looked at Eve and felt a jolt. There was more.

  “The passenger in the plane,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. Her gaze met his. “He has a knife sticking out of his chest. At least I think it was a man.”

  From above them came the sound of more voices, the whinny of horses and more small rocks showering down.

  Carter rose, shaken. “I’m going to ask you not to say anything about this to anyone,” he said to her.

  She looked up at him and nodded slowly.

  “Do you think you can tell me where you found the plane?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s hidden. If not for the storm, I wouldn’t have seen anything down there. I’ll have to take you to it.”

  “No, you need to go back with the search party so you can get medical treatment, food, rest.”

  “I’m fine.” She rose to her feet with obvious difficulty. “I assume you brought me a horse?”

  “Titus has one up on top for you, but Eve—”

  “I told you, I’m fine.” She glanced toward the canyon far below them, then at him as if she could read his mind. “Don’t worry, I can find the plane again. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I grew up here. I know this country.”

  Unlike Deena, the woman he’d dumped her for. The woman he’d stupidly married, divorced and was still trying to get out of his life. Deena didn’t know one end of a horse from the other and she could get lost in the city park. Deena would never have survived five minutes out here last night.

  “Eve—”

  “I really need to get moving.”

  He nodded, not even sure what he’d planned to say. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the time or the place to talk about the past. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  They climbed out of the ravine, using the exposed rocks like steps. He could see that Eve was dead on her feet. She needed sleep, a hot shower, real food.

  But she seemed to draw on some inner strength that the dry clothing and candy bar and water had little to do with. Eve was a strong woman. Isn’t that what he’d told himself so many years ago, that Eve Bailey was strong. She’d get over any pain he’d caused her.

  He’d lied to himself because he couldn’t face the fact that he’d hurt Eve.

  IT TOOK THE LAST of her resources to get to the top of the ravine, but Eve was bound and determined. She reached the top to cheers of the search party, making her feel even more foolish, as she apologized for wasting their time, although they all insisted it had been no trouble.

  “So what happened?” Errol Wilson asked.

  Whenever Eve saw Errol, she thought of Halloween night when she was five. Her father had taken her to a party at the community center. Her mother had stayed home, complaining of a headache.

  In Eve’s excitement to tell her mother about the party, she’d been the first out of the truck and racing up the steps to the house when she thought she saw Errol Wilson hiding in the dark at the edge of the porch.

  Startled, Eve had let out a bloodcurdling scream and tripped and fell, skinning her knees. Her father had come running, but when Eve looked toward the end of the porch, there wasn’t anyone there.

  She’d tried to tell her parents that she’d seen a scary man, but they hadn’t believed her, saying she’d just imagined it.

  All Eve knew was that every time she saw Errol Wilson after that he seemed to have a smug look on his face, as if the two of them shared a secret. The smugness had only intensified after he’d seen her yesterday when he was coming out of her mother’s back door.

  “Eve was thrown from her horse and ended up at the bottom of a ravine,” Carter said before Eve could answer.

  She shot him a withering look. “I’d prefer that story not get back to my sisters, if you don’t mind. I will never live it down.”

  Everyone laughed. Except Errol.

  “Eve, you should know how hard it is to keep a secret in Whitehorse,” he said.

  “Eve and I are going to take it slow on the way back,” Carter said, and looked over at Eve as if wondering what Errol had meant by that. “I’d appreciate it if the rest of you would go back and let everyone know that Eve is fine.”

  “I know your mother will be relieved,” Errol said. “She worries about you. I’m glad I can relieve her mind.”

  Eve couldn’t suppress a shudder as she saw him look back at her as he rode off with the others.

  Apparently she and Errol Wilson now shared another secret. One he worried she would tell?

  CARTER FROWNED as he saw Eve’s reaction to Errol. What had that odd exchange been about, he wondered.

  As Eve reached for the reins of the horse Titus had brought her, Carter saw her wince with pain.

  “Here,” he said, drawing her attention away from Errol. “Let me put something on your hands.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  “You’re not fine,” he said, hooking her elbow and pulling her over to a rock. “Sit down. You’re limping. You need that ankle wrapped. I can tell from here that it’s swollen. You also need something on your hands.”

  Evidently she didn’t want him to touch her. He couldn’t blame her. In fact, he was still surprised she hadn’t laid into him, telling him off good. He knew she wanted to, so why was she holding back? Did she think he didn’t know he’d hurt her?

  Finding the plane and the dead man inside must have shaken her up more than he could imagine. Or was something else bothering her, he wondered, as he looked to where Errol Wilson and the rest of the search party had ridden off.

  Eve closed her eyes and leaned back as if soaking up the sun—and ignoring him as he gently wrapped her ankle.

  Her hands were bruised and scraped raw. They had to be killing her. “This is going to burn,” he said as he turned up her palms and applied the spray.

  She didn’t make a sound, her eyes closed tight. If it hadn’t been for the one lone tear that escaped her lashes, he would have believed it didn’t faze her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Her eyes blinked open. He looked into that moist deep darkness and saw the pain and anger. “You didn’t hurt me.” She pulled back her hands. “Can we please get this over with?”

  He nodded and put everything back into his pack. He didn’t kid himself. He’d pay hell before ever getting back in Eve’s good graces. It would be a waste of time to even try. She’d never forgive him and he couldn’t blame her.

  But as he swung up onto his horse, knowing better than to offer Eve any help getting on hers, he vowed to move heaven and earth, if that’s what it took, for the chance.

  LIGHT-HEADED and beyond exhaustion, Eve found she also ached all over as she swung up into the saddle.

  She’d seen Carter’s worried look and suspected she looked like a woman who’d fallen down a mountainside. She had.

  But none of that was as painful as having to sit there while Carter Jackson saw to her injuries. It was the gentle way he touched her, reminding her of their lovemaking the one and only time they’d been together.
It was his concerned expression. For an awful moment, he sounded as if he was about to apologize for breaking her heart.

  Eve Bailey could take a lot, but she couldn’t take that.

  They rode west, working their way along the top of the ridges, the land dropping precariously to the old river bottom. She could feel the piece of costume jewelry in her pocket biting into her flesh as if mocking her for feeling so righteous when it came to Carter.

  She argued that the way he’d betrayed her—and her keeping the pin in her pocket from him—weren’t the same thing at all.

  The lie caught in her throat like dust. But to admit she’d recognized the pin and knew who it belonged to would be to consider that her family had something to do with that plane and—worse—the dead man inside it. It was easier to lie and pray it was a coincidence that the plane had gone down just miles from the Bailey ranch.

  Eve still felt chilled in the dry clothing, although the day was warm as the sun dipped toward the western horizon. Hours had passed without her even noticing it. As she rode, she watched for the ravine where she’d found the plane.

  In the distance, she recognized an outcropping of rocks and knew they weren’t far now. She glanced over at Carter.

  How easy it would have been to keep riding, to pretend she’d gotten turned around, to leave the plane and its secrets buried where she’d found it.

  “We getting close?” he asked, as if he’d caught her indecision.

  She’d been wrong about him not knowing her anymore. He knew she couldn’t pretend to have lost the location of the plane. Any more than she could pretend he hadn’t broken her heart.

  CARTER REINED in his horse next to Eve’s. Below them was another steep ravine much like the others they’d passed.

  He glanced over at Eve. What had her running scared? Eve wasn’t squeamish when it came to dead animals. True, seeing a body would have upset her, but it wouldn’t have her scared. So what was going on with her?

  “Is it down there?” he asked. All he could see was a thick stand of junipers growing out of a rock ledge at least halfway down the steep ravine.