Safeguarding Miley

by Melissa Kay Clarke

  "Yancy told me he had uncovered a cellar hole. At first, I didn't think it was, but then I started finding a lot of iron pieces." She nodded toward her hand. "I found about twenty of these square nails about four inches down scattered over an area of around a hundred feet."

  Cowboy took the items and examined them. They were bent and rusted, but he knew 1800 era square nails when he saw them. While he was looking at the nails, she started digging in her pouch again. "Then I found this pewter spoon bowl, a lantern top and what I think is what's left of an ax head."

  He watched her as she pulled each item out and ran her fingers over the pieces lovingly. Crouching, she placed each one on the ground before her. Cowboy joined her and placed the nails beside the spoon bowl.

  "A few buttons. A piece of a knife, and a D buckle." As she narrated, she pulled the pieces out and showed them to him. "But, then guess what I found?"

  Miley's enthusiasm was contagious. He watched her face as she became more excited with each treasure she retrieved. "What?"

  She held out her fist with a beautiful smile on her lips. Miley motioned toward him with barely suppressed glee. He held his hand out, and she dropped a small round object into his palm.

  "A coin?"

  She nodded and turned it over. "Not just any coin, it's a seated liberty quarter. It's worn, but you can make out the date. It's either an 1840 or 1849." She ran her finger lightly over the surface. "My first one," she whispered in awe. "It's my new good luck piece."

  He handed the coin back. "Congratulations."

  "Thanks." She carefully slid it into a small zippered pocket on the front of her pouch. "I'm going to have it mounted into a necklace."

  She began to pick up her other treasures as she continued to talk. "It was beeping high so I thought that it might be aluminum. There's a lot of it around here for some reason. But something told me to dig it anyway, and I did. You should have seen me dancing around like an idiot when I realized what it was."

  Suddenly, Cowboy wished he had seen her dancing with abandoned glee. He had no doubt it would be a sight as impressive to him as the quarter was to her. He cleared his throat as she stood slowly and reseated her pouch around her hips. "So, you enjoy detecting."

  She smirked at him as she looked up. "Nah, I hate every minute of it." Her words didn't have any punch as they did before.

  "Well, you should come over to our place. There's an old miner camp up on the river. I bet you can find all kinds of old junk."

  "Already checked it out. Rissa gave me permission a few months back. I found a lot of cool stuff."

  "Oh?" He stood as she did and looked down at her pretty face. When she wasn't frowning at him or ranting at some perceived problem, she was striking. He chuckled to himself. She was striking even while railing at him.

  "Maybe I can come see sometime?"

  "Sure. I'm having the items mounted in a collection box, so I can display it at the clinic. I saw one at a conference I went to a few years back in California and decided if I were ever lucky enough to find something worthwhile, I'd have that done."

  He smiled at her as she squinted up at him. Taking a step to the left, he moved between her and the sun. "There you go. That's better."

  Miley scoffed. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

  Cowboy blinked. "Huh?"

  Miley waved a hand at him. "Can't help being the rescuer. The knight on a white horse, charging in to save the poor damsel in distress." Her face fell into a frown. "I don't need saving. I didn't need it last night, and I don't need it today. If the sun were bothering me, I would have moved." She turned away, picked up her detector and hefted it over her shoulder. "Tell Rissa I said hello, would you?"

  He watched as she stomped off around the side of the spring. Stooping, she picked up a small plastic bag that contained who knew what and disappeared over the hill toward Yancy's house.

  When she was gone, he scratched his head. "What the hell just happened?"

  The rustle of the breeze swirling through the dry grass was his only reply.

  Chapter 6

  It was two more days before Miley could return to her hobby. Those two days had seen both her and Jessie up to their proverbial eyeballs in problems. First, Yancy called Thursday morning at six in a panic. Two of his cows and the prize bull he kept in the upper pasture were dead. While making his rounds, he found several more were sick. Even though it was only Jessie's second day on the job, she had called him to meet her at the ranch. What they found was perplexing.

  Out of the herd of one hundred and thirty-two animals, more than half of them were listless, not eating and exhibiting signs of dehydration, colic, and gastrointestinal problems. While taking temps of the sicker ones, she found most were well below normal. She took blood samples from several of them to send off for analysis. Ketosis and BVD were ruled out since the symptoms didn't match. Even as Yancy and his hands worked to separate the well stock from the sick, more of them were showing signs, and her frustration grew. Whatever this bug was, it was running rampant through Yancy's livestock.

  While they were tending to the sick animals, she had gotten another emergency call from one of Yancy's neighbors. Leaving Jessie to continue monitoring this herd, she rushed to check on the next. It took her only minutes to realize whatever had taken hold in Yancy's stock had gotten a root here as well. She took samples and added them to the ones she procured from Yancy. On the way back to her clinic that afternoon, she shipped them out express to the laboratory in Laramie. Hopefully, she would hear back from them within a day or two. Reminded of the lab, she quickly called and left a message, asking them to put a rush on the samples and to call her immediately.

  Friday had seen much of the same. She and Jessie worked frantically with three more ranches in an attempt to get a handle on the problem. Exhausted, she had tumbled into the lumpy bed in her camper, still covered in muck from the fields and slept like the dead for twelve hours.

  Now it was Saturday, and she was in the office before nine sipping a cup of black coffee and staring down at the pictures of sick livestock. There was a connection here, but she couldn't figure it out. "What would Pop-pop do?" she muttered as she leaned back and stared up at the walls as if the could answer. For a moment, she almost picked up the telephone to call him for advice but stopped at the last minute. He'd given her the practice because he felt she was ready to handle it. She didn't need to call him every time she got stumped.

  Deciding she needed a little mental rest, she called Jessie to check in with him and to tell him to call her if anything came up. With his assurance he would contact her if anything did, she grabbed her detecting stuff and headed out the door.

  It took Miley thirty minutes to find her way back to the northern corner of Yancy's place and the cellar hole he had uncovered. Her telephone rang as she arrived and she checked the screen before declining the call. Marissa Montgomery had been calling her daily for the last week, but she put her off. She knew Rissa had a lot going on in her life and Miley wasn't going to burden her with more. Rissa was very astute and would pick up on Miley's mood. She was a bulldog when it came to things like that, worrying until she knew everything.

  Parking her truck beside the Bighorn River, it took only a few moments before she was swinging the detector over the grass and mentally categorizing the tones emitting from the device. Not wanting to miss anything that could potentially be a treasure, she turned the discrimination down and dug anything that gave a good signal.

  The sun continued to climb into the cloudless sky as she worked her way over the old homestead site. She found a lot of old iron pieces including what looked like part of an old kettle, another dozen or so square nails and a hook that was probably used for slaughtering animals. As before, there was a lot of modern garbage like pull tabs and bottle caps. When more than two hours passed since her last good beep, she decided to move upriver to the very northern edge of his property and try again.

  Early settling of the United States fascinated Mil
ey. So much so, she had obtained a minor degree in American History. Having grown up each summer in Wyoming, she researched the area extensively. She knew the first settlers had made this area their homes in the early part of the 1800's. She also knew life had been hard and many smaller farms didn't make it. Frigid winters when ice covered everything lead to blistering summers when even the Bighorn River dwindled to a ghost of its normal glory. As a result, many families abandoned their dreams and their homes, leaving artifacts of their lives behind. Those were the items she sought after. Finding coins, silver, and gold was high on Miley's bucket list, but she was equally ecstatic over buttons, saddle cinches, and wagon parts.

  Lunchtime came and went. Miley barely registered it as she hiked along the river to the edge of Yancy's property. Leaning on the fence, she looked out over the area as her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten in several hours. With a long drawn out breath, she started to turn to make her trek back to her truck when she noticed several vultures circling nearby. With a grin, she pulled out her cell phone and climbed over the border fence into the next parcel. With a little luck, she may get a few good shots of the fascinating birds stalking whatever prey they had found.

  Walking as quietly as she could, she carefully wound her way down the edge of the river until she came upon a few big rocks. Skirting around them, Miley found the vultures, but the smile fell from her face as she realized what had attracted them.

  There was a small calm pool to the side of the river that was fed by a stream from the Bighorn. The placid waters were a marked difference from the rushing ones nearby. There were several of these little spots along the river where wildlife often congregated to drink. Some were natural while others were manmade to provide watering holes for livestock. Normally, each of these was surrounded by vibrant swatches of green grass, trees, bushes and a multitude of animal tracks.

  This one was not.

  Dead brown grass stretched along the shore in both directions and to the river below the hole. Instead of trees full of autumn foliage, these were gnarled and bare. Even the hardy bushes that refused to give up their greenery until the first freeze were barren and dead. However, that was not what had captured the attention of the vultures.

  Dead carcasses littered the ground surrounding the watering hole. Rabbits, raccoons, and porcupines lay rotting next to what was once a grey wolf. Also, there were a couple of turtles and a duck snuggled against the shoreline. She shuddered as she stood, surveying the damage. Everywhere she looked along the shore vultures picked at the bodies, tearing flesh from them. One had even flown down and plucked a floating fish from the surface of the pond.

  "What the heck?" she whispered.

  The wind picked up, and she gagged at the stench from the bodies. Putting her elbow over her nose and mouth, she surveyed the area again. For a moment, she was afraid it was some type of disease but quickly discarded the idea. A virus could spread easily enough among some animals but rarely would jump between diverse species. This was something different. The one common element among the dead was their location.

  Quickly her mind ran through the various possibilities. Perhaps this was the work of a group of hunters who shot for sport. With the way the pack of vultures was ripping into the bodies, she couldn't tell if any had gunshot wounds. Poisoning was a possibility, but what kind? Something natural like larkspur? Most of the wildlife knew better than to go near it. She recalled an article she read last week concerning the emission of toxic gases near fracking sites around Pavillion. Could the winds be carrying those emissions all the way from there? She shook her head. That was a long shot at best. Pavillion was more than two hours away by car. Any gasses from there would be dispersed long before reaching them. By that same reasoning, anything spewing up from the Yellowstone Caldera over an hour to their west would similarly be dispersed.

  Unless it came from underground?

  She wasn't a geologist, but perhaps it was possible that a vent opened nearby that spewed carbon dioxide into the air, killing anything that was close to the ground. She grimaced. Either way, she had to report this to the authorities. Lifting her cell phone, she quickly snapped several photographs. She contemplated taking back one of the carcasses to be examined but decided against it. If there were toxic elements in the air, she was pressing her luck by just staying in the area. Suddenly she became scared that she had inhaled whatever had killed these poor things. Turning quickly, she held her breath and all but ran back down the riverside to the fence and climbed over. Picking up her equipment, she ran-walked back to her truck and climbed in. Just as she thrust the key into the ignition, her cell went off scaring about three years of life out of her. Stabbing the button, she answered.

  "Dr. Ellison? This is Mark at the State Laboratory. I was returning your call."

  Miley blew out a held breath. "Thank you for getting back to me, Mark. I wanted to check the samples I submitted two days ago. I realize this is a Saturday, but I needed to see if you had found anything?"

  "I'm looking at the toxicology report now. The samples you provided show arsenic, lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls. The highest concentration is arsenic at more than double the fatal amount."

  She gulped and blinked her eyes. What were Yancy's cattle doing with lethal dosages of heavy metals in their systems? She rubbed her eyes and let out a long breath. "Have you seen other reports with this type of a situation?"

  "I haven't, no. I did read an article several years ago concerning illegal waste dumping and the effect on the ecosystem. What they mentioned is close to this. If I were a betting man, I'd say these animals had stumbled upon an illegal dumping ground," Mark's voice was tight. "I'm going to have to report this to the EPA. It's policy to do so whenever we find heavy metal poisoning in these levels."

  "Alright. Email me a copy of the reports, please. Thanks."

  "I will."

  Miley clicked off the phone then turned her truck around. As quickly as she dared, she raced back toward Yancy's place. Activating the hands-free on her cell, she called Jessie.

  "Hey, Miley, what's up?"

  "Go to the clinic and grab every bit of Edetate Calcium Disodium you can find and meet me at Yancy's."

  "EDTA? Do you think the herd's been poisoned by heavy metals?"

  "I don't think it, I know it."

  "I'll be right there."

  She hung up the phone and thought of the pond full of dead animals she had witnessed. That had to be the dumping site, but who was doing it? She knew the Hillmans who owned that piece of land would never be involved. They were extremely environmentally aware. Neither would Yancy nor the Montgomerys next door. She frowned. Time enough to figure out who later. Right now, she needed to treat all the affected animals and hope she had enough EDTA to do the job.

  The man knocked the dust from the front of his tailored shirt and perfectly pressed jeans as he stood from the prone position on the ridge overlooking the river. Strictly speaking, he didn't care for these country rube clothing, but he had a part to play and a job to do. Picking up his binoculars, he turned to a second man standing beside him. "She's seen too much. Call the boss."

  Strolling to an idling Jeep Wrangler sitting beside two ATVs hauling carts filled with drums, he hopped into the passenger side. Glancing over at Agron talking quietly on the cell phone, he patiently waited. When the man finished, he slid his phone into his pocket and climbed into the driver's seat. "He said not to kill her, yet. He said to persuade her."

  Jetmir growled. Living in the country was making the boss soft. In the old days, he would never leave a loose end hanging, but it wasn't Jetmir's place to the point that out. His was to do what he was told.

  When he got in, he settled back as the Jeep lurched forward and flew over the hill.

  They didn't stop at the fence barrier but flew through in a shower of wood flying everywhere. Normally, they inched through the barriers as not to leave obvious evidence of their passage. That was Jetmir's job, after all; making sure everything ran smoo
thly.

  They caught the veterinarian's vehicle within minutes. Pulling in front of the truck, they forced it to stop in a scream of brakes and a cloud of dirt. Jetmir slid out of his seat and approached her door as Dmitri, Agron, and Loran took positions around the truck. He could see her eyes widening as her face drained. Good. She was scared. Maybe she was smarter than he thought.

  Jetmir made a motion for her to roll the window down. She shook her head. He sighed. Taking a step back, he rested his palm on the gun thrust into his waistband. Her eyes followed and froze. "Doctor Ellison, I need to speak with you, and you're being very unfriendly. Please be so kind as to lower your window."

  He could see her throat constrict as she swallowed then courage made her back stiffen. She pressed the button letting her window down two inches. "What do you want?"

  She was smart after all. She knew enough not to push but was still guarded. Smart or not, he needed to make sure she understood where things sat. One eyebrow arched as he gave her a few moments to worry. Clasping his hands in front of his belt he stared a few moments until he was sure she got the message. He was the one in control.

  "Doctor Ellison, I wished to make sure you were all right. You were moving pretty fast over the open country. Much like you had seen a ghost or perhaps something unpleasant."

  She drew back marginally, and he nodded. Pasting a cold smile on his lips, he continued. "You must be careful while you're out playing with your digging hobby. You never know what kind of vicious animals are lurking about. Out there in the wilderness alone, it could be days before anyone found you and then what would your family do?" He leaned in and stared into her eyes. "There are so many secret places that a person could disappear into and never even be heard from again. I hear that nowhere is safe. Wild animals could even attack in town, right in the middle of a residential community. Children, loved ones...grandparents... animals have no distinction when they destroy. And all because someone was at the wrong place at the wrong time."