Desert Devil

by Rena McKay

  By the time Brian took her home, Juli was tired and a bit bemused by the day's events. What was the relationship between Thorne and Nicole? They were more than business associates, that much seemed obvious, and yet…

  And yet, what difference did it make one way or the other? Juli chided herself over the next few days. It didn't change the things Thorne had done, his suspicious offer of payment to Aunt Kate, the "accidental" ripping of Juli's blouse, his arrogant suggestion that she would rather have money than an apology. And then warning her to stay away from Brian! He made her furious, and yet even in the midst of that fury she was all too apt to find herself reacting to his virile presence, melting under his touch. With an oddly hollow feeling inside, she realized she quite likely would never see him again.

  The real estate agent brought a prospective buyer out Tuesday. Juli continued to clean and sort through David's things. She took a big pile of books to a second-hand store, books on subjects ranging from electronics to geology, Arizona history to Indian lore. On Thursday she decided to open up the hide-a-bed in the living room and vacuum the mattress. To her surprise she found there was no mattress inside, just a folded blanket. When she lifted the blanket, papers fluttered everywhere, pages and pages of notes and diagrams and maps. One map appeared to be on old parchment, the lines faded, the paper folded and refolded so many times that a brittle piece of it broke off in her hand.

  Juli looked at the papers, bewildered. Why had David hidden them in the sofa? Because they were hidden, there was no doubt about that. This was not just another of David's haphazard piles of old junk.

  Some of the notes were on quite technical geological subjects. Others were numbered in reference to corresponding numbers on various maps, most of which looked like copies of the parchment map. There was a page of dates and figures that appeared to show times of sunrise and sunset at various times of the year. And there were pages and pages of rambling notes in which David seemed to have been more or less talking to himself on paper, putting forth various theories about the location of something.

  And then a few shocking words and phrases leaped out of the notes at her. David saying to himself that he doubted if this problem had ever been approached on a really scientific basis before, that he was certain he had achieved a real scientific breakthrough by correlating geological, historical, and personal investigative data. Scientific breakthrough.

  This was what David had been working on, Juli realized with a sense of shock. Not some electronic invention or development, either on his own or for the company, but this. And what, exactly, was this?

  Juli sank into a chair and studied the papers again. She finally figured out that David had been searching for a mine, a gold mine that he referred to as the Lost Dutchman's Mine, that had been lost for many years. He had, she also realized, evidently paid someone a rather large amount of money for the old map. The mine was somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. The name jarred her. That was where Jason Taylor had slipped and fallen to his death! Could David have had something to do with that death? Juli wondered in horror.

  With shaky relief she read on as David talked to himself about Jason's death, his scorn coming through as he said Jason was searching in the wrong area entirely, an area David himself had never been near. Perhaps the accident serves him right, however, for going behind my back and cheating on our previous agreement, David had written. David sounded callous and certainly evidenced no great regret over Jason's death, but neither did he sound involved or responsible. With a jolt Juli remembered something Brian had told her, that Jason Taylor's hobby was looking for old mines. So it wasn't Thorne and Taylor Electronics whom David thought had cheated him in the past, she realized. It was Jason Taylor.

  Stunned and incredulous, Juli gathered the papers into a neat stack. Whatever had gotten into David to let his work at the company suffer while he chased after some lost gold mine? It was incredible, so unlike what she thought she knew of David, and yet it was all there for her to see. It explained the collections of rocks he had piled all over the place, rocks he evidently thought had some geological significance in relation to the gold. It explained his absences from work, because he was out looking for the gold mine when he should have been on the job. Juli just stood there, shocked and stunned.

  And then another thought that was almost as shocking and dismaying as what she had just discovered struck her. She owed Thorne an apology. She had been wrong, dead wrong in thinking Taylor Electronics had done anything to cheat David or Aunt Kate. She had been wrong in her beliefs, wrong in her accusations, wrong in her actions.

  But she couldn't go crawling to him, apologetically begging for his forgiveness. Empty as the thought of never seeing him again had left her, she couldn't humble herself before his scornful, knowing eyes, his inevitable taunting: "I told you so." She just couldn't! All that day and the next she tried to avoid the responsibility of going to him and admitting she was wrong, tried to rationalize and argue her way out of it. She squirmed and wiggled and tried to escape it, but finally her basic sense of justice and responsibility impaled her.

  She put it off until Saturday morning and then finally, reluctantly, dressed in mint-green slacks and white tank top, she started out. She parked her car and walked toward the front door of the Taylor house, dreading what she had to do, apprehensive that she might encounter Nicole again, and yet deep down feeling a tremble of excited anticipation at seeing Thorne. She was halfway up the walkway when the sound of her own name spoken by a commanding male voice startled her.

  "Oh! You… you surprised me."

  Thorne was standing at the half-open gate in the high wall that concealed the pool. He was wearing only brief, navy swim trunks and a white towel slung around his neck. Drops of water glittered on his tanned skin and glistened in his bronzed hair. He looked poised, predatory, again the pagan sun-devil with mocking eyes she had encountered on the ridge.

  "I… There was something I wanted to talk to you about," Juli faltered.

  He swung the gate open wider in a gesture that was more acquiescing than inviting. She brushed by him, carefully avoiding contact, clutching her sheaf of papers. He motioned her toward a cushioned redwood chair and settled in a matching chaise longue himself, leanly muscled legs casually crossed at the ankles.

  "Is… is Nicole around?" Juli asked, annoyed with herself for asking, but needing to know.

  His lips twitched in a slight movement that might have indicated amusement at her concern or annoyance at her temerity for asking such a question. "No, she went back to Scottsdale. She and my mother should be coming down together in a few days."

  "Oh." It all sounded so intimate, as if they were already a family. Determinedly, she put those thoughts out of her mind. They had nothing to do with why she was here today. She took a deep breath. "I have come to apologize to you. I have learned that what David thought was a 'scientific breakthrough' had nothing to do with electronics or your company, and I was wrong in making demands and accusations." She thrust the sheaf of papers at him.

  Eyebrows lifted quizzically, Thorne took the papers. He started to rifle through them, straightened up in the lounge chair, and examined each with attentive care. For long minutes he said nothing. Juli looked around restlessly, appreciating again the way the pool had been built to blend artfully with the surroundings, almost as if it were a natural oasis among the desert boulders. The patio provided cool shade, with green plants in hanging pots giving a lush, garden atmosphere that contrasted with the desert saguaro and prickly pear on the far side of the pool. The gracefully leaning palm added a final touch of elegance. The morning sun felt pleasant on her rigid back, but did nothing to relax her tense nerves.

  Finally Thorne whistled softly. "So that was it," he murmured. "I'll be damned. This is why David was so preoccupied and secretive. People speculated about everything from alcohol to gambling or women, and all the time he had gold fever."

  "Gold fever?" Juli repeated doubtfully.

  Thorne leaned bac
k, the papers resting on his sun-darkened thighs, gray-green eyes reflective. "It's hard for someone like you or me to understand, I suppose, how some people can develop this obsession, this fever to search for gold. But you have only to look back at the California and Alaska gold rushes to see how it infected some people. Perhaps an addiction to gambling would be the closest comparison. A person feels sure that with the next throw of the dice, or the next turn of the shovel, he'll strike it rich. There's an old saying that you're better off getting struck by a rattlesnake than bit by the gold bug."

  "But it seems so… so incredible, so unbelievable," Juli protested. "David was so intelligent. And he never seemed to care all that much about material things or riches."

  Thorne nodded. "But gold fever can make fools out of the most intelligent of men. Gold seems to hold a fascination that has nothing to do with feelings about other material luxuries." He looked at the old, worn map again. "It's not all that unusual for an otherwise level-headed man to get hooked on looking for the Lost Dutchman's Mine. And a quite a few have lost their lives in the search."

  "Including your brother?" she asked tentatively.

  Thorne took a sip from a tall glass resting on the low redwood table between them. He lifted the glass in a questioning gesture, but she shook her head. "Including Jason," he agreed finally. "I always thought looking for the Lost Dutchman and some other mines was just a hobby with Jason, but perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps he had gold fever, too. I knew he and David seemed friendly for a while, and then they were hardly on speaking terms. I didn't give it much thought at the time, but evidently it had something to do with this."

  "It's still so hard to understand," Juli said helplessly.

  He swung lean legs over the edge of the lounge chair. "A world-famous author once headed an expedition to look for the Lost Dutchman. A whole group of people spent months climbing around on Weaver's Needle with ropes and nets in some wild scheme. People do strange things where gold is concerned. Some skeletons have been found in the Superstitions with the skull separated from the other bones, as if the victim had been beheaded. Some call it the Dutchman's Curse."

  Juli shuddered involuntarily, and Thorne smiled—a smile that for once seemed more genuine and sympathetic than mocking.

  "Of course, there are other less fanciful explanations than that of some mysterious curse. The people could have died of natural causes, such as thirst or heat, and the bones been scattered by animals. But if the danger of the curse isn't real, the danger of someone inexperienced dying of heat or thirst in the interior of the Superstitions is quite real. There are still a few old prospectors living back in there looking for the gold, though."

  Juli shook her head, still bewildered by all this. "This changes everything, of course. You don't owe Aunt Kate anything, and you won't have to pay."

  He shrugged. "This doesn't change anything with regards to your aunt. As I believe I pointed out to you earlier, I have known all along that David did not make some invention or discovery of great value to the company." His voice was lightly mocking, but the tone was more teasing than derisive.

  "Then why are you giving her the money?"

  "Various reasons. Giving a payment directly to Mrs. Flynn could be cheaper and less bothersome than a long, drawn-out court case. Also, having a sweet little old lady sue the company for fraud or something equally damning would not be very good publicity."

  He spoke easily, almost carelessly, but he didn't meet Juli's eyes, and suddenly Juli suspected why. He didn't want to admit it, but Aunt Kate's plight had touched a soft place in his heart, a soft place that until this moment she would not even have guessed existed.

  "Frankly, I thought your story about David's mother was just a phony sob story, part of your scheme to con money out of the company," he admitted. "But we ran a fast check and found out you were telling the truth—at least on that point."

  His emphasis did not escape her. She toyed uneasily with the strap of her purse, her head bent forward so her soft hair fell partway across her face. "I'm sorry. But I honestly believed everything I said about David doing something big and important for the company."

  "I know."

  She stood up and he rose to his feet, also. He was barefoot and she in high-heeled sandals, but even so, he towered over her. He handed the papers back to her. The fragile parchment map was almost in pieces by now.

  "It still seems too incredible. The map looks old and authentic, and I think David paid someone a fair amount of money for it." She hesitated. "I wonder… I mean, isn't it just possible—"

  "Look, don't you go getting gold fever, too," he warned. "There might be ten thousand 'old and authentic' Lost Dutchman maps floating around, and there's always someone willing to sell one to a sucker who is willing to buy."

  Juli smiled. "I suppose so." She moved toward the gate, acutely aware of his almost-naked body beside her and the easy grace of his barefoot stride.

  "But you're still not totally convinced, are you?" he suggested.

  "It still seems hard to believe David would go off on a completely wild-goose chase," she admitted.

  "How would you like to hike into the Superstitions yourself?" he said unexpectedly. "See the place for yourself and see how much chance you think there is of finding any lost gold mine there."

  Juli looked up at him in surprise, her heart suddenly hammering erratically.

  "How about tomorrow? It's Sunday. We'll take a lunch and make a day of it." His smile was friendly, his eyes smoky-warm.

  Juli was never quite sure what was said next, but somehow it was all arranged. He would pick her up at the trailer Sunday morning. He would bring the lunch. She should wear heavy shoes suitable for hiking, not flimsy sandals. This last was said without criticism, however, as Thorne cast an appreciative glance at her slim ankles and high heels.

  Somehow, Juli got through the day. She laughed at herself when she was almost too excited to eat supper. She was acting like some giddy adolescent going on her first date! And yet she did have the heady feeling of being on the edge of a very special first in her life, the first time she had ever really been in love.

  She prepared for bed early, telling herself she needed to get a good night's sleep, but somehow doubtful that she would be able to sleep at all. She showered and washed her hair and was just laying out her clothes for the next day when the lights, without so much as a flicker of warning, blinked out.

  She sat there in the darkness waiting for them to come on again, but nothing happened. She peered outside, but since no other residences were visible from the trailer, it was impossible to tell whether the electricity was out all over or just at the trailer. She felt her way down the length of the trailer to the living room and peered out again. There was no moon. The boulder-strewn ridge was a dark blot against the starry sky.

  She hesitated uncertainly. Of course, she was ready for bed, and once asleep it wouldn't matter if the electricity was on or off. But she found the idea of waking up in the night and not knowing the comforting reassurance of being able to snap on a light unsettling. Resolutely, she found a flashlight in a drawer, slipped on a robe, and went outside to the electrical box fastened to a post. Perhaps a fuse had blown.

  She opened the electrical box. There were several switches inside. Tentatively, she flipped them back and forth, glancing hopefully at the trailer as she did so, but nothing happened. She tried again. Suddenly the lights blinked on and off several times, finally settling to a reassuring glow. Juli didn't know if she had done something right, or if the power company had done something to correct a general electric outage, but she was relieved.

  In the morning Juli had only time to dress and fix a quick breakfast before Thorne arrived in an old four-wheel-drive pickup. He seemed in a marvelous, almost playful mood. He voiced approval of her hiking shoes, but his eyes gleamed with even more appreciative approval of her hip-molding jeans. Juli fought down a breathless giddiness. This was just a Sunday hike, nothing more.

  The front seat
of the pickup was crowded with picnic basket, backpack, and insulated water jug. Juli was squeezed up against Thorne by the time they were inside and ready to go, her leg pressed with almost embarrassing intimacy against his lean thigh. Though he didn't seem to object!

  They took a shortcut on the old highway that led directly across the dry riverbed without benefit of a bridge. The ever-present creosote bush grew in clumps on the dry bottom, though the mesquite and palo verde trees clustered along the sandy banks. Tracks where cars had squirreled around in the sand crisscrossed the area.

  The drive up to the Superstitions was pleasant, the talk casual but friendly. Juli had a hard time concentrating with Thorne's arm brushing against her whenever he turned the steering wheel and the hard length of his leg pressed against hers. Long before they reached the dirt road that led to the south entrance of the Superstitions Wilderness area, Juli could see the massive battlements of the western tip of the mountains rising abruptly from the desert floor. The cliffs were straight up and down and yet convoluted into strange, tortured shapes, massive and barren, brooding and majestic.

  The bumpy, dusty road led through saguaro and mesquite, palo verde and ocotillo. They finally parked in a rocky, sloping area with several other cars. Juli could only stare in awe. Stretching off to the left was a sheer, rose-colored wall. The trail led up a steep canyon jumbled with boulders and cactus, overlooked by incredibly shaped and balanced rocks on either side. A cave was visible far up on one side, seemingly impregnable above a rounded wall of yellow-green rock. It was all rough and wild and incredibly beautiful.