Past Promises

by Jill Marie Landis

  Quite an accomplished rider for a young woman born and bred in Massachusetts, Jessica adjusted her skirts until the tops of her high, laced boots were covered, and with a last wave to Myra, she headed north.

  A few yards from the camp, she paused to take stock of her friend still perched on the rock. The Ute men seated themselves in the dust not far from Myra, who was still intent on her sketches. Jess looked at the lonesome tent standing all too white against the high desert color and hoped she wasn’t making a very serious mistake.

  I sing in the saddle

  When days get too long.

  I sing when I’m happy

  And when things go wrong.

  The cattle don’t mind it,

  It settles ’em down.

  I sing in the tub

  When there’s no one around.

  Rory Burnett recognized Cortez in the distance, kicked his horse into a gallop, and chuckled as he repeated the stanza again, well pleased with himself. He didn’t fancy himself a true poet, not like Keats or Shelley anyway. Hell, he wasn’t more than a cowhand turned rancher, but he enjoyed rolling words that rhymed around on his tongue. Every so often, when they seemed to “take,” he wrote the words down.

  As he watched the newly established trading post grow larger on the horizon, he hoped this unexpected trip would not keep him away from the Silver Sage Ranch for long.

  With only six full-time hands he didn’t have a lot of time to waste gallivanting around the countryside.

  For the past week and a half he and his men had been trying to combat the blowflies that were infesting the cattle as they did every summer. It was a dirty job, but it had to be done. Branding and castration left the herd with open wounds that soon festered with the screw worms that hatched when the flies laid their eggs in the open flesh. Axle grease mixed with carbolic acid was the only way Rory knew of to kill off the worms, but the mixture had to be hand-daubed on every unwilling animal.

  Before he left that morning, he set the men to the unpleasant task again, and if his errand had been anything else, he would have declined and been working alongside them. But Piah Jackson, a Ute subchief, had appealed to him for help, and in Rory’s mind there was little he could do but answer the call.

  Just after dawn Rory had been in the still-cool shadows that lingered in the corner of the barn holding a bridle with braided reins when Piah Jackson soundlessly entered the building.

  Rory had set aside the bridle and given the Ute his full attention. The man’s eyes blazed with barely concealed anger, his usual forbidding countenance darkened by irritation. His braided black hair was intricately woven with lengths of colored ribbon. A government-issue shirt was covered by a jacket that had no doubt come from a box of clothing donated by some wealthy churchgoers in the East—the coat had obviously been fashioned for a heavyset man. His leggings were of woolen flannel, close-fitted and trimmed with fringe and beads. Fastened about his waist was a hand-tooled belt and his tall black hat sported a band of silver conchos, a Navajo trade item.

  “I have come to ask you to keep the promise made by the man who called you son,” Piah said without salutation.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Rory said. Miles of the Silver Sage Ranch bordered the Ute reservation. Now that Wilner Burnett had died and passed on the ranch and his name, Rory intended to continue to help his closest neighbors, be they red or white, whenever called upon.

  Piah visibly relaxed. “Strangers have come to the reservation. They have many papers that give them the right to search our land, to dig for bones and disturb the ancient ones buried on Ute soil.”

  Rory took a moment to sort out what the man was trying to tell him. “Have you asked Carmichael for help?”

  “We have asked. But they have papers. The agent says there is nothing he can do.”

  Perplexed, Rory crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the scarred wooden rail of the nearest stall. Domino, his big Appaloosa, nuzzled his shoulder. He reached back to scratch the animal’s nose. “If they have government permits,” he said slowly, “I don’t see how I can help. What else do you know?”

  “She said they are looking for bones. She wanted to give us money to help her dig them up.”

  She? “A woman?”

  Piah held up two fingers. “Two women. One old, one not so old. No man.”

  Shoving away from the stall, Rory ran a hand over his eyes and said half to himself, “Two women are on the reservation to dig up bones.” It didn’t surprise him. Since two ranchers had stumbled on the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde two years before, the area had been crawling with treasure hunters, archaeologists, and curiosity seekers. His own opinion was that the discovery had turned the place into a circus. To Piah he said, “Did you tell these women that grave sites are sacred to your people?”

  With a shrug, Piah turned and squinted out into the sunlight before he looked back at Rory. “They have papers. They didn’t understand the signs I made.”

  “Then why didn’t you speak English?”

  Piah smiled. “I spoke a little, but sometimes it is better not to let a stranger know all that one knows. They are camped on the high mesa close to your land.” Piah paused a moment before he added, “Near the cave.”

  Rory suddenly knew all too well why Piah was so disturbed. The strangers were camped atop an extensive cavern in the sandstone wall of one of the many canyons carved into the mesa.

  Situated on land that technically straddled the boundary between the Silver Sage and the reservation, the huge cave was a sacred site to the Indians and had been for centuries. Years back, when Wilner Burnett was out rounding up stray cattle and had innocently stumbled across the place, he immediately approached the Ute elders, told them what he had found, and swore to keep the location a secret. No one, he promised, as long as he and his descendants owned the land, would ever disturb it. Because of his open sincerity and willingness to help, the Utes had believed him. To Wilner, a man’s word was sacred. He had always kept his word.

  Now Wilner was gone and not only had Rory inherited the Silver Sage, but the promise to the Utes.

  “Maybe Carmichael will listen to you and make the women go,” Piah suggested.

  “Not after the run-in I had with him this past April,” Rory admitted as he tapped a hand against his thigh. “Our discussion over that rotten beef he tried to hand out to your people exploded into a shouting match.”

  “You gave us cattle of your own so we would not go hungry. I ask for your help again.”

  Rory knew Piah wouldn’t budge until he agreed to at least try to help. Giving away a few head of cattle had been easy. Interfering in government-sanctioned work was more than he had bargained for, still, if he could find the women and explain to them just what their intrusion mean to the Utes, he thought it was worth a try. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Make them go.”

  Reduced to three words, the task sounded simple. Rory shoved back his hat and shook his head. “Not very easy if they have government permission.”

  “If they stay, if they disturb the bones of our ancestors, they will raise evil spirits. It is not right to disturb the dead. We hide the graves of our people because the spirits that survive them must stay buried. Nothing good will come of these women digging on our land. Only disaster.”

  Now, as Rory unwillingly approached the outskirts of Cortez, he frowned against the noonday sun. He hadn’t promised Piah he would succeed, only that he would try to talk to the women and explain the sacredness of the Ute grave sites to them; he had to be careful how he went about it. If he told them about the cave outright, it might just send them running in that direction. More than anything, he wanted to reach the interlopers before they stumbled upon it themselves. If any “disaster” befell them, the Utes would take the blame and the surrounding countryside would be up in ar
ms.

  He wondered what in the hell possessed two idiot women to venture onto the reservation alone. True, there had been no major problems with the Utes since the uprising at White River back in ’79. Agent Nathan Meeker had been murdered along with eight of his men, and his wife and daughter taken captive. Still, no one in Colorado had forgotten about the incident. In order to prevent trouble, the very least he could do was ask around, see if he could find the two women, and then try to set them straight. He hoped it wouldn’t take more than a day or two.

  As he reined in before the general store and trading post and dismounted, Rory wondered if it was too much to hope that everything would be settled by nightfall.

  The rowels of his spurs delivered a metallic whisper as he crossed the lopsided pine sidewalk that bordered the front of the store. He ducked through the low door frame, took off his hat out of habit, and spun it around on his finger as he walked toward the counter. The entrance area of the elongated room was well lit by the front windows, but near the back, only hanging oil lamps dispelled the shadows.

  Rows of canned and dry goods lined the shelves behind the counter. Barrels of flour, sugar, salt, and cornmeal with scoops and sacks beside them stood like infantrymen along one wall. Grain, seed, and feed were stored in the back corner, while household goods, ribbon, and fabric, along with pots and pans were up front where they would catch a housewife’s hungry eye.

  As Rory approached the counter Willie Henson, the proprietor, straightened his apron strings and stepped forward expectantly. “What can I do for you, Rory? Come in to collect your mail?”

  Rory leaned one elbow on the cash register and continued to twirl his dusty black Stetson. “Well, that, and I’m hopin’ you can answer a question, Willie. You had any women through here, travelin’ alone, maybe buyin’ supplies?” Henson shook his head as he reached for the box of mail he kept under the counter. “Nope. An’ I’da remembered any unattached females, that’s for certain.” He began to sort through the envelopes.

  “Thought maybe you would,” Rory said.

  Willie lay two letters on the countertop. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, just curious. Heard there’s a couple of them up the reservation digging around.”

  “You in the market for a wife?” Henson asked.

  The Stetson stopped twirling. Rory straightened. “Nope. The Silver Sage is about all I can handle right now.”

  “How you been doin’ since ol’ Wilner died?”

  “Not bad.” If you consider working from sunup to sundown and always coining up short of money good, he thought. “But I miss the old coot more’n I like to let on.”

  Willie smiled. “Nobody could ride down a steer like Wilner Burnett. Leastwise that’s what they say.”

  “What they say’s the truth.” Rory shoved the letters in his back pocket. Since Willie had not seen the women, he was at a dead end. There’d be nothing to do now but ride all the way down to the mesa that bordered the reservation on the south end of his land and search for them.

  “With Wilner not long dead you still plannin’ on holdin’ the barbecue on the Fourth?” Willie wanted to know.

  “Sure am,” Rory assured him. Wilner had been dead six months, but the annual Fourth of July barbecue and rodeo for all the ranchers and neighbors was a tradition Rory intended to keep. “You be sure to come on out and bring your ma.”

  “I’ll sure do ’er.”

  Before he left, Rory remembered to ask, “You get that new feed mix in?”

  “It’s in the back corner. Open up a sack if you want to see it,” Willie offered.

  Rory heard the sound of hooves out front as he sauntered over to the darkened back corner of the store. Just as he bent over a burlap sack of grain, he heard the distinct sound of a woman’s heels tapping across the floorboards followed by Willie clearing his throat Curious, Rory paused to peer around the end of a row of shelves and there she was, a woman the likes of which he’d never seen. He knew immediately she was one of the two he was looking for.

  Willie glanced his way. Rory quickly shook his head and held a finger to his lips, aiming to study the woman before he approached her. The clerk turned his attention back to the woman at the counter. She was of medium height, slender, but not bony. From what Rory could see, she neatly filled out her fitted brown jacket. The trouble was, she had the damn thing buttoned nearly to her eyebrows. That was an exaggeration, he knew, but despite the warm June weather, the woman had the jacket closed all the way to her chin. A hint of cream-colored lace edged all that was visible of the collar. It brushed against the underside of her jaw.

  He couldn’t see her hair because she had it shoved up under a stiff-looking hat, but he guessed it was probably brown, or a watered-down derivative of it, just like everything else she wore. The hat itself reminded him of a picture he’d once seen, a seed-calendar painting of a hunter on African safari. She had on chamois gloves and sturdy, lace-up boots—again of brown. On the bridge of her perfectly tapered and slightly tilted nose rode a pair of thick, wire-frame spectacles.

  The woman silently studied Willie Henson, who was smoothing down his-parted, well-oiled hair with both hands as he stared back wide-eyed at his surprise customer.

  Finally she spoke. “I’m Jessica Stanbridge and I’m here in Colorado to conduct a scientific search, Mister . . . ?”

  Willie looked startled as she paused, then quickly supplied his last name. “Henson. Willie Henson, ma’am.”

  “Yes, well, Mr. Henson, I’m here on behalf of the Harvard Museum. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m sorry I ain’t. I mean, haven’t never.”

  “I see. Well, at any rate. I’m a staff assistant paleontologist, and I’ve come to comb the area for signs of huge reptiles that inhabited the earth millions of years ago.”

  “They move back to Colorado?” Sudden concern marred Willie’s usually bland expression.

  Rory swallowed a laugh and noticed the woman missed the levity of the moment. She merely looked perturbed.

  Miss Stanbridge shook her head. “On the contrary, Mr. Henson. I’m searching for the fossilized remains of saurians that have been dead for centuries.”

  “I see,” said Willie, who obviously didn’t see at all.

  “I wonder if you can be so kind as to suggest someone hereabout that I might hire as a guide?”

  She asked so softly that Rory could barely hear her. He leaned closer.

  Willie swallowed and acted as if he’d never heard the English language spoken before. “Guide?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Guide. Scout. Whatever you like to call it. I need a male. Preferably strong. Someone who knows the area well, especially the mesas on the Ute reservation.”

  Behind a full shelf of tins of cookies and soda crackers, Rory shifted. The woman fanned herself with her hand, blew at a stray wisp of hair that was hanging over her glasses, and then went on to explain, “I’ve tried to get some of the men at the reservation to help, but they seem unwilling to do so, even for pay.”

  “They tend to be a stubborn bunch,” Willie editorialized.

  “So it seems. I came to see if you have any suggestions. Perhaps someone who lives nearby. By the way, I saw your sign out front and will have my mail forwarded to your store. I would appreciate it if you could hold any letters that might arrive in the next few weeks, as I don’t know how often I’ll get into Cortez.”

  “Be happy to take care of your mail, ma’am, but as to gettin’ somebody to guide you, I just don’t—”

  Rory suddenly saw his chance yawning as wide as the very mouth of the cave he hoped to steer Miss Jessica Stanbridge clear of. Signing on as her guide would give him a perfect opportunity to lead her away from the cave and off the Ute reservation. Once he had her on his land, he could keep her busy searching the high plateau for bones
while he checked in at the ranch house. By getting to know her better, he could gauge whether or not she might be sympathetic to the Ute concerns.

  He quickly stepped around the end of the shelves and over to the counter. When she swung her gaze toward him, he saw that she was startled to discover someone else was in the store. He was almost as startled as she, for he hadn’t expected her eyes to be so blue, so wide, or so beguiling. Nor had he expected the mysterious bone hunter to be so very beautiful. In spite of the dirt that streaked her face and the owlish look the round spectacles gave her, her loveliness was still apparent. For a fleeting moment he couldn’t for the life of him remember what he was going to say.

  Then it hit him. “You say you’re looking for a guide, ma’am?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I’m your man.”

  Chapter Two

  JESSICA TRIED TO ignore the tall, dark-eyed stranger’s intense stare. Instead she focused on the row of buttons down the front of his red plaid shirt and followed them down to his shining belt buckle. For a split second she wondered why a gun and holster rode his hip. It was hard not to notice the weapon—not when the handle was inlaid with turquoise and silver. Her gaze flicked lower. She immediately felt her color rise and looked up again. The entire perusal had taken no more than a second, but from the smug look on his face she knew it had taken too long.

  “Who are you?’ She put it bluntly, but he didn’t seem in the least offended.

  “Rory Burnett. I own the Silver Sage Ranch just south of here. It borders the Ute reservation.”

  “I see.”

  “And you?”

  “Jessica Stanbridge, but since you seem to have been lurking somewhere nearby, I must assume you overheard my entire conversation. What I’d like to know is why would a rancher want to hire on as a guide?” She reached up to straighten her hat.

  “Why not?”

  “Surely you must have enough work of your own. I was thinking of someone more in need of a job—”

  “Miss Stanbridge, in case you haven’t noticed, aside from this trading post and the livery, there’s no one else around. Just how long are you willing to wait for someone to wander in here?”