Legend of The Lost: (Z & C Mysteries, #4)

by Zoey Kane

  Legend of the Lost

  Book 4, Z&C Mysteries

  by Zoey and Claire Kane

  Copyright 2014

  Published by Breezy Reads

  BreezyReads.com

  Legend of The Lost has a stand-alone plot, just like every other Z & C Mystery.

  About the book:

  It was supposed to be a relaxing vacation to California. Instead, Zoey and Claire take an unexpected detour when their private plane crash-lands into Arizona’s mysterious Superstition Mountains. Taken in by a dude ranch where everyone and their grandma is obsessed with the fortune of The Lost Dutchman’s Mine, romance with handsome, ropin’ cowboys becomes a top priority. The last thing on their minds is murder. But as Daniel Walks-With-Secrets, heartthrob captain of the sheriff’s department, warns, “Greed leads to bloody misfortune.” With a stubborn resilience that only a mother-daughter relationship can summon, the ladies are fixin’ to find the culprits… and the treasure.

  Table of Contents Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  ONE

  Two cowboys on horses rode lazily along the Arizona desert…

  “Brooks, I told you that horse you got yer eye on ain’t no good,” said the scruffy old man, rewinding his rope. “He ain’t never gonna get broke. He’s just a wild nutbag of a mustang.”

  Brooks, riding his favorite palomino quarter horse, put a piece of gum in his mouth and looked up. “What’s going on? I’m hearing an airplane spitting, like it’s losing power. You hear that, Mackey?”

  In the sky, a small aircraft sputtered along after losing its engine.

  “Ladies, I told you—if you want to live a minute longer, get those parachutes on and move over here by the door. Pretty soon I’m gonna have to bail out.”

  Zoey and Claire stood up in the small space, trying to figure out what to put on, where to cinch up, and who would jump first.

  “Here, give me that,” the pilot said, snapping the buckles on the older woman. “You look okay. Now move up.” He gave a final glance at Zoey’s strings and clips. “Once you’re out and falling a ways, you pull this cord right here.” He pointed. “That’ll open your parachute.”

  The pilot yanked open the door, and a whoosh of wind came in, fluffing his thick, gray hair. “Who’s first?” he yelled over the groaning engine.

  The women took a step back and clung to each other, eyes wide, before inching closer to the small exit. Rushing air whipped their hair in all directions. “I’m not leaving without you, Claire,” Zoey said. “You go first.”

  Claire stepped forward a little more, her ankle boot peeking over the edge at the landscape below. Wild brush and cacti spread across the desert in thick bunches. “Come up a little closer to the edge!” she shouted, taking her mother’s hand. The crippled plane emitted a deathly howl, then violently shook, making them grab the metal doorframe in panic and fear.

  “That’s real nice, ladies,” the pilot spoke loudly. “Get ready.”

  Zoey shouted at her daughter, “You’re going first?”

  “Okay…”

  “Take a deep breath!” The noise of the plane in the throes of a dying engine nearly drowned out Zoey’s voice.

  “That’s right, ladies! You take a deep breath until you feel you’re ready.” Then the man pushed out Claire before throwing Zoey right behind her.

  Zoey screamed at the top of her lungs on the way down, “Bill, you jeeeeeerk!”

  Down below, Mackey and Brooks, their eyes shaded by their cowboy hats, continued watching the sky. A horrible screeching, like metal grating against metal, grew louder and louder, until a puff of one parachute appeared, and then another, followed by a third.

  Screams turned into indiscernible shouting. Something about “killing Bill.” Then the cowboys saw what looked like a rock flying down at them.

  KONK!

  “Ahh!” Brooks fell sideways on his horse.

  “Well, would you look at that? I ain’t never seen a red rock before,” said Mackey, visibly amazed at the whole experience.

  Rubbing his head, Brooks looked down at the parched soil where the thing landed, and said, “An expensive rock too. Says, ‘Gucci.’” It was a red high-heeled shoe.

  Something else came down from the heavens, fluttering as it went, until it finally draped across the old man’s cowboy hat. Mackey pulled off the white, lacy material, and gave it a good, long stare. “Now I know I’m old, but some things ain’t changed all that much. I can tell you one thing—this sure is purdy.”

  Brooks gave a hearty laugh, then looked up at the now visible parachuters, followed by the one who must be Bill.

  “Mother, stuff is flying outta your purse!” Claire called across the empty air.

  The two were floating about thirty feet from one another, gliding slowly down. Coins and gum wrappers littered the sky beneath them.

  “Oh, crap!” Zo observed with worry. “But that’s not from my purse, sweetie.”

  “My stuff?!”

  “At any rate, it didn’t get left in the plane like mine.”

  Claire shook her head, grateful that her cell phone was at least secured tightly in the front pocket of her skinny jeans. From a distance, the thunderous boom of an explosion shook the sky. Smoke billowed from the plane as it helplessly spiraled to the ground before bursting into flames.

  Claire sailed to the ground first, trying to properly run despite having a still-inflated ’chute. Finally, it got hung up on desert brush, stopping the drag. “I made it…” She exhaled with relief.

  Zo landed with her ’chute draped over her, dragging her on her back with only her feet showing out from underneath—one still clad in a red high heel. “Help meeee!”

  Mackey gave chase, swinging his rope around his head and lassoing Zo’s ankle. His horse skidded to a stop, leaning back on his hocks, and keeping the rope taut. The old cowboy jumped off and ran up to pull the still active parachute off her.

  “I know you’re in there, ma’am. Just rest a moment ‘til I roll up this here parachute off you. Hold up there, Lucy!” he called back to his gray mare with the unmanageable, bristly mane.

  Zo emerged from the ’chute, her long, strawberry blond hair covering her face. As soon as she could stand, she pushed all the wavy tendrils back. “Wooo! I’m alive!”

  Mackey removed the rope from her ankle. Claire was running over to her with Brooks right behind, leading his horse in a trot.

  Zo stepped forward to meet her daughter, but felt something sharp poking her rear-end. Her back went ramrod straight as she let out a yelp. After pinching the cactus thorn from her jeans, she flicked it away with relief and grabbed Claire into a hug.

  “We did it,” Claire said.

  “We were born for danger, baby!” They both laughed as Claire tried to straighten her clothing and recapture her errant strands of dark brown hair, smoothing them into a ponytail.

  “It’s a good thing we decided to wear pants, Mom. Can you imagine…?”

  “I’m okay,” came the voice of someone nobody was paying any attention to. “I’m all right. Thought you all would want to know. Just lost an airplane is all.”

  “Oh, Bill. Come here and give Zoey a hug, poor darling.”

  “Uh… no thanks, Zo. It would make me miss
my mommy.” He grinned.

  Everyone shook hands and introduced themselves. Mackey approached the patient and obedient Lucy, rewinding his rope. Claire noticed something white and lacy hanging out of his back pocket.

  “Well, that’s a first,” Claire said. “I always thought cowboys carried red-checkered hankies. This one is… different.” She asked Brooks, “Does he have a distinct fashion sense?”

  “No, ma’am,” replied Brooks, “those are a pair of dainties that fell on Mackey, kinda draping over his hat like a fancy curtain. I’d say it made his day, and he’ll be tellin’ the tale of it for the rest of his life. Meaning no disrespect, ma’am.” The deeply tanned cowboy in his thirties stepped into a stirrup and swung up onto his saddle with handsome grace.

  “Okay, Claire,” her mother said, “go get your underwear. Our luggage was blown up. You’ll need it.”

  “Mom…”

  “Oh, come on. Suck up your nerve and ask him for them,” Zo insisted.

  “Mom! Those are yours. I saw them on the bed and picked them up, thinking you laid them out and then forgot them at the last minute.”

  Zo froze, riveting her brown eyes to Claire’s in realization. “Okay,” she finally said, walking with a stiff-legged hobble, still having only one high heel on. Just before the old man could get a foot up to ride Lucy, she whisked the lacy panties out of his back pocket. Mackey grabbed at his behind, sensing the interception.

  Zo quipped, “I don’t think these are your size.”

  “No, miss.” He mounted his horse and moved his foot out of the stirrup, before reaching a callused and cracked hand down to assist. “If you step into that stirrup an’ swing a leg over behind me, you can have a ride back to the ranch. Unless you feel like walkin’. Brooks has yer other shoe.”

  Brooks brought over the Gucci high heel and Zo put it on. Then she stepped into a stirrup and swung her leg over the horse, using Mackey’s forearm for balance. “Thanks again,” she said, “for all your help. It’s most appreciated.”

  Claire was happy to have an innocent excuse to wrap her arms around Brooks as she situated herself on his horse. Now, having Bill climb up behind her was another story. She could feel his pot belly pushing into her back and worried that she’d have to keep his hands from roving too much… which dampened the moment quite a bit.

  TWO

  The five people on two horses rode up to the gateposts of “The Lost Miner’s Dude Ranch,” as per its metal-art sign creaking in the breeze. The tan, stucco ranch house seemed like a gleaming mirage in the hot sun. Its tall, red-trimmed main entrance advertised country cooking on posters in the windows: sizzling breakfast skillets, barbecue lunch buffets, and plentiful dinner platters. To the right, the roof flattened out over the city slickers’ many rooms. Topping it all off, a porch of white-washed floorboards and posts wrapped all the way around the building. An American flag was displayed proudly, as well as rocking chairs and the occasional blooming cactus.

  On the way to the foyer’s front steps, Brooks’s horse began protesting the weight of his extra riders by doing little rear-end bucks like a samba, kicking up dust.

  Bill eventually slid off Goldstrike, and grabbed his sore buns from the rough ride. “I might as well have been in one of those elevating cars that bounce you up and down with booming speakers!”

  Claire, too, slid off precariously, and took a moment to adjust her loose, chevron-printed blouse.

  “Sorry, Goldstrike never could accept riding triple,” Brooks explained as he dismounted. “The last time I tried to put another rider on, he threw us all off!”

  Zo slid off Mackey’s horse easily, and discreetly pulled at her tight, black jeans to loosen a wedgie. She linked arms with her daughter and stared at their accidental destination with a smile. Of all the places to be stranded, this was pretty cool.

  Mackey said, “I’ll meet you ladies in the office there, inside,” before riding off toward a white barn with red trim beside a row of stables and a couple of post corrals.

  Bill slowly stepped up onto the porch, eyeing things before opening the front door with a cowbell-clanging announcement.

  Brooks tied up his horse at the hitch and ushered in the ladies behind Bill. He led them into a room on the right of the large foyer. “Okay, if you folks just wait here an’ have a seat,” he pointed to a cushy Navaho-patterned couch, “the owner will be in momentarily to help you.” There was no one at the desk.

  Brooks smiled and a few curls of blond hair peeked out from under his cowboy hat. He wasn’t like any man from Manhattan, Claire thought as he exited. Or her new residence, Riverside, for that matter. Meanwhile, Zo caught her daughter’s look of admiration, wondering if there’d be anyone cute for her to ogle. It was the least Fate could do after the big airplane blowup.

  Pretty soon, Mackey appeared in the office doorway and asked, “You folks feelin’ a bit better now?” A huge, standing fan was set up beside the couch, blowing the sweat off their brows.

  Everyone droned an answer: “Yes,” “Uh-huh,” and “Yeah.”

  “Good!” He went over to his desk, and sat down in a plush leather chair that was striped with a long piece of duct tape. He scratched at the scruff across his chin and said, “Well, what do you folks think you’d like to do? See a doctor? Rent a room? Until you know what yer other options are? We have downright tasty food an’ the best homemade, blue-ribbon-winnin’ bread an’ biscuits. Best in Show at the state fair… jist about every year.”

  “The problem is, my purse is relegated to ashes,” Zo replied, “and I suppose the police ought to be called in to let them know we survived.”

  Brooks peeked into the office. “Speaking of police, they just arrived.” Again, he smiled as if amused.

  Two men entered the office, one wearing uniform khakis with a cowboy hat. The other had long, black hair, graying at the temples and pulled back into a ponytail. He wore blue jeans and the same khaki shirt as the other one, with a county sheriff star over the pocket.

  “Everyone, this here is Daniel Walks-With-Secrets,” Mackey said, “from the vanishing Keelywot tribe. We know him here as Captain Daniel of the Sheriff’s Department.”

  Zo scrutinized everything about him, from the silver hoop in his left ear, to his penetrating, dark eyes, to the black paint smudged under them, and finally to a silver cuff depicting a man’s head holding a gold nugget between his teeth. All of this she found strangely attractive.

  “Never heard of Keelywots!” Bill barked matter-of-factly.

  “Well, ol’ son, all you need to know is this man has the full authority to shoot to kill or throw yer behind in jail.”

  Bill lowered his eyes from Mackey’s, obviously humbled.

  Captain Daniel turned to his fellow officer, and spoke in slow, broken English, using stiff-armed motions. “You… take paleface out and torture him for true reasons why he crashed silver bird into ground, hurting many lizards.”

  “Yes, sir!” he replied. “This way, please. I’ll take a report.”

  Mackey was laughing with his head thrown back, and so was Brooks with his eyes shut, shaking his head. The Native American stared at them with lips now turned down into a frown.

  Claire inquired, “This dude ranch is not a franchise of the Bates Motel, is it?”

  Nobody responded. Instead, Captain Daniel walked up to Claire and sniffed her hair by her ear. “You smell innocent. You okay to leave.” He stretched out his hand in a long sweep toward the door. “You need medical wagon? Maybe ground rattlesnake for headache?”

  “I’m feeling okay, aren’t you, Mom?”

  “I feel better and better every minute,” she replied, blinking rapidly at the offer.

  The captain then stood in front of Zo, looking her directly in the eyes, before scanning her hair, left and right. “You have much beautiful hair.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Look good outside my lodge.” He rested a hand on a knife secured to his belt’s sheath. “Look better inside my lodge.” H
e also eyed Claire. “Never mind. She too young. You too old.”

  “Whaaa?” Zo said, taking exception to that comment.

  “But I…” He made hand motions to himself, “not particular. Have room in lodge for two more, but have one big wife already.”

  “He’s just trying to entertain you two ladies,” Brooks blurted out like he couldn’t stand it anymore. Zoey and Claire still looked unsure of what to believe. “…’Sides, he’s not even married.”

  “Oookay,” Captain Daniel said with a chuckle, and continued without an accent. “Come on, ladies, I’ll take your report now, starting with your names.”

  Claire stood, asking, “Do the black markings under your eyes have any real meaning, though?”

  “Why, yes, they do. They keep the desert sun from reflecting off my cheeks into my eyes, just the same as with football players.” He smiled wider.

  Claire suddenly felt tired, beaten up, and stupid. “Mom, I think I’m ready for some food.” A hand went to her forehead as she felt the floorboards swaying underfoot.

  Brooks rushed over to hold her up. “Come on, I’m taking you into the dining room.”

  Zo narrowed her eyes with concern, and said, “Yes, do that, Claire, dear. I can take care of things here.”

  *

  The Rusted Buckle was nestled at the back of the dude ranch, constructed of glossy, dark wood paneling and vaulted ceilings. It was quaint. A fireplace decorated in river rocks was at the far end of the room. In just the right spots hung beautiful oil paintings of cowboys on horses, horse stampedes, and lone horses. A few patrons sat at a table, looking like typical rough-and-rowdies, while at the bar, a blond woman in pink hot pants swirled a red straw in her concoction.

  As Brooks led Claire to a corner booth, Claire leaned into him without a bit of self-consciousness. She felt too weak to care how she might look or smell after falling out of an exploding plane. Still, she couldn’t help but notice his cowboy cologne had a nice, musky scent.

  “It’s nice and soft here.” He motioned toward the booth. “You can put your feet up and I’ll see to it you get some ice water. What would you like to eat? A BLT? Or some hearty chili? Maybe topped off with a hot fudge sundae?” When he spoke, a hint of a scar on his lip became visible. Somehow, it made him even more alluring.