Buried Truth. Dana Mentink

were bloody. “Mostly. Good news is he got me with a shovel.”

      “Who? How is that good news?”

      “Wasn’t a gun and the shovel seems to indicate he was just a fossil hunter.”

      “Just a fossil hunter?” She fisted her hands on her hips. “Last I heard, stealing fossils from private land is a crime and taking them from public land is a felony. And they shot at me, remember?”

      “Shots were meant to scare you, not kill you.”

      “Well, that’s comforting. At least I found Choo Choo. I put him back in the house.”

      The exasperation on her face almost made him smile as he holstered his weapon. “Got to get a call in to the cops. You’re not on reservation property, but it wouldn’t hurt to let the Tribal Rangers know, too,” he said, taking out his phone as he started up the trail. She sighed loudly and fell in behind him.

      “Bill,” Heather whispered, dogging his heels, “why do I get the feeling you aren’t telling me everything?”

      He finished talking to dispatch and clipped the phone to his belt. “You heard every word of that call. Maybe your career makes you paranoid.”

      “And maybe you’re trying to cover something up.” She squeezed in on the path next to him. “Why didn’t you want to talk about the vandalism?”

      “Just didn’t.” He felt her eyes on him and he quickened his pace. “I’ll see you home. Captain Richmond will meet us there to take statements.”

      He pushed on until they reached the small wood-sided cabin. He scanned the windows for any sign of movement, more out of habit than concern. Maybe Heather didn’t live alone; maybe she’d gotten married or something. He had to shake his head at that notion. Who would have the fortitude to try to corral an unpredictable creature like Heather? He’d come close, he’d thought, and that had ended in disaster. A vivid picture of his grandfather Mel sprang into his head, working with a massive wild mare crazed by a piece of barbed wire wrapped around her foreleg.

      He’d stood there for hours, just watching, talking low and soft to that animal when she’d come close. Bill could still hear the frantic pounding of the hooves, the enormous body thrashing inches from his grandfather. The moment she went still, Grandpa Mel removed the wire with one swift snip of his cutters before he’d let her free to find her herd. The horse had looked at them both for one long moment before she thundered away and Bill thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He wondered why looking at Heather brought up the old memory.

      Heather pushed past Bill and opened the door. She left it ajar, so he figured she meant him to follow. Then again, she might just as easily slam the door in his face. Though he’d rather pull out his teeth one by one than admit it, the severing of their relationship had cut him to the core and now the disequilibrium he felt at having her near rolled around inside him. He stood uncertainly on the porch until she called from inside.

      “Are you coming in, or what?”

      Feeling as if he was about to step in front of Grandpa’s wild horse, he squared his shoulders and walked inside.

      THREE

      Heather left Bill to find his way and went directly to the back bedroom. Choo Choo rose stiffly, tail arcing like a pendulum, and trotted over. She sank to her knees. “Hey, boy.” She rubbed his face, muzzle gray-white against the black of his fur. “Were you scared from the gunshots? No more escaping. Let’s get you some food, huh?”

      The dog gave her a lick and lumbered down the hallway. Bill looked up when they entered.

      “Didn’t know you had a dog.”

      “He’s new. Got him in Miami.”

      Bill arched an eyebrow. “Doesn’t look new.”

      “Okay, so he’s not exactly new.” She sailed past him into the kitchen and warmed some rice and chicken, which Choo Choo lapped eagerly. In truth, Choo Choo was supposedly twelve years old, according to the owner who’d kept him locked in a cement pen with no shade and sometimes no water. Heather would never admit to Bill or anyone else that she’d sold her television and paid the guy five hundred dollars to take possession of Choo Choo.

      Choo Choo looked at Heather with filmy eyes as if he read her thoughts.

       New or not, you’re worth every penny, sweetness.

      Returning to the living room, she found Bill holding his shoulder with one hand and peering at a square of limestone with a delicate imprint of a fern, perched on a shelf.

      “You into fossil collecting now?”

      “No. That was my mother’s. I found a box of her things in the closet.”

      She took a first aid kit off of the shelf and wet a towel. “Sit down and let’s get this over with.”

      He looked at her, ink-black eyes expressionless. “It can wait.”

      “I don’t want blood on my floor.”

      He considered for a moment before he sat at the butcher-block table and peeled up his sleeve.

      She hesitated and finally handed him the damp towel. No need to go all Florence Nightingale on a man who would rather be anywhere else. He took it and wiped the blood off his shoulder, then swabbed the wound with the antiseptic she provided.

      She handed him a square of gauze, which he held in place while she taped it to his dusky skin. The muscles were hard and unyielding under her fingers.

      Bill sat without complaint, his eyes examining the bookshelf next to the table and the picture of a serious woman with the same dark hair as Heather.

      “Do you ever hear from her?” he asked softly.

      Heather picked up the first aid supplies. “No.”

      When she looked at him again, she saw the ghost of a smile on his mouth.

      “Is something funny?” she asked. “A guy shoots at us, you get creamed with a shovel and something is funny?”

      “Ironic, more like. You don’t like to answer questions, but you make a living prying into other people’s lives.”

      Her cheeks warmed. “I make my living asking questions, not answering them. So here’s one for you. What is really going on? It seemed like you were expecting to find something entirely different than a fossil hunter. And I think you know perfectly well who vandalized your house, don’t you? Are you going to answer any of those questions?”

      He sat back in the chair and pursed his lips in thought. After a moment he shook his head. “No.”

      She groaned. Choo Choo scurried in, confusion in his filmy eyes. She called to him and rubbed his ears until he sank to the floor in a black mound of contentment. Bill had walled her off and she knew that she’d given him plenty of reason to do so. “You’re even more stubborn than you were before—” It was too late to undo the damage. Before Johnny was killed.

      An almost imperceptible tightening of Bill’s lips made her realize she’d said exactly the wrong thing.

      He didn’t reply and the silence extended into the uncomfortable zone. She squirmed in the chair trying to think of something to say to break the awkward quiet. A knock on the door startled her.

      Captain Richmond stood on the step, his khaki uniform sweat stained and wrinkled. The bags under his eyes seemed to accentuate his droopy appearance. His mustache twitched as he spoke. Next to him was a dark-skinned man in a Tribal Ranger uniform. Heather recognized him as Al Crow, a friend of Bill’s.

      “You called about a trespasser?” Richmond said.

      “Heard the call. Thought I’d come, too,” Crow said.

      She showed them in. Crow took in the sight of Bill and his bandaged arm, and