Rita Herron - Rawhide Ranger

Jessie rubbed her arms with her hands. “But why would Billy admit that he killed Marcie and Daniel if he didn’t?”

Sergeant Navarro’s eyes darkened. “Because someone forced him to write that confession, or forged it.”

Tension stretched between them as she contemplated his suggestion. “If you think my father did all that, you’re crazy.”

His jaw tightened. “Your father had means, motive and opportunity.” He gestured toward the crime scenes where the bodies had been discovered, then to the latest grave where the Native American had been uncovered. “But if he’s not guilty, then someone else is, and I intend to find them and make them pay.”

His big body suddenly stilled, went rigid, his eyes sharp as he turned and scanned the grounds. She saw the animal prints in the soil just as he did. Coyote prints.

He moved forward stealthily like a hunter stalking his prey, tracking the prints. His thick thighs flexed as he climbed over scrub brush and rocks until he reached a copse of oaks and hackberries. Tilting his hat back slightly for a better view, he dropped to his haunches and pawed through the brush.

She hiked over to see what he was looking at. Hopefully not another body. “What is it?”

He held up a small leather pouch he’d hooked by a gloved thumb. “It looks like a woman’s.”

She knelt beside him to examine it closer, focusing on the beaded flowers on the leather.

“Have you seen it before?” he asked.

He turned it over, revealing the letters LL engraved on the other side, and perspiration dampened her breasts. “Yes.”

“Whom does it belong to?”

She bit her lip, a memory suffusing her. “LL stands for Linda Lantz. She worked for us as a horse groom a couple of years ago.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. She left the ranch about the same time Marcie was killed.”

The Ranger cleared his throat. “And you’re just telling us about this now?”

She jutted up her chin defiantly. “I didn’t think her leaving had anything to do with Marcie’s disappearance and death. Linda had been talking about moving closer to her family in Wyoming so I assumed she left to go home.”

“Without giving you notice?”

She shrugged. “It happens.”

“Well, if she left that long ago, then this pouch has been here for two years. That makes her a possible suspect …” He let the sentence trail off and Jessie filled in the blanks.

A suspect or perhaps another victim.

Worried, she stood, massaging her temple as she tried to remember if Linda had acted oddly those last few weeks.

“Did she know Marcie?” Ranger Navarro asked.

“I don’t think so, but they could have met in town.”

He cleared his throat. “Maybe she disappeared because she knows something about the murders. What if she stumbled on the killer burying the bodies out here?”

“Oh, God …” Jessie sighed. “I hope that’s not true. Linda was a nice girl.”

A heartbeat of silence ticked between them. That knot of anxiety in her stomach gnawed deeper. What if Linda’s body was buried here, too? What if it had been here for two years? Maybe she should have reported her missing.

The sound of animals scurrying in the distance reverberated through the hackberries and mesquites, then a menacing growl—a coyote?

Odd. Coyotes usually surfaced at night, not morning.

“They’re watching,” he said in a low tone.

“What?” Jessie searched the early morning shadows dancing through the trees. “Who’s watching?”

“The spirits of the dead,” he said in a quiet tone, as if he could see them. “Their sacred burial ground has been disturbed, one of their own moved, and they want the body returned.”

Jessie tipped back the brim of her hat and studied him. “You really believe that?”

He nodded matter-of-factly. “See that tzensa on the ridge.”

“That what?” “Coyote.”

“Yes.” Intrigued that a man of the law believed in folk legends, she followed him as he walked over to a cluster of rocks, then peered up toward the ridge at the coyote as if he was silently communicating with it.

“The tzensa is an omen that something unpleasant is going to happen,” he said in a deep, almost hypnotic tone. “He may even be a skin walker.”

In spite of the warm spring sunshine, a chill skated up Jessie’s arms. He’d followed the coyote’s prints to the leather pouch. “What exactly is a skin walker?”

He gave her a questioning look as if he suspected her to make fun of him, then must have decided that either she wasn’t, or that he didn’t care and continued. “According to the Comanches, when an evil spirit is angered, it wants revenge and can sometimes possess the body of an animal.”

Jessie shook her head. “That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it?”

He gave a sardonic chuckle. “Some would say the same about religion.”

Jessie mentally conceded the point. “You’re a Ranger. I thought you believed in forensics and cold, hard evidence, not in superstitions.”

He lifted his head as if he smelled something in the air, something unpleasant. Maybe dangerous. “A good cop uses both the physical evidence and his instincts.”

She sighed, hands on her hips. “This is unreal. First you accuse my family of stealing land, then murder. And now you expect me to believe that evil spirits are here, wanting revenge.”

His dark eyes fastened on her, unnerving and deadly serious. “Your father disturbed them when he bought the sacred land, and then that road crew stirred them up even more.”

“If the land is indeed sacred, we had no idea when we closed the deal,” Jessie argued. “And I sure as heck didn’t expect anyone to be killed over it.”

“But your father set the chain of events into motion,” the Ranger said. “And now, if I’m right, you and your father may be in danger from the spirits.”

“I’m not worried about spirits.” Jessie waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “But go ahead and do your job, Ranger. The sooner you arrest the real killer, the sooner you can leave us alone, and our lives can return to normal.”

His gaze met hers, determination flashing in his steely gaze, but a warning also darkened the depths. She barely resisted another shiver. He really believed those legends.

But she was a by-the-book kind of girl. The danger lay in the Native American activists threatening her family, and the killer whom the Rangers obviously hadn’t yet arrested.

Not some angered spirits.

Still, as if to defy her, the coyote suddenly howled from the top of the ridge and a gust of wind rustled the trees, the scent of the death on her land surrounding her.

CABE SILENTLY CURSED.

Hell, he knew how people in the town looked down upon the Native legends. But for a moment, something crazy had possessed him, and he’d spilled his guts to Jessie.

A mistake he wouldn’t do again. She was the enemy. He was supposed to extract information from her, not the other way around.

But as much as he’d left the old ways and superstitions behind, he couldn’t ignore his instincts. He felt the evil spirit lingering as he stared into the tzensa’s eyes. The coyote was a great predator, a trickster.

And he was here for a reason. Cabe had felt the connection.

The animal angled its mangy head toward the ridge below as if silently passing on a message, and Cabe headed toward the spot where the tzensa had looked. Sun glinted off rocks and what looked like a bat cave below, and he skidded down the hill, climbing over shrubs and sagebrush, dirt and crumbled stones skidding beneath his rawhide boots.

Behind him, Jessie followed, her soft breaths puffing out as she descended the hill. He spotted the dark entrance to the bat cave nearby. Weeds and brush shadowed the opening, and he frowned, grateful that bats were nocturnal and he didn’t have to face them now. At night they’d be swarming.