Arizona Homecoming

“Just John Wayne,” the man said firmly.

Emily shook her head. “I’ve a few things from the days when Westerns were shot here but they’re not on display yet and none are for sale.”

The couple turned away without even glancing past the foyer, heading for the exit.

Emily tried again. “We’ve got Native American artifacts thousands of years old and—”

They closed the front door behind them before Emily could try enticing them with her storytelling skills that would transport them to another era.

“John Wayne would appreciate my artifacts and stories,” Emily muttered and glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. She closed at four, when the sun shot past high and went to burning. Most tourists would be thinking of eating and returning to their hotels for a dip in the pool.

She headed back to the Salado room. It was tiny compared to the rest, with just a few bowls and farming utensils on display. After unlocking the glass cabinet, she pulled a pair of gloves from her back pocket, put them on and then retrieved a tiny reddish bowl with faded black-and-white paint etched on the sides. As she walked back to her office, her fingers gently gripped the bowl, reveling in an artifact from such a distant era.

Who had it belonged to? A young bride, a grandmother, a wife in charge of feeding many? Emily was half–Native American, from the Hopi tribe, and was writing her family’s history. One of her many projects. Her father said she’d get more done if she could settle on doing one job at a time.

She didn’t like the word time. Time was something you could run out of, like her mother had. Emily didn’t want someone a thousand years from today to say, Yes, I’ve heard of the Hopi, but really, all they left were a few belongings we can fit in this tiny corner of the room. Emily wanted the world to know about her mom’s family from the Kykotsmovi Village, near Holbrook. She wanted to paint with words the Soyal ceremony when young girls received their kachinas. She wanted the Hopi Butterfly Dance to live on through storytelling as well as practice.

When she made it back to her desk, she took out a box and started fitting packing paper inside. She was lending the bowl to the Heard Museum in Phoenix. They were doing a display of forgotten tribes and had contacted her just two weeks ago, wanting to find out what she knew.

They read her paper on the Salado. Her first published piece as a college student majoring in Native American studies. The curator hadn’t even known she was a local, hadn’t known she was the new curator of the Lost Dutchman Museum.

A tumbleweed scooted across the parking lot and disappeared down the same road as the minivan.

Emily secured the bowl, sure that it wouldn’t suffer a crack even if the Phoenix Suns used the package for basketball practice, and after taking off her gloves, headed for the tiny break room, thinking she’d eat lunch although she wasn’t hungry.

The phone rang before she managed three steps.

“Emily,” Sam Miller said. He was part of the four-man police team that kept Apache Creek safe.

“What is it, Sam?”

“They’ve uncovered bones at the end of Ancient Trails Road, the Baer place.”

An epic house in the middle of nowhere. There’d been protests, mostly from Emily, who filed petitions about protecting the wilderness and the land that was once home to the Native people. She’d managed to delay a permit until she had a chance to look over the property. She just knew it had been a Native American village centuries ago. All her research pointed to that spot. The architect, one Donovan Russell, had taken to saluting her should she come close, as if she were some...well, never mind that. And, at least saluting was preferable to the irritated look he’d given her the last time she’d filed a protest.

“How old?”

“Old enough. It’s a skeleton, and it’s been there awhile and could be a Native American.” He didn’t sound happy.

She’d been right all along.

The Baers were building right where an ancient settlement had thrived. There had to be a plethora of artifacts just waiting to be found.

What if today was the day?

Emily didn’t smile. Chances were the location had already been compromised. Now, Donovan Russell would have to listen. If he’d damaged the skeleton or anything surrounding it, he’d have desecrated a venerable object.

A felony!

He should have listened to her.

Chapter Two (#ubfa51402-5d79-5101-ab19-60a9783f2956)

Emily stepped from her truck, giving a quick appraisal of the area—brown dirt, cacti and the distant Superstition Mountains—before heading for Officer Sam Miller and royal-pain Donovan Russell.

Sam she’d known forever. He was still the too-tall, never-quite-fitting-his-frame boy, now a man. When he was hanging around her oldest sister, Emily figured he’d turn into a professional skateboarder or something like that. Instead, he’d gone away to college and come back with a degree in criminal justice and hired on as a cop.

“Care to help?” she said to him.

Sam half smiled. He wasn’t overly fond of dead bodies and happily turned them over to her or immigration—usually immigration because this area had more than its share of illegal immigrants hurrying through and falling victim to the weather or bad circumstances. He was much more comfortable dealing with the mundane.

He’d already cordoned off the area around the skeleton. Both he and Donovan stood by the edge of the tape, talking. Judging by the looks on their faces, they’d been discussing her.

“When did you find the remains?” she asked.

“About five thirty this morning,” Donovan answered. She wouldn’t exactly call him welcoming.

“I was roughing out a circular drive,” he continued. “There was an upheaval in the dirt bothering me so I decided to smooth it out. Took me over twenty minutes to get about four inches dug. That’s when I started unearthing bone shards. Next thing I knew, I had a skull.”

“You touch anything?”

“Just the shovel. Once I’d uncovered enough to realize what I had, I called the police.”

Sam Miller added, “Jamal Begay was here.”

It took Emily a few seconds before she responded, “Jamal was here?”

“He got here a few moments before I found the skull,” Donovan stated.

“Bad timing.” Emily knew Smokey. He was a good man, with a family, and superstitious as all get-out.

Both Sam and Donovan nodded.

It was a very clean site. The dirt was packed hard, no footprints. Then, too, this skeleton had been around awhile, so even if there were any disturbances in the area, chances were they’d be recent. She took out gloves and removed two baggies from her jean pockets. Sam came to stand beside her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for the medical examiner?” Donovan asked.

“Why?” Emily looked up at him. He couldn’t be more different than Sam. He was taller than she was, but then, who wasn’t? She put him at five-ten, all muscle and what her father would call a scrapper. His honey-brown hair was cut short, and he had an impish smile.

Usually. He looked a little pale right now. Finding human bones tended to have that effect.

“You think I can’t handle this?” She rather liked the displaced look on his face.

“I told you Emily is who we call,” Sam said.

“In case the remains prove to be Native American,” Donovan agreed. “Tell me they’re not.”