spotlight and inspected the floor, walls, and ceiling. Nothing. Sky’s Comanche grandfather had taught him a snake song. He sang it under his breath as he crouched on the edge of the hole—not for the snakes, which, as he’d since learned, couldn’t hear, but to steady his own nerves.
The light shining down into the hole revealed nothing near the top, but Sky could see movement a dozen feet down, where a huge Texas diamondback slithered along a ledge. Was it close enough to strike him? He’d have to take that chance if he wanted to see the bones, which were a good twenty-five feet lower and could only be viewed by leaning in at an angle.
The snake wasn’t coiled and didn’t appear to be bothered by the light. Deciding to go ahead, Sky stretched out on his belly to anchor his weight and pushed his head and shoulders out over the opening. Gripping the spotlight with one gloved hand, he slanted the light toward the bottom of the hole.
At last he could see the bones. He’d been right about their size. They were small, definitely the bones of a child, maybe eight or nine years old. But that wasn’t all. As Sky peered downward, he caught a glimpse of color. It looked like a fragment of red-plaid cloth—maybe a neckerchief or what was left of a collar, circling the neck bones. Moving the light lower, he saw something else that made him gasp. Lying across the small pelvic bone was what looked like a leather belt with a brass buckle. This was no old-time Indian, as Jasper had claimed. These bones were the remains of a young boy, dressed in the clothes of a modern-day white child.
The huge rattler raised its head and hissed. Startled, Sky jerked backward, dropping the spotlight. It fell, crashing against the sides of the pit to lie dark and broken somewhere below.
With a muttered curse, he scrambled to his feet. He was through looking. But he knew what he’d seen. Earlier, when he and Lauren had questioned Jasper about the bones, the old man had appeared nervous, as if he might be hiding something. When he got home, Sky was going to find him and demand the truth.
Those bones were on Lauren’s land. She had a right to know their story.
* * *
“Count them if you want.” Stella thrust the envelope into Ralph’s hands. It was stuffed with bills, so heavy that Ralph could feel the heft of their weight. Opening the flap, he ruffled through them with his fingers. Sweet Jesus, they’re hundred-dollar bills!
“Ten thousand dollars!” Stella snatched the envelope away. “All yours if you do the job I have in mind.”
Ralph’s head swam. With $10,000, plus what he’d put aside in the bank, he’d have enough money to buy a better truck and get out of town. He could put it all behind him—whiny Vonda and the baby he’d never wanted in the first place, his crappy job running cows for the Tylers, and the dangerous work he was doing for Stella. Those late-night deliveries paid beyond his wildest dreams, but Ralph was smart enough to know that if he didn’t get out, he’d wind up in jail or dead, like Lute Fletcher.
“I won’t have to kill anybody, will I?” he asked, hoping she’d think he was joking.
She laughed. “Nothing like that. Just a little property damage to the Tyler place.”
Ralph hesitated. The Tylers were honest folks. In the three years he’d worked for them, they’d always treated him fairly. True, the work was hard, but they paid as well as any other ranch in the county; and the bunkhouse food, when he could still get it, was a lot better than Vonda’s microwave cooking.
“Think about it.” Stella patted his shoulder. “What do you owe those people? To them, you’re nothing but a saddle bum they can work to death for slave wages. You can earn more in ten minutes than you’ll earn busting your back for the Tylers in six months.”
He was already thinking. Last week, in town, he’d found an eight-year-old Ford pickup in good condition. The owner was anxious to sell it and could probably be bargained down. Ralph could imagine himself driving that truck out of Blanco with new boots on his feet, money in his pocket, Vonda far behind him, and the whole damned country ahead.
He shrugged, trying not to appear too eager. “Guess I could do it,” he said. “Tell me more.”