Blood Ties (38 page)

"Me too," Buck answered. "Me too."

An hour later, out at the archaeological site, Buck
reined in his horse and waved at Abbie. Buck's
younger brother Harry was raking dirt into a pit, and
George was scattering grass seed over the mound
where another pit had been filled in. Archie rose from
the shade of Abbie's tent and trotted over, great
tongue lolling from his wide mouth.

Buck dismounted, tied the reins to a tent stake, and
patted the Newfoundland's head. "Looks like you're
about finished out here, darlin'."

Abbie dusted the sand off her hands onto her dirty
jeans and came to meet him. "Three more pits. Nada.
A few pieces of a soapstone bowl, a little hearth charcoal, and some fragments of projectile pointsBroadspear variants."

"Nothing special?"

"Nothing special. I don't believe this was ever a burial ground. More of a summer fishing camp."

He kissed her. "Other than the massacre. The story
is that a lot of people were buried here after the
killings."

"Stories. Unsubstantiated tall tales."

"Maybe, but folks on Tawes put a lot of store in oral
tradition. You'd be surprised at how accurate some of
these family histories can be. Before literacy was common, spoken words were held to be a man's bond."

"Among my people too," she admitted. "But as a scientist, I can't accept what I can't prove."

"Fair enough." He held her in the circle of his arms.
It was a good feeling. She was as prickly as a stickerbush, but he liked her that way. He didn't want to
think of her leaving Tawes. She'd be returning to
Philly and her doctorate studies in a week or two, and
he didn't know what would happen between them after that.

She looked up into his eyes and sighed. "We didn't
find anything significant of Native American origin,
and nothing from Bronze Age Europe."

"I didn't think you would."

"Whatever Matthew possessed, the objects are lost
now. Probably melted down and sold for the weight of
the gold."

He kissed the crown of her head. She had sand in her hair, but he didn't give a damn. He liked the way
her hair smelled. He liked the way she smelled. "Did I
ever tell you that you're special?"

She put both hands on his chest and pushed him
away. "Save that for later. I have to finish closing up the
final pit."

"You're coming back to Emma's tonight?"

"Yes." She glanced around. "After Matthew, I don't
care much to spend the night out here."

"Not even if you have company?"

"Nope," she said, giving a good imitation of his
voice. "It's a hot shower and a soft mattress for me."

He gave her one more squeeze and released her.
Emma's bedroom was at the far end of the house, and
now that Abbie's dad had returned to Oklahoma, he
and Abbie shared a bed after the lights went out. It
wasn't that he feared Emma's disapproval or damaging Abbie's reputation. What he didn't want was
Emma spreading the word over Tawes that the two of
them were sleeping together. What people thought
was one thing-what they knew for fact, another.

Buck had come out to the site to check on Abbie, to
be sure she was all right, but he'd also hoped to catch
Will. There were some questions he wanted to ask
him. Will had been quieter than usual since he'd discovered Matthew's body, and although Buck had always liked and respected Will, he'd learned to listen to
his intuition.

"Do you want me to hang around here while you
close shop?" he asked her.

"No. George, Harry, and I can finish up. Harry's got
his boat. He and George have offered to escort me
back out of the marsh. I have my helicopter parked in
Bailey's field. Then Harry will hike back to the site and
carry my tent, the supplies, and Archie out by water."

"What about my tent?"

She made a face. "We're burning that."

"Ouch."

Harry joined them. "About done, Abbie. Hey, Buck.
You want to grab a shovel and help me with that last
hole?"

"I'd love to, but I need to catch up with Will. I was
hoping he'd be out here."

"He was, earlier," Abbie said. "But when George arrived, Will remembered something he needed to take
care of." She looked around the clearing. "I feel foolish, Buck. We had armed soldiers guarding our site in
Turkey, but I never expected to need protection here
in my own country."

"All the same, stay close to Harry and George. I
wouldn't expect trouble in daylight, but anything's
possible. And if I'm wrong, I don't want to gamble
with your life."

"Yes, Officer," she said. "Now go, do your thing and
let us do ours." He kissed her again and swung up
onto Toby's back. Abbie patted the horse's withers.
"See you back at Emma's."

"Be careful, Abbie. Remember what happened to
Matthew."

She looked at him. "Do you think I could forget?
Ever?"

She watched him as he rode away, wishing she could
think of a good excuse to keep him here ... wishing
she could swing up on the horse behind him and lock
her arms around his waist as she had the night they'd
gone to the town dock together.

She'd never felt as uneasy on that wild mountain
site in Turkey as she did today. She wasn't a coward,
and she had faith in George and Harry. But she
couldn't shake the feeling that Buck was in danger.

"Three more will die," Grandmother Willow had said.

Abbie hoped it was just an old woman's babbling. She tried to convince herself that it was foolish to pay
heed to such superstitious nonsense. But all the same,
she was afraid. Not for herself so much, but for the big
man who had become such a part of her life.

Will wasn't at Bailey's farm and he wasn't at his own
home. Buck knew the man could be anywhere on
Tawes. Since Will's boat was moored to his dock, it was
a good bet he was on the island, and Buck figured he
had nothing better to do than to look for him.

He rode back across the fields to the low, woody
area where the marsh path to the burial site began and
retraced his tracks in the hope that Will had returned
to the camp. It was hot and humid, and biting sheep
flies buzzed around him and the horse. There were
rumblings to the west, and he thought they were in for
a thunderstorm.

Buck smashed a fly the size of a small blackbird on
Toby's neck, then rubbed his blood-stained palm on
his jeans. Mosquitoes hovered and whined. He'd
sprayed both himself and the animal before he'd left
the office, but he wished he'd tucked the repellent
into his saddlebag.

As he and Toby neared the cutoff that led to
George's farm, the horse splashed through a fetlockhigh puddle. Just beyond the mudhole, Buck noticed
the print of a dog's foot. The track was fresh, and he
was sure he would have seen it if it had been there
when he'd passed earlier. The print was exactly the
right size for one of Will's Chesapeake Bay retrievers.
Buck got down out of the saddle, examined the imprint, and then searched the sodden grass and earth
for another.

A few yards down the overgrown prong, he found
what he was looking for. He mounted Toby and rode
to George's house. It had been a long time since he'd been there, and he was shocked at the state of the
place. The porch sagged, the roof was lacking shutters, and crumbling bricks were noticeably missing
from one end chimney.

"Will!" he called. "Will! Are you here?" The wind
was rising off the water, and heavy clouds scudded over
the bay. They were definitely in for rain by evening.
"Will!"

Nothing. No answer.

Buck rode around the house. The fence surrounding the overgrown garden was half down. Chickens
scratched for bugs between the rails of the rusty metal
gate that lay on the ground. The only sound was the
clack-clack-clack of the windmill near the back porch.
Buck shouted again, but got no answer. If Will had
been here, he decided, he'd moved on. But just to be
certain, Buck dismounted and tried the side door.

It was unlocked, but he really hadn't expected anything different. George was a tough old waterman,
and he didn't scare easily. Buck looked into the
kitchen. It was neat but shabby, and the refrigerator
was one of the old rounded-top models that must have
dated from the fifties. George didn't have electricity
out here, but the windmill pumped his water and powered a generator to keep his appliances going. He
used oil or gas lamps, heated with a woodstove, as he
had when Buck was a kid and hunted rabbits out here
with his father. George had been one of the few people
Buck knew on Tawes who still had a working outhouse.

The house felt empty. Pale ribbons of late-afternoon
sun threaded through a small window, illuminating
the small, metal-topped kitchen table, set for one. No
cats or dogs stretched on the worn linoleum floor. A
mantel clock ticked, but nothing else stirred. Buck
closed the door and went back to his horse.

He found Will a quarter of a mile away coming out of an old barn that had once been the pride of Albert
Hopkins's farm. The house had been struck by lightning and burned before Buck had been born, and the
outbuildings had all fallen in and been overrun by
greenbriers and rot, all but the stable. Albert's father
had built the barn of chestnut and cedar, and he'd
built it to stand. The barn's roof was sagging and the
loft door hung awry, creaking in the wind. The structure had clearly seen better days, but it had survived.

The barn was no more than thirty feet from the
road, across the way from where the house had been.
Despite the weeds and wild rose bushes that surrounded the building, he and Will caught sight of
each other at the same instant.

"Buck! Found something you should take a look at."

He dismounted, but when he was on the far side of
the horse, where Will couldn't see him, he unsnapped
the leather guard that held his pistol in place. He
didn't draw it, and he felt ashamed of himself for even
taking the precaution, but he did it all the same.

He fastened Toby's reins to an old fencepost. It was
locust and as twisted as a marsh creek, but enough of
the stone-hard wood remained to hold the horse securely. A few drops of rain splattered on his face as he
threaded his way through the brush to where the
older man stood holding a tin container about the size
of a man's domed lunchbox.

"I got to thinking about those moccasin tracks we
found near Matthew's body," Will said. "I wear moccasins. Emma does too. And so do quite a few other
old-timers I know on Tawes. But when folks sew their
own footwear, it's distinctive, different from every
other pair. I kept musing on where I'd seen those
prints before, and it seemed to me the shape might
match George's feet."

"You went to his house," Buck said. It wasn't a ques tion. He'd known Will had been there. He'd felt it in
his gut.

"Did. Barged in and searched the place. Keeps a tidy
house for a bachelor, does old George. I didn't find
any moccasins, not even a single pair. Boots, work
shoes, but no moccasins, and I know he favors them
for the marsh and woods, like I do."

"Why would you suspect George of killing Matthew
and the others?"

Daniel studied him with narrowed eyes. "You ever
know George to have a woman? Sit with one in
church, dance with one at a gathering?"

"No, but neither do you."

"I courted Beth's mother a long time ago, hot and
heavy. And there were a lot of other girls I danced with
and kissed, and did far worse. But not George. If I was
as much a gossip as Emma, I'd say George didn't care
for the ladies."

"I don't see how George's sexuality matters."

"Who was the last waterman on this island to lay eyes
on Sam Brown? Or the last one to admit Sam worked
for him? George. And you've only got George's word
that Sam vanished. Left without taking his leave, according to George."

"I don't know. That was a long time ago. It would be
easy for anyone to forget-"

"No," Will said. "George always struck me as a little
strange."

"And Emma isn't?"

"True," Will agreed. "Emma's unnatural, but she's a
clean kind of unnatural. Not like George. Emma
would never kill anyone that didn't need killing."

"Emma's not a suspect."

"She should be. We all should be until we find who's
doing these killings. You can't rule out people because
you like them."

"So I should include you, too?"

"Why not? But it's got to be George. Think about it.
The Williamses have Nanticoke blood. I've heard
George bragging about how good his grandfather was
with a bow and arrow, and how he was as much Indian
in his heart as African."

Buck folded his arms and tried not to over react.
Abbie was with George, but so was Harry. She'd been
with George, off and on, since she'd first come to
Tawes, and he'd never harmed a hair of her head.
"Half the people on the island have Indian blood.
You're grasping at straws, Will."

"Am I?" Will gave a sound of bitter amusement. "After I searched George's house and found nothingnot his old bow or any of that arrowhead collection he
was so proud of-I started wondering why. Then I
thought of this barn. What's the closest place to it?"

"George's farm, I suppose, but you can't blame him
for-"

"Me and the dogs, we just walked down here and
thought we'd take a look-see. I found where someone
had come from the back of the barn. The rain washed
away any footprints, but there were greenbriers
snapped off, crushed underfoot. And when I went inside, what do you think I found?"

"Don't know, Will, but I think you're going to tell me."

"Take a look." He led the way inside and pointed to
the ladder that led to the loft. "Notice what bad shape
those rungs are in? All but one?"

"Somebody's taken the trouble to repair one of
them." Buck glanced at Will. "And you wondered why."

"I did. I climbed up into the loft, kicked a little
moldy hay, and came up with a plastic box. This was
inside." He held out the tin box. "Look in it. Bring it
back out where it's light enough to get a good look."