Secret of Deadman's Coulee Page 2

  “Lila said one of Eve’s sisters saw her ride out yesterday evening toward the Breaks. Eve is staying in her grandmother’s old house down the road from her folks’ place so no one knew she hadn’t returned until her horse came back this morning without her.”

  Carter rubbed the back of his neck. There was nothing south of the Bailey ranch but miles and miles of Missouri Breaks badlands. Searching for Eve would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. “Tell Lila I’m on my way.”

  IT WAS A SLOW NEWS DAY at the Milk River Examiner office. Glen Whitaker had come in early to work on a feature story he was writing about the couple who’d just bought the hardware store. This was news, since the population of the county had been dropping steadily for years now. While parts of Montana were growing like crazy, the towns along the Hi-Line were losing residents to more prosperous places.

  Glen ran a hand over his buzz-cut blond hair and glanced out his office window past the park to the railroad tracks. A coal train was rumbling past. His phone rang. He let it ring a couple more times as he waited for the train to pass and the noise level to drop. “Hello.”

  “One of the Bailey girls is missing.”

  Glen groaned to himself as he recognized the voice of the worst gossip in the county. From the moment he took the job as reporter at the Milk River Examiner, Arlene Evans had been feeding him information as if she was Deep Throat.

  “Missing?” Most of Arlene’s “leads” turned out to either be erroneous or the type of news he wasn’t allowed to print. He’d ended up at Whitehorse after working for several larger papers where he’d made the mistake of printing things he shouldn’t have.

  He didn’t want to lose his job over some small-town gossip. But then again, he had printer’s ink in his veins. Working for a weekly newspaper, all he wrote about were church socials and town-council meetings.

  Glen Whitaker was ready for a good story. “Which Bailey girl?”

  “Eve Bailey. I just talked to Lila, her mother, and she said Eve rode out yesterday afternoon,” Arlene said with her usual relish. “Her horse came back this morning without her.”

  Like the Baileys, Arlene lived south of Whitehorse.

  The first settlement of Whitehorse had been nearer the Missouri River. But when the railroad came through, the town migrated five miles north, taking the name with it.

  The original settlement of Whitehorse was now little more than a ghost town except for a handful of ranches and a few of the original remaining buildings. It was locally referred to as Old Town.

  The people who lived there were a close-knit bunch to the point of being clannish. They did for their own, seldom needing any help and definitely not interested in any publicity when something bad happened.

  But this could turn out to be just the story Glen had been waiting for—if Eve Bailey didn’t turn up alive and well.

  Glen already had a headline in mind: Whitehorse Woman Lost In The Breaks, No Body Found.

  “Her horse came back without her, so she’s stranded out there?”

  Arlene clucked her tongue, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “Little chance of surviving that storm on foot. No shelter out there. And it got really cold last night.”

  Whitehorse Woman’s Body Found Frozen.

  Unfortunately, it was June and while it could snow in the Breaks any month of the year, the chances were good she hadn’t frozen to death. But hypothermia was a real possibility.

  The problem was Glen knew about the Bailey girls, as they were called, although they were now young women. Attractive, but headstrong and capable. With his luck, Eve Bailey would survive. No heartrending story here.

  He could picture Eve Bailey, so different from her sisters, who were blond with blue eyes. Eve had long dark hair and the blackest eyes he’d ever seen. But then he’d always been attracted to brunettes rather than blondes.

  “Everyone is meeting over at the community center,” Arlene was saying in her excited high voice. “The women are putting together a potluck for the search party. It’s sewing day. We have to finish a quilt for Maddie Cavanaugh’s engagement to my son. With Pearl in the hospital with pneumonia we’re behind on the quilting. You know quilts are a tradition down here.”

  He groaned inwardly. “I know.” Arlene had tried to get him to do a story on the Whitehorse Sewing Circle ever since he’d taken the reporter job. The group of women met most mornings at the community center and had for years. He suspected it was where Arlene picked up most of her gossip.

  “I have to go. My pies are ready to come out of the oven,” Arlene said.

  “Are you making one of your coconut-custard pies?” Glen asked hopefully. Arlene had taken a blue ribbon last year at the Phillips County Fair with her coconut-custard pie—and he’d been one of the judges.

  “I always make the coconut-custard when there’s trouble,” Arlene said. “This could be your biggest story of the year.”

  Arlene was forever hoping to be the source of his biggest story of the year. “My daughter Violet is helping me,” she said, shifting gears. “Did I tell you she’s quite the cook?”

  Along with dispensing gossip, quilting and pie baking, Arlene Evans also worked at matchmaking, although she’d had little luck getting her thirty-something daughter, Violet, married off. From what Glen had heard Arlene had been trying to marry off Violet since she was a teenager.

  The older Violet got, the more desperate Arlene had become. She considered it a flaw in her if her daughter was husbandless.

  “Save me a piece of pie,” he said as he grabbed his camera and notebook, figuring it would probably be a waste of gas, time and energy. He was sure that by the time he reached Whitehorse, Eve Bailey would have been found and there would be nothing more than a brief story about her harrowing night out in the storm.

  For a piece of Arlene’s coconut-custard pie he could even feign interest in her daughter.

  BY THE TIME Sheriff Carter Jackson picked up his roping horse and trailer from his brother’s place and reached the Old Town Whitehorse Community Center, there were a dozen pickups and horse trailers parked in front.

  He pulled into the lot, noticing that all of the trucks and horse trailers were covered in the gray gumbo mud that made unpaved roads in this part of the state impassable after a rainstorm.

  Fortunately, the sun had come out this morning and had dried at least the top layer of soil because it appeared everyone had made it.

  He’d always been proud that he was from Old Town and was sorry his family was no longer part of this isolated community. No matter how they were getting along at the time, the residents pulled together when there was trouble like a large extended family.

  As he pushed open the door of the community center, he spotted Titus Cavanaugh at the center of a group of men. Titus had a topographical map stretched out on one of the women’s sewing tables and was going over it with the other male residents.

  “Here’s the sheriff now,” resident Errol Wilson announced as Carter walked toward them.

  “We’re putting together a search party,” said the elderly Cavanaugh, who was unmistakably in charge. If Old Town had been an incorporated town, Titus would have been mayor. He led the church services at the community center every Sunday, organized the Fourth of July picnic and somehow managed to be the most liked and respected man in the county, hell, most of the state.

  His was one of the first families in the area. His grandmother had started the Whitehorse Sewing Circle and never missed a day until her death. Titus’s wife Pearl was just as dedicated to the group, although Carter didn’t see her. He’d heard Pearl was in the hospital with pneumonia. She’d always made sure that every newborn got a quilt, as well as every newlywed. It had been an Old Town tradition for as long as anyone could remember.

  “Give me a minute,” Carter said to Titus. “I’d like to talk to Eve’s family before we head out.”

  He gathered the Bailey women in a small room at the back of the community center and closed the door.
Lila Bailey was a tall, stern-looking woman with long gray-blond hair she kept in a knot at the nape of her neck. At one time, she’d been beautiful. There was still a ghost of that beauty in her face.

  With her were her daughters, McKenna and Faith, both home from college. Chester Bailey, Lila’s husband, was living in Whitehorse, working for the Dehy in Saco. Apparently, he hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Any idea where Eve was headed?” Carter asked. The women looked to McKenna, the second oldest Bailey sister.

  “I was just coming home when I saw her ride out late yesterday afternoon,” McKenna said, and glanced toward her mother.

  Carter couldn’t miss the look that passed between the two women. “Was that unusual for her? To take a horseback ride late in the afternoon with a storm coming in?”

  “Eve is a strong-minded woman,” Lila said. “More than capable of taking care of herself. Usually.” The last word was said quietly as Lila looked to the floor.

  “Where does she generally ride?” he asked the sisters.

  Both shrugged. “Depending what kind of mood she’s in, she rides toward the Breaks,” McKenna said.

  “What kind of mood was she in yesterday afternoon?” Carter asked, watching Lila’s face.

  Faith made a derisive sound. “Eve’s often in a lousy mood.” Lila shot her a warning look. “Well, it’s true.”

  Faith and McKenna were in their early twenties. Eve was the oldest at thirty-two.

  Lila apparently hadn’t expected to have any more children after Eve. Both McKenna and Faith had been surprises—at least according to Old Whitehorse gossip. The local scuttlebutt was that Lila’s husband, Chester, had been heartbroken they’d never had a son and their marriage strained to the point of breaking.

  But Chester had only recently moved out of the house, taking a job in Saco. While as far as Carter knew the couple was still married, word was that Chester hardly ever came home. His daughters visited him up in Whitehorse.

  One of the joys of small-town living: everyone knew everyone else’s business, Carter thought.

  “You should tell him,” McKenna said to her mother in a hushed whisper.

  The look Lila gave her daughter could have cut glass. “He’s not interested in family matters, McKenna.”

  “On the contrary, I’m interested in Eve’s state of mind when she took off yesterday,” Carter said, looking from McKenna to her mother.

  “It was nothing,” Lila said. “Just a disagreement. Why are we standing around talking? Eve could be injured. You should be out looking for her.” She shot Carter a look that said she wasn’t saying anything more about her disagreement with her oldest daughter. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to see to the potluck. Everything needs to be ready for when the men return with my daughter.”

  She left the room, Faith looking after her, plainly curious about what was going on between her mother and sister.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Carter said. “I’d like a word with McKenna alone.”

  Faith shrugged and left, but with obvious reluctance. When the door closed behind her, Carter asked McKenna, “Why don’t you tell me about the disagreement your mother and sister had yesterday and let me decide if it’s relevant.”

  “You mean what they were arguing about? I don’t know. I heard them yelling at each other when I came home. Eve stormed out to the barn, riding off a few minutes later. When I asked Mother what was going on, she said it was just Eve being dramatic.”

  He’d seen Eve angry on more than one occasion, but he’d never thought of her as the dramatic type. Deena on the other hand…“The last time you saw your sister, how was she dressed?”

  McKenna shrugged. “Jeans, boots, a T-shirt. I don’t think she took a jacket. It was pretty hot when she left.”

  “What color T-shirt?” he asked, attempting to keep his growing concern from his voice. Eve hadn’t been dressed for a night out in the weather—especially last night with that storm that had blown through. For some reason, she’d taken off upset, without even a jacket, and that alone he knew could have cost her her life.

  “Light blue T-shirt,” McKenna said, sounding close to tears as if realizing that her sister might be in serious trouble.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” Carter said, shocked to think that after all these years he would be seeing Eve Bailey again. He just hoped to hell he’d find her alive. But as he joined the search party, he feared they were now looking for a body.

  Chapter Three

  Lila Bailey busied herself arranging the food as it arrived from local residents. She had to keep busy or she knew she would lose her mind. The thought shook her, considering that her mother, Nina Mae, had literally lost hers and was now in the nursing home in Whitehorse.

  The only way Lila could cope was not to allow herself even the thought that her oldest daughter wasn’t coming back. Eve could take care of herself. Eve was the strong one. Eve was a survivor. Even as upset as she’d been yesterday.

  Lila had to believe that. If she gave in to doubts, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold herself together and for Lila, losing control had always been her greatest fear.

  More food arrived. She arranged it on the extra tables the men had set up for her. Everyone pitched in when needed. She recalled with shame how the town had offered help when they heard Chester had left her.

  Her face flamed at the pity she’d seen in their faces. No one believed Chester would be back. And she was sure they’d all speculated on why Chester had left her.

  Well, let their tongues wag. She had turned down their help. She’d pay hell before she’d take their pity. She’d show them all. Lila Cross Bailey didn’t need anyone. Never had.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She furtively wiped them away. The last thing she’d do was let one person in this community see her cry.

  Not that there was much left. There were only a half-dozen houses still standing, most of them empty, in what had once been a thriving homestead town a hundred years ago.

  Amid the weeds, abandoned houses and what was left of the foundations of homes long gone was Titus and Pearl Cavanaugh’s big white three-story house at the far end of the street. Next to it was the smaller house where Titus’s mother, Bertie, had lived before she’d become so sick she had to go into Whitehorse to the nursing home.

  A couple of blocks behind the community center and near the creek stood the old abandoned Cherry house, which kids still said was haunted. Lila was eleven when she heard what sounded like a baby crying in the empty old Victorian house. She still got goose bumps when she thought about it.

  At the opposite end of town was Geraldine Shaw’s clapboard house, a large red barn behind it.

  Overlooking the town was the Whitehorse Cemetery, where residents had been buried from the time the original homesteaders settled here. The most recent grave belonged to Abigail Ames, Pearl Cavanaugh’s mother. Next to the cemetery was the fairgrounds where community summer events took place.

  As Lila looked up, a tumbleweed cartwheeled across Main Street. Like many small towns across eastern Montana, both Old Town and Whitehorse were dying, the young people leaving, the old people heading for the cemetery on the hill.

  The young people left for better jobs or to go to school and never return, glad to have escaped the hard life of farming or ranching such austere county.

  Lila knew that Faith and McKenna had only come home for the summer because they’d heard that their father had moved out. She’d insisted they take jobs in Whitehorse to keep them out of her hair and make it clear that she didn’t need their help.

  Not that there was much in Whitehorse to the north. It had a grocery, a newspaper, several banks, a handful of churches and a hardware store and lumberyard. The bowling alley had burned down but the old-timey theater was still open, showing one new movie three days a week.

  Like other ranchers from around the county, Lila went into Whitehorse for supplies and to stop by the nursing home to see her mother.

  Why Eve ha
d come back was a mystery to most everyone but Lila. Eve moved into her grandmother’s house up the road and, from all appearances, seemed to be staying, which frightened Lila more than she wanted to admit.

  As she gazed out the window, Lila knew it was just a matter of time before she’d be all alone in that big old rambling house with nothing but memories. And regrets.

  “They’ll find her,” a deep male voice said behind her, making her jump.

  She felt the skin on her neck prickle as she recognized the voice and realized he had her trapped in the corner between the long potluck table and the window.

  Her back stiffened and she had to fix her expression before she turned around to face Errol Wilson.

  “I know you must be worried, but we all know how strong Eve is,” Errol said. He was a short, broad man with small dark eyes and a receding hairline of salt-and-pepper hair that stuck out from under his Western hat.

  As his eyes locked with hers, Lila felt her skin crawl. She nodded, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. Normally, she made sure she kept her distance from Errol at these community gatherings, never letting him get her alone, even with other people around. But nothing about the past few days had been normal.

  “Eve’s a survivor,” Errol continued, standing next to Lila but not looking at her. So close she knew that no one else in the room could hear him. If anyone looked this way, they would think he was inspecting the dishes that had been set out for the potluck.

  “Like her mother,” Errol added.

  “Ready?” Frank Ross called to Errol. “You’re going with Floyd Evans and the sheriff,” Frank told Errol, and gave Lila a comforting nod before heading for the door.

  Lila turned her back to Errol, but she could still feel him behind her, the scent of his aftershave making her stomach roil.

  “Don’t worry, Lila,” Errol said. “We’ll find your daughter and bring her back to you. Wouldn’t let anything ever happen to her. Just like I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”