on a paper plate, resting it between us.
“These are good,” Sal noted, popping one and following it with a swig of coffee. “You know what?”
“What?”
“We need a pizza maker. I saw one on line that slings out pizzas in less than 10 minutes. All the ingredients are fresh and word has it they taste pretty good.”
If Cookie was complaining about the smell of donuts every morning, I couldn’t imagine what she’d have to say about pizzas.
“Good idea. Worth considering.”
The wind, as is usual in Colorado, was strong and coming out of the northeast, but the sky was blue with a light haze.
“There it is,” Sal said, pointing to a patch of a town in what was clearly ranching and farming land. To its south, a long, dead-straight runway. I know. What other kind would there be? Ever land a plane on a Mexican dirt road for lack of a better place? I have. Straight it wasn’t.
Circled to the south for an approach and within minutes were bumping down an old runway. I turned off toward the lone hangar with its horizontal fuel storage tank. Next to the small office, a police car with a tall, thin man dressed in tan with a white Stetson and a silver six-pointed star on his shirt leaning against the fender.
As I shut down the engine, he began walking toward the Cirrus, arriving just as Sal and I climbed out.
“I’m guessin’ you’re Drago,” he said to me, dark eyes with a hint of sparkle taking in my height, weight and build. Typical cop measuring up a stranger just in case things got dicey, which, of course, they weren’t going to do.
To Sal, “And you’re Rand.”
We both nodded.
“I’m Tommy Lightfoot, no relation to Gordon but I can sing better than him.” He smiled, stuck out his hand which I took. “Your chief called ahead, said you’d be comin’ today.”
“Good to meet you Chief.”
Sal gave Lightfoot a quick handshake, never taking his eyes off of the cop. I sometimes wonder about Sal. He’s got a big heart, but he’s cautious of people who are too nice too soon. He has this uncanny knack of knowing things about people before they tell him. Sal ID’d Tatiana as a Russian secret service agent days before I tumbled to her status.
“Climb aboard and we’ll get some lunch and jaw a bit. How’s that?”
“Fine with us,” I said.
We climbed into his dusty cop-version four-door Jeep Wrangler.
“Fly that pretty little plane a lot?” he asked.
“Not as much as I’d like.”
“We’re used to crop dusters, mostly. Don’t often see new planes.” He scratched his ear. “Well, actually, a couple of the ranchers have those planes with the V-shaped tail they take up to Denver or wherever. Me? I don’t fly too well. Give me a Jeep, any day.”
The landscape was pretty stark. Mostly dirt on both sides of the highway, only a few buildings and those well worn from use. The occasional tree looked healthy enough, and the fields were well tended. About half-a-mile from the airport, a few grain silos behind the tin-shed “Farm Fleet Tire Service,” its four fuel pumps sitting on the only concrete pad in an otherwise all-dirt parking and transport lot. We bumped over some railroad tracks and quickly hit a stretch that clearly was getting closer to town. A few nicely tended houses abutted the highway followed by the typical rural pole barns that housed an assortment of ranching support businesses.
A pile of used tires maybe 8 feet high marked Cliff’s Gas and Diesel followed by a plain white building with A TO PARTS in big red letters above an old Pepsi dispenser and what looked like a cockeyed refrigerator.
“We’ll go to Porky’s,” the Chief said shortly after passing the “Welcome to Holly” sign.
He pulled the Jeep into a dusty parking lot in front of a steep-pitch, compact building that looked like someone couldn’t make up his mind to do Spanish Mission, Swiss Chalet or Cowboy Basic. We climbed out of the Jeep; the aroma of good food floated in the air like the smell of hot metal in a machine shop.
A pert little blonde smiled at us. “Hi, Tommy.”
“Clarise. Keepin’ busy?”
“You betcha.” She waved an arm, “Sit anywhere and I’ll be with you guys in a sec.”
We took a table for six next to a window.
True to her word, Clarise quickly returned to the table with glasses of water.
“What’ll it be?” she asked.
Lightfoot looked at me, “Burgers are good. Fries are double fried.”
To the waitress, “I’ll do a burger with everything you got in the cupboard, fries and a beer if you have it.”
“Bud okay?”
“Sure.”
Sal held up two fingers.
The Chief held up three.
Turning to me, “Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Drago?”
“Nick.”
“Okay, Nick.”
“You remember a Denver cop named Littleton?”
“Sure. Some years ago, but he tracked down a killer-child-molester to these parts.”
“Well, the way he told it, you tracked him down, he just came to haul his ass back to Denver.”
“Maybe so.”
“Anyway, he said you two got along pretty good and you told a story of the Arapahoe tribe having a tale of people being found inside tree tombs.”
Lightfoot’s eyes flashed on and off in a matter of a split second. “This about that old wives’ tale?”
“Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“An old wives’ tale.”
The chief leaned back in the booth, ran his hand through his black hair, measuring the words he would say. Finally, “Let’s just say there are a few in the tribe, and I mean a very few, who believe the story. Others try to put different meanings on the myth, interpreting it in a thousand different ways except literally.”
“You don’t believe it?”
Lightfoot hesitated, then, “Let me put it this way, Nick. My great grandfather was a believer. My grandfather was a believer. My father was a believer.”
“Did they also believe these folks were buried with gold?”
Lightfoot’s dark eyes flashed again. A long sigh. “Yes. But if
