Museum. Really? Only a small portion of the museum dealt with old Jacob Waltz—nicknamed the Lost Dutchman—and his irrelevant, misguided contribution to the history of the Superstition Mountains. The majority of displays had to do with the ancient and not-so-ancient inhabitants who’d left behind tangible relics and folklore.
The woman from the van was dressed to the nines and didn’t look the type to be impressed with old mining paraphernalia or Native American treasures. She seemed more suited to a Porsche than minivan. Emily moved closer to the window. Ah, a rental.
The man appeared much older, wearing white pants and a suit jacket. Those pants would stay clean sixty seconds in this museum immersed in history and dust.
They entered the foyer with a sense of entitlement. Emily didn’t mind. These were the kind of tourists who might spend money on one of the many books in the tiny gift area, maybe even buy a Native American woven blanket. “May I help you?”
“We’re looking for pieces from old movie sets?” the man answered. “To buy. We heard John Wayne liked this part of Arizona, and I’m a collector.”
“We did have many Westerns shot here,” Emily began. “Not just John Wayne, but Audie—”
“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.
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
