added to each side.
Through the open doorway on the left, Mark could see a display of gold panning equipment and what looked like Native American relics.
He ought to head for the gold mine and prospecting display, but his feet didn’t move. Instead, he studied Juliet.
With the baby in her arms, she moved slowly through the room, browsing various display cases and wearing a smile that only a history buff could appreciate—or a man who found the beautiful young woman intriguing.
Mark might not share her interest in antiques and dusty exhibits of outdated memorabilia, but he enjoyed watching her run a hand lovingly over a glass case, seeing interest light her eyes.
“Folks, I’ll be with you in a minute,” a man’s voice called from the back. A familiar voice?
“All right,” Juliet responded. “We’ll make ourselves at home, Ben.”
Ben Saunders?
Mark’s old high school teacher? Now there was a real history nut. And just the guy Mark needed to talk to.
“Why, Juliet Rivera,” Mr. Saunders said, making his way from the back room to the center of the museum. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon after your baby’s birth. The last time I stopped by The Hitching Post, Martha Tasker told me you had a little girl and were on maternity leave.”
Obviously, Juliet hadn’t been kidding about spending a lot of time in Old Town. And at the museum.
“Did you bring that little baby to get her first taste of Thunder Canyon history?” Mr. Saunders asked.
“I sure did.” Juliet cast a loving smile on the baby she held in her arms. “But she’ll probably sleep through it.”
Mr. Saunders laughed, still unaware that Mark was in the room, and peered at Marissa. “I heard she was a few weeks premature, but I had no idea she was so small. Or that she was just as pretty as her mama.”
Ben Saunders hadn’t changed much, Mark decided, even though the former high school teacher was probably pushing seventy. He’d grown a bit heavier, and his hair had turned white. But he seemed just as friendly with those who shared his interest in history.
In the classroom, Mark hadn’t been one of them.
When Saunders finally scanned the room and spotted Mark, recognition flashed in his eyes. “Why if it isn’t one of my old students. Mark Anderson. The cocky kid who used to sit in the back row and shoot spitballs when I wasn’t looking.”
Mark grinned. He’d never been caught in the act. But he’d had a feeling Mr. Saunders had figured out who the culprit had been. “How do you do, sir?”
As they shook hands, Mr. Saunders beamed. “You know, it didn’t surprise me when I heard you became a reporter.”
“Why’s that?” Mark asked.
“You wrote a heck of a paper on the devastating effects gold rushes have had on some people, especially the Indians and the Chinese. It was more like an exposé than a report. And I knew you had real talent putting your thoughts into words.”
So, his former history teacher had remembered his work. Mark couldn’t help a soaring sense of pride in a ten-page paper he’d thrown out years ago. “I’ll admit full responsibility for the paper, sir. But not the spitwads. I can’t remember anyone in my class doing something so tacky and disrespectful.”
“Well, I can. Sometimes I’d go home and find one stuck in my hair.” Mr. Saunders chuckled. “Would you like a private tour of the museum? Or do you want to wander around on your own?”
“Juliet may want to wander, but I’d like the tour. I have some questions I’d like to ask you about the Queen of Hearts.”
“I’ll tag along, too,” Juliet said, holding the sleeping baby in the crook of her arm. “It’s always so interesting when you share those tidbits of Thunder Canyon history.”
“Great.” Mr. Saunders took them through the museum, stopping at each roped off section. They saw a typical parlor, the replicated interior of a one-room pioneer home and a fancy bedroom suite made out of mahogany, complete with a heavy, four-poster bed, matching bureaus, chairs and a vanity. A velvet patchwork quilt covered the mattress.
“This bedroom set was donated by the Douglas family,” Ben said. “Notice the fine workmanship, the detail in the pineapple finials.”
“It’s beautiful.” Juliet stroked the grain of the wood.
“This furniture belonged to Amos and Catherine Douglas,” the older man added. “And it once graced a guestroom at the Lazy D.”
Mark paused, not ready to move on. “Speaking of Amos Douglas, how did he really acquire the Queen of Hearts?”
“Well,” Ben said. “There are several legends, none of which has been proven. Most people believe Amos won the property in a poker game from a prospector with a drinking problem.”
“And what about you?”
Ben smiled. “I favor the story about him winning it from a renegade outlaw.”
That one was new to Mark. “Which outlaw?”
“A redheaded fellow folks claimed was as crazy as a patchwork quilt.” Ben chuckled. “Of course, in this day and age, we’d probably say he suffered from posttraumatic stress syndrome, caused by cruelties of the Civil War.”
Mark’s interest piqued. “Tell me about him.”
“Crazy Red Phelps was once a Confederate soldier who fought alongside the Rafferty brothers, a couple of natural born hell-raisers who didn’t care whether the war was over or not. They formed a ragtag outfit of renegade soldiers and vigilantes, but that didn’t last long. They soon moved on to robbing trains and banks in Colorado.”
“I’ve heard of the Rafferty gang,” Juliet said. “They weren’t as big or well known as Frank and Jesse James or the Daltons, but they did their share of robbing and killing.”
“That’s right.” Ben tugged at the waistband of his slacks. “Crazy Red and Bobby Joe Rafferty, the head of the gang, fell for the same woman, a widow named Sally McKenzie who ran a stage stop about fifty miles outside of Denver. The fight over the woman created some bad blood between the two, and a shoot-out resulted.”
“Who won?”
“Sally, if you ask me.” Ben chuckled. “When Crazy Red shot Billy Joe between the eyes, she pulled out her shotgun and blasted Crazy Red in the shoulder, then ran him off. He went on to pull a few armed robberies by himself and eventually ended up in Thunder Canyon, looking for gold and a piece of the action.”
“And you think Crazy Red got a hold of the Queen of Hearts?” Mark asked.
“An old newspaper quoted Crazy Red as claiming the mine rightfully belonged to him. And that he meant to have it, one way or another.”
“And you believe the claim of a thief who’d been dubbed with the nickname of Crazy?”
