One Night with the Texan(9)

The first man put his cowboy hat back on and looked at the other two. “I’m not sure Cole is here. He was going to fly into Dallas. You may have missed him. But we’ll wait an hour or so to give you a chance to talk with him. After that, we pretty much have to follow his orders.”

She turned and hurried up the hill to her Ford wagon. She would tell Masters exactly what he could do with his orders. Normally a careful driver, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator and the old vehicle fishtailed several times before she reached the paved road leading to the mansion on the hill. How could he do this?

When she reached the parking area she hopped from her old Ford car and jogged toward the mansion.

After several frantic rings of the bell, a housekeeper answered the door. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Mr. Masters just left. He’s headed for the airstrip some distance behind the barn. Don’t know if you can catch him, but it’s that way if you want to try.” She pointed toward the large barn and stables.

With quick thanks thrown over her shoulder, Tallie got back in her vehicle and headed out of the parking area. Following the directions, she almost immediately spotted the private air strip and the giant warehouse that housed the planes. There appeared to be only one thing in motion: a helicopter on the far left of the airfield with MASTERS CORPORATION on the side. As she got closer she could see Cole at the controls. He was writing something on a notepad and hadn’t seen her approach. Tallie pulled up close to the helipad just as the rotor blade increased its speed. Knowing what was at stake, she leaped from her wagon car, ran to the chopper and pulled open the door.

The look on Cole’s face was a mix of surprise, frustration and anger. Tallie silently glared at him. If looks could kill, he’d be a dead man. With obvious reservations he shut off the motor and the blades slowed. Pulling off the headset, he tossed it on the seat next to him and got out of the chopper. He was not happy. But neither was she.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed as he reached her side of the helicopter.

“I might ask you the same question.”

“You could have been killed.”

“So what would you care?” Tallie was so furious her hands were held in tightly formed fists at her sides. “You send three of your ranch hands to my dig to destroy it. Then you sneak out so I can’t contact you. You’ve reached a new low, Masters.”

“I was trying to offer you some help,” he argued. “And I’ve never snuck away from anything.”

She could tell that her accusation had hit the target. She had him on the defensive, which was good. “I’ve already told you it takes time and patience to extract the soil. You chop up a five-thousand-year-old artifact and it’s game over. If that happens, this would all be for nothing. My time here meaningless. And the delay to your project pointless, as well.”

“It appears to me that’s already the case.”

“You just don’t get it. Is it that you don’t want to understand or are you incapable of understanding?”

“Dr. Finley—”

“You did this on purpose. You might have destroyed an invaluable historical object. You didn’t even tell your employees what they were doing. Just to dig. I hope you aren’t that sloppy directing your companies.”

That appeared to hit the nail squarely on the head. His eyes narrowed while his jaw muscles worked overtime; no doubt he was biting his tongue.

“So, what do you want, Dr. Finley? I’m late for a meeting in Dallas.”

She coughed out a sarcastic laugh. “You have to ask? You have three cowboys with shovels digging up my site. Figure it out. Tell them to stop. Tell them to go away. Would you like for me to write it down for you? Do I need to lead you by the hand? Tell them to go mend a fence or shoe a horse or something.”

Cole shook his head, not bothering to try to hide his frustration. “Fine. If you will kindly step back from the aircraft, I’ll tell them to stop digging.”

“I’ll be watching.”

“I’m sure you will.” The sarcasm was heavy in his tone. She didn’t care. Not knowing if she could trust him after this stunt, she returned to the wagon and backed away from the helipad but waited to see which direction he would go. Within minutes the chopper lifted off and made a beeline for the dig site where it made a perfect landing. Cole was talking to the men as she pulled up next to the old shack.

He saw her and walked to the helicopter before she could get there. It lifted off and headed south toward Dallas, the rotors slapping the air like thunder in the sky. The men were already putting their shovels and other tools back in their truck. “Ma’am,” the older cowboy said and nodded before he turned and walked to their pickup. Soon Tallie was left alone with only the birds to keep her company.

She didn’t believe for a second that Cole had done this to help her. He’d thought he could sabotage her into leaving. He could think again. He had started a war and made it worse by making her miss her morning tea, and that was an unforgivable offense. She picked up her shovel and began the daunting task of checking for any destruction and ensuring no artifacts were embedded in the churned soil.

After many hours, she was convinced she’d been lucky. She emptied shovelful after shovelful into the sifter. There were arrowheads, broken pieces of pottery, a few beads made within the past few hundred years and not evidence of the lost tribe she was looking for, which was much older. The digging didn’t seem to have caused any damage, though. She logged each one, took a picture and noted the day and time and other facts about each piece in her journal. She might be wrong about the date of the pieces but she didn’t think so.

The sun was setting behind the far hills when the last sifting was completed. She would have to wait until the morning to outline a new grid. Trudging back to the cabin she fell onto the rickety old bed and kicked off her boots. Exhaustion propelled her to sleep with one last thought: what would Cole Masters try to pull tomorrow?





Five

It was a feeling rather than a sound that woke Tallie from a deep sleep. Her eyes opened just enough that she could tell it was before dawn. She felt eyes on her. Slowly sitting up, she looked out the door opening. A cow was standing in the doorway. Before she could pull on some jeans, another cow poked his head in over the first. Then a third came in low, as if to see what the other two had found.

“Shoo!” she screeched, stomping her foot at the heifers in the doorway. Her actions had no effect.

She swung a piece of cardboard at them and finally they took the hint and moved back. How many cows were there? Ten—at least—standing around the old shack. Slipping on her jeans and boots, she readied for war. Reaching back to her bedroll, she grabbed the white sheet from inside. Waving it and shouting “shoo” and “get out” finally caused a reaction. The entire group headed away from the cabin toward a fence with a wire gate half off its hinges. The cows kept going. When all were through the partial opening, Tallie quickly closed the gate. She hoped they weren’t hurt by the wire but dreaded to see the damage they had caused to her camp and the dig site.

An hour later she was still picking up pieces of garbage from the bright blue barrels that had been overturned on the porch. She didn’t know how much time it took to clean up all the mess. Only one thing she knew for sure: this was Cole Masters’s doing. He was behind it. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew it all the same.

She was sitting on the ramshackle porch still rolling up the last of the orange twine when she heard a pickup come down the path.

“Good morning, Dr. Finley,” Cole said as he exited the truck.

She glared at him. If she opened her mouth she would chew him up and spit him out.

“So, how is your day?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know if you saw them, but about a dozen heifers with cuts and scratches showed up at the barn. Looks like they were run through a fence. I don’t suppose you would know anything about that?”

She shrugged again. “Can’t say I do. I’ve been right here, on the property, all morning. No cows are allowed in this area, isn’t that what you told me?”

His jaw worked overtime. He’d been caught in a trap of his own making.

“Yeah.” He stared, suspicion marring his handsome features. “That’s what I said.”

“If I see a cow within the borders of the dig site, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“You do that.” He sounded skeptical. “What happened to your string?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Part of it unraveled.” She stated the obvious. Of course, it had had a bit of help. “Are you on some sort of leave? I mean I haven’t seen you go to work but a couple of times since I’ve been here.”

“You think I need to go to Dallas and work?”

“Well, Dallas or New York...wherever you have offices.” She shrugged again. “It just seems odd to me that you’re spending so much time out here worrying about cows and directing your ranch hands to ‘help’ me. That can’t be very profitable.”

She set the roll of string aside, leaned back against one of the posts supporting the roof over the porch and looked at him.