The Dinosaur Hunter(81)

“But why would these T’s stay?” Laura erupted. “Why wouldn’t they try to run away the moment the water started to rise?”

“Maybe,” Pick said, “there was something of interest to them that was greater even than survival.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“Perhaps the strongest emotion in the universe,” Pick answered. “Love.”

It got very quiet around the fire pit. Pick finally broke the silence by saying, “I must find out if what I believe is true. I’m certain it is but I need evidence. That’s why we can’t stop digging.”

Jeanette remained firm. “Only one day and one night, Pick. A tired man will make ten times the mistakes of a fresh one.”

“That goes for a tired woman, too,” Laura said, earning her a sharp glance from Pick.

Philip said, “My crotch is rubbed raw with grit. I’ve got to get it out.”

“Don’t get it out around me!” Brian exclaimed.

The rest of us hooted. “Well, that settles it,” Jeanette said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll get out of here.” When Pick started to object, Jeanette said, “But not into town. We’ll all go to the Square C, get washed up there, and spend the evening indoors. I don’t have beds for everybody but I guess you can camp out well enough in the living room and such.” Jeanette held up her hand. “That settles it, Pick.”

“I won’t leave this site,” Pick said.

“Suit yourself,” Jeanette replied, and that was that.





26




Ray, Jeanette, Amelia, and I hopped on our four-wheelers and the others followed in the trucks. The Square C had never seen such a sorry caravan as that which finally reached the turnaround in front of our barn. The four-wheelers and the trucks were coated with dried mud and so were their passengers. Soupy came running through the gate to sniff everybody and then jumped into Ray’s arms. It was quite the homecoming. While the women and Ray went inside the house, I sent Brian and Philip to my trailer to take showers while I had a talk with Delbert. Delbert was in the barn, cleaning the stalls and the horse tack. “Pretty quiet,” he said. “Cows are good, horses are good, Superdog is good, all is good, I reckon. I been spending some time just cleaning some things, greasing what needs to be greased. You keep a nice tight ranch here.”

“We do our best. You want a job, I’ve been thinking about quitting.”

Delbert laughed. “You leave the Square C, Mike? I don’t think so.”

This irritated me but I didn’t let it show. “Anybody been here to visit?”

Delbert rubbed his grizzled jaw, then said, “That fellow Cade Morgan was looking for Mrs. Coulter. I told ’em where she was. He didn’t say anything else. Just left.”

“Was he by himself?”

“Yep.” Delbert thought a bit more, then said, “T’other day, there was a funny car that came up and turned around. Big, black limousine-like thing. I came out of the barn but it never stopped. It just swung around and went back down to the road.”

“Could you see who was inside?”

“Nope. Had those tinted windows. License plate was Arizona.”

I had no way of calculating the odds of a lost Arizonan limo ending up on the Square C, or even the significance of it, but it added to my worry.

“Oh, Ted Brescoe and the mayor were out here, too.”

I was beginning to think maybe the entire county had visited us. I resisted being sarcastic toward Delbert about dribbling out the information. Instead, I asked, “Were they together? Ted and the mayor?”

“Yep. His truck. BLM, you know.”

I knew.

“You staying long?” Delbert asked and I told him the plan.

“OK. You care if I go help Buddy for a day or two? The fort’s held down pretty good here, I’d say.”

I agreed with that and told Delbert he could go but only for tomorrow. We’d leave plenty of food and water for Soupy and the horses but I didn’t like the idea of more than a day going by without someone here. Delbert said that was fine. I added, “Would you keep a radio on you, Delbert? With our ranch frequency? We might need to get in touch with you while we’re out there.”

“Sure thing,” Delbert said, then got in his truck and left while I considered what next to do.

What to do, I decided, was to visit Cade Morgan again, this time without knocking on his door. I pitched my backpack with the Glock into it on Bob’s front seat, climbed in, and took off. About a mile before I reached Cade’s ranch, I pulled off onto a side road, drove down it a little, then parked. I tucked the Glock in my belt, walked back out to Ranchers Road, listened for traffic, then ran across and climbed over Cade’s fence. I slipped through the wild grasses, circling around until I reached a small hill that overlooked Cade’s house. There was a black limo parked in the driveway along with Cade’s Mercedes. There was no movement outside or in and, though I waited and watched for a couple of hours, I didn’t see anyone.