Corrie was relieved that the excavation was finally done. Nora’s painfully slow work on the corpse had almost driven her around the bend. For hours it was brush, brush, brush; then a few squirts of air from a finger bellows to clear away the sand; then more brush, brush, brush. But she knew the enormity of the favor the archaeologist was doing her and the long hours she was putting in. By the end of that day, Nora had uncovered the entirety of the body. It was a bizarre and gruesome sight, and it only deepened the mystery of what the man had been doing here and how he died. Tomorrow morning, after Nora finished documenting the site, they would remove the body and associated items, place them in evidence lockers, and drive it all back to Albuquerque. Corrie felt glad to have had these days away from the office: it was the first time since the shooting that she had felt somewhat normal. Still, she privately hoped the case would turn out to be nothing and—her penance complete—Morwood would move her on to something more relevant.

“All right,” said Skip, sitting on a log before the fire, “now that we’re off the clock, anyone for a little nip of sotol?” He fished a bottle out of his pack and held it up, sparkling in the firelight,

giving it a little shake.

“Ugh,” said Nora. “You know I can’t stand that stuff.”

“What’s sotol?” Corrie asked.

Nora shook her head. “Trust me: just don’t. Have a beer instead.” She opened the cooler and pulled two Coronas from the ice, offering one to Corrie. The bottle looked tempting, with shavings of ice sliding down the frosty neck. Corrie considered whether she was, indeed, off the clock and decided she was.

She took it.

“Smart choice,” said Nora, flipping the cap off her beer and taking a sip. “And, Skip, go easy on that stuff.”

“I will, I will.”

A silence settled as they stared into the fire.

“I wonder if the skeletons of those miners are right beneath us somewhere,” Skip said at last. “That’s roughly where the gold mine was—right? Think of it: a slow death of hunger and thirst. Or maybe suffocation—in pitch blackness, too.” His voice lowered. “You know, people who die in awful ways like that don’t stay quiet. Their spirits get … restless.”

Nora threw her beer cap at him. “Don’t start spinning one of your damned ghost stories, trying to scare us half to death.”

“So,” Corrie said. “Now that you’ve uncovered the body: What do you think?”

“Well, it doesn’t look like we have a murder on our hands. Not an obvious one, anyway.”

“Not obvious. But still possible?”

“It’s hard to say. The fetal position of the corpse is very strange, as if he was poisoned or maybe freezing to death. Or, perhaps, hallucinating—if you look at his arm, it’s almost as if he’s pushing someone, or something, away.”

“And that grimace,” said Skip, who’d done his share of kibitzing from a distance. “A million dollars’ worth of CG couldn’t create a face that scary.”

“We’ll do a thorough workup back at the lab,” Corrie said. “Toxicology, pathology, everything. If he was poisoned, we’ll know.”

“Maybe he died of bad taste,” Skip said. “Did you get a load of that shirt he’s wearing?”

Nora ignored this. “The artifacts I uncovered with the body do suggest a few possibilities for investigation.”

“Such as?” Corrie asked.

“The rock hammer and folding shovel he was carrying? Looks like he might have been a prospector. I’m also curious to see what’s in that satchel of his. Maybe some ID.”

“We’ll do a thorough inventory of his belongings at the lab,” said Corrie.

Nora hesitated. “I had another idea. That canvas pack lying next to him? It isn’t a backpack. It’s a pannier used to pack a mule.”

Skip gave a low whistle. “Are you thinking—?”

“Yes.”

Corrie looked at Nora. “What is it?”

“All pack saddles have two panniers: one for each side. That means the mate to this pannier might be around here somewhere. And with it, maybe the skeleton of his mule.”

Corrie shuddered. “Tomorrow, we’ll search the town.”

11

THEY GOT UP before sunrise—except Skip, who had overindulged in the sotol, despite Nora’s warnings. As Corrie hauled herself out of her bag into the chill air, she was grateful Nora had risen earlier to build up the fire and make a pot of camp coffee. As she and Nora sat sipping the bitter brew, the sun climbed over the eastern mountaintops, throwing a lonely yellow light through the ghost town. It was like an Edward Hopper painting, Corrie thought, all long shadows and dark windows.

“Let’s see if we can find our fellow’s missing pannier,” said Nora, setting down her empty cup. “And the bones of his ride.”

“Right.”

They decided to split up, Corrie taking one side of the town and Nora the other. As Corrie walked among the ruins, the ravens once again rose up and wheeled overhead, cawing and croaking. There were plenty of old fence posts and other places to tie a horse or a mule—almost too many, in fact.

And then she had an idea—why tie up a horse when you could just turn it out in a corral?