Blood Ties (5 page)

"That would be valuable," Abbie said, "but not scientific proof." She stared again at the torque and pin.

"Father was right about the origin of the items,"
Matthew insisted. "They are Irish, early Bronze Age,
aren't they?"

Her mother replaced the pin and lifted the heavy
collar with both hands. Her eyes met her daughter's,
and Abbie felt a thrill. She knew her first impression
had been right.

"The pin is bronze," Karen said. "But I believe your
father was mistaken about the torque. This is crafted
from a single bar of gold."

"You've heard the stories just like I have." Abbie heard
Emma's emphatic voice coming from a group standing under the trees outside the church. "Abbie! I want
you to meet somebody. This is George Williams. He's
the one who helped your mother and Bailey when they
found Sean Gilbert's body."

"Ma'am." George tugged at the brim of his ball cap.
"Weren't much. My place just happens to be the closest. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Mr. Williams, yes, thank you. Mom told me about
you. It must have been awful. I appreciate your assistance." George was a short, stocky man with skin as
shiny black as obsidian and sleepy eyes nearly hidden
in an accordion of wrinkles. His soft voice was heavily
accented by the unique flavor of the Chesapeake Bay
country. On first impression, the middle-aged waterman seemed more accustomed to laughter than
tragedy. One cheek was puffed out, and from the stain
on his lower lip, Abbie suspected George chewed plug
tobacco.

"Anybody would have been glad to help out," the
black man replied. "Terrible thing for your mother
and Bailey Tawes, finding that poor boy with the crabs
gnawin' him."

"Shame it was too late for anybody to help him," a
second man said. "Even if the boy was up to no good
out there."

"Abbie, this is Phillip Love," Emma explained. "He
and his wife Mary run Dori's Market."

"I'm the manager. Mary places orders and waits on
customers." Phillip was tall and lean, a little older than
George, with heavy eyelids, an auburn mustache, and
a strident tone.

"Pleased to meet you. You and Mrs. Love were sitting near us."

"We were just talkin' about the curse on that
marsh." George shifted a plug of tobacco from one
cheek to the other and indicated Phillip and Emma
with a thrust of his chin. "Bad place-real bad.
Haunted, a lot of folks claim."

"And I was saying, drownings happen on Tawes.
Nothing strange about that." Emma kicked absently at
the grass, and Abbie noticed that she was wearing
heavy rubber boots. "There's always been stories about
the curse, but-"

"Always give me the creeps, that marsh." Phillip's
match flared as he lit his pipe. "You wouldn't catch me
digging up those graves. Course, some of them people
are probably my kin, so they might not bother me. My
granny was Nanticoke. Great Granddad Love and two
of his brothers married three sisters, all of them bonnyfied Injuns. Pop used to claim his granddaddy was
blood brother to them. Hunted ducks together every
winter; pack'm in ice and haul them up to market in
Balt'mer."

"I never did hold with disturbin' the dead," George said, "That boy was diggin' in them graves sure. Fresh
holes near his boat. Broken pieces of Injun pottery.
Chips. He was huntin' stuff to sell."

"Granddaddy kept tame ducks to use as decoys,"
Phillip continued. "Shot ducks and geese by the hundreds every winter. We're old stock, us Loves. Makes
me sort of a blood brother to them what's buried out
there too."

George shifted his tobacco from one side of his
mouth to the other and wiped the corner of his mouth
with a clean handkerchief. "Blood brother or not, I'll
bet you ten dollars you wouldn't spend the night out
there in that marsh. Dogs won't go there, I'll tell you
that. Can't make'm. And that's always a sign that a
place is haunted. Dogs can tell."

"Might be just tall tales," Emma admitted. "But
there's something creepy about the place. Got to admit it raises the hair on your neck after dark."

"You wouldn't think it was just talk if you'd ever
been out in that swamp on a foggy night," George
said. "Howls from no animal I ever heard. Moanin'.
My granddaddy claimed he heard Injun drums."

Emma snickered. "Bad moonshine, most likely.
Your granddaddy liked the drink. Come to think of it,
George, so did you."

"I ain't had a drink in twenty years." George shook a
stubby finger. "Not since I got saved at that tent revival
on Deal. Matthew Catlin can swear to it."

"Have you ever heard them drums?" Phillip demanded.

"Didn't say I did, didn't say I didn't," George
replied. "But if I did, weren't whiskey made me
hear'm."

Searching for a quick escape, Abbie glanced toward
the street. The area around the church remained crowded, and she didn't want to get caught up in further island introductions.

Emma tapped her arm. "Just follow this walk. It leads
to an iron gate that opens on the next street over."

"Thanks. Nice to meet you." Glad to get off so easily,
Abbie hurried away. As Emma had promised, the worn
brick path led around the back of the church and then
turned to run between the old tombstones. A hazy
mist was settling over the churchyard, but Abbie
wasn't daunted by shadows or old cemeteries. The air
was humid, but it didn't feel like rain, and she hadn't
heard any thunder.

Ghostly fireflies flickered between the monuments,
and Abbie wondered if the island children liked to
collect the insects in glass jars as she had when she'd
been small. She'd loved to keep the jar by her bed and
watch the tiny blue-white flashes of light until she fell
asleep.

Unable to tear herself away from the Irish treasure
trove, her mother had remained in the church office
with Matthew. Abbie chuckled. Once Anati locked
onto an exciting find, she was tenacious. No child surrounded by brightly wrapped packages on Christmas
morning was ever as excited as Karen was with the possibility of a new discovery. That had always been one of
her mother's most endearing traits.

Common sense told Abbie that anything too good to
be true was just that. How many startling archaeological finds in the last century had turned out to be deliberately planted or clever forgeries? Abbie knew better
than to start building castles in the air, and yet ...

She exhaled softly into the gathering dusk. She
smiled, wondering if all archaeologists were Indiana
Joneses at heart. So much for scientific detachment.
What would such a discovery mean to her mother's ca reer ... or to her own? And what would it mean to this
sleepy island in the Chesapeake?

Matthew clearly expected his magnificent artifacts
to save Tawes from exploitation, but he was sadly mistaken. If Mt. Everest-at the ends of the world-had
become crassly commercialized, what would happen
to this tiny bit of paradise within a stone's throw of the
nation's capital? She could only imagine the invasion
of scholars, politicians, and student excursions. In five
years, Tawes would be concrete and neon lights from
shore to shore, and venders would be selling plastic
leprechauns in sailor hats.

If she and her mother wanted to help the citizens
who'd come to tonight's meeting retain their Brigadoon, they would laugh off Reverend Catlin's Bronze
Age finds, climb into her Beta II at daybreak, and
never look back. But the chances of that were somewhat less than her being killed by a meteor while
walking back to Emma's farmhouse.

Abbie wished now that she'd remained with
Matthew and her mother-insisted on inspecting the
torque more closely. The thought of holding a collar
that had graced the throat of a two-thousand-year-old
Irishman thrilled her as she imagined the weight of
the old gold between her fingers.

"Taxi, lady?"

Startled out of her reverie, Abbie looked up to find
the village Mountie grinning down at her from the
back of a large, silver-gray horse. No saddle; Buck was
riding bareback.

"It's after eight," he drawled in that lazy, teasing
baritone. "We waited at Emma's for a while, and then
figured that Matthew's meeting had gone on longer
than you expected."

"Yes, well, something like that." For some unfathomable reason, Buck Davis not only fascinated her he scrambled her wits. She found herself, a woman
who'd never been at a loss for words, stumbling over
responses to his simplest statements.

"You did say you ride?"

She laughed, grasped his outstretched hand, and
scrambled up behind him. She half expected the
horse to shy at the added weight, but the gray stood as
if his muscular legs were rooted to the earth. "Does
your friend have a name?" she asked as she encircled
Buck's waist with her arms.

"Toby." Buck gave a soft click, and the horse moved
off in a flat walk, surprisingly easy to sit, even without a
saddle. "He's a Tennessee Walker. I bought him last
year at an auction."

"In Tennessee, I suppose."

"Florida." He patted the animal's neck. "Toby was
seized in a drug raid on a big estate south of Tallahassee along with a private jet, a string of sports cars, and
an armored truck for transporting cash."

"I take it the last owner dealt in illegal merchandise."

"Yep. By the time he gets out of federal prison, Leon
will be one hundred and sixty years old, give or take a
few decades. Toby would be long gone, so he's better
off with me, even though his current stable is a few
steps down from what he was used to."

"And how do you get a horse to Tawes?"

"We swam from Crisfield." Before she could react,
laughter rumbled in his throat. "A friend brought him
out on his skipjack."

"On a crab boat?" She was dubious. The commercial
vessels she'd seen were small, without the deck space
necessary to safely carry a horse.

"Toby's very well behaved. He minds a lot better
than my nephewJohnny." He pointed. "Down that way
is the Tawes school."

Buck smelled of gun oil, Irish Spring soap, and af tershave. His hair was still damp; he'd obviously showered since he left Emma's. Abbie relaxed her grip on
his waist, maintaining her balance with her knees and
thighs.

"You're not new to riding, Ms. Night Horse."

"Did you think I would be?"

"No, ma'am. You strike me as a woman good at anything she sets her mind to."

"My father bought me my first pony when I was two.
And it's Abbie. You've about exhausted your charm on
my last name."

"No insult intended ... Abbie."

"None taken from a grown man who calls himself
Buck."

"You mean for a man with all his front teeth who
doesn't chew tobacco?"

"You don't strike me as a redneck."

"My neck is pretty red. Maybe you just don't know
me well enough."

"What makes you think I'd want to?"

He groaned and kneed Toby into a faster gait.

Abbie grabbed Buck's shoulders and kept her seat.
"Nice try."

"I thought so." He glanced back to look into her
face. "Wouldn't want you to take a tumble."

Sweet Zeus! There was definitely an attraction between them. "No fear of that," she managed.

"We can go slower."

"Not necessary. I'm into speed."

"A lady after my own heart." He reined Toby to the
right and continued on down a narrow alley until they
reached the dock. It was high tide, and the sound and
odors of the rushing water filled her head. Coming
night softened the outlines of the anchored boats and
the shabby pilings. "Smell that?"

Abbie could pick out a dozen different scents. Crabs.
Wet feathers. Tar. Seaweed. Fish heads and oyster shells,
to name a few. It reminded her of the small Greek fishing villages clustered along the Aegean. Coming from
Oklahoma, she'd always loved the sea and found it a
never-ending novelty. "What in particular?"

"The bay. Tawes." He threw his right leg over Toby's
neck and slid down, then raised his arms. She followed, and he caught her effortlessly. "I used to rent a
house in Bowers Beach," he said as he wrapped the
horse's reins around an upright reinforcing rod that
stuck out of a chunk of cement. "That's a little fishing
town on Delaware Bay. It was a lot like this, but it
wasn't the Chesapeake.

"When they offered me a chance to come home to
Tawes as Chief of Police, I walked away from the state
police, my vacation time, and my pension and never
looked back."

They walked out to end of the dock. He sat down
and let his legs dangle over the edge. The only sign of
life was a golden retriever on a patch of sand pawing at
a crab shell. "Pretty quiet for only"-she glanced at
her watch-"quarter to nine."

He grinned. "It is, isn't it."

"I like it."

"My father is John."

She looked up at him. "Excuse me?"

"Buck. You wanted to know how I got the name. My
grandfather's still living. He's John, too."