He put in a call to Coroner Rupert Milligan. While he waited for Rupert, he shot both digital photographs and video of the site, trying not to speculate on the bones in the well or how they had gotten there.
Rupert drove up not thirty minutes later. He was dressed in a suit and tie, which in Montana meant either a funeral or a wedding. “Toastmasters, if you have to know,” he said as he walked past Hud to the well, grabbing the flashlight from Hud’s hand on his way.
Rupert Milligan was older than God and more powerful in this county. Tall, white-haired, with a head like a buffalo, he had a gruff voice and little patience for stupidity. He’d retired as a country doctor but still worked as coroner. He’d gotten hooked on murder mysteries—and forensics. Rupert loved nothing better than a good case and while Hud was still hoping the bones weren’t human, he knew that Rupert was pitching for the other team.
Rupert shone the flashlight down into the well, leaning one way then the other. He froze, holding the flashlight still as he leaned down even farther. Hud figured he’d seen the skull partially exposed at one edge of the well.
“You got yourself a human body down there, but then I reckon you already knew that,” he said, sounding too cheerful as he straightened.
Hud nodded.
“Let’s get it out of there.” Rupert had already started toward his rig.
Hud would have offered to go down in Rupert’s place but he knew the elderly coroner wouldn’t have stood for it. All he needed Hud for was to document it if the case ever went to trial—and help winch him and the bones out of the well.
He followed Rupert over to his pickup where the coroner had taken off his suit jacket and was pulling on a pair of overalls.
“Wanna put some money on what we got down there?” Rupert asked with a grin. Among his other eclectic traits, Rupert was a gambler. To his credit, he seldom lost.
“Those bones could have been down there for fifty years or more,” Hud said, knowing that if that was the case, there was a really good chance they would never know the identity of the person or how he’d ended up down there.
Rupert shook his head as he walked around to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate. “Those aren’t fifty-year-old bones down there. Not even close.”
The coroner had come prepared. There was a pulley system in the back and a large plastic box with a body bag, latex gloves, a variety of different size containers, a video camera and a small shovel.
He handed Hud the pulley then stuffed the needed items into a backpack, which he slung over his shoulder before slipping a headlamp over his white hair and snapping it on.
“True, it’s dry down there, probably been covered most of the time since the bones haven’t been bleached by the sun,” Rupert said as he walked back to the well and Hud followed. “Sides of the well are too steep for most carnivores. Insects would have been working on the bones though. Maggots.” He took another look into the well. “Spot me five years and I’ll bet you fifty bucks that those bones have been down there two decades or less,” he said with his usual confidence, a confidence based on years of experience.
Twenty years ago Hud would have been sixteen. Rupert would have been maybe forty-five. With a jolt Hud realized that Rupert wasn’t that much older than his father. It felt odd to think of Brick Savage as old. In Hud’s mind’s eye he saw his father at his prime, a large, broad-shouldered man who could have been an actor. Or even a model. He was that good-looking.
“I got a hundred that says whoever’s down there didn’t fall down there by accident,” Rupert said.
“Good thing I’m not a betting man,” Hud said, distracted. His mind on the fact that twenty years ago, his father was marshal.
“TELL ME you didn’t,” Dana said as she walked into Needles and Pins and heard giggling in the back beyond the racks of fabric.
Her best friend and partner in the small sewing shop gave her a grin and a hug. “It’s your birthday, kiddo,” Hilde whispered. “Gotta celebrate.”
“Birthdays after thirty should not be celebrated,” Dana whispered back.
“Are you kidding? And miss seeing what thirty-one candles on a cake looks like?”
“You didn’t.”
Hilde had her arm and was tugging her toward the back. “Smile. I promise this won’t kill you, though you do look like you think it will.” She slowed. “You’re shaking. Seriously, are you all right?”
As much as she hated it, Dana was still a wreck after seeing Hud again. She’d hoped to get to work at the shop and forget about everything that had happened this morning, including not only what might be in the old well—but also who. The last thing she wanted was to even be reminded of her birthday. It only reminded her that Hud had remembered.
“Hud’s back,” she said, the words coming out in a rush.
Hilde stopped dead so that Dana almost collided with her.
Her best friend’s surprise made her feel better. Dana had been worried all morning that everyone had known about Hud’s return—and just hadn’t told her to protect her. She hated being protected. Especially from news like that. If she’d known he was back, she could have prepared herself for seeing him— Even as she thought it, she knew nothing could have prepared her for that initial shock of seeing Hud after five long years.
“Hud’s back in the canyon?” Hilde whispered, sounding shocked. The Gallatin Canyon, a fifty-mile strip of winding highway and blue-ribbon river, had been mostly ranches, the cattle and dude kind, a few summer cabins and homes—that is until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed at the foot of Lone Mountain. But the “canyon” was still its own little community.
“Hud’s the new temporary marshal,” Dana whispered, her throat suddenly dry.
“Hello?” came the familiar voice of Margo from the back of the store. “We’ve got candles burning up in here.”
“Hud? Back here? Oh, man, what a birthday present,” Hilde said, giving her another hug. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I can imagine what seeing him again did to you.”
“I still want to kill him,” Dana whispered.
“Not on your birthday.” Hilde frowned. “Does Lanny know yet?” she whispered.
“Lanny? Lanny and I are just friends.”
“Does Lanny know that?” her friend asked, giving her a sympathetic smile.
“He knows.” Dana sighed, remembering the night Lanny had asked her to marry him and she’d had to turn him down. Things hadn’t been the same between them since. “I did something really stupid. I told Hud I was engaged to Lanny.”
“You didn’t.”
Dana nodded miserably. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Margo called from the back room. “Major wax guttering back here.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Dana said, and she and Hilde stepped into the back of the shop where a dozen of Dana’s friends and store patrons had gathered around a cake that looked like it was on fire.
“Quick! Make a wish!” her friend Margo cried.
Dana closed her eyes for an instant, made a wish, then braving the heat of thirty-one candles flickering on a sheet cake, blew as hard as she could, snuffing out every last one of them to the second chorus of happy birthday.
“Tell me you didn’t wish Hud dead,” Hilde whispered next to her as the smoke started to dissipate.
“And have my wish not come true? No way.”
HUD