Read Online The Skeleton Key: A Short Story Exclusive by James Rollins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Rollins
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university’s Native American outreach program, local tribes knew her to be respectful of their causes. Plus, she often worked alongside the popular Shoshone historian and naturalist Professor Henry Kanosh.
Today was no exception.
Hank waited for her at the trailhead that led down toward the cavern system. Like her, he wore boots, jeans, and a khaki work shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair had been tied back in a ponytail. She was one of the few who knew his Indian name, Kaiv’u wuhnuh, meaning Mountain Standing. At the moment, standing at the trailhead, he looked the part. Closing in on sixty, his six-foot-four frame remained solid with muscle. His complexion was granite, only softened by the dancing flecks of gold in his caramel eyes.
His dog—a stocky, trail-hardened Australian cattle dog with one blue eye and one brown—sat at his side. The dog’s name, Kawtch, came from the Ute Indian word for “no.” Maggie smiled as she remembered Hank’s explanation: Since I was yelling it at him so much as a pup, the name sort of stuck.
“So what’s the pulse like out there?” Hank asked as she joined him with a quick hug of hello.
“Not so good,” she answered. “And likely to get worse.”
“Why?”
“I was speaking to the county sheriff earlier. Tox report came back on the grandfather.”
Hank bit harder on the cigar clamped between his teeth. He never lit his stogies, just liked chewing on them. It was against Mormon practices to use tobacco, but sometimes concessions had to be made. Though full-blooded Native American, he had been raised Mormon, one of the northwestern band of Shoshone who had been baptized back in the 1800s after the Bear River massacre.
“And what was in the tox report?” he asked around his cigar.
“The old man tested positive for peyote.”
Hank shook his head. “Great. That’ll play right for the cameras. Crazed Injun hopped on drugs kills his grandson and himself during a religious frenzy.”
“For now, they’re keeping that detail under wraps, but it’ll eventually come out.” She sighed in resignation. “The reaction to the initial report was bad enough.”
County law enforcement had been the first on the scene to investigate the murder-suicide of the young Ute and his grandfather. With an eyewitness—a friend of the murdered boy—the case had been quickly closed, the bodies shipped by helicopter to the state morgue in Salt Lake City. The initial coroner’s report blamed the tragedy on dementia secondary to chronic alcohol poisoning. Afterward, op-ed pieces appeared in both local and national papers, weighing in on the abuse of alcohol among Native Americans, often reinforcing the caricature of the drunken Indian.
It wasn’t helping matters here. Margaret knew the delicacy with which such issues had to be broached, especially here in Utah, where the history of Indians and white men was bloody and strained.
But that was only the edge of the political quagmire. There was still the matter of the other bodies found down in the cave, hundreds of mummified remains.
Hank waved toward the path down to the cave. His dog took the lead, trotting with his bushy tail high. Hank followed. “The surveyors compiled their report this morning. Did you see it?”
She shook her head as she joined him on the trail.
“According to the surveyors, the cave entrance is on federal land, but the cavern system extends under reservation territory.”
“Effectively blurring the jurisdiction line.”
He nodded. “Not that it’ll make much difference in the long run. I read the brief filed by Indian Affairs. All this land, going back to 1861, was once part of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. But over the past century and a half, the borders of this reservation have waxed and waned.”
“Which means Indian Affairs can still make a strong case that the contents of the cavern belong to them.”
“That still depends on the other variables: the age of the bodies, when they were
Today was no exception.
Hank waited for her at the trailhead that led down toward the cavern system. Like her, he wore boots, jeans, and a khaki work shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair had been tied back in a ponytail. She was one of the few who knew his Indian name, Kaiv’u wuhnuh, meaning Mountain Standing. At the moment, standing at the trailhead, he looked the part. Closing in on sixty, his six-foot-four frame remained solid with muscle. His complexion was granite, only softened by the dancing flecks of gold in his caramel eyes.
His dog—a stocky, trail-hardened Australian cattle dog with one blue eye and one brown—sat at his side. The dog’s name, Kawtch, came from the Ute Indian word for “no.” Maggie smiled as she remembered Hank’s explanation: Since I was yelling it at him so much as a pup, the name sort of stuck.
“So what’s the pulse like out there?” Hank asked as she joined him with a quick hug of hello.
“Not so good,” she answered. “And likely to get worse.”
“Why?”
“I was speaking to the county sheriff earlier. Tox report came back on the grandfather.”
Hank bit harder on the cigar clamped between his teeth. He never lit his stogies, just liked chewing on them. It was against Mormon practices to use tobacco, but sometimes concessions had to be made. Though full-blooded Native American, he had been raised Mormon, one of the northwestern band of Shoshone who had been baptized back in the 1800s after the Bear River massacre.
“And what was in the tox report?” he asked around his cigar.
“The old man tested positive for peyote.”
Hank shook his head. “Great. That’ll play right for the cameras. Crazed Injun hopped on drugs kills his grandson and himself during a religious frenzy.”
“For now, they’re keeping that detail under wraps, but it’ll eventually come out.” She sighed in resignation. “The reaction to the initial report was bad enough.”
County law enforcement had been the first on the scene to investigate the murder-suicide of the young Ute and his grandfather. With an eyewitness—a friend of the murdered boy—the case had been quickly closed, the bodies shipped by helicopter to the state morgue in Salt Lake City. The initial coroner’s report blamed the tragedy on dementia secondary to chronic alcohol poisoning. Afterward, op-ed pieces appeared in both local and national papers, weighing in on the abuse of alcohol among Native Americans, often reinforcing the caricature of the drunken Indian.
It wasn’t helping matters here. Margaret knew the delicacy with which such issues had to be broached, especially here in Utah, where the history of Indians and white men was bloody and strained.
But that was only the edge of the political quagmire. There was still the matter of the other bodies found down in the cave, hundreds of mummified remains.
Hank waved toward the path down to the cave. His dog took the lead, trotting with his bushy tail high. Hank followed. “The surveyors compiled their report this morning. Did you see it?”
She shook her head as she joined him on the trail.
“According to the surveyors, the cave entrance is on federal land, but the cavern system extends under reservation territory.”
“Effectively blurring the jurisdiction line.”
He nodded. “Not that it’ll make much difference in the long run. I read the brief filed by Indian Affairs. All this land, going back to 1861, was once part of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. But over the past century and a half, the borders of this reservation have waxed and waned.”
“Which means Indian Affairs can still make a strong case that the contents of the cavern belong to them.”
“That still depends on the other variables: the age of the bodies, when they were
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