Archive of Our Own

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Dear Mary,

Well, we’ve made it to Shadow Ranch, but I’m afraid all is not well. The Rawleys, the people who run the ranch for the Badmintons, have been called away on some kind of emergency. They had Dave Gregory, the foreman (who prompted Ed to let out a low whistle when he bent down to get our luggage), pick us up at the airport. He gave us a phone number and told us to call the Rawleys at that number as soon as we got settled in, and refused to tell us anything else. In fact, he barely said two words to us the whole ride to the ranch! And I was using all my best small talk lines and charm, I can assure you!
What’s worse, Lucius and Pete aren’t here yet, which is very strange, because even though we had to take different flights, we figured we’d get into Phoenix at just about the same time. Being here without them feels odd. I know the Badmintons invited me specifically, but it just feels unnerving to be here, at the grace of my old school bullies, without more backup. Ed has my back, of course—he always does, and he always will—but more people watching it makes it less likely that it’s going to get stabbed on this trip. And I would so love to watch Lucius verbally eviscerate Nigel and Chauncey.
Honestly, what the Badmintons are even doing owning a cattle ranch is beyond me. It’s a far cry from their usual real estate investments. What’s even more mysterious is their inviting Ed and I as an “olive branch” (their words, not mine), given their less-than-open-minded opinions and their dislike of me. There’s something more going on here, mark my words, and Ed and I are determined to discover what that is.

Love, Stede (and Ed)
You and Ed take a few moments to get settled in your room at Shadow Ranch. You have to hand it to them: the Rawleys clearly know how to stick to a theme. Every inch of this place screams Western: rustic wooden furniture, a handmade quilt with a southwestern geometric pattern in browns and teals, photos of the surrounding region, ranches, and wildlife. The living spaces looked to be decorated in a similar manner, from the quick glimpse you got of them.Ed comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. “This is pretty fucking nice actually,” he says, sounding surprised. His chin rests on your shoulder, head tipped against yours.You hum in agreement. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, considering the ultra-modern and minimalistic types of places the Badmintons usually go for. But this is lovely. The Rawleys seem to know what they’re doing.”“Speaking of,” Ed says, “you wanna call them? See what the fuck is happening here?”You sigh, turning around in Ed’s arms, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Probably should. Since your little boyfriend gave us their number,” you tease.“I can’t help it, Dave’s ass was right there,” Ed says with a pout. “Just because you’re not into asses…”“I’m into one very specific ass,” you argue, giving Ed’s a squeeze for good measure. Ed lets out a small squeal and you giggle, burying your face in his neck. “You’re so adorable.”“‘M not adorable, I’m fucking Blackbeard.” Ed huffs and you can hear the teasing scowl in his voice. “Every saboteur and thief’s worst nightmare. Second greatest amateur detective out there, besides the Gentleman Detective, of course.”You give his stomach a light jab. “Flatterer. Alright, off.” You extricate yourself from his arms, digging in your suitcase for your phone.There’s a text from Lucius flashing on the screen: bad news. call wen u canYou raise your eyebrows at Ed, showing him the text, before dialing the number Dave wrote down for you. It takes you a moment to switch to speakerphone with this new phone, more advanced than your last one, with more features and even internet capabilities. (Really, the technology these days! Only a few years ago having a cell phone at all was considered a luxury, and here you are in 2004 with a phone of your own almost like a tiny computer. It doesn’t even need a wired connection to go online!)An older woman answers with a confused, “Hello?”“Hello, this is Stede Bonnet, calling for Mr. or Mrs. Rawley?” you say as you take a seat on the bed, the mattress sinking beside you as Ed joins you. He gives you a grin and you roll your eyes, knowing exactly what that grin means. He loves to tease you about what he calls your “phone voice,” the formal tone you take on whenever you need to make calls on a case.“Stede! This is Bet Rawley.” Her voice has a gentle twang, not fully a Southern drawl, but a nice country lilt. “Are you at the ranch?”“Yes, my partner and I just got here, and we’re a bit concerned that you aren’t. Is everything all right?” Ed hooks his chin over your shoulder and you lean into the solid length of his side.“Oh, everything’s fine. I mean, it is now. It wasn’t last night, of course.”Another voice cuts in, sounding further away from the phone, masculine and irritated. “Everything would’ve been fine last night if you hadn’t made such a fuss!”“How could I not make a fuss?” Bet answers back, her voice coming through the speakers more distantly, like she’s turned away from the phone. “There was a rattlesnake in our bedroom, for Pete’s sake!”You feel Ed freeze next to you. “Did she say a rattlesnake?” he asks you, then raises his voice. “Did you say there was a fucking rattlesnake?”Bet sighs, the beleaguered sigh of someone who has been long married to someone who often does things like mess with rattlesnakes. “I told Jeb to leave it alone and let one of the hands get it out of there, but no. Jeb just had to start poking it with my yardstick, and all of a sudden it jumped up and bit him.”“Where?”“In the bedroom, dear,” Bet says, the confused frown translating easily through her voice. “I could have sworn I mentioned that.”“No, I mean where did it bite him?” you clarify, shaking your head slightly. “On the arm, the leg?”“Oh, on his arm, just above the elbow. Swelled up like something awful.”Ed laughs nervously next to you, and you can tell he’s already itching to get up and search the room to make sure it’s rattlesnake-free. You cover the phone to say, “I’m sure there’s no snakes in here, darling, no need to worry. And if there are, I won’t let them get you.”He smiles at you, his shoulders relaxing. “Thanks, babe.”Bet is still talking, her voice coming through loud and clear on the speakerphone. “But fortunately he’s doing much better today, and the doctors think he’ll be well enough to go home in a day or two.”Jeb pipes up with a frustrated, “I’m well enough to go home right now.”“No, you’re not,” Bet says, her tone completely no-nonsense. “If I don’t stay here with him he’ll get up and walk right out that door,” she says, directing her voice back to you.“No I won’t,” Jeb argues, but even you can hear the weak defiance behind it, and without a doubt you know he’s lying.“Well, what can we do to help you?” you ask.“You just go get a horse from Anne—she’s the head wrangler—and go riding to your heart’s content. I told Jack to go ahead with the cookout planned for tonight and—”“The envelope,” Jeb interjects. “Have them take that envelope to Mary.”“Oh, good idea. There’s an envelope in the rolltop desk in the den marked ‘Mary.’ If you could ride over to Mary Read’s and give it to her, we’d really appreciate it.”You glance at Ed, and he shrugs and nods. “Of course, we’ll do that right away. Did you say we’d have to ride there?”“Because of the way the roads are set up around here, it takes longer to drive to her place from the ranch than it does to get there on horseback. Dave’ll tell you how to get there.”“They’ll have to get the key to the desk from him, too,” Jeb adds.“That’s right, I always keep it locked. Dave has the key.” She hums thoughtfully. “Oh, dear, it seems like there was something else I wanted to tell you.”Jeb says, “The horse, Bet, tell them about the phantom horse.”Your ears prickle at the words, and you can tell Ed is just as intrigued by the way he straightens. “Phantom horse?”Bet starts, “Yes. You see, last night we—”Another voice interrupts with a strong drawl. “Hello, Mr. Rawley. Time for those tests.”“Uh-oh, we have to go,” Bet says, her voice suddenly distracted. “Don’t worry about us, dear. You just go have fun. Just be sure to wear a hat and drink plenty of water. It’s gonna be another hot one. Bye!”“No, wait,” you try to say. “Just tell us about the—”The line clicks off, the dial tone cutting in. “Phantom horse?” you finish dejectedly before hitting the button to end the call.You meet Ed’s eyes and you’re unsurprised to see the familiar fire in them that he always gets at the mere possibility of a mystery. “Babe. Did you hear what they said?”“I heard everything you heard,” you say with a fond chuckle.Ed’s excitement is infectious, it always is. He’s practically vibrating next to you, clutching your arm and squeezing. “A phantom fucking horse.” His eyes are sparking with curiosity and you can tell his mind is whirring behind them, spinning through possibilities and questions. His mind works so fast that sometimes it makes your head dizzy. “What the fuck? Does that mean?”“I have no idea,” you say. You lean in, a hand on his thigh. The tip of your nose brushes against his as you continue, “But let’s go find out,” in a whisper. His breath catches as you kiss him and then jump up, your eyebrows waggling. You hold your hand out to him and he takes it giddily.“Fuck yeah.”The common spaces at Shadow Ranch are decorated similarly to your room, the furniture boasting geometric patterns in reds and blues and browns. There’s a clear horse theme spotted throughout the living room, a wooden horse statue on the mantle of the stone fireplace, the screen of which depicts a lone rider in the desert at night. There are old posters and pictures of horses hanging up on the walls, and even the coffee table is made up of squares of different images of horses and ranch life. In one corner of the room you spot a triangular blanket chest, bright blue with colorful decorations, a unique and antique-looking piece.You wander over to one of the two bookshelves in the room, your eyes scanning over the spines. It’s a wide collection, several books about running a ranch, some about horses, others about the history of the area, and even a few Westerns. You spot the newest romance novel by Jackie Delahaye among their number and you raise your eyebrows. You’ve never read one of her books, but you know they’re incredibly popular and often set in the historical old West, always applauded for their historical accuracy and detail.“Hey, Stede.” You turn to see Ed across the room, staring up at a large portrait. You cross the room to join him and he turns to you with a small frown tugging his lips. “She look familiar to you?”You turn your eyes to the portrait of a young blonde woman in a purple dress wrapped in a teal blue knitted shawl. Her hazel eyes are serious, but there are telltale laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. Her jaw is surprisingly square, her nose strong. “Frances Humber,” you read off the nameplate on the carved wooden frame. Your eyes drift back up to her face. There is something familiar about it, something in the eyes, the nose, the quirk of the mouth, but you can’t put your finger on it. “I don’t know,” you say with a frown. There’s an itch in your brain that doesn’t go away until you look back at Ed. He’s watching you with that crinkle between his eyebrows, the one that means he’s trying to work through some kind of puzzle. “She must have been one of the original owners.” You run your hand up Ed’s arm lightly. “What are you thinking?”Ed’s mouth twists in concentration and he turns back to the portrait. He stares at it for a long while, studying the woman’s face. After a moment he approaches it slowly, lifting a hand to the canvas. He lets two of his fingers drag along Frances’ cheekbone, down her jaw in a way that’s so familiar to you, you swear you can feel it on your own skin.Finally, he sighs, dropping his hand to his side. “I dunno. There’s just something…”Your thoughts are interrupted by a clanking in the kitchen next door, followed by a low curse. You exchange a glance with Ed and move in sync to the next room.The man wrestling with what looks like a thick pot of stew on the stove is tall with shaggy, dark blond hair. Rather nice hair, actually, you note, messy, and kind of lanky, but it works for him. His mustache is weird, though, you notice when he turns to eye the two of you up. Sort of walrusy. This must be Jack, the cook the Rawleys mentioned. He smirks as his gaze passes over you in such a familiar way that it nearly takes you right back to your school days. Wonderful. Another Badminton-type. You really shouldn’t be that surprised, though, with this place being owned by them.His expression turns more appreciative when he looks at Ed and your stomach goes sour. “So, you two must be our guests of honor,” he says, voice surprisingly gruff. “You must be something special, since the Rawleys have got me planning up a cookout for you and everything.”“I don’t know about special,” you say with a casual shrug, “but it’s very kind of you all to plan something for us.”“I just do what they tell me to do,” Jack says. He rolls his eyes, like the very idea of being kind is ridiculous. He switches his attention to Ed, leans against the counter in an effortlessly sexy way that you wish you could pull off. “Wasn’t too sure what to expect when I heard an old friend of the Badmintons was going to be staying here, along with his partner. Guess I imagined someone like him,” he says, acknowledging you with a tilt of his head. “Not you, though.” He turns back to Ed. “You must be Ed.”“That’s me,” Ed says with a tight smile. “Edward Teach, born on a beach. And this is Stede Bonnet, my partner.”Jack lets out a huff of a laugh, glancing back at you with what you can easily read as derision. “Detectives, right? So when you say partner, is that partner like professionally, or…?”“Partners in every sense of the word,” you say shortly, slipping your hand into Ed’s. You’re not exactly proud of it, but you know you can be a little possessive and jealous, and this guy is triggering that in spades.Lucky for you, though, Ed knows that, and is sometimes even into that, so he just squeezes your hand, leaning a bit closer to you until your shoulders brush. “Fiances, actually,” he clarifies, and you can’t help the smug smile that plays on your face at the scowl on Jack’s.Jack covers it up with another roll of his eyes and a shrug. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t fucking care.”“Sure,” you say, as condescendingly as you can, which quite honestly is extremely condescendingly. “Actually, we were hoping you could tell us a bit about what happened last night.”“Last night? Uh, hooked up with this chick from the next ranch over, finally. Been working on her for—”“No,” you interrupt with a grimace, trying to shake the unbidden image of Jack, naked from your head. “No, I mean with the Rawleys.”“Oh, the snake thing.”“Part of it, yes.” You exchange a glance with Ed, feeling the same tingle of excitement coming from him that you always feel when stumbling upon a mystery. “But we’d also like to ask you what you know about the—”“The phantom fucking horse, man, come on,” Ed interjects eagerly. You can feel his barely contained curiosity boiling. He’s always drawn to the fantastic in your cases, hauntings and monsters and curses. When you were in the Pacific Northwest last year, he was giddy at the prospect of possibly catching a glimpse of the resident sea monster, and before that, at Moon Lake, when Sally had mentioned Malone’s ghost dogs, Ed’s had nearly ripped the antique phone receiver out of your hand with how eager he was to pepper her with questions about them.“Oh, yeah, that was some weird shit,” Jack says. “I don’t know, I’d just got back from…” He grins. “Well, you know.”“Your hook-up,” you answer with a weary sigh. “Yes, you told us.”“Yeah, and I was getting ready for bed, and all of a sudden there’s this fucking…like bright-ass glowing horse that comes galloping up outside.” He points out the window, presumably to where the horse had appeared. “It, like, whinnies or some shit, you know, does some horse stuff, before it takes off again.”“And that’s all it did?” you ask. “Did it do anything suspicious?”“No, I mean…” Jack shakes his head, looking confused. “It’s a fucking glowing white horse. That isn’t suspicious enough for you?”“Has it shown up before?”“No, this was the first time. Listen.” Jack sounds impatient, rolling his eyes. “The fucking horse isn’t important. What’s important is who the horse belonged to.”Ed squeezes your hand, and you know he also didn’t miss the past tense. “So who did it belong to?” Ed asks.Jack grins, glancing between the two of you, pausing and ratcheting up the drama intensely. “Dirk Valentine,” he finally reveals, just above a whisper.You glance at Ed to see if he recognizes the name, but he looks just as confused as you feel. You raise your eyebrows, unimpressed, turning back to Jack. “And are we supposed to know who that is, or…?”“Aw, come on, man. Dirk Valentine!” Jack groans, shaking his head in clear disappointment at not getting the reaction he wanted. “The infamous outlaw!”“Clearly not that infamous, or we would have heard of him,” you snip at him.“God, you guys suck. Okay, so Dirk Valentine was this outlaw around here, big in the, like, 1880s or something. Stole a shit-ton of money from people around here until he was finally caught and hung.”“Hanged,” you can’t help correcting.“Whatever. Story goes that he was fucking Frances Humber, the chick in the painting over there.” Jack nods to the living room, to the painting you and Ed had just been studying moments before. “She lived here, actually, at Shadow Ranch. And, here’s the best part, her dad was the sheriff who caught and hung—”“Hanged.”“Ugh, fuck, fine. Her dad was the sheriff who hanged Dirk Valentine.” Jack rolls his eyes, leaning toward Ed like they’re two commiserating friends. “What a fucking buzzkill, huh?”You stiffen, an entire childhood of bullying freezing you, ice spreading through your veins. You can feel Ed tensing next to you as well, though you know it’s for an entirely different reason altogether.“Yeah, no, that’s not fucking happening,” Ed snaps, pulling you closer. He lets go of your hand, only to slip his arm around your waist, a grounding presence. You sink into the feeling, the warmth that fills you every time Ed defends you.Jack rolls his eyes again, scoffing. “Fine, sorry, god. Can’t take a joke over here, apparently.”“That wasn’t a joke, assho—”“Okay!” you interrupt, because yeah, this guy is an asshole, but he’s an asshole with information, and that’s more important right now than putting assholes in their place. “So what’s this horse got to do with anything?”“Stories go that it was Dirk’s horse,” Jack says, crossing his arms, “and ever since he died, it’s been roaming the desert.” He lowers his voice, really trying to sell the whole story. “Cursing whoever sees him with bad luck.”There’s a beat of silence, and then you snort out a laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” you say skeptically.Jack scowls at you for not playing along. “All I know,” Jack starts, sounding annoyed, “is that Jeb Rawley sees the horse, and what happens less than two minutes later? He gets bit by a rattlesnake. You do the fucking math.”“We’re not dismissing any possibilities yet,” Ed says, and though the words sound professional and diplomatic, you don’t even need to look at him to know that he wants this phantom horse to be real.“We’re not,” you agree. “But I can’t help wondering: why the horse?”“Oh, that’s a good point,” Ed says with a glance to you, expression thoughtful.Jack looks between the two of you, frowning with confusion. “What?”“Dirk Valentine’s the one who gets hanged, right? So why is it his horse that gets to come back as a ghost, and not him?”“I don’t know, man,” Jack says, looking put out. “That’s just the story.”You and Ed exchange glances, both of you on the same wavelength: there’s something here that’s not quite right.The two of you head outside, completely unprepared for the intense wave of dry heat that hits you. “Holy shit,” you groan, immediately regretting your choice of jeans. You eye up the thermostat next to the door, wincing at the needle pushing 100. “Ed, I’m dying,” you declare. You can already feel your skin baking, and you’re thankful for the thick layer of sunscreen you rubbed into your skin before leaving the room. “It’s so hot.”“Yeah,” Ed agrees, and he sounds wildly unaffected. You look at him in surprise, the same man who whined about the heat in Florida, where you first met, about the thickness in the air and the way the humidity made his hair frizz and how he hated feeling constantly damp. He looks distracted, though, as he pulls his hair up into a ponytail with practiced fingers. “Speaking of hot…”You follow his gaze to Dave, crouched near the chicken coop, and immediately groan again. “How is he wearing long sleeves?”“I mean, I was thinking about a different kind of hot, but yeah, you’re right,” Ed says, eyes still planted on Dave’s behind.“Oh, I see,” you say, rolling your eyes. You nudge Ed with your elbow. “You and your little crush,” you tease.“Babe, I’m sorry, but his jeans are tight and he’s got this whole, like, cowboy next door thing going on.” He sighs, biting his lip before turning to you apologetically.You rub Ed’s arm soothingly. “Sweetheart, please, it’s fine. You’re allowed to find other people attractive.” You lean in closer, lowering your voice. “Besides, I know that I’m the only person you want to ride off into the sunset with.”Ed smiles, taking your hand and intertwining your fingers. “You got that right.” He kisses you, just a soft, sweet brush of his lips that somehow still manages to make your knees wobble. “Ooh, I bet you’d look great dressed up like a cowboy, too.”You raise your eyebrows, chuckling lowly. Well, that’s a new one. “You’re so right, I absolutely would.” You kiss him again before giving his nose a soft boop. “A thought for later, though. Right now, I think we should go see if he has any information about this phantom horse.”Ed’s eyes immediately spark with excitement and he pulls away, nearly dragging you across the yard.Dave must be able to hear the crunch of the dry ground and stones under your feet as you approach, as he turns to look over his shoulder. He stands up, wiping his hands on his jeans as he gives you both a shy smile. “Did you talk to the Rawleys?”“Yup,” Ed says with a bob of his head.“Horrible to hear what happened to Jeb,” you add, wrinkling your nose. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”“Yeah, he’ll be okay,” Dave assures you. “Getting bit by a rattler’s no picnic, but it sounds like he’s out of the woods.”“Good. He certainly sounded fine when we talked to them.”Ed’s hand is tight around yours as he asks, “Does that happen a lot? Snakes getting into people’s bedrooms?” You squeeze his hand reassuringly. Poor Ed really is terrified of snakes.“Uh, some.” He shrugs. “Rattlers are a fact of life out here. It probably just crawled in through a mouse hole sometime during the day and took a nap. Nighttime’s when they’re most active.” He sighs, sounding genuinely regretful when he adds, “Something the Rawleys found out the hard way.” You can practically hear Ed’s mind making a mental note to check for snakes before the two of you head to bed tonight.There’s another possibility that no one here, save for you and Ed, seems to have considered yet. “Is it possible that someone could have…put it there?”Dave’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise and he looks down, considering it. “Guess it’s possible,” he says with a shrug. “The person would have to know how to handle snakes, of course, but then, if you work in the desert, that’s something that’s good to know.” He looks between the two of you. “When the Badmintons told us you’d be coming to stay, they mentioned you were detectives. You think there’s something more going on here?”“An astute observation, but…” You glance at Ed, both of you still unsure where, if anywhere, this is going.“We’re not sure yet,” Ed finishes. “Not enough information.”“Oh, but we do actually need something,” you say, remembering Bet’s request. “The Rawleys asked us to take something to Mary Read, and they said you’d have the key to the rolltop desk?”“Oh, yup, sure do.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a key ring and handing it to Ed. “They gave me their keys at the hospital. Her shop is easy enough to get to,” he says. He turns to point to a well-trodden path leading away from the ranch. “Just follow the trail that goes northeast outta the corral. Can’t miss it.”“Thanks.”“Oh, and I should probably warn you, she doesn’t like the Badmintons.”You can’t help but grin. “Not surprising, honestly.”Dave breaks into a shy smile and all at once you get what Ed’s talking about. The kind eyes and soft smile and dimples and aw shucksness of him, hands in his pockets with his shoulders scrunched. Cowboy next door indeed. “I think it goes a bit beyond their, uh, personalities, though what exactly it is, I can’t say. Not really any of my business anyway.”“Fair enough, man, they are your bosses,” Ed says. “Anyway, thanks for this,” he says, holding up the key ring. “We’ll let you get back to the chickens.”Dave actually tips his hat as you leave, and you can practically feel Ed swooning next to you.Back inside, you and Ed make a beeline to the rolltop desk. There are several keys on the key ring, and it takes a few tries before you find the right one, sliding up the cover. The desk is somewhat disorganized, a pile of papers on one side held down with a book, tape and a stapler and pens and pencils stuck in various cubbies. In one cubby is, inexplicably, a set of L-shaped prongs, while in another corner is a neat pile of what look to be expense reports and other financial documents. Something tells you to grab the prongs to take along with you. You’re never sure where these flashes of inspiration to pick up sometimes the strangest things—intuition, possibly—but you’ve been doing this long enough not to question it.There’s a letter lying open right in the center of the deskspace, and your eyes can’t help but scan over it, a few words jumping out at you. You pick it up, reading through it—it’s just lying there open, after all, and surely Bet and Jeb wouldn’t have had you find the letter for Mary Read in here if they didn’t want you to read it. It’s from a former employee of theirs, one who’s angry about the circumstances of their firing. “Sounds like this Jane Bonny has a bone to pick with the Rawleys,” you comment, handing the letter over to Ed.He reads through it, frowning slightly. “‘Justice always prevails, although sometimes it needs a little help. You’ll see.’ Yeah, definitely sounds like someone who might want some revenge. Planting a rattlesnake though?” Ed pulls a skeptical face. “I dunno, one of the Rawleys could have died from a bite.”“Maybe Jane just wanted to scare them,” you suggest.“Could be.”There’s a sealed envelope underneath the letter with Mary Read written on the front of it. “Ooh, I wish we could see what this is all about,” you say, lowering your voice. “Too bad it’s sealed.”Ed shakes his head fondly. “You’re so fucking nosy,” he says, and to anyone else it would be a negative trait, but Ed says it with so much affection, as if being nosy is adorable, rather than a fault that gets you into trouble more times than you’d like to admit.“Kind of comes with the territory of being a detective,” you say.Ed ducks in to kiss your cheek, his beard scratching at your skin and making you laugh. “I love it. Love you.”You and Ed have been together for over a year now, and you still never get tired of hearing those words. You hope you never will. “Love you too,” you say, laughing again as Ed gives you a smacking kiss.Another piece of paper catches Ed’s eye as he looks over your shoulder. “Huh. Looks like the Rawleys sold something to Mary Read.” He reaches over you to grab it, squishing you into his chest. “A trunk full of junk, apparently.”“Interesting. Wonder what was in it.”“We could ask when we drop off the letter,” Ed suggests, and you nod.Letter in hand, you lock the rolltop desk back up. “Guess it’s time to go meet the head wrangler?”The corral is out back and as you enter through the gate, you’re delighted to see four horses in the covered stable. You hear Ed gasp behind you, and he brushes past, making a beeline directly to the horses. “Oh my god, hi,” you can hear him gushing. “Fuck, shit, you’re gorgeous.” You turn the corner to see Ed patting the head of a black horse. Ed whips his head around to look at you and his eyes are practically hearts. “Stede, babe, I love him.”Kraken, the wooden nameplate reads and you reach out to pat him next to Ed’s hand. “He is quite handsome,” you say. Your heart melts a little, and then a lot when you see the stunning palomino next to Kraken. “Oh, hello,” you say, sliding past Ed to get to Arthur, according to his nameplate. You can’t explain it, but Arthur’s eyes are somehow kind, and he gives off an air of gentleness. “What a sweetheart.”Ed is already bonding with Kraken, resting his forehead against Kraken’s head. “Can we take him home with us?” he asks.“I don’t think he’ll fit in the apartment, darling,” you say. You come up behind him to squeeze his shoulder. He pouts and you smile, shaking your head. “I know, it’s tragic.”Ed sighs and lets you pull him away from the horses. Hay crunches beneath your feet as you cross the small stable, heading through a rustic wooden door into the tack room. It’s small, slightly bigger than a walk-in closet. Saddles line one wall, there’s a feeding station in one corner, and the other corner is set up like a makeshift workshop, a rough wooden desk covered with bridle and saddle parts, as well as some tools. A brunette woman is perched on a chair at the desk, fiddling with a bridle. She glances at the two of you when you come in, straightening up as she gives you a once over.“Well, hello there,” she practically purrs with a coy smile. She barely spares a glance for Ed, all of her focus landing on you as she spins in her seat, crossing her legs. She’s in tight jeans, worn from use, and slightly more stylish work boots than you’ve seen the other workers here wearing. Her green shirt is indecently low-cut, cleavage spilling out, and she cocks her head, twirling a curl around one of her fingers. “You must be our special guests. I’m Anne.”“Yup,” Ed answers shortly. You can practically hear the scowl on his face as he drapes his arm over your shoulder. You flush, honestly a bit pleased. It often feels like Ed is the one who garners the most attention, so sometimes you forget that he can be just as possessive as you when some of it is thrown your way. “I’m Ed, and this is my fiance, Stede.” You don’t miss the emphasis Ed puts on the word fiance.And neither, apparently, does Anne. She raises her eyebrows, crossing her arms, which only serves to accentuate her chest and… really. Even if you weren’t in a committed and desperately loving relationship, she’s wasting her time. You’re not interested in women. Never have been.“We were told to talk to you to get set up to go riding,” you say, hoping to get focused back on the potential mystery at hand.“Hm, I bet you love a good ride, don’t you?” she says, giving you a wink. You can feel Ed jerk angrily at that, ready to rip her apart at the seams, but Anne suddenly switches to all business, hopping off her stool. “Well, I am the head wrangler here, but I don’t let just anybody ride. Before I do, I need to know that you know what you’re doing, that you won’t fall out of the saddle or overwork one of my boys.”You exchange a glance with Ed. “Okay, and how do we do that?”It turns out that how you do that is by giving Anne a bit of a show. It’s nothing too intricate, just showing her that you and Ed know how to mount and dismount properly, riding around the paddock a few times to show her that you and the horse won’t get hurt. You’ve been riding since you were a child, so all of it is old hat to you. You hadn’t been sure how Ed would fare—you’re not sure, actually, what Ed’s history with horses is—but you’re pleasantly surprised to see that Ed has a good seat and knows how to maneuver and direct his horse.But apparently being able to physically ride isn’t good enough for Anne. As you ride, she quizzes you with questions, all about different types of horses, breeding, feeding, potential injuries and illnesses, even some equestrian history. And while you learned a lot of this in your childhood, it seems a lot of it has been forgotten with time and disuse. Ed, however, is apparently some kind of horse expert. He barks out each answer as soon as Anne asks, barely needing to think about the question at all. And with each correct answer, he becomes more and more excited, almost like a child eager to infodump on their newest fixation.When Anne is finally satisfied, she leads both of you back into the stable, has you unsaddle the horses, and sends you off to go retrieve fresh canteens of water to take with you. Ed is just closing the gate to the stable behind you when you grab his wrist, pulling him off to the side and pushing him back against the rough wood of the building.“I didn’t know you were such a horse girl, Ed,” you tease, pressing into him. “That was so cute.”“Shut up,” he says affectionately, giggling as you bury your face in his neck, dotting kisses all along it. “They’re just cool, okay?”“They are,” you agree. You pull back with a smile. “I love that I’m still learning new things about you.”Ed flushes, glancing away bashfully. “Fuck off,” he says without any heat, and then in an even softer voice, continues, “I hope I never stop learning stuff about you.”And you have to kiss him about that, soundly and thoroughly.You’re so distracted that you nearly miss your phone ringing in your pocket. It isn’t until Ed pulls away with a frustrated, “What the fuck is that noise?” that you register the shrill cell phone ringtone.You groan and dig it out. “Shit, we forgot to call them,” you say when you see Lucius’ name flashing up at you from the screen. You sigh and shift out of Ed’s embrace, moving to lean against the wall next to him as you answer and switch to speakerphone. “Lucius, hey.”“What the fuck, Stede?” is Lucius’ greeting, sounding pissy and exhausted. “Where have you been?”You roll your eyes. “At the ranch, where you’re supposed to be,” you shoot back. Ed lets out a huff of amusement at the matching bitchiness. “Where are you? Why aren’t you here yet?”“We’re in fucking Omaha.”“Omaha, as in Nebraska? Did you have a layover there or something?”“Bitch, no, they had to land the plane to fix some radio problem or something, and now they’re saying we might be here for hours.” Lucius sounds frazzled and more than a little bit annoyed, and you can only guess at how many pissy passive-aggressive comments he’s been making about the situation supposedly to Pete but pointedly loud enough for everyone to hear.“Hours?” you repeat incredulously. Ed groans sympathetically.“Yeah, and who knows what’s even really going on.”Pete pipes in, voice somewhat distant. “No one here will give us a straight answer on what’s happening or any updates or anything.”Ed scowls. “That’s bullshit.”“We’re bored out of our minds,” Lucius says with a dramatic groan. “So what’s happening there? Hopefully nothing exciting.”You glance at Ed with a stifled grin. “Oh, nothing much. Except for the Rawleys being in the hospital after getting bitten by a rattlesnake in their room last night.”“What?”“Um, yeah, and apparently the glowing white phantom horse that supposedly appeared right before it happened,” Ed adds.Pete asks, “Did you say a ‘phantom horse?’”“Oh, come on,” Lucius whines. “Of course you get handed a juicy mystery while we’re stuck in fucking Nebraska. Literally I feel like my brain is dying here. We’re so bored that Pete bought a book on 19th-century clothing and accessories.”“Sorry, Pete did?”“It was the only thing in the bookstore here that sounded even a little interesting,” Pete says. “But, hey, if you suddenly have a need for information about 19th Century fashion…”“You’ll be at the top of our list,” you assure him.“Okay, but back to that phantom horse,” Lucius says.Ed leans in. “Yeah, so last night this glowing horse came galloping up out of nowhere, caused a huge commotion, then just went galloping off and disappeared.”“That sounds so cool! I want to see!” Pete declares.“It was glowing?” Lucius asks.“That’s what we heard,” you answer.Lucius groans again. “You’re there investigating phantom horses and here we are stuck in this shitty airport doing nothing. That’s it, Pete, we’re suing the airline.”“Supposedly the phantom horse belonged to this outlaw named Dirk Valentine who was hanged back in the 1880s,” you explain. “That’s what Jack, the cook, told us, at least.”Pete buts in, “Dirk Valentine? Are you fucking kidding me?”“Um, no. Have you heard of him?”“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pete repeats incredulously. “He’s only, like, one of the biggest outlaws from the Old West of all time. We’re talking, like, Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, Black Bart shit.” He pauses and then concedes, “Okay, maybe not quite on their level, but he should be!”“You’re familiar with the Wild West then, I take it?” you ask.“Ugh, don’t get him started,” Lucius says.“Come on, Lu, it’s so cool! Robbing banks and trains and stagecoaches! Shootouts at high noon! Rustling cattle and stuff!”“Sure, sweetie,” Lucius says, humoring him. “So is this Valentine guy a phantom too?”“Apparently not.”“So why did his horse get to be a phantom and not him?”“That’s exactly what I said!” you say smugly.Ed elbows you softly. “Hey, I agreed that that was weird.”“True, you did,” you say. “According to Jack, though, seeing the horse is bad luck.”“I believe it,” Lucius says. “I mean, look what happened to the guy that owned him.”“Babe,” Pete admonishes.“I’m just saying!”“Back to the point at hand,” you say, rolling your eyes. “It’s very interesting, don’t you think? That this rattlesnake shows up in the Rawleys’ bedroom right after the phantom horse shows up outside.”“Well, if it’s bad luck to see it, makes sense to me,” Pete says.“Babe, he’s saying that the horse was a distraction,” Lucius clarifies.“Oh. Oh! Shit.”“Exactly. Maybe someone sent the horse out to lure everybody outside, then got the snake in their room knowing no one would be watching.”“Or,” Ed adds, “maybe the horse was warning them that someone has ill intentions.” You give him a skeptical look. “Hey, just because we haven’t come across an actual ghost yet doesn’t mean they’re not real. Maybe the horse isn’t bad luck. Maybe people just think it is because it shows up right when something bad happens, to warn people.”“Yeah, sure,” you say, giving him a pat on the arm.“But, if someone did plant the rattlesnake there, that means that someone intentionally hurt the Rawleys,” Lucius says. “And to have access to their room, that means whoever it was is probably one of the people who work on the ranch.”“And they must be working with an accomplice,” you say. “You know, someone to wrangle the horse.”“So everyone there is a suspect.”“Exactly,” you and Ed say simultaneously.Lucius makes a disgusted noise. “Oh, god, Pete, they’ve got their mystery boners going.”“Gross.”You roll your eyes. “Like you don’t get just as excited when you’re on a case.”Canteens in hand, you and Ed return to the stable. Anne is back at her worktable, polishing a saddle now. At the sound of the door opening, she glances over, directing a flirtatious smile at you. You can hear Ed grumbling under his breath behind you, but you elect to ignore them.“Got our canteens,” you say, holding yours up. “Can we go riding now?”“You can,” Anne says. She nods at the corner of the tack room, to the saddles she had you use during your test. “You can use those again, as well as the Rawleys’ riding gloves and hats. Now, you’d better not go galloping all over the place, because if you bring my boys back all hot and sweaty, you can kiss your cowboy days at Shadow Ranch goodbye.” Her smile deepens. “Of course, you can come back hot and sweaty any—”“Okay! We’ll be going now,” Ed interjects, slipping around behind you to grab Kraken’s saddle.It’s only a matter of minutes before you and Ed are saddled up and leading the horses through the paddock. You grin at Ed, who’s practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. “You’re going to make Kraken anxious,” you tease, and sure enough, Kraken seems raring to get going, shifting on his hooves in the dry dirt.“We’re just not built for sitting idle,” Ed says, giving Kraken a conspiratorial pat on the neck.“My jittery boys,” you say fondly, brushing Ed’s arm as you urge Arthur into a walk.The trail to Mary Read’s is clearly marked on the map Dave had given you when you arrived at the ranch and easy to follow. It’s about a 20 minute ride going at a leisurely canter, interspersing a few slower walks to appreciate the scenery. It’s not long before you can hear speeding cars in the distance, and you know you must be approaching one of the country highways.Mary’s Gifts & Cultural Emporium is a tiny wooden building on the side of the highway with a dirt parking lot and a separate area for riders to tie up their horses. There are no other cars or horses in sight, and that combined with the constant dust that settles over everything gives the building the air of a place that’s been deserted, despite the neat and clearly well-tended raised flower bed outside.A bell dings as you hold the door open for Ed and you walk into an air conditioned room, replete with wares and photos of the Old West. The woman behind the counter gives you a cursory smile as she says, “Hey, guys. Let me know if you have any questions about anything.”The moment her familiar vowels hit your ears you feel a nostalgic wave of home hit you, one that you rarely feel with anyone besides Ed. “Oh, shit, you’re a Kiwi!” Ed comments in surprise.Mary—this must be Mary—raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, what the fuck?”“Wasn’t expecting to meet anyone from Aotearoa way out here,” Ed says. He approaches the counter to chat, pulling you along with him by the hand.“It’s quite the coincidence,” you say. “What brings you all the way out here?”She shrugs. “Grew up watching old Westerns with my dad, got tired of the grind of my old life. Sort of just picked up and left one day, traveled a bit. Kind of just wound up here.”“Small world,” you say. She doesn’t seem too keen on going into her story, so you switch tracks, pulling the envelope from your pocket to slide across the counter to her. “Even smaller world, we’re actually staying at Shadow Ranch. The Rawleys asked us to drop off this letter on behalf of the owners.”A flicker of warring emotions crosses her face as she picks it up, obvious distaste at the thought of the Badmintons, but something hopeful and wistful as well. “Oh, great. I offered to buy a small piece of property from them, and this must be their response.” She slices the envelope open with a Swiss army knife she pulls from her pocket. The response from the Badmintons becomes clear within the first few lines she reads, scowling, and she tosses the letter to the side with a scoff. “Well, fuck you too,” she mutters. She braces her hands against the counter, shaking her head. “That’s that, I guess. Anyway. As long as you’re here, take a look around. Everything for sale here is made by local artists, mostly Indigenous people from tribes native to the area.”“Oh, that’s lovely,” you say. You drift away from the counter, eyes drawn to a display of jewelry. The beading is intricate and skillfully done, with some truly beautiful pieces available for sale. There’s a picture and short description of the artist, Mary Yazzie, a Navajo woman from the area.There’s a wide assortment of items for sale here, actually. Handmade jewelry, yes, but also blankets and clothing made by local artists. There’s an assortment of petrified wood, truly some beautiful colors swirling through the wood, as well as arrowheads, with a sign proclaiming that all of the arrowheads being sold were found after having been naturally uncovered by the elements, and not dug for. In the corner of the room, Ed has spotted a seemingly old arcade game, twangy music coming from the machine as he starts it up.Antiques appear to be another main draw of the shop. There’s an assortment of clearly well-preserved items displayed: old tools, jewelry, lamps, pottery, even some weaponry. You feel a pull to one table in particular, where a leather case is laid out. The leather is indented with an FH on the front, the original owners’ initials, most likely. You flip the leather cover up to reveal a set of steel tuning forks, surprisingly free of rust and other signs of age. You feel a prickle of familiarity, not unlike how you felt looking at the portrait of Frances Humber at the ranch.FH. Could these have belonged to Frances herself?You run a finger down one of the forks, the metal smooth and cool against your skin. You can’t explain it, but they feel…important. Like they belong to you, like they mean something to you.“Babe, look at this cool old token I got from that game!”Ed startles you with a hand on your shoulder, his voice excited in your ear. You jump, the strange spell that seemed to have come over you from the tuning forks broken. “Shit, Stede, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”You turn, shaking your head. “No, you’re fine, my head was somewhere else.” You take the coin Ed is holding out, bronze and hefty, larger than a quarter. It’s stamped with the words Dry Creek Merchants and proclaims itself to be a one-and-a-half cent piece. “Oh, cool.” You hold it up to Mary. “What are these for?”“Oh, they’re a token that actually used to be used for something back in the 1880s.” She shrugs. “Not sure what, though.”“Fuck yeah,” Ed says and he takes it back and pockets it.There’s a collection of old photographs on another table and you spend some time leafing through them. In amongst them is a photograph of a rock wall, old-looking symbols carved into the stone. You turn to Mary to ask, “Are there many petroglyphs around here?”“Oh, fuck yeah, there’s a shit ton.” She points out the window, further southwest. “If you keep going on that trail, you’ll get to Cougar Bend. There’s basically a whole fucking gallery out there, if you’re into that.”There’s one item that’s been calling for your attention since you entered the shop, and you and Ed turn to it simultaneously now. Remembering the receipt you found in the Rawleys’ desk, you lean in to Ed to whisper, “Do you think that’s the trunk the Rawleys sold to Mary?”The two of you approach it with curiosity. It’s wooden with steel lining it and three strange square-shaped holes in the front. The cover has a carved plaque with an image of two doves with ribbons intertwined to form a heart, the initials EH and AH engraved inside. “Looks old,” Ed comments.The square holes look familiar, like those you saw on the blanket chest back at the ranch, and suddenly you remember the strange L-shaped prongs in the Rawleys’ desk. You crouch, frowning at the holes. Over your shoulder, you call to Mary, “Would you mind if I tried to get this old trunk open?”“Yeah, go for it. I haven’t been able to figure it out.” Mary barely glances in your direction leaning over to write in a ledger of some kind. “In fact, if you get it open, feel free to take something from it as a thanks. You can have your pick.”“Oh, thank you!”You pull out the prongs, Ed leaning against the wall next to you. You insert the three prongs into each hole, giving one an experimental turn. To your surprise, something inside turns with it, shifting with an audible clunk. You spin the others, with the same result. The prongs seem to turn to specific points in a circle, and it’s Ed who points out, “Twelve points, like a clock.”“Oh! You’re right!” you exclaim, grinning up at him. You stand, pulling the prongs out and replacing them in their case. “Brilliant man,” you say, slipping your hands around his waist and giving him a kiss just below his jaw, lips tingling against the scratch of his beard.“Fuck off,” Ed says, but his face is flushed and he glances away, bashful, the way he always does when praised.“I will not.” You give him another kiss, on the corner of his mouth this time. “This probably needs a combination, then. We could try to just brute force it with a bunch of guesses, but…”“Hm. Hey.” Ed looks thoughtful and you catch him glance back at a display of Jackie Delahaye’s novel on the other side of the room. “Okay, so. This is a stretch, but if this is the trunk from Shadow Ranch, which it probably is since it has the same kind of lock on that blanket chest, then the H in those initials probably stands for Humber, right?”“With you so far,” you say, nodding along.“And. This is the stretch part.” He nods to the book display. “Jackie Delahaye is known for writing really historically accurate novels about the Old West. Do you think it’s possible she’s come across anything about the Humbers in her research? Because apparently no one else on the ranch really knows anything about them and their history.”You hum thoughtfully, considering it. It’s a stretch, for sure, Ed’s right about that. “It’s possible she knows something about them,” you say, frowning. “But even if she did, how would we get in contact with her? I’m sure she has an address for fan mail, but—”Ed leans closer, whispering, “Her phone number is on the display.” He pulls out his phone, showing you that he already has her number saved as a contact in it.“You wrote it down?”“Hey, you never know!”You chuckle, because honestly you can’t blame him for taking the number down. He’s done stranger things based on a hunch in his career as an amateur detective, and so have you. “Well, alright, it doesn’t hurt to call and ask.”You huddle together as Ed calls the number. The phone rings twice, and then is picked up, startlingly, by a man—her assistant?—with an accent that…seems to be trying to be Swedish?“Hello? This is Jackie Delahaye’s office?” The end of his sentence tips up in pitch, like he’s asking a question.“Yes, hello, my name is Stede Bonnet. May I please speak to Jackie Delahaye?” you ask.“What is this concerning?” the assistant asks.“My partner and I are staying at a ranch in central Arizona, and since she knows so much about the history of Arizona, I thought maybe she could answer some questions for me.”“And what are these questions concerning?”“Well, we came across a very old trunk that might contain stuff that has to do with Dirk Valentine and Frances Humber, but we can’t open it, and we were hoping—”“Did you say Dirk Valentine?” he asks, interrupting you, sounding astonished.You exchange a look with Ed. “And his girlfriend, Frances Humber, yes.”There’s a pause, and then the assistant says, “Would you please hold?”Seems promising, Ed mouths to you over the hold music. You shrug in response, giving a guess-we’ll-find-out grimace in return.The hold music plays for a full minute, and then there’s a click, and a sharp voice is saying, “Jackie here. Who is this again?”You’re thrown for a moment, not having expected Jackie to get on the phone immediately, and stammer, “Uh, Stede Bonnet and Ed Teach.”“Tell Jackie about this trunk you’ve found.”“Well, the lock seems to have something to do with this image that’s engraved on the trunk right above it.” You look down at the trunk, at the bronze plate. “It’s this kind of abstract design made up of hearts and doves and the initials EH and AH.”“Eldridge and Abigail Humber,” Jackie says confidently. “Frances Humber’s grandparents. The picture’s probably commemorating their wedding day, which was April 9, 1811.” She rattles off the date like she knows it in her bones, without even having to consult any notes.“Four, nine, eleven, that’s probably our combination,” you say, and Ed’s already nodding and writing it down in his notepad. “Ms. Delahaye—”“Jackie.”“Jackie, okay. Can I ask, why do you know so much about the Humbers?”She lets out a huff of laughter. “Oh, Jackie’s been running across fascinating shit about the Humber family for years. When I have enough stashed away, Jackie’s gonna write a fucking bestseller about them.”“Then you’d probably be very interested to know what’s in this trunk,” you propose.“Yeah, so you’d better tell me when you get in there, because Jackie doesn’t do shit for free.”You chuckle. “We’ll keep you posted. Oh, did I mention that we’re staying at Shadow Ranch?”“This just gets better and better,” Jackie says, conspiratorially. “I’ll tell my husband to put your calls through right away.”You frown. “That was your husband?”“One of many.” She laughs, and there’s a click as she hangs up.You give Ed a surprised look as you hang up on your end. “Well, she’s something,” you say, letting out a chuckle.“She sounds fucking incredible, actually.” Ed’s grinning and the two of you turn back to the trunk.Knowing the date, it’s easy enough to turn the prongs to the correct corresponding numbers. As soon as the last one is in place, you hear the lock click, and the lid releases, letting you lift it to reveal the contents. It’s rather anticlimactic, in your opinion. Inside is a small collection of everyday items, though clearly at least a century old: scissors, a pot, blanket, sheriff’s star, and some kind of canister.The only thing that looks like it has any potential to be helpful is a case holding a pocket watch. You take that, opening the case and turning it over in your hands. There’s an abstract design engraved on the metal, which is golden in color, though you’re not certain if it’s actually made out of gold. The watch itself won’t open and you see a hole on one side, which must require some sort of key to open, but though there’s a chain attached to the watch where a key might have hung, it seems to have long been lost.Still, Mary did say you could take something, so you pocket the watch, hoping it may be relevant later. You let Mary know that you managed to open the trunk and she thanks you, and then the two of you are on your way, heading back to the ranch.You lead the horses back to their corrals and take off their saddles, bringing them back through to the tack room. Anne gives you a nod and a flirty wink, and you give a polite smile back. As you’re placing your saddle back in its place, you accidentally bump the one next to it, and a blue greeting card-sized envelope falls from it. You pick it up to put it back, but a name on the front catches your eye: J. Bonny.J. Bonny. Jane? The same Jane Bonny who wrote that potentially threatening letter to the Rawleys?Before you instruct them to, your fingers are slipping inside the envelope, sliding the card out. The front has a stylized cartoon cowgirl with a spinning lasso beneath the words Happy Birthday! Inside, the card instructs you to Lasso yourself a wild one, partner! and there’s a handwritten message wishing Anne a happy birthday and signed Your little sister, Jane.So. Jane Bonny is Anne’s sister. Jane Bonny was unfairly—in her mind, at least—fired by the Rawleys and wrote a threatening letter to them because of it. Anne is the head wrangler. Could Anne be working with Jane, trying to get back at the Rawleys for firing her sister? Maybe by faking a haunting by a phantom horse?You stuff the card back in the envelope and hurriedly stick it back in the saddle it fell out of before straightening up. Ed is asking Anne about the horses’ care and you can tell his mind is soaking up the information like an 11-year-old learning about their latest fixation. You slide into the space next to him and his arm comes around your waist without hesitation, like it’s just been empty and waiting for you this whole time. You let them chat a few minutes more before a natural lull hits, and you take your chance.“I hear that you have a sister,” you say casually, like you’re saying I hear it’s going to rain tomorrow. “Jane Bonny?”Anne’s eyes flash to you and it’s the first time she’s looked at you with anything less than full-on flirtation. Her lips thin and she sits up from where she’d been leaning against the work table. “So what if I do?”“Did you know that she used to work for the Rawleys?”Anne smiles, lips still pulled thin, and you’re reminded of a big cat, a panther maybe, stalking its prey. “And where did you hear that?”Ed is watching you and you can practically feel his brain screaming at you to be careful. “We found a letter she wrote to the Rawleys in their desk. It was pretty nasty.”“You’ve been snooping, haven’t you?” she says, her voice dangerously low. “In the Rawleys’ stuff, in my stuff…”“I’m just very observant, that’s all.”She stands, advancing on both of you. For all that she’s several inches shorter than you, and even shorter than Ed, she seems to tower over you through sheer force of will. “My business is none of your business,” she snaps. She’s still smiling, and that somehow is more unsettling than if she were to draw a knife to your throat. “And that includes any sisters I may or may not have.” She looks between the two of you, slowly, purposefully. “You need to leave.”“Babe, you’re such a fucking lunatic,” Ed’s saying as he pulls you into your room, presses you against the door.“You love it,” you say, breathless.“I do,” he confirms. He kisses you, one hand in your hair, the other skimming your side lightly, just shy of ticklish. “I love you.”“Love you,” you gasp back. Your head falls back against the door with a low thud as Ed noses below your jaw, beard scratching roughly against the sensitive skin of your neck. “Mm, Ed, I…I wanted to go check out that blanket chest but…”“You want me to stop?” he asks. His voice is muffled, lips whispering against the crook of your neck.“I mean… It’s been there for like 100 years so far, right? I think it can wait a little longer.”Back downstairs, you and Ed head to the blanket chest in the corner. The designs are heavily floral, with twisting vines and blooming flowers. Toward the top of its flat top are three birds perched on the vines, each a different color: red, blue, and yellow. Just like the trunk at Mary’s shop, there are three square holes, each acting as the eye of one of the birds.“There’s even a little clock symbol engraved here,” you say, rubbing your thumb over it.“Huh. That reminds me, actually…” Ed skirts around one of the couches to the mantle of the fireplace where an old, antique clock sits. “I thought it was weird that this thing wasn’t running right. Each number has a corresponding color.”“So set each bird to the number that corresponds to the color…” you start.“And maybe that’s the combination.” Ed glances at you and shrugs. “Might as well give it a try.”Ed reads off each number as you turn the prongs to the corresponding spot, and once again you’re rewarded with a click as the chest unlocks and the top third of the triangular-shaped chest springs up, revealing a hidden compartment. “Ed!” you call excitedly, and he’s already next to you, hands reaching out for the compartment.He pulls out a pocket watch, identical to the one that you found in the trunk in Mary’s shop, though this one is complete with a watch pick dangling from a chain. Ed sticks the pin into the hole and the watch opens, a white clock face staring up at you. The mechanism has long since stopped, having not been wound in over a century, but that’s not what’s interesting about this watch.No, what’s interesting is that some of the numbers can be pressed down. “Another combination?” you ask.Ed presses each of the numbers and looks up at you in surprise when one stays in place. “Oh, this’ll be easy,” he says with a grin, and he gets to work. It’s trial and error, but he’s quick to the solution. Ed’s always had a head for puzzles and patterns, much more than you. You had tended to solve mysteries through a lot of snooping and questioning suspects, at least before you and Ed partnered up.The clock face releases and lifts, revealing another watch pick with a broken chain, as well as a photograph of a young woman and older man. The woman is unmistakably the same woman in the portrait hanging in the room, Frances Humber. The man, you guess, is Frances’ father, a balding man with a bushy mustache and muttonchops.A jolt hits you, and you lift the watch closer, squinting at the photograph. “Huh. That…”Ed looks up, having pulled out the pocket watch that was in the chest at Mary’s and opened it with the extra pick. “What’s that, love?”You frown, shaking your head. “Nothing. Just… He kind of looks like my father.”“What, really?” Ed shifts closer to get a better look. Ed’s met your father a grand total of one time, when you introduced him as your boyfriend. Five minutes later your father had kicked you out of the house, telling you to come back when you were finished with this latest phase and were ready to settle down and get married to the nice girl he had picked out for you.“Yeah. Like, get rid of the bad facial hair, obviously, and add on a few years, and that’s him.”“Huh.” He frowns, studying it. “From what I remember of your shitty dad, yeah, they look kind of similar, I think. That’s weird.”“No, it’s, like, exactly him. I don’t…” You shut your mouth, frustrated at not being able to explain that it feels like you know this man. Know him, and loathe him. “Never mind. What’s in the other watch?”It’s a matter of seconds for Ed to work out the pattern to open the pocket watch you’d found at Mary’s. There’s another photograph in this one that looks like it would be identical to the first, had it not been torn down the middle, leaving only Frances standing alone in the frame. One of the corners is bent, like it can be removed, and you lift it and turn it over to see the words Green bottle under written on the back.“Under what?” Ed asks and you shrug. He lifts the picture from the pocket watch that was in the blanket chest, but nothing is written on the backside.“We need to find the other half of this picture,” you say.“And in the meantime just keep an eye out for a green bottle under something, I guess.”Also in the compartment is an unopened letter, yellowing with age, and an old leather-bound journal. You reach for the journal as Ed takes the letter. “Yours first,” you say, nodding at him.Frances, Shadow Ranch is scrawled on the back of the envelope where an address would normally go. Ed flips the envelope over and slices it open, pulling out two weathered pieces of paper folded in half. The first reveals itself to be an illustration of what looks to be a cliff face, a grid overlaying the entire image. The top and left side of the image have strings of letters written out and across the bottom is a line of symbols.“It’s a puzzle,” Ed says. “Figure out where each symbol goes on the grid, and it’ll spell out a message.”“These must be petroglyphs, carved into the rock. We’ll have to ask around, see if anyone knows where this is.”Ed sets the grid aside and opens the other paper. He jerks back when he does, blinking several times in rapid succession.“Ed? Are you alright?”“Yeah,” he says. He blinks a few more times, shaking his head. “Yeah, fine, just…the weirdest feeling of deja vu. But I’m fine.” He clears his throat, holding the paper up so both of you can read it.
September 12, 1883

Dear Frances,

As usual, things did not work out like I planned. Just when I get everything fixed just right for you to go looking for the thing I hid for you, I go and get myself arrested.

But no matter what you hear, nothing is going to happen to me. I will be fine and we will be together soon, I promise.

Meanwhile you can keep busy by looking for what I hid. Start by using this piece of paper to mark where all the rock pictures are. They will tell you what to do next. Your favorite flowers, and the flowers on your favorites, start keeping them in mind, too.

I will leave a message for you in this here cell. Just in case they decide to move me to the jail down in Tumbleweed or something.

I like vexing your brain, because when you are thinking real hard, like when you are playing the piano, you are more beautiful than anything in the world. I am sure to be out of here before you find my treasure, but in case I am not, know that it is all yours, and that you are more precious to me than ten thousand treasures put together.

9 12 15 22 5 25 15 21

Dirk

PS I do not, and never will, hold what your father did to me against you.
Ed’s eyes meet yours over the paper. “Treasure,” he says, voice low in a quiet whisper-yell. “Fucking treasure, babe.”You nod, eyes wide. This definitely isn’t the first secret hidden treasure you’ve come across in your amateur career, but it somehow never gets less exciting. “He hid his treasure somewhere for her to find it. Do you think it’s still there?”Ed waves the envelope. “This wasn’t opened. So yeah, I think it could be.”“Oh my god,” you say. “Okay, so we need to find the “rock pictures” he mentions. Petroglyphs probably, like we thought.”“And then he mentions ‘your favorite flowers, and the flowers on your favorites.’” Ed grins at you. “Sounds like Frances had a thing for flora, just like you do.”“Well she had good taste, then,” you say with a huff, but you can’t help but grin back. “And then this last bit, a message in his cell. We’re going to have to figure out where that was. Who knows if it’s even still standing.”“Eh, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”You point to the numbers at the bottom. “What about this? Could be a clue?”Ed smiles, a little bashful. “Nah, it’s… It says ‘I love you.’ Each number is a letter of the alphabet. Classic code.”You feel yourself melting a little bit. “Aw, how sweet.”“Softie,” he says fondly, kissing your cheek. He folds both the letter and the petroglyph grid back into the envelope and carefully tucks them into the journal he keeps for taking notes during cases. “What’s that then?” He indicates the journal with his chin.You open it carefully, the spine cracking with age. The first page declares it to be the journal of Meryl Humber. “Frances’ father?” you speculate as you turn the page to the first entry.
July 4, 1882

Sworn in as sheriff. Frances thought up a song and played it on the piano for me. Told her it was pretty and that she’d make her husband mighty happy when she gets married, and she gave me a funny look, like she didn’t like me talking about her getting married, but she’s 17 now and getting to that age.

November 12, 1882

Hereford Shupe came by with a plant he brought from New York called Harrison’s Yellow. Looked right dead to me, but Frances planted it out back and gave it some water and already it looks to be on the mend. Hereford is thinking to marry her and I think that might be a good match.

March 30, 1883

Frances has got eyes for a young man named Dirk. She says he’s from Prescott. Cappy says when she plays the piano this Dirk makes everyone be quiet so he can hear good. Ain’t never seen her smile like she smiles now. I told her to bring him to the ranch for dinner but she says he won’t come because he’s too shy, and I thought that was mighty suspicious.

April 16, 1883

Did some digging. Got in contact with the sheriff over in Phoenix about a Dirk Valentine who’s wanted for robbing two banks and a stage coach. Picture he sent along looks just like the Dirk Frances is sweet on. When I showed her the picture she got tearful and ran off and now Dirk is gone and she won’t say anything about where he went.

August 2, 1883

Dirk Valentine is robbing banks and coaches all over the territory. Frances says he never kills anyone and only steals from people that already have plenty of money, but that’s not true because some of those trains he robbed were carrying money meant to pay miners their hard-earned wages. He’s nothing but a no-good greedy outlaw, and I told Frances that Hereford would still marry her, but Frances gets real mad when I say that. I fear she’s still sweet on Dirk and that she sees him when she knows I’m busy and gets letters from him which she hides from me.

September 9, 1883

Got hold of a note Frances sent to Dirk and saw where they were going to meet. Got a posse and we caught Dirk and threw him in jail. The judge is coming next week and I hear he is a hanging judge so Dirk most likely isn’t long for this world. I’d say good riddance, but Frances won’t speak to me and says she never will again.

September 13, 1883

Mason got hold of a secret letter Dirk tried to send to Frances. I locked it up so she won’t ever read it. Frances isn’t allowed to see Dirk in jail of course and if she never sees his letter maybe she’ll think he doesn’t like her any more and maybe she’ll get over this childish crush.

September 17, 1883

They hung Dirk at noon. I thought I would be happy, but I’m not.

September 18, 1883

Frances took Arthur and my big saddle bag and is gone. She hasn’t told anyone where she’s going, not even Cappy. But I know she’ll forget Dirk and when she does she’ll come home, because she’s a smart girl and will figure out I did what I did for her.

January 4, 1884

My sister says her little girl Ellie got a letter from Frances saying she went east and was not of a mind to ever return.

June 11, 1884

The Harrison’s Yellow which Frances said was her favorite flower in the world is just a pile of brown sticks now. I don’t know how to look after delicate things like that.

September 28, 1884

I haven’t seen or heard from Frances in a year. I tell people she is on her way home, but when I look in my heart I know this is a lie. She will never come back to Shadow Ranch and it is my fault and I’ll just have to find a way to live with it.
The remaining pages are blank.“Fuck, man,” Ed breathes. “Poor Frances. Poor Dirk.”You nod distantly, your mind and body suddenly overcome with a tidal wave of sadness and grief and anger. Feelings which feel familiar to you, somehow, despite not having any correlating experience to tie them to—anger at a parent excluded, of course. And familiar in a way that’s personal, and not sympathetic. It’s as if you’ve had this exact same experience, falling in love and then losing that love at the hands of a person who insists he’s doing it because he loves you, and learning about Frances and Dirk’s situation only brought those feelings back to the surface.“Hey. You okay, Stede?” Ed’s fingers smooth across your cheek and you look up at him, only for a moment he’s not Ed, he’s…he’s a man who looks like Ed, exactly like Ed, but with a longer beard and brown skin made even darker by the sun and a…a fucking cowboy hat on. He smiles at you, and he’s caressing your cheek, and you feel the flutterings of new love in your stomach.You blink, and then it’s just Ed—never just Ed, no, but your Ed, you mean—watching you with concern.You shake your head, trying to clear it of whatever…hallucination? vision? that was. “No, I’m fine. Sorry.” You sigh and close the journal, placing it back into its hiding place. “How horrible. Frances was just…devastated by what her father did.”“I know. And from the sounds of it, since she never got that letter from Dirk, and how abruptly she left, it seems like she never even tried to find what he left for her.” He slides his hand down your cheek, coming to rest on your shoulder. “Just an all around fucked up situation.”“And one that someone might be leveraging against the Rawleys or the Badmintons to try and find the treasure for themselves.”“But it seems like we’re one step ahead of them,” Ed says, holding up Dirk’s letter.“Okay, why are we, the guests, the ones who have to set this campfire up?” Ed’s grumbling as you wander the yard, searching for twigs to use as kindling. Jack had caught the two of you as you passed through the kitchen on your way back outside to ask you—order you—to set up a campfire, since the Rawleys were insisting that he go ahead with the cookout they wanted to have that night. Ed had been enjoying the chore when it meant getting to sit back and watch you chop up firewood and stack it into a pile near the firepit, but now that your arms are no longer hefting a heavy axe or logs, he’s lost interest, leaning up against the house on the back porch.“You know, it’s a ranch, so I think a little hands on work is to be expected,” you remark. Ed groans and you roll your eyes fondly. “I think I saw some old newspapers inside by the fireplace. You could go grab some to use to get the fire started.”“Fine,” Ed says. He pushes off the wall and trudges inside, letting the door slam shut behind him.You gather the remaining sticks and carry them to the fire pit. As you kneel down, you catch a glimpse of a crumpled up, partially charred piece of paper, like someone had been trying to get rid of it. You pick it up and carefully smooth it back out. There’s a message written in some kind of code, a mixture of seemingly nonsense words and symbols. You pocket it, making a mental note to show Ed.The cookout is…awkward, to put it kindly. It’s clear from the start that no one really wants to be there. Jack presents you all with burgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill, along with an assortment of sides consisting of coleslaw, baked beans, chips, and halves of corn on the cob which have also been grilled. The food is decent, but the clear annoyance radiating from Jack is enough to sour the taste. Dave is uncomfortable, stuck between the appreciating looks from Anne and Jack’s increasingly boorish behavior as he drinks more and more of what is clearly not water from a water bottle. Anne isn’t shy about flirting with anyone present, though most of her attention is focused on either Dave or you, apparently already moved on from her earlier coldness toward you.At one point, Dave says something seemingly innocuous that sets Jack off and he storms away, ranting about people being unappreciative for slaving over a hot grill, or something of the like. Dave rolls his eyes and gets up to head to bed as well, tipping his hat to you and Ed before leaving. You practically feel Ed swoon next to you and you nudge him.Anne hangs around for a bit longer, but eventually she, too, heads to bed, and you and Ed are left sitting out by the campfire together. You lean into his side, each of your arms wrapped around the other’s waist. You tip your head back and you feel momentarily stunned by the beauty of the night sky. You’ve spent most of your life living in the city, and even despite your travels, even despite the lack of light pollution that Moon Lake presented, you swear you’ve never seen so many stars.“It’s beautiful,” you say softly.“Yeah. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Ed says, and you look at him, but he’s not looking up at the sky. He’s looking at you.You flush and roll your eyes, giggling. “You romantic sap,” you say, resting your chin on his shoulder.“The sappiest.”You lean in for a kiss, your lips just brushing over Ed’s when you hear the sound of racing hooves approaching. You part, then stand as you see something glowing in the distance, approaching quickly. “Dickfuck, it’s the phantom horse!” Ed shouts.It’s indeed a horse, ghostly white and glowing, galloping at full tilt toward the fence. It turns before hitting it, giving you a side view of it as it races past. “Holy shit! We…Should we do something?”“What do you fucking suggest, babe? Tackling it or something?”“I don’t know!”But even if you had a plan, the horse is already drawing away, racing off into the darkness of the desert. It’s too late to do anything, to try to follow it or catch it or go get help. You can only stand next to Ed, helpless as the phantom horse disappears into the night.And then the pumphouse explodes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So you’re saying that this…phantom horse made the pumphouse explode,” Nigel Badminton says, the derision obvious in his voice. “Absolutely ridiculous.”“No,” Ed says. His patience, which is already in short supply when dealing with dicks like the Badmintons, is rapidly running out, and you’ve only been on the phone with the Badmintons for just over a minute. “We’re saying the horse showed up, and then the pumphouse exploded.”“You’re assigning causality,” you say, rolling your eyes. “They’re connected events but one didn’t cause the other.” You shake your head at Ed, rolling your eyes. You swear, it’s like Nigel is purposefully misunderstanding.“Fine, whatever,” he says dismissively. “We were going to be replacing that anyway. So what exactly is the point you’re trying to make here?”“We think it’s possible that someone might be trying to sabotage the ranch, maybe using the horse as a distraction.”“For what possible reason?” Nigel asks, chuckling, like the very idea is ridiculous. “It’s not like Shadow Ranch is terribly successful. You two are the first guests, and you’re not even paying to stay there.”“Yeah,” Ed says to you under his breath, “thanks to their generous and not at all suspicious invitation.”To Nigel, you say, “Honestly there could be a number of reasons, which we’re looking into. Revenge, perhaps. Maybe wanting to buy the land off you for cheap. Or…they may be looking for hidden treasure.”There’s a pause and then Nigel breaks into familiar laughter—posh and cruel, just like it was when you were children. “Chauncey, come here, you’ll want to hear this.” You hear another voice, indistinct, and then Nigel says, “Baby Bonnet thinks someone is sabotaging that run-down little ranch to look for treasure.”They share a long moment of laughter at your expense, and you sigh. Ed opens his mouth, looking furious, like he’s about to tear the Badmintons to shreds, but you shake your head at him.Chauncey comes on a moment later, Nigel still chuckling in the background. “Really, Bonnet, treasure? You just get more and more ridiculous with age. First that house in San Francisco and then, what was it, Marie Antoinette’s lost diamond and journal in some castle in Wisconsin?”“Don’t forget the amusement park!” Nigel adds.“Oh, of course, who could forget that?” Chauncey says snidely. “Really, Bonnet, not every old building is hiding some secret treasure that’s been lost for decades, that somehow no one else has been clever enough to find or stumbled upon.”Nigel’s laughter has apparently died down enough for him to contribute now, and he adds, “And even if there were some treasure hidden on the ranch, it would legally be ours, since we own the property.”“In our experience, people who are searching for hidden treasure and sabotaging businesses aren’t too concerned when it comes to the legalities of hidden treasure ownership,” you say.“Oh, god, Bonnet, this entire thing is absurd.” Chauncey scoffs. “There’s no treasure.”“Well, since you seem so sure, it wouldn’t hurt for Ed and I to do a little investigating, would it? At least try and find out if there is actually someone trying to sabotage your property.”There’s a weary sigh from the other end of the phone. “Fine, do whatever sleuthing you need to. It’s your own time you’re wasting.”“Now if you don’t mind, Chauncey and I have more important things to attend to.”The call ends with an abrupt click and you roll your eyes. “Yes, nice talking to you too,” you grumble, ending the call.“Fucking dicks,” Ed says, scowling. He snakes an arm around you as he falls back, taking you with him. You squeal as Ed yanks you closer, practically laying on top of him. “I’ll show them hidden treasure.”“That doesn’t even make sense,” you say, chuckling. You nuzzle into Ed’s neck, letting your fingers trail down Ed’s bare arm. You woke up before him this morning, as you normally do, so while you’re fully dressed and ready to go for the day, Ed is still in shirtless and in his briefs from the night before. He hasn’t even taken off his bonnet, though the bow keeping the band secure around his head is coming askew.“Maybe we just stay in bed all day,” Ed suggests. “Like this is a normal vacation.”“You mean you don’t want to find out what the deal is with Frances and Dirk, and the treasure, and the phantom horse?” You lift your head up, lightly poking his chest. “You don’t want to go riding at all?”Ed groans. “Solving a mystery with my fiance that has to do with treasure and a forbidden love story and horses versus spending all day snuggling in bed with that same fiance?” Ed cracks open his eyes. “I’m gonna be real honest with you, babe. That’s a pretty fucking hard choice.”“Ghost horse,” you say tauntingly, and Ed sits up, displacing you.“Yeah, you’re right, ghost horse.”As Ed gets ready for the day, you figure it might be worth it to make a few calls. You call Bet and Jeb Rawley first, update them on what happened last night. Since it’s not impossible that they’re the actual intended victims of this sabotage, you ask if they can think of anyone who might have a grudge against them, and they can’t, but that they’ll keep thinking about it. You warn them not to mention any of this to anyone at the ranch, not until you have a better idea of who’s behind the whole thing.Next up are Lucius and Pete. You haven’t heard from them since you talked yesterday, besides a few updates—or lack of updates—on their plane. Lucius answers the phone sounding more annoyed than you’ve heard him sound in a long time, which is saying something, considering he’s almost always annoyed at something.“Where are you guys?” you ask as soon as Lucius is finished talking. “You’ve got to get out here. We saw the phantom horse last night!”“Know what we saw last night?” Lucius asks bitchily. “The inside of a motel room. In St. Louis.”“St. Louis?”“Our plane finally took off at seven last night,” Lucius says. “We didn’t call you because we wanted to surprise you!”Pete jumps in, voice sounding a bit more distant than Lucius’. “Only next thing we know, we’re being diverted to St. Louis because of bad weather. So the airline put us up in a motel for the night.”“But when we came back to the airport this morning, guess what. We’re fucking fogged in,” Lucius says without waiting for you to answer.“I’ve literally never seen fog this thick,” Pete says. “Visibility’s, like, three feet tops.”“You can barely drive in the stuff, let alone land and take off.” Lucius makes a disgusted sound and you can practically see the disgruntled expression that must be on his face. “Let’s change the subject.”“So you saw the horse?” Pete says excitedly. “What did it look like?”“Like…a horse, but glowing,” you say. “We had a campfire last night, and right after everyone else went to bed, it appeared out of nowhere, then went galloping away. And right after that? The main pipe in the pump house sprang a leak. Another case of bad luck? I think not.”“Ugh, fuck you,” Lucius snaps. “Can’t believe you get to just keep investigating this while we’re stuck in fucking St. Louis.”“Just wait, it gets better,” you say. You catch Ed’s eye as he comes out of the ensuite bathroom, deftly braiding his hair into a loose plait, leaving a few strands loose around his face. He comes over to sit next to you on the bed, pulling your legs across his as you switch to speaker. “We found a letter that Dirk Valentine wrote to Frances Humber.”“What!” Pete exclaims. His voice comes suddenly closer, like he’s grabbed the phone from Lucius. “What did it say? Did he sound cool? Of course he did, he’s Dirk Valentine. Oh my god, what did it say?”“Well, first, it was locked up in this chest that belonged to Frances’ father. And the letter was never opened.”“According to her dick father’s journal, he intercepted it and locked it away before Frances could read it,” Ed says.“Fucking asshole,” Lucius says.“What did it say?” Pete repeats urgently.“It said that Dirk hid a bunch of his loot somewhere.” There’s a high-pitched squawk from the other side, one that causes the speaker to crackle with the pitch and volume.“What. Did. It. Say!” Pete reiterates.“Basically, Dirk wanted Frances to have the loot he stashed, so he set up this elaborate treasure hunt for her,” Ed explains. “It had all sorts of weird, obscure clues to help her find what he’d hidden.”“Apparently Dirk had a bit of a flair for the dramatic, and Frances liked puzzles.”Lucius says, “Okay, but if the letter was never opened…”“Yup,” Ed says. “Frances couldn’t’ve found the treasure.”“And someone could be using that phantom horse to chase people off the ranch because they want to be the one to find it.”“Fuck me,” Lucius groans. “We’re stuck here when we could be there with you looking for hidden loot? That does it, babe, we’re suing the airline and the airport.”“Anyway, on the agenda for today is solving this puzzle that was in the letter. We’re going to hunt down some petroglyphs!” you say excitedly.“Mm, okay, actually maybe I’m glad I’m not there, because that sounds boring.”“Yeah, being stuck in St. Louis sounds way more fun,” Ed says.“Shut up,” Lucius says, and he hangs up.You roll your eyes at Ed and nudge him. “Shall we?”Downstairs, you head for the kitchen to get your canteens, but find Jack nowhere in sight. Ed grins at you, knowing exactly what you’re thinking. Time to do a bit of snooping.There’s not much in Jack’s space, really. A cookbook, a couple receipts, half empty beer can—you try not to judge, but really, it’s 10 in the morning. To the right of the stove is an antique metal sideboard. You open it and to your disappointment there’s not much inside. A few more cookbooks, some papers, grocery lists, a small baggie of something that could be oregano, but…Well, you know it’s not.The only remotely interesting thing are some maps of the area, which in and of itself wouldn’t be odd, but they aren’t typical roadmaps. There are a few topographical maps, a historical map showing old towns and settlements, and one with mineral deposits.From behind you, you hear Jack’s surly voice ask, “Can I fucking help you find something?” You and Ed turn to see Jack scowling at you, arms crossed.“No, actually, we pretty much found everything on our own.”Jack pushes past you, grabbing the maps and shoving them back in the sideboard. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business,” Jack says, slamming it closed, “but I got those maps ‘cause I was hoping there might be a long lost gold mine or two around here. But, like most of my get rich quick schemes, it didn’t pan out. Apparently there’s no gold left in ‘them thar hills.’” He turns, stirring something on the stove. “Or silver, or copper, or fucking anything else. Now, if I fucking catch you going through my shit again, I’ll fucking cut your toes off and make you eat them.”“Yuck,” you say, wrinkling your nose. “Graphic.”Jack presents you with your full canteens, grumbles something about you needing to bake a cake today for Anne’s birthday because, “I don’t fucking bake,” and sends you on your way.“We should check out the pumphouse,” you say as you step out outside. You groan automatically as the blistering heat hits you, somehow hotter today than it was yesterday.“Yeah, sounds good.”Across the yard, you can see that Dave is mysteriously absent from his place at the chicken coop today. The pumphouse itself is actually still standing. It didn’t so much as explode, technically, as it did just spew a bunch of water out the roof. There are piles of broken and splintered timber from the roof piled up along the remaining pump house building, gathered by the ranch hands earlier that morning. On the door is a yellow sign, and as you get closer, you see it declares the building to be a CRIME SCENE | NO TRESPASSING with the sheriff’s number on the bottom.“Guess we need to get permission first,” you say with a sigh. You pull out your phone and dial the number.It rings a few times before being picked up, and a masculine voice with a slight Mexican accent answers with a simple, “Hernandez.”“Hi, are you the sheriff?”“Yup, that would be me.”“My name is Stede Bonnet. My partner and I are staying at Shadow Ranch.”“Oh yeah? I spent a good part of last night out there,” Hernandez says lightly.“What’s your take on what happened to the pumphouse?” you ask, figuring you might as well ask while you’ve got him on the phone.“Looked to me like the main pipe had been deteriorating for some time,” he says, “only nobody noticed until last night when it finally blew.”“So you think it was an accident?”“I see no reason to think otherwise.”“Interesting. Actually, I wanted to ask, would it be alright if my partner and I looked around in there?”“Sure, I’m all done in there,” he says easily. “Should’ve had my deputy take that sign down. Why…oh, that’s right, the two of you are some kind of detectives, right?”“Amateur detectives,” you correct.“I don’t know, Annie seems to be real impressed with you.” He chuckles. “Of course, she’s impressed with a lot of folks, if you get my meaning.”You grimace. “Yeah, I do. Do you know most of the workers at Shadow Ranch?”“Sure, I know them all. Doesn’t mean I’m best buddies with them, but it’s a pretty small world out here, and I’ve either known or known of all of them for years.”“And they’re all pretty…stand up people, as far as you know?”“I’d vouch for every single one of them,” Hernandez says confidently.“Okay, good to know,” you say. “Thanks so much for your help.”“No problem.”You hang up and turn back to Ed. “We’re all good to head inside.”Ed opens the door, heading inside first. It’s a small space, not much more than a shed, really, with an old sink on one side, a pump against the back wall, and some shelving on the other side. There’s water pooled on the ground, some cans and bottles of cleaning supplies strewn about, displaced either by the explosion or the sheriff’s men when they investigated.It’s pretty clear where the problem is. Close to the ground, one of the pipes is badly corroded, so much so that there’s a full several inch gap between the top connector and the pipe itself. Ed crouches down, letting out a low whistle. “That looks pretty bad for just some normal deterioration,” he says. He grabs one of the bottles and pokes at the edge of the pipe, frowning as it crumbles easily away.“You think it was on purpose?” you ask.“Could be,” he says, standing back up, brushing off the knees of his jeans. “Could be an accident too, but…”“With everything else going on,” you say, raising an eyebrow.“Exactly.”You take a brief look around, searching for any other clues. Your eye catches on a grate behind one of the shelves. You didn’t notice it yesterday when you came in to fill up the fire bucket with water, but now with most of the shelves empty, their contents strewn about the floor, it’s pretty obvious. And it’s pretty obvious it’s not just an ordinary grate. There’s no grate on the outside of the pump house, for one. For another, beyond it you can just make out what looks like a dirt tunnel, as well as an old ladder leading down to it.“Ed,” you say, moving to shift the shelf out of the way. “Check this out.”“Huh.” He crouches back down and lifts the grate. To your surprise, it seems to lift easily. For how old it looks, and how rusted the metal is, you would have thought it would take more effort to lift it. It’s almost like someone has gone through it recently.Ed gives you an after you gesture and you slip through and into the tunnel. It’s actually cool in there, cooler than it is outside or in the house, anyway, and you welcome the feel on your sweaty skin. Ed comes in after you, pulling out his flashlight. “Shall we?”It’s not a long tunnel by any means. It curves around toward the direction of the house, and within seconds you’re heading up a set of creaking old stairs to a hidden door, the outlines of it faintly visible in the dark. You push through, the door creaking, and you hear a loud thump followed by someone scrambling out from several boxes. A figure appears from beneath the second set of stairs across from the door that must lead up and into the ranch.Hang on. You recognize those tight pants.“Dave?” Ed asks, sounding scandalized.He looks at you with wide, startled eyes, stammering out, “Where did you come from?”“We didn’t mean to sneak up on you but…what are you doing?” you ask.“Well, see…I just…I mean…” He stumbles over his words for a few moments before sighing in resignation, his shoulders slumping. “I’m looking for Dirk Valentine’s treasure.”“So you lied before when you said you didn’t know who Dirk Valentine was,” Ed says, and you nearly laugh at how betrayed Ed sounds.“Yeah, I did,” he says, looking down. “See, my great Aunt Ellie was Frances Humber’s cousin. When she died, she left me a bunch of stuff, including an old letter she got from Frances. In the letter, Frances said that Valentine had hidden a bunch of loot somewhere and wanted Frances to find it by following the clues he left for her. Frances was real smart, see.” He smiles shyly. “Loved puzzles. Played the piano pretty good, too. But after Valentine met his end, Frances was too broken-hearted to care about some treasure. She told Aunt Ellie that if she could find it, she could keep it.”He reaches into his pocket and pulls an old piece of paper out, holding it out to you. You take it and, to your surprise, it seems to be the other half of the picture that was in the pocketwatch you found in the trunk at Mary Read’s.“That’s Frances’ father,” Dave says. “Sheriff Meryl Humber. There’s something written on the back.” You flip it over to read it, just as he says, “‘Stairs to cellar.’ That’s Frances’ handwriting. Looks like the other half of the message got torn off. I was hoping the treasure might be under the stairs in here, but…” He sighs with a frown. “No such luck.”“I didn’t even know this place had a cellar,” you say.“As far as I know no one does. The entrance is secret.” He gestures up the stairs. “There’s a secret door behind the bookcase in the den.”“And do the Badmintons know about this?” you ask, even though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.“No. I was afraid that if I told them they’d…” He sighs again, a somber look on his face. “See, my brother’s dead broke. No job, health’s bad. I was thinking if I could just find the treasure… And it’s not as if the Badmintons need the money.”You huff out a derisive laugh. “Yeah, that’s for sure. It’s still their property though.”“I’ll tell them,” Dave says in a rush. “I swear. I’ll call and let them know.”“Good.”Ed has his arms crossed, eyes narrowed at Dave. “What about all the accidents that have been happening around here lately?” he asks.Dave holds his hands up. “I don’t know anything about that horse or any of the other stuff that’s been going on around here, I swear.” He rocks nervously on his feet, looking suddenly ashamed. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I need to tend to my chores.”Without waiting for a moment, he bolts off, taking the stairs two at a time. “Wait, you don’t have to…” The door slams and you sigh. “Well, shit.”“What the hell?” Ed says, sounding dejected. “I can’t believe he lied to us.”“Oh, no,” you say sympathetically. “Are you all done with your little crush now?”Ed sighs. “Yeah, I suppose. Fun while it lasted. But it’s fine. I don’t need him anyway, not when I’ve got you.”“Aw, little old me?” you ask, teasingly bashful.“Well, there’s nothing about you that I would describe as little, so…”“Ed!” You playfully swat him, laughing.“Just the truth, love. Anyway, let’s poke around for a bit. Maybe we’ll find something that Dave didn’t even realize was significant.”“And now we know exactly what we’re looking for,” you say, holding up the half of the photo that Dave gave you, that he didn’t take back. “Green bottle under stairs to cellar.”You and Ed split up, searching through the detritus that’s accumulated in here over the last century or so. There are boxes filled with old trinkets, pictures, old tools and rusted appliances, but nothing of much significance that you can tell. “Got some acid over here,” Ed calls at one point from across the room, going through the old supplies that have been left forgotten on one of the shelves down here. “Not dusty like the rest of this stuff. I’m guessing that’s what was used to make the pipe burst.”So it looks like that was sabotage, after all.After a long while of searching, you straighten, stretching out your back. Your eyes fall on the false wall you came through, the hidden door that leads back to the pump house. A thought occurs to you.“Hey, Ed?”“Yeah?” He’s poking through an old chest, moth-bitten clothes and cloth dropped to the ground next to it.“What if the stairs to the cellar that message is referring to aren’t these stairs,” you suggest, pointing to the stairs leading up and, apparently, into the den. “What if they’re those stairs?”Ed follows your finger to the hidden door, and then his eyes snap back to you, clear with realization. “Oh, shit.”You both scramble to the door, pulling it open. Ed goes first, slowly, testing out each stair with his boots. The two of you listen for any difference, any indication of hollowness or something not resonating the way it should. When he gets to the third stair from the top, Ed frowns. “It’s wobbly,” he says, giving it a shimmy.He hops down the stairs and reaches for it, and the entire board lifts away, opening up on hinges. “Holy shit, babe, you were right!” he exclaims.You step over the now-open stair, kneeling on the board below it. It’s empty, save for something tucked into the side. You reach in to pull it out, your fingers brushing over dusty glass, to see that it is, indeed, a green bottle, just like the message said. You glance at Ed and you’re certain that the excitement shining out of his eyes is reflected in yours.“Open it,” he urges you. He closes the hiding place and the two of you sit next to each other on the stairs, knees pressed together and shoulders brushing as you hunch over the bottle.It takes some finagling. You’re able to pull the cork out easily enough, but getting the paper out is another thing. The mouth of the bottle is small, and the papers have loosened over time, no longer tightly rolled. Finally you fish it out with the help of one of Ed’s bobby pins, managing to snag the paper and work it out.The paper remains tightly curled until you roll it the other way, smoothing it out to reveal more of Dirk Valentine’s neat scrawl. “They’re love letters,” you say, quickly flipping through them. You give Ed a small smile. “Oh, how sweet.”
April 4, 1883

Dear Frances,

I am glad that you’re getting your picture painted wearing your favorite shawl. It will be a beautiful painting because you are beautiful, and you look even more beautiful in that shawl. I forget the name of the stitch you used to make it, but I think it is amazing that you learned how to knit a whole shawl just by reading one book. I wish I could put my mind to things like you can.

I am also glad that you liked the handbag that I got you. I knew it would become your favorite on account of the pretty picture the beads make. I want to know all the things that you like so that I can make sure you always have them. I figure that way you will always want me around.

Meet me on Friday at noon by the big picture rock.

I love you.

Dirk

July 29, 1883

Dear Frances

Remember when we were in Cappy’s, eating the crackers he orders special from California, and you said that from then on the crackers would be your favorite because they would always remind you of me? Well, I met a trader yesterday who had a whole wagon full of them and I bought you four tins.

I also bought a rock from him because this rock has been polished to show a picture that looks just like the landscape by one of our meeting places. He called it an agate and said that the picture was made by nature, but it looks so real I can hardly believe it. I am thinking of a way to surprise you with it, because it is as special as you are.

I will meet you Tuesday at three by the three arm cactus. Your father has people watching for me all over the county. I guess you got some of your smartness from him.

I love you.

Dirk

August 19,1883

Dear Frances,

I still don’t know how you got a whole cake out to our last meeting place like you did, but it was the best thing I ever ate and the prettiest, too, what with that fancy flower you put on it. Now I think it is the best cake recipe in the world, too.

But nothing is as good as getting a letter from you. Whenever I see a flower like the one on your favorite letter paper, I think of you. I miss you something awful. I wish I could start over, because if I could, I would forget about all this stealing and be a rancher or farmer or miner or shopkeeper or whatever you wanted me to be, just so we could always be together.

Be at Charlie’s grave at sunset this Thursday.

I love you.

Dirk
“Aw, these are so cute,” you say, leaning against Ed. “I wonder how they met. How this all got started.”Ed lets out a thoughtful hum. “She was playing piano,” he says, sounding suddenly distant. You look at him, and it looks like he’s far away, remembering something from a long time ago. “She was playing piano at a saloon, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard, and she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.”You frown, leaning closer, waiting to see if he’ll continue. When he doesn’t, you tap his arm. “Ed? Sweetheart?” He breathes in sharply, blinking and looking around, somewhat lost, until his eyes land on you. “Where’d you go?”“What?”“Where did that come from?”“Um, I…” Ed shakes his head, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know, just…a feeling. I guess. Or something.”“Okay.” You frown, rubbing his shoulder. “You okay?”“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Ed rubs his hand over his forehead, giving his head another shake. He stands, reaching out to help you up. “I don’t know, the longer we’re here, the more I get this, like…weird fucking feeling. Like…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to explain it.”“Like, familiarity,” you say, knowing exactly what he means. “Like you’ve been here before.”“Exactly.” You’re both silent for a long moment, just looking at each other, trying to work through whatever it is that’s going on here. But it’s too ephemeral to understand, there’s not enough information to figure it out, not yet at least, and Ed huffs. “Okay, so what do we know now? Dirk supposedly left treasure behind for Frances to find, and set up, like, some sort of scavenger hunt to find it.”“We’ve got the petroglyph grid that supposedly spells out a message, and then the other clue he mentioned in his other letter,” you add. “Her favorite flowers and the flowers on her favorites.”“Hey, there was that….” Ed pulls out his notepad, turning to a fresh page. “What was the flower that Meryl mentioned in his journal that he let die? Harry’s something?”“Harrison’s Yellow,” you say. You flip through the letter again. “And here, he mentions a couple more things… The shawl… He said she used a specific stitch to make it. The portrait he’s talking about is probably the one hanging in the den. And then…this handbag.”“There was a handbag in the cellar, but it looked damaged. I didn’t see a flower on it.” He writes it down anyway, joining the list of flowers-and-flowers-on-favorites.“Then the crackers…” You shake your head. “Shit, how are we supposed to figure out what kind of crackers she liked from 130 years ago?”“Good fucking question. What else did he mention? Her stationery? There was a flower on there. And then that rock that had a picture on it, but he said that it looked like one of their meeting spots, not necessarily a flower.”“The cake,” you say, pointing to it on the paper. “There’s a fancy flower on it, apparently.”Ed looks up at you. “You know, I noticed an old recipe box in the kitchen. Maybe the recipe she used is in there.”You shrug. “It’s a long shot, but, well, so is everything else about this case.”“Anything else he mentions?” Ed looks up over his notepad and you shake your head. “Well, we should get started then. Long day ahead of us. First up is figuring out where those petroglyphs are. Maybe once we have his message we’ll know what to do next.”With a brief pause in the cellar to grab the beaded handbag Ed saw—it’s not much more than a large coin purse, white with a beaded bird on it, a space where part of the picture has clearly fallen off—you head up the stairs and through the secret door in the bookshelf, into the den.“Oh, Frances’ portrait!” you say, making a beeline across the room for it. You lean in, looking closely at the stitching on the teal shawl Frances is wearing. “This is actually quite detailed,” you remark, pulling out your phone.It’s the first time you’re using its internet capabilities, and you navigate to a search engine, looking up knitting stitches. The phone is slow, but it does the job, providing a long list of websites all about knitting. You scroll through, frowning slightly, until you hit one that looks exactly like the stitching on the shawl.“The daisy stitch,” you say, holding your phone out to show Ed.He looks between the two, nodding. “Yeah, that looks right.” He writes daisy down before pocketing his notepad.“Well, that’s two flowers,” you say brightly as you head into the kitchen.Jack is back at the stove. He looks over his shoulder with a scowl. “Come to paw through more of my stuff?”“Uh, no, actually,” you say. “Sorry about before.”Jack rolls his eyes. “Fuck, whatever, man. I get it. Sometimes you just have to check out what someone’s got in their trash, find that good blackmail material.”You exchange a glance with Ed. “Sure… Anyway, uh, have you been out to the pump house by any chance?”“Don’t get me fucking started,” Jack grumbles. “All the water to the ranch house has been cut off, so now, anytime we want a single fucking drop of water, we’ve gotta get it from the fucking faucet in the pump house. Why can’t that fucking horse do its curse thing somewhere else? It’s bullshit.”“So you actually think it’s a curse?” you ask skeptically.“Well, sure. I saw the pipe. It was rusted through. That’s why it burst.” Jack chuckles. “That and bad vibes from the fucking horse.”“Speaking of the horse,” Ed says, “you said you thought it was Dirk Valentine’s horse, right? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the treasure that Dirk supposedly hid around here for Frances Humber to find, would you?”Jack laughs, rolling his eyes. “Fuck, you guys think if there was a chance that Valentine’d hid his loot here, I wouldn’t be tearing this place apart trying to find it? Please, I’d rip this ranch apart board by board with my bare hands if I had to.” He frowns, narrowing his eyes at you. “Why? What do you know about it?”Ed glances at you and shrugs. “Just something we heard.”“Yeah, well, when I heard that rumor, I started reading everything about Dirk Valentine I could get my hands on.”“You were reading?” you can’t help but ask, and Ed stifles a laugh.“Yeah, I was reading. You got a fucking problem with that?” Jack snaps. You shake your head, biting back a grin. “Anyway, the more I read, the more it sounded like he just suckered Frances into believing he’d hidden something for her just to keep her on the hook. She must’ve been one hell of a lay for him to keep coming around.”“Hm, lovely,” you say distastefully.Jack scoffs. “What? Guy like that, you think he actually cared about her?”“Of course he did,” Ed says. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”“And you do?”“Okay!” you say loudly. “Well, it’s been a pleasure, Jack, as always, talking to you, but we’ve got some things to get to so…”“Whatever,” Jack says, rolling his eyes. Under his breath, he mutters, “Fucking weirdos.”“Asshole,” Ed comments as soon as you’re back outside.“Yeah.”Across the yard, Dave is back at his spot, working on repairing the chicken fence. He turns when he hears you approaching, and you swear his face flames up like an oil rag suddenly exposed to oxygen when he sees you.“Hey, guys,” he says, bashful. He sticks his hands in his pockets and looks down, actually scuffing the ground with his boot. “Guess I’m gonna be blushing every time I see you now.”Yesterday, Ed might have teased him about that, flirted a little, but today, fresh off Dave’s “betrayal,” he just says, “Whatever, we’ve been known to do some sneaking around from time to time. But since you apparently know a lot more about Dirk Valentine than you originally let on, you mind if we ask you some questions?”“I suppose not.”“After Dirk was arrested, do you have any idea where the jail he stayed in would have been?”“Oh, probably up in Dry Creek,” he says. He points to the northwest. “It’s a ghost town now. But the jailhouse and a couple of other old buildings are still standing. Least they were last I saw. It’s about an hour and a half ride.”“You said your great aunt got a letter from Frances Humber,” you ask. “Could we see it?”“Got it right here,” Dave says, patting one of the pockets on his vest. “When I heard you two were detectives, I started keeping it on me. Thought you might snoop through my stuff or something.” He pulls it out and hands it to you.The paper is yellowing with age, like all the other letters you found, but the stationary is still beautiful. A golden decorative frame runs along the edges, and the top right corner is adorned with a large, artistically rendered lily. Glancing over the paper, you realize this is the first time you’re seeing Frances’ script, and it pings something in you, something familiar, like so many other aspects of this case do.
Dearest cousin Ellie,

My beloved Dirk is no more. I shall never see him again, and now you will never see me again, for I am on my way East, there to spend the rest of my life. I will never return to the Territory of Arizona; not even when my father, whom I despise with every part of my being, has left this Earth.

But know this, sweet Ellie. Dirk told me that he had hidden something of great value and that, when all was in place, he would start me in pursuit of it (he was forever inventing fanciful ways to tax my brain, and was quite clever himself). Then, thanks to my father, he was arrested.

Perhaps he wrote me from jail and his note was lost, or perhaps he grew to hate me… But he never told me how to find what he had hidden, and I am too heartsick to care. If you can somehow find it, it’s yours, my dear young Cousin.

Know, too, that I miss you terribly, and always, always will.

Frances

P.S. Enclosed is a picture of the vilest man ever born.
“A bit melodramatic,” you say with a frown. “But then she was, what, 18?” You fold the letter up and hand it back to Dave. “Thank you.”“We’ll let you get back to…whatever it is you’re doing,” Ed says.“Actually, before you head out…” Dave smiles sheepishly. “I feel bad even asking, what with you being guests and everything, but this chicken coop’s been a thorn in my side ever since I got here. The wire I need to fix the hole in the fence was supposed to be delivered today, but it’s not here yet, and the Rawleys just called and asked me to run an errand for them tonight. If you could keep an eye out for that chicken wire and patch that hole as soon as it gets here, the chickens and I’d really appreciate it.”“Uh…” You look at Ed, not sure what to say. You’ve never fixed a wire fence in your life, and you’re not sure about Ed, but from the way he’s frowning, you think maybe he hasn’t either. “And how exactly—”“Yeah, we can do it,” Ed says suddenly. “I mean, we’ve fixed plenty of stuff, I’m sure we can figure it out.”“Um, sure,” you agree, though you’re not so confident.“Aw, that’s really great,” Dave says, smiling brightly. “Just be sure to wear gloves. I’ll leave my pliers out. If you have to do it at night, that’s okay. There should be plenty of moonlight to see by. Just make sure it gets done.” His voice goes a little stern as he warns, “Cause if it doesn’t, the coyotes are gonna have themselves one heck of a banquet, and you’re gonna be in a lot of hot water.”You look into the chicken coop, and one of the hens looks directly back at you. It stares at you for a long moment, like it’s saying, “My life is completely in your hands. Please keep me safe. You’re all that stands between life and being a coyote’s dinner.”“Great. No pressure,” you say, smiling stiffly.You give your goodbyes, then finally make your way to the stable. The horses are in, waiting for you, just as they were yesterday, and you grin, shaking your head as Ed immediately goes to Kraken to greet him. You say hello to Arthur as well, fondly rolling your eyes at the cooing coming from right next to you.You rest your chin on Ed’s shoulder, circling his waist from behind. “You’re so cute.”“I just love him,” Ed says with a syrupy sweet voice, stroking down Kraken’s forehead between his eyes.“I know you do, darling.” You kiss his cheek. “Come on. Let’s get their saddles and everything and then we’ll be right back with them.”“Fine,” Ed says with a sigh. He gives Kraken a few more pats before heading into the tack room with you.Anne is in her normal spot, today working on putting together another bridle. “Well, well, morning, boys,” she says with a coy smile.“Morning.”“You know, I do actually have a sister,” she says, suddenly out of nowhere. “And it just so happens she did used to work for the Rawleys.”“Okay,” you say. So J. Bonny is the Jane Bonny who wrote the threatening letter to the Rawleys. “So why didn’t you just tell us that?”“Honestly, my sister is…complicated,” she says, and it’s possibly the first time you’ve seen the genuine Anne come out from behind the flirtation. “And I don’t like people who pry into my private affairs. But…yeah, she worked for the Rawleys, she got fired, she got mad, and she got over it.”“So, what, it’s just a coincidence you started working for the Rawleys, too?” Ed asks.“No, of course not. Janey told me they were starting a ranch, got me interested in what they were doing, so I checked them out and they hired me.” She shrugs, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “No hard feelings on any side.”“So all the stuff that’s going on around here,” you ask, “it’s not because you’re helping her get back at the Rawleys for firing her?”She laughs, shaking her head. “God, no. Honestly, Jane’s a flake. I probably would have fired her too.”You nod thoughtfully, exchanging a look with Ed. So it seems that revenge for Jane Bonny’s termination isn’t the reason for the sabotage. But that doesn’t necessarily remove all suspicion from Anne. There could be another motive.You turn to the saddles, then pause, like a thought’s just occurred to you. “Hey, I was wondering, has anyone ever tried going after the phantom horse when it appears?”“No, so far that hasn’t been very high on the list of priorities,” Anne says, resting her head on her hand. “There’s always something else going on that needs our attention, like Jeb Rawley getting bit by that snake or the pump house exploding.” She shrugs. “Plus, good luck. That horse is fast. I don’t think any of my boys could catch it even if we tried.”“Unnaturally fast?” Ed asks.“No, not at all. It’s probably been bred for speed, unlike my boys.” She quirks a smile at Ed. “Do you actually think it’s a ghost horse?”“Could be,” Ed says, brushing past you to grab Kraken’s saddle. “I’m not discounting the possibility.” Anne doesn’t respond, just hums thoughtfully, her eyes flicking between you and Ed.“Well, we’re going to head out to go riding, if that’s okay.”Anne makes sure you and Ed have everything you need, your canteens, hats, gloves. She sends you off with a dismissive wave of her hand when you both pass muster, and you head out of the tack room, collecting Kraken and Arthur on your way through to the corral.“Yesterday Mary said there was a collection of petroglyphs toward the south, right?” you ask as you and Ed set out on the trail.“Yeah, Cougar Bend,” Ed says. He pulls out his map, frowning as he searches for the name. “Here.” He points to an area showing a small range of mountains. “Looks like if we keep following the trail past her shop, it’ll eventually wind back around and take us there.”“Perfect.”You ride in companionable silence for about 10 minutes, taking the trail you took yesterday that leads out to Mary Read’s shop. You’re reaching the edge of the Badmintons’ property when you see movement out of the corner of your eye. You slow to a walk, calling to Ed to look. There’s a figure next to the fence that lines the edge of the property to the east, a large stretch of land where the Shadow Ranch cattle are let out to graze.“Is that…Mary Read?” Ed asks, squinting in the distance.It certainly looks like her, waiting restlessly by the fence. She has a beautiful cream-colored horse with her, eating from a patch of grass near the edge of the fence.“I think so. What’s she doing out here?”Ed shakes his head. “No idea. Looks like she’s waiting for something.”“Meeting someone maybe? It’s odd, either way.” Another thing to add to the list of suspicious behaviors around here.You continue on, slowing only when you near Mary’s shop to see that she’s closed for the time being, confirming that that was indeed Mary you saw. The rest of the journey is relatively uneventful. The scenery is beautiful, growing more rocky as you approach the mountains. At one point you stop to give the horses a rest and have some water. You can see the mountains in the distance, beyond a stretch of sparse land, dotted with cacti and scraggly brush. There’s a makeshift grave here, marking the final resting place of Charlie, the “best mule what evr lived. Never kikked me or nuthin,” who passed in 1881.You set out again and it’s a short ride to the place marked on the map. You navigate the horses into a small canyon, rock walls stretching up on either side. It’s immediately apparent that this is the place Dirk Valentine was referring to in his letter to Frances. The rock formation is remarkably similar to the one drawn on the grid. Even from a distance you can make out some of the markings etched into the stone.You dismount your horses, leaving them to wait at the entrance to the canyon, per Anne’s instructions that they’ll wait wherever you leave them. As you approach the wall, you dig through your pack for the grid. By wordless agreement, you get started with marking down each petroglyph. Ed scouts for each one, pointing them out to you for you to mark down and then write out the corresponding letters at the bottom of the sheet. It’s not difficult, and before long the message starts to spell itself out and you can extrapolate most of it, save for one portion that seems to be a name.And, of course, those glyphs just so happen to be up on a ridge, inaccessible from where you are.You crane your neck, frowning. “How are we gonna get up there? It’s too high for a boost.”Ed sucks in a breath. “No fucking way,” he says excitedly. “Hang on.”“Ed!” You watch him as he runs back to the horses, digging around in one of the packs.He comes back brandishing a rope, tying one end into a large loop. “You’re joking,” you say, realizing at once what he’s doing.“Nope.” Ed grins. He lets the rope slip through his fingers until there’s some slack between his hands and the loop.“You’re seriously going to try and lasso it?” There’s a log hanging over the edge, and that must be what Ed’s going to aim for.“Not gonna try, babe,” he says, winking at you. You shake your head, but your cheeks flush anyway at the way he confidently smirks before even starting. He lifts the rope, twirling it above his head, and to your surprise, it actually loops the way it does in all those cowboy movies. With his long hair coming loose from his braid, beard, wide-brimmed hat, and flannel and jeans, Ed almost looks the part, like he might have walked right off the set of an old Western. You lean against the rock wall, just taking a moment to fully appreciate exactly how beautiful Ed is, how talented and brilliant.Ed lets the rope fly and it hooks onto the log on his first try. He raises his arms, letting out a whoop, turning to look at you with a bright smile. “Did you see that, babe?” he asks excitedly.“I did,” you say. “Very impressive, darling.”Ed lowers his arms, giving you an inquisitive look. “What?”“Oh, nothing, really,” you say. You push off from the wall, taking a few steps closer to Ed. “Just thinking about how gorgeous you are. And incredible. And brilliant.” He closes the distance as you keep coming toward him, coming right to your arms so you can kiss him, trying to convey how much you love him, how amazing he is, with just your lips. “Always surprising me,” you say softly, kissing him again. “Where’d you learn that?”“I may have been into Westerns when I was a kid,” he says, somewhat bashfully. “Kind of thought I would be a cowboy when I grew up, but, you know.”“Aw, sweetheart, that’s so cute.” You smile, picturing little baby Ed, playing outside, teaching himself how to lasso and pretending to round up cattle, and whatever else it is that cowboys do.“Fuck off,” he says affectionately, kissing you.There’s, honestly, a bit more kissing, maybe a little groping, who can say, before you both remember that you’re here for a purpose, and you turn back to the task at hand. Ed grabs the rope, giving it a firm tug. “I’ll head up and get the rest of them, if you want to wait down here.”“All right, sounds good.”“Really?” Ed says, raising his eyebrows. “Thought you’d at least put up a cursory argument.”“And miss getting to watch you climb up there? With your arms, and the perfect view of your ass?”Ed’s mouth drops open. “Fuck, I didn’t even think of that.” He glances down to your arms, pouting.“Nope, too late,” you say turning him around and pushing him toward the rope. “My turn to gawk.”“Fine,” he says, rolling his eyes and laughing. You step back and he looks over his shoulder, tossing his braid back at the same time. He juts his hip to the side, pursing his lips. “This doing it for you, baby?”You laugh, whistling appreciatively. “Absolutely, babe.” Ed strikes another pose and you fan yourself, both of you laughing as Ed grabs the rope for real, climbing up. “You good, Ed?” you call as Ed’s feet disappear over the edge.“Yep, all good!” he calls back. “Just give me a couple minutes!”You lean back against the wall, pulling out your phone to check it, but you have no service. You sigh, putting it back in your pocket. You look around the canyon. It’s a bit creepy out here all alone, actually. Something about the sparseness of the foliage, the distant caws of vultures, no sign of any other people or animals to be seen.Thankfully it’s not long before Ed’s popping his head back over the edge. “Got it! Coming down.”“Be careful!” you call and he gives you a thumb’s up.He shimmies down the rope, back down at your level within seconds. “Missed you,” he says, pulling you in to kiss your cheek.“Missed you too,” you say, giggling as he moves to your neck, nuzzling below your jaw. And you really mean it too. Maybe it’s a bit pathetic—any therapist would say you and Ed have a horribly codependent relationship—but it’s true, even though he was only out of your sight for a few minutes. Sometimes you think about bonded pairs, about soulmates, about the way that your entire being calls out for Ed’s when you’re apart and you can’t help but wonder if there’s something to that whole one-soul-split-into-two story.Ed’s mouth moves to your earlobe, giving it a nip before whispering, “Beneath Cappy’s keys Mammy’s name please.”Um. What?“What?” you ask, pulling back. You frame Ed’s face with both hands, studying his eyes. “Sweetheart, are you having a stroke?”“No,” Ed says, chuckling. “That’s what the message is. ‘Beneath Cappy’s keys Mammy’s name please.’” He shows you the paper where, indeed, that phrase is scrawled on the bottom, the solution to the puzzle Dirk made for Frances.“Oh. Okay, that makes more sense.” You study the paper for a moment. “Cappy. We’ve heard that name before. Dirk mentioned them in his letters. And Mammy would probably be…Dirk’s mother?”“Sounds right,” Ed agrees. “So we’ve just got to figure out Mammy’s name and where Cappy’s keys are. Easy enough.”“We’ve solved harder puzzles,” you say. “But I think maybe it’s time to call Jackie back.”It’s not until you’re back near Mary’s shop that reception returns on your phone and you’re able to make the call. Figuring you may as well stop and see if she’s in now, you ride the rest of the way there, setting Kraken and Arthur up at the trough to get some water before you call Jackie.The phone rings a few times, and then the same man, Jackie’s husband apparently, answers the phone. “Jackie Delahaye’s office?”“Hi, this is Stede Bonnet. May I speak to Ms. Delahaye?”“Oh, she told me to put you right through?” the husband says, sounding amazed. “She even told me to make sure you don’t have to listen to that hold music anymore? Wow?”There’s a click, and then a slight pause, and then Jackie’s voice comes on the phone. “Bonnet. So what have you discovered?”You fill her in on the basics of what you’ve found so far: Dirk’s hidden letters, Meryl’s journal, the contents of the trunk and the hidden compartment of the blanket chest and the stairs, and the answer to the first puzzle Dirk had set up for Frances.“Mammy, huh?” Jackie says. You can hear the rustling of papers in the background. “Mammy would probably refer to Dirk’s mother, Cashmeena Valentine. She was a seamstress over in Prescott.”“Would Frances know who she was?” you ask.“Oh, yes. Dirk worshipped his mother.”“What about someone named Cappy?”“Cappy Munger,” Jackie answers immediately. “He was the leading citizen of Dry Creek, Arizona, now a ghost town as I understand it. The closest town to Shadow Mountain. Population at its peak was 317. Cappy’s saloon contained the only piano within 50 miles.” You can hear the grin in her voice as she continues, “Frances, being a boss-ass bitch, taught herself how to play it. That’s apparently how she met Dirk. He heard her composing a song one day and fell in love on the spot.”“Really?” You glance at Ed. That’s remarkably similar to what Ed had said earlier, the faraway look in his eyes when he had said Frances was playing the piano when they met.“You doubting me, Bonnet?” Jackie asks.“No, no,” you rush to say. “Not at all. That’s just…I heard something similar from someone else.”“Right,” she says skeptically.“Well, that’s all we needed for now,” you say. “We’ll keep you apprised of anything else we find. Thank you for all your help.”“I’ll be waiting.”You hang up, turning to Ed. “How did you know?” you ask.Ed frowns, shaking his head. “Know what?”“How they met?” You clarify, “Dirk and Frances. You said he saw her playing piano and she was the most beautiful person he ever saw.”“I…” Ed looks down, lips turned down in confusion. “I said that?”“After we found the bottle under the stairs.”“Oh, I guess…” He hesitates, frowning in concentration as he struggles to remember. “I guess I don’t know. I just…had a feeling. Like I was trying to remember something that happened a long time ago.”“Okay,” you say, waiting to see if Ed has more to say about the topic. When he doesn’t continue, you say, “Should we stop in by Mary before heading up to Dry Creek?”“Yeah, all right,” Ed says.The bell gives a familiar tinkle as you step through the door. Mary looks up, sees that it’s you, and gives you a nod. “Hey, guys. You actually gonna buy something today, or just gonna ask more questions?”“The latter, actually,” you say with an apologetic smile. You come around the counter. “We were wondering, you must know a lot of people around here. Hear a lot of stories.” Mary nods with a shrug, a yeah, sure gesture. “Do you know anything about the treasure Dirk Valentine supposedly buried somewhere around Shadow Ranch?”Mary snorts. “Yeah, I know it’s a load of fucking hogwash.”“Really? What makes you say that?”“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “If I had a fucking nickel for every lost mine or buried treasure story I’ve heard since moving here, I’d have fucking…10 horses, two cars, and maybe even my own helicopter. It’s nothing but a tall tale.”“Oh, well that’s disappointing.”“Is this your palomino?” Ed asks. He’s holding up a framed picture of Mary riding a beautiful cream-colored horse. One that looks very similar to the one you saw Mary with near Shadow Ranch.“That’s my horse, Banner,” she says, actually cracking a smile. “Trained him myself.”“Do you train a lot of horses around here?”“Not a lot. I’ve helped a few friends out with training, but mostly I just stick to training my own.”You take the picture from Ed, giving it a good look before setting it back down. “You know, I could have sworn I saw you with this horse earlier today near Shadow Ranch. Do you ride there a lot?”Mary’s expression shutters. “You’re wrong. Shadow Ranch is private fucking property, so I would never ride there. You saw someone else.”You exchange a look with Ed. “Well, whoever it was had a palomino that looked just like yours.”“I’m fucking telling you, it wasn’t me,” she says, her voice low. She points at you, leaning over the counter with one hand pressed to the tile. “So don’t you go telling people you saw me trespassing, because you fucking didn’t. Now get out.” She sweeps her hand to the door.Her eyes burn on your back as you leave, right on Ed’s heels. The door slams behind you and Ed grimaces. “Well, that went well.”You saddle up and head out, spying Mary glaring at you from the window as you pass by. You wave, giving her a friendly smile, and she scowls, disappearing from the frame.Ed laughs, steering Kraken closer to shove your arm. “You’re such a bitch.”“Yes, I am,” you say proudly. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”“I would have you any way,” Ed corrects, “but I especially love you this way.”The trail to Dry Creek is long but it passes quickly as you and Ed take the opportunity to just be together like you haven’t really gotten a chance to on this trip. You chat about the ranch, things besides just the mystery you’re working on. Ed brings up the possibility of having an outdoor wedding, which has always been what you’ve pictured when you’ve imagined your wedding anyway, so you readily agree, and discuss options for where and when. Ed tells you more about wanting to be a cowboy when he was a kid, how his mother would use what scraps of fabric she could to sew together a costume for him to play.Dry Creek reveals itself on the horizon as a tiny collection of rundown buildings. A few are completely collapsed, clearly not safe to enter, but some are still standing. The jailhouse is up and wide open. Ed goes in first and you follow. There are three cells, metal bars still holding up after all these years. The wall of the first has collapsed, bricks strewn about in crumbling piles. The cells all each still hold the metal frame of a bunkbed, and a desk covered with a thick layer of dust faces them in the center of the room.“Which do you think was Dirk’s?” you ask, but Ed’s already heading to the last of the cells, down at the end. It’s the one that has held up best out of the three, walls and ceiling still in tact.Ed tries the cell door, but it doesn’t budge, just rattling. “Locked. Shit. What are the chances the key is still around here somewhere?” he asks, falsely optimistic.“We could try to pick it?” you suggest.Ed crouches down, eyeing it up. “Yeah, I don’t know, mate. Sometimes with these old ones…”“Yeah.” You give it a try anyway for a good several minutes, but with no success. “Well, either we keep an eye out for the key, or we come back with a way to get this door off.”You head out of the building and down the short main street. The general store is sagging, the roof and walls partially collapsed. The bank next to it actually seems to be fairly sturdy still, but completely boarded up. You can’t see a way in without coming back with a crowbar to get through. There’s a small hotel at the end on one side of the street, though the only way you can identify it as a hotel is by what little remains of the sign. The roof has completely collapsed, broken timber sticking up dangerously at all angles. At the end of the street is a small cemetery, and across from the hotel is the only other building still standing. The sign above the building proclaims it to be Cappy’s.“Babe. Babe.” Ed grabs your arm, pointing. At first you think it’s excitement over finally finding the infamous Cappy’s, but he squeaks out, “The doors!” and you realize he’s pointing to the saloon doors.They’re exactly like you see in movies, when cowboys make their dramatic entrances, pushing the doors open with both hands and walking in, spurs tinging with each step, the doors swinging behind them. You grin, tilting your head. “Go on then,” you say and Ed’s eyes light up.His back straightens and he tips his hat further down, a shadow falling over his eyes. Ed steps onto the boards of the porch, the wood creaking dangerously. He lets his boots thud on the planks with each step, the sound echoing through the empty street. His fingers curl over the tops of the doors and he pauses, clearly taking the time to savor the moment, and then he pushes through with a gruff, “Bad news, sheriff…” He pauses dramatically. “This town belongs to Blackbeard now.”Silence rings out for a moment, and then you break into a slow clap, smiling and shaking your head. Ed pokes his head back out the door. “How was that?”“Extremely adorable,” you say and Ed wrinkles his nose.“It was supposed to be extremely cool,” he says, pouting.Which is, of course, also extremely adorable.He backs up as you come through the doors, slipping an arm around his shoulders. “It was extremely cool and extremely adorable,” you say, pressing a kiss to his cheek.You take your first look around the room. It’s a small building, just a single room with what would have been a bar on one end, now piled with debris, and a piano on the other. There are still a few old photographs hanging on the orange-wallpapered walls, and several more clearly having fallen from their nails, glass and frames cracked on the ground.The bar appears to be a solid block of wood, carved skillfully but plainly. Above it is a wrought iron decoration, attached to the ceiling and stretching across the width of the room. Any shelving that was behind the bar to hold the alcohol is long gone, a shattered mirror exposing a light wood plank stretching along the length of the wall. The bar is mostly covered with broken timber and other debris, though sitting almost suspiciously conveniently to one side is a large tin.You pick it up, studying the image. It’s mostly faded, too faded to make out the picture or the name beyond -er Crackers: Even the Crumbs are Crisp!Ed has wandered to the one remaining table in the place, which has been pushed against the wall. An old stool is overturned on the top, next to a pile of books. They look out of place, almost like new, save for the layer of dust coating them.Ed wipes at the dust, frowning, and holds the book up to show you. “An electrician’s manual,” he says. “What’s this doing here?”“Maybe the same reason that is,” you say, turning him to look in the opposite corner of the room.A sleeping bag is spread out, another rolled up beside it. A crate has been overturned to use as a bedside table, an empty water bottle, lighter, and cup set up on it. The hair on the back of your neck immediately stands up. “Someone’s been hanging out in here,” you say, voice low. Has someone been out here the entire time you have, hiding away, watching you?“Bank robbers,” Ed says suddenly, grabbing your arm.“What?”“There was an article in one of the newspapers I grabbed to use as kindling yesterday that said bank robbers from Denver were seen in the area. Maybe they’ve been hiding out here.”“Well, in any case, they’re not here right now, so maybe let’s finish up here and get the hell out?”You turn simultaneously to the piano. There’s no doubt in your mind that Dirk’s message was referring to it, seeing it still here and knowing what you do about Frances’ love of the piano and how she and Dirk met. It’s an old upright, possibly a player piano, judging from the panel above the keys. You lift the fallboard to reveal genuine ivories, surprisingly clear of dust, having been covered for probably the better part of a century. You plunk out a simple C Major scale, wincing at the sour notes. Obviously it hasn’t been tuned in decades.Ed kneels down and slides back a panel to reveal a hidden compartment. There are slots on the front with a jumble of letters. When he presses one, it turns, another letter taking its place. “Looks like this is where we put in Mammy’s name,” Ed says. “What was it? Cashmeena?”You nod and Ed enters the name as the password. There’s a light click, and then that panel slides up. There’s a yellowed piece of paper within and Ed pulls it out. You immediately recognized Dirk’s handwriting:
Take your forks and a crank to the Beady Eyes Ranch

And make sure you see what’s below.

When you stick the forks in and give it a spin,

Off towards my treasure you’ll go.
“A riddle,” you say. “Forks and a crank… Where’s the Beady Eyes Ranch?”Ed shrugs. “No fucking clue, mate. That’s not Shadow Ranch, is it?”“I don’t think so…”“Well, we’ll figure it out, I guess.” Ed stands, wincing as he shakes out his knee. “What I want to know is whether that still works.”He beelines to an ancient-looking machine, you close on his heels. It’s an old slot machine, you realize, a simple lever on one side and four slots with buttons beneath. It looks like it’s completely mechanical, no electricity required, which is good, because there’s no chance there’s any that runs all the way out here.Ed runs his finger over a thin slot on one side before digging in his pocket. He pulls out the coin he won from the game at Mary Read’s shop yesterday. “You think that’s what these were for?” he asks.“Only one way to find out,” you say.Ed pushes the coin in and pulls the lever and the machine whirs to life. The slots spin one by one, each one stopping to reveal a different cartoon image, each one with a name. Above the slots, the machine instructs you to MAKE the MEANEST ROUGHEST and TOUGHEST GANG in the WEST and WIN.“I guess that means keep the mean-looking ones?” you say, pointing to a particularly rough looking man with a walrus mustache—not unlike Jack’s, now that you think of it—apparently named Rotten Rudy.There’s one other nasty looking person, and Ed presses the buttons for each, locking them in place. He pulls the lever again and the remaining two spin, each stopping to reveal someone you would definitely describe as the MEANEST.Ed shouts in delight as the machine spits out two coins. He takes one and flips the other to you. “How’s that for luck?” he asks smugly. “First try.”“There’s a name for that,” you say, pocketing the coin.“God’s favorite?”“Yes, exactly.”You head out of the saloon to go back to your horses. As you step into the street, you swear you see movement in the bank out of the corner of your eye and you whip around to look. You study the building for a long moment, but nothing seems out of place.“Babe?”You shake your head. “I thought I saw something, but…” You tear your eyes away from the crumbling building and back to Ed, shaking your head more confidently. “Probably just an animal or my eyes playing tricks on me.” You take his hand and start down the road. “Let’s get out of here anyway. We’ve got some new things to research.”You’re nearing Shadow Ranch when, again, you see a figure standing off in the distance, but this time it isn’t just them and their horse. There’s another person with them, standing close, looking like they’re in the middle of a conversation.“Darling,” you say, pointing to them.You both slow down a bit, studying the pair. “Is that Mary Read and…Anne?” Ed asks incredulously.“I think so. What are they doing together?”“I have no idea,” Ed says, “but whatever it is, Mary doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”“Well, I think that means we need to figure out what it is.” You urge Arthur into a trot, Ed right by your side. “Do you think they’re behind the horse and the sabotage? I mean, they both clearly know how to handle horses.”“Definitely possible,” Ed says.Only a few minutes later you’re leading the horses through the corral and into the stables. Anne isn’t there when you go to put your saddles away, only confirming that it indeed was her out there meeting Mary. A quick glance at her desk reveals nothing significant, some receipts for horse feed among the scattered tools and bridle parts. You don’t spend a long time in there; you’ve already been called out once for snooping through Anne’s things and caught going through Jack’s.Heading out into the yard, you see Dave still at the chicken coop and you wave at him. He waves bashfully back and Ed sighs. “He’s still cute,” he says mournfully and you laugh.Inside, Ed heads into the kitchen to bake the cake Jack had delegated to you. Ed is significantly more skilled than you at anything to do with preparing food, so you leave him to it as he rifles through the old recipe box on the counter. You head to the den to make some calls.First is to the sheriff to inform him of the possibility of bank robbers—or someone else—hiding out in Dry Creek. It’s a quick conversation, and Hernandez promises to check it out when he has a chance. Next, you call Jackie Delahaye on a hunch. If there’s anyone who would know how to figure out the name of those crackers you found—working on the assumption that they’re the crackers Dirk referred to in his love letter—it would be an author known for her research into Western history and culture.When you ask her, she pauses and then says, “You know, you’ve got some weird-ass questions, little man.”You sigh in disappointment. “Does that mean you don’t know?”“No,” she says, “but I can find out. It’s details like that that have gotten Jackie a shit-ton of awards for historical accuracy.”After you thank her and say goodbye, you poke your head in the kitchen to check on Ed. He’s mixing ingredients up, ignoring Jack’s attempts at chatting him up. He must be able to feel you looking at him, because he glances back at you, smiling and winking when he catches your eye. You smile back and head back to the den.With nothing else to do, you call up Lucius. When his sullen voice answers, you can’t help but chuckle a bit at how depressed he sounds. “No news on when you’re getting out of St. Louis, I’m guessing?” you ask.Lucius groans. “No, and I don’t want to talk about it. Please, god, tell me you have something interesting that I can be completely jealous about you experiencing and not me.”You hum thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see. We found a hidden cellar and a hidden compartment in the hidden stairs leading to the hidden cellar in a hidden tunnel, and in there we found a hidden green bottle—”“The green bottle on the back of that picture!” Pete exclaims.“Yup,” you confirm. “And in the bottle were love letters Dirk had written to Frances.”Pete makes a sound like he’s choking. “Hidden love letters!”“And, if you remember, Dirk had told Frances to keep her favorite flowers in mind as a clue… Well, he clearly was referencing those in his letters, and we’ve got a couple already. Daisy, because she used a daisy stitch to knit a shawl. Lily on her personalized stationary.”“Tulip!” Ed says, suddenly at your side, making you jump.“Tulip?”“Tulip. Cake’s finished, and turns out along with the recipe, the pattern Frances used to decorate the cake was saved, and it’s a tulip.”“Incredible!” you say, giving Ed a quick hug. “That’s, what, four that we’ve got now?”“That’s gotta be nearly all of them,” Ed answers. “There’s whatever those crackers are called, and…”“The bag,” you finish dejectedly. “I don’t have any idea how we’re supposed to figure out what the design was on that.”“What’s this bag?” Lucius asks.“Oh, a little beaded handbag that Dirk got for Frances. It’s got a pretty design on it, a bird, but part of the design is missing, and it’s likely it might be one of the flowers.”“Stede. Oh my god. Okay. Important question.” Pete’s voice grows louder as he seems to take control of the phone. “Is there any kind of manufacturer or number on it?”“Uh, yeah…” you say. You shrug off your backpack and dig in it, pulling the handbag in question out. “Yeah, it does. ‘Chicago Mercantile Company.’”“Fuck! Babe!” Pete says, clearly talking to Lucius now. “This fucking book might actually be good for something! Okay.” He’s addressing you again. “There should be a serial number on it.”“HB3941,” you say.“Okay, okay, just give me some time and I’ll see if I can find the pattern.”“That would be incredible,” you say. You exchange amazed an amazed look with Ed.“Yes,” Pete says. “Pete Black, here to save the day. Once again, all down to me. Cracking open the case.” You roll your eyes as Pete just keeps going. “Master sleuth. The king of research. Puzzle pro. Fucking—” You hang up the phone, not even bothering to say goodbye. You know Pete, and you know he can go on for a while.“Anyway, while they’re working on that, we can try and figure out the riddle from the piano.”Ed lets himself fall back onto the couch, stretching his legs out. “‘Take your forks and a crank to the Beady Eyes Ranch…’” Ed says, voice distant with thought. “The fuck does that mean?”“Well, the obvious first thought when it comes to forks are utensils.” You pat Ed’s head and he lifts it, giving you room to sit down. You brush your fingers lightly through his hair, smoothing back the strands that have come loose from the day of riding and sleuthing. “I don’t get the impression that Frances was one to have a specific set of cutlery though.”“Well, it’s a riddle, so what other kinds of forks are there?” Ed asks. His eyes flutter shut at your soft petting. “Fork in the road, fork something over, Morton’s fork…”“There’s a move in chess called a fork,” you say thoughtfully. It’s certainly not impossible that Frances and Dirk might have played chess together, clever as they both were. The answer seems like it should be more simple, though. Something that would have been obvious to Frances. “What did Frances like? What has Dirk mentioned that she enjoys?”“Flowers,” Ed says immediately, getting the most obvious answer out of the way. “Baking. Knitting. Music. Disobeying her father.”Something clicks in your mind and you poke Ed’s cheek. “Music! Tuning forks!”“Oh!” His eyes fly open and he sits up. “Fucking obviously.”“Darling, fuck, there was an old set of tuning forks in Mary’s shop, clearly antiques!” You grip his arm. “They had the initials FH on them!”“Okay, fucking back to the shop then!”The two of you rush out of the house and over to the stable. When you burst through the door to the tack room, Anne is back at her desk. She looks up at the intrusion, raising her eyebrows. “Where’s the fire, boys?” she asks.Her presence momentarily sidetracks you as you remember seeing her and Mary near the property. “Oh, Anne,” you say, stopping. You may as well ask her about it now, while you’ve got her. “Craziest thing: Ed and I could have sworn we saw you and Mary Read out together right outside the ranch’s property line.”Anne’s expression immediately shutters, her cheeks flushing. “Me and Mary Read? Of course not.” She attempts a flirty smile, though its impact is ruined by the hardness of her eyes. “Don’t be silly. I’ve barely talked to Mary Read. You must have been imagining things.”You glance at Ed, who looks just as convinced as you, which is to say not at all. “Sure… Weird. I mean, I was positive it was you.”“Sometimes the heat plays tricks on the mind,” she says, her smile still stiff. “Anyway, I have things to do, so if you could just leave me to them?” Without waiting for a response, she turns away, pulling some papers towards her and making a show of shuffling through them.You and Ed grab your saddles and head out, raising your eyebrows at each other. “Well, that wasn’t at all suspicious,” you mutter while you’re saddling up the horses.“There’s something up there,” Ed agrees, “although I’m not sure it has anything to do with this case.”The ride out to Mary’s shop is uneventful. Ed hangs back by the horses when you both dismount and you give him a questioning look.“I had a thought,” Ed says, frowning. “Can I use the cell phone while you’re in there?”“Of course,” you say, handing it over.Mary’s lips then when you come in, her gaze stony, but she doesn’t kick you out again, so you count that as a win. You head directly to the set of tuning forks, thankful that they’re still there. You lift the flap, ensuring the complete set is present, and grab them.Your eye catches on a large piece of shining wood, a segment of a trunk, swirls of white and red running through the grain. It’s beautiful, and it most definitely wasn’t here yesterday. You pause to look at it. There had been a few pieces of petrified wood displayed here before, but this one is more than twice the size of those. There’s a free pamphlet nearby that discusses how wood becomes petrified, the way different chemicals play into the colors that develop over time, and you pocket it on a whim.You approach the counter and hand the tuning forks over to be rung up. They’re pricy—of course they are, having belonged to a prominent family from the area—but nothing that your trust fund can’t handle. One of the perks of having been born into a sickeningly wealthy family, and one that you aren’t afraid to leverage when you need to.“Hey, that large piece of petrified wood,” you say as she’s ringing it up. “I don’t remember it being here yesterday. Where did you find it?”“Oh, a, uh, a friend brought it in,” Mary says, too casual. The fact that you’re actually buying something during this visit—something expensive, too—seems to have warmed her back up to you. “I bought it off them to sell.”“It’s beautiful,” you say. “Is there a lot of petrified wood in the area?”“If you know where to look,” she says enigmatically, giving you a tight-lipped smile. “Anyway, you’re all set.” She hands the forks back over to you. “The fuck are you going to do with these anyway?”“Stop a saboteur, ideally,” you say, thanking her before leaving.You hold them up to Ed, who’s leaning against a fence, squinting down at the phone screen. “Find anything out?” you ask and he looks up, leaning over to show you the screen.“I noticed all these marks carved into some of the buildings at Dry Creek,” he says, “and they kind of rang a bell. Now they use tags, but back in the day ranchers would use cattle brands to tell who they belonged to. They were these symbols that were made up of letters and numbers and shapes, and they were kind of a clever depiction of the name of the ranch.”You scroll through the page, a few catching your eye. Betty K Hart, which consisted of a B and K, the B turned backwards so the two letters shared the same stem, within a heart. Two for Tea Ranch, which depicted two numeral fours sitting on top of a capital T.“So Beady Eyes Ranch might not actually be the name of a ranch, but might refer to a brand. Like, say the name out loud, and don’t think about the words, think about the sounds.”“Beady Eyes Ranch,” you say, repeating it a few times, until, finally, “Oh! BDIIs!”“Exactly!” Ed’s eyes sparkle as they catch yours. “So we just have to find a symbol that looks like that—”“And we find whatever we’re supposed to stick these forks in!”The excitement is infectious, and Ed grabs you, fingers tight on your arms, pulling you in for a celebratory kiss. “Let’s fucking do this!”You each mount your horses, setting off back to Dry Creek. “We still don’t have the crank,” you remind him.“Yeah, well, we can figure that out when we get there,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe it’ll become obvious.”The brand is easy to find, it turns out. You split up, Ed taking the buildings on the right and you the buildings on the left to cover more ground. There’s only one symbol you can see on what remains of the general store, and it in no way shape or form has any relation to the letters B, D, or I, but you spot something down at the end of the porch and make your way over to it. It’s an odd contraption, possibly a grinder of some sort, but what really catches your attention is the crank on the side of it. The crank that apparently is easily detachable. You snatch it and keep looking for the mark.It’s only a few moments later that Ed is calling you over. He’s crouched down by the porch of the jailhouse. “Beady Eyes?” he asks, pointing at a mark carved into one of the floorboards.It’s a B and a D alright, the B backwards like in Betty K Hart’s brand, but this time the two letters aren’t combined by the same line. They’re separate, the lines of their stalks stretching past where the curves of the B and D meet them. The ends are capped with perpendicular lines, clearly meant to be two capital I’s.Ed pulls the board up and it comes away with little resistance. Beneath is…a box of some kind. It’s oddly shaped, rectangular but with a square section sticking out on one side. There’s a hole in that section, which is clearly where the crank is supposed to go. The top has several smaller holes dotted amongst a few letters: _R_N__S.“Frances,” you say immediately. “We have to put the tuning forks in to spell her name.”“Incredible,” Ed says, hoisting the box out of the hole. “You know, I saw a weird indentation in this shape in Cappy’s. You think it matters where we do it?”“I have no idea,” you answer, shaking your head. You hold up the crank. “But might as well try. If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, and if it does, then we’re already there.”Back in Cappy’s, Ed leads you to the end of the bar where there is indeed an indentation in the odd shape of the box. Ed carefully sets the box down in it, lining it up. “No idea if it needs to be this precise, but better safe than sorry,” he says, giving it another nudge until it’s perfectly placed.You stick the crank in the hole on the side and take out the tuning forks, flipping open the flap. They’re lined up in order, largest to smallest, in the order of the musical scale, going from C to B. You grab the F, A, C, and E forks and place them in the proper order on the box, each one fitting in snugly before clicking into place.You glance at Ed, stepping back. “You want to do the honors?” you ask, gesturing to the box.“You sure?” Ed asks.“I mean, I never would have figured out the cattle branding, so this was your solve, babe.”Ed smiles. “And you’re the one who knows about music shit, so it was just as much your solve.” He holds out his hand. “Together?”“Romantic,” you tease, as if you don’t love every second of being a disgustingly sappy couple.Ed’s hand covers yours on the crank and you turn it together. The purpose of the box becomes immediately apparent as some internal part of the mechanism causes the tuning forks to vibrate. They ring out, discordant with each other, making you grit your teeth against the sound of them, until it nearly becomes unbearable. You can feel the vibrations in your bones as the sound intensifies, and finally there’s the sharp sound of shattering glass somewhere nearby.You stop turning the crank, looking around for whatever broke. You spy it immediately, the glass of the lamp on the wall next to the bar shattered to reveal another piece of paper, this one rolled up to fit inside. “How in the world did Dirk manage to get all this stuff hidden around here?” you ask, not expecting an answer.“He was real close with Cappy. Guy was basically like a surrogate father,” Ed says distractedly. He reaches up to carefully slide the paper free from the broken glass.“How do you know that?” you ask.Ed gives you a funny look, and for a moment it’s almost like someone else is looking out from his eyes, but someone no less familiar to you than Ed, someone no less loved by you. “Why wouldn’t I know that?” Ed—Ed?—asks. “He was my—” Ed blinks, shaking his head. “What?”“Nothing,” you say, furrowing your brow. That’s the second time something like that’s happened. There’s something strange going on here, something beyond just the mystery. “What’s the note say?”Ed blinks a few more times, like he’s trying to get something out of his eye, before unfurling the paper. He holds it out so you both can read it.
Now go and peek

Beneath Zebra Rock.

An attractor of metal

What’s there will unlock.
“Zebra Rock?” you repeat, and Ed shakes his head.“No idea.” He looks outside, eyes narrowing at the sun’s location. “We should head back to the ranch though. It’s going to start getting dark soon.”Darkness descends quickly in the desert, and by the time you’re leading the horses into the stable, full night has fallen. It’s eerily quiet on the ranch tonight, no sign of Anne or Dave at their usual posts. There’s a roll of wire leaning up against the chicken coop, which reminds you that Dave asked you to fix it before turning in. Dave’s left his toolbox there for you, and you and Ed get to work.It’s not difficult, thankfully, and the moon is almost obscenely bright, lighting up your workspace. You and Ed make quick work of it, ensuring the chickens will survive the night and won’t become a midnight snack for the coyotes.Ed’s pulling off his gloves, and he turns them just so, enough to catch the moonlight and you gasp. “Ed!” You grab his arm, stopping him. “Your gloves.”He turns them over, palms up, the fabric glowing under the light of the moon. “What the fuck…” He looks up at you, realization dawning on his face. “The dust in Cappy’s.”“The electrician’s manual,” you say, the same realization hitting you.Whoever is hiding out in Dry Creek is involved in the phantom horse.And it’s not a phantom at all.It’s that moment that the very real, very living horse—apparently covered in some sort of luminescent dust—chooses to appear, racing towards the ranch much the same way it did last night. It’s fast, just like Anne said, and it’s passing by the fence in seconds, much too quickly for you or Ed to react.And just like last night, as it gallops off into the darkness, something explodes.Sparks fly off the closest electrical pole as one of its wires snaps, and the power to the ranch cuts out.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It’s early, much earlier than you would like it to be, considering how late you wound up staying awake last night. So early that you aren’t even awake yet when the phone rings. You groan and reach for it, your fingers scrambling to get ahold of it. “Hello?”Ed groans, turning his head to face you, squinting up at you. “Babe?” His voice is raspy with sleep.“Baby Bonnet, what in blazes is going on out there?” You stifle your groan into the pillow at the sound of an enraged Badminton—you’re not sure which one it is; they’ve always sounded identical when they berate or bully you. “First the rattlesnake, then the pumphouse, and now the entire ranch has no electricity? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were somehow behind all this.”You roll your eyes, rolling over to sit up. “We weren’t even here when Jeb Rawley got bit.”“Well, no, exactly,” Chauncey blusters. At least, you think it’s Chauncey. No one blusters like Chauncey. “So yes, obviously, you aren’t behind it, but it’s just the timing, Bonnet. And weren’t you supposed to be investigating, or whatever it is you do? Interesting, everyone goes on and on about how clever you and your partner are, shouldn’t you have this solved by now?”“Solving a mystery takes time, Chauncey,” you say. Ed wrinkles his nose at the name. He shifts closer to you until his head is on your lap, his arms circling your waist. “We’re working on it. On our vacation, I might add. You didn’t hire us to investigate this, remember? We’re here as guests.” Ed grunts, patting your back in a gesture you take to mean, Yeah, babe, you fuckin’ tell ‘em.“Oh, god, Baby Bonnet, as if we would hire you.” Chauncey chortles—actually chortles, there’s no other way to describe it. You can hear matching laughter in the background. Chauncey must have you on speakerphone, Nigel listening in.You sigh, rubbing your eyes. “Is there a reason you called me, Chauncey?”“Oh, for—” You hear him grumbling to Nigel, his voice muffled. “Yes, Bonnet, like I asked before, we want to know what’s happening there!”“Oh, perfect, well at least that’s easily answered,” you say shortly. “Like I said before, we’re working on it.” Ed chuckles into your hip, squeezing your waist. “You’ll have answers when we do. Now, if there isn’t anything else, I’m going to go and continue working on it.”“Bonnet, I don’t appreciate—”You hang up, dropping the phone on the bed. You groan, falling back down to the mattress. Ed pulls you closer. “Love when you get all bitchy.” He kisses the closest part of you to his mouth, which happens to be just above your belly button. “So cute.”You make a disgruntled groan, which quickly turns into a disbelieving chuckle. “They just suck so much.”“Mm.” Ed nuzzles into your stomach, runs his fingers over the sparse hair. “We getting up now?”You check your watch, grimacing at the early hour. “We can sleep a few more hours, if you’d like.”“Thank god,” Ed says, and he stretches out, fully using your stomach as a pillow. You laugh as he drifts back off, his breaths slowing and smoothing out.“Don’t even fucking start with me, Stede,” Lucius says when he answers the phone. “You saw the horse again, didn’t you?” He doesn’t give you the space to answer. “Of course you fucking did. Of course you did. What, have you solved the whole thing too?”“Hello to you too, Lucius,” you say. Good lord, the attitude on this boy. “No, actually, we haven’t solved the whole thing, but…but it does feel like we’re close.”“Wonderful. And we’re still just sitting here in St. Louis.” You can practically imagine the way he’s slumped in his seat, arms crossed, resting bitch face on full display.“Well, it would be great if you could be here with us. Any update on when that might be?”“No. The fog’s lifted, finally, but they won’t say when we’ll be cleared to leave.” Lucius sighs, his attitude lightening somewhat. “Alright, fine, so tell me what the horse did this time.”You fill him in on everything that happened since you last spoke, growing more and more amused by his envious interjections. “Wait. So you don’t have any power now?” he asks as soon as you finish telling him about the latest phantom horse-related “accident.”“The ranch has a generator, so we have power, but it’s limited.”“Well, shit, yeah, we’re stuck in an airport for who knows how much longer, but at least we have power.”“We’re managing.”In the background, you hear Pete’s voice, distant, ask, “Did they get my email? Did they get the thing?”In a tired voice, Lucius asks, “Pete wants to know if—”“Yes, I heard,” you interrupt. “Hold on.” It’s still early—a few hours after the Badmintons had so rudely woken you—and you had managed a bit more sleep, but haven’t checked your email yet. You put the call on speakerphone and navigate to the web. You’re endlessly impressed by the capabilities of this phone, able to keep the call connected while simultaneously accessing the internet.Aside from a few pieces of junk mail and some chain mail from people you haven’t talked to in years, which you delete automatically—honestly, does anyone actually believe the FORWARD THIS TO 10 PEOPLE OR A GHOST WILL POKE YOUR EYES OUT threats?—you have two new emails, one from Jackie and the other from Pete.“Yes, I got his email,” you say as you open it. You scroll through the paragraphs—paragraphs—that Pete sent going step by step through what he had to do to get his hands on this information. You roll your eyes fondly. Surely a completely true, not at all embellished account. You finally reach the bottom, where Pete has copied down a beading pattern for something called the Spiral Flower. “Oh, this is great, tell Pete thank you.”“You’re welcome!” comes his voice, much closer and much louder than you had expected.So loud, in fact, that it shocks Ed, who had still been asleep, head on your lap, into wakefulness. He gasps, sitting up quickly, looking around in confusion. “Babe. Stede.” His searching eyes land on you and he grabs for your hand. “Oh my god, are you okay?”“I’m fine, I’m fine, darling,” you reassure him, patting his shoulder. “That was just Pete.”Ed relaxes, slumping against you. “Fuck, man. Are they here yet?”A loud groan comes from the phone speaker and before Lucius can start complaining again you say, “Oh, hush. No, they’re still stuck in St. Louis.”Ed huffs. He hooks his chin over your shoulder. “Fuck that. We’re gonna have this thing solved before you get out here.”“Oh, fuck you,” Lucius says bitchily.“And on that note,” you say, shaking your head, “we’re going to go. Have fun over there. Thank you for the info!”Lucius sighs. “Fine. We’ll just stay here, trapped in this airport, probably forever. Bye, bitch.”“Bye.”You navigate back to your email, tilting the phone so Ed can see. “So Pete managed to get the bead pattern for the missing section on Frances’ bag, and with any luck…” You open the email from Jackie. “Sunflower Crackers,” you read off the attached image, a large sunflower behind the brand name in red.“Five out of six,” Ed comments. He stifles a yawn. “What’s the bead pattern?”“Not sure. It’s called Spiral Flower, but there’s no picture, just the bead colors and what order to put them in.” You sigh, sitting back against the headboard. You tilt your head to the side to rest against Ed’s. “How are we going to figure out what that one is?”“What about Mary?” Ed suggests. “She’s got beading stuff there. Maybe she’s got some we could buy.”“Oh! That’s a great idea!” You sit up, stretching. “And we have the other message Dirk left for Frances.”“Zebra rock,” Ed says with a frown. “Maybe someone here knows what that is.”“We can only hope,” you agree. “In any case, up and at ‘em, Edward. We’re having a day!”It’s, again, even hotter outside than it was the day before. One glance at the thermometer has the temperature lifting up over 100. You can already feel the sweat forming on your skin.Your eye catches on a glint of metal near the vegetable garden and you step off the porch to investigate. It reveals itself to be a horseshoe, one that you’re certain wasn’t there yesterday. Maybe the phantom horse threw it as it was running through last night. You pick it up and turn it over to see a stone stuck in it.You stick it in your bag as your phone starts to ring. “Hello?”“Hi there, is this Stede?” It’s a voice you’ve only heard once, but it’s easily distinguishable as Bet Rawley.“Yes, hello, Bet. How’s Jeb doing?” you ask. You meander back to the porch, taking a seat on the edge.“Oh, he’s much better, thank you for asking. He had the start of an infection yesterday, but with some antibiotics he’s most likely going to be cleared to go home tonight.”In the background, Jeb yells, “I should be home right now! I’m fine!”“Oh, hush,” she says. “It’s been an eventful few days on the ranch for you, hasn’t it? You know, after the pumphouse exploded, we discussed with the Badmintons whether you should even be staying there right now. But they insisted that you and your partner stay.”“Did they?” There’s been something wrong with this invitation from the start, and you’re beginning to suspect that Nigel and Chauncey may not be as uninterested in Shadow Ranch as they would like to appear.“Oh, yes, they were very adamant about it.”“Interesting,” you say thoughtfully. Across the yard, Dave has returned to the chicken coop, crouched down and clearly working on repairing a different section of the fence. The sight reminds you of his absence last night. Was he ensuring that he would be free to wrangle the phantom horse, possibly even making sure that you would be present to witness it by asking you to repair the coop? “Actually, on the subject of suspicious behavior, I was wondering if you had Dave run an errand last night?”“No.”“You’re sure?” you press. “It might be important.”“I’d remember if I sent Dave on an errand last night, Stede, and I don’t, so I didn’t.”Distantly, Jeb pipes in, “I sent him on an errand.”Bet’s voice is surprised when she asks, “To do what?”“You don’t want to know.”“Yes, I do.”More firmly, Jeb says, “You don’t want to know, Bet.”“Yes, I do, Jeb,” Bet responds, annoyance in her voice.All at once you understand what kind of errand Jeb may have had Dave run for him. “Mrs. Rawley, do you by any chance have some kind of anniversary or something coming up?”Realization is clear in her voice when she answers, “As a matter of fact…my birthday is in two days.”“So it sounds like maybe Jeb sent Dave out to get you a gift?”“Oh, he better have,” Bet says sternly, but the steel in her voice is tempered by a soft chuckle.“Was there anything else you needed?” you ask.“Oh, no, dear, just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing. Make sure our employees are taking good care of you even though we’re not there.”“Yes, ma’am, they are,” you say. You hear the door to the house open and shut behind you, and then Ed’s coming to sit next to you, your thighs pressed together. He raises his eyebrows at you and mouths ma’am?“Well, good,” Bet says. “We would need to have some words with them otherwise.” Her voice gets distant as she snaps, “Jeb Rawley, you get back in that bed.” You can hear him arguing back, but their voices go muffled for a moment. She sounds harried when she comes back on the line. “I’m going to have to go. My husband has decided it’s a good idea to go try and hunt down his doctor to get his discharge rolling, god help me. Hopefully the next time we talk will be in person though. Bye, dear!”“Bye, Bet.” You hang up, turning your attention to Ed. “Jeb’s doing well, should be discharged sometime today,” you say, pocketing the phone. “More importantly, though, they confirmed that Dave was out on an errand last night and, even more interestingly, apparently the Badmintons were extremely insistent that we both continue staying here, despite all the ‘accidents.’”Ed frowns, shaking his head. “This whole thing stinks,” he says, mouth twisted down in suspicion. “Buying this place, inviting us to stay for free, being fucking weird about us not having figured out what’s going on?”“You think they’re involved too?” you ask, glad to hear that you aren’t the only one who thinks something’s fishy with them.“Either that or they’re involved with something else shady around here.”“They’re always involved in something shady.” You grimace; they’ve always skirted the edge of legality in their business dealings, making it difficult to pin them down for anything. Maybe this time you’ll get lucky.“Anyway, I’ve got our canteens, and I was thinking about that last clue from Dirk. Jack didn’t have any idea what Zebra Rock would refer to, but the last part, ‘an attractor of metal what’s there will unlock,’ I thought, uh, well, fuckin’ obviously a magnet.” He holds up a magnet, shaped to look like an orange, clearly taken from the refrigerator.“Oh, perfect. And I found a horseshoe out here actually that I think may have belonged to the phantom horse.”Ed sighs, his shoulder slumping, the air of someone disappointed rather than intrigued coming over him. “So it really is just a regular horse then,” he says dejectedly.You lean into him, one hand on his knee, squeezing softly. “Sorry, darling, I know how excited you were at the prospect of a ghost horse. It doesn’t mean there aren’t actual ghosts out there, though.” Ed hums noncommittally. “And we still have the actual horses, you know.” You lightly bump him with your arm.Ed looks over to you, a small smile on his face. “That’s true.” Ed stands with a groan, shaking out his bad knee. He waves off your concerned look. “We should head out, anyway, see if Mary has any beads we can nab to figure out what this last flower is.”You head toward the stables, pausing to greet the horses, then into the tack room. “Hey, Anne,” you say. You pull out the horseshoe, dropping it on the table. “Wanted to check with you, because I found this horseshoe outside that wasn’t there yesterday. I thought maybe the phantom horse threw it.”She takes it, frowning slightly. “There’s a rock stuck in it,” she says. She wedges it out, holding it up. “You know, looks kind of like the kind of rock you’d find out by the ghost town.”“We’ve been out there,” Ed says, “but we didn’t see any sign of a horse. People? Yeah. But no horse, unless that horse uses a bedroll to sleep in and reads books on electricity.”Anne sets the horseshoe down on the table, crossing her legs. “Well, last time I was out there, maybe a couple weeks ago, my horse was acting strange. Nervous, jumpy, like it sensed something out there I couldn’t.” She shrugs. “Could be someone’s been using it as a hideout for a while now.”You take the horseshoe back, exchanging a glance with Ed. You had no doubt you would need to go back to Dry Creek at some point today, but that’s just confirmed it. You’ll need to do some more pointed sleuthing around there to look into who’s been staying there.Mary stares at you like you’ve just ordered 50 drumsticks for yourself for dinner. “You want to buy…10 beads,” she says flatly.“Yes, please,” you say.You have the pattern Pete sent pulled up on your phone, sitting on the counter in between you and Mary. She glances down at it, then back up at you. “You realize I don’t make the jewelry here, don’t you?” she asks. “I just sell it. And I don’t just keep loose beads around.”“We just need to figure out what this pattern is,” Ed says. “We don’t even need to keep the beads, we just need to see what it is and then we can give them back.”“Surely you have some beading supplies here,” you add.Mary chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, her eyes flicking between the two of you. She sighs, seeming to come to a decision. “Fine.” She turns to the door behind her and opens it to reveal a supply closet, where she must keep some of her extra stock. She digs on one of the shelves before pulling out a moderately sized box, which she hefts onto the counter. “One of the artists I sell for got me this for a birthday,” she says, inclining her head in the direction of Mary Yazzie’s picture, “thinking I would be interested in designing some of my own jewelry to sell. That’s not exactly my fucking thing, if you can’t tell, but I didn’t know what to do with it.” She flips open a Swiss army knife and slices through the protective plastic that’s still wrapped around it. “Just take what you need, I don’t give a fuck.”“Oh, this is perfect, thank you so much, Mary,” you say, pulling the box across the counter and opening it.There are beads of all sizes and colors, mixtures, and shapes, so many that you wouldn’t know where to start if you weren’t looking for specific colors. You and Ed start sifting through them together, looking for the colors specified on the pattern. You pull out a few that match, setting them aside.You glance up at Mary, remembering the defensive reaction Anne had to being questioned about being seen with Mary yesterday. Anne hadn’t been present at the time of the accident last night without the excuse of being sent on an errand by her boss. Could she and Mary be in cahoots to run Shadow Ranch to the ground? And if not, there’s clearly something else going on.You clear your throat, pushing your beads to the side, letting Ed take over searching. “You know,” you say casually, leaning against the counter, “Anne told us about…you and her.” You pump your eyebrows to emphasize the implication, whatever implication she believes you’re making.Mary looks shocked. “She did?”“Yup. We’d love to hear your side of the story now.”Mary glances between you and Ed, then sighs in resignation. “My side’s no different from hers. We’re in love. What’s the big fucking deal?” She shrugs, muttering, “She’s the one who wanted to keep it a secret.”Beads scatter as Ed accidentally knocks his hand into the box. “Fuck,” he hisses, then looks up at both of you, eyes wide. “Yeah, right, you’re in love. What’s the big deal?”“You…Hang on.” She scowls. “You fuckers. She didn’t tell you anything. You fucking tricked me.” She looks furious and for a moment you wonder if she’s going to throw you out. But then she cracks a smile, shaking her head and chuckling. “Fuck, man, you’re good.”You smile smugly. “Needling information out of people is my specialty,” you say. “So, really though, what’s the problem? Why does she want to keep it a secret?”Mary, rolls her eyes, waving her hand dismissively. “She knows I hate the Badmintons and that we’ve been arguing over that property I want to buy. She’s worried that if they find out we’re dating, they’ll fire her over it, thinking we’re working together or some shit to take it from them. Normally she wouldn’t care. She’s a bit of a fucking psychopath,” she says, her expression softening as her voice turns fond. “But she actually loves Shadow Ranch, the owners aside. She’s put her heart and soul into training and caring for those horses out there. She doesn’t want to leave them.”“I’d love to say that they wouldn’t do that, but…” You sigh, grimacing. “That does sound like something they would do. And they’re not exactly the most tolerant people. Why are you so interested in that property?”“There’s a whole fuckton of petrified wood on it. Anne discovered it. Every so often she’ll bring some pieces and I sell it.”“Ah.” You wince. “Yeah, they would absolutely have something to say about that.”“Well, now you know. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go blabbering off to everybody about it.”You mime zipping your lips shut. “Lips are sealed, no problem.”Ed, who’s been listening as he cleaned up the spilled beads and resumed looking for the right colors, nudges you. “I got it, babe.” He slides over the beaded bag, now sporting a red flower with a black center.“A poppy.” You look up at Mary. “Thanks for letting us borrow these,” you say, starting to slide them off the string.She shakes her head. “Keep them, it’s fine.”“Oh, um, all right.” You tie off the string. “That should be all of them,” you say, glancing at Ed.He nods. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know what or where zebra rock is, would you?” he asks Mary.“Oh, sure, if you keep heading down the trail that takes you to the petroglyphs, it’s about halfway there. There’s a grave marker for a donkey or whatever the fuck there. I go there sometimes to look for arrowheads to sell.”Zebra rock is right where Mary said it would be, across from Charlie the mule’s grave, set a bit away from the path. It’s unmistakable when you see it, though not as large as you had expected. It’s indeed a rock, nearly a boulder, striped white and brown, not unlike the stripes on a zebra. You and Ed heft it up together and move it to the side, revealing something that looks like a trapdoor, made from the top of a crate. You open it to reveal a cavity in the ground containing what seems to be a maze with a glass top. Portions of the maze are covered with wooden blocks so that you can’t see where the paths go beneath them. At the center are four separate squares, each with different colors, almost marbleized: purple-pink, green-teal, orange-red, and different hues of silver. In each corner of the maze are small metallic discs with two letter abbreviations on them, and you can extrapolate that you need to move each disc to the appropriate color in the center.Something familiar itches in your brain, and you gasp. You dig through your bag for a moment before pulling out the free pamphlet about petrified wood you had taken from Mary’s yesterday. It explains the entire process of how wood becomes petrified, but there’s one small paragraph in particular that applies here. You point it out to Ed, exclaiming, “It’s the minerals!”“Sorry?” He frowns down at the pamphlet, his face clearing as he reads it. “Oh, shit. Okay. So silica seeped into the wood, and carried other minerals into the wood with it, and those are what give petrified wood its color. We have to match up the minerals to the correct color. So Si, the silica itself, makes it white and grey, and Cu would be copper, which turns the wood blue and green…”Ed hands the pamphlet back to you as he parks himself down in front of the maze, crossing his legs and hunching over it. It’s a bit fiddly, manipulating the small discs through the glass, trying to guess where each path is leading beneath the wooden blocks, but eventually he leads each to its correct position, with you interjecting where the remaining two should go. Iron, Fe, turns wood rust colors, oranges and reds and yellows, and the last, Mn, Manganese, gives wood pink and purple hues.As the last disc is put into place, a latch releases and Ed lifts the maze up on its hinges to reveal a small wooden box placed within. It’s beautifully carved and a panel covers part of the top of it. When Ed lifts that up, he reveals six dials, each with a selection of flowers. The dials can be turned to select one flower in each space.“You think there’s a specific order?” you ask, leaning over Ed as he spins through each dial a few times. “There are multiples of the same flowers,” you observe. “And some that have flowers that aren’t on our list.”“There’s probably only one combination that includes each flower,” Ed says. He sets the box down and pulls out his notepad, flipping to the list of flowers he’s been keeping. “And it’s probably just trial and error to figure out which flower goes where.”It indeed takes several rounds of trial and error to solve the puzzle. Ed systematically turns through each dial, trying different combinations of Frances’ six flowers: poppy, sunflower, daisy, lily, tulip, and Harrison’s yellow.Something inside you flutters as Ed works. You haven't had much time to consider all the work that had gone into setting up this entire scavenger hunt, but it's really quite remarkable. It must have taken months of planning: setting up clues, custom making puzzle boxes, coming up with little rhymes for Frances. The thought that's gone into this whole thing is lovely.And framing this entire endeavor around Frances' favorite things is just... You clasp your hands to your chest, feeling like your heart might pound right out of your chest. Dirk is just...so sweet. Not only putting so much effort into this, but using your--Frances', you mean; not yours obviously--favorite flowers. It's so romantic. You completely understand why Frances loved Dirk so much.Eventually Ed cracks the combination, and the lid of the box opens.You’re not sure what you were expecting to find inside, but the box is basically empty. There’s a ballerina carved on the bottom, a seam running around her hiding what looks to be a secret compartment. The right side has a hole in the top which must be for some sort of pin you’ve yet to find, and below that is a cavity containing a rolled up piece of paper. Ed takes it out, carefully unrolling it.
If you hope this task

To ever complete

You must wind her up

So she’ll move her feet.
“Oh, it’s a music box,” you say. “It’s missing the key to wind it up, though.”You sigh, sitting back as Ed closes the box and carefully places it in his bag. “This was our last clue, wasn’t it?” Ed asks. “Where are we supposed to find the key? Did we miss something?”You hum in thought. “I don’t know, darling. We figured out all of Frances’ flowers…”“Followed all the clues we got from that petroglyph puzzle.”“And that all led us here.” You frown, scrunching up your face in thought. “Are we wrong? Did someone get here before us? Did they find the treasure already?”“They can’t have, the glass from the lamp in Cappy’s was still…” Ed grabs your arm as he sucks in a breath. “Dirk’s cell. Remember? He said he left a message for Frances there. We couldn’t get in, and we just kind of forgot about it.”“You’re right!” You jump up, holding a hand out to help Ed to his feet. “We need to get back to Dry Creek.”Dirk’s jail cell is as firmly shut as it ever was. You and Ed try to access it for a while, attempting to pick the lock, trying to push the door free from its hinges, even trying to bend the bars or break in through the brick walls from outside, but it’s no use.“Why the fuck are these fucking cells so fucking sturdy?” Ed wheezes as he attempts to Pirates of the Caribbean the door up and out of the hinges again.“Probably so that the criminals don’t escape,” you say, and Ed gives you an unamused look.He gives up a moment later with a frustrated grunt, stepping back. “We’re gonna have to try something else. Maybe there’s something still around here we can use.”You wander Dry Creek for several minutes, searching for some kind of bar or tool you can use to pry open the cell, with no luck. Together, you turn to head into Cappy’s, the last place for you to check. You freeze as soon as you walk in. The books that were on the table across from the entrance are gone, leaving a rectangular shape on the table free of dust. With one glance to the corner of the room, it’s clear that whoever was hiding out here has all but cleared out.The sleeping bags are gone, as are the bottles of water and cups and other items that had been scattered around. The crate that was being used as a makeshift table is pushed into the corner, and as you approach, you can see something sitting on it. It’s a key, you realize, an old clunky key with a large hoop on one end.“Maybe that’s the key to the jail cell,” you say, and without a second thought, you start for it.“Stede, w—”Ed grunts behind you and you hear his body hit the ground. “Ed!” You spin around, but you’re too late. Your attacker is on you, swinging something straight at your head. There’s a dizzying moment of disorientation, and then blackness.When you come to, it takes a moment for you to understand where you are. You can hear the scratching of pencil on paper close by, smell the musty scent of disuse. You groan and blink heavily, lifting your head.“Stede.” Ed kneels next to you, a gentle hand on your head, the other on your shoulder to help you sit up. “Are you okay?”Slightly dazed, you look around. You’re in the cell, Dirk’s cell. The door is once again firmly shut, but you can see the key hanging from a hook a few feet away. You fix your focus on Ed. Half of his hair is coming loose from its braid, probably from being dragged in here, and you spot a trickle of blood running down from his hairline on his temple.“Sweetheart, you’re bleeding,” you say. You reach up and try to wipe it away with your thumb. It’s mostly dried already. You only manage to rub off a smear.“I’m fine,” Ed says. “Fuck, I’m so glad you’re awake.”“You too,” you say, and you lean into him with a sigh, face pressed into his neck.Ed squeezes you, drops a kiss on your head, before pulling back and brushing back your hair. “I found Dirk’s message.”Immediately, you feel more alert, glancing around the cell as if it will somehow make itself known. “What is it?”Ed scoots to the side, revealing a section of wall, tally marks scratched into the bricks. “A pretty simple puzzle, honestly. The number of tally marks corresponds to the letters of the alphabet. I’m just about done.” He shows you his notepad, the message UNDER BANK L— scrawled out.You turn your attention to somehow getting yourselves out of the cell while Ed finishes solving the puzzle. You reach through the bars, stretching your arm out trying to grab the key, but it’s no use. It’s several inches out of reach, too far for you or Ed to reach.You glance around, searching for something you might be able to use to get it. There are plenty of crumbling bricks around. You grab a few, dragging them to the corner of the cell. There’s an old, rickety chair below where the key is hanging. It’s angled in such a way that if you press yourself right up against the bars, you can just grab hold of one leg. If you aim this right, you might be able to knock the key off the hook with one of the bricks onto the chair, and then pull the chair close enough to be able to grab the key and get yourselves out.It takes a few tries, but eventually you’re successful. You hold your breath as the key falls. It should work, but if the key hits the chair strangely and falls off, that’s it. There’s not really any other way to get to it. But the key lands on the chair, sliding forward a bit before catching on the rough material of the cushion. You pull the chair close and grab the key, letting out a victorious cry as you unlock the cell.The door swings open with a metallic creak, and you feel arms wrap around your stomach from behind. “Nice one, babe,” Ed says, squeezing you and kissing your neck.You spin in his arms to give him a real kiss, your hands framing his face. “Did you get the message?” you ask when you pull back, slightly more breathless.“‘Under bank lamp’,” Ed says, his voice low.You kiss him again. “We’re getting close,” you say. Your lips brush lightly over his as you speak. “Can you feel it?”“Mm-hm.”“Let’s go get whatever is under that bank lamp.”On your way out of the jailhouse, you notice a scrap of paper dropped on the floor next to the desk that definitely wasn’t there earlier. You pick it up, frowning as you read it. Your eyes widen at seeing Dirk’s familiar handwriting. It’s the key to a code of his own devising, made up of symbols and rearranged letters. There’s a note in blue pen scrawled in the corner: This code I found in the cellar works great. Let’s use it.“What’s that?” Ed asks, looking over your shoulder.You hand it to him, digging in your bag for the crumpled up piece of paper you found your first day at Shadow Ranch. You had nearly forgotten about it. You pull it out and smooth it down onto the desk. “The saboteurs have been using this code to communicate with someone on the ranch,” you say. “I found this in the fire pit when we were building the bonfire.”“‘Will need more supplies if house/ranch is not soon check book/message mesa/shelf again Dirk might have hidden it right under sheriff’s nose.” Ed frowns as he deciphers it, then his expression clears in understanding. “Check bookshelf again. Dirk might have hidden it right under sheriff’s nose.”“So that confirms that someone on the ranch has been looking for the treasure,” you say. “I don’t think it’s Dave. That leaves Anne and Jack, and…” You make a face. “Well, I don’t really think it’s Anne, honestly, but we can’t totally rule her out. At least Dave has an alibi for last night.”Ed huffs a laugh. "I mean, if it's between Anne and Jack...""It's probably Jack," you agree. You stick both of the notes back in your bag as you both head out of the jailhouse. You cross to the other side of the street to the mostly still standing bank and point to the old light fixture attached to the wall of the bank. “Under there somewhere. Maybe behind one of the bricks?”You and Ed start checking the bricks, searching for any loose ones. There are some that seem to have come loose with age, but there’s one in particular that slides clean out when you pull it. It reveals a small cavity with another note inside, as well as an old ring. You take the ring, examining it, while Ed takes and unrolls the paper. Unsurprisingly, it’s another hint from Dirk.
Did you know you can play

Some games more than one way?

You can and I’ll tell you how.

Use this ring that I hope

Our love will betroth

In Cappy’s fun machine now.
You freeze, grabbing at Ed's arm to bring the paper closer so you can see it better. Our love will betroth. “Did…he just propose?” you ask. Inexplicably, you feel like your heart is swelling and you press your hands to your chest. You can feel tears springing in your eyes and you blink them back. “God, he really loved her.”“Yeah,” Ed says, his voice soft. You turn to look at him, and once again it’s like someone else is in his body, like you’re somehow seeing both Ed and Not Ed. “Yeah, he really did.”You’re smiling, and Ed is smiling back, soft and loving and tender. You wipe at your eyes. Ed squeezes your hand three times. You nod, sniffling, and then clear your throat. “Right. Cappy’s fun machine,” you say.You take the ring and head next door to Cappy’s. You give it a cursory look, but there’s no sign of the person—or people—who attacked you. Once you’re sure it’s safe, you turn your attention to the old slot machine. You examine the ring—a gold band with small diamonds arranged in the shape of a flower—and notice a space above the coin slot that looks almost like a button, an indentation where something small and round can be pressed in. You push the ring in, face first, and the plate above the slots spins so that now rather than trying to assemble the roughest gang in the West, the game is asking you to MAKE the NICEST, SWEETEST, and MOST PLEASANT FRIENDS and WIN.You have two coins from Ed winning the game yesterday, and he slips one into the coin slot. He doesn’t win on his first try this time, but luck is still on his side as he wins the second game. Rather than the machine spitting out more coins, something clatters on its way out the chute, and a winding key falls free.Excitedly, you pull out the box you found under zebra rock. You stick the key into the hole and turn it. The ballerina carved into the wood on the false bottom of the box spins once, turning counter clockwise, and then the false bottom pops up, revealing another hint.
On the paper you got when you first began

Draw lines tween the pictures shown here.

If you draw them in order,

You’ll find something you need

Behind the picture that you make appear.
Ed is already pulling out the pictograph grid and a pen. On the clue, Dirk has drawn a series of pictographs, which ostensibly need to be connected in order like a dot-to-dot. You hold the paper out for Ed so he can connect each, drawing smooth straight lines between them. It’s a simple enough task, and when Ed’s finished, the graph is covered by a large, stylized V.“For Valentine,” Ed remarks. He points to one of the remaining pictographs on the graph, one which hadn’t been included in the drawing. It’s the same V, turned on its side. “That must be where we have to look.”“He’s really got us running all over the place, hasn’t he?” you remark. From the ranch to zebra rock to Dry Creek, and now back west, past zebra rock to the canyon where you solved his first clue.It’s a long ride, made even longer by the knowledge that you’re so close to the end of this. You pass the hours speculating about what Dirk’s treasure will be, whether it’s still there or whether someone had stumbled upon it at some point. Once you have reception again, you call Lucius and Pete and update them about the status of the case. Lucius is predictably salty about the whole thing, while Pete is simply giddy at just living vicariously through you.The canyon is, unsurprisingly, unchanged. The mark is located on the upper portion of the cliff face, so you once again get to enjoy the sight of Ed lassoing his way up. You crane your neck to watch him pull himself over the side. There’s a few moments of silence, and then Ed calls, “I don’t know, babe, the only thing that’s here is a rock!” Another beat, and then, “Oh, holy fuck!”“What?” you call up.“Hang on!” His legs appear over the edge and Ed climbs back down, working the rope free as soon as his feet are on the ground. He holds his hand out and you take whatever’s in it.It’s indeed a rock, oval-shaped, about as long as your palm. The back is plain, but when you turn it over, you gasp. It’s an agate, a gemstone generally characterized by vivid, colorful, and often delicate designs. You’ve had a passing interest in geology and crystals since you were a child and you’ve seen agates before, but never one with so clear a picture. It looks remarkably like a landscape with a split tree at the center of it.“There was a note, too,” Ed says, holding it out for you to read.
At Charlie’s grave, hold this up,

Look around and you’ll see

The trail to a gift to you from me.
In the corner, in smaller, more rushed handwriting, Dirk’s written Oh…and I don’t mean the Charlie that’s buried in Dry Creek!“Charlie the mule,” you say, looking up to see Ed nodding along. “This must point us in the direction we’re supposed to head.”“Well what the fuck are we waiting for?” Ed says excitedly.You race off to the horses and mount them, pointing them back in the direction of Charlie’s grave.From Charlie’s grave, you hold the agate up to the horizon and turn until you find the point where the scene in the agate and the scenery you’re seeing line up. The agate points you through a copse of thick brush, so you work your way through it slowly until finally you’re through, where you can now see the remnants of an old trail. It’s faint, clearly unused for years, if not decades, but still visible. You and Ed go slow, making sure to stay on the trail, not interested in the possibility of getting lost out in the desert, especially as it’s getting later in the day. A low mountain range comes into view straight in the direction you’re riding. You have to ford a small river at one point, pleasantly named Dead Man Creek on your map, and continue until the path leads into the mountain through a canyon.Eventually you hit a wall of rock and you can go no further. You dismount the horses, leading them off to the side to wait for you. Ed points out a log hanging over the edge of the cliff, similar to the one at Cougar Bend. He retrieves his rope and lassos the log, giving it several testing tugs before stepping back.“You first?” he asks. “You’ve gotten to watch me do this twice now, I think it’s only fair that it’s my turn to watch you.”You roll your eyes, grinning at him. “Oh, that’s how it is?” you ask teasingly.“That’s exactly how it is.”“Fine.” You lift your arms, making a show of rolling your sleeves up to your forearms.“Yup, that’s the stuff,” Ed says, his gaze firmly locked onto your arms.You laugh before grabbing the rope and working your way up. You pull yourself over the edge, lifting your head to see a stone wall, clearly man-made. You walk along the edge, spotting an entrance cut through the stone, leading inside. You feel a frisson of excitement.You head back to the log when you hear stones shifting. You grab Ed’s arms when he reaches the top and help him up and over. His eyes widen as he takes in the structure built into the rock. “Are these—”“Old cliff dwellings,” you say. You exchange excited smiles as you simultaneously reach for each other’s hands and walk inside.The cliff dwellings seem to flow organically with the natural rock. The wall to your left is clearly part of the natural cavern in the cliff, while the wall to your right is man-made bricks. The two walls create a kind of entry corridor that you follow until it curves to the right, following the natural curvature of the left stone wall. As you near the curve, you spot the stylized V that Dirk must have used as a symbol, carved into the natural stone wall. There’s a collection of scrambled words and symbols carved into the rock. Instructions for navigating the cliff structure, you realize, using the code that you found earlier in the day. Ed pulls out his notepad as you dig for the code, the two of you quickly making short work of deciphering it.It’s a list of colors, and as you enter a doorway cut into the man-made wall, you see that there are colored stones above the doorways to multiple rooms, attached to metal plates screwed into the rock. You’re quickly glad for the guide as you navigate the structure. It’s easy to get lost, a seemingly endless maze of rock walls and doors that the stones lead you through, turning and twisting. It’s uncomfortably quiet and isolating in here, being led through a series of small, interconnecting rooms, only the occasional bit of pottery or woven rug left behind by the dwelling’s previous inhabitants.You’re nearing the end of the directions when you come upon an intersection of four doorways. This in itself isn’t unusual, but the ray of light shooting out from one of the openings this deep in the cave system is. You take a step closer to the opening. There’s a worn rug laid out over a wooden floor, strange in this structure made entirely of brick and stone. The light is coming from a corner of the rug which has been pulled back. You crouch and lift it to reveal a hole in the floor with a drop of about 10 feet down onto a rock jutting out from the cliff face.“Yikes,” you say. “Falling down there would not be fun.”Ed yanks you back from the hole. “Careful. I cannot have you falling down there and breaking your neck.”“I’m fine,” you reassure him, but you step back anyway. You point to the opening the directions are instructing you to lead through. “This way. We’re nearly there.”The directions have you climbing up a rickety ladder, taking it one at a time in case it’s as fragile as it looks. You wind up on a raised section of rock that overlooks the entire city, small though it may be. You spare a moment to think about this place, what it must have been like when people were living here, filled with voices and laughter and the lives of hundreds of people overlapping in such an enclosed space. It’s simultaneously dizzying and humbling to think of them, all with their own problems and joys and relationships.You tear your eyes from the city below you and turn. You’ve arrived at the final color, a yellow stone next to a wood and metal door built into a stone wall. There’s a metal panel in the door that slides up, revealing a small indentation in the shape of a ring, clearly the mechanism locking the door. You have the ring Dirk left in the cavity beneath the bank lap in your pocket—you’ve been patting your pocket every so often, just to make sure it’s still there—and you pull it out now, carefully pressing it into the indentation.The handle unlocks with a loud thunk. You look at Ed, your own anticipation and excitement mirrored back at you from his face. You each put a hand on the handle and, together, pull it, the door swinging open before you with a heavy groan.The first thing to greet you inside is a large heart painted on the wall, FRANCES spelled out inside it. In one corner is a barrel set up like a table, a jug and two wine glasses sitting abandoned, gathering dust. On the other wall Dirk has painted his stylized V, and there are bullet holes in the ground in the same shape, letting a bit of light shine into the small room. There are boxes piled up which you guess must contain either some supplies or perhaps some of his less valuable treasure.But the main focus is a small chest set up on an old wooden table. You and Ed approach. There’s a kind of strange sense of momentousness here. This box has been here, waiting for this moment for over 100 years, and there’s something inside you—someone?—who it feels like has been waiting just as long.Ed’s fingers are linked tightly with yours. You both reach out with your free hands simultaneously, exchanging glances before lifting the lid.“Solid gold hearts,” you swoon. Your stomach flutters, your heart pounds, and you feel a trickle of wet on your cheeks.Time converges. You turn and hear the echo of your skirts whispering at your feet. The double vision that’s happened a few times now is back, first Ed and then Dirk and then back again, until it’s just Dirk standing before you. His ever-present hat is missing, and his beard is shorter, but that’s him, smiling at you the way he always did, like he’s letting you in on a secret.“You loved me,” you say, tears choking your throat.“I’ve always loved you,” Dirk says in his sweet voice with its gentle twang. God how you’ve missed that voice. “I always will.”“I would have said yes. I would have gone with you anywhere, with just the clothes on my back. I’m sorry I never…” You sniff, wiping your cheeks. “I had to leave. I couldn’t stay here, not with my father, not with the reminders, everywhere I turned. And I worried that you hated me.”“Never,” he says firmly.“These are lovely. Everything you’ve ever given me is lovely.” You shake your head. “You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”Dirk huffs out a laugh. “I could never in a million lives show you how much I love you, not with gold or jewels or pretty flowers or gifts, but I can damn sure try.”You lift your hand to his face, rubbing your thumb along his cheekbone. “But all I ever needed was you.”He covers your hand with his, leaning in until his forehead rests on yours. “Frannie, you had me from the moment I heard you playing that piano.” He kisses you, soft and sweet like he always did, like you were precious, worth more than all the treasure in the world.When you open your eyes again, it’s Ed in front of you. Frances has gone, her spirit or ghost or memories moved on to wherever it is they’re supposed to go.“The fuck was that?” Ed asks, voice low and soft, curious rather than fearful or shocked.“Them?” you answer, a question in your voice. “Dirk and Frances? Or some remnants of them? Or…”You turn back to the table. Tucked behind the box is a small photograph you didn’t notice before, small enough that it might fit in a locket. You pick it up, carefully. It’s old, obviously, as is everything in here, and everything you’ve been handling on this case.

“Ed, this…” You hold it out to him, glancing back and forth between it and him. “This is you.”“Fuck off, no it’s…” Ed frowns as he pulls it closer to his face. “I mean, maybe it looks a little like me. I guess. If you squint.”“No, that’s you.” You grab it back. The man in the picture is striking a bit of a pose, hip popped out with one leg propped up on a rock. He has a rifle in one hand, the other on his hip. He has a long black beard, long black hair, a brown cowboy hat perched on his head. And those are Ed’s eyes, Ed’s nose, Ed’s lips in the photo, staring out as you, clear as day. “That’s you as a cowboy!”“So you think…what?” Ed looks at you in confusion. He looks down at the photo, then back up to you. He seems to mentally step back, studying you. His eyes widen as he comes to some realization. “Stede, that portrait of Frances…it looked familiar because she looks like you.”“Wh—No, that can’t be…” You think back to your first time seeing her portrait. How there was something so familiar about her, though you couldn’t put your finger on it. Her lips, her eyebrows, the curved line of her nose. “Ed, are we… Is that why so much of this place has felt so familiar? Because somehow we’ve…lived it before?”“A past life?” Ed suggests.“Normally I would say it weren’t possible, that past lives don’t exist, but this case…” You shake your head, staring down at Ed’s—Dirk’s—photo. Hesitantly you venture, “Maybe…?”Before you can discuss the possibility of past lives any further, something out in the cave crashes. You both jump and you slam the lid of the chest down. You venture out of the small room, making sure to shut the door behind you and retrieve the ring, sticking it back in your pocket. Because of the way this section of the cave is elevated, you can see clear across the rest of the structure.A familiar greasy-haired figure is working his way through the winding halls. You can see where he knocked over a pile of jugs that had been leaning haphazardly against the wall.“Jack!” Ed shouts. He grips your shoulder tightly, pulling you slightly back from the edge, as if Jack will leap up and drag you down.Jack whirls around, searching for you. He grins when he sees you, giving you a wave. “Well, hey guys! Find the treasure yet?”“So you’re the one who’s been sabotaging the ranch.”“To be honest, I’m not exactly surprised,” you say.“That’s right. Here me and my buddies went to all this fucking trouble, wrangling that horse, busting that pipe, trying to scare people off the ranch so we could tear the place apart looking for the treasure, when all we really had to do was what I just got done doing. Following you.”“Oh, how tragic for you,” you say, rolling your eyes. “All that work. What a shame. Well, the treasure’s gone anyway.”Ed gives your shoulder a squeeze. He doesn’t even bat an eye at your lie. He’s used to your bluffing by now.Jack laughs. “Well, why don’t I believe you, Steve?”“It’s Stede,” Ed bites out.“Oh, and speaking of steeds, it’s too far to make it back to the ranch without a horse, and I just ran yours off, which means you, to use an old cooking expression, are fucking toast.” He laughs at his own terrible joke. “To think those fucking rich assholes actually thought sending you two here would get them the treasure faster.”“Rich assholes…” You exchange a puzzled glance with Ed. “You mean Nigel and Chauncey?” Were they actually involved in this somehow? Buying this property was suspicious, and even moreso was inviting Stede “and partner” to stay. You thought there had to be some ulterior motive, but being in cahoots with Jack?“Yeah, those fuckers. They hired me to find that fucking treasure for them, whatever means necessary. But apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough for them, ’cause next thing I know, they’re calling me, telling me that I’m out, no cut, and they’ve brought in two fucking amateur detectives to take my place.” His eyes narrow dangerously. “So I thought, you know what? I’ve got some pals who’re down for some not quite legal shit. Maybe give them a call, take matters into my own hands. Then we’ll see who’s the rich asshole.”“Asshole is right,” you mutter.“And now that you’ve led me right to the treasure, I mean, I don’t even have to fucking cut my guys in. And I can take care of two nosy fuckwits to keep them from squealing while I’m at it.” You grasp at Ed’s waist as he grips your shoulder. “People get lost and die in the desert all the time. No one’s gonna bat an eye at two city kids disappearing out here.”“Except there’s two of us and one of you!” Ed shouts.“Oh, cause the big gal over there is gonna be any good in a fight,” Jack says, pointing at you. “Guess you two better get ready, because the way I see it, the only way out is the way you came in. So ready or not, here I come.” Jack disappears through the next door, walking out of view thanks to the angle of the ledge you’re on.You spin, gripping Ed’s shoulders. “Okay, okay. A plan. We need a plan.” You can see Ed’s mind spinning in that brilliant way it does, mapping out contingencies, considering possibilities and options. “A trap maybe?” you suggest. “Get him trapped somewhere, so we can go get help?”Ed’s eyes spark with an idea. “That hole in the ground,” he says, already on the move.You follow close behind, catching onto his train of thought easily. “Swap the colors,” you say. “I’m with you.”You’re down the rickety ladder and into the four-way intersection of doorways. Ed goes to pry the red stone from the metal plate above the entrance to the hole while you concentrate on the green stone above the correct doorway. You trade stones, Ed giving you the red one and taking the green one. You push them back into place just in time to hear approaching footsteps. There’s no time to get back up the ladder, so you pull Ed into the third opening which turns out to be a dead end, around closet-sized. You press up against the wall, Ed squeezed against you.Jack walks into view, all cocky swagger. “Last door,” he calls tauntingly. “After I get the treasure, I’ll deal with you two.”For a moment you worry that he’s seen through the ruse. He stares up at the red stone and the open doorway, and then the green stone. You nearly sigh in relief as he shrugs and heads through the door under the green stone. Without even bothering to watch where he’s going, Jack puts his foot right through the rug covering the hole. His hands scrabble for anything to grab as he falls through, his shout echoing through the cave.“Hey! Hey, you fuckers!”You and Ed scramble from your hiding place. You carefully approach the hole, not wanting it to crumble and deposit you or Ed down there with Jack.Jack is crumpled on the ground, his leg twisted strangely below his knee. It’s clearly broken and you wince. “Oh, that doesn’t look too good, Jack,” you call.“Fuck you! You switched the fucking door markers, didn’t you!” He groans, clutching his leg. “Oh, when I get out of here, I’m going to fucking wring your fucking necks.”“Well, good luck with that, Jack. Doesn’t look like there’s an easy way down,” you say, feigning concern.“Yeah, man, unless you want to fall another fucking 20 feet to get off that ledge,” Ed adds.“Don’t worry though,” you say with a pout. “We’ll go get the sheriff, and he can help you down. And then right into handcuffs.”
Dear Mary,

It turns out Jack had ridden to the cliff dwellings on the “phantom horse,” which was really just a trick horse that a friend of one of his bank robber buddies had trained. Since our horses were gone and it was getting dark, Ed and I wound up riding it back to the ranch so we could call the sheriff. You should’ve seen the look on everyone’s faces when we rode up on a glowing horse.

It looks like the phosphorescent powder that they used to make it glow was harmless, by the way. Ed and Anne both were extremely concerned about that. (Ed is a horse girl! Did you know that?! Because I sure didn’t! It’s extremely cute. His eyes get all big and sparkly and just… Right. Anyway.) Anne is taking care of the horse until we’re sure it’s okay.

The Badmintons have been suspiciously quiet about this entire affair. Jack’s claims that they originally hired him to find the treasure have proven fruitless to pursue. They’re too good to leave a paper trail, and of course they deny it, so it’s Jack’s word against theirs and… Well, we all know who the authorities are going to believe.

They’ve decided to sell the ranch, though, which of course has nothing to do with them not having any claim to the treasure, as it’s not on their property. Just purely coincidental that they’ve come to the conclusion that a ranch in Arizona isn’t profitable for them. The Rawleys have put an offer in on it, though. It’s apparently always been their dream to own and work a ranch.

And with the Badmintons potentially out of the picture, Mary Read has been coming over quite a bit, mostly to see Anne. They’re…an interesting couple. Very…passionate. But it’s sweet that they’ve found each other.

Speaking of cute, Ed’s cowboy crush Dave confessed everything about his connection to Frances Humber and his snooping to the Rawleys when they got back from the hospital. They forgave him, of course, and he’s been so relieved ever since. He may even have a claim to the treasure, being the only living relative to Frances Humber, but Sheriff Hernandez is looking into it.
And Lucius and Pete finally escaped from airport hell. They got here the day after we found the treasure, and while Lucius is extremely bitchy about having missed out on such an exciting mystery, and Pete is sad he didn’t get to find Dirk Valentine’s missing treasure himself, they’ve been having a great time. We’re finishing out our “vacation” strong with plenty of riding and hiking and exploring the local shops. We’ll have to meet up soon when we’re back home so we can give you the souvenirs we picked up for you and Doug (hi, Doug!).
Also when we meet up, I’ll have to tell you the other part of this story, the whole ghost-spirit-past life part of it. Now, you know I’ve never been one to believe that any of that could be real, but… Well, I’ll just say, Ed may be right that there are things in this world that we can’t explain.

Anyway, we’ll be home in a few days, so we’ll see you soon!

Love,

Stede (and Ed)

PS I started reading that Jackie Delahaye novel Bet Rawley has, and honestly, I can’t put it down!
You sigh as you put your pen down, stretching your arms above your head. You feel a hand on your shoulder, the precursor to Ed’s lips in the crook of your neck, his beard tickling your skin. You giggle, twisting in the chair to meet his lips.“You all finished with your letter?”“Mmhmm,” you hum into his lips.“So come to bed then,” Ed says, pulling back to waggle his eyebrows at you.You gasp in mock offense. “Mr. Teach! Are you trying to seduce me?”“Maybe.” He gives you a cheeky grin. “Are you seducible?”“Hmm, perhaps. If the right person were to attempt it, I could be persuaded…”Ed’s laughs, and then his smile softens. “Honestly, whatever, I just miss you.”You look pointedly at the desk, and then at the bed, which can’t be more than three feet away from each other. “I’m right here, love.”“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” he says, drawing the yeah out into a whine. “I want you snuggled up in the bed with me. Need you as my pillow.”You tilt your head, smiling. “I know what you mean, darling, all right. Just give me one second.”Ed leaves you with one last lingering kiss, slipping beneath the covers as you turn back to the desk. You tri-fold the letter and stick it in an envelope, along with some pictures you took along the way, and seal it up, getting it all set up to be sent out tomorrow morning.You’re already changed into your pajamas, so all you have to do is slide into bed beside Ed when you’re finished. Ed gloms onto you immediately, arms wrapping around your waist and head resting on your chest. He sighs happily. “There, that’s way better.”You press a kiss to his forehead. “Good.” You settle in, looping your arms loosely around Ed. “You know, I swear Mary doesn’t believe half of what I tell her about these cases.”Ed chuckles. “Yeah, mate, I don’t blame her. I mean, tracking down the secret treasure of a semi-famous outlaw which turns out to be a chestful of gold melted down into heart shapes he left for his girlfriend, set up like a fucking escape room? Or a weird point and click video game?”“And that’s not even covering the glowing horse or the bank robbers or the past lives.”Ed shifts, snuggling in closer. “Yeah, I mean, what even are our lives?”You take a moment to consider. “Perfect?” you suggest.Ed lifts his head up and props it on your chest to smile at you. “Yeah. Pretty fuckin’ perfect.”