The Blue Corn Murders Read online

  As a postscript, he added, “Have a nice time on your little trip?”

  Her curiosity—and suspicion—aroused, she did call him, only to have him pick up on the first ring, as if he already knew she was home and he were waiting right by the phone. He wouldn’t tell her what it was he had “discovered,” or how it was he had happened to be traipsing about on her property in order to find it. He insisted she meet him, right now, to see for herself.

  “Look at this, Genia.” He swept his cowboy hat off his head and through the air as if taking a big bow. “There I am, just chasin’ one of my bad boys that got into your pasture—”

  A bull, he meant, Genia knew, which had breeched the fence line between their properties.

  “And I’ve just about got him squeezed up between this here tree and that there fence, when I happen to look down, and looky what I see!”

  Genia obliged him by looking where he was pointing.

  There, spread out in large chunks, was pottery of a distinctive black and white design. She glimpsed geometric shapes, broken but not shattered. Counting, she found forty pieces on the ground around her, most of them at least partly covered over by dirt.

  Her first response was fury.

  “Amazing,” she said, barely controlling her voice, “that none of us ever noticed this earlier.”

  “Well, looky how you only just detected those little nothing bits in that other no-count pasture that ain’t good for anything but leasin’ out to some fool like me. Anyways, I ’spect my old bull kicked these up out of the ground. He’s a feisty old boy, like me.” He grinned flirtatiously at her. “He’s always apawin’ at the ground, you know how they are.”

  “An archaeologist.”

  “What?”

  “I say your bull is an archaeologist.”

  “Well, I guess. So I’d say this here pasture is what you want to pay attention to, get your official people down here to look at this. Forget that other little bit o’ nothin’. They’ll be amazed, they see this.”

  “They would be surprised, all right.”

  He grinned in a pleased way. “Yeah?”

  “Yes, they would consider this quite an extraordinary find. You see, this black and white pottery and these designs are indicative of Mimbres pottery, which was created exclusively by the prehistoric Mogollon people of”—she paused and looked squarely at him—“New Mexico.”

  There was a silence, during which she could see the cogs in his brain roll over. “New Mexico, is that right? Well, that’s not so far away from here.”

  “It was then.”

  She wanted to strangle him. How had he gotten his greedy hands on examples of such treasure? And to break them, just to try to fool her into leasing her land to him—oh, it made her want to rage and cry at the same time. Genia walked over and picked up a chunk of the pottery and brought it back to where he stood, still looking as pleased with himself as a bull after mating. She rubbed off the dirt, and then she turned the piece over in her hands.

  It said, “Made in the Philippines.”

  Genia smiled and then began to laugh. The old rancher laughed, too, reading in her humor a signal of a good and prosperous future.

  Suggested Reading

  The following books proved most helpful to me in my research:

  Bordewich, Fergus M. Killing the White Man’s Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

  Coe, Sophie D. America’s First Cuisines. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

  Crown, Patricia L. and W. James Judge, ed. Chaco & Hohokam Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991.

  Gabriel, Kathryn. Gambler Way: Indian Gaming in Mythology, History and Archaeology in North America. Boulder: Johnson Books, 1996.

  —–. Between Sacred Mountains: Navajo Stories and Lessons From the Land. Chinle: Rock Point Community School, 1982; Tucson & London: Sun Tracks and the University of Arizona Press, 1994.

  Gumerman, George J., ed. Themes in Southwest Prehistory. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1994.

  Gwaltney, Francis. Corn Recipes From the Indians. Cherokee: Cherokee Publications, 1991.

  Matthiessen, Peter. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. New York: The Viking Press, 1983; Penguin Books, 1991.

  —–. Sacred Images. Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith Publisher, 1996.

  Miller, Lee, ed. From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

  Time-Life Books, ed. Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers. Alexandria: Time-Life Books, 1992.

  Thompson, Ian. Houses on Country Roads, Essays on the Places, Seasons, and Peoples of the Four Corners Country. Durango: The Herald Press, 1995.

  —–. The Native American: An Illustrated History. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc. 1993.

  This novel is dedicated with affection and gratitude to my poetic friends, Ruth, Tarvi, Pam, Arlene, Barbara, Martin, and Marian.

  Acknowledgments

  Several years ago I participated in a wonderful week of hiking and exploration sponsored by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center near Cortez, Colorado. That trip inspired this novel. So many people at Crow Canyon said, “You ought to set a mystery here,” that I finally did it! And so the gorgeous setting of Crow Canyon became the physical model on which I loosely based the campus of the fictional Medicine Wheel Archaeological Camp. Everything else in this novel is strictly a product of my own warped imagination; any mistakes I have made are my own; and none of the characters are based on anyone living or dead.

  In real life I would urge anyone who is fascinated by the culture of the American Southwest to investigate the many programs of exploration, education, and discovery that are offered to the public by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, where the staff is terrifically smart, patient, fun, inspiring, and kind. (And the food is heavenly!)

  For help with recipes, I am grateful to Barbara Kaufman, Richard E. Keith, Jill Churchill, and Sally Goldenbaum.

  By Nancy Pickard

  TWILIGHT

  CONFESSION

  BUT I WOULDN’T WANT TO DIE THERE

  I.O.U

  BUM STEER

  DEAD CRAZY

  MARRIAGE IS MURDER

  NO BODY

  SAY NO TO MURDER

  GENEROUS DEATH

  By Nancy Pickard

  THE NANTUCKET DIET MURDERS

  THE BAKED BEAN SUPPER MURDERS

  THE COOKING SCHOOL MURDERS

  By Nancy Pickard based on characters and a story created by Virginia Rich

  THE 27-INGREDIENT CHILI CON CARNE MURDERS

  THE SECRET INGREDIENT MURDERS

  NANCY PICKARD, the acclaimed creator of the Jenny Cain series, is a two-time Edgar Award nominee and winner of the Agatha, Macavity, Anthony, and American Mystery awards. A great fan of Virginia Rich’s books, Nancy Pickard is the co-author, with Mrs. Rich, of The 27-Ingredient Chili con Carne Murders.

  The late VIRGINIA RICH is the author of three previous Eugenia Potter mysteries, and, with Nancy Pickard, of The 27-Ingredient Chili con Carne Murders. Like her heroine, Mrs. Rich lived on a cattle ranch in Arizona and also had a cottage off the coast of Maine.