Found money

21

Her truck was dying at the Sand Creek Massacre.

Just north of the town of Chivington, to be exact, near the small stone monument that marked the spot where in 1864 Col. John Chivington and his citizens militia annihilated an entire reservation of peaceable Indians, including unarmed children running from the scene. Amy recalled that disgraceful tale from grade school history. At the moment, however, she could think only of her own disaster.

Steam was spewing from beneath the hood, growing thicker with each tick on the odometer. The engine sputtered. The truck was losing speed. Amy cranked on the heater inside the cab. Through experience she’d learned that turning on the heat could help cool down an overheated engine — at the driver’s expense, of course. The midafternoon’s flirt with a hundred degrees had thankfully passed, but the temperature was still unbearable. The heater was blasting on high. The plains stretched for miles in all directions, not a building or car in sight. Just acres of soybeans on either side. For miles ahead, mirages danced on a sun-baked road as straight as string. Amy felt like she might pass out. She stuck her head out the window for some cooler air. The truck limped along at twenty miles an hour. She had to make it to the next town. A deserted highway was no place to spend the night.

“Come on, baby. You can do it.” Talking to her truck had always seemed to help. It sure couldn’t hurt.

Somehow she managed to make it a few more miles, all the way to a town called Kit Carson. She didn’t know precisely where she was, but it was hard to feel lost in a town named after Colorado’s most famous scout. Luckily there were a few service stations, particularly where Highway 40 intersected with 287. Her truck rolled into the station with just barely enough momentum to make it to the garage door. Unfortunately, it was Sunday. No mechanic would be on duty until Monday morning. One way or another, Amy was stuck on the plains for the night. She left a note under the windshield telling the mechanic she’d be back at 6:00

A.M., when the garage opened. Down the road she noticed a small motel. The sign proclaimed “vacancy.” From the looks of the place, it always had a vacancy. She locked the truck and headed up the gravel shoulder along the highway.

The Kit Carson Motor Lodge was a simple one-story motel designed for one-night stays. Each room had its own outside entrance. Rooms in front faced the highway. Rooms in the back faced the gravel parking lot. Only the back rooms had air conditioning, rusty old wall units that stuck out beneath the windows. Amy took the one room with a unit that actually worked.

Amy showered and washed her clothes in the sink. She was able to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste at the front desk. She wrapped herself in the flimsy bath towel and hung her clothes on the shower rod to dry. The television didn’t work, which was just as well. She lay on the bed, exhausted, but she couldn’t let herself sleep until she called home.

She sat up and dialed, thinking with the phone to her ear as she counted the lonely-sounding rings on the other end of line. Gram was totally up to speed. This morning, Amy had decided that if she was going to make contact with the Duffys in Piedmont Springs, Gram should know about it. One thing had led to another, as it always did with Gram, and before Amy hit the road Gram knew all about the meeting with Ryan in Denver. Gram wasn’t happy about any of it — which had Amy bracing for her wrath.

“Gram, it’s me.”

“Where the heck are you, girl?”

“I’m at the Kit Carson Motor Lodge. My truck died on the way home.”

“I told you to get rid of that junk.”

“I know, I know. I think it’s just a water hose. But I can’t get it fixed till tomorrow, so I’ll have to spend the night.”

“What about work? You want me to call the law firm and tell them you’re sick?”

“Gram, this isn’t grade school. I can call them.” She instantly regretted the sarcasm. Gram only meant well, even if she did sometimes treat Amy as if she were Taylor’s age.

Gram let it go. “By the way, did you get to talk with Mrs. Duffy?”

“No.”

“Just as well.”

“I talked to her daughter. A woman named Sarah. She said she wants the money back.”

“Doggone it, Amy. I told you not to stir the pot. Now look where we are.”

“I didn’t tell her I had two hundred thousand dollars. I only told her it was about a thousand.”

“Good girl.”

Amy blinked. The woman who’d taught her right from wrong was now praising her for telling half-truths. “Gram, I don’t think I have the stomach for this.”

“Nonsense. We’re over the hump now. You talked to the son. You talked to the daughter. You tried to talk to the widow. You’ve done everything you can to try and find out where the money came from. Your conscience should be clear. Just give that Sarah character her thousand dollars and everybody will be happy.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. I just got some strange vibes from Sarah. Downright hostile.”

“How do you mean?”

Amy had not forgotten the feeling she’d gotten when talking to Sarah — the way Sarah had treated her like the gold-digging illegitimate heir. Still, it was a touchy subject to raise with her grandmother — the mother of her father. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m just being a nervous Nellie.”

“You really are. Now promise me you’ll be careful getting home.”

“I will. Let me talk to Taylor for a minute, okay?”

“She might be asleep already. Let me check.”

The wait triggered a wave of thoughts, again about Sarah. An inheritance would explain the money. Amy had no list of every man her mother had ever known intimately. Perhaps Frank Duffy was among them. Maybe the money was his way of acknowledging Amy was his. Why else would he have been so seemingly careless as to send the money in a used Crock-Pot box, which made it possible for her to track down the sender with just a little ingenuity and perseverance? Maybe his mind had said make the gift anonymously, but in his heart he wanted her to find out it was from her real father.

She was suddenly queasy about the instant attraction she’d felt toward Frank Duffy’s handsome son.

“She’s asleep,” said Gram, back on the line.

“Poor little angel must have put a hundred miles on her roller skates today. Call us in the morning before you get on the road. And be careful. I love you, darling.”

“I love you, too.”

She hung up the phone, torn inside. She did love her Gram. She’d always love her. Even if it turned out she wasn’t her real grandmother.