Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear

do a damned thing about me because this place was grandfathered long before covenants and zoning. Besides, what would I do with the money? I’d have to go find another place. Move all this stuff.”
    She arched her brow as she eyed the worn furniture. “You’d want to keep that old sofa?” Stuffing extruded
from a hole in the arm. A pile of apparently dirty shirts made a mound beside it.
    He shrugged. “Sure. No one else wants it. I’m gone a lot. This place has been broken into three times. The last time, they didn’t take anything but the beer in the fridge and a bottle of tequila. I mean, what’s to take?”
    She noticed that the old black-and-white TV had a bent coat hanger for an antenna. “You’ve got a point there.”
    She turned to another of the pictures, this one a black-and-white of a tall young man in baggy trousers, a hat cocked on his head as he stood by a 1950s pickup. He had a handsome but vulnerable face. Hesitant eyes looked out over a straight nose and strong jaw. A shovel was propped insolently over his shoulder.
    “That’s my father,” Dusty said as he walked up to stand behind her.
    “Handsome man.” Though she didn’t think Dusty looked much like him.
    “It runs in the family.” He scooped another pile of books to clear a second kitchen chair. The table remained cluttered with stacks of index cards, Ziploc bags, and a crow quill pen that lay next to a bottle of ink, Liquid Paper, and clear fingernail polish.
    “I was cataloging artifacts just before I left for Pueblo Animas,” he told her on his return, and quickly piled the items into an old shoe box, looked around, and bent to shove it under the table. “Sorry. I’m a bit short on room here.”
    “Relax, Dusty.” She slipped into a chair and sighed. “Save it for when Good Housekeeping comes to do a photo shoot.”
    Pulling a bottle of Guinness from the fridge, he uncapped it and seated himself next to her. “I’d offer you one, but I know better.”
    “Smart man.” Maureen didn’t drink. Ever.
    A phone rang, the sound anachronistic, made with a real bell. Stewart muttered and stepped over to flip
dirty shirts like a man turning compost. From the depths, he pulled out an old black dial telephone and removed the handset from the cradle. “It’s your nickel,” he said, then listened. “Hi, Sylvia. We just got in.” He frowned. “Maureen and me.” The frown deepened. “Not a chance. We’re going to hang around for a couple of days and I’m going to play tourist guide. You know, do the restaurants and galleries. Walk around the Plaza. Eat on the balcony at the Ore House, and get the kind of culture we don’t have to dig out of the ground.” He listened for several seconds, then said, “No way.” Another pause. “Well, if it takes two people, take Steve.” Dusty’s frown faded. “All right. Yeah, I’ll tell Dale when I see him in Albuquerque tomorrow.”
    Stewart hung up and lowered the phone to the floor. “That was Sylvia. She checked the machine in the office. Dale left a message. One of our clients needs an archaeologist to boogie up to Colorado for a pipeline survey south of Mesa Verde tomorrow. Dale wanted you and me to go do the job.”
    “Just like that?”
    “That’s how contract archaeology works.” He returned to the chair. “When you wake up in the morning, you never know where you’re going to be sleeping that night, or in what state.”
    “Dale wanted me to go, too? That’s strange.”
    Dusty gave her a deadpan look. “Doctor, you’ve been working with us for almost a month now. He thinks you’re an employee just like the rest of us.”
    She wondered how she felt about that. It had been a long time since anyone had treated her like an employee. She gave the phone a hostile glance where it lay canted on the rumpled shirts and considered calling Dale back.
    “Forget it,” Dusty said. “Sylvia said he’s not home. You can ream him out later.”
    Maureen gave it up with an ironic