Death on the Yampa

By cj petterson

Death on the Yampa is a contemporary suspense/thriller talewith a touch of romance set in the high mountains of Colorado and Utah.

A woman and the man she loves are rafting the Yampa River through the delicious scenery of Dinosaur National Monument when they encounter her fugitive brother who's joined a terrorist group. She must confront the changing face of terror that never seemed as horrible as it does when the face she sees is that of her brother.

Her dream of realizing happily-ever-after turns into a nightmarish mélange of anger and terror—and she fears someone she loves will die

At about 66,000 words, Death on the Yampa is a thrilling and fast read, perfect for readers who want a taste of adventure, justice, and a satisfying ending. 

(Sexual heat level: Behind closed doors.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyrical Pens Publishing
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736914618

cj petterson

cj petterson is the pen name of Marilyn A. Johnston. Marilyn’s been a medical secretary, a legal secretary, a real estate saleswoman, a civil court clerk, a purchasing agent, a corporate news editor, an automotive market research manager, and—the career that is most important to her—a mother and grandmother. When asked what she likes to do, she says she likes all things creative…a little writing, a little poetry, a little art, a little gardening, and a little remodeling of her home when the mood strikes and money is available. Marilyn’s motto is “Keep on keeping on and learn something new every day.” Born in Texas, raised in Michigan, she now lives on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. As cj petterson, she challenges herself to write in different genres—mystery, romance, suspense, paranormal—and her short stories have been published in several anthologies. She is the author of the suspense/thriller (with a touch of romance) novel DEATH ON THE YAMPA, and yet another romantic suspense/thriller is also in process.

Book preview

CHAPTER 2

Eighteen Months Later

Bryn picked a pair of binoculars off the windowsill and scanned the brownish haze that hung low over the pinion-juniper forests. The fire that was scalping the mountaintop was a couple of days old, but she wasn’t worried. Roundtop was more than fifty miles away, and Wildland Firefighters were already knocking down the remnants of the blaze.

The sound of a vacuum cleaner in the living room reminded her that Milla Kleinfeld was still in the house. The cleaning lady, who was also the postmaster’s wife, was usually gone by nine, but the clock on the stove showed ten o’clock straight up. I guess the house was dirtier than I thought, Bryn mused aloud.

She washed down two chalky aspirin tablets with a swallow from an open can of diet cola that lacked fizz or taste. No time for a headache today. She had a noon deadline to get a client’s approval on an ad copy proposal, and the rose garden needed tending.

Going out to the office, she called to Milla.

She picked up a pair of garden clippers off the top of a cabinet in the laundry room and as she opened the door to leave, her eyes were drawn to the picture of an old water mill on the calendar nailed to the wall. The wooden mill clung precariously to the bluff of a steep gorge near Golden, Colorado—the hand-hewn planks refusing to relinquish a grasp they should have surrendered decades before.

That old mill is me, holding on to Robbie when I should’ve let him go. But who would’ve taken care of him? She absentmindedly touched the lump of calcium on her healed collarbone that still gave her a twinge on a rainy day. The healed fracture and a tiny, tri-cornered scar at the edge of her right eye were physical reminders of the accident and her failed attempt to persuade her brother to get clean and sober.

I shouldn’t have tried to talk to him on payday, she thought and pushed open the door. On the plus side, maybe prison will help straighten him out.

Pine needles padded the trail to her workshop-cum-office. Bryn took a deep breath and inhaled the peppery fragrance of old-fashioned roses, a scent so thick she could almost taste it. She decided to do her garden work first—there was still plenty of time to contact her client about the ad copy. Bushes of yellow and red flowers made thorny grabs at her jeans. She cupped an over-ripe bloom in her hand, yanked the brown-edged flower off its stem, and then continued down the row, snipping off dead and dying blossoms. Love deadheading. Keeps my mind blank.

She was tweezing a thorn out of her thumb with her fingernails when a dust cloud in the distance caught her attention. A vehicle was wending its way along the dirt road that climbed the side of the mountain to her home. She squinted, trying to make out who it was, wondering if it was a curious passerby.

Bryn loved her log house for the same reason it attracted the occasional stranger. Supported by angled steel beams driven into the granite plateau, the house hovered like an eagle’s nest swathed in the boughs of pine trees. She’d inscribed The Aerie in black paint on a length of one-by-six-inch plank and nailed it to the gatepost. That bit of mystique sometimes intrigued a traveler enough to make the trip to check it out, thinking it was a tourist attraction.

The plume of dust followed the vehicle into the switchback where it disappeared behind a stand of pine. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she took another long look. A familiar rust and-white Dodge pickup emerged out of the curve. Her heart fluttered into the bottom of her throat. Carter, she said softly and smiled.

He’s been coming around more often since the accident. Hope that means he’s finally getting serious about having an honest-to-gosh relationship. I’d like to think he’s starting to think of me as something more than a dinner-and-a-movie date, she said to the blossom in her hand.

She spun the scratched watch face that dangled from a too-big band on her wrist. Wow. She’d been in the garden for almost an hour. She glanced at the pickup slowly navigating the horseshoe bends and decided if she hurried, she still had time to hit send on the ad copy proposal before Carter arrived.

Bryn hustled on toward the workshop she called Hobbes House in honor of her favorite old cartoon, Calvin and Hobbes. An oaken cask she used as a rain barrel stood sentry on one side of the door. She worked the barrel lid open and peered in—about two feet of water left—then turned her gaze to the roses. Forecast is for rain tomorrow, guys, she said. Hope so. She reset the lid and retrieved the key from where it hung on a rusted hook screwed into a stave on the back of the barrel.

The coil spring protested with a squawk when she opened the screen door to twist the key in the office door that she propped open to invite fresh air into the space. Skirting a wood-burning Franklin stove in the center of the room, she plugged in the coffeepot on the counter and headed to the desk. Bryn pushed the computer’s on button and dug out the ad proposal while the old, strawberry-colored iMac clicked and sang, and the monitor flickered to blue-screened life.

She typed in the change she wanted to make and touched send to e-mail the document to her client. After typing a couple of lines in her daily journal, she muttered done then opened her game file icon.

Carter Danielson kicked a boot against the doorframe, opened the screen door with a squall, and stepped through the doorway. Bryn flopped back in her chair. You’re just plain evil.

Now what’d I do?

Not you. This silly game, she said and pointed to the monitor. I’m playing hearts against the computer, and it’s cheating.

Carter bowed low in front of her and peered at the screen, one hand behind his back.

Bryn thought for the umpteenth time that he didn’t look his thirty-eight years. His face was unlined, except for that scattering of crow’s feet that crinkled in the corners of his eyes when he smiled—which she thought made him look sexier, not older.

You’d be so easy to love, she thought. If only you’d let me.

While he was checking out her card game, she surveyed his lean form. The rolled-up shirtsleeves of his red-plaid shirt exposed muscular, reddish-brown forearms. A skinning knife topped by an elk-horn haft rested in a leather sheath looped onto a woven leather belt. His jeans were comfortably old, the blue on the thighs sun-faded to almost white. And even if she couldn’t see them, she knew he had on scuffed, tan, leather work boots. In stocking feet, he stood two inches on the far side of six feet tall, and by the time her gaze had wandered back to his face, he’d pushed his sunglasses onto his baseball cap and was watching her map his body. She looked up into turquoise-colored eyes that always caused a hollow feeling, like a pang of hunger, in the pit of her stomach. Caught, she stifled a giggle.

He obviously enjoyed her appraisal because he sent her a warm smile and slowly shook his head. You need to get a life, he said in a voice that exactly matched low D on a piano keyboard and carried the vaguely melodic lilt of his grandmother’s Cherokee tongue.

She decided his smile and the sound of his voice dulled more of her headache than the aspirin ever would. What are you hiding behind your back?

He brought out one thorny stalk topped by a cluster of three pink-tinged, yellow, floppy roses. He breathed in the fragrance, stripped away the thorns between thumb and forefinger, and held out the stem. Don’t say I never give you anything. He pointed at her hair. I see you have a new hairstyle.

That he noticed pleased her, and she ran her fingers through the cut that changed her nut-brown ponytail to short curls. Easier to take care of. Thank you for the roses, even if you did snitch them from my garden.

Don’t I get credit for remembering that the Peace bushes are your favorite?

I’ll think about it, she said with a smile then spun around to a rickety bookcase. She lifted a frayed bouquet out of the gold-rimmed, old pitcher on the top shelf, tossed the dripping twigs into the trashcan by the desk, then dropped in the fresh stem.

Working on a job? he asked and nodded at the computer.

Yes and no. I just finished some ad copy for a client and added a line to my journal before you caught me playing games.

You sure don’t look old enough to write a memoir.

Don’t be a smart aleck. It’s a journal. Someday maybe I’ll write my memoir, but I’m not old enough or brave enough yet.

His eyebrows shrugged in mock disbelief. He pointed toward the door. I’ll bring some machine oil for that screen door the next time I come. The front door, too.

No, that’s okay. They talk to me. Tell me when you’re coming in, so you can’t sneak up on me. I like it that way.

Ah. He leaned one hip against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. The old Squealing Door Alarm System.

The price is right. Besides, it works as good as any and better than some. She tapped her watch face. What are you doing here at this time of day on a Friday? Shouldn’t you be over in Vernal to pick up some paying customers?

Not today.

The world’s greatest Colorado outdoors guide has no clients?

Nope. The knuckle-ball express isn’t flying today. The smoke coming off Roundtop has it grounded.

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to fly in an aluminum tube over smoke and hellfire anyway. The thermals would be horrendous, she said, remembering her last flight from Salt Lake City.

On a good day, SkyWest’s commuter jet dipped and dropped like a major league knuckle ball as it surfed the wind currents over the Wasatch Mountain Range. Moans, including her own, erupted as passengers reached for barf bags or punished the armrests with white-fingered grips.

Do the SkyWest people know what you call their plane?

Probably, he said. I got the nickname from one of their pilots. Personally, I think any small plane that flies over those mountains has earned the title.

If you came here because you have nothing to do, she said, I think I can come up with a list.

He glanced at her. I bet you can, but I do have something to do. I’m getting ready for our date. You do remember we were going to go rafting down to Echo Park this weekend, don’t you?

We talked about that weeks ago. I forgot. Hmm. You just said ‘our date.’ Would that be like a boy-girl thing? she asked and cocked her head.

Nope. We made a plan to celebrate your birthday, and ... He looked at the calendar icon on his watch. By my reckoning, June 13 is this weekend. You about ready to go?

I think I have to beg off. Got a lot of deadlines to meet. Can I get a rain check?

Birthdays come once a year as I remember. Do you really want to postpone until next year?

There’s fresh coffee, she said to change the subject of another birthday coming up and gain time to think.

Smelled it, Carter said and headed in the direction of the coffeepot. He doffed his baseball cap and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. A lock of coarse hair, black as a raven’s wing was how his mother described it, escaped his ponytail tied low with a leather bootlace. He wrapped the errant strand of hair behind an earlobe where a tiny, silver, feather earring dangled.

Stay for lunch? she asked. Milla brought trout fillets this morning. I could pan-fry them with some country fries and toss a salad.

As if on cue, the screen door squealed again, and Milla poked her white-haired head in the doorway. She was drying her hands on the bottom of her bibbed apron, its once colorful green and yellow floral pattern muted by years of laundering in strong soap and mineral-laden well water.

Morning, Milla, Carter said. How you doing?

Milla’s smile disappeared when she saw him, and obvious dislike chased the light out of her dark-blue eyes.

CHAPTER 3

Doing fine, Milla said without warmth. I didn’t know you were here, Carter, or I wouldn’t have barged in.

Not a problem. I thought you might’ve heard my truck, he said.

I was vacuuming. She turned to Bryn and smiled. I came to tell you I’m leaving. Next time, I have to come on Thursday instead of Friday. I got my granddaughter’s birthday that week, and I promised her I’d make her a special cake. The little princess wants one that looks like a blue castle. Turrets and flags and everything. Chocolate, of course. I’ve never made a castle before so that’ll take some doing.

You’re such a wonderful grandmother, Bryn said. You’ll do a fantastic job, and she’ll be thrilled. Give Sylvie a hug and a kiss for me. And please don’t worry about Friday. Whatever day you can come is fine. Thanks again for the beautiful trout.

Hope you enjoy it. See you next time. Milla turned her back on Carter and let the screen door slam shut behind her.

Carter caught the door before it could bounce a second time.

Still hiring out your housework, I see, he said.

I don’t really need her anymore, but I can’t just up and fire her. I know she can use the little bit of money I give her. Besides, she only comes every couple of weeks, thank you very much. Bryn propped her flower shears between her fingertip and the desk pad and spun the tool like a top. I’m sorry, she murmured as she watched the shears twirl.

What’d you do?

Not me. I’m sorry about Milla.

He rubbed an itch on his back against the doorjamb. We’ve talked about this before.

You said it was because you were Cherokee, but I don’t—

Milla lost her great-grandparents in the frontier skirmishes of the 1800s, he said. 

You lost family, too. Bryn’s voice trailed off.

Carter once told her how his great-great-grandmother, Walela, was an infant carried on her mother’s back when so many of the Cherokee peoples died on the enforced march to Oklahoma. The oral story was one of the first taught him by Grandmother Rose. Rose had only tolerated Carter’s White father, but she doted on her grandson who looked more Cherokee than White.

He found an empty mug in the cabinet, rinsed it out in the sink, and filled it with coffee. He took a sip then said in a soft voice, You need to let it go, Bryn. My being Cherokee’s not the only reason Milla’s got no use for me.

She gave him a one-shoulder shrug because she knew the other reason. Carter was in his third go-around with AA, but in the eight years she’d known him, she’d never seen him drunk. She did know about his lost-weekend, drinking sprees that were legendary around town. When she and Carter began to spend time together, Milla made it her mission to fill in the blanks for Bryn.

You need to be careful who you spend time with, Bryn, Milla said one morning. He’s been passed out on the street and hauled off to jail too many times to count. People ain’t always who they seem to be, and once a drunk, always a drunk, I say.

Carter’s cough interrupted Bryn’s reverie.

You’re not that man anymore, she said. You’re generous to a fault, sharing your time and skills with anyone who needs a hand. She grinned and added, I know for a fact the ladies in the rest home adore you. What kind of skills are you sharing with them? When he shrugged his eyebrows with a knowing smile, she laughed out loud.

Doesn’t matter, he said. I’ll always be a man who battles alcohol. That’s a given.

Drinking was only one of the reasons he recited for avoiding a serious relationship with anyone. Every time she tried to get close, he’d add his alcoholism to a list that included their age difference, his Indian blood, or the town prejudice as reasons he’d be a bad choice for anything more than a casual friend. Even being a friend was probably not a good idea in his opinion.

He held up the coffeepot in an unspoken question, and Bryn nodded. He brought a mug and the coffeepot to where she sat. The trout sounds tempting, but I think I’ll pass. He handed her the mug. I had a late breakfast.

I swear. Sometimes, you take so long to answer I forget what I asked.

He tipped the pot over her cup. Say when.

When. He didn’t stop. When ... When! She pushed back to get her legs out from under the overflow. You nut.

You’ll have to speak louder, lady, he said as he returned the pot to the stove and picked up his coffee. I’m getting deef in my old age.

More like selective hearing, I think. She grabbed a wad of tissues, wiped the bottom of the cup, and swiped at the spill. And you’re not old, she said and blew a ripple into the hot coffee.

I’ve got eight years on you.

Like a good wine, you’ve aged well. Or are you just trying to remind me I’m about to be, gasp, thirty years old? She smiled and tilted up her face. He gave her a casual peck. She ran her tongue over her lips, trying again to ramp up some sexual tension. Umm. You taste salty-sweaty. What’ve you been doing?

Getting ready for our weekend trip. You taste like coffee, he said, and mint.

Lip balm.

He moved a stack of documents off her slat-back rocking chair and onto the floor.

You ever give any thought to investing in a real file cabinet? He folded his lanky body onto the seat, propped one leg atop the other, and sipped at his coffee.

I have one, thank you very much. She pointed in the direction of a five-drawer cabinet in the corner and then at him. And you’re skating on thin ice, Sugar Lump.

Carter peered at her over the rim of his mug. I remember when the powers that be said the computer was going to create a paperless society. Didn’t you get the memo?

They lied and quit complaining. Bryn sniffed. I use the computer and internet to work for clients from all over the country, but I get to live here in these spectacularly beautiful mountains, she said with a theatrical sweep of her arm. And spend time with you.

He rolled his eyes. Which brings us back to why I’m here. You’re not going to tell me I wasted my time, are you?

She exhaled a long, dramatic sigh. She hadn’t seen him in days, and she really didn’t want to tell him no. Oh, all right. I guess I’ll go, but only if you call it an anniversary trip. I don’t celebrate birthdays anymore.

What anniversary?

It’s been exactly five years since the first time you took me on a rafting trip.

Then anniversary it is. I’ll confirm our anniversary trip with the National Park Service office this afternoon so we can get an early start tomorrow. He drained his cup and stood. Refill?

I’m done, thanks.

By the way, he said, the rangers asked if I’d check on the old Baker Cabin. One of the tanker pilots dropping water on the fire on the ridge thinks he spotted some campers hanging around.

"I thought