100 Miles FROM NOWHERE: murder remembered

In the summer of 1991 a small group of people gathered at a long deserted homestead southwest of Yuma, Colorado, to watch the County Coroner, Sam Davison, carefully lift some human bones out of an old cistern.  The group consisted of a couple in their early fifties, Lisa and Dick Cavanaugh, Lisa's younger sister, Becca Hollander, a much older couple, Bertha and Fred Johnson, and the County Sheriff, John Ruger.  Lisa, and Becca had come to Colorado to research their Grandfather Hollander's homestead, and had found more than they bargained for.  Buried beneath a haystack in the old barn, was David Johnson's car...and David was the only sibling of Fred Johnson, their mother's childhood friend and life long resident of Yuma County.  David had been missing for some 43 years, and now they stood watching as the Coroner lifted his bones out of the old cistern.

Sam worked methodically.  After carefully placing the bones on the sheet covered stretcher, he carefully probed the soil beneath where the body had lain, lifting one small shovel full after another onto an old screen door for sifting, stopping suddenly as his shovel hit something solid.

"Must be a rock..." he mused, reaching down to brush the soil away.  But it wasn't a rock.  "Uh, oh!  What have we here?" he muttered to himself, turning the object over in his hands.  Puzzled, he looked up at the sheriff.  "It's another skull, John!  Were we expecting another skull...another skeleton...down here?"

John stood there in stunned silence, looking first at Fred, then at Lisa.  "I don't know.  Were we?"  Lisa looked on in horror, not saying anything.  "I'll ask you one more time, Miss...were we?"

Lisa nodded, "Yes," she whispered, weakly.  "I...I was."  She struggled hard to maintain her composure.  "Maybe...two--m--more."

John looked at her in stunned disbelief, blinking as if trying to clear his mind of irrelevant information.  "What did you say?"

"I said,"  Lisa struggled with the words that were barely audible. "I said...there may be two more bodies ...uh, skeletons...down there."  Totally drained, she looked for a place to sit down, but now the stunned sheriff had regained his composure, hitting her with a barrage of questions, without giving her time to answer any of them.  She looked about ready to bolt when Bertha intervened.

"Here, Lisa girl, you come over here and sit down by me,"  she said.  "This has been a terrible thing for you to have to go through."  As soon as Lisa sat down by Bertha the older woman pulled her head down onto her ample lap.  "Now, You jist rest here a bit," she crooned, rocking back and forth.  "You jist rest...an' Bertha'll take care'a you."  She shot a look of disdain at the sheriff.  "Now, John, questions kin wait.  This girl's been through too much!"  She rocked back and forth.  "An' it's not like she hasn't been tryin' ta cooperate.  Why...she's the one that brought us out here!  Have ya fergotten that?"  She paused, briefly, then added, "Yep, I think any more questions kin jist wait. Ain't that right, Poppy?"

"Oh, yes...I agree completely." Fred answered.  "You jist git on with findin' them skeletons down there..." He motioned for John to get back down into the cistern with the coroner.  "An' the questions kin wait till later.  We'll personally vouch fer Lisa.  She'll answer all yer questions.  Later!"

Just then someone yelled, "Two!  They got two skulls up there on that stretcher!"  And Lisa, her eyes closed, was aware of people running, crowding around them.  "Who's the other stiff, Sheriff?" someone called out from behind Bertha.  "There are two skulls there on that stretcher...so, who's the other one?"

Well...we knew we couldn't hold  ‘em off forever," John said to Sam, giving him a hand up out of the hole.  "So, we might as well go face the music."  Then, turning to face the reporters, he called out, "Keep back of the ribbon, folks!  Or you can just go on back to your cars.  I still set the rules...and the boundaries...here!"