The Blight Way (11 page)

He held up his cup of whiskey. “Happy birthday, Pap!”

“Your birthday, hunh?” Buck said. “Happy birthday, Pap.”

“Thanks, I guess. Bo give me these here murders as a present. All I can say is, you shouldn't have, Bo, you shouldn't have.”

Tully laughed. “I didn't expect it to be quite this big of a present.”

“You got any idea who done 'em, Bo?” Buck asked.

“No. How about you, Pap?”

“I figure it has to have something to do with drugs, all the cash in their pockets, the L.A. guys.”

“You're probably right,” Tully said. “Seems like just about everything that happens nowadays has something to do with drugs. It's pretty clear the dead guys were set up. For some reason, they got themselves lured onto an old mining road.”

“I kind of like your idea about there being a fourth guy in the car,” Pap said. “I think you're right about a fourth guy setting them up. Otherwise, there's no reason the shooters didn't spray the whole car with automatic fire. Holt could never have got out of the car otherwise.”

“That's about the way I see it,” Tully said. “If that's right, we've got two ambushers in the trees on the right side of the car, two guys killed in the car, another guy in the car who set the other guys up and who went out the right rear door. Then there's a fourth guy back in the woods, somebody that the Holt fellow probably killed by chance.”

“Sounds about right to me,” Pap said. “As far as I could tell, there were only three four-wheel ATVs used by the ambushers to come and go on. That would be enough. It was probably one of the shooters at the Jeep who tracked Holt down and killed him. So that probably means one ATV was left behind for him. The guy in the car who lured the others in probably drove out on one ATV. One of the shooters drove the other ATV out with the dead guy strapped on behind.”

Buck shook his head. “Sounds to me like you fellas got this whole mess figured out.”

“Not quite,” Tully said.

After Pap and Tully had told a few ghost stories to get Buck in the proper mood to spend a night in a haunted hotel, they decided to turn in. Tully gave each of them a sleeping bag and kept one for himself. He told Buck to park both vehicles in a shed next to the hotel and close the doors.

“No point in advertising that we're staying here,” he said. “Pour some water on the fire and kick dirt over it too, Buck.”

The three of them each selected a room on the second floor.

“Wait a minute,” Buck said. “Maybe we all should sleep in the same room.”

“Why is that?” Pap said.

“It might be warmer,” Buck said.

“Not warm enough that I want to listen to you snore all night,” Tully said.

“It was just a suggestion.”

Tully went into his room. Moonlight poured through the window. The only furnishing was an old army cot, but at least it was dry and inside. He rolled out his sleeping bag on the cot. He hung his coat on the door-knob and removed his boots and belt. He took off his wristwatch and put it on top of his boots, so that he could read it when he woke up at night. If he woke up. He doubted if he would wake up before morning, though, because it had been a long while since he had felt this tired. Finally, he stood up his flashlight next to his boots and placed his Colt Woodsman next to the flashlight.

About one-thirty in the morning, something awoke him. He glanced at his watch. It said 1:30 but he read it upside down and thought it said 7:00. The moonlight was still pouring in the window. Outside it was bright as day, and he thought it was morning. Then he heard someone moving in the hallway. He thought it was probably Pap or Buck, but to be on the safe side he stuck the Colt Woodsman in the waistband at the back of his pants. He opened the door and stepped out. A tall, slender figure was standing right in front of him. Tully blurted out, “Up against the wall!” Thinking about it later, he remembered that he might also have blurted out a twelve-letter obscenity very much against department policy. Fortunately, the figure was startled even worse than Tully. It turned and, without being told, spread its hands up against the wall, apparently having had previous experience in assuming the position. Tully reached back for the Colt. It was gone! He had sucked in his gut at the moment of seeing the figure and the Colt had slipped down into the crotch of his boxer shorts. He had forgotten all about the diet and the lost twenty pounds. “Don't look back!” he told the figure. He then unzipped the fly of his pants and reached in to get hold of the gun. He worried about touching the trigger and hoped he had left the safety on. At that moment the person looked back. He shouted out his own twelve-letter obscenity, turned and ran down the stairs.

Just then Buck burst into the hallway carrying his boots. “Are they in the hotel yet?” he croaked.

“I just saw one of them,” Tully said, finally getting hold of his gun.

“Oh no,” Buck moaned. “The rest must already be downstairs then.”

“What?” Tully yelled. “You saw them!”

“Yes! I looked out the window and I saw all of them streaming down from the graveyard! They're wearing these old-time clothes. I figure they must be the dead townsfolk! When they got to town they'd see all their houses had been burned down. Then they'd head for the only place left, the hotel!”

“You were dreaming!” Tully shouted. “This guy was no ghost! Ghosts don't make any sound when they run.”

“If those folks are downstairs, I'll make a sound when I run. And if it wasn't a ghost, how come you didn't shoot?”

“Because I don't just shoot people if I can help it!”

“Pap would have shot him!”

“You bet,” Pap said. He had stepped out into the hallway, a pistol in his hand.

“Figures,” Tully said.

“I don't care what you say,” Buck said, “I'm sleeping in your room, Bo!”

“Okay,” Tully said. He didn't even care if Buck snored. “Just don't dream anymore. I don't want to hear about your dreams.”

“It wasn't a dream,” Buck said. “I saw them, streaming down through all that moonlit grass and . . .”

“Shut up!” Tully said.

Chapter 17

“It wasn't a dream,” Buck told Pap. “I seen them clear as day, all these folks trooping down off the cemetery hill.”

The three of them were seated at a booth in Dave's House of Fry. They were eating giant pancakes with bacon and eggs on the side.

“It was a dream,” Tully said, “and I don't want to hear any more about it.”

Deedee and Carol, the two waitresses, were both making over Pap. He was slurping it up. Tully wasn't sure if either he or Buck had gone back to sleep after the incident with the intruder. In his case, it certainly didn't feel like it, but Pap seemed well rested. He wished he could sleep as soundly as the old man. “You got any idea who the guy in the hotel was last night?” Pap said to Tully.

“No, I wish I did. If I had to guess, I'd say it was Lem Scragg. But I never got a good look at his face. He obviously was after something.”

“Maybe he was a ghost,” Pap said, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“That's what I think!” said Buck.

“Shut up, both of you,” Tully said. “I don't want to hear anything more about ghosts. By the way, Pap, where'd you have the gun hidden? In your pack?”

“Course not,” Pap said. “Had it in the cooler.”

“So, what do you want me to do today?” Buck asked.

“Well, I figure those guys in the car didn't stay here in Famine, because there's no place for them to stay. And maybe they didn't want to be seen about town, anyway. What's the nearest place up north they could have stayed?”

“Cedar Hill Lodge is still open for the season,” Buck said. “They got cabins and a few hunters stay there this time of year. It's about twenty-five miles north of the mining road.”

“What makes you think they stayed anywhere?” Pap said. “Susan fixed the time of death at three thirty-eight. They rented the car at ten o'clock at night in Spokane. That's four and a half hours. It takes about four hours for them to drive down here from Spokane. Why would they need a motel?”

“Yeah,” Buck said. “Why would they need a motel? The motel would be closed for the night anyway. There's not even a gas station open between here and Spokane that time of night.”

“I don't care, Buck. Drive up there and see if three men in a Jeep rental stopped for the night. If they did, find out which cabins they rented. Get those cabins
locked up. Pap and I will check out a few people here, just in case they did come into town.”

“Seems like a waste of time,” Buck said.

“I suppose, but maybe they did stop and get a cabin,” Tully said. “If they hadn't got themselves killed, they would have had to sleep sometime, probably later in the day. Maybe they had to use the bathrooms. What else have we got?”

“Not much,” Buck said. “Tell you what, Bo. I'll call Cedar Hill and see if anybody with a Jeep stopped there and rented a cabin in the middle of the night. No point in driving all the way up there if they didn't.”

“Okay, call.”

After breakfast, Tully and Pap drove into Famine and stopped at Ed's Gas-N-Grub. Ed was out in the garage side of the station fixing a flat tire.

“How's it going?” Ed said, looking up from the rubber plug he had inserted in the tire. He wiped his hands on a dirty cloth hanging from the tire-changing machine.

“Fair to middling,” Tully answered. “Thought you might be able to help us out a little, Ed.”

“As long as it doesn't involve arithmetic.”

“It don't,” Pap said.

“Or grammar either,” Tully added. “You've probably heard that the car involved in the shooting was a new black Jeep Grand Cherokee.”

“I did hear that. If your question is, did I see it or did those folks stop for gas, the answer is no. I'd remember a Grand Cherokee.”

“That was my first question. The next is, have you
noticed anybody in or around town suddenly having more money than usual?”

Ed straightened up and moved his shoulders back and forth as if working out a kink. “I wouldn't want them to hear I told you so, but both Lister and Lem Scragg seem to have come into a fair amount of money lately.”

“How so?”

“As you probably know, neither of them has ever worked at a regular job in his entire miserable life. But both of them seem to have more money than usual.”

Pap was concentrating on rolling a cigarette. “We didn't see signs of a lot of money when we was out there.”

“Maybe not. Just thought I'd mention it.”

“Is that where Lister and Lem still live, out at Batim's?”

“Yeah,” Ed said. “I think they live in those trailers out back, those old mobile homes. They both got wives or girlfriends, change them about as often as their shirts, so I don't know which. There's a whole passel of kids running around there. I think they all feed off Batim, or at least used to.”

“What about Batim, how does he make a living?”

“I reckon he steals what he needs. He certainly can't make much off that ranch of his.”

Pap lit his skinny little cigarette. “Some of these folks live on air,” he said. “There ain't no other way they could possibly survive otherwise. They just keep on going no matter what.”

“Seems that way,” Ed said. “Oh, they seem better off the last couple of years, don't ask me why.”

“One more question,” Tully said. “What do you know about the crew out at the Littlefield ranch?”

“Mitchell and Kincaid? Not much. They showed up out of nowhere about four years ago. Yesterday, Little-field let his old crew go, real cowboys who have worked for him for years. These two obviously don't know much about cattle, but apparently Vern is selling off his herds.”

Ed went back to working on the flat. Pap watched him intently, as if he was thinking of taking up tire work. Tully strolled along the garage's steel workbench, looking at Ed's tools. Tully loved tools. I should have been a mechanic, he thought, the work would be so much cleaner. He wandered back over to Ed, who was inflating the tire. “I met what's left of Littlefield's crew last night,” he said.

Ed said, “Mitchell seems to be the foreman. He's nice enough, but that Kincaid is a cold son-of-a-gun. Never says a word. He's from around here originally, part of that Kincaid clan back in the hills.”

“I doubt either of them ever sat a horse,” Tully said.

“They don't have to anymore,” Ed said. “Littlefield's got four or five ATVs they can use for driving cattle. The nice thing about an ATV is, you leave it and come back, it's right where you left it. Turn your back for a second and your horse could be in the next county.”

Pap and Tully chuckled. Both of them hated horses.

Tully thanked Ed for his time and information and they walked over to the General Store.