The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) (10 page)

Pap explained that the assayers would weigh out a certain
amount of ore and put it into a furnace. When the furnace melted the ore, the gold went to the bottom of the container, but it bubbled and popped and flung little beads up into the melted rock, the slag. When the slag cooled, the assayers would whack it with a hammer to separate the slag from the gold. Then they tossed the slag out the window of the assay shack and weighed the gold to see how much they were getting for some amount of ore.

“My daddy would bring me home a piece of slag in his lunch bucket, and I would sit out in the yard and pound it up into a powder and pick out the gold beads and put them in my ketchup bottle.”

“So how much you figure your bottle is worth?” Dave asked.

“Feels pretty heavy.”

“Dibs!” Tully yelled.

“Not on your life.”

Tully looked out over the sea of mountains spreading away to the north. There was not another structure of any kind to be seen. “Tell me this, Pap. How in the world did old man Finch know to put his mine in this particular spot?”

Pap thought for a moment. “I reckon he started out panning for gold in that crick down in the drainage and turned up some color. So he knew the gold was coming from somewhere. He probably found an outcropping of some kind with bits of gold in it. Then he figured if he blasted his way down from the top of the mountain, he might tap into the mother lode. That’s my guess. Gold mining was always kind of a guess, a big gamble.”

“Must be a creek of some kind down in the drainage on either side of the mountain,” Dave said. “Any chance there would still be signs of gold down there?”

“If there was ever any gold in one of those cricks, we’d still find some,” Pap said. “A lot of folks have portable gold dredges these days and work the cricks pretty hard, mostly as hobbies but always hoping to make a big strike. There ain’t much chance of getting rich anymore, but my heart jumps every time I turn up a speck of gold. Once you got gold fever, there ain’t no cure for it.”

Tully walked over to the edge of the ridge and looked into the drainage to the north. Far down below he could hear water. He walked back to where Dave and Pap were waiting for him by the truck. “Doesn’t sound like much of a creek down there, but there’s water of some kind. It might be kind of tough working our way down from here, but what else do we have to do tomorrow?”

“We could hide from Kincaid?” Pap said.

“This will be as good as hiding from him. Kincaid isn’t so stupid he’d think we would go down and explore this creek.”

“I seemed to miss something in that comment,” Dave said. “By the way, what are we looking for, Bo?”

“A gold mine. Why else do you think we’re up here, except to solve Agatha’s mystery.”

“Oh, I forgot.”

“You guys are loony,” Pap said. “You’ll make good prospectors.”

HAVING SPENT THE
evening sitting around the campfire smoking cigars and drinking Bushmills out of tin cups, Pap and Dave slept in the next morning. Tully emerged from the tent, shading his eyes from the rising sun with one hand. A rifle cracked above him. He dived past the fire pit, hit the ground rolling, and curled up behind one of the hemlocks. He had a dull pain in his right side and thought he had been hit by a bullet. Then he realized he had landed on part of the pile of firewood. Pap and Dave sprinted from the tent in their underwear, each crouched low and carrying a rifle. The shot was still echoing back and forth up the canyon. It had come from the direction of the ridge.

“Are you hit?” Pap yelled.

“I don’t think so,” Tully gasped, holding his hand on his
ribs. No blood. A good sign. He squinted at Pap and Dave. They had both flattened themselves into the soft moss of the ground behind him. “I don’t think he’s all that picky right now,” he choked out, rubbing his side. “He missed me, so he probably would just as soon take one of you.”

“You sure he missed?” Dave asked. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“Yeah, I dived on top of your woodpile, Dave. I doubt he missed by much, though.”

“Where was he?” Pap asked.

“Had to be up on the ridge. That’s the only clear shot. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I thought I had it figured out.”

“You had an actual plan?” Dave said.

“Yeah. I thought it was a good one, too.”

“So what are we going to do now, move back to town?”

“I’m a sitting duck in town. You guys can head in if you like, but I’m staying here.”

“Sound good to me,” Pap said. “That camp cot is killing my back.”

“No way,” Dave said. “Both of us are sticking with you. But we can’t stay here. My idea is we move up to the mine. He would have a lot harder time getting a shot at you there.”

“Sounds good to me. Kincaid’s already missed me twice. I don’t think he will miss a third time. Hand me one of those rifles and I’ll cover the ridge while you two pack the truck. Don’t worry about the tent. Leave it. We can stay in one of the
cabins at the mine. Moving up there is a good idea. It’ll give us a little time to think anyway.”

Driving out of the Deadman drainage, Tully said, “Either of you have any thoughts about what might have happened to Tom and Sean?”

“From what Agatha told us,” Dave said, “I think they must have been killed together. Could have been an accident. Maybe some of their dynamite blew up. Wouldn’t be the first time dynamite got touched off by mistake. If it was a whole box of dynamite, there wouldn’t be any pieces left to find.”

Tully said, “I tend to think it was an accident myself. Still, if we could at least find the place it happened, we should be able to find tools or something, some kind of evidence. I know we’re just fooling around while thinking we may get a crack at Kincaid, but we might as well do something.”

“I don’t think I can stand too much more of this,” Pap said. “Why don’t we just make up a story about finding the place where they were killed? Maybe say we found a bone or something and let it go at that.”

“A bone?” Tully said. “What kind of bone? Any bones left out in the open for eighty years or so would be long gone by now.”

“How do I know what kind of bone? You’re the genius detective, Bo, the fellow who almost got his self shot because of his stupid idea.”

“It was at least an idea. And Kincaid fell for it. It’s just that my timing was off.”

They had turned back onto Hastings Road and driven a quarter mile when Dave yelled, “Stop!”

Tully hit the brakes. “What now?”

Dave racked a shell into his rifle and clicked off the safety. “Back up!”

Tully backed up. “What?”

“Look over there in the woods.”

In the shadows behind of a patch of trees, Tully picked out the shape of a vehicle—a red Humvee.

“I may have forgotten to mention this,” he said, “but somebody killed an old couple up at Woods Lake and stole their red Humvee.”

“Kincaid,” Dave said. “That’s the sort of thing he would do.”

“The Humvee means he’s still up on the mountain,” Pap said. “We could wait here and nail him when he comes back for it.”

Tully said, “He won’t come back. He’ll stay in the mountains now. That’s where he’s most comfortable.”

“You think he’s got any idea we’re headed for the Finch Mine?”

“I doubt it. He may think we’ll go back to our camp, because the tent is still there. Maybe he’ll hide out up by the ridge, hoping to get a clear shot when we go back for the tent.”

“We’re going back for the tent?” Pap said. “As far as I’m concerned, that tent is history.”

“Why is he so intent on killing you, Bo?” Dave said. “Does he think you’ll catch him and send him back to prison?”

“Hard to tell what a person like Kincaid thinks,” Tully said. “Or if he thinks at all. That’s one of the things that makes him dangerous. You can’t guess what a man is thinking if he doesn’t think. What concerns me most now is what has happened to Pugh. I should have heard from him.”

DAVE GOT OUT
of the truck and padlocked the chain after they had driven through. Even though Kincaid could step over it if he wanted to, the chain for some reason made Tully feel more secure. They drove up past the large structure containing the vats; Pap pointed out an overgrown road that led up the hill to the cabins, and Tully drove up it. Considering that the cabins hadn’t been used for over half a century, Tully thought they were in remarkably good shape.

“I’ve slept in worse motels,” Dave said.

“Just hope it don’t rain,” Pap said. He pointed to a cabin halfway up the row. “That’s the one we lived in. I found my gold bottle about ten feet out from the back porch.”

“You claw it out of the ground with your fingers?” Tully asked.

“I was prepared to, but walking in, I found a shovel with the handle rotted off. Let’s don’t stay in our old cabin, though.”

“How come?” Tully said.

“I don’t know why, but it would give me the creeps, staying in there now.”

“I didn’t know you were superstitious, Pap,” Dave said.

“I ain’t, but I shoved open the door and went in a ways and I’m not fooling, I got this sudden chill. I thought my hair was going to stand on end. Maybe something happened in that cabin after we moved out. Shoot, maybe something happened in it while we still lived there. I ain’t sleeping in our old cabin tonight, I can tell you that!”

“Me, neither,” Tully said.

“Ditto me,” said Dave.

They hauled their sleeping bags, cots, and foam mattresses into the very last cabin in the row. Tully built a camp-fire in what had been the front yard, and they roasted smoked elk sausages on willow sticks and ate them wrapped in pancakes Tully had fried in the cast-iron skillet. Dave said he thought it was one of the best meals he had ever eaten, but that was after he had drunk half a tin cup of Bushmills.

The next morning Tully awoke first and thought about jumping on top of the old man to scare him. At the last moment he remembered that Pap often slept with a loaded .357 Magnum pistol on his chest when camping out. They ate canned
fruit cocktail out of their tin cups for breakfast. Pap said he usually shot anybody who tried to make him eat fruit cocktail whether or not it was out of a tin cup, but for some reason it tasted pretty good that morning.

“You boys hear the owl last night?” Pap asked.

“No, it say Dave’s name by any chance?”

“Better not have,” Dave said. “If I thought I was going to go, I’d make sure I took an owl with me. If you think it was the same owl as the one at Deadman camp, that would be spooky. He would have to be following us. In that case, I think I might do him just on principle.”

“Naw, leave him alone,” Pap said. “He was just doing the usual owl talk. You don’t have to worry, Dave, except I don’t know what Bo has thought up for us.”

Tully told them his plan even though he was making it up as he went along. They would hike down into the drainage a mile or so up the ridge from the mine. Pap would leave the dredge behind but take his gold pan along to see if he could turn up any color. This was at least on the edge of the range the O’Boyle boy could walk in eight to ten hours. It was likely Tom and the boy prospected this creek before Jack Finch showed up. Maybe they could at least find some signs of a camp or old diggings of some kind. He hated to admit it, but he always enjoyed a search, if only for his mislaid car keys.

“I take it you’re not too worried about Kincaid showing up around here,” Dave said.

“No, if he’s still after me, he’ll be up on the ridge at Deadman,
waiting for us to pick up the tent. For the first time in my life, I have to agree with Pap. That tent is history.”

“Sounds like littering to me,” Dave said.

“You some kind of greener, Dave?”

“Only when I don’t have some maniac out in the mountains trying to kill me. You can leave that tent anywhere you please, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Kill you, Dave! I never even thought about him killing you.”

“I figured you hadn’t.”

THEY HIKED UP
the ridge to where Tully thought the creek would get its start, probably from springs. When Dave and Pap complained, he told them this extra effort would give them easier access to the creek, once they got through the dense second growth of jack pine. The trees were so close together Tully thought he might have to turn sideways to get between them. Pap wore his old stained Stetson hat, Dave, a long-billed cap, Tully, his floppy brimmed explorer’s hat. They were all dressed in jeans and work shirts and wore White’s work boots, which they’d had built for them by the White’s Boot shop in Spokane. Tully wore a belly pack. Pap carried only his gold pan. They went down the steep hillside single file with Tully first, Dave next, and Pap last.

The pines’ ragged branches scratched and tore at them but thinned out halfway down the slope, which had grown steeper every ten yards or so. Then they came to the blow-down. Apparently, years before, a tornado had hit the slope, ripped up massive trees, and thrown them down in a gigantic version of pick-up sticks. To make matters worse, new trees had grown up through the blowdown. Tully had been through worse terrain, he thought, but he couldn’t remember where. When at last his downward progress appeared totally blocked, he climbed up on a large log and walked it until it crossed another log, and then he walked that log, jumped to another log and still another log, most of them wide as sidewalks, most pitched sharply down the slope. He looked back to see if Dave and Pap had followed his lead. Dave was jumping from one log to another, but all he could see of Pap was his head protruding above a high log and one leg and one arm thrown over it. His mouth was working furiously. Tully was glad he was too far away to hear because he already knew more obscenities than he could ever use. Dave turned around and went back for Pap, pulling him up over the log and taking the gold pan from him. Then he yelled at Tully to wait for them. Tully sat down on a log, his feet dangling eight feet above the ground.

The two stragglers finally caught up, Pap still spewing profanities. A branch had caught his shirt and torn it nearly in two. The torn part draped down his back. “Bo, this is absolutely the last time you get to lead me anywhere!”