The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) (7 page)

Bernice put her hand on Tully’s cheek. “Bo, I wish you would give up this job. You know you could make a nice living now as an artist and you wouldn’t have some maniac out to kill you.”

“Probably only art critics then,” Tully said. “But right now I’m up here to enjoy myself, and there’s nothing I like more than delving into a mystery, particularly one provided by you, Agatha.”

“You’re sure, Bo?” she said. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be out there trying to arrest Kincaid?”

“Arrest Kincaid? I’m absolutely sure of that, Agatha. Anyway, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering about. How did you and your mother survive here on the ranch after your father disappeared?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Agatha said. She told them how her mother had been teaching all eight grades at the Boulder Creek School when she married Tom Link. The school was one room and built of logs. It was three miles from the ranch. After Tom disappeared, her mother went back to teaching at the school. She would get up at four, milk the cow, fix breakfast, bundle Agatha up, and drop her off at the O’Boyles’, who lived between the ranch and Boulder Creek. Then she would walk on to the school, build a fire in the stove, dip a bucket of drinking water out of the creek, and get ready to teach the dozen or so kids in eight different grades. At noon, she would cook them hot lunch from government commodities and then read to them from Mark Twain or Jack London or one of her other favorite authors, and finally start the afternoon session.
She would pick up Agatha from the O’Boyles’ that night and walk home carrying the little girl, milk the cow, and cook supper. “That’s the way it was in those days,” Agatha said. “People did what they had to do.”

“Just like nowadays,” Tully said.

Pap snorted. “I hope you’re joking, Bo. It ain’t the way it is nowadays at all! Now gov’ment rushes in and gives out handfuls of cash! It’s terrible!”

“Oh, for the good old days,” Tully said.

THEY ARRIVED AT
Hastings Road by early afternoon. “What’s the plan?” Dave said.

“The first thing we better do is set up camp on Dead-man,” Tully said. “I’ve camped there lots of times over the years. There’s a great campsite at the end of an old logging road. The high country above it is about as rugged as I’ve ever seen. I got lost up there on a hunting trip twenty years ago. Thought I was going to die, but I worked down to the headwaters of the creek and managed to find my way out.”

“Didn’t happen to see a gold mine, did you?” Dave asked.

“Afraid not. Most of my attention was used up staying alive.”

“Deadman,” Pap said. “The name has a nice ring, don’t it?”

“It’s the biggest stream,” Tully said. “Probably run your
dredge and find some gold there, Pap. The logging road is drivable at least as far as the campsite.”

Dave nudged Bo in the ribs. “Better take a look in your rearview mirror.”

“I’ve been watching it.” He pulled over to the edge of the road and stopped.

Pap grabbed his rifle. “What you watching?”

“There’s a vehicle following us,” Dave said. “Hangs there about half a mile back. Now that we’re stopped, it stopped. It’s about the size of a BB.”

“The size of a BB!” Pap said. “That’s small enough we could tromp it to death.” He opened the door and stepped out.

“It’s a blue Ford pickup,” Tully said. “I make it out to be an ’85 four-by-four with a dented left fender.”

“Man, either you have eyes like an eagle,” Dave said, “or you’re totally full of it.”

“Check it out, Dave. There’s a pair of glasses in the glove compartment, if you’re hard of seeing.”

Dave grabbed the binoculars, stepped out of the cab, and stood next to Pap. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and brought them into focus. “He’s just sitting there, watching us.”

“What kind of vehicle?”

“Looks like a blue pickup,” Dave said. “Ford.”

“How about the dent in the left fender?” Tully asked.

“I can’t see that even with the glasses.”

“And you call yourself an Indian!”

“Forget what I call myself,” Dave said. “I was thinking Kincaid
might be tailing us. Maybe he followed us all the way to the ranch. A guy like Kincaid could kill Agatha, Bernice, and Bunny just to pass the time until he could get a shot at us.”

“You’re right, Dave! That’s exactly what Kincaid would do.” Tully dug his cell phone out of the glove compartment and dialed. Daisy answered.

“Bo! It’s about time you called!”

“Why? What’s up?” He could not still a cold shiver that ran through him.

“Just about everything. An old couple in a cabin up on Woods Lake have been murdered. Family members found them this morning, both of them shot to death. Whoever did it took several guns, the couple’s car, and some other stuff, according to people who knew them.”

“What kind of car?”

“A red Humvee.”

“Put out an APB on the car. Tell the state patrol I’d like a couple of troopers patrolling the highway to Angst and ten miles beyond and to be on the lookout for that red Humvee. He may have switched cars by now, though.”

“You think Kincaid killed them?”

“Kill an old couple for their car? Sounds just like him. He would do it for sport. Now here’s what I want you to do. I know you’re spending nights at my mom’s house, but I want you to drop everything and get over to her place right now. Take your gun and don’t bother coming into the office tomorrow. Stay at Mom’s until I get back. You understand, Daisy?”

“But what about the office?”

“Flo can run it from the radio room. Herb can do whatever Herb does, but he’s to stay in the office night and day. Now get me Lurch.”

“Lurch is up at Woods Lake doing the cabin.”

“Okay. Where’s Thorpe?”

“Ernie just came in.”

“Great! Tell him to get up to Agatha’s ranch pronto. Run flat-out and emergency all the way. I want him armed to the teeth. You can tell him how to get there and to stay until he hears from me.”

“Will do. I don’t know where Pugh is. He stopped by the murder scene at Woods Lake earlier and nobody has seen him since. I hear he was shaking with rage when he left.”

“Don’t worry about Brian. I’ve got him busy. At least I hope I have.”

“Be careful, Bo!”

He could tell she was upset. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll get this under control pretty fast.”

He punched off and dialed again. Bernice answered.

“Bernice! Listen, I never meant to get you and Agatha and Bunny involved in this, but that maniac who’s trying to kill me, if he thinks you’re friends of mine he might try to kill you ladies just for the heck of it. If he followed us he may know where you live. Both Agatha and you know how to handle guns and maybe Bunny does, too. So get yourselves armed. He may be driving a red Humvee. And he’s probably wearing one of those stupid caps with the earmuffs tied up on top.”

“Those caps are great, Bo! Don’t call them stupid, because I wear one myself when I’m hunting.”

“Sorry about that, Bernice. I’m sure you look lovely in your hat. But if a guy shows up at your door wearing one, kill him.”

“What if it’s the wrong man?”

“I’ll take care of that later.”

“Is that what you call the Blight Way?”

“You got it, Bernice. The Blight Way. Another thing. I’ve got one of my deputies, Ernie Thorpe, headed up to the ranch to stay with you. He’s a young, good-looking guy and should be wearing a uniform. Don’t shoot him. He’ll stay with you until we take care of this maniac that’s running around. See you soon, Bernice.” He punched the off button.

Pap stuck his head in the cab. “The pickup is just sitting there, Bo.”

“Yeah, I see it. We better get up Deadman a ways and make camp. You still have enough daylight to check the creek for gold.”

Tully almost missed the turnoff to Deadman, the road was so grown up with brush and small trees and some trees not so small. He plowed into the road anyway, then stopped. “Pap, get out and turn the hubs. We have to four-wheel it from here.”

“How come I got to do all the work? Next time, Dave can set next to the door!” He climbed out and turned the hubs, then climbed back in and started to roll himself a cigarette, possibly as an act of revenge.

First Kincaid and now I got Pap trying to kill me, Tully thought. The truck growled ahead through a narrow green tunnel of brush and trees, branches scraping both sides and screeching like a large animal in serious torment.

Dave said, “After this I’ll be surprised if you have any paint left on your truck.”

“It’s the latest style, especially in twenty-year-old Idaho pickups. I’ll sell it to you cheap when we get out of here, Dave.”

“If we get out of here!”

“If we don’t, I’ll sell it to you even cheaper.”

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES
of plowing through brush, Tully turned the pickup down toward the creek. They suddenly emerged into a park-like area beneath giant hemlocks. Pap, grumbling, helped Tully pitch his white-wall hunting tent with the stovepipe of his sheepherder stove running up through the roof. Tully set up three cots inside, laid foam pads on top of them, and spread sleeping bags out on the pads. Dave cleaned out the old fire pit, lined it with new rocks, gathered up several armloads of dry wood, and dumped them by the pit. Pap sat on a log and bossed. With the camp set up to his satisfaction, he put on his hip boots and plodded down to the creek to try his gold dredge.

Tully tied back the canvas door flaps to air out the tent.
They were already hot from the sun. Tully loved the smell of hot canvas. Then he walked over to inspect Dave’s fire pit and woodpile.

Dave said, “I’m wondering if it’s such a good idea for us to be sitting around a campfire at night. Kincaid could sneak in here and blast us.”

“Anything’s possible,” Tully said. “You get out away from the hemlocks, though, and the terrain is steep and thick with brush and generally pretty nasty, even for Kincaid.” He pointed through a narrow opening in the trees to a bare ridge overlooking the camp. “My guess is he would slip in up there. The shot would be three hundred yards but a piece of cake for Kincaid. He would have a clear shot and probably could even fix himself up a rest for the rifle. But you have to remember it’s me he’s after. With the three of us sitting around the campfire at night, he wouldn’t be able to tell me from you or Pap. Say he shoots you first by mistake, Dave. Pap and I would dive for cover and grab our rifles.”

“Why me?”

“Why do you think I brought you along?”

“I did wonder.”

Tully laughed. “I’m not letting Kincaid or anybody else prevent us from enjoying our campfire. If he’s even following us, it would be well into the night before he reached the ridge. It’s a rough climb to get up there, but it’s the only place he would have a clear shot at us.”

Dave looked up at the ridge. “That’s a pretty long shot. You sure Kincaid could make it?”

“He could make it, all right. That’s why I was thinking of letting you wear my vest.”

“Your bullet-proof vest? Mighty thoughtful of you, Bo.”

“No, my regular sheriff’s vest, the one with the big star on it. You would look good in it, Dave.”

“That’s about what I expected.”

Pap came tramping into camp. He laid his gold dredge down on the ground, flopped into a camp chair, and began rolling down his hip waders. “Nary a speck of gold. I sucked sand and gravel out of the cracks of a big old flat rock that practically spans the whole creek. If any gold washed down Deadman’s in the last thousand years, I would have picked up a bit of color at least. Nothing.”

“Maybe some other prospector sucked it out before you,” Dave said.

“Naw, they never get it all. I’d have got a speck or two, at least.”

“We’re not up here to get gold anyway,” Dave said.

“That’s not the idea,” Tully said. “Tom and the boy would have panned the creek to see if they could find any gold. If they found some, they would work their way up the drainage until the color ran out. Then they would have started looking around on the side hills to see where it was coming from, the mother lode so to speak. Obviously, they found it. That’s where Agatha’s chunk of quartz came from. If Pap can’t suck up any sign of gold in Deadman that means we’re in the wrong drainage.”

“So I guess we’ll move camp tomorrow.”

“Naw, we’ll keep it right here. This is the perfect spot.”

“You’re getting weirder every day, Bo. So who brought the single malt this time?”

As Tully explained, Pap was in charge of bringing the whiskey and cigars because he was rich. He also brought the steaks and potatoes, wrapping the latter in foil, sliced and buttered and alternated with onions for roasting in the fire. They sat around the fire and sipped Bushmills and smoked cigars after finishing supper.

“I think these cigars are Cuban, Pap,” Dave said. “Don’t you know they’re illegal?”

“I never heard that. You heard that, Bo?”

“Can’t say I have, Pap, but I’ll check on it as soon as I get back to the office. If they turn out to be contraband, I’ll have to put you in prison and confiscate all your cigars.”

Before they went to sleep that night, they heard an owl hoot. Pap said he’d once heard an owl call his name.

“That’s bad news,” Tully said. “That means you’re going to die.”

“I was three years old and I ain’t dead yet. What do you think of that?”

“Maybe it meant the owl would die.”

“Well, if this one hoots all night, he’s going to die.”

Tully was awakened later in the night by what he first thought was a large animal attacking a small woodland creature. Loud snarls followed by pitiful squealing filled the tent. Then he realized it was Pap and Dave snoring. He pulled his sleeping bag over his head and went back to sleep.

• • •

Tully got up early the next morning and caught a dozen small rainbow trout for breakfast. He grated three large potatoes into his cast-iron frying pan, chopped up a large onion, mixed it in with the potatoes, and made hash browns. Then he spread a dozen strips of bacon into another frying pan and cooked it crisp. He forked the bacon out onto a paper plate, rolled the trout in flour, salted and peppered them, laid them in the hot bacon grease, and cooked them until they were golden brown.