Page 44 of River Wild

“A rancher?” she asked feeling her pulse throb under her skin.

“Probably,” the old woman said, disapproving. “The men who flirted with her were all too old for her.”

“Like who?” Bailey asked.

Sylvia shook her head. “She never mentioned any names, and I never saw her go out of the hotel with anyone. I got the feeling she’d been hurt before she came here and was taking it slow. If she was seeing someone special, she liked her privacy, something hard to come by in this town.”

How had she kept her “dates” a secret? “She ever mention going to Miles City or Billings on one of these dates?”

The younger housekeeper ducked her head for a moment. Bailey kept her gaze on her. “Nicky?” she asked. “If you know something—”

“I know she went to Billings with him,” the woman said.

“Do you know where they might have stayed? Maybe the Northern?” A lot of ranchers stayed there because it was downtown and close to the airport.

Nicky shook her head. “They couldn’t stay there. That’s apparently where he always stayed with his wife. Heard her telling someone on the phone. Wasn’t happy about that.”

THESHERIFFSLOWEDto turn in to the Erickson place. He’d been to the ranch last year when Jay and neighboring rancher Ralph Jones had gotten into a verbal argument that ended in a fistfight. Jay had gotten his wrist broken, and Jones lost a tooth.

The fight had to do with coalbed methane drilling. The Powder River Basin was the single largest source of coal mined in the US and contained one of the largest deposits of coal in the world. It had always been a matter of time before crews showed up to drill for coalbed methane.

Jay Erickson had a well drilled on his property and had been threatening to have one dug near Ralph’s.

Coming up the road to the ranch house, he saw Jay Erickson leaning against his pickup as if he’d been on his way somewhere before he’d spotted the patrol SUV coming up the lane.

“Jay,” Stuart said as he climbed out of his rig. “You headed somewhere?” Erickson wasn’t dressed for town. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of his blacksmith shop. He was a big man who owned a small ranch by eastern Montana standards. He’d always supplemented his income by working as a blacksmith.

Wearing a wifebeater T-shirt, he was muscled at forty-five. His biceps bulged. He’d always been strong and still was. He’d also always had an anger problem as far back as Stuart could remember. What the sheriff found most interesting was that Jay had made regular-sized branding irons for several people in the area. He definitely could make a small one.

Without answering the sheriff’s question, Erickson said, “That bastard call you again?”

“Which bastard would that be?” Stuart asked.

“Jones.”

Ralph Jones, his neighbor, Stuart assumed. “You two get into it again?”

The rancher-blacksmith shook his head and looked back down the road as if expecting someone else to drive up.

“I need to know where you were the past few nights—and mornings,” the sheriff said.

“Why?”

“Someone was murdered.”

“And you think I did it?” He laughed and looked away. “Jones put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because he threatened to call the law on me.”

Stuart sighed. “I hate to even ask.”

Erickson shook his head. “Why else are you out here?”

“I told you. I’m investigating a murder.”

“Well, I didn’t kill no one.” He started to get into his pickup.

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