Page 19 of Midnight Ride

“Umm…we’ve tramped for miles in the last three days, Sheriff. I’m not sure.” He hollered over his shoulder to one of his buddies, “Hey Freddie, where did we see that bunch of older guys hunting with the two younger ones?”

“I don’t remember seeing anybody like that.”

“Sorry, Sheriff. Honest, I can’t remember.”

Billy pulled a card out of his shirt pocket. “If it comes to mind, I’d appreciate a quick call. We could use the help.”

“Sure. Anything to help the law.”

I couldn’t tell if he was sincere or being sarcastic. A lot of young guys didn’t want to help us, or they wouldn’t if their friends were looking.

We trudged back to the truck and Billy was shaking his head. “This feels like a lost cause, Harlan. There’s too much fuckinground to cover.”

Before I got behind the wheel of Billy’s truck, I took down the tags of the pickups, just so we’d have a number if we needed those guys again.

Lake Francis Road.

Me and Ted weren’t having any luck at all. Most of the campsites we went to had four guys and hardly ever more than that. We hadn’t come across a single one that had seven—just too many for a nice friendly hunt.

We were discouraged, but we kept going anyway because we had to. And we were on our way to check out another one down the lake road when we heard a lot of yelling and hollering not far from where we were.

“Over that way.” Ted pointed and started running. I hurried to catch up and he was way ahead by then, shouting and pointing at something I couldn’t see.

Four guys were clustered around looking at something on the ground. I couldn’t see what it was until I got closer.

“Body, Tammy,” said Ted. “Been out here a while. It’s chewed up a lot. One arm missing.”

“We just about tripped over this guy, Sheriff. Honest, we had nothing to do with him being dead like this.”

“I believe you,” I said. “He’s been dead for a couple of days. Did you check for ID?”

“No way. I’m not touching a mess like that, little Deputy girl.”

“Animals,” I said. “Probably a bear came upon the corpse and did some damage, although the cougars like to take parts and bury them to eat later.”

One of the guys turned his back and threw up in the bushes.

“Bullet holes in him, so he was already good and dead before the scavengers came.” I knelt in the pine needles beside the body and stuck my hand in the pocket of his pants feeling for a wallet.I pulled it out and read the DL. “Idaho, Ted. Is this name on our list?”

Ted pulled the list out of his back pocket and matched the ID to one of the names. “Yep. Richard Morgan. This is one of ours.”

“Good. We’re making some progress even if it ain’t the right kind. I’ll call Travis and he can send Doc Olson to us.”

Ted nodded and lit up a smoke.

I stood up and took out my notebook. “I’ll have to take statements from all you guys. Won’t take long. I don’t want to hold y’all up from going hunting.”

“Sure,” said the guy who’d been doing most of the talking. “You look kind of young to be a Deputy, little girl.”

I shrugged. “Old enough to work for a living.”

He laughed. “You look like you should be going to the prom, little girl.”

“Can’t go to no proms if you never went to high school. You go?”

He grinned and nodded. “Yep, my parents made me go. Don’t think I learned much. Just a bunch of useless crap.”

“Then I didn’t miss nothin, did I?”

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