Page 4 of Midnight Ride

“Nothing we can do today, Tammy,” said Travis. “We’ll get the body to the morgue and talk it out when we get back.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ve got a lot to do in the kitchen anyways.”

“Don’t be sad, girl. We won’t be long.”

“Y’all better not be missing my roast beef dinner, or y’all won’t be getting pie.”

I laughed. “We’ll be back in an hour. Virge won’t miss eatingpie.”

South of Oilmont.

“Okay, this is county road ten.” I turned. Travis was watching from the shotgun seat and Max and Sarge were whining in the back.

“I’m watching for the dirt two-track into the campsite like Billy said. Hard to see.”

“Guess we won’t be able to see Billy’s truck from the road,” I said.

Travis pointed. “There. Try that one. Few broken branches. Somebody went through there recently.”

We took that track and followed it along across a field and up a hill until we did see Billy’s truck parked at the tree line. “They walked in from the truck,” I said.

“If we give them a holler, they’ll come show us where they are.”

“Doesn’t look like Doc Olson is here yet.”

“He’s got farther to come than we do,” said Travis.

I parked the squad next to Billy’s truck and we hopped out. Travis let the dogs out of the back seat, and they took off running into the bush. They’d run straight to Billy.

“Hey, Billy,” hollered Travis. “Where you at?”

Virgil heard us and a couple minutes later he came running out of the trees and waved.

We followed him through the bush, and it was quite a ways from where we had to leave the trucks.

“Body of the dead guy is way back in the woods,” he said. “I’ll show you where me and Billy found him.”

“How did he die?” I asked my brother.

“Shot full of fuckin holes,” said Virge. “Neighbor on the next ranch over heard seven shots and that’s when he called the sheriff’s line.”

“Seven shots?” asked Travis. “That seems like…overkill.”

Virge laughed. “Yeah, they must’ve hated this old fucker a lot to fill him full of lead.”

“Show us where the body is at,” said Travis, “then run back out here and wait for Doc Olson. He won’t know where to go.”

Virge nodded. “Copy that, boss.”

Me, Travis, and Billy were sitting on the fallen log smoking when Virgil returned with Doctor Olson. “This is an out-of-the-way spot, Travis.” The doctor smiled. “Couldn’t get anything closer to the road?”

“Nope. Took Billy and Virge a while to find him,” said Travis. “Looks like a camp was set up here. They made a fire pit and had a fire going and then something went wrong. One of the guys ended up dead and the rest packed up and moved on.”

“Huh,” said Doc, “you’re going to have a helluva time finding out who was camped here.”

“Yeah, we are,” said Travis.

“There’s no evidence,” said Billy. “Virge and I searched every inch around the campfire and where the tents had been set up and there was nothing. Judging by the holes in the ground that the pegs made, there might have been three tents, but it’s hard to be sure.”

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