Page 21 of Hell and Gone
Everett nudged Lantana forward, and they trotted after Lawrence, then broke into a lope. After two sloping hills and a wide-open meadow, they drove down the pasture toward the ranch house and the barn.
Lawrence was the Devil hard at work when they rode in, unsaddling the horses and washing them down, feeding them and shoveling hay into their stalls while Everett grabbed the corpse and hauled it to his truck, lying him out in the bed and strapping him down beneath the cover. He turned the engine on and powered up the cooler in the bed. The day’s ride had already been mean on the dead man, and he wasn’t getting any fresher.
After, Everett tried to help in the barn, doing the things Lawrence commanded in one-word orders and silent points.
“The house has a phone line.,” Lawrence finally said, breathing hard as he watched Trigger rest in his stall and munch on hay. “Delaney had it hard wired up the mountain when his wife was pregnant. Used it maybe twice the whole damn time it’s been strung up.” He wiped his face, the sweat drenching his undershirt. He’d unbuttoned his shirt down his chest again. Sweat dripped between his pecs, soaked the top of his chest hair and made the dark hairs curl. “You wanna call the sheriff, or you wanna drop the body on the front desk like I did?”
“I’m definitely calling the sheriff.”
Chapter 9
They droveto Timber Creek separately, Lawrence leading the way down and out of the Crazies in his rumbling old truck. Everett followed, the cowboy’s corpse chilling in the bed.
When they pulled up to the Sheriff’s Department downtown, three hours later, the parking lot was packed, stuffed full of deputy sheriff cruisers, a bedraggled local photojournalist sitting on the hood of his faded Honda and smoking a rolled cigarette, and three Endless Sky ranch trucks. Cowboys loafed beside two of the trucks, leaning on the bed eyeballing Lawrence and Everett as they rolled in.
They kept on staring—scowling—as Everett pulled out the body bag and Lawrence came to help him. One of the cowboys, in mud-spattered jeans and an Endless Sky t-shirt that seemed molded to his hulking muscles, with dark shades covering his eyes and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat pulled low over his forehead, spat when he locked gazes with Lawrence.
There’s history in these parts, Lawrence had said. Everett sneaked a glance at him, helping carry the dead man to the sheriff’s side door. A deputy waited for them, stiff and square-jawed and trying not to stare.
Lawrence brought out strong reactions in people. There was a hell of a lot of smoke blowing around his name, around the history he carried. What was the fire that went along with all that smoke?
Braddock waited with a gurney inside the side door. “Nice of you to callthisone in, Law.”
“Was Detective Dawson here that insisted it be proper.”
Everett kept his mouth shut. He nodded to Braddock before he spotted the man behind him. Tall and lean with deep brown eyes, like black honey harvested too late in the summer. He felt Lawrence stiffen beside him, mutter “for fuck’s sake.”
The newcomer held out his hand to Everett. “Detective Dawson, I’m Dan Howell. I own Endless Sky and this is my man.” He spoke clearly, whatever drawl he’d ever had gone from his voice.
“I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
“I’m looking forward to hearing what happened.” Howell purposely ignored Lawrence hovering behind Everett’s shoulder. “I want to know why these mountains are killing men.”
Braddock led everyone to his office, where Everett was offered a seat before his desk and Howell claimed the other. Lawrence scoffed and perched against the back wall, arms crossed, one boot heel kicked up on the wall. Everett could feel the pulse of his disdain across the office, thefuck youattitude he’d been slapped with when he’d driven up to Lawrence’s ranch.
Braddock and Howell ignored Lawrence, as if he didn’t exist.
He met Lawrence’s gaze as Braddock settled behind his desk and made a production of pulling together forms for witness statements, and while a deputy scurried to get Howell a cup of freshly made coffee. A clutch of deputies crowded the back of the office, and six more Endless Sky cowboys shoved their way in the doorframe, listening with tight faces.
They had probably been the dead man’s range team. They’d lost one of their own. Everett couldn’t begrudge them their pain, their anger. The murder of a friend had a way of unleashing a man’s demons, loosing the reins he held on his darkest nature.
Murder could unmake the man who’d survived, sometimes.
Lawrence stared at him beneath the brim of his hat before looking away.
“So,” Braddock said, a pained look creasing his lined face. “Tell me what y’all found in my mountains and why y’all come back down in just one day with a dead man.”
He told it all, starting with that morning and waking up on the slope of Crazy Peak after riding the day before with Lawrence. They’d come up short at Cow Gap but were on the way to Robin’s Roost when they’d heard the shot. Too far out to call for help, they’d rode in on their own. And found the dead man.
“I found this in the field by his body.” Everett pulled the thirty-aught-six bullet casing, sealed in an evidence bag, from his backpack. He handed it to Braddock. Braddock’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
“Good eyes, son,” he said. Awe underlay his words and he smiled at Everett. “Finding a single casing in a field is no easy feat.”
“I also found this.” He pulled out the casting he’d made of the slender horse’s print heading away from the high pasture and the murdered Endless Sky cowboy. “This was a fresh track from the morning. It was also the only track we found, other than the dead man’s horse coming up through the forest on a known trail. I think this track was made by accident. Whoever the rider of this horse was, he was careful to use only the rock trails. He knew he’d leave no prints on the rocks. Aside from when his horse slipped.”
Braddock studied the casting, frowning as he turned it over. “You pulled that out of the dirt?”
“Yes sir.”
