Page 5 of Hell and Gone
Braddock’s words were cut off as the Sheriff Department’s front door opened. Wind whipped through the lobby, blowing up the edges of papers held down by river rocks and ruffling through everyone’s hair. Carson’s corpse lay stiff and unmoving.
Daniel Howell and Jim Burke strode inside, stopping in the entrance and staring.
Howell’s sun-tanned face went pale, his eyes widening, jaw going slack. Dan Howell was the biggest landowner in the mountains, and one of the youngest cattlemen in Montana. He owned the Endless Sky ranch that nearly straddled the whole of the Crazies, the mountain range carved off from the northern Rockies like a forgotten child. Timber Creek lived in the mountain’s shadows.
Years on the range, working the land and his herd, gave Howell a lean and hardened body, wind-weathered and whip-strong. He wore the cattleman’s uniform: boots, slim jeans, a checked shirt, and a sleeveless vest zipped to his chest with his ranch brand—a Crazy A, an A upside down—over his heart.
Jim Burke, beside Howell, cursed under his breath and looked away from Carson’s corpse. He pulled his tan hat off and stared at the far wall, his jaw set. Ever since Endless Sky was only a barn and a tiny little house, Jim Burke had been the ranch’s foreman. Over twenty long years, he’d built the ranch as much as Howell had, staking out every new pasture, running fences, building the herd, pushing the cattle back and forth through the hot summers and long winters. He’d worked every inch of that ranch, knew every blade of grass, every tree and where its roots lay.
Once, Lawrence had wanted to be him, had idolized that fierce loyalty to the brand and to the man. He’d looked to Jim Burke, one of the only old men in the Crazies with a sensible head on his shoulders next to Sheriff Braddock, and saw a man he could try to become.
Now, Lawrence couldn’t look him in his eyes. He stared at the floor, the edges of his eyes taking in how Burke’s hair had gone completely gray, how his watery blue eyes floated deep in his lined face and seemed rocked on the waves after seeing Carson’s ruined corpse.
“We heard,” Howell said breathlessly. “But we didn’t want to believe it.”
God damn small towns.Lawrence glared at the young deputy hovering behind Braddock. “You? Or someone else back there who is paid to call Endless Sky with all the news? You got orders to tell him when you take a shit, too?”
“Law, shut your trap. I told him to call, and they was in town already. Carson was Dan’s hand for years and he deserved to know from me, not through the rumor mill.”
Lawrence kept his mouth shut, sucking his teeth as he swallowed what he wanted to say.Carson could have still been at the Endless Sky. If he’d still been there, maybe he wouldn’t be dead now.
Howell stood over Carson’s body and pulled off his hat. He shook his head and rested his hand on Carson’s cold, still chest. “Darby, we’vegotto do something.”
“I agree, Dan.”
“Oh for God’s sake!” Lawrence cried. He’d moved back, keeping a wide berth from Howell. “Endless Sky says jump and you get to leapin’, huh? Ignore me and my complaints, my missin’ stock, my God damn people turnin’ up dead!”
Howell’s cheeks flushed, but he refused to look Lawrence’s way.
“If you wouldn’t try’n fight every single thing I say, Law, we coulda talked it through sensibly. You’re a man who hunts trouble every second of the day, and I got exactly no time for that, not with dead bodies being dropped on my desk and cattle missin’ from every which way. You wanna come back and be sensible, we can talk. Until then!” Braddock pointed at the door. “Out!”
“Sheriff—”
“Isaidout!”
“You take care of Carson, you hear? I wanna know what happened to him!” His gaze lingered on Carson. He didn’t want to walk away, not yet. He’d driven down holding onto the man, trying to pretend he was just sleeping, it was just another day they were driving around and Carson had fallen asleep in his truck.
“Law!”
Sometimes a man had to do what needed to be done no matter how much it hurt. His eyes went watery, and he squeezed them shut.Carson… God damn it.
He didn’t want to leave, but he did, storming out, his boots echoing on the aged hardwood in the lobby.
He heard Braddock’s voice over his shoulder. “Now, I put in a call to Helena last week about the missing stock in these parts and the troubles we’ve been havin’. They’ve agreed to send a man—”
The doors slammed shut behind Lawrence, cutting off Braddock’s voice.
Chapter 4
“Welcome to the Crazies, son.”Braddock smiled across his desk and folded his hands together.
Everett sat ramrod straight in the chair before Sheriff Braddock’s desk. He wore his jeans, as instructed, brand-new roper boots, and his Montana Department of Agriculture bomber jacket. He’d taken off hisStock Detectiveball cap and set it on his thigh, perfectly centered and parallel to the floor.
He felt underdressed, but that was how he’d felt ever since taking off his Army uniform for the last time.
“The Crazies, sir?” Everett frowned.
“It’s what we call these mountains. That’s Crazy Peak up there.” Braddock pointed to the highest peak in the mountains looming over Timber Creek outside his office window. “Supposedly, way back when, some woman on the wagon trains headin’ west went crazy at the sight of the mountain. Or another legend says some Indian woman went out of her mind after a bad vision quest. Yet another story says a man in Lewis and Clark’s expedition wandered into the mountains and was never seen or heard from again. His journal ended up back in St. Louis, though, and he’d written about all kind of ghosts and demons and hauntings in these here mountains. People been askin’ ever since: was he crazy to begin with? Or did those mountains make him go crazy?”
