Blood at Bear Lake by Gary Franklin Read Free Book Online

loose somewhere.”
    â€œTwo,” Joe said.
    â€œTwo what?”
    â€œTwo murderers.”
    â€œYou’re sure about that?”
    Joe nodded and puffed on his pipe. “Positive. I heard two voices, and they weren’t one guy talking to himself. There was two of them as robbed an’ killed that man.”
    Tolbert grunted and sat in silence for a moment. Joe sipped at the steaming hot coffee. It was a little bitter with age from sitting on the stove too long, but he had surely drunk worse.
    â€œYou have to help me find them,” Tolbert said after a brief silence. “We can’t let Sam’s murderers slip away. I suppose the first thing I should do is to see can I figure out has anyone suddenly left town without saying anything about it ahead of time.” He puffed on his pipe. “Most folks around here are friendly. They don’t have anything to hide. Nothing real serious anyway. They would’ve mentioned it if a trip was planned.”
    Tolbert laid his pipe aside, crossed his legs, and laced his hands over his knee. “For right now, though, Joe, I’d like you to tell me, nice and slow, every least detail you can remember about those murderers. Everything you heard and everything you saw. Everything. Can you do that? Will you?”
    â€œGladly,” Joe said. He set in to do exactly that.

14
    JOE SPENT THE night in a cluttered toolshed, a lean-to attached to the back of Wilcox’s house. Christine apologized for the rough surroundings, but Joe grinned and waved off her apologies. “You should oughta see some o’ the places I’ve slept. But then come to think of it, it’s better that a nice lady like you don’t know.”
    He slept well—and free—and as usual woke well before dawn. The Wilcoxes apparently were not such early risers, so Joe pumped a basin full of cold water and washed on the back porch. He slicked his hair back with his hands, checked the set of his Colt revolver and the tomahawk and bowie, then wandered into town in search of a café that was open at the early hour. Preferably one with a handsome lady handling the orders.
    Joe was married—Lordy, what a strange thought that was; he did not know if he would ever get over the magic of it—and he would never stray. But there was nothing wrong with a man liking to just look .
    He found a likely place two blocks down and three over from the marshal’s house. Yellow lamplight streamed from the street-side windows, giving the café a cheery look about it.
    Until Joe walked inside, that is.
    Cheery? Not damn likely.
    There were only two customers and a fat, greasy cook inside the place. The cook was sweating from the heat of his stove, and both customers were huddled over their plates like they thought someone was going to come along and snatch their food away.
    The cook tended his stove and the customers plied their forks, all in silence except for the clatter of the firebox door when the cook added wood to his stove and the scrape-scrape-scrape of steel fork tines on pewter plates.
    Joe took a seat at the low counter and turned upright the tin cup that had been laid out there placed upside down. The cook came over to him.
    â€œCoffee?”
    â€œPlease. And I reckon I could stand some breakfast, too. What I’d like is . . .”
    â€œNever mind what you’d like. If you want breakfast, all you gotta do is say so and take what I give you.”
    â€œAn’ that would be exactly what?” Joe asked.
    â€œSlice of pork. Mess of fried ’taters. An’ all the mush an’ syrup you can eat. An’ that coffee that’s in front of you.”
    â€œNo eggs?”
    â€œDo I look like a chicken?”
    Joe thought about suggesting that, no, the fellow did not look like a chicken but he did closely resemble a pig. But hell, he had come in here for a meal, not a fight. He choked back that response and said, “That sounds all