Survivors Will Be Shot Again by Bill Crider Read Free Book Online Page A

Barton. Barton was the two-gun hero of a series of wild adventure-romance novels by a couple of writers who’d attended a writing conference in Blacklin County a few years before. To Rhodes’s surprise, the novels had sold very well and might even be filmed, or digitized or whatever they did now. It seemed as if everyone in the county had read the books and reached the conclusion that Rhodes was the model for the main character. Rhodes didn’t know how they could think that, since he shared none of Barton’s heroic abilities. Recently Seepy Benton had suggested that Barton was modeled on him because their initials were S. B. Rhodes had done all he could to encourage this idea, but apparently the only person who believed it was Seepy Benton himself.
    â€œThe Mounties, Sage Barton, and you,” Franklin said. “Always get your man. You will this time, too.”
    â€œThanks for the vote of confidence,” Rhodes said, thinking about how a vote of confidence for someone usually came just before that someone got fired.
    â€œYou know it’s the truth,” Franklin said. “Well, I’d better get back to town to do the paperwork and let you get started on catching whoever did this.”
    Rhodes wasn’t sorry to see Franklin go. As soon as he got outside, Ruth brought in the paramedics to remove Hunt’s body. The wheels of the gurney wobbled a bit on the concrete floor, sounding like the wonky grocery carts that Rhodes always got when he used one.
    When the paramedics were ready to pick up the body, Rhodes turned it over to check for exit wounds. There were none, so as Ruth had surmised, the slugs were still in the body. They’d show up in the autopsy.
    As the paramedics were putting the body on the gurney, Rhodes took Ruth aside.
    â€œI’m going to leave you to finish working the scene,” he said. “Maybe you’ll turn up something. I need to go tell Hunt’s wife what’s happened.”
    â€œFunny that she hasn’t called the department about him,” Ruth said.
    â€œNot so funny,” Rhodes said. “He has a little drinking problem. He’s gone missing before. The difference is that this time he won’t be coming home.”
    â€œI’m glad you’re the one who has to deliver that news instead of me,” Ruth said.
    â€œI’m not,” Rhodes said.

 
    Chapter 5
    Rhodes didn’t often think about his boyhood. He was usually too involved in the present to think about the past or the future, but driving the winding dirt roads that would take him to the Hunt home brought back things that he hadn’t thought of in years, like the house where he’d lived the early part of his life. It was gone now, but part of an old barn still remained on the property, or at least it had been there the last time Rhodes had driven by. The roof had collapsed, and by now there might not be much of it left. Rhodes had gathered eggs in that barn and learned to milk a cow. He hadn’t milked a cow in many years, but he could still remember his father putting a bucket under the cow’s udders, positioning Rhodes on a three-legged stool, and letting him lean into the cow’s warm side. Rhodes’s hands had been too small to do a very good job of squeezing the teats, but he’d been able to get some milk to stream into the bucket before his father finished the job. He’d even been allowed to drink some of the warm milk, something that would now no doubt be considered quite unsanitary and possibly dangerous.
    Rhodes grinned at the memory. His family had moved to town before he’d become an expert milker, but he thought he could still milk a cow if called upon.
    He rounded a curve, crossed the wooden bridge over Crockett’s Creek, and saw that the old barn where his house had been was almost gone, fallen completely down and almost hidden by vines and bushes that had grown up over and around what was left of it.