The High Rocks by Loren D. Estleman Read Free Book Online Page B

turned upward at the corners in a half-smile. It was the expression of a married man who had returned to a favorite mistress. I made a mental note to do my own shaving the next time I came to Staghorn.
    Somewhere off in the gloom a doorknob rattled. “Ezra?” The voice belong to Henry Goodnight, calling from in front of the shop. “Ezra, you asleep? Open up.”
    That broke the mood. The barber shoved the stopper back into the bottle and shot me a stern look, as if swearing me to secrecy.

    â€œHe won’t hear it from me,” I assured him. “It’s not against the law anyway.”
    That didn’t have any effort on him at all. He went out to let Henry in. A bolt squeaked back, there was a muttered conversation, and then the sheriff came striding into the lamp light. He had traded his Prince Albert and fancy vest for a hip-length brown canvas coat with fur at the collar and cuffs and bone buttons that dangled loosely from the threads that held them, and his hat now was a Stetson. He walked as if this was the first time he had used his legs all night. There were dark circles under his eyes and his smile was weary.
    â€œYou must have a cast-iron skull,” he said. He pulled off a pair of brown leather gloves and stood massaging his right hand with his left. “I had you buried hours ago.”
    â€œWhere have you been?” I wasn’t in the mood for saloon stage banter.
    â€œTo the Clark Fork River and back, tracking your prisoner.” He swung the paint-spattered chair around and straddled it, folding his arms atop the back. Exhausted or not, he hadn’t forgotten to pose. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about him any more, because he’s as good as dead.”
    â€œYou shot him?” I started to get up, then remembered the mule waiting to kick my brains out and settled back.
    â€œWhy waste a bullet? I followed his trail north as far as Glacier Pass, where it swung west and
headed straight into the mountains. I figure he’s on his way to Canada by a route where he won’t meet too many people. He’ll meet a lot more than he reckoned on once the Flatheads find out there’s a white man in their midst. He won’t live to see Canada.”
    I felt a chill, but not from the thought of Brainard’s reception at the hands of the Indians. A vapor of cold air had begun to waft from Henry’s clothes over to me. The temperature outside must have dropped considerably since I’d returned to Staghorn, as there was a light dusting of snow on the sheriff’s hat and coat, now turning to beads of moisture in the heat of the shop’s invisible stove. I shivered slightly beneath the thin stuff of my nightshirt. I decided that Henry had helped Wilson undress me and put me to bed; the thought of the little barber attempting it alone was just too ludicrous.
    â€œIs the situation that bad?” I asked Henry.
    â€œTake a good look around you,” he said. “There isn’t a homesteader in the area who’d step outside his house without a rifle or a gun on his hip. It started after Doc Bernstein got killed, and since last spring when all those braves were scalped in that hunting party, it’s been just a matter of when Two Sisters thinks the time is right to strike. That’s what I tried to tell that bounty hunter Church, but he wouldn’t listen. Likely his scalp is already decorating a pole in some brave’s lodge.”

    There was a moment of silence while he appeared to be searching for something else to say. Absentmindedly he resumed massaging his right hand with his left where they rested on the back of the chair. He saw me watching, looked down at his hands, saw what he was doing, and dropped them to his knees.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with your hand?” I asked him.
    â€œNothing. I think I sprained my wrist when I pistol-whipped Ira Longbow.” He got up. “Anyway, you can stop