White Fire by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Read Free Book Online

a name on her list: Emmett Bowdree. “This one, please,” she said.
    Morris grabbed the handle and eased the lid off.
    Inside were the remains of a rotten pine coffin that held a skeleton. The lid had disintegrated and was lying in pieces around and on top of the skeleton. Corrie stared at it eagerly. The bones of both arms and a leg lay to one side; the skull was crushed; the rib cage had been ripped open; and both femurs had been broken into pieces, crunched up by powerful jaws to obtain the marrow, no doubt. In her studies at John Jay, Corrie had examined many skeletons displaying perimortem violence, but nothing— nothing —quite like this.
    “Jesus, the bear really did a number on him,” murmured Morris.
    “You’re not kidding.”
    As she examined the bones, Corrie noticed something: some faint marks on the broken rib cage. She knelt, looking closer, trying to make them out. Christ, what she needed was a magnifying glass. Her eyes darted about, and—on the crushed femur—she noticed another, similar mark. She reached out to pick up the bone.
    “Whoa, there, no touching!”
    “I need to just examine this a little closer.”
    “No,” said the chief. “Really, that’s enough.”
    “Just give me a moment,” Corrie pleaded.
    “Sorry.” He slid the lid back on. “You’ll have plenty of time later.”
    Corrie rose, perplexed, not at all sure about what she’d seen. It might have been her imagination. Anyway, the marks surely must be antemortem: no mystery there. Roaring Fork was a rough place back in those days. Maybe the fellow had survived a knife fight. She shook her head.
    “We’d better get going,” the chief said.
    They emerged into the brilliant light, the blaze off the glittering blanket of snow almost blinding. But try as she might, Corrie couldn’t quite rid herself of the strangest feeling of disquiet.

6
    T he call came the following morning. Corrie was seated in the Roaring Fork Library, reading up on the history of the town. It was an excellent library, housed in a modern building designed in an updated Victorian style. The interior was gorgeous, with acres of polished oak, arched windows, thick carpeting, and an indirect lighting system that bathed everything in a warm glow.
    The library’s historical section was state of the art. The section librarian, Ted Roman, had been very helpful. He turned out to be a cute guy in his midtwenties, lithe and fit, who had recently graduated from the University of Utah and was taking a couple of years off to be a ski bum. She had told him about her research project and her meeting with Chief Morris. Ted had listened attentively, asked intelligent questions, and showed her how to use the history archives. To top it off, he had asked her out for a beer tomorrow night. And she’d accepted.
    The library’s albums of old newspapers, broadsheets, and public notices from the silver boom days had been beautifully digitized in searchable PDF form. She’d been able, in a matter of hours, to pull up dozens of articles on the history of Roaring Fork and on the grizzly killings, obituary notices, and all kinds of related memorabilia—far more than she’d obtained in New York.
    The town had a fascinating history. In the summer of 1873, a doughty band of prospectors from Leadville braved the threat of Ute Indians and crossed the Continental Divide, penetrating unexplored territory westward. There, they and others who followed made one of the biggest silver strikes in U.S. history. A silver rush ensued, with hordes of prospectors staking claims all through the mountains lining the Roaring Fork River. A town sprang up, along with stamp mills for crushing ore and a hastily built smelter for separating silver and gold from ore. Soon the hills were crawling with prospectors, dotted with mines and remote camps, while the town itself teemed with mining engineers, assayists, charcoal burners, sawmill workers, blacksmiths, saloonkeepers, merchants, teamsters, whores,