by Douglas Hirt
A Deadly Shade of Rose
Douglas Hirt
A Deadly Shade of Rose
Copyright © 2020 Douglas Hirt
Wolfpack Publishing
6032 Wheat Penny Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89122
wolfpackpublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.
eBook ISBN 978-1-64734-039-1
Paperback ISBN 978-1-64734-524-2
Characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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About Douglas Hirt
Chapter One
Somewhere in the Colorado Rocky Mountains
March, 1983
No one would ever accuse the Italians of building fine military rifles. They do manage to turn out some excellent shotguns, and a few really nice handguns too, particularly of the Old Western Style. But their rifles are probably some of the worst in the world, especially those sloppy smoke poles turned out during the war—the big one a couple wars back. The particular example I was looking at now was a major abomination; partly factory fault and partly amateur gunsmith fault...well, butcher gunsmith...well, maybe just butcher.
It happened to be a Carcano with a cracked stock. Someone had sawn the front third of the stock off in a failed attempt at sporterizing the piece. Cradled in what remained of the gouged piece of timber was a badly pitted barrel and receiver, originally blued or parkerized, I suppose. Now it showed a lot of white metal as most of the finish had worn away long ago. It had obviously taken a lot of abuse since its service days and had come away worse for the wear, not that it had been much of a rifle to begin with; certainly not of the quality of a vintage Mauser 98 or a Springfield 03. But then, as I said, the Italians were never known for classy military hardware. All together I wouldn’t give ten bucks for a wheelbarrow load of Carcanos, and I’ve seen quite a few in my lifetime.
Generally, I don’t get very emotional over firearms, but this particular example had tromped on the gas pedal of my heart, had brought a catch to my breathing. The rifle was, I decided, the worst of a bad bunch, and the reason for my sudden illogic was simple. Its worn and badly pitted barrel was pointed at a spot about midway down my sternum.
And then the coffee spilled out over the rim of my blue enameled cup onto the hot iron grate, sizzling and splashing all over my carefully banked bed of coals. I yelped and dropped the cup. My eye flicked away from the rifle for half a second. When I looked back the battered barrel had shifted, but the finger on the trigger had remained steady.
It was a slim finger attached to a pink hand belonging to the arm of a young lady who might have been attractive had her tangled hair been washed and brushed and the mud scrubbed from her red cheeks. Different clothing would have helped with the overall appearance too. The tan parka was cut to accommodate a body much larger than her own. The tattered hem of a blue dress showing beneath it seemed definitely out of place in this cold, high mountain air. Although the attire looked out of place, the rifle in her hands appeared right at home.
And for that I was grateful because her wary eyes told a very different story. Having a gun pointed at your chest is frightening all on its own. Having that same gun in timid hands with a nervous trigger finger is terrifying.
They were blue eyes, by the way, narrowed to a hard crease that didn’t quite mask the fear in them. Her blushing, cold-pink cheeks contrasted strangely with her eyes. The stringy hair was some shade of dark brown. Beyond that I couldn’t decipher anything else.
Of course, all of this came about a lot faster than it sounds. From hearing the crackle of dried leaves under foot until this instant might have been all of five seconds. She’d walked out of the fir tree forest like she’d know me for years. She’d caught my startled look and then in a glance took in my camp site, her stare lingered a long, pitiful moment upon my crumpled sleeping bag, still warm, before coming back to me. The unhappy corners of her mouth drooped lower and her square jaw set with a determined shift.
“I’ve been watching from the trees. You’re alone?” Her words were accompanied by puffs of steam in the cold morning air. Their tone demanded a reply from me.
“I was until a moment ago,” I said carefully, an eye on her trigger finger, giving what I hoped would be a reassuring smile.
“Don’t smart off with me, mister. You alone?” Her cold, pink fingers tightened around the sad little rifle. My breathing went still. In spite of its looks, I wasn’t naive enough to underestimate the piece. The Carcano fired a 6.5 mm round that killed a lot of good men forty years ago, not to mention a good man in the White House about twenty-five or so years ago.
Carefully, slowly, I raised my free hand while setting the coffee pot back onto the iron grate. “Sorry ma’am. Didn’t mean to upset you.” I spoke slowly, respectfully, aware of the stirring of a memory that I’d long ago put to rest hoping it would stay there. But that’s the problem with memories....
It had been another dawn, another time, in a place far away from this cold, clean Colorado mountainside. The place had been steaming and dripping, and I had been alone there too since my companion had suddenly become quite dead. The small group of men in military clothing who had put a permanent halt to his startled lunge for the M-16 rifle near his bedroll had basically asked me the same question she’d just asked, except their English hadn’t been nearly as good. Their weapons, however, had been quite superior if not even uglier, and they had been of Chinese origin—well, Russian, actually—not Italian.
I shook off the past and focused on the brown-hair-blue-eyed woman with the rifle. I told her that this squatting position she’d caught me in was getting uncomfortable and could I please change it? She nodded and the rifle made a small movement, which I took to mean okay and eased back off my haunches onto the cold ground. The parka that swallowed her appeared warm enough, in a bulky sort of way, but the open-toed sandals and ruined nylon hose had to be pure misery. The nearly bare bluish legs that poked down from beneath the coat quivered. She was swaying a little and I saw her making an effort to catch her balance.
“Have you a weapon here?” She glanced at the tackle box and fishing pole I’d leaned against a tree the night before after hiking up from the stream below with two small trout. They’d gone right into the frying pan soon as I’d stirred up the fire enough for it to do its job.
I nodded toward the old pickup truck that had hauled me and the gear up from the highway yesterday afternoon. “Under the front seat. It’s only a .22 but you’re welcome to it if it’ll put your mind at ease. In fact, take the truck if that’s what you want. The tank is full and there’s some cash in the ashtray.
Her view shifted back and her
hard, contemplative eyes scrutinized me without revealing the thoughts behind them. After a moment the threatening gaze softened a bit. Her face didn’t actually turn friendly, but she did seem less inclined to see how large a hole a 6.5 mm round would blow through the chest of a medium to large size human critter. “That’s generous of you.”
I shrugged. “That old truck is a small price to pay if I get to walk out of these mountains with my skin intact.”
She said, “I just might do that. What are you doing up here anyway? And don’t tell me you’re fishing. Who goes fishing in the cold?”
“Heck ma’am, in some parts of the country ice fishing is a bigger sport than football. Generally you’ll find it practiced more up north than down here in Colorado where the lakes don’t really freeze over, at least not solid enough to where you can drive a truck out onto them and haul out a shack with a stove and a hole in the floor. Most fishing done hereabouts is of the active variety. Cast and reel, cast and reel. Keeps you warm on a cold March afternoon.”
She laughed but there was no humor in it. “That’s all I need now. A lecture on fishing from you.”
I said, “No ma’am, that’s not what you need. What you need right now is a cup of hot coffee, some food, and a safe place that’s warm.”
Bingo. I’d found the spot where she hurt the most. She licked her dry, chapped lips, the hard gaze softening further. “Well actually it was the smell of coffee that led me here...to you.” The hostility was gone from her voice.
“Great. Remind me to never to brew up a pot of coffee on a cold morning. Who knows what I might lure out of these mountains next time?” I turned to the grocery box next to a camp chair. She went taut. I said, “Coffee cup.” She was on alert again. She nodded and I reached into the bag and came out with a cup identical to the one that still lay in the dirt near my leg. I filled it and handed it to her.
She started to reach for the cup, then stopped. A sudden riveting stare revealed a return of whatever terror had come upon her of recent. Maybe I intended to grab her wrist? Maybe there was a pistol hidden under my coat, or a garrote up my sleeve, or whatever it was she thought me capable of?
“Just set it down there.”
I did and she motioned me back from the fire. I couldn’t see any point arguing about it with the muzzle of her rifle pointing at me. I had no intention of grabbing for her wrist, or any other part of her, but at the moment I doubted I was going to convince her of that.
She said, “More. Over there,” and swung the barrel toward a nearby tree.
“Sure thing lady. You know you really don’t need to be threatening the local wildlife with that thing. I’m just a friendly fisherman intending to do no harm to anyone except to the local trout population.”
“I’ll decide if and when I don’t need this.” Her menacing tone that told me she knew what she was doing. She was no sucker and would use the rifle if she felt it necessary. “Scoot your bottom over to that tree and keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Yes ma’am. Just make yourself to home, why don’t you? I’d offer you cream and sugar, but I left those back at the cabin.” I moved to the indicated tree and sat beside my tackle box, my hands dutifully exposed and crossed over my knees in plain sight. She shuffled the rifle to her left hand, carefully picked up the hot tin cup and sipped cautiously all the while watching me over its blue rim.
She said, “You have any food around here?”
“Haven’t gotten around to preparing breakfast yet, me-lady. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Cut the glib prattle.” She seemed to want to say more but cut it short at that. Frowning, she took another pull at the coffee cup. “What’s your name?”
It was a move in the right direction. “Granger, ma’am. Paul Granger.” And the natural progression when a conversation took this direction was for me to ask her the same.
She thought a moment as if weighing the ramifications. She must have decided it could do no harm, or maybe she was just taking the time to make something up? “Marcie Rose, if it makes any difference.”
“It doesn’t, and I’m not sure I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
She laughed.
Another move in the right direction. I said, “There’s eggs, bacon, and some cheese in the cooler. Some Hatch’s green chili too. I’m pretty basic when I head to the woods. If you want, I’ll scramble them up. You can have another cup of coffee while you watch.”
“All right but go easy on the chili.” Her voice tone took a warning note. “And don’t-”
“I know, I know. Don’t do anything daring or stupid.” I grinned. “Don’t worry Miss—or is it Mrs.-?—Rose. I’ve got plans for the next thirty to forty years, thank you very much.”
Her face remained stern and she stepped warily out of the way, moving like a mountain lion tasting the scent of man on the wind. Marcie Rose appeared a most competent woman, at least she was comfortable around firearms. I couldn’t quite believe a lone, unarmed fisherman would be much of a threat to her, especially since she was the one packing heat and giving orders. Yet it was plain she was one scared woman. Afraid of what? What had frightened her enough to have driven here out into the mountains on a cold March morning dressed as if she’d just come home from the office—except for the baggy parka that obviously did not belong to her. I suspected the rifle didn’t either.
I invaded the Coleman cooler and removed breakfast fixings. I didn’t have to look at her to know she was shifting foot to foot trying to keep warm. “The keys are in the ignition,” I said keeping busy with the important work of getting a hot breakfast ready. “It’s not much of a truck if you judge trucks by the plushy, soft sprung comfort buggies rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit or Hiroshima, or wherever it is they build them nowadays, but it takes me where I want to go, and it has a heck of a heater. Crawl inside, fire her up, and stick your toes down by it while I cook us something to eat.”
She didn’t say anything and she didn’t move. Putting out of mind a rifle pointed at your back is no easy accomplishment. Not knowing her—not knowing her frame of mind—made the arrangement precarious, but I didn’t think she’d shoot. If murder was her intent, she could have done it from the cover of the trees around us and then simply helped herself to my coffee, food, and truck. She hadn’t, so that told me Miss—or Mrs.—Marcie Rose had something else in mind,
I put the rifle out of mind best I could and went through the motions, trying not to let the tension in my back show too much. The iron skillet got properly arranged next to the coffee pot and the blackened coffee cup got rescued from the coals with a twig and set aside. There was another clean one in the bag. I generally bring along several on the theory that it being just me alone, washing dishes was a low priority item, somewhere below digging a latrine.
I started the bacon to get some grease in the skillet, and then moved them aside and broke half a dozen eggs, stirring with an iron camp spoon. As they began to set, I added in the cheese and the chili. Lots of chili. I liked my scrambled eggs that way and to heck with Miss. Rose’s culinary proclivities.
Marcie moved. I made a point of not looking. The truck’s door squeaked—I’d have to oil those hinges someday—and a few moments later the engine coughed and sputtered, shaking itself awake after a cold-night’s sleep. In a minute the old Ford settled down to a rough idle. I kept my attention strictly on building breakfast. I’d told her she could take it, and if that’s what she decided to do, well it was insured. But I didn’t think Marcie Rose was ready to leave just yet, at least not until she’d eaten my food too.
She was running from something or someone. No use trying to guess which at this point. It was clear that whatever had driven her out into the cold hadn’t been planned. She hadn’t dressed for the occasion. A reasonable conclusion would be that Marcie’s plunge into the cold was a matter of her seizing an opportunity. Beyond that there was little to gain by speculating. She’d talk in time, if she wanted to.
The eggs
hardened and browned and I covered the skillet and moved it off to the side to stay warm.
The truck hadn’t moved, and Marcie’s tired face looked heavy-eyed past the big steering wheel. I strolled over and opened the door. Her shoes lay in the corner where she’d kicked them off, toes protruding through holes in her hose, nice and pink now, under the heater’s fan. The Carcano leaned against the passenger door, replaced by the Smith and Wesson .22 revolver in her lap.
“You found it.”
She glanced at the stainless-steel revolver in her hand.
I said, “How long has it been?”
Her view narrowed a little, uncertain.
“Since you last warm meal? Last warm bed? How long have you been wandering around up here nearly barefooted and hiding from your own shadow?”
“I’m not-,” She screwed her lips together and straightened up on the seat. “I am not hiding from my shadow, Mister Granger.”
“You’re running from something.”
She frowned out the windshield. There wasn’t much to see except Ponderosa pine trees that grow tall on this side of Pikes Peak. The trees half obscured a muddy, double-rutted track I’d driven up on yesterday afternoon.
“Your name really is Paul Granger.”
I laughed. “Congratulations. You can read vehicle registrations.”
She looked at me, half smiled, and leaned wearily on the steering wheel. The barrel of my little revolver remained pointed more or less in my general direction, but now not nearly as steady or with the precision or resolve as had the rifle earlier. The warm cab and her great fatigue had begun to melt the formidable Marcie Rose.