The Blight Way

by McManus, Patrick F.

  Just then Buck burst into the hallway carrying his boots. “Are they in the hotel yet?” he croaked.

  “I just saw one of them,” Tully said, finally getting hold of his gun.

  “Oh no,” Buck moaned. “The rest must already be downstairs then.”

  “What?” Tully yelled. “You saw them!”

  “Yes! I looked out the window and I saw all of them streaming down from the graveyard! They’re wearing these old-time clothes. I figure they must be the dead townsfolk! When they got to town they’d see all their houses had been burned down. Then they’d head for the only place left, the hotel!”

  “You were dreaming!” Tully shouted. “This guy was no ghost! Ghosts don’t make any sound when they run.”

  “If those folks are downstairs, I’ll make a sound when I run. And if it wasn’t a ghost, how come you didn’t shoot?”

  “Because I don’t just shoot people if I can help it!”

  “Pap would have shot him!”

  “You bet,” Pap said. He had stepped out into the hallway, a pistol in his hand.

  “Figures,” Tully said.

  “I don’t care what you say,” Buck said, “I’m sleeping in your room, Bo!”

  “Okay,” Tully said. He didn’t even care if Buck snored. “Just don’t dream anymore. I don’t want to hear about your dreams.”

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Buck said. “I saw them, streaming down through all that moonlit grass and . . .”

  “Shut up!” Tully said.

  Chapter 17

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Buck told Pap. “I seen them clear as day, all these folks trooping down off the cemetery hill.”

  The three of them were seated at a booth in Dave’s House of Fry. They were eating giant pancakes with bacon and eggs on the side.

  “It was a dream,” Tully said, “and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  Deedee and Carol, the two waitresses, were both making over Pap. He was slurping it up. Tully wasn’t sure if either he or Buck had gone back to sleep after the incident with the intruder. In his case, it certainly didn’t feel like it, but Pap seemed well rested. He wished he could sleep as soundly as the old man. “You got any idea who the guy in the hotel was last night?” Pap said to Tully.

  “No, I wish I did. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Lem Scragg. But I never got a good look at his face. He obviously was after something.”

  “Maybe he was a ghost,” Pap said, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

  “That’s what I think!” said Buck.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Tully said. “I don’t want to hear anything more about ghosts. By the way, Pap, where’d you have the gun hidden? In your pack?”

  “Course not,” Pap said. “Had it in the cooler.”

  “So, what do you want me to do today?” Buck asked.

  “Well, I figure those guys in the car didn’t stay here in Famine, because there’s no place for them to stay. And maybe they didn’t want to be seen about town, anyway. What’s the nearest place up north they could have stayed?”

  “Cedar Hill Lodge is still open for the season,” Buck said. “They got cabins and a few hunters stay there this time of year. It’s about twenty-five miles north of the mining road.”

  “What makes you think they stayed anywhere?” Pap said. “Susan fixed the time of death at three thirty-eight. They rented the car at ten o’clock at night in Spokane. That’s four and a half hours. It takes about four hours for them to drive down here from Spokane. Why would they need a motel?”

  “Yeah,” Buck said. “Why would they need a motel? The motel would be closed for the night anyway. There’s not even a gas station open between here and Spokane that time of night.”

  “I don’t care, Buck. Drive up there and see if three men in a Jeep rental stopped for the night. If they did, find out which cabins they rented. Get those cabins locked up. Pap and I will check out a few people here, just in case they did come into town.”

  “Seems like a waste of time,” Buck said.

  “I suppose, but maybe they did stop and get a cabin,” Tully said. “If they hadn’t got themselves killed, they would have had to sleep sometime, probably later in the day. Maybe they had to use the bathrooms. What else have we got?”

  “Not much,” Buck said. “Tell you what, Bo. I’ll call Cedar Hill and see if anybody with a Jeep stopped there and rented a cabin in the middle of the night. No point in driving all the way up there if they didn’t.”

  “Okay, call.”

  After breakfast, Tully and Pap drove into Famine and stopped at Ed’s Gas-N-Grub. Ed was out in the garage side of the station fixing a flat tire.

  “How’s it going?” Ed said, looking up from the rubber plug he had inserted in the tire. He wiped his hands on a dirty cloth hanging from the tire-changing machine.

  “Fair to middling,” Tully answered. “Thought you might be able to help us out a little, Ed.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve arithmetic.”

  “It don’t,” Pap said.

  “Or grammar either,” Tully added. “You’ve probably heard that the car involved in the shooting was a new black Jeep Grand Cherokee.”

  “I did hear that. If your question is, did I see it or did those folks stop for gas, the answer is no. I’d remember a Grand Cherokee.”

  “That was my first question. The next is, have you noticed anybody in or around town suddenly having more money than usual?”

  Ed straightened up and moved his shoulders back and forth as if working out a kink. “I wouldn’t want them to hear I told you so, but both Lister and Lem Scragg seem to have come into a fair amount of money lately.”

  “How so?”

  “As you probably know, neither of them has ever worked at a regular job in his entire miserable life. But both of them seem to have more money than usual.”

  Pap was concentrating on rolling a cigarette. “We didn’t see signs of a lot of money when we was out there.”

  “Maybe not. Just thought I’d mention it.”

  “Is that where Lister and Lem still live, out at Batim’s?”

  “Yeah,” Ed said. “I think they live in those trailers out back, those old mobile homes. They both got wives or girlfriends, change them about as often as their shirts, so I don’t know which. There’s a whole passel of kids running around there. I think they all feed off Batim, or at least used to.”

  “What about Batim, how does he make a living?”

  “I reckon he steals what he needs. He certainly can’t make much off that ranch of his.”

  Pap lit his skinny little cigarette. “Some of these folks live on air,” he said. “There ain’t no other way they could possibly survive otherwise. They just keep on going no matter what.”

  “Seems that way,” Ed said. “Oh, they seem better off the last couple of years, don’t ask me why.”

  “One more question,” Tully said. “What do you know about the crew out at the Littlefield ranch?”

  “Mitchell and Kincaid? Not much. They showed up out of nowhere about four years ago. Yesterday, Little-field let his old crew go, real cowboys who have worked for him for years. These two obviously don’t know much about cattle, but apparently Vern is selling off his herds.”

  Ed went back to working on the flat. Pap watched him intently, as if he was thinking of taking up tire work. Tully strolled along the garage’s steel workbench, looking at Ed’s tools. Tully loved tools. I should have been a mechanic, he thought, the work would be so much cleaner. He wandered back over to Ed, who was inflating the tire. “I met what’s left of Littlefield’s crew last night,” he said.

  Ed said, “Mitchell seems to be the foreman. He’s nice enough, but that Kincaid is a cold son-of-a-gun. Never says a word. He’s from around here originally, part of that Kincaid clan back in the hills.”

  “I doubt either of them ever sat a horse,” Tully said.

  “They don’t have to anymore,” Ed said. “Littlefield’s
got four or five ATVs they can use for driving cattle. The nice thing about an ATV is, you leave it and come back, it’s right where you left it. Turn your back for a second and your horse could be in the next county.”

  Pap and Tully chuckled. Both of them hated horses.

  Tully thanked Ed for his time and information and they walked over to the General Store.

  “What you want at the store?” Pap asked. “Probably cost twice what it would back in Blight.”

  “Thought I might pick up a few snacks. Never can tell when we might get back to town.”

  “You going up the Last Hope Road again? You and Susan already checked the mine out. Of course this time you might be able to keep your mind more on business.”

  “It was strictly business the last time, you dirty old man. But the fact we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there. Maybe I’ll have Dave go up and look around.”

  “Dave the Indian?”

  “Yeah, Dave the Indian.”

  A clean blue Mercury Sable was parked in front of the store. A person didn’t see that many new Mercury Sables in Famine, but it was clean and that caught Tully’s attention. He walked around the car, looking in the windows, and then he and Pap went into the store.

  Tully said “Hi” to the girl at the cash register. She grinned at him. Movie star beautiful. Tully wondered if it was something in the water that made so many of the girls in Famine beautiful. Or maybe it was that it had been six weeks since Gail had bailed out on him. Tully walked over to the magazine and paperback racks. A well-dressed woman of thirty-something was thumbing through a Danielle Steel paperback, apparently to see if she had already read it. She didn’t look like a local. She wore a tweed suit over a blue blouse, and her ash-blond hair had been coiffed by an expert, probably someone named Pierre or Maurice. Tully casually unbuttoned his suede jacket so that it revealed the sheriff’s badge on his belt.

  “Those any good?” he asked.

  She glanced at him, took in the badge. “If you like romance,” she said.

  “Matter of fact, I do,” he said. “Haven’t read much about it, though. Maybe I should.”

  “Probably wouldn’t hurt,” the lady said, and went back to her book.

  “That your Sable out front?”

  “My what?”

  “Your car? A Mercury Sable.”

  “Oh, right. I hope it isn’t illegally parked.”

  “Shoot, up here you could park in the middle of the road and upside down, and it wouldn’t be illegal. It’s just that we folks here in Famine don’t get a lot of tourists stopping by.”

  She put the book back on the rack. Tully could tell he was starting to get on her nerves.

  “Actually, I’m just passing through. I’m on my way down to Boise for a new job. Anything else on your mind, officer?”

  “Nope. Except I guess you probably flew into Spokane International, where you rented the car.”

  She slowly turned from the racks of books and looked steadily at him. “I guess maybe you’re not one of those hick cops on the make that I took you for,” she said. “Yes, you got that exactly right. I did fly into Spokane International and rented the car.”

  “Actually, I am pretty hicky,” Tully said, tugging on the corner of his mustache. “So how come you didn’t just fly into Boise for your job?”

  “I knew you were about to ask that. It’s because I wanted to see Idaho, and I’m glad I did. It’s beautiful.”

  “Yep,” Tully said. “We got a whole lot of scenery here, more than we need. I’m real sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we’ve just had this sort of event here, and we kinda got to talk to anybody new that shows up.” It was his best imitation of a hick cop.

  Her blue-green eyes seemed to freeze in her face. “What kind of event?”

  “Oh, nothing a lady like yourself would be interested in.”

  “Well, I can assure you, I don’t know anything about any event in this town. But whatever it was, you’re starting to make me very nervous.”

  “Please don’t let me upset you,” Tully said, raising his hands as if in surrender. “By the way, I think I’ll try one of them Danielle Steels. Maybe it’ll teach me something about dealing with pretty young women, maybe even some romance.”

  She gave him a little smile. “I suspect you know more about romance than you’re letting on.”

  She’s wrong about that, Tully thought. Just then Pap called to him and asked if he was done picking up snacks.

  “That’s my old father,” Tully said. “Got some dementia, you know. I take him out of the home about once a month.”

  “I hope he doesn’t think I’m one of your snacks,” the lady said.

  “Hard to tell what that crazy old codger might think.”

  “Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but I’ve got to go.” The lady started to walk away.

  “Could I ask you one more question?” Tully called out.

  The lady stopped and turned. “What’s that?”

  “What kind of men do the ladies in these Danielle Steel novels go for?”

  She thought for a moment. “The men are always handsome, rich and powerful.”

  “Thanks,” Tully said. One out of three ain’t bad, he thought. He picked up two of the Danielle Steels and carried them up to the cashier, grabbing some candy bars and corn chips on the way. He watched through the front window as the lady drove off in her clean Sable.

  He put the candy bars on the counter and held up the Steel novels for the girl at the cash register to see. She smiled and gave him a questioning look.

  “They’re for my father over there,” he said, nodding toward Pap. “He loves these romance novels.”

  “What?” Pap said. “What’s for me?”

  “Nothing,” Tully said. He shoved the books into the side pocket of his jacket.

  Chapter 18

  Tully and Pap got into the Explorer and Tully turned out onto the highway.

  “Where we headed now?” Pap asked. “Back to Blight City or the Littlefield ranch?”

  “Something I want to check at the Littlefield ranch,” Tully said. “Then I want to take a look at that skid trail where you found the ATV tracks.”

  When they reached a point where they could see the Littlefield ranch from the highway, Tully pulled into a turnout. He took his binoculars from the glove compartment and trained them on the ranch buildings. He moved the binoculars methodically from building to building.

  “What you looking for?” Pap asked.

  “A clean blue Mercury Sable,” he said. “And I just found it. At least, the tail end of it, sticking out of a shed. Kincaid is closing the doors on it.”

  “That the Sable belonged to the lady you hit on back at the General Store?”

  “I didn’t hit on her. But, yeah, that’s her Sable. Told me she was just passing through on her way to a new job in Boise. She’s apparently connected to someone at the Littlefield ranch.”

  They drove back through Famine, on past the road to the Last Hope Mine and past the skid trail.

  “I thought you wanted to take a look at the skid trail,” Pap said.

  “I do. But if the Littlefield crowd are somehow involved in this, I’m pretty sure they didn’t drive their ATVs down the highway to get back to the ranch. Somebody might have seen them. There’s got to be a place right up here where they pulled a truck in.”

  Then they saw it, a small picnic area alongside the river. The ice in the mud puddles of the entrance road had been broken and frozen again.

  “Okay, this fits,” Tully said. “They come out of the skid trail, drive a short distance down the road, and into the picnic area. Then they load the ATVs onto a truck, throw a tarp over them and drive back to the Littlefield ranch.”

  Pap said, “Or some farmhand could have forgot his lunch box and come in here with his truck to turn around.”

  “That, too,” Tully said. “But there are ATV tracks all over. I prefer my version.”

  “It�
��s good, all right,” Pap said, “except we don’t have the slightest bit of real evidence.”

  “At least the Littlefield ranch has ATVs.”

  “Every other person in this part of the county has an ATV.”

  “Stop demolishing my theories. Next time I’ll leave you home. But if they left one ATV behind for the guy who killed Holt, the others would have had to wait here for him. Or he would have had to drive the ATV home. In that case, someone might have seen him. It would be pretty odd to see some fellow driving an ATV down the road at, say, four o’clock in the morning.”

  “Or they could have sent the truck back for him.”

  “That, too.”

  Tully turned around in the picnic area and drove back down the highway. Pap started making himself another cigarette.

  They pulled off the highway onto a wide spot and then walked up the skid trail to where the ATVs had been parked. The skid trail didn’t end at the mountain but continued on up the steep grade. Trees were now growing in parts of it, and the trail obviously hadn’t been used since the days of horse logging. Tully walked carefully around the area where the ATVs had been parked. From the tracks, it was apparent the riders had turned them around, facing out down the trail.

  “Looks as if they might have been prepared for a fast getaway,” Tully said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Pap said.

  “So why would they have needed to make a fast getaway? It’s the middle of night, they leave two dead guys in a car, one dead on a fence.”

  “Maybe they knew the guys in the car was pretty heavy dudes,” Pap said. “Maybe they wasn’t all that sure of themselves. Maybe they was a bunch of amateurs going up against some pros.”

  “Interesting point. And if these dead guys were pros from L.A., I suspect other pros in L.A. are going to send someone up to find out what happened to them.”