A Living Grave Read Online Free PDF

slow and easy,” I cautioned.
    In answer he nodded, grimacing with the effort. Even with the pained look it was a nice face. Under the blood was a square jaw that managed to be masculine without getting into lantern shaped. His eyes were a rich hazel-brown that could have been chosen from a color chart to match perfectly with his sun-darkened skin. There was one incongruity. His head was bald and it looked like a recent development. The scalp was still paler than the rest of him and made him look maybe a bit older than I thought he was. If I had met him someplace else I would have looked twice and thought three times. Even here, on the side of the road, with blood running down his cheek and his lip swelling, I liked what I saw. Or maybe it was just that I would like any man that took an ass-kicking and got up laughing instead of whining and cursing.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” I asked.
    While looking up at me he ran his tongue around his mouth, probably looking for missing or broken teeth. A couple of times he winced when he found something, the sources of the blood he spit out one more time. The look on his face was the down-but-not-out of a fighter, a crooked smile that broke into a bent grin as he offered up his hand to me.
    I took it and helped him up.
    â€œI’m Nelson Solomon,” he said.
    â€œLike the painter?”
    The grin that had shaped his lips made its way to his eyes and then it was a genuine smile. “Exactly like the painter,” he told me. For a moment he stood there holding onto my hand and steadying himself. When he was confident enough in his footing he let go and waved me over toward the barbed-wire fence and the pasture beyond. “Give me a hand with the rest of my stuff?”
    â€œI really don’t think you should be climbing fences or tramping through fields right now, Mr. Solomon.”
    He waved my concern off. “I was never unconscious, just took a few shots and got the wind knocked out of me.” Before I could say anything more he went for the fence and ducked through the sagging, rusted strands of tetanus waiting to happen.
    â€œYou mind telling me what happened here?” I asked as he came up on the other side. In his hand was a stained rag and a couple of tubes that looked like toothpaste.
    â€œI was over there.” He pointed off to a tree line. “There’s a good view of the lake and I was painting.” As he talked, he walked, picking up more tubes and adding brushes. The tubes were paint.
    I had thought he was kidding after I said his name was like the painter. I didn’t know much about art, but his was all over the place—posters, coffee-table books, calendars. He was a merchandising gold mine. I couldn’t afford even a decent print and couldn’t imagine the cost of one of the originals. I had heard there was a place selling them down on the Branson Landing, a shopping development for tourists. Other than loitering teens, locals don’t spend much time there.
    While I was thinking, he kept gathering. Working his way down a trail trampled in the grass, he pulled up a box with legs on it. When he set it upright it was a little fold-up easel and compartment for supplies. After dumping everything else he had picked up inside, he collapsed the whole thing and held it up by a handle. He was grinning even bigger than before, pointing to a stain on one corner.
    â€œI got him with this,” he called out. “See? Blood.”
    â€œSo he attacked you?”
    Walking back along the trail, he nodded at me as he kept an eye out for any other pieces of his kit. “He was just trying to scare me, probably.”
    â€œWhy would he do that?” I asked. “Did you know him?”
    â€œNope,” he answered, still smiling. This time, though, his eyes didn’t quite look at mine.
    â€œSo why’d he come mess with you?”
    â€œI don’t know. Some people are just general, all-around