Crow Bait Read Online Free PDF

out his attack with the law, one of them would come up with something.
    He found the sheriff’s office and entered without knocking because the door was unlocked. The room was odd, L-shaped, with a desk to his right. At the end of the shorter stretch of the room was a door to the cell blocks. The man seated behind the desk looked up at him with interest.
    “Help ya?” he asked.
    “Sheriff?”
    “That’s right.” The man straightened in his chair, bringing the badge pinned to his chest into view. “Sheriff Harlan Race.”
    “My name’s Lancaster. I just came to town today. I was supposed to be doing a job for Wells Fargo, but I got waylaid in the desert on the way here and left for dead.”
    The sheriff pointed to the chair opposite him and said, “Have a seat and tell me about it.”
    Lancaster sat down and started talking.
    “Three men, you said?” the sheriff asked when Lancaster finished.
    “That’s right.”
    “And you didn’t see their faces?”
    “Not that I can remember,” Lancaster said. “The doc says my memory of the incident should come back, and maybe it is, but it’s still got…holes.”
    “So you might’ve seen their faces and don’t remember?” the sheriff asked.
    “No,” Lancaster said. “I don’t think I ever saw their faces clearly.”
    “What did you see?”
    “Boots,” Lancaster said. “Mostly boots.”
    “Anythin’ about them you can remember?”
    Lancaster thought for a moment, tried to bring back into focus the boots that were inflicting pain on him.
    “What?” the sheriff asked. “What’s that look?”
    “Something…” Lancaster said. “Something about the boots.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “The stitching, maybe?”
    “Somethin’…distinctive?”
    “Maybe,” Lancaster said. “I’m not sure.”
    Suddenly, he had a brutal headache.
    “You okay?” the sheriff asked.
    “Headache. I’ll be okay. Were there any strangers in town last week?”
    “A few,” Race said. “I didn’t see three together, though.”
    “Maybe they stayed away from each other,” Lancaster said, “didn’t want to be seen together.”
    “Maybe,” Race said. “Let me think about it. Where are you stayin’?”
    “The Laughlin House.”
    “Okay, if I think of anything I’ll let you know.”
    “Okay, thanks.”
    “Lancaster,” the sheriff said as he started to leave.
    “Yes?”
    “Are you plannin’ on hunting for these men?”
    “That’s the general idea,” Lancaster said. “If I can somehow figure out who they are—or, at least, who one of them is.”
    “From their boots?”
    “From something,” Lancaster said. “Anything.”
    “A man’s boots, that’s not much to base killing him on.”
    “Hopefully,” Lancaster said, “I’ll have more to go on.”

Thirteen
    When Lancaster left the sheriff’s office, he was thinking about boots. The voice calling him from behind startled him. He turned, his hand going for his gun, but he didn’t have one. He was going to have to remedy that next. Should have asked Andy Black for the loan of one.
    “I been lookin’ for you,” Kimmie said. “Where ya been?”
    “Taking care of some business,” he said. “You and your brothers are still in town, huh?”
    “Sure are,” she said. “Gonna head back in about an hour.”
    “You’re going back?”
    “Well, sure,” she said. “I mean, I know what I said, but it’s my home, and they’re my brothers.”
    “I guess you’re right.”
    They started to walk together.
    “You look better,” she said. “New clothes, a bath. What’d the doc say?”
    “He said you did a good job of nursing me back to health,” Lancaster said. “He said I should start remembering more and more about the attack.”
    “That’s good, right?”
    “He said I should start remembering,” Lancaster said, “not that I will.”
    “Have you remembered anything yet?”
    “Jut bits and pieces,” he said. “Nothing that I can put together.”
    “Where are you