Dead Man’s Fancy Read Online Free PDF

backtrack. Spacing says he was running on the way out. Tripped and fell down once, down below in the trees. Running blind, down timber all around, no more sense than the horse.”
    â€œOr a woman.” Martha scratched the soft skin under her chin. “You said the third set of tracks are shorter. Why couldn’t they be a woman’s? That’s who’s missing on this godforsaken mountain.”
    â€œCould be at that. Make sense if she came onto the scene, saw him dead like this.”
    â€œI damn near bolted myself.”
    â€œNo, Martha, you didn’t. You just walked out to the edge of the trees where I found you and threw up and kicked some snow over it.”
    â€œDamned white book,” she muttered under her breath. “Any idea where number two and three came from?”
    Harold shook his head. “Once you get in the open, the tracks are windblown. Odd thing, though. There’s a drag mark near the elk carcass, a little dirt kicked up. Like someone dragging a heavy branch. Hard to tell with the snow cover.”
    Martha fingered the point-and-shoot in her breast pocket.
    Harold shook his head. “Pictures will just wash out, all that light bouncing off the snow.”
    â€œI know that. I’m not taking pictures of the tracks. This is just my way of telling you to finish up so I can take the scene photos. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a man over there who’s cooling down to room temperature and he has an antler sticking out of him that’s long enough to hang a hat on.”
    â€œThat’s what I miss about you, Martha.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOh, just you being you.”
    â€œThat was your choice, Harold.”
    â€œMy wife had something to say about it.”
    â€œYour ex-wife.”
    Harold looked away. Martha felt her shoulders sag.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “What’s going on with you and Lou Anne, it’s none of my business. Except . . .” All right, she told herself, I’m just going to say it. “I don’t know, you and me, I thought we had something. I keep asking myself what I did to screw it up.”
    â€œYou didn’t do anything. Lou Anne and I have known each other since we were kids. She’s my people. She’s got a problem with depression; she wanted to talk about it. I thought I could deal with it without getting involved, and I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be two-timing you. You mean too much for me to be anything but honest.” He swept his arm, encompassing the opening in the trees, the pines beyond, putting on their colors as the country came awake. “All this, there’s no place I’d rather be than working a story in the snow with you looking over my shoulder, tapping your foot and telling me to get off Indian time.”
    â€œYeah,” Martha said drily. “We ought to do this more often, get together on a mountain drenched in blood.”
    Suddenly she
was
tired, her voice was tired, everything about her was tired. “I better radio Walt,” she said. “He’ll be waking up to three horses and wondering where the hell I am.”
    â€œDon’t bother. I spotted him when I was searching the perimeter. He’s following your tracks, humping it about as fast as a Scotsman reaching for the check.” Harold got his feet. “I’m going to need some time here alone. Keep him out of my kitchen. Same if Bucky Anderson shows up. Jason radioed him the coordinates same as me. He should have been here.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out an apple, took a quarter of it in one bite and handed it to Martha. “Give it to Snow. Mind your fingers.”
    Now he’s telling me how to feed a horse, she thought.
    Back on the open mountainside, she clucked to the paint. “Hey there, Jerry Old Snow,” she said, and offered him the apple on the flat of her hand. She could see Walt coming up