Death Of A Dude Read Online Free PDF Page A

did her sleeping at night, and added, “Don’t mind it, please, I’m too lazy to pull down my skirt. I hate pants.” She patted a yawn. “If you didn’t come to see me you’re out of luck. They all left at dawn to ford the river and ride up the mountain to try to see some elk, and there’s no telling when they’ll get back. Are you still-uh, well-trying to get your friend out of jail?”
    “Just for something to do. Shall I pull the skirt down?”
    “Don’t bother. If you came to see me I can’t imagine what for, but here I am.”
    I smiled down at her to show I appreciated the chitchat. “Actually, Mrs Amory, I didn’t come to see anyone. I only wanted to tell Bill that I’m leaving the car here to go for a look at Blue Grouse Ridge. If he comes before I do, tell him, will you?”
    “Of course, but he won’t.” She brushed a strand of the red hair back from her temple. “That’s where it happened, isn’t it?”
    I said yes and turned to go, but turned back to her voice. “I guess you know I’m the only one here that’s rooting for you. They all think he- I forget his name-“
    “Greve. Harvey Greve.”
    She nodded. “They all think he did it. I know an intelligent man when I see one, and I think you’re one, and I bet you know what you’re doing. Good luck.”
    I thanked her and went.
    I knew Blue Grouse Ridge because it was the best place around for huckleberries, and Lily and I had been there often-sometimes for berries and sometimes for young blue grouse which, about ten weeks old and grubbed almost exclusively on berries, were as good eating as anything Fritz had ever served. Of course it was against the law to take them, so of course we didn’t overdo it. We had gone to the ridge, for berries, not blue grouse, just two days before Brodell was killed, with Diana Kadany and Wade Worthy.
    I could have got there cross-country from the Bar JR or the cabin, but it was twice as far and rough going part of the way. From Farnham’s it was only a mile or so with no hard climbing. Beyond the barn and corrals there was a close stand of firs on a down slope with no windfalls, and thick soft duff underfoot, then a rocky stretch I had to zigzag through, and then a big field of bear grass up the slope of the ridge. The bear grass, dry and tough in August, slowed me down, trying to tangle my legs. When I was through it, fifty yards or so short of the crest, I turned left and went parallel with the ridge, looking for signs-trampling of feet or brush cleared, anything. I am no mountain tracker, but certainly there would be something that would show even a dude where enough men had come to pack out a two-legged carcass. But the first sign that placed it for me was one that could have been anywhere on earth, as good on Herald Square as on Blue Grass Ridge-blood. There was a blotch of it, or what had been left of it by the tongue of some animal, on the surface of a boulder, and a narrow ribbon of it down the boulder to the lower edge. At the upper edge of the boulder there was a big clump of berry bushes, so he had been standing there picking berries when the bullet came from behind.
    Having seen the blood first, I then saw a lot of other signs which a native would probably have seen first: twigs and branches of bushes, including huckleberries, twisted and broken, rocks that had recently been moved, paintbrush trampled, and so on. Feet and hands had been busy all around, even up above the boulder, and that must have been in a search for the bullets. Having detected that, I turned to face downhill to consider the detail that I was most interested in, cover for the approach. There was nothing much within a hundred feet but berry bushes and boulders, with a scattering of paintbrush and other small stuff, but beyond there was higher growth and trees. It would have been a cinch for even a New York character like me to get within forty yards of the target, let alone a man who knew how to stalk deer and elk. But forty