Holmes on the Range Read Online Free PDF Page A

outhouse was empty.
    So to boil it down, working under the McPhersons was equal parts humiliation and misery. But being a cowboy, I’d long ago resigned myself to both, and the mind-numbing routine of ranch life started to wear away the concerns I’d had about the VR. There came a day, however, when that routine was shattered, and the pieces never did fit together again.
    It was getting on toward evening, and McPherson’s men had already returned for the night. The Hornet’s Nest boys were still working, of course, trying to get the smithy shop looking like something other than a tramp’s lean-to. Old Red was slapping a coat of whitewash over rotted-out wood, and he stopped midbrush and looked over his shoulder.
    â€œWell, well,” he said. “What’s
he
doin’ here?”
    We all turned and saw a fellow on horseback headed toward us—Jack Martin, deputy U.S. marshal out of Miles City.
    We gave him a big huzzah. Not that we liked him so much. He hada reputation for puffing himself up around cowboys and wilting himself down around cattlemen. But it didn’t matter just then. We were damned pleased to see a halfway friendly face after a month at the VR.
    Our salute drew Boudreaux and the rest of the old hands from their bunkhouse, and Perkins, Spider, and Uly came out of the castle looking none too tickled to have unexpected company.
    â€œThat is surely the most duded-up ranch house I ever did see,” Martin said, nodding at the castle. He turned a bucktoothed smile on us Hornet’s Nesters. “So—how’re they treatin’ you out here?”
    â€œHow does the Northern Pacific treat Chinks?” Anytime said.
    Perkins jumped in before anyone else could get to bitching.
    â€œWhat brings you to the Cantlemere?” he said. To us he’d been little more than a shadow in the castle’s windows for weeks. If he ever stepped outside, we didn’t see it, and his skin had seen such little sun he’d grown as pale as Boudreaux.
    â€œOfficial business,” Martin answered, so full of self-importance it practically dribbled out his ears.
    The lawman paused to look around the crowd, obviously savoring the opportunity to keep us hanging in suspense. The sight of Boudreaux’s ghostly white hide put a flicker in Martin’s grin, but he didn’t let it linger. He had big news, and he wasn’t going to let some distraction—no matter how freakish—muffle its thunder.
    â€œBob Tracy slipped out of the Colorado state nuthouse three weeks back.”
    Nearly every hand murmured the same two words: “Hungry Bob?”
    Martin nodded. “The same.”
    The murmuring got louder, only now the question mark was gone and it was just “Hungry Bob!”
    Out West, you’ll find more folks who know of Hungry Bob Tracy than can name the president of the United States. Bob was a trapper, a guide, and, most notably, a bona fide cannibal. By his own account, he’d eaten five men when his party got snowed in during the winter of’77. My mother used to tell me Hungry Bob would get me if I didn’t keep up with my studies. I stopped believing her eventually, yet old Bob haunted my dreams for years after.
    â€œHe’s been spotted twice—once around Fort Collins and again on the Little Bighorn near Lodge Grass.”
    â€œHeaded for Canada,” Gustav announced as if he were the one delivering the news.
    â€œCould be,” Martin said. “Or he might be holed up in the hills south of here. If he does push north, that would take him straight through our country here. So we’re askin’ folks to keep their eyes open.”
    â€œThat won’t be a problem. You know how we feel about folks wanderin’ onto the VR,” Uly said. “In fact, you’re lucky
you
were able to ride in without gettin’. . .stopped.”
    â€œWe’ll be doubly careful from here on,” Spider threw