Read Slickrock (Gail McCarthy Mystery) for Free Online

be on my own.
    I dressed quickly-jeans, a tank top, another denim shirt-and pulled my boots on, all without waking Lonny. Then I was out the door, stepping quietly on the creaky floor as I headed down the hall.
    The second floor of the lodge was arranged along the lines of old-fashioned hotels-long, narrow halls with small rooms on either side, and a couple of communal bathrooms near the stairway. Stopping at one of these, I performed brief morning ablutions and then creaked on down the stairs and out the back door of the lobby.
    The mountain air met me, cold and fresh, tingling in my nose like the icy water of a high lake. Everything sparkled. I shut my eyes for a moment, dazzled by the brilliance of the sunlight. The whole world-pine trees, meadow, granite ridges-was sharp and clear and pure. So different from the soft atmosphere of the coastal hills I called home.
    I walked out into the morning, half-startled, as I always was, by the intensity of these mountains. Yips greeted me as I approached my pickup. Roey leaped out when I opened the tail-gate, bounding around me with shrill, excited squeaks.
    "Don't bark," I admonished her firmly.
    Grabbing her tail in her mouth, she spun in frantic circles, her usual response to this command. I had the notion she felt she needed something in her mouth to stop herself from talking.
    Exuberance overcame caution and she leapt around me, barking happily. "Knock it off," I warned, about as amused as I was deafened.
    In this noisy fashion we approached the corrals. Plumber and Gunner neighed at me, their "Hey, where's breakfast?" neigh. I broke a couple of flakes of alfalfa hay off the bale I had brought and threw them into the corral. Both horses turned to eagerly.
    I was watching them eat, making sure they both looked healthy and unscathed, when more excited yips from Roey got my attention. I looked in her direction; she was sniffing noses with a dog.
    I laughed out loud. This had to be the funniest-looking dog I'd ever seen. About Roey's size, it had short white fur extravagantly speckled and blotched with red-brown spots, a long whiskery muzzle, perky ears, and blue eyes, with a big blotch over one of them. It wagged its tail furiously as it nuzzled Roey, who was wagging hers equally furiously back.
    In a second the two dogs were leaping and running happily together in a game of chase. The stranger dog looked to me to be female and still a pup.
    I was watching them play with a grin on my face when a voice said, "Hello, Stormy."
    I turned around. A man on a dun horse, leading a pack horse. Tall man, with red hair and a gray fedora-style hat. Blue Winter.
    "Stormy?" I said.
    He smiled at me. "I spent a few years in Australia. Every woman named Gail gets nicknamed Stormy in those parts. I thought you might have heard it."
    I shook my head, smiling.
    "That's where they started calling me Blue. All redheads get that. Blue or Bluey." He smiled again. "Nobody thought about how it would sound with my last name."
    I smiled back at him, thinking that he seemed much friendlier out here on horseback than he had in the bar last night.
    "I had a dog named Blue once," I said.
    He laughed. "Don't tell me, he was a blue heeler."
    "That's right."
    "Is she yours?" He gestured toward Roey, who was racing madly after her new playmate.
    "Yeah," I agreed.
    "The other's mine."
    "You're kidding," I said.
    He laughed again. "Why would you say that?"
    I smiled at him. "I don't know. You don't seem the type to have such a, let's see, different-looking dog."
    "You mean funny-looking. She's half Australian shepherd, half Jack Russell terrier. She's just a pup." He snapped his fingers. "Come here, Freckles."
    The spotted dog raised her ears in his direction and veered away from Roey. Still going full blast, she dashed up to the big dun horse and stopped by his left foreleg, waving her tail at her owner.
    The dun horse didn't flinch. Blue Winter said, "Good dog."
    I studied his horses. The saddle horse was a gelding