Read The Blight Way for Free Online

going to do stuff like that so I can look away.”
    Susan smiled at him. “Some sheriff you must have been.”
    â€œI didn’t go poking dead bodies with sharp instruments, if that’s what you mean. Mostly what I did was turn them into dead bodies in the first place. It’s not so gross.”
    Tully was glad the old man hadn’t told her how many dead bodies he had done.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, “but I may be able to give youan approximate time of death, even cold as it was last night.”
    The Explorer pulled up behind the Suburban. Buck and Dave Perkins got out. Dave, a chunky sixty-year-old, wore his long gray hair in a single braid down his back. He wore a folded red bandana around his head, well-scuffed cowboy boots, jeans and a red-and-black-checked mackinaw over a blue wool shirt open at the collar. Tully introduced them to Susan.
    â€œBuck Toole is one of my deputies. Dave Perkins here owns my favorite restaurant in the whole country. He used to be a pretty good tracker. We’ll see if he still is.”
    â€œAll us Indians are good trackers,” Dave said. “Show us a bent blade of grass and we can tell you the person’s height, weight, country of origin and telephone number.”
    Susan laughed. “Well, that’s certainly impressive.”
    â€œYes, it is,” Dave said. He took out a glasses case and put on a pair of wire-framed spectacles. “These are special tracking glasses.”
    â€œI understand,” Susan said, smiling broadly.
    Nice teeth, Tully thought.
    Dave walked the length of the body until he got to the feet. Then he squatted down and studied the man’s shoe and sock. He stood up and stared back across the pasture to another open field backed by a wooded area. “That field and that woods over there, I think that’s part of the Littlefield ranch. The Scragg ranch got itself surrounded by Littlefield years ago.”
    â€œLooks like the shooter might have come from overthere in the woods,” Tully said. “Probably the victim, too. Any road over there?”
    â€œAn old mine road but not much else. Used to be a bridge over a little crick, but it washed out years ago. You can drive across when the water’s low like it is now. The road used to go up to the Last Hope Mine, but the owners dynamited the mine shut after it closed. Then they plowed up a berm to block the road.”
    â€œPap and I’ll drive over there and look around,” Tully said. “You see if you can pick up any trail and we’ll meet you at the road. Buck, you stay with Susan, in case she needs help.”
    Tully and Pap started walking back to the Explorer.
    â€œNot a bad looker,” Pap said, glancing back at the medical examiner.
    â€œDave’s all right but nothing special,” Tully said.
    Pap responded with a seven-letter obscenity.

Chapter 6
    The crowd at Batim’s house had diminished to three. None of the Scraggs was out in the yard. A couple of women and several small children watched them out a window. The men in the yard were apparently neighbors, curious about the murder.
    â€œHow’s it going?” Tully said.
    â€œNot bad,” one of the men said. “Hear you got a murder out there, Sheriff.”
    â€œAppears that way,” Tully said.
    He and Pap got in the Explorer and drove off.
    Pap rolled and lit a cigarette.
    â€œI liked the way you put down that Lister Scragg,” he said. “You’re about as quick a man as I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œThanks. So what was it between you and Lister that got him so riled up? I’m the one put him in prison.”
    â€œKind of a long story,” Pap said. “Lister must be about forty now. It would have been fifteen or so yearsago. That boy does hold a grudge. It was the second time that he’d put that itsy-bitsy wife of his in the hospital. But she refused to press charges. Scared, I guess. He’d