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hadn’t noticed it before. He could get more water and scrub the floor in there. And if he couldn’t find a broom, he could walk over to Hiram’s and ask to borrow Gert’s.
    He opened the stove and stooped over the wood box. Plenty of kindling, but tinder seemed in short supply. He grabbed a split log and began peeling off slivers and placing them in a strategic heap in the belly of the stove. Over them he built a tepee of kindling sticks. Bert had left a matchbox conveniently on the back of the wood box. Ethan lit the tinder and blew to coax the tiny flames.
    He eased the stick he’d taken the splinters from into the stove, then stretched to reach another log. As he started to put it in the stove, he looked at the stick and jumped back, dropping it. The firewood clattered to the floor, thunking his knee on the way down.
    Ethan stared down at the stick of wood. Slowly he stooped and retrieved it. He held it up by one end, like he would a gopher snake by its tail. The dark blotch wasn’t much—just a reddish smear on the edge of the light, rough wood. As he brought it closer and peered at it, he nearly gagged. A clump of graying hair was lodged in the dark spot where a sliver had split from the rest of the log.
    “Ethan?”
    He jumped and turned toward the doorway. Hiram ambled toward him, frowning. His gaze traveled to the firewood and back to Ethan’s face.
    “I found this in the wood box.” It sounded stupid. Ethan stepped toward his friend and held out the split log. “See that?” He pointed to the dark patch and the hairs.
    Hiram raised his eyebrows. He reached out and took the two-foot piece of wood by the other end.
    “It must have been there last night when we took Bert out of here,” Ethan said.
    Hiram nodded. “Musta been.”
    “Yeah. Must have.” Ethan swallowed hard. “Good thing we didn’t build the fire up and toss it in the stove without noticing.”
    Hiram’s eyes were plain gray in the dim light. “How come …?”
    “What?” Ethan tried to follow Hiram’s thoughts as he studied the wood again. “That’s got to be Bert’s hair and blood.”
    Hiram nodded again.
    “I wonder if there were wood slivers in his scalp.” The thought bothered Ethan. They should have paid more attention. “Someone hit Bert with that stick of fir.”
    Hiram eyed Ethan thoughtfully. “Not his heart.”
    “I’d say not.”
    Hiram pursed his lips and said nothing.
    “If it’d been a woman, we’d have had the ladies lay her out,” Ethan said. “They’d have changed her clothes and washed the body. They’d have cleaned the wound in the back of his head—her head. Oh, you know what I mean, Hi. They’d have noticed things.”
    The gunsmith nodded and scrunched his face up in distaste. “Gert said as much. Said we ought have changed Bert’s shirt. But he was wearing his best one when he died.”
    “If we had, maybe we’d have looked closer. Did you notice anything odd about that gash on the back of his head?”
    “Only that there wasn’t any blood on the edge of the bunk where everyone said he must’ve hit his head.”
    “Yeah.” Ethan walked over to Bert’s desk and sat down in the oak chair behind it. “I guess I wanted it to be that way. There wasn’t anything in the room that could have been a weapon. I didn’t want to think someone did him in.”
    “Nobody wanted to,” Hiram said.
    “We could ask Griff. Maybe he noticed something.”
    “He’da said so.”
    Ethan nodded. Hiram was talking more than he had in years, but the things he said were small comfort.
    “All right, what do we do? There’s nobody to tell.” Hiram laid the stick of wood carefully on top of the desk so that the stained end stuck out off the edge.
    Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. He hated being the sheriff. Less than two hours, and the job already scared him silly. Was a murder investigation his first duty? “All right, let’s think about this. Maybe there’s a U.S. marshal somewhere in the