Read The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

you.”
    “You mean, what if he shoots Pap and me first? He knows we’re both better shots than you.”
    “Now you’re starting to get the idea.”

5
    TULLY TURNED OFF the highway, and the truck bounced and twisted the three miles up the rutted dirt road to Quail Creek Ranch. An iron gate blocked the ranch’s driveway into the house.
    “Hey!” Dave said. “Look at that!”
    Half a dozen metal quail rose in flight across the bars of the gate.
    “Pretty spectacular,” Tully said. “But I expected it to be. Agatha already told me about it. She said Bernice had started working on metal sculptures this past year and the gate was her first project. You know they were both my professors at the U. of I., don’t you, Dave? Bernice in art and Agatha in English.”
    “Both of them are pretty famous as I recall,” Dave said.
    “They really are. Agatha once even gave a lecture at Oxford. I guess the deans there are about the worst audience in the world. If they don’t like something they yell the speaker down and beat on their desks with their walking sticks or whatever they can find. And they don’t like much of anything. But they gave Agatha a standing ovation, something no one had ever heard of before at Oxford.”
    “Pretty impressive,” Dave said.
    “Oxford,” Tully said. “That’s in England, Dave.”
    “I was wondering about that.”
    “Me, too,” Pap said.
    Tully and Dave burst out laughing.
    Dave got out and opened the gate, and Tully drove through. The hills on both sides of the narrow valley were dry and barren except for sagebrush, rabbit bush, coarse grasses, and outcroppings of reddish rock. The narrow valley itself was lush and green. Quail Creek, almost hidden by alder and birch, assorted bushes, and thick patches of ferns, trickled over rocky beds and around small gravelly beaches. The branches of the large birch trees met overhead and created a green, leafy tunnel through which shafts of light penetrated and danced on the water.
    Dave got back in. “The next gate is yours, Pap.”
    Pap said, “Since you have to get out to let me out, you might as well open the gate yourself, Dave. By the way, this is the most beautiful ranch I know. I offered to buy it once, and the ladies said they would sell it to me but they got to live on it until they died and after that I could have it. I said, ‘Noway,’ figuring they wouldn’t kick off until after I did and I’d be out the money.”
    “Good figuring,” Dave said. “The last I saw them, both Agatha and Bernice were still going strong. Looked like they might live forever.”
    Tully said, “Bernice is a full-blooded Cherokee, you know that, Dave?”
    “Yeah, we talked about it one time. She was interested in my Indian heritage.”
    Tully laughed. “Your heritage is fake Indian. You tell her you discovered you were part Indian when you came up with the idea of turning that restaurant of yours into a casino, how you’re the only member of the Dave tribe?”
    “I may have neglected some of the details. Until you prove differently, though, I’m sticking to my heritage.”
    Agatha and Bernice’s house was low and sprawling and appeared almost to be growing out of the ground. Bernice came out of the broad doorway of the hay barn wearing a long leather apron and a red-and-blue bandana wrapped around her head. Her hair was long, totally white, and tied back in a ponytail. She waved and smiled and came toward them, taking off large leather gloves as she walked. “Bo, it’s so good to see you.” She threw her arms around him and gave him a hug so vigorous he could feel his feet almost leave the ground. She shook Dave’s hand and gave him a big smile. “I’m so glad you could make it, Dave.” She stood back and studied Pap, then yelled toward the house. “Nail down the furniture, Agatha, Pap Tully is here!”
    “Very funny,” Pap said. “The only thing I’ve ever seen around here worth stealing is that gate of yours. I’ll probably sneak