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with me. I want to get what information you can give me,”
Forester said, but he didn’t wait for a reply. It was too damn cold
to jaw-jack in the street. And he wasn’t used to getting arguments,
anyway.
    At the jailhouse,
consisting of two small rooms, Forester shrugged out of his coat
and hustled over to the potbellied stove to stoke the fire. The
strong smell of coffee beckoned him. “Have a seat,” he said over
his shoulder. “Want some coffee?”
    “I’m fine.”
    Forester poured himself a
cup of black coffee before sitting down behind his desk. He reared
back in his chair as he looked shrewdly at the man in front of him.
John McCoy sure didn’t look anything like Big Jim. This man was
downright skinny with black hair and small, shifty black eyes.
However, Big Jim had been broad-shouldered and had always worn
faded overalls with a blue flannel shirt, a gun and a bowie knife
tucked into his work belt He hadn’t been a young man, but a
weathered veteran. Big Jim would scare most men with his thick
black beard and long black hair tinged with gray.
    Nope, these two were
different as night and day.
    But then, Forester thought,
maybe he was judging the man too quickly. “So, tell me what you
know about what went on yesterday.” Forester steepled his hands in
front of him and watched McCoy. “You were probably one of the last
people to see Big Jim alive. Why did you come to Gregory Gulch,
anyway?”
    “There’s no law against
visiting my brother, is there?”
    “Not until a murder takes
place. Then I have to start asking questions.”
    “I see,” McCoy said,
rubbing his chin. He paused and seemed to be thinking of what he
should say. “Well, I hadn’t seen my brother in a few years, so I
figured I’d come up and see what he had going for him. Thought I
might help him work his claim for a spell. Anyway, he told me to
come by his place about six, and I could have supper and meet his
partner.”
    “And did you?”
    “Yep.”
    “So what
happened?”
    “Supper started off
normal, but right after that the kid and Jim got into an
argument.”
    “I’m surprised,” Forester
said as he got up and poured himself another cup of coffee from the
old silver pot on the stove. “Sure you don’t want a
cup?”
    “I believe I will this
time,” McCoy said. Once he had his coffee in hand, he asked, “Why
would you be surprised? I’m not sure I liked the boy.”
    “That a fact? Most people
in camp liked the kid. And yesterday I heard they struck another
vein of gold. They were in pretty good moods the last time I saw
them.”
    “Their argument had
something to do with the gold,” McCoy said with assurance. “I
didn’t stay long after supper. I told Jim I’d meet him in the
morning, and ’course you know what I found the next
day.”
    “As I recall, you were the
first person there,” Forester said and took another sip of
coffee.
    “So what you going to do
about it, Marshal?”
    Forester leaned forward and
placed his coffee mug on the desk. “MacHenry is going to sketch a
picture of the boy and then I’m going to have it circulated to all
the law offices in hopes that somebody finds him. I’m real
interested in what the kid has to say.”
    “Must have been an evil
kid to do something like that.”
    “For now, it’s just
suspicion of murder. We won’t know the whole story until we find
the boy and get some answers.”
    McCoy shifted in the chair.
“I guess the mine belongs to me now that Jim is dead, seeing as I’m
his next o’ kin.”
    Forester stared at the
man, wondering what was it about the man that struck him wrong.
From his appearance, he looked like an upright citizen, but yet... “I’m not too sure
about that, but now that you’ve brought up the subject, I’ll walk
with you to the Register of Deeds office and we’ll check. I
probably need to know that information myself.”
    They trudged through the
snow to the second log cabin on the left and entered the building.
“Usually there’s