An American Bullet by John Stonehouse

Author:John Stonehouse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Stonehouse

Whicher sees the group of cabins laid out beyond the ponderosa—a tree-lined basin, a flat expanse of snow and ice.

A man is pulling something toward the cabins. Dragging something. Some kind of sled.

Galen Coburn puts his horse into a canter.

The marshal follows across a glaring field of white.

Coburn turns back in the saddle, shouts at Whicher, “Don't get your horse on the ice...”

The man at the lake drops the line to the sled, he's running now. “Anthony just got in a vehicle,” he calls out.

Whicher reins in his mount, sees fresh wheel-marks—churned up snow.

Coburn bring his horse to a halt.

The man runs the last yards to the cabins. “I was out cutting holes,” he says. “I looked up, I saw a vehicle...”

“Jacobs,” the ranch owner says, “this here’s a US Marshal.”

“What vehicle?” Whicher says.

“I didn't see it come in,” the man answers, flushed, “it just appeared. I looked up from cutting a hole in the ice. I saw an SUV. I saw a guy get out. Anthony came over. They were talking. Then somebody else got out.”

Whicher eyes the wheel tracks.

“Next thing you know, Anthony was getting in the back seat, they drove away.”

“How long?” the marshal says.

“Five minutes,” Jacobs says. “The time it's taken me to get across the lake...”

Coburn turns his horse in the blowing snow. “We can follow 'em down the logging road.”

Whicher pins Jacobs with a look. “Was Anthony acting any way strange?” he says. “You think he might’ve known somebody would be coming out?”

The guide only stares back, wordless.

“I can't believe anybody made it up here,” Coburn says.

The marshal thinks of Janice Rimes. He looks at Coburn. “You know how to shoot?”

“What kind of a damn question is that?”

Whicher starts to take out the Ruger to give to him.

“You need a gun?” Jacobs says. “There's a scoped Springfield right in the cabin.”

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