Black Mike by Wayne D. Overholser

Author:Wayne D. Overholser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2016-12-14T19:06:03+00:00

IX

The sun was showing above the eastern horizon by the time Faraday and Sam reached the first of the scattered aspens. The riding was hurting Faraday. Sam saw it in the older man’s face, but he didn’t urge the sheriff to turn back. He knew there was no use. Also, he wanted Faraday along if they ran into Black Mike and the twins.

Presently they passed the Augie Pope cabin. Faraday jerked a thumb toward it. “That’s Doc Harvey’s rig yonder. Augie came to town late yesterday afternoon and asked Doc to come out. You know Augie and his missus were married close to twenty years before she got pregnant. Doc said she’d have a hard time with the baby, having narrow hips like she’s got, so he figured he’d be here a long time. Looks like he figured right.”

Sam remembered Augie Pope, a rancher about like Scotty Doane who’d owned a ten-cow spread here in the foothills of the Bearpaws for years. There were dozens of little ranchers scattered through these hills just like Doane and Pope, men who squeezed a poor living from their ranches and probably wouldn’t have survived this long if they hadn’t made a habit of eating deer, antelope, and Monk Corley’s beef.

Corley knew he lost a good many steers every year in this way, but he never made an issue out of it. It was a sort of unwritten law that they could eat his beef if they didn’t take advantage of the privilege. In exchange, they supported him in any issue that came up in the Cattlemen’s Association, and if he picked a man in a local election, he had their votes. The townsmen, the farmers, and Black Mike Nickels outnumbered the cowmen, but Sam had never known them to combine to beat a candidate that Corley backed. He thought about this as they rode, and he told himself he’d have a hard time getting elected sheriff if he did decide to run next November.

Then another thought occurred to him. Monk Corley and the other two men must have ridden right past Augie Pope’s cabin last night and again this morning after they had slaughtered the sheep. This might not be the solid proof Faraday said they’d need, but if either the doctor or Pope saw Corley and his friends ride by, it would help to confirm Kitty’s story. As they started up the switchbacks, Sam considered this carefully. Augie Pope wasn’t very bright, and he might be trapped into admitting he had seen the three ranchers, but Doc Harvey was another proposition. He was like Jonas Cassidy and most of the townsmen, reluctant to say or do anything that would rub Corley the wrong way.

They stopped once to blow the horses. Faraday stepped down and studied the soft dirt of the road. It had rained the day before and the tracks were clear enough to an expert like Faraday. He rose and swung into the saddle, saying: “Looks like Kitty came up and went down just as she said.

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