Dead Man Walking by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2019-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

They found the Winchester the bushwhacker had used lying in the street where he had dropped it, but it was just like a thousand other rifles and didn’t tell John Henry anything that would help to identify its owner.

By the time he rode out of Stockton the next morning, he still didn’t have any idea who had fired the shot that winged the rifleman and made him flee.

He had a hunch about the identity of the bushwhacker, though: Clive Denton. John Henry was becoming more convinced that Denton had sent Penelope Smith on into the mountains with the rest of the bogus bills while he kept an eye on her back trail. Somehow they had discovered that a federal lawman was tracking the gang and they wanted to stop him before he caught up to Penelope.

Buck kept up a ground-eating pace all day, and by evening John Henry rode into the foothills settlement of Sonora. Originally a mining camp, it had hung on after the boom days to become a reasonably prosperous town serving the needs of the mines that were still operating in the area.

The local law was a small, wiry man named Sam Meldrum, whose sweeping mustaches seemed much too big for his body. When he heard what had brought John Henry to Sonora, he suggested that they go around to the local businesses together and search for counterfeit bills. That sounded like a good idea to John Henry.

They found one of the phony ten-dollar bills at the livery stable, where the proprietor remembered the good-looking blonde in a buggy who had passed through around midday.

“She wanted to buy some grain for her horse,” the man explained. “I sold her some, of course.” The liveryman glanced back and forth as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping and lowered his voice as he went on, “Hell, I’d have given her the grain if I hadn’t been worried that my missus would catch on. She does all the bookkeepin’, and she’s got an eagle eye for any unexplained losses. But I tell you, fellas, ain’t many men’d ever say no to a gal as good-lookin’ as that yellow-haired filly. And I reckon she knowed that, too.”

“You know if she went anywhere else here in town?” Meldrum asked.

The liveryman scratched his jaw and pondered, then said, “While I was grainin’ her horse, I think she went up the street to the milliner’s. Can’t be sure about that, though.” When the lawmen started to leave the barn, he added, “That money she give me, you say it’s fake?”

“That’s right,” John Henry said.

“Well . . . I reckon it’s worth the price of the grain her horse et, just to get to talk to somebody like her for a few minutes.”

As they were walking up the street, Meldrum said, “This woman must be a mighty fine looker.”

“She is that,” John Henry agreed. “Crooked as a dog’s hind leg, though, and not to be trusted at all.”

“That’s a shame. I guess just ’cause a gal looks like an angel, that don’t mean she’s gonna act like one.

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