Redemption

The crow cawed once more and flew off as Assistant Coroner Charlie Brooks stepped out of the weeds, rubbing the back of his neck. He was a short, squat man with timber-thick legs and a bald cue-ball of a head.

“I’d say he was killed sometime in the wee hours of this morning. Cause of death? Strangulation.” Charlie, like a lot of coroners, was a huge mystery fan. “The body hasn’t been here more than a few hours. Dumped, I would imagine, from up there.” He pointed to an embankment that led up to a gravel access road into Otter Creek. “Appears he rolled down, to come to rest at the edge of the river.”

Frank nodded—that had been his opinion as well. That was why he had one of his deputies up on the road making plaster casts of the tire prints closest to the edge of the embankment.

“Going to need to take some fingerprints once you get him to the morgue,” he told the coroner. “No identification on him that I could find.”

“We’ll put him on ice until you can get a positive ID and notify next of kin.”

Frank figured it shouldn’t take long. The man had spent some time in a penitentiary somewhere, given the array of prison tattoos on his arms and neck. His prints should be on file.

“What’s that he was killed with?” the coroner asked. “Appears to be some kind of fancy braided rope.”

“Hitched horsehair,” Frank said. “They make a lot of this up at Montana State Prison. That’s why around here, hitchin’ is synonymous with doing time. You ever heard the legend of Tom Horn? It’s said that he was hung with a rope he hitched while doing time in a territorial prison.”

“Horsehair dyed bright colors, huh? I’ll be damned.” A retired doctor, Charlie was new to Montana after living all his life in the big city.

Standing back, Frank watched as the assistant coroner and one of the local EMTs put the victim into a body bag and carried him to the fishing-access parking lot. In the distance he could hear the thrum of traffic on Interstate 90. Closer, a trout rose out of the water, the splash sending sparkling droplets into the morning air.

Frank watched the wavelets from the fish spread across the smooth surface. Murder had its own ripple effect. Shaking off the thought, he followed the path the body had made tumbling from the road. He hoped to find a wallet or something that might have fallen out of the man’s pockets.

Fortunately, in Montana, few people littered, so there were only a half dozen rusted beer cans, a couple of plastic water bottles and several pieces of dew-wet cardboard in the weeds. He was about to give up when he spotted what looked like a scrap of white paper caught high in the grass.

His hands still covered by the latex gloves he’d donned earlier, he plucked the scrap up, surprised to see that it was a photograph folded in half. Yellowed with age, the snapshot was also cracked down the middle because of the fold and worn at the edges as if it had been handled a lot. The people lined up in the shot appeared to be a family, the youngest still in Mama’s arms.

Frank turned the photo over and saw that something had been written on the back. The faded marks were impossible to read. But what made his heart beat a little faster was the realization that the photo hadn’t been in the grass long. It wasn’t even that damp from the morning dew.

All his instincts told him it had belonged to the unidentified dead man.

* * *

JACK WOKE TO POUNDING on his cabin door. He pulled on his jeans and stumbled barefoot to the door. “What in the—” He cut off his words with a grin as he saw who was standing there.

“Sorry to wake you so early, but I’m hungry,” Carson Grant said, smiling.

Jack reached for his friend’s hand, clasped it and pulled Carson into an awkward quick hug.

“It is so good to see you,” Carson said.

“You, too. Come on in.”

Carson had offered to come up to the prison and pick him up when he got out.

“Actually, the warden had my pickup released from Evidence and sent up here along with my horse and horse trailer, right after I was sent to prison. So I’ll be traveling in style,” Jack had joked about his old truck. “I will need a place to corral my horse, though, until I get settled.”

Carson had laughed. “That was awfully nice of the warden. Hell, Jack, you really do make friends everywhere you go. Just drop your horse at the W Bar G. I’ll tell my sister.”

“Give me a minute,” he said now as he snapped on his Western shirt. “I’ll get dressed and we can walk down to the café.”

“I was surprised to hear you weren’t staying out at your folks’ place,” Carson said as Jack pulled on his boots.

“Just needed a few days in town,” he said, hating to admit even to his best friend that he wasn’t prepared for the memories the homestead would evoke. He’d kept the property taxes up on the place, but still wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Beartooth. “Ready?”

They walked down the mountainside through the pines, the morning sun shining through the branches to make golden puddles in the dried pine needles. A cool breeze blew down from the still-snowcapped peaks, but the sun felt warm as they walked to the Branding Iron. Jack swore he’d never smelled any air that was better than this.

Overhead, Montana’s big sky was a clear brilliant blue that stretched across the vast horizon. It was the kind of day that made a cowboy glad he was alive—and in Montana.

As Jack pushed open the café door, a bell tinkled overhead. The cook waved from back in the kitchen. Lou had been a permanent fixture at the Branding Iron for as long as Jack could remember.

“Sit wherever you like,” Bethany Reynolds called as she came out from behind the counter carrying a half dozen plates filled with food. Bethany, now close to thirty, had been waitressing at the café off and on since high school.

Jack breathed in the scent of coffee and crispy fried bacon as he slid into a booth across from Carson. “Bethany’s looking good,” he said.

“I wouldn’t let Clete hear you say that,” Carson warned. Bethany had married Clete Reynolds, a former football star. Clete owned the Range Rider bar and kept a variety of weapons behind the counter.

Jack was just marveling at how nothing in Beartooth ever changed when another woman came out of the kitchen. Her hair and eyes weren’t as dark as they’d appeared last night in the alley. Her slim body under her apron was tucked nicely into a pair of jeans and a Western shirt that set off her assets—something else he hadn’t gotten a good look at last night.

As she swept up to his table with two cups and a pot of coffee, she gave no indication that she recognized him.

“Good morning,” he said, studying her as he removed his Stetson and placed it on the seat next to him. She had a bruise on her cheek that she’d done a pretty good job of covering with makeup.

She put down the cups and filled them without looking at him or Carson, but Jack noticed that her hand trembled as she filled his. There was no doubt in his mind that she recognized him. Without a word though, she headed for a large table at the front of the café where a group of ranchers were seated.

Jack’s gaze followed her before finally turning back to his friend. “Who is that?”

Carson, who’d apparently also been watching the woman, gave a secretive smile. “You heard Claude Durham died a few months ago, right? That’s the new owner of the café, Kate LaFond. At least that’s the name she’s going by now. I swear I know her from somewhere and, wherever it was, Kate LaFond was not her name.”

“Really?” Jack said, letting his gaze return to the woman.

“Just saying you might want to stay clear of that one.”

Jack turned back to his coffee and took a sip. He figured that was probably good advice given what he’d seen last night, and yet his gaze strayed to her as she disappeared into the kitchen.

“So how are you settling in?” Carson asked after Bethany had taken their orders.

“It’s as if I never left.” Jack could feel his friend studying him.

“You aren’t still thinking about getting even with whoever set you up for the rustling fall, are you?”

Jack smiled and glanced toward the group of ranchers at the big table at the front of the café. He recognized all of them, including Hitch McCray. “Water under the bridge.”

Carson laughed. “If I didn’t know you so well, I might believe it. I just don’t want to see you end up back in prison.”

“That makes two of us.” Jack smiled as he leaned back in the booth and stretched out his long legs. “So how are you doing?”

“Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Big Timber once a week. Working the ranch the rest of the time.”

Jack nodded. He knew Carson had been through hell the past twelve years. First, the woman he’d loved had been murdered. Everyone in the county thought he’d killed Ginny West. To keep from losing his son to vigilante justice, Carson’s father, W.T., had sent him away for eleven years. Carson had ended up in Vegas, of all places, and gotten into trouble gambling.