“Shit,” the sheriff said. “Oh shit.” He grabbed his hat and followed the man out.
Decker walked out behind them and Rebecca said, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to find out. I’ll meet you at the saloon,” he said.
He trailed along behind the sheriff and eventually found out where he was going. The shingle next to the door said, HOWARD PETRIE, M.D.
Decker walked up to the door, and since no one stopped him or questioned him, he went in. He heard the sound of voices from another room and followed them.
It appeared to be the doctor’s examining room. The sheriff was there with two other men, one of whom was the man who had run into his office. There was a fourth man there, too, but he was on the floor.
Dead.
The man had been tied up and gagged. Then his throat had been cut.
“Jesus Christ,” the sheriff kept saying. “Jesus Christ…”
“What are we gonna do?” one of the men asked.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” the sheriff said. “Jesus Christ.”
“He was okay last night,” the third man said. “I saw him in the saloon. He had a drink and then said he was turning in for the night.”
Decker looked around the room and saw a bloody shirt on the floor. He moved toward the examining table and saw a basin next to it. He saw what was in the basin, picked it up, and put it in his pocket before anybody saw him.
He was taking his hand out of his pocket when the harried-looking sheriff turned around and saw him.
“Who are you?”
“Decker.”
“Oh, right.” The sheriff looked at the body again and then looked away. “What do I do now? Jesus Christ, I ain’t never seen nothing like this.”
“Well, for starters,” Decker said, “you could have him taken over to the undertaker’s.”
“Yeah,” the sheriff said, taking his hat off and running his fingers through his hair, “yeah. Nick, go and get some help. We’ll take him to the undertaker’s.”
“Okay, Sheriff.” It was the same man who had run into the sheriff’s office with the news.
The sheriff looked at Decker as if he were seeing him for the first time, and asked, “What’s your interest in this, Decker?”
“Nothing, Sheriff,” Decker said. “I’m just passing through.”
Rebecca and Felicia were waiting in front of the saloon with the horses.
“Let’s mount up and get out of here,” he said, grabbing John Henry’s reins.
“What did you find out?” Rebecca asked.
“The town doctor is dead. His throat’s been cut.”
“So?” Rebecca asked.
“There was a bloody shirt on the floor.”
“And?”
“What did the sheriff in Bell’s Crossing say the old woman had used to shoot Foxx?”
“A derringer, a small-caliber derringer.”
“I found this in a basin next to the doctor’s examining table.”
He opened his hand to show her.
A spent bullet.
A small-caliber spent bullet.
When they were clear of the town, they reined in.
“You want to explain this to us so we can understand it, too?” Rebecca asked.
“The shirt on the floor had a bullet hole which came from a small-caliber gun.”
“You’re saying that this is the town where one brother brought the other for treatment of his wound?”
“Right. I heard somebody say that the doctor was fine last night and that he had turned in for the night. That means that the Foxx brothers got here sometime during the night, had the wound treated, and then cut the doctor’s throat so he couldn’t tell anyone they were here.”
“That’s awful!” Felicia said. “You know, everything I read about Brian Foxx made him out to be some kind of Robin Hood, never hurting or killing anyone—and then all of a sudden people started to get hurt.”
“Then my brother got killed.”
“And then the old woman was shot, and the bank manager and the deputy, and now the doctor is killed in cold blood.”
“What does it all mean?”
“It means,” Decker said, “that the wrong Foxx is starting to take charge, and we’ve got to get to them before he kills his own brother.”
PART FOUR
FOXX TAIL
Chapter XXIX
“What’s wrong?” Brent Foxx asked Brian.
They had paused to let the horses rest—at least, that was what Brian told Brent. What he really wanted to do was allow
Now Brent saw Brian peering intently past him, back the way they had come.
“Somebody’s on our tail, Brent,” Brian said, squinting in an attempt to get a better look.
“Who?” Brent immediately thought of a posse from Stillwell.
“I don’t know. I can’t see very well, but from the amount of dust they’re raising I’d say two or three riders, maybe even more.”
“That’s too small for a posse.”
“A posse wouldn’t have followed us this far from Bell’s Crossing.”
Brent didn’t offer an opinion on that.
“What then?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we’d better get a move on if we don’t want them to catch us.”
“I’m ready”
“Let’s go, then.”
They started off again, at an increased pace.
Two hours later they stopped again and Brian looked behind them. Brent didn’t turn in his saddle for fear of reopening his wound. Instead he turned his horse to face the opposite way.
“I don’t see anything.”
