Free Leadville by James D. Best

said.
    Dooley looked back at the church again. “He’s still in the church. We’re waiting for the burial service.”
    “Burial?” I asked.
    “The minister bought a coffin and put her, uh, remains in it. They’re going to bury her in a few minutes. As soon as the wife is a bit more under control.” Dooley looked beaten. “Damn, I’m sorry. Grant seemed such an upright fellow.”
    Sharp put his hand on Dooley’s shoulder. “Not your fault. He had the whole town buffaloed.”
    “Jeff, what’re we going to do?” I asked. “We’ve got to get after Grant and this half-breed. I think they’re both in this up to their necks.”
    “I know. We’ll deal with ’em, but first we gotta help our friend bury the dead.”

Chapter 15
     
    About two hundred people attended the burial, and even though I had never met the girl, the somber mood caught me. Evidently, she was well liked and her parents respected. It brought to mind my father’s funeral. I was just twenty-four and his death jolted me. With his passing, I inherited his business interests, his substantial bank account, and his greed-driven family. I had no siblings because my mother had died in childbirth. By the time I was old enough to understand there should have been people who cared about me from her side, we had lost track of her family. Ibecame convinced that my father’s side had pushed them away. After all, they were barely middle-class, and we were among the elite of the New York City social set.
    My father and I were friends. Although he had many business interests, we spent most of our time at his gun shop. He loved guns, especially expensive European shotguns. The shop catered to rich bird hunters, and we used every sale as an excuse to escort our client into the countryside to test his purchase. After his death, I grew to understand that he had no more use for his family than I did, and he used his enthusiasm for guns to escape their meddling.
    My father’s brothers and sisters were all the family I knew, but we did not get along before his death, and a heated feud developed afterwards. At first, they just seemed obsessed with marrying me off to some appropriate girl to seal a business partnership between two social register families. Then they dragged me into nefarious business dealings that always seemed to involve some large bribes to shady politicians. No thank you. I headed west.
    A chorus of amens brought me back to the burial. Captain McAllen didn’t stand beside his ex-wife and her current husband. I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for their relationship, or if there was ill will between them. After everyone had walked by and thrown a handful of soil into the grave, Sharp and I joined the other people moving down the hill and into town. At the bottom, Sharp stopped and glanced back up the hill. I assumed he wanted to wait for McAllen. I felt self-conscious because we looked like a couple of unwashed trail hands too ignorant to find proper dress for a funeral. As the crowd passed, we just stood there making solemn nods to people we didn’t know.
    Eventually, McAllen came down by himself. When he saw us, he came right over. “They want some time alone at the graveside,” he said.
    “What about you?” I blurted.
    “I’d just as soon be by myself as well. That’s the way I always saw her. I’ll go back after dark.”
    “Did you see her often?” I asked.
    “Once or twice a year. My ex-wife was always polite, but I knew I wasn’t welcome. She had a new family, and I had become an intrusion.”
    Without a word, we started for the livery to collect our belongings. We waited for McAllen to open the subject of the Utes and the abduction. At the camp, he had seemed vengeful and anxious to get to the bottom of things. Now he kept his thoughts to himself as we worked for about an hour collecting our stuff and storing it in my room. Because Sharp had thought that we might be gone for a long time, the unused supplies took up both