Free The Town Council Meeting by J. R. Roberts

somewhere.”
    â€œHe’ll be back,” the judge said.
    â€œNot if he decides to keep goin’,” Lawson said.
    â€œAnd not if those Bar K boys find him,” Chambers said.
    The judge dealt out the cards and said, “He’ll be back.”

TWENTY-TWO
    Clint didn’t know where he was going.
    If he was going to look into the murder of Big Ed Kennedy, he thought the place to start was the Bar K ranch. Only he didn’t know where the Bar K was. It was dark, too dark to try to track his way there—and even if it wasn’t dark, which tracks would he follow? The Bar K men had ridden in, so had the Double H boys and the Triple R hands. That would leave a lot of tracks.
    But as is often the case, fate takes a hand in men’s lives, and it did today.
    Clint heard the light tinkling of a bell up ahead of him. In the moonlight he saw a drummer’s wagon coming toward him. The bell was obviously somewhere on that wagon.
    Clint was sitting still on Eclipse and he decided to remain that way. If he rode up to the drummer, he might frighten him, might make him think he was being robbed. So he just sat and let the man reach him on his own.
    The drummer did, indeed, see him and reined his horse in.
    â€œHello, friend.” The man driving the wagon was middle-aged, scruffy-looking. Clint didn’t know what he was selling, but he didn’t think he’d ever buy anything from him.
    â€œHowdy,” Clint said.
    â€œHeading for Cannon City?” the drummer asked.
    â€œActually,” Clint said, “I just came from there.”
    â€œA little late to be traveling, isn’t it?”
    â€œI thought I’d be able to find my way in the dark,” Clint said. “As it turns out, I got turned around.”
    â€œWhere were you headed? I spend a lot of time in this area and can find my way pretty well in the dark.”
    That was good news to Clint.
    â€œI was trying to find the Bar K ranch.”
    â€œBig Ed’s place?”
    Clint nodded, wondering if the drummer had heard about the rancher’s murder.
    â€œHell, that’s the easiest place to find,” the man said. “I can give you good directions.”
    â€œWell,” Clint said, “I’d be much obliged if you could get me there.”
    â€œNo problem,” the drummer said. “Ya see, you go north about . . .”
    Â 
    Clint followed the drummer’s directions and rode right to the Bar K ranch with no problem. He also rode his horse up to the house without being challenged. Apparently, everyone from the ranch was in town. But just to be on the safe side he rode around back and left Eclipse there.
    He found a way in through the back—going in and out back doors was getting to be a habit—and found his way to the rancher’s office, where the man had been found dead behind his desk.
    As he entered the room he saw the blood on the desk and on the floor. He got behind the desk and avoided the blood as best he could while giving the desk a thorough search. Then he looked around the office, trying to find anything in the dead man’s files that would help him figure out who he had actually hired while he was thinking he had hired Clint Adams.
    â€œAre you a burglar?” a woman’s voice asked.
    Clint looked up quickly. A middle-aged woman was standing in the doorway, holding a glass with a brown liquid in it. She looked to be about forty-five, but she was a handsome woman, apparently a wealthy rancher’s wife who had taken good care of herself.
    â€œMrs. Kennedy?” Clint asked.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said. “I thought everybody had gone to town.”
    â€œEverybody who wants revenge on the man who killed my husband did,” she said.
    He stood straight up.
    â€œAnd you don’t want revenge?”
    She sipped her drink, then said, “No.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause he stopped