Free Detour to Death by Helen Nielsen Page A

forgotten that. He knew Danny was afraid, just a scared, scrawny kid against a huge man with a gun riding on his hip; but the same fear that paralyzes can propel and so Danny was free.
    But free for what? Gradually, as the minutes of freedom ticked off and the wretched road ground beneath the tires, reason returned. Freedom to run and hide, freedom to be hunted down like a dog, or to starve here on the desert. Danny began to remember things. He was broke. He didn’t have the price of a sandwich, let alone that stake that was going to take him to faraway places. And now he was a fugitive, a name and a description that would soon be racing across the wires and airwaves to weave a tight net for a runaway in a stolen car. What did he have for a friend now? What did he have for an ally?
    The answer lay on the seat beside him: the gun he’d ripped from the sheriff’s holster when he grabbed for the keys. There was blood on the barrel from where it had ripped across a human skull, and the sight of it brought out the sweat beads on Danny’s forehead. But he couldn’t toss the dread object out the window as he wanted to. Now it was all he had.
    • • •
    Virgil was a miserable man when he rode back to Mountain View in a red jeep. It was tough enough to get that bash on the head, have the car stolen from under him, and lose a prisoner half his size without having to face a barrage of questions. The deputies knew better than to strain his temper; but Viola was a taxpayer with her tongue hung in the middle and loose at both ends, and Jim Rice’s blue pickup was at the pumps getting gassed up. Jim wasn’t exactly mute himself.
    “Dammit, Virgil,” he said, as soon as the story had been told, “that kid was locked up safe last night. Why did you let him out again?”
    Virgil reddened. “We were looking for something,” he said, “—for Charley Gaynor’s wallet. The kid didn’t have it on him, and Trace said—”
    “Trace!”
    Trace Cooper inspired various reactions from his neighbors. Some still respected him because he was a Cooper and they remembered his father or his grandfather; others despised him for identical reasons. Jim Rice wasn’t one to be awed by a name.
    “What the hell’s Trace got to say about things?” he stormed. “Why don’t he mind his own business?”
    “Why don’t you?” Trace parried.
    “Do you think it’s not my business when a killer’s at large? I’ve got a family to think about, I’ve got a wife!”
    That sympathetic murmur from Viola was too much for Trace. “Running away doesn’t necessarily make the kid a killer,” he said, “but I’m sure glad it makes you think of your wife, Jim. It’s about time!”
    The only thing that saved Trace from catching a faceful of knuckles was the size of Arthur standing at his shoulder—that and the way Virgil suddenly swung into action. Danny hadn’t been free long—he couldn’t have gotten far. The valley and the mountains were laced with little roads, some dead-end roads to ranches, some connecting with highways at distant points. The alarm had to be sent out and the search begun, and there was no place like Mountain View to begin.
    “I need your truck, Jim,” he said.
    “Then you need me, too.”
    “Anyway you like it. Take one of the boys and start looking. Danny didn’t come this way so he must have turned off somewhere between here and where he slugged me. That was about five miles back.”
    “I’ve got a car,” Walter broke in. “It’s not much but it runs.”
    “You’re not going to leave me here alone!” Viola screamed. “I don’t want happening to me what happened to Francy Allen!”
    “Francy!” Trace choked. “What’s Danny Ross got to do with Francy?” But his question wasn’t answered except for that knowing gleam in Viola’s eyes. Virgil was too busy swinging into action. “One of the boys goes with Jim, one stays here in case the kid doubles back,” he said. “As for me, I’m heading back to