Free Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) by Patrick F. McManus

was fairly flat, at least while he lay on his back. That pleased him. He worked the faucet with the big toe of his right foot, keeping the water as hot as he could stand it. Grady, he thought, must be running the powerful generator almost full-time, to keep the water hot for the guests. On the other hand, maybe the tub water came from the hot spring. It didn’t smell of sulfur, though. He got up and dressed in the clothes he had just taken off, the blue Pendleton wool shirt, the black wool hunting pants, wool socks, and insulated boots. The one exception was a two-piece set of clean silk underwear. You never knew when you might need clean underwear, particularly if you were a cop. He studied his alligator-skin boots standing next to the bed. That alligator must have been allergic to water, he thought, either that or a really cheap alligator. He went downstairs for lunch.
    Most of the lunch crowd had left by the time Tully got to the dining room. The few that remained, idling over their drinks, appeared to have all been clothed by L.L. Bean. By comparison, the occupants of his own table looked a bit ratty, although no one could have been more outdoorsy than his own private dog-team driver. Janice’s rough wool shirt and well-worn jeans seemed to match her tanned face and hands perfectly. Altogether, she looked pretty good to Tully, including the short bob of her curly blond hair. Dave and Pap were seated with her, and he could tell her looks weren’t being wasted on either of them. He was pleased to see Lindsay at another table across the room, engaged in her usual animated conversation but now with a middle-aged couple. He was willing to sacrifice the couple. Anything to keep her away from Pap.
    “I guess you’ve all gotten to know each other,” he said, pulling out a chair.
    “Oh, we’ve all met before,” Janice said. “I’ve known Pap for years and had the World Famous Chicken-Fried Steak quite a few times at Dave’s House of Fry.”
    “Yes, indeed,” Dave said. “I once even escorted her and Tom around my reservation.”
    “That must have taken a good five minutes,” Tully said, sitting down and spreading the linen napkin over his lap.
    Janice laughed. “It’s quite a small reservation but very nice.”
    “If we’re done discussing our fraudulent Indian here,” Pap said, “our tracker may have turned up some significant sign.”
    “He’s right, Bo,” Dave said. “Those tracks you mentioned, there’s something odd about them.”
    “Like what?”
    “First of all, there are no tracks coming back. No tracks going anywhere except to the edge of the riverbank. There’s a sharp drop down to the water there, five feet or so, and the snow is all messed up like someone fell down the bank. There’s a bit of ice along the bank there and it was broken and then refrozen. A couple of large rocks stick out of the bank, and it’s possible a person could have slipped at the edge of the bank and hit his head on them. If he went into the river, he could have drowned.”
    “No sign of blood on the rocks, I take it,” Tully said.
    Dave shook his head. “Nope.”
    A waitress came over. “Would anyone like a drink?”
    Tully ordered a Diet Pepsi. Pap and Dave ordered single-malt Scotches.
    “What kind of pain do you two have?” Tully asked them.
    “Life,” Pap said.
    Janice took a glass of merlot.
    “So,” Tully said, “you think a highly experienced outdoorsman like Mike Wilson slipped and fell into the river and drowned.”
    “It happens,” Pap said. “A few highly experienced hunters go missing in the mountains each year.”
    “There’s one problem,” Dave said.
    “It better be a good one,” Tully told him.
    “I weigh about one-seventy and wear a size eleven boot. Now, don’t get excited, Bo, because I didn’t tell her anything about what we had found, but I did ask Mrs. Wilson about Mike’s shoe size and his weight. According to her, he was about the same size and weight as I