He kept checking the trail, trying to see whether Krysty and the others might have looped around him, possibly avoiding Leadville in the night. But it had rained within the past twenty-four hours, and it had been heavy enough to wash away anything except deep wag ruts from the highway.
He walked on through the afternoon, feeling relief as he crossed the highest point of the ridge and began to descend slowly, with the valley that was his destination opening before him like a magnificent flower.
There was no sign of life anywhere around him, except for the prolific marmots that kept popping up from burrows as he passed, standing on hind legs like large prairie dogs, and the birds, mainly crows and some blue-breasted jays, that wheeled high above him.
The sun was already out of sight behind him when he smelled the bitterness of smoke.
THE SUN WAS creeping behind the mountains that lay to the west as the companions entered the outskirts of Leadville. The township seemed deserted except for a tall, chubby teenager who was painting the hinges of a big five-barred gate.
“Hi, there, strangers,” he called out.
“Hi,” Krysty replied, walking off the blacktop toward him. “You wouldn’t have seen a tall man with one eye passing this way, would you?” She covered her left eye with her hand to try to show the soft-faced boy what she meant.
“Lords, yes!” A broad smile spread almost from ear to ear. “One eye, lady. Sad eye, lady.”
“When did you see him?”
He looked worried. “Now, I don’t remember times and days and months all that good. But I think it was this same day we got now. He spoke to me, real kind. Went off that way.” He pointed behind them.
“Real kind,” J.B. said, hearing the conversation. “Doesn’t sound much like Ryan.”
“The retard sure it was Ryan?” Jak asked.
“Don’t call him that,” Mildred snapped. “Like saying someone’s a crip.”
“Tall with black hair. Carrying a rifle over his shoulder. And one eye.”
The boy nodded eagerly. “Lords, yes. Sure as sunshine it was him.”
Krysty patted him on the arm and he blushed deep crimson with delight. “Thanks a bunch,” she said. “You’ve been really helpful to us.”
WHEN THEY FOUND Carl and Joanna’s Diner there was even more information for them.
While they shared an enormous fish pie, made from fresh salmon and covered in golden-brown pastry, with fluffy whipped potatoes and buttered carrots, Carl told them what he could about Ryan’s time in Leadville and the message he had left behind.
A young blond woman with heavily made-up eyes was sitting at a nearby table, listening to the account.
“There was blood and brains all over,” she said, interrupting at the point where Carl had reached the three would-be killers. “Prettiest whirly patterns you ever saw.” She spoke slowly, quietly and hesitantly, as though she were a long-term jolt user. She pointed at Doc’s cane. “My daddy got a walking stick near as pretty as that.”
Carl pointed to his forehead with a circling motion. “Long gone,” he said quietly.
“And he left a message?” Krysty asked.
“Sure.” Carl folded his hands in front of him, like a child about to recite a lesson that he’d memorized. “He was going to cross over the high country between the two passes. Down onto the trail above Breckenridge. And”
Joanna had come out of the kitchen with a jug of creamy white sauce. “And he was going up to Fairplay and he’d wait for you there,” she said. “That was all.”
Krysty felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her heart. Ryan had obviously been to the school and been happy enough to leave Dean there. Now he was on the way up to Harmony, just part of a day ahead of them. And he had successfully survived a vicious attack on him.
“We’ll stay the night here in Leadville,” she said. “And get going after him in the morning. When do you think we’d catch up with him?”
“Take the better part of two days to reach Fairplay,” Carl told her.
“Mebbe longer,” Joanna added, looking significantly at Doc.