Silver Creek - G.L. Snodgrass Page 0,66
said as he approached, cricking his neck. “Them hotel beds is too soft. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. Makes a man bend in the middle.”
Luke nodded. “I need you to watch things for a bit.”
Jake frowned. “I thought you was headed out?”
“In a bit. I got a few things to do first. Got some new information about Tom Johnson’s murder.”
“Becky know you back to digging into that? She ain’t going to be right pleased.”
Luke laughed. “That’s why you’re not going to tell her.”
“Not wise,” Jake said as he pushed past Luke and into the Jail. “Every time Zion tried to keep something from Hanna. It’d always come back to bite him.”
A cold feeling of dread washed over Luke. He hated deceiving Becky. But he needed to do this. And if he was lucky, it would be finished before she knew he was up to anything.
“Felton’s still asleep,” Luke told his brother. “Get him a meal. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”
Jake shook his head. “Your funeral, Brother. But if’n I had a woman like Becky Johnson wanting to get married. I wouldn’t be making her upset. She might change her mind.”
Luke laughed. “There ain’t a woman this side of Abilene that would have you.”
Jake joined his brother in laughing. “Guess I’ll have to go further then. You set the bar high.”
Slapping his brother, on the shoulder, Luke left him and made his way across the street to the stage office. Charley Crawford looked up from behind his teller window, his eyebrows rising to the top of his brow when the sheriff stepped in.
“Stage ain’t due back for two days,” Crawford said.
Luke nodded. “I’m told you keep the books for the land claims in this area.”
Crawford frowned as he nodded. “Ain’t books. More papers like.”
“I need to see what you got out by Tom Johnson’s place.”
“Ain’t got nothing for out there.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked. “What do you have?”
“Ain’t got nothing,” Crawford answered. “I just get to take down the information and send it to Carson City every month or so. Them state fellows like keeping the books. They get right upset if them forms ain’t all correct and proper, I can tell you.”
Luke let out a long breath as he pushed down the anger building up inside of him. Why was it always this way? Nothing was ever easy.
“Well, do you remember anyone submitting a claim on a section of land across the creek from Tom Johnson’s? Must have been about six months ago.”
Crawford shook his head. “I wasn’t working here then. Got hurt in the mines. Half a ton of rock can make a mishmash of a man’s back. Chester got me this job. About two months ago. Got to tell you it is easier than swinging a double-jack. Never did think I’d use that reading and writing my Ma crammed into me. But I got to admit. It has come in right handy.”
“Who was working then?” Luke asked as his mind tried to work out the trail.
“Jimmy Carson,” Crawford said. “But it won’t do you no good tracking him down. He was killed about three or four weeks ago. He’d gone back to working the mines. Was walking home one night when someone shot him. Never did find out who. What makes it worse. It was the day before payday. The man didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”
Luke’s gut tightened. The murdered miner Jamison had mentioned. One more path blocked. “You got a map that lays out the quarter sections?” Luke asked as he frantically tried to find another way down the trail.
“Sure do,” Charley said as he turned back to a stack of rolled canvases atop a desk. He searched through them then pulled one out and unrolled it before him.
“This is the one for that area,” he said. “See. This is Johnson’s place. And over here is the Feltons.
Luke looked down at the map to the section across the creek from Johnson. Thick black X’s had been used to fill it in. The number 166 identified the piece of property. Tom’s was listed as 165. Luke could see where Tom’s had been claimed long before any survey work. They’d had to lay out the follow on sections to conform to his farm’s plot lines.
“That just tells me it’s already been claimed but not who,” Charley said. “I only know the Thompson and Felton places because they’re the only ones out there.”
Nodding. Luke sighed. He wasn’t going to find what