Sidewinders by William W. Johnstone

breath and blew it back out in an exasperated sigh.
    â€œDid anybody bother to stop and ask themselves why in blazes I’d do a thing like that?” he wanted to know.
    â€œI’m sure some did. I guess most folks just assumed you’d gone mad.”
    Scratch said, “That’s a heck of a conclusion to jump to.”
    â€œYeah, but mobs don’t stop and think, and that’s what the population of Bear Creek is these days, a mob. It don’t help matters that the Fontaines keep stirrin’ ’em up. Danny’s always in one of the saloons harpin’ on the killin’s and sayin’ that something ought to be done about them.”
    â€œGetting back to Barney Dunn,” Bo said, “what happened after he struck that match and saw what had happened? How come this so-called Butcher of Bear Creek didn’t come after him?”
    â€œAccording to Dunn, he did. He swung that big ol’ knife at him. Dunn claims he jumped higher and farther than he ever did in his life and barely avoided gettin’ his head chopped off. He made it to the back door of the saloon and tumbled through it just in time to kick it closed behind him and drop the bar across it. Then he started hollerin’ his head off for help. The place had cleared out by then, but a few people were still movin’ around town and they came a-runnin’. When they heard Dunn’s story, they got shotguns and lanterns and went out to search that alley, and they found Rose’s body back there, but no sign of the killer.”
    â€œThat’s mighty convenient,” Scratch said. “Anybody stop to think that maybe Dunn killed her his own self and made up that business about the other fella?”
    John Creel’s bushy white eyebrows rose in surprise.
    â€œThat’s mighty smart of you, Scratch,” he said. “You thought of that right away. It took Marshal Haltom three or four days to have that same idea. But Dunn’s a little fella, and Rose was a pretty strappin’ gal. I’m not sure he could’ve strangled her. Not only that, Dunn was workin’ at the Southern Belle with plenty of witnesses when the gal was killed down at Cottonwood, so he couldn’t have done that. Doc Perkins said that from the looks of it, he was sure the same varmint was responsible for both killin’s.”
    â€œThat’s probably true,” Bo said. “But either way, I didn’t have anything to do with them.”
    â€œNo, but you can see how come folks were spooked when you rode into town, bold as brass. The question is, what are you gonna do now?”
    â€œI came to visit you and the rest of the family,” Bo said. “The real question is, what do you want me to do?”
    â€œI can answer that,” Riley said from the doorway. “Get out. That’s what we want you to do.”

CHAPTER 7
    John Creel bolted up out of his chair and said, “Damn it, Riley, we talked about this. You told me you’d back off—”
    â€œThat was before he talked to me.”
    The new voice came from a man who’d stepped up onto the porch behind Riley. As this man followed Riley into the house, Bo recognized his brother Cooper, who had their mother’s blond hair and wore a handlebar mustache with the tips waxed. Cooper had inherited his brawny build from John Creel, just like Bo had, instead of Riley’s lankiness, which came from their mother.
    â€œI’m sorry to have to say it, Bo,” Cooper went on, “but with that trouble hanging over your head, there’s no place for you here. We have enough problems of our own these days without shielding a murderer.”
    â€œYou, too?” Bo said. “You really believe your own brother is capable of doing such terrible things?”
    â€œYou may be our brother by blood, but you haven’t spent more than a month here, total, in the past forty years. How the hell are we supposed to know