“You’d better let me go, if you know what’s good for you.”
Jesse twisted the wrist again. “I asked you a question, and if you want to live through this little meeting, you’d better start talking.”
“Ruger sent me,” the man grunted.
“Not Casey?” Jesse asked, surprised. Casey handled security.
“It was Ruger; I’ve been following you for a couple of weeks. Now do the right thing; let me go, and let’s go see Ruger.”
Jesse didn’t have to think about that for very long. There was only one possible result of this meeting, and it wasn’t seeing Ruger. He grabbed the pistol, then got to his feet still holding on to the man’s wrist. “All right,” he said, “we’ll go see Ruger, but not with a gun in my back, agreed?”
“All right, agreed,” the man said. “Just ease off on my arm, okay?”
“Which pocket do you keep the pistol in?”
“Shoulder holster, left side,” the man said.
Jesse reached inside the man’s coat, found the holster, wiped the snow off the gun and shoved it into the holster. He also found a leather tab and snapped it across the trigger guard. “All right, do I have your word you won’t draw that again?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the man said. “Now, please let go of my arm.”
“Sure,” Jesse said. First he turned the man so that his back was to the steep slope, then he let go of the arm. Then Jesse hit him once, in the gut. He made himself watch as the man left the path and started down. There was one short scream that ended when his head struck a boulder, then the limp body ricocheted down the slope and free fell the last hundred feet to the stream below. The man ended up face down in the stream, wedged between two rocks.
Jesse sat down for a minute and tried to restore his breathing and his thinking to normal. The man was dead, that was sure; either the blow to the head had done it, or he would drown in the stream. He found it strange how easy it was to kill somebody when his own life was in danger. He looked around him; the snow, now falling heavily, was already obliterating signs of a scuffle. In ten minutes the whole area would be covered. Jesse waited the ten minutes before going back to the plant. He had two choices: say nothing and get on that plane tonight; it might be days before they found the man; or play innocent and try to carry it off.
He ran the last two hundred yards; he had to be out of breath when he reached his office and telephoned Pat Casey.
Chapter 41
Pat Casey stood on the path and looked down into the ravine. “Who is he?” he asked.
I don’t know,” Jesse replied. “I was sitting on a rock up there a few yards. I had just finished my lunch when I heard somebody shout, or maybe it was more of a scream.”
“Did you see him go over?”
“No, in fact I almost didn’t see him at all. I walked back down the path to about here and looked around, but it had begun to snow, and I didn’t see anything at first. Then the red jacket caught my eye.”
“Did you try to help him?”
“Are you kidding? How the hell was I going to get down there? I’m not a mountain goat.” Jesse looked down the path and saw half a dozen people coming; two carried a stretcher, the others had rope and equipment.
“Okay, you guys,” Casey called out, “he’s right down there; go to it.” He turned back to Jesse. “What were you doing up here, Jesse?”
“I come up here once or twice a week to eat my lunch.”
“You were eating lunch outdoors in this snow?”
“It hadn’t started when I got here; it had only just begun when I heard the sound.”
“You’re going on your honeymoon tonight, aren’t you?”
“We’re getting a nine o’clock plane from Spokane.”
Casey nodded noncommittally. “Merv, don’t you fall down there with him! Be careful!” he yelled at the rescue party, who were halfway down the incline. “Maybe you better wait a few days before you go, Jesse.”
“I can’t do that, Pat; we’ve got a big order for plywood, and we have to start on it the week after next. We’ll be on it well into the spring, and I promised Jenny and Carey San Francisco.” He looked down the path and saw Kurt Ruger walking toward them through the snow. In his suit, tie and overcoat he looked distinctly out of place.
“Hey, Kurt,” Casey said.
“What’s going on, Pat?” Ruger asked.
“We got a guy all the way down there in the creek; don’t know who it is yet.”
Ruger nodded, and he was looking straight at Jesse. “Did you throw him down there?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jesse said. “I don’t even know who the guy is; why would I want to throw him down there?”
Casey spoke up. “Jesse says he was having lunch up there a ways, and he heard the fellow holler. Could be he slipped right about here; the path’s narrow, and it slopes that way.”
“Barron did it,” Ruger said.
Jesse squared toward Ruger. “Now you wait just a goddamned minute before you start accusing me of murdering people. Do you know who that guy is? Do you know something about this?”
Ruger looked down the incline to where a stretcher was being hauled up, but he said nothing.
“Now we’ll get a look at him,” Casey said, grabbing a rope and helping to haul the stretcher onto the path. He pulled back the blanket. “It’s George Little,” he said to Ruger. “He works for you; what was he doing up here?”
“See if he has his gun,” Ruger said.
Casey pulled open the man’s coat. “Right there in its holster; the safety tab is still on. Doesn’t look like he was about to use it.”
“Your pal Jesse killed him,” Ruger said. “I suggest you lock him up while I tell Jack Gene about this.”
“Lock me up?” Jesse said, outraged. “I don’t even know the man. Just what the hell are you talking about?”
“Come with me, Kurt,” Casey said, walking farther up the path. Ruger followed him, and they spent five minutes arguing and gesturing at each other. They came back to where Jesse stood. “You come on with me, Jesse; we’re going to see Jack Gene.” He glanced at Ruger, then back at Jesse. “Bring your truck; you can follow me up there.”
Ruger glowered at Jesse.
Coldwater seated the three in his study and looked at them. “All right, what’s happened?”
“George Little is dead,” Ruger said. “Barron threw him off a mountain.”
“I don’t even know George Little,” Jesse said.
Ruger started to speak, but Coldwater held up a hand. “One at a time; you first, Jesse.”
“I went up on the mountain behind the plant to eat my lunch; I do that every so often; there’s a nice view. I had just finished eating when I heard somebody yell or scream. I looked down the path, but there was nobody there. It had started to snow about that time, and it took me some time looking before I saw a man in the creek, about two hundred feet down the mountain. I ran back to the plant and called Pat and told him to bring some men, then I waited there for him to arrive.”
“Pat?” Coldwater said.
“I’ve got no reason to contradict Jesse,” Casey said. “George was wearing a gun, but it was still in his holster and strapped in. I think it’s true that Jesse didn’t know him.”
Coldwater looked at Ruger. “All right, Kurt, let’s have it all.”
Ruger looked embarrassed. “I’ve had George following Jesse for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust him, and I don’t think you should either. There’s something wrong about him, and I want to know what it is.”
“Jesse, did you know somebody was following you?”
“News to me; I didn’t have a clue.”
“Let’s get it all in the open right now, Kurt. Tell me exactly what’s bothering you about Jesse.”