Black Hills

Ignoring his brother, Gull guided his mount closer to the bank.
    “You end up in that water, I ain’t coming in after you.”
    It was probably just a rock, Gull thought, and then he’d feel like a numbnut and have to suffer Jesse’s ragging for the rest of the ride. But it didn’t look like a rock. It looked like the front half of a boot.
    “I think that’s a boot. You see that, Cy?”
    “I can’t tell.” Cy peered with eyes shaded by his hat and not especially interested. “Probably a rock.”
    “I think it’s a boot.”
    “Alert the freaking media,” Jesse proclaimed, boosting up a little to rub at his worn-out ass. “Some asshole camper lost a boot in Spearfish Creek.”
    “If some asshole camper lost a boot in the creek, why’s it just there? How come it’s not floating off, pushed along by the falls? Asshole,” Gull muttered as he dug out his binoculars.
    “’Cause it’s a freaking rock. Or it’s some asshole’s boot that’s stuck on a freaking rock. Hell with this. I gotta piss.”
    As he stared through the glasses, Gull’s face went pale as wax. “Oh, Jesus. Mother of God. I think there’s somebody in that boot. Holy shit, Jess. I can see something under the water.”
    “Oh, bullshit, Gull.”
    Gull lowered the glasses, stared at his brother. “Do I look like I’m bullshitting?”
    Studying his brother’s face, Jesse set his teeth. “I guess we’d better get a closer look.”
    They tethered the horses.
    Gull looked at the deputy—the scrawny build of him—and wished he didn’t feel obliged. “I’m the best swimmer here. I’ll go.”
    The breath Cy let out held both resignation and nerves. “It’s my job.”
    “Might be your job,” Jesse said, as he got his rope, “but Gull swims like a damn otter. Water’s pretty rough, so we’re going to get you secure. You’re an asshole, Gull, but you’re my brother and I’m not going to watch you drown.”
    Fighting off nerves, Gull stripped down to his jockeys, let his brother secure the rope around his waist. “I bet that water’s pretty fucking cold.”
    “You’re the one who had to go see something.”
    Since he couldn’t argue with that one, Gull eased over the bank, picked his way over the rocks and shale, and stared at the fast water. He glanced back, reassured himself that his brother had the rope secured.
    He went in. “Pretty fucking cold!” he shouted. “Give me some slack.”
    He swam against the fast water, imagined his toes going blue and just falling off. Even with the rope, he banged against the rocks, but pushed off them again.
    He went under, pushing, pushing against the current, and in that gin-clear water, he saw he’d been right. Somebody was in the boots.
    He surfaced again, choking, flailing. “Pull me back. Oh, holy bleeding Christ, pull me back.”
    Panic buzzed in his head, nausea churned in his belly. Slapping and clawing at the water, swallowing it, choking it out again, he relied on his brother to get him back to the bank.
    He crawled onto a rock, heaved up water and his breakfast until he could only lie panting. “I saw him. I saw him. Oh, God, the fish’ve been at him. At his face.”
    “Call it in, Cy. Call it in.” Jesse slid and slipped his way down to wrap a saddle blanket over his brother.
     
     
     
    WORD SPREAD AS word did. Coop heard about Gull’s discovery from three sources, with varying details, before Willy hunted him down at the stables.
    “You’d’ve heard.”
    “Yeah. I’m going by to check up on Gull.”
    Willy nodded. His voice was still rough, but he was feeling better. “He’s pretty shaken up. I’m going over to his place, get a formal statement down if you want to come along. The fact is, Coop, I’d appreciate if you did. Not just because he works for you. I’ve worked killings before, but nothing like this. We’re going to have a lot of fingers in this pie. I’d like to have yours—unofficially.”
    “I’ll follow you over. Did you notify Tyler’s wife?”
    Willy’s mouth tightened. “Yeah. Worst part of it. I guess you did your share of notifications back east.”
    “Worst part of it,” Coop agreed. “I’ve heard different versions. Do you have the cause of death?”
    “Coroner has to give us that. He’d been in the water awhile—you know what happens. But it wasn’t a fall, and it wasn’t the damn fish that slit his throat. It wasn’t either that weighed the body down. Flooding hadn’t stirred it up, and Gull didn’t have