The Huckleberry Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery

by Patrick F. McManus

  “Let me see, I’m not sure where I left my hip boots. Now that I think of it, I don’t own hip boots.”

  Tully laughed. “I can scarcely imagine an FBI agent without hip boots. I’ll take care of the hip boots for you. Oh yeah, and come armed.”

  “I always come armed, Sheriff, particularly when I’m going to spend a day with a perfect gentleman.” She flashed her smile again. “See you in the morning.”

  Agent Angela Phelps got up and left.

  Tully stood in his doorway and watched Daisy watch her go.

  Daisy turned and looked at him. “Nice tight skirt,” she said. “And that FBI sure knows how to use it.”

  “Really?” Tully said. “I never noticed.”

  Daisy laughed. “That would be the first time in your life, boss.”

  “No, I missed you one day when you walked across the briefing room.”

  He went over to his desk and dialed Blight City General Hospital.

  “Scarlett O’Ryan, please. Sheriff Bo Tully calling.”

  Scarlett came on the line. “Hi, Bo. What’s up?”

  “You’re a fly-fisher, right?”

  “Right.”

  “That means you have hip boots.”

  “Yeah. And waders too.”

  “Waders! They might be even better. I need to borrow them for an FBI agent who’s about five eight with an eight shoe size.”

  “Sure, you can borrow them. Sounds like a pretty small FBI agent.”

  “This agent is a woman.”

  “I should have known. Anyway, sure, you can borrow the waders for her. They should fit. What’s the big adventure?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but we’re going to investigate a swamp in the lower part of Scotchman Creek. On the other hand, if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow night, you can tell someone. I suggest Brian Pugh. You know Brian. He’s already saved my life a couple of times and should be good for one more.”

  “You got it, Bo. Swing by my place about eight tonight. I should be home by then and you can pick up the waders.” She gave him her address.

  Tully stopped at her apartment on his way home that evening.

  She handed him the waders and invited him in for dinner.

  “By all means. I could use a home-cooked meal. What are we having?”

  “Hungry-Man turkey dinners.”

  “One of my favorites.”

  Tully got home a little after midnight.

  16

  TULLY PICKED UP Angie at her hotel the next morning. She was dressed as he recommended. He handed her the cap and she adjusted it to fit as they drove.

  “This will be my first job off-pavement,” she told him. “I called my boss to report in, and he was thrilled to learn I was spending the day with you in a swamp. He wanted to know what we’re looking for. I told him I didn’t know and that I was simply following you. He said, ‘Oh, great!’ So the FBI is well aware of your activities and you can see the level of its appreciation.”

  “That’s nice. I try my best to cooperate with the bureau every chance I get. You can’t imagine how pleased I am it has such a good opinion of me. By the way, how did you slip up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tully smiled as he turned off onto the Scotchman Peak Road. “FBI agents are usually sent to Montana or Idaho as punishment for having slipped up. So how did you slip up?”

  “Perhaps getting born female.”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Well, I’ll have you know the FBI doesn’t punish agents. Furthermore, I have had a very successful career. The bureau has long had a special interest in Blight County, and that’s why they sent one of their top agents to investigate a crime here.”

  Tully glanced over and saw that she was blushing.

  “I see. Sorry I asked.”

  “You should be.” She turned and stared out her side window. “And I did something really stupid.”

  “Ah. Well, being the perfect gentleman I am, I won’t attempt a guess.”

  “Thanks.”

  • • •

  Tully backed his Explorer into a turnout next to the swamp. As soon as they got out he expected mosquitoes to swarm around them in black, hungry, vibrating clouds. Nothing. While Angie pulled on her gloves, Tully draped the mosquito netting over her cap. He tucked the bottom of the netting into her collar, leaving enough to billow out around her head. Then he handed her the waders.

  “I thought you were bringing hip boots.”

  “I prefer hip boots on women because they’re a lot cuter than chest waders. The problem with hip boots, they’re always one inch too short for the water.” He handed her a strap with a buckle on one end. “Fasten this around your, uh, top, and it will keep most of the water out if you fall down.”

  Angie shook her head. “This is already so much fun I can hardly believe it. Aren’t you going to put on some hip boots or waders?”

  “Naw, I prefer to get by with as little as possible.” He draped the mosquito netting over his hat and tucked the bottom into the sweatshirt he wore over his blue denim work shirt. “On the other hand, I can’t stand mosquitoes. Why we’re not being assaulted by them already, I don’t know.” He handed her a walking stick. “If you start to get sucked down by quicksand, hold the stick out to me. That way I can pull you out without getting too close.”

  “This gets better all the time.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?”

  Tully tried to take her by the hand but she shook him off. They went down a steep incline, sliding down on a carpet of pine needles and grabbing at tree branches to slow their momentum. The woods below were thick with trees and dark with shadows. Squirrels complained shrilly at their approach, and for several minutes birdsong died away as they thrashed their way through the trees. They came to an opening in the woods where towering ferns grew over mossy mounds that had once been logs, discarded in the distant past for some unknown reason. The moisture on the ferns soaked Tully sufficiently that he began to wish he too had worn waders. Through a gap in the trees sunlight flashed on water. They were approaching the beaver dams and already he could smell the swamp.

  The first dam wound off through trees long dead and whitened with age. The beavers had woven brush, logs, and driftwood into a dam that somehow held back an immense body of water. He and Angie approached the dam from the bottom, with water cascading and spouting through billions of small openings. The sound was almost musical. Standing beneath the front of the dam, Tully could barely see over the top of it. He wondered what kind of blueprint beavers had for creating such a structure—or did they simply start aimlessly weaving stuff together until they had a dam? Did they even think about creating a dam? Maybe dams were simply accidents that resulted from their fooling around, much like the Army Corps of Engineers’ accomplishments.

  Tully led Angie over to where the dam abutted the hill they had just descended. As they slowly worked their way out onto the dam, Tully explained the art of walking on beaver dams. Mid-lecture, one of his legs shot down, as far as his knee. As he tried to disentangle his foot from the network of willows, branches, and small dead trees, he told her, “Remember the words I used when my foot shot down this hole. They are very important when walking a beaver dam.”

  Angie laughed. “There were quite a few words, but I’ll try to remember them. By the way, what is it we’re supposed to be looking for?”

  “A couple of islands.” He ran his hands down his pant leg and squeezed out as much water as he could. The water wasn’t stained with blood, even though his leg felt as if it should be. He hated pain without blood. “I spotted the islands from the air. One of them contained something that looked like a building, a structure of some kind anyway. I asked myself why anyone would build something out here in the middle of a swamp. There were some large patches of bare ground, too. As you can tell, any ground we can see that sticks up above the water is covered with grass three feet high. And there are some massive crops of cattails every-where you look. If we g
et stranded out here, we can survive on cattail roots. Ever eat any cattail roots, Angie?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “No! I read a book one time that said they were edible. Of course, there’s a big difference between good and edible. Edible, I think, only means you won’t die from it.”

  Angie stumbled and fell against him. “Sorry, this is my first time on a beaver dam.” She steadied herself. “At least I now know the words to say if one of my legs breaks through.”

  Tully smiled. “Yes, remember those words. They are very important. But perhaps we shouldn’t be creating such a high profile of ourselves.” His eyes scanned the edge of the woods. “There could be someone who doesn’t want us out here poking around.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Yes, well, you never know. Let’s walk below the dam. It’s pretty watery down there, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle with your waders.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They worked their way down the face of the dam. Some openings spurted water through with considerable force. After working their way to the base of the dam, they moved out away from the gushing water. The shallower channels of water scarcely rose to Tully’s knees. It had been an unusual stroke of brilliance that made him think of the chest waders for Angie. If he had remembered a life preserver, he could have floated her across several of the deeper pools. Occasionally, he detected signs of dissatisfaction on the face of the FBI agent. Then a string of words suddenly erupted from her as she stumbled again.

  “No, no,” he said. “Use those words only when you step through a hole in a beaver dam.”

  “Very funny! I’ll tell you something, Bo! This is the last time I let some cracker sheriff talk me into slogging my way through a swamp!”

  Tully smiled. “It requires a certain charm and talent.”

  “What, wading through a swamp?”

  “No, persuading a pretty woman to do it.”

  He heard a sharp crack somewhere above them on the backwater of the dam, but close. He automatically ducked, then turned to check on Angie. She was crouched down, the water almost to the top of her waders. A revolver had magically appeared in her right hand. “Was that shot intended for us?”

  “Probably,” he said. “But I don’t think we need worry. Beavers are notoriously poor shots.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. That crack you heard wasn’t a gunshot. It was a beaver slapping his tail on the water. That’s a warning to other beavers that there’s danger in the area. Namely us.”

  “A beaver?”

  “It’s a bit different from a gunshot but close enough to get your attention. I imagine by now all beavers in the area have lit out for their hiding places.”

  Angie slowly straightened up and tucked her pistol down somewhere inside her chest waders. “Whew! I thought somebody had us. It was so close.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Tully said. “I imagine the crack of a beaver tail raised the hair of more than one mountain man trudging through hostile beaver country. Not all beavers are hostile, but some are.”

  They at last came to where the beaver dam abutted against a higher piece of land. Tully thought it must be one of the islands he had spotted from the air. Water gushed through the dam and they had to fight their way up through it. Before pushing to the top of the dam, Tully stuck his head up and looked around. They had reached an island all right, and he could see no sign of life, wild or otherwise. He climbed to the top of the dam.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re alone out here,” he said, “but it might be a good idea to watch for any kind of movement. I don’t mean just bad guys. This is a great place for moose. A cow moose and her calf would be particularly bad news. Actually, any moose is bad news.”

  Angie looked around, her hands on her hips. “Now you tell me! And here I was only worried about bears.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you about bears. We have only black bears in Blight County but they get pretty cantankerous this time of year. Definitely, watch out for bears.”

  “No grizzlies?”

  “Oh, occasionally someone claims to have seen a grizzly, usually in the high country over by Montana.”

  Suddenly she yelled his name, her voice tinged with panic. Great, he thought, now she sees a bear.

  “I’m sinking, Bo! I can’t get my feet loose!”

  “Don’t move!” he shouted. “It may be quicksand!” He had never heard of any quicksand in Blight County but if there was any, count on an FBI agent to find it. He plunged down off the dam. Circling around so as not to be caught by whatever had grabbed Angie, he came in behind her, wrapped his arms around her lower abdomen, grabbed his left wrist with his right hand, and wrenched back. She came loose, making a kind of ooofffing sound as they both fell over backward in the water.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, holding her on top of him while she caught her breath.

  “No, I’m okay. I thought for a second I was a goner. Scared me. You squeezed the dickens out of me with that lower Heimlich. I hope the lady you borrowed these waders from isn’t too good a friend.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Oh no! I’m sorry!”

  “Only kidding. I’m okay. The waders are okay.”

  He stretched out, now lying nearly flat in the water, still holding Angie. The water was warm and cushy and smelled of decay. It occurred to him he liked holding her. He had never held an FBI agent before. The agent seemed to like it, too.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “This swamp may swallow us up before we find what we’re looking for. I know a good guide we can get cheap. He knows this swamp like the back of his grubby hand.”

  17

  ANGIE STRIPPED OFF her chest waders when they reached the Explorer. She opened the door to the cargo area and tossed them inside. Tully thought she had probably finished with waders forever. She was almost as wet as he was, no doubt because she hadn’t tightened the chest strap sufficiently. Their clothes dried quickly in the heat of the car. He drove fast with all the windows open, the wind blasting them from all sides. He didn’t want to explain that the air-conditioning on the Explorer hadn’t worked in years. Who needs air-conditioning when you have windows? He turned north on US 95.

  Angie stuck her hand out the open window and let it glide up and down in the wind as if it were a bird. “Where are we going now?”

  “To see a fellow who probably knows that swamp better than anybody else.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Sort of. I’ve locked him up a few times for poaching. He enjoyed the room service so much I could hardly keep him out of jail. I finally told the judge I’d had enough of Poke and we’d forget the bit of poaching he does to survive. I didn’t get any complaint from the game warden either.”

  She pulled her hand inside. “Poke?”

  “Yeah, Poke Wimsey. I think his actual first name is William, but Poke is all I’ve known him by. He told me one time he got the nickname when he was a young boy, because he was always late. Poke is never late anymore, because he never does anything he can be late for.”

  “He sounds like your kind of guy.”

  Tully ran up the windows. “He lives in a little log cabin back in the woods. I think it’s on about a hundred acres of forest. He got the land by trading the old family homestead to the Forest Service. Most people around here are scared to death of him, the sensible ones anyway.”

  “He must be a real mountain man.”

  “Yeah, sort of. But he’s a mountain man like you’ve never seen before. I doubt there’s an ant or a spider or a wild plant in all hundred acres he doesn’t know personally.”

  He turned off the highway onto a gravel road. There were farms on both sides. Presently, the forest started again and there were no more farms. The road turned into rutted dirt. Tully could see in the rearview mirror the dust curling up high behind them. After a couple of miles, he shifted into
four-wheel drive.

  The Explorer swerved in and out of the ruts. Then they came to a tree lying across the road. It was obvious the tree had been cut down so it would block off any stray traffic. Since nearly everyone in Blight County owned a chain saw, it was unusual that the tree had been allowed to remain where it was. Tully drove in and out of the ditch and into the woods, whipping the vehicle this way and that, and finally back to the road on the other side of the tree. Tracks indicated he was not the first to do so.

  Angie turned and looked back at the tree. “Explain to me again, Bo, why the authorities allow someone to block a county road like that.”

  “It’s simple enough. Beside the fact he doesn’t mind in the least going to jail, Poke doesn’t have any money, so it doesn’t do any good to fine him. Furthermore, just about everybody in the county is afraid of him. No sensible person sees any reason to make an enemy of Poke. If you think about it, you realize people like him are about the only ones who achieve a complete state of freedom in modern society.”

  Angie shook her head. “I take it you’re not afraid of this Poke.”

  Tully laughed. “You must think I’m stupid, Angie! Anybody with any sense is afraid of Poke!”

  “I see. And exactly why is it we’re going to visit him?”

  “To see if he will guide us out into the swamp. The trick is not to give him any reason to kill us, pile some stones on our bodies and sink them somewhere out in a pool of quicksand, and let the water critters take care of any remains.”

  She gave a little shudder. “I’m so glad you eased my mind.”

  Tully turned off what remained of the road. The Explorer bumped and twisted through the woods until it came to a small clearing. Dozens of tree stumps dotted the clearing, in the middle of which sat a small log cabin. A man sat in a chair on the front porch. A rifle rested across his knees.

  Tully stopped the Explorer and stared out the windshield at the man. “Sit here for a bit. I don’t want to overwhelm him with company. I’ve left the motor running. If he kills me, whip the vehicle around and get out of here as fast as you can.”