Read Online Burn Me Deadly: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel by Alex Bledsoe - Free Book Online

ground, her hooves clacking on the stones from the old riverbed. I was considering a good smack with the flat of my sword when the wind changed and I smelled what had halted her.
    “It’s just up here,” Buddy said, his pony unaffected by the odor.
    “I know,” I said, swung off my saddle and released the reins. The horse backed up a step as if tensing to bolt, but I glared at her and she stopped. She lowered her head and began munching on the grass sprouting between the smooth rocks.
    I tried really hard to get a grip on myself. After all, I’d seen plenty of dead horses, plenty of dead people , in my life. This was just another crime scene I needed to check for clues. So why did it feel like I was about to see the corpse of my best friend? I parted my lips and breathed through my clenched teeth as I approached the big object lying on the ground just ahead.
    The flies were doing their job, and the rest of the forest disposal crew were no slackers, either. But most of her was still there. Huge slashes across Lola’s flanks showed where she’d been cut with a knife or a sword, most likely to drive her off the cliff. She was far too smart to just jump on her own. In the patches of bare dirt between the stones I saw prints from coyotes, raccoons, possums and other varmints, as well as the wagon tracks from where Buddy had picked up Laura and me.
    Buddy, leading his pony, stopped beside me. He held a cloth over his face. “The fall might not’ve killed her right away,” he said clinically. “Coulda just broke her ribs. Then she’d suffocate, or drown in her own blood if her lungs got poked.”
    I clenched my fists. “Say anything else, Buddy, and I’ll open a fresh jug of Bella Lou on you.”
    He grumbled petulantly, “Hey, it’s just a horse; it’s not like it’s a person or anything.”
    “Buddy,” I said with supreme self-control, “why’d you pick us up? You don’t strike me as the help-out-your-fellow-man type.”
    “Didn’t want anyone to come looking for you and find us ,” he said to the ground.
    I looked at the cliffs. The sky above them was blue, cloudless and magnificent. Where had those men been standing that night? “How was I laying when you found me?”
    “Flat on the ground.”
    “No, I mean, could you tell which side I’d been thrown off?”
    He nodded and pointed. It was almost, but not quite, a straight vertical drop, and I saw the place where I’d hit the base and rolled the rest of the way to the bottom. That little bounce had been what saved me. “The dragon people live somewhere up there?”
    Buddy made a noncommittal sound muffled by the scarf.
    I yanked it away from his face. “Buddy, I got a bellyful of pissed-off and I’m looking for somewhere to throw it up. It could be on your head just as easily as anywhere, so don’t give me a hard time.”
    He turned white, which could’ve been just from the stench, and snatched the scarf back. “About half a mile down, there’s a cut that leads to a trail. It comes back along the top of the cliff up there. If you follow it, it’ll take you to a little shack. Only seen it from a distance, but . . . it’s theirs.”
    I dug a coin from my pocket and gave it to him. He stared at it. “What’s this for?”
    I nodded at the tools on his pony. “You got a shovel with you?”
    “Yeah.”
    I indicated Lola’s carcass. “Bury her.”
    “The horse?”
    “ Yes, the horse! ” I yelled.
    He quickly pocketed the money. “Okay, fine. Sure thing. I’ll get right on it.”
    “I’ll be back to check,” I assured him as I turned to mount Lola’s completely inadequate replacement.

chapter

FIVE

    B
    uddy had told the truth: the cut hit the canyon at a right angle, provided an easy ascent and led to a trail that ran along the cliff top. Smooth as it was, the damn horse still balked at it, and I’d have made faster progress had I let the nag ride me . She picked her way up the cut like a barefoot spinster, then seemed determined