Read Online Message on the Wind by J. R. Roberts - Free Book Online

and the guard will come in.”
    â€œOkay.”
    Clint walked through the door.
    Â 
    The prisoner was seated at a wooden table, his wrists shackled together, his ankles shackled together, and then his wrists and ankles connected by a chain. He was once a big man, but had lost a lot of weight recently. His prison stripes hung on him. He had a prison pallor, but seemed relatively healthy. Clint thought that a few meals would do wonders for him, bring him back to health. He seemed to be in his late forties, but might have been younger. His face was black with stubble.
    â€œYou him?” he asked. “You the Gunsmith?”
    â€œThat’s me,” Clint said. “Clint Adams. You’re Joe Hickey?”
    â€œThat’s right. Siddown, why don’t ya?” Hickey said. “Make yerself comfortable.”
    There was one other chair, at the opposite end of the five-foot table. Clint sat.
    â€œTook your gun, huh?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œAs you can see,” Hickey said, moving his hands and rattling his chains, “I can’t do nothin’ anyway.”
    â€œGuess they just wanted to be sure.”
    â€œI don’t get too many visitors,” Hickey said, “and none as famous as you. What brings ya here?”
    â€œOrgan Pipe.” Clint decided to get right to the point.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHave you ever heard of a place called Organ Pipe?” Clint asked.
    Hickey sat back in his chair and stared at Clint. “What are ya askin’ me about that fer?”
    Clint shrugged. “I’m curious.”
    â€œThat kinda curious could get ya killed.”
    â€œSo you have heard of it?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œYou’re the first person I’ve talked to who’s admitted that the place exists.”
    â€œExisted.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt don’t exist,” Hickey said. “It existed.”
    â€œWhat—what happened to it?”
    â€œOrgan Pipe was wiped out years ago.”
    â€œWiped out?” Clint repeated. “Wiped out by what?”
    â€œMister,” Hickey said, “believe me, you don’t wanna go there.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œOrgan Pipe was wiped out,” Hickey said, “by a plague.”

TWENTY-ONE
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about?” Clint asked.
    â€œOrgan Pipe, Arizona, right?” Hickey asked.
    â€œAll I know is Organ Pipe,” Clint said. “Could there be two towns with that name?”
    â€œWell, I suppose there could be,” Hickey said. “Maybe after the first town died, they started one up somewhere else with the same name.”
    â€œAre you sure about this?”
    â€œThat newspaper editor brought you here, right?” Hickey asked.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œWell, that’s because nobody knows this area like I do,” Hickey said.
    â€œCan you tell me where Organ Pipe was?” Clint asked.
    â€œYou actually wanna go there?” Hickey asked. “Why?”
    Clint took the newspaper clipping out and passed it to the shackled man.
    â€œSomebody wrote a note on here?” Hickey asked.
    â€œThat’s what it looks like.”
    â€œHow did you get it?”
    â€œIt blew into my camp one morning.”
    â€œThis note? But this is an old newspaper.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œYou think this has been blowin’ around Arizona all this time?”
    â€œI don’t know what to think, Hickey,” Clint said. “But somebody needed enough help to write that and toss it into the wind.”
    â€œWell,” Hickey said, putting the clipping down on the table carefully, “that town needed help, all right. If I was you, I wouldn’t be carryin’ that around too long. Might have plague attached to it.”
    â€œWhat kind of plague are we talking about, Hickey?” Clint asked.
    â€œThe kind that can kill a whole town, that’s what kind,” Hickey said.