Echoes Read Free Page B

hoping Grant would pull himself together and offer an explanation. All Grant managed was to choke out something that sounded like "Dad," and nothing else.
    Cursing under his breath, Smith drew his weapon and climbed up to the porch with Hector a step behind. He glanced back over his shoulder as Hector pulled out his own gun, silently repeating the warning that had been given in jest in the car. Flushing, Hector nodded.
    Their boots made hollow thunk sounds in the velvet quiet. The shadows inside stretched down a long, narrow hallway that led from the front door into the cavern-like house. Heavily framed portraits dating back to the 1800s lined the walls from floor to ceiling alongside pictures of Westons taken with Calvin Coolidge, Babe Ruth, John Wayne. Westons had settled Mountain Bend and in the old days, they'd been high society and prominent leaders. Even newcomers like Smith knew who they were.
    Hector had never been inside the house, but kitchens seemed to occupy the same place no matter where you went and backdoors invariably opened off them. The Weston place was no exception. Hector tapped Smith's shoulder and indicated the way. Carefully checking everything in between, the two men rounded the corner to the kitchen and approached the open backdoor.
    A small stoop and two steps led down to mud, dormant grass and beds that might have once held blooming flowers. The stable, in its state of unsightly disrepair, hunkered to the left of a paddock where a brown horse with a white star on its face grazed beside a sleek honey-colored Palomino. Beyond, a corral with a broken down fence waited for the next rider up. Deep tread marks scarred the earth from the opening of the stable to a point outside the gate of the corral. Hector and Smith followed the tracks with their eyes to the tractor.
    It was an old one, probably a survivor of the glory years when the Weston's had money. In its prime, it had been a fine machine. Now the paint was chipped, the hull rusted out and the John Deere logo missing. And it was overturned. Blackened wheel rims poked up at the sky, yet there were no tires, no mud caked tread on them. The freshly turned earth smelled rich and fecund beneath the sharp and acrid scent of burnt rubber.
    Frowning, Smith began to pick his way through the mud. Hector almost smiled at the attempt to save his shiny new cowboy boots from the muck, but he knew better than to get caught smirking at the sheriff. Then a dank and pungent odor caught in the breeze and obliterated his trace of amusement. Whatever they found on the other side of that tractor wouldn't be a laughing matter.
    On the sheriff's heels, Hector made his way across the yard and rounded the overturned tractor. He was looking down and didn't see Smith stop until he plowed into his back, nearly knocking him on top of Frank Weston's body, face up on the ground.
    Frank was dead, trapped from the waist down by the heavy machinery which had apparently toppled on him. Worse, what was left of Frank was as badly burned as the smoldering, hissing tractor. The steering wheel, the knobs on the dash, the gear shift handle and the tires had all melted in what must have been an inferno.
    "God," Hector said falling back a step. To his shame, he felt his stomach pitch and roll. He stumbled a few steps away, praying that he wouldn't disgrace himself further by losing his lunch. Sweat made his gun slippery. He put it back in the holster, fighting not to breathe in the stench of burnt flesh, rubber and death.
    He wiped his face with his sleeve and forced himself to speak calmly in the hope that the sheriff hadn't noticed his reaction. "Looks like the gas tank ignited," he said. "Must have flipped when it blew."
    "I don't think so," Smith said as he studied the tractor. "It's a rollover."
    He pointed to the chain hitched at the back of the tractor and the tree stump a few feet away. The front end of the tractor faced the stump, lying over the chain attached to the drawbar in the