Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) by Laura Crum Page B

already warm and I could smell the tanbark smell of the redwoods and the dusty dry grass of July. Beyond the gate the little field I'd driven across last night showed two bare ruts running through a blaze of golden wild oats. It was quiet. Crickets chirped. A harmless country scene.
    Walking over to the gate, I studied it. It was an old gate and hung crookedly, so that it swung shut by itself. I certainly hadn't bothered to close it last night. It was shut now, with the chain hanging loose as I had first found it. The chain itself was old and rusty, except in one place where broken links showed bright silver metal.
    Jeri was watching me. Now she came over and looked at the chain, too.
    "Bolt cutters," I said.
    "And recently, it looks like." She raised her eyes to mine. "Show me what happened last night, as accurately as you can."
    "Reconstruct the crime, you mean?"
    She smiled. "As we say in the business."
    "Let's see. The gate was just like this, as far as I can remember. I opened it, drove through and shut it, and drove across the field." I gestured at the ruts in the grass.
    Pushing the gate open while she drove through, I hurried its slow closing and got back in the car. Then we drove across the field and through the sliding rail gate, open as I'd left it, to the deserted cabin in the redwood grove.
    The big trees were majestic in the sunlight, the little cabin sleepy and quiet. Nobody around. It was cool and still damp in the deep shade under the redwoods; green ferns and delicate leafy vines clustered everywhere.
    We walked to the cabin and around the comer to the door. As I'd more than half-expected, the note was gone. Something was there, though. A shiny nail head showed in the varnished wood. A tiny edge of white paper was still stuck beneath it.
    "That's where the note was. It read, 'Am out at the barn. Mark Houseman,' with an arrow pointing this way." I gestured across the grove.
    "Okay, and then you did what?" Her eyes were intent.
    We were walking through the redwood grove now, with me telling her my movements and ideas of the night before as closely as I could remember them. In the daylight, the little grove was amazing. The trees were gigantic, the base of their trunks ten feet and more in diameter, rising up like dark red-brown pillars in a cathedral. The green branches made a canopy far above. There was a peculiar stillness underneath them, and my voice hushed to a whisper as we walked.
    I looked over at her.
    "They're great, aren't they?" She was staring up at the trees.
    "Yeah, they are." There was a minute of quiet while redwood needles crunched softly underfoot; the sun sparkled through the branches like light through stained-glass windows. I felt for the first time as though I might grow to like this woman.
    We walked out to the barn in silence. In the daylight it was obvious that the building was more of an antique than a functional barn. There were as many gaps as there were boards, and half the roof was off. The silo tower leaned crookedly. I followed last night's steps and walked through the empty doorway.
    The barn was deserted. There were the tumbledown pens, the rusting haying equipment, the stack of firewood, the same musty smell. I looked over at Jeri.
    "This is where I stood last night. I swung my flashlight around." I pointed to my right. "Whoever shot at me stood somewhere over there."
    She walked to the comer of the barn and I watched her bend down to study the dusty ground. She looked at it in silence for a while and then looked back at me. "Could you come over here?"
    I walked over to her and we studied the ground together. It was bare and smooth, with a pattern of faint wavy lines. I looked back toward the doorway. Our sets of footprints ran across the dirt, neat and distinct. Without a word, we both walked back to the doorway. There were no footprints in the barn besides our own.
    "My footprints from last night should be here."
    "Yes."
    Staring at the faintly patterned dirt, something