Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

Joshua reached into a pocket and drew out a dented tin flask. “Here,” he said, passing it to Kehoe, “this’ll warm yer blood a bit.”

Kehoe grasped the flask, removed the top and took a single long swallow, then suddenly jerked the flask from his lips. Strange gasping sounds came from his throat, and his face turned bright red as the liquid, which felt as if it had been produced from sulfuric acid liberally laced with ground glass and old razor blades, streaked down his gullet.

“Luscious, ain’t it?” asked Joshua, retrieving the flask. “It’s from an old family recipe me sainted mother gave to me at the time of-”

“Joshua,” Kehoe said, tears streaming from his eyes, “I’d pull you in right now for attempted poisoning if I hadn’t seen you drink that stuff yourself. Is it that brew that makes you sound like an Irish Geronimo?”

“No,” replied Joshua with a twinkle in his eye. “Fact is, oi spoke nothin’ but Injun up to the age uv four. At that point oi began workin’ at a church in the village in exchange fer an eddication. Me English wuz learned from a Father McGrath and a cook named Bridget O’Toole. They wuz both first-generation Irish, which accounts fer me way uv speakin’. If it offends ye, why oi kin do ‘ugh’ and ‘how’ ez good ez any Injun ye’ll see in the movies.”

Before Kehoe could reply, Joshua stood up, gripping his rifle in one hand and motioning for silence with the other. “Oi heard somethin’ off in the woods,” he whispered to Kehoe. “Comin’ this way, it wuz. Now ye sees the wisdom uv me ways. Let the other hunters drive the game ahead uv ’em. We’ll be here to greet it when it arrives.”

Kehoe nodded, pumping a cartridge into the chamber of his own gun.

“Wait fer a good shot, an’ try to drop the animal in its tracks,” Joshua breathed. “Old Karl Spearing’s land begins about two hundred yards over to the left. If a wounded deer makes it that far, no sense chasin’ it. Spearing’s a mean one an’ won’t have anybody comin’ on his land to hunt. The few who tried hev wound up with a rump full uv buckshot.”

“I think I see something off there in the woods,” Kehoe said, pointing. “I’ll just-”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Joshua warned. “It could be anything. Mebbe a black bear that got up too early from its winter nap.”

A loud shout established the inaccuracy of the bear theory. “Help! Is anybody around? Help!”

Through the trees Kehoe caught sight of a man headed toward them at a dead run. He envied the man’s ability to handle snow-shoes without tripping over them.

“It’s Tip Spearing, Karl’s lad,” Joshua said. “Over this way, young fella.”

Joshua stepped out of the grove of pines. As the running man approached he tripped and would have fallen if the Indian hadn’t caught him in his arms.

“Take it easy, lad,” Joshua said to the gasping man. “Now then, Tip, what’s the trouble?”

“Josh, I-I-” Tip Spearing was in his mid-twenties, at the peak of his manhood, but judging from the ghastly expression on his face, he had looked into the deepest pit of hell itself.

“It’s terrible,” Tip went on. “I can’t believe-”

“Calm down,” whispered Joshua soothingly. “What is it now?”

“It’s Dad. He didn’t come back home last night. I’ve been out looking for him and-” He gulped convulsively. “I’ll take you to where he is.”

Beckoning to them, Tip turned, and retraced his tracks. Joshua followed at an easy trot, while Kehoe stumblingly brought up the rear. They passed through a large clearing where the ground had been blown free of snow, and Kehoe almost tripped as twigs and leaves caught at the webbing of his snowshoes.

Reentering the forest, the men finally reached a vertical mass of shale that jutted upward like some monstrous grave marker. Tip signaled for Joshua and Kehoe to stop. “Over… over there.”

Leaning their rifles against a tree, the two men left Tip and moved off in the direction that he had indicated. The white snow on the ground caught the sunlight that filtered through the branches and threw it back into their eyes so they squinted from the glare. They burst out onto what appeared to be a game trail amid the trees – and suddenly the snow wasn’t white anymore.

It was red. The bloody, frozen circle was almost six feet in diameter.

Kehoe had seen dead men before, but he clamped his teeth together and swallowed loudly as he beheld the body of Karl Spearing spread-eagled in the snow, its lower part across the bloody stain. The body’s left foot was shod in a calked boot with the letter “S” worked into the sole – but all that was left of its right leg was a stump, ending in a raw, open wound.

“Cut clean through the leg bones, just below the knee,” Kehoe said to Joshua. “Knife’s missing from the sheath at his hip, too. What do you suppose happened?”

“Oi’ve got a fair idea,” replied the Indian. “Not too pretty, either. Oi’ve heard about such things often enough in this country, but this is the first time oi’ve seen it. Would ye mind followin’ me? An’ hev a care where ye step, if ye please, so’s not to destroy tracks. Eventually we’ll hev to call in the local law. No sense ruinin’ all such things fer ‘em.”

They moved off down the trail, keeping well clear of the wide swath in the snow where Karl Spearing had evidently dragged his tortured body in a desperate attempt to seek help. The trail led past a thick stand of willow shoots. Joshua pulled aside the leafless branches.

“Yonder’s the trap, Mr Kehoe. Hev a look.”

Kehoe gaped at the shiny-toothed jaws of the bear trap in the midst of the white snow of the willows. They were clamped inexorably together on a bloody booted leg.

His eyes riveted on the leg, Kehoe spoke to Joshua. “You said you knew what happened here. What was it?”

Quickly the Indian sketched in the story. A lone man in midwinter, the chance misstep, and the heavy jaws of the trap, chained to a thick tree, leaping up out of the snow to grip the leg. In such a fix there was only one desperate chance, to be taken before cold seeped too deeply into the bones and blood.

A tight tourniquet was applied, after which the imprisoned limb was packed with snow to numb it as much as possible. Then, in a grinding hell of shock and pain, the pinioned man performed an amputation – on himself. Finally, if cold and loss of blood did not take their toll, it might be possible to make one’s way to where help was available. A slim chance at best, but Karl Spearing knew what must be done. He had tried – and he had lost.

“Spearing’s house is but a short ways beyond the trees there,” Joshua said, pointing. “Great big stone buildin’ it is, with a telephone line down to the village. If he’d been able to get to it, he might be alive now.”

“Rotten business,” added Kehoe. He pointed to a bone-handled hunting knife lying on the flattened snow. “Must be what he did the operation with. The poor devil hardly had a chance, did he? Well, what now?”

“We’d best get back to Tip and take him to the house. Oi’ll call Vern Lefner from there.”

“Lefner? Who’s that?”

“He’s our sheriff. When he’s done makin’ out his reports on this – that’ll take several hours, ez Vern loves to scribble on official papers – the two of ye kin talk about police work fer the rest uv the day. What with all our shoutin’ and hollerin’, oi doubt there’s a deer left in the whole county.”

“Do you think it’ll be okay to leave the body unguarded? I mean, couldn’t it be mutilated by wild animals?”

“Oi’d doubt it. There’s some bears ez travels this game trail during the summer, but they’re all hibernatin’ now. Besides, they’re not too partial to human flesh. And the body’s too cold and stiff to attract wolves.”