Rattlesnake Crossing

"You've already bought a house?" Joa

"To quote an old friend of mine named Mike Hammer," Butch told her, " 'it was easy.' I called up a lady at Copper Queen Real Estate and told her what I wanted. By the time I showed up in town day before yesterday, she had narrowed the held down to three possibilities. The one in Saginaw is the one I chose. It's vacant. Since I'm paying cash and there won't be a mortgage involved, the closing should "be pretty fast. But still, I won't be able to move in for several weeks. There's some work I want to do on it first-plumbing, painting, cabinetry. That kind of thing is always easier to do if the house is empty. So I plan to stay in the hotel until it's all finished."

Listening to him, Joa

"I have moved to Bisbee," he said.

Joa

"Because then I would have been asking you for permission and you might have said no. I decided to present it as a fait accompli." His face darkened, "From the looks of things, it's probably a good thing I did."

"Your di

Joa

"I don't think so," Butch told him. "This will be fine."

The waiter walked away and Butch turned back to Joa

"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you go be-hind my back like that?"

"Because I care about you," he said simply. "I know what my feelings are for you and I hope, given time, you might feel the same way about me."

Joa

He paused, then sighed. Again Joa

"But I want to give it a chance, Joa

When Butch stopped talking, a sudden wave of silence washed across their table and swallowed it whole. He was right, of course, and Joa

"Well," Butch said finally, "can't you say something?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Try," he said. The eyes he turned on her were bleak and almost devoid of hope. He had the forlorn look of a convicted felon waiting for the judge to issue an order of execution.

"It's just that… well… I'm surprised, is all."

"But you don't hate me for doing it?"

"No, of course I don't hate you. I'm glad for you."

He settled back in his chair with a sigh of relief. "That's all I need to know for right now," he said. "Don't say another word. Give yourself some time to get used to the idea. In the meantime, let's eat some of this food before it gets cold. It's been a long time since Daisy's."

Joa

"That's all right. I have a pretty thick skin, and I suspect Sheriff Joa

“Maybe,” she said. "I hope so." The waiter walked by. Joa

"1 believe I'll have one, too," Butch Dixon told the waiter. "Make mine the same way."

Despite a somewhat rocky start, Joa

They followed di

"I have some bad news and I have some worse news,” Dr. Fran Daly said. "Which do you want first?"

"Start with the bad," Joa

"I was right about Clyde Philips having AIDS," she said. "He had a full-blown case of it, but there's no sign his blood work that he was undergoing any kind of treatment. So you were right, too. He probably hadn't been to a doctor. Let's hope his ex-wife…"

"Belle," Joa

"Let's hope she hasn't been to bed with him in the too recent past."

"Let's hope," Joa

"Do you want me to tell her?" Fran asked, "Or do you want to do it? You've obviously met the woman. I haven’t.”

"Maybe not," Joa

"I suppose you're right," Fran said. "I'll see what I can do."

"If that's the bad news, what's worse?" Joa

"I was wrong about his committing suicide," Fran answered. "I found blunt-instrument trauma to the back of his head."

"Couldn't he have fallen and injured himself that way?"