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“Nobody’s slugging you around here. Not on my watch,” he added, and looked imposing.
“Thanks, Sheriff.”
“Jeff.”
“No. During working hours, you’re the boss. So it’s Sheriff. Or boss.”
“I like boss better,” he commented.
“Okay. Boss.”
“Gil!”
“On my way,” the other man replied, sliding into his thick coat as he joined them. “Snow’s started again.”
“We have chains on the patrol cars,” Jeff pointed out.
“I think we’re going to need them. Weather forecast looks messy for the next few days.”
“It’s Colorado,” Jeff sighed. “Snow is sort of a way of life.”
“So it is. You ready to go?” he asked Meadow.
“Yes, I am.”
She followed him out to the patrol car, pulling up the hood of her parka as snow peppered down on them.
“That’s painful snow,” she commented.
“It’s sleet mixed with snow. Stings like a bee, doesn’t it?” he replied.
“Yes.”
He pulled out into the road and drove a mile to the small hamburger joint that sat just off the highway. There were several cars in the parking lot, but Jeff found a vacant parking spot and pulled into it.
“That’s quite a crowd in this weather,” she commented.
“I recognize four of those cars.” He chuckled. “They’re EMA.”
She frowned.
“Emergency Management,” he said. “They’re always out if people are lost, and we’ve had a hiker go missing in the back woods.”
He opened the door for her and followed her inside. Four grizzly-looking men were hunched over the counter drinking coffee and eating pancakes.
“How’s it going, Brad?” Gil asked the man in the shepherd’s coat.
A broad, unshaven face with heavy eyelids glanced at him. “Badly,” he said. “We found some tracks, but the snow covered them up along with most of anything else. Jerry’s gone home to get his bloodhound. He’ll find the trail.”
“Yes, he will. Old Redhide is famous locally,” Gil told Meadow. “He can track over anything.”
Brad laughed. “He sure can. Found the Candles’ little girl when she wandered into the woods after a fawn she saw, last summer. Her parents bought him what looked like a lifetime supply of chewy toys and treats for Redhide.”
Meadow grinned. “I’ve got a husky. She loves those, too.”
“A husky. Is she an escape artist?” Brad asked.
She sighed. “She is. I keep her inside, but she has a doggy door for nighttime emergencies. I haven’t had to go looking for her for a long time, though. Except at my neighbor’s. She loves him.”
