The Book of Murdock Read Online Free Page A

him in.”
    â€œYou know what he wants. To pose as a man of the cloth in order to catch a rogue. Sin for sin, and I am to be his accomplice. ‘Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.’”

    â€œâ€˜The integrity of the upright shall guide them,’” she said.
    â€œâ€˜ … but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.’”
    â€œShould I be taking notes?” I asked.

THREE
    â€œ In which faith were you raised?” Griffin asked.
    â€œChristianity,” I said. “I’m pretty sure.”
    â€œI meant which church.”
    â€œI was born six thousand feet up in the Bitterroots. I never saw a church until I was almost grown.”
    His pale eyes clouded. “Your parents were savages?”
    â€œOnly my father. My mother was some part Indian.”
    â€œWhich tribe?”
    â€œNez Perce, I think.”
    â€œYou don’t know?”
    â€œI wasn’t encouraged to ask questions.”
    â€œAnd so with those qualifications you chose to enter law enforcement.”
    â€œNo one chooses that. I just sort of drifted into it after the buffalo ran out. In between I punched cows and shot wolves in the winter for the bounty, but I made too thorough a job of it. When wolves got scarce I became a drunk for a while and got to know a few jails. In one of them the sheriff
turned out to be an old bunkmate. He told me the U.S. marshal was hiring here in Helena. It was the only work I could get where my recent history didn’t count against me.”
    â€œAnd how long have you been about it?”
    â€œTen years last April. Felons don’t seem to run dry like buffalo and wolves and whiskey.”
    â€œA fortunate turn for the citizenry. Road agentry is the only calling you haven’t answered.”
    â€œI disagree. The frontier keeps changing. There’s always a paying position that didn’t exist last week. What did you do before you became a priest?”
    â€œI was an altar boy.”
    We were seated in a pair of split-bottom chairs in a room he called his study, a dim cell at the top of a flight of stairs you practically had to crawl up on hands and knees to keep from cracking your skull on the square timber across the top. One wall slanted with the roof and the rest were a jumble of books stuck in at every angle between two-inch-thick pine shelves. More books and loose papers climbed corners to the low papered ceiling. A lamp with a blackened chimney smoked on a small writing table near his chair, stinging my eyes while illuminating little but itself. The room smelled of coal oil and moldy bindings.
    One queer thing I’d noticed: None of the rooms I’d passed through on the way there contained a visible religious symbol of any kind. The study was no exception. I’d never been in a Catholic household that didn’t display a large crucifix or a picture of Jesus somewhere prominent.
    He returned to my origins. He would be one of those biblical scholars who cut Methusaleh in half to count the
rings. “The Nez Perce are an intelligent people. Large cranial capacity. I taught them at the Saint Ignatius Mission when I was in seminary. You favor them in the jaw. In the forehead, not so much.”
    â€œMy father came from Aberdeen. He used to smash stoneware jugs with his head to win bets.”
    â€œYou must have been proud.”
    â€œGrateful for the inheritance. I’ve stopped more than my share of pistol butts and I can still walk a straight line.”
    â€œYou and I are not of the same flesh,” he said. “I cannot think of any other circumstances that would place us both in one room.” He leaned forward as if to rise. “I’m not going to help you. The only reason I didn’t turn you away at the door is I’d never be quit of it as long as Esther is around to remind me.”
    As if in response to her name, his wife knocked and entered,