"What ever happened to Ed Plotke?" he asked.

"Moved on, I guess. Ed was okay, so long as he kept his belly away from the bar," Harold answered. "But after a night of boozing, he'd punch out a nun in a wheelchair for looking at him the wrong way. They even jailed him a couple of times, just for being rowdy."

"I'm surprised Ed's newspaper ad didn't say, 'Dead or Alive!'" Charlie offered. "I wouldn't wanted to be in this Josh fellow's shorts when Ed Plotke caught up with him!"

"Are you kin to Josh?" Roger asked, turning to Dean, his blue eyes twinkling.

"No," Dean answered.

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"Good thing. Then for sure I wouldn't vote for you."

"You knew him?" Dean asked.

"Never got around to saying I didn't. But the Josh I knew wasn't any miner."

"He was a thief and a scoundrel," Harold added. "Never knew a gold nugget from a bear turd. He just bummed around town. That was back when there were a slew of hippies here. Always seemed to have some dough but never worked much that I remember. Sounds right if he got that gal in trouble and dragged her off to God-knows-where."

"I remember him-a redheaded guy, with long hair," Charlie said. "Always running. They said he ran over the pass to Telluride-before it was sport to do so."

"Maybe to see his buddies. There were more hippies in Telluride back then. That's before the ski area kicked up all the prices," Harold said, and then added. "That was before the Imogene Pass Run, too. The race isn't thirty years old yet."

Each year hundreds of hearty souls race from Ouray at 7,800 feet, on paths and Jeep roads, over loose rock and boulders, more than 17 miles to Telluride at 8,100 feet, via the 13,120 foot summit of Imogene Pass. It is an arduous race, for only the fittest, yet the race is always booked early to its maximum. The runners might encounter any kind of weather, including freezing temperatures, fog, rain, or snow. While safety is closely monitored, the challenge is not for the untrained or naive. Incredibly, the winning time is just over two hours!

"Josh was a bum, a real con man-what they used to call a grifter," Roger said.

"Was he involved with Edith Plotke?" Dean asked.

Roger shrugged. "Who knows? They all left about the same time-Ed and his family and this Josh fella. I never heard where the Plotkes went. But back then, being pregnant with no husband didn't get you up the social ladder any too fast. I expect the whole family just relocated. Never heard about Josh either, but nobody gave a hoot about him. Them hippies were coming and going all the time."




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