by Gwen Moffat
‘Where does the water come from?’ she asked in wonder.
Miss Ginny was straightening a bed corner. ‘From the springs. There was always some kind of marsh here but it’s much bigger since Mr Jack’s father built the place. The pools are fed by run-off from the irrigation now.’
‘Ah I see. All this tropical luxuriance is from irrigation.’
‘How else would anything grow?’ She saw Miss Pink’s bewilderment. ‘What’s the rainfall in England?’
‘Between forty and a hundred inches perhaps. At one station it can reach 120 inches.’
‘Ours is less than two inches. That’s in a good year. But these springs never dry out. Myron’s people hunted here in winter before Mr Nielsen bought the land and they say there was always water. It’s good water too. In normal years the snow never melts on top of the mountains, but even in a drought, like now, the springs run sweet.’
‘I saw no snow on this side of the valley.’
‘There’ll be a little, deep in the heads of the canyons. Here’s Mr Jack now. I’ll go down and tell him to give you ten minutes. You brought something to wear? You’re not tired? You don’t look tired. You’ll be good company for Mr Jack.’
A curious remark, thought Miss Pink; the place must be swarming with people, somewhere, out of sight. She glanced out of the window. A man on a bay horse was cantering along a dike while behind him the palomino paced with long legs, its reflection inverted in the water where there were no reeds. Above the pulse of hooves she could hear waterfowl talking and an indignant kronk! as a big blue heron got up and flapped across a pool. She thought of her new jodhpurs dubiously. Watching birds from the back of a horse was an unlooked-for luxury, but why a flask and a packed lunch?
Ten minutes later she knew. She was going to see bighorns—and at that point she stopped thinking, protesting, anticipating, and let the land, and Jack Nielsen, take over.
She was mounted on a large grey horse, settled in a stock saddle—in rather than on, for the cantle had a deep curve and the pommel had a horn; there was even a short coil of rope on it. Her reins were single and her stirrups huge and wooden.
Her host rode beside her, curbing his impatience to be back in the marsh because now he had a companion with whom to share his enthusiasm.
‘Are the bitterns on passage?’ she asked.
‘No, no; they’ll stay.’
Then what’s the hurry, she thought, and he turned in the saddle, his eyes shining under the brim of the old felt hat: ‘First sight of the season, you see; can’t control myself.’
He was in his seventies, desiccated with heat and age. His neck had the wrinkled slackness of a tortoise’s, his eyes, without spectacles, were faded in a face leathery as old cow hide. A few strands of white hair escaped from the hat. He was a little stiff on his horse; from the back he could never be mistaken for a young man, but you couldn’t imagine his mount playing up either. He had an air of command for all his fussiness with Miss Pink, and that she attributed to his old-fashioned regard for a lady conflicting with the desire to get back to the marsh.
‘Perhaps we might go a little faster,’ she suggested.
They cantered down a track between green pastures, in one of which were a few cows. The track was overhung by large trees and lined by split-rail fences. At the end was the entrance to the marsh and he slowed to a walk. ‘We’ll take it quietly,’ he said. ‘No talking.’
Her lips twitched but she was less amused by the command than by his lack of self-consciousness.
Miss Ginny had lent her a straw hat with a wide brim: a boon against the sun, the glare of which was intensified by humidity.
At midday there was little visual sign of life in the marsh; most of its denizens were in the cool reeds from which came a low babble of calls and croonings. There were large coot swimming about in a desultory fashion and they came on a tall white egret standing motionless on the oozy margin. At the approach of the horses it stalked along a mud bank on glossy black legs which looked as if it had stepped in yellow paint to its ankles. ‘Snowy egret,’ he murmured. ‘And there’s the green heron.’
They stopped. A small bird hunched disconsolately on a snag, its bill like a dagger. ‘I see no green,’ breathed Miss Pink, but her companion was making chirruping noises at some brush: ‘There’s a wren in this stuff; I’ll swear it’s a Bewick’s …’
Miss Pink’s horse heaved a great sigh, and sank cater-cornered to rest a leg. She looked along the track, saw something like a swollen post standing upright on the earth, and identified it immediately from pictures, and sightings until now only on a television screen.
They watched the bittern until her eyes misted. At length they moved forward to within twenty feet when the bird got up and flapped slowly across the reeds. When Nielsen turned, his expression was that of a child who had presented her with a precious gift.
They rode on companionably, talking shop, Nielsen breaking his discourse to draw her attention to a bird braving the steamy heat, himself apparently oblivious to it and Miss Pink aware of her wet shirt, of the pungent smell of horses, but blissful.
They lunched in the shade of tamarisk trees and rode again out of the marsh, curving back to the mountain escarpment where they entered a canyon by a narrow horse trail, her host talking incessantly: naming animals and plants, expounding on the geology, climate, precipitation, temperature extremes. He said nothing about himself and for all he told her of the other residents at Sweetwater, he could have been a recluse living in a desert cabin. She lost all sense of time and distance, looking around her in wonder, content to be borne by her horse through this new and enchanting world: a twig on a stream, until he said, but this time with less command: ‘We’ll go quietly now.’
The canyon twisted and there were puddles on the trail. They came to a shadowed brake of tall canes and willows. She heard water running and there was a capacious wooden tub fed by a pipe where the horses drank. In the mud were imprints of cloven hooves. He smiled impishly at her and they continued up the canyon until he halted and she stopped beside him and followed his gaze.
The slope above them was broken but steep, extraordinarily steep when one realized there were three large animals making their way up it: scramble, leap, pause, and turn. But deer can’t climb, she thought, and concentrated on the heaviest beast, fawn in the sunlight, with a head out of all proportion to the body, until she distinguished the horns: coiled in a full and massive circle.
They dismounted and sat on rocks, holding their reins. They stayed an hour watching the bighorns work their way up the wall, her host talking again, first about the wild sheep then more widely, ranging over his land. This dried-up septuagenarian was a man of passion. She had met many dedicated naturalists but here was an added factor. In his concern for the country there was not an owner’s attitude but that of a custodian. Along with the love there was a powerful sense of responsibility. Noblesse oblige. She wondered what place people might have in his philosophy.
Chapter 4
‘Good, you found your way.’ The tone was rich, the voice jolly, the accent from somewhere south of the Thames. Miss Pink smiled at the man in the lightweight suit and R.A.F. tie and wished that she had asked Jack Nielsen one or two questions about his establishment. Here was another different world, but one in which she must abandon the role of observer and participate. The speaker had the air of a host.
He introduced himself as Simon Chadwick— ‘And this is my wife, Emma’—leading her to a thin girl in pale silk harem pants who smiled faintly and shook hands. There were no lights on the terrace and in the afterglow one saw little more than a mass of dark hair and luminous eyes. They sat down, Chadwick brought sherry and asked about her day. She was selective in her enthusiasm. Nielsen’s compulsion to share his passion with a stranger was a powerful indication, if not proof, that there was no other naturalist at Sweetwater, and nothing can be so boring as other people’s shoptalk. As she produced the conventional phrases about the quality of the light
, depth of colour, the relief of getting away from tourists, she was observing Emma Chadwick, who must be considerably younger than her husband. Chadwick had switched on a light and she could see that, although Emma would have been more beautiful had she been less thin, she was still a pleasure to look at, with high cheekbones and somewhat mournful eyes shadowed by long lashes. She smiled at the right moments; she never laughed. She wore jewelry of Indian turquoises set in heavy silver: a chain round her neck, earrings glimpsed in the dark hair.
Chadwick drank whisky, Miss Pink Tio Pepe, but the martini beside Emma remained untouched. He explained their presence at Sweetwater. He was, he said, by way of being Jack’s business manager: ‘You know, I keep the books and so on.’
‘Don’t underrate yourself, Simon.’ A strange woman came out of the house and crossed the paving stones. They all stood up and Miss Pink was introduced to her hostess who had the haggard, soignée looks of a rich woman fighting a determined battle against age. Her little black dress could have been bought in Paris and was relieved by chunky gold: a collar about her tanned neck, a bracelet. Her rings had been designed by modern craftsmen too: an emerald, a ruby, a diamond large and riveting—a fortune on tapering fingers. She apologized profusely for not greeting her guest sooner but Miss Pink had arrived and been spirited off like magic. Had they made her comfortable? Miss Pink said that everything was perfect and asked how such perfection was achieved. Ingrid Nielsen looked puzzled.
‘Indians,’ Chadwick put in smoothly. ‘Shoshone Indians. They’re native to the area—and good people.’
‘I met Myron.’
‘He’s what you might call the butler in England?’ He glanced at Ingrid who raised amused eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Myron runs the servants,’ he elaborated.
‘Miss Ginny has a hand in it too,’ his wife said.
‘Oh, Miss Ginny runs everything—except my department. Isn’t that so, Ingrid?’
‘Miss Ginny is a sweetheart,’ Ingrid said calmly.
‘Been with us years,’ came her husband’s voice as he stepped over the sill of the French windows. Chadwick stood up and left them.
Jack Nielsen was the only person who did not inquire about Miss Pink’s comfort. She did not think this remiss of him, merely that he took it for granted. The place ran on oiled wheels, powered by money.
Chadwick returned with a large whisky for his employer who continued to talk about Miss Ginny: ‘She used to work for a fellow in Boston who went bankrupt and shot himself. He left her a little money and she bought an old truck, put all her possessions in it, and her cat, and headed west. We had a cook at the time whose husband couldn’t fit in: no good on the ranch, nothing he could do in the house, so he’d left to find work in L.A. and the cook wanted to follow him. Miss Ginny picked up some gossip in Calcine and here she came trundling down the canyon to see if we’d do for her. Been here ever since, with a succession of cats. It’s Kermit now. He looks after the varmints: mice, snakes, rabbits, you name it.’
‘Snakes?’
‘Came in once with a young gopher snake wrapped round his neck. Alive and flapping.’
‘What happened?’
‘Why, Miss Ginny released it in the wood pile. She maintains that gopher snakes keep rattlers away.’
Emma shivered. Nielsen said comfortably: ‘Now, my dear, you’ve never seen a rattler all the time you’ve been here.’
‘They’re good people, rattlers,’ Chadwick said, sounding like an echo of his employer.
‘Just so long as they stay down there.’ The girl looked beyond the terrace wall, conveying the impression that they were besieged in a world of menace. The night had closed in and the stars hung low above the desert. During the lulls in conversation the frogs could be heard, and an occasional cry from the shrouded marsh.
‘The view must be sensational during storms,’ Miss Pink said.
‘Like a monstrous stage set,’ Chadwick assured her. ‘You’ve not seen lightning until you’ve seen a thunderstorm from this terrace.’
Nielsen nodded approval, Ingrid had a long-suffering expression, Emma looked forlorn.
Miss Pink addressed her host: ‘I was asking about the Indians.’
She had pleased him with that. ‘All the servants,’ he began, ‘both indoors and out, are desert Shoshones. They say you can’t train ’em. That’s stupid. Dad tried all kinds at Sweetwater: English, American, urban people, country folk. He tried Mexicans, blacks, Japanese. None stayed. Too isolated. Simple people are too close to the land to be able to tolerate a different environment from what their forebears were used to. So you’d use Seminoles in Florida, blacks in the Caribbean—and when my father died I came here and did what he should have done all the time: I brought in Shoshones. This is their habitat; give them a place to stay, treat ’em well and they’ll settle.’ He sounded as if he had created a refuge for an endangered species.
‘You don’t employ white people?’ Miss Pink asked.
He shook his head. ‘Never.’
She waited. There was no qualification, neither from him nor anyone else. ‘And the wranglers?’ she asked innocently.
He laughed, easing a slight tension. ‘There are two young men looking after the horses: Hal Brewer and Tony Doyle. I’m acquainted with their fathers and the sons have come to me to work their passage: having the smooth corners roughed off, Calvin Brewer calls it. Best thing you can do for youngsters before they follow their fathers into the family business, or whatever they’re going to do: send ’em out into the desert for a time, where they can learn that there’s something more to living than polo and fast cars and actresses.’ Amused by his image of today’s pampered youth, Miss Pink looked away, and saw with surprise that during this recital his wife’s expression had grown hard and ugly.
‘They work on the ranch,’ Nielsen was saying. ‘They patrol the valley, visit the Stone Cabin. That’s a camp we have up in the mountains. We use it for overnight stops—’ his eyes were excited, ‘—it’s remote. Something big may happen up there. Something important.’ Miss Pink looked blank. ‘This whole place is a sanctuary,’ he went on. He was frowning as if struggling with himself, and then he abandoned subterfuge. ‘I heard a puma there.’
She gaped. ‘You heard—What do they sound like?’
‘Like a cat. Louder of course: like a great tom cat. Some people say they can scream like a woman.’
Emma gasped and closed her eyes. Her husband glanced at her without expression and at that moment Myron stepped out on the terrace. He murmured something that Miss Pink could not catch. ‘Shall we go in?’ Ingrid asked, and initiated a general movement towards the French windows.
Dinner was served by quiet dark women in blue shirtwaisters with red aprons. The dining room had the ubiquitous stone floor, highly polished, and white walls on which hung a great many watercolours and a three-quarter length portrait of Ingrid above the empty fireplace. It was hard, clean and stylish, like an illustration from a woman’s magazine. They ate oyster bisque and drank champagne poured deftly by the silent Myron. Miss Pink chose to continue the conversation from the terrace.
‘You said the men patrol—?’
Nielsen put down his glass firmly. ‘For poachers. They come after the bighorn, deer; anything that we have in the valley, they’ll shoot.’
‘I would have thought your remoteness would have deterred poachers.’
‘The only thing that’ll deter them is a gun. And nowhere’s remote these days with four-wheel-drive vehicles. Fortunately on the west and north we border restricted areas: military ranges where the public are banned. So we concentrate on patrolling the southern and eastern sections.’
‘I wondered. I saw a soldier in Molten. What kind of ranges?’
‘Bombing to the west, a Naval Weapons Centre on the north. You’d never know they were there; you’ll just hear a few thuds now and again. They’re godsends to me: guarding two of my boundaries. The men in charge are amenable too; the Air Force commander is something of a naturalist,
the Naval man likes good food and wine. His father and mine were acquainted.’
‘So the poachers come from the south and east. From Calcine and Molten.’
‘No, we have no trouble with Molten people.’ Nielsen was firm but equable.
Emma was staring across the table at Miss Pink. ‘You stayed there last night. Were you at the motel?’
‘You should have called us,’ Nielsen grumbled, not for the first time. ‘I would have come up for you.’
‘No trouble.’ Miss Pink was casual. ‘And Molten is—interesting.’
Ingrid was astonished. ‘How? Interesting?’
‘They’re human beings,’ was the retort that rose to Miss Pink’s lips, and was suppressed. ‘Survivors are always interesting,’ she said gently. There was a small silence. Emma fidgeted with a roll of bread. ‘I had envisaged ghost towns like Molten,’ she elaborated: ‘just a few residents hanging on by the skin of their teeth.’
‘It is a ghost town,’ Nielsen said. ‘There are mines all over these mountains. Molten was a city of five thousand people at the turn of the century. Then the bottom dropped out of mining stocks and now there’s only one miner left. Called Hammer. He doesn’t mine though.’
‘How does he live?’
‘I have no idea.’
It was close to a snub. Chadwick rushed to the breach. ‘There are only seven residents altogether—six, now that Janice has gone. You probably met them all: the Fraser family at the gas station, the hag at the motel, her pal at the rock shop: Vi. Did you meet Vi?’
Nielsen sat back and looked fixedly at a watercolour, Emma stared at her glass, Ingrid had one eye on the maids who were removing the soup plates.
‘Who’s Janice?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘She’s the older Fraser girl. She disappeared into Los Angeles. One can hardly blame her. Karen will join her soon enough.’