by Gwen Moffat
‘You’re a cowboy! Or does one say cow-person?’
‘Hand.’ Seale was sulking. ‘I’m just one of the hands.’
‘So much to learn.’ The lady sighed. ‘This is my first visit to a dude ranch; in fact, I only arrived this afternoon. Are they all like this?’
‘No,’ Seale said. ‘Some are more luxurious. At some you dress for dinner.’ She looked meaningfully at the lady’s outfit. ‘Here you just sit down to supper. But you can get a drink,’ she added.
Tara missed the hint and lingered on the porch. ‘I saw it advertised,’ she said, with diffidence, ‘and I love horses. I thought a vacation in the Rockies would be neat but—’ she lowered her voice, ‘—have you seen the horses? Of course you have.’
Seale sketched a shrug. ‘You can’t expect English hunters on a ranch. These animals are cow ponies; they’ll take you where you want to go.’ She moved to the door. ‘Maybe the place will look more exciting after a Scotch.’
Miss Pink and Tara exchanged polite smiles and stepped into the ranch dining room.
It was large and dimly lit, the illumination depending on two fittings that might be termed chandeliers. A bright kitchen showed beyond a hatch and more light in a corner revealed an alcove and a tiny counter where two men and a woman were standing. They turned as the door opened and there was a flurry of greetings. Miss Pink caught names: Lee Farrell behind the bar, a thin, dark man with receding hair who regarded her intently and, on this side, a couple called Dorsett, both of whom acknowledged the introduction briefly and fixed their attention on Tara. Earl Dorsett, stout and bucolic, had the air of a man who would always have more than a passing glance for a pretty lady, while his wife Charlene had the carping look of a woman accustomed to being upstaged and resentful of it. Like her husband she wore jeans and a blue work shirt, worn but freshly laundered.
‘Am I the only guest?’ Tara asked, smiling.
‘No, ma’am.’ Farrell smiled back. ‘Earl and Charlene are here for the hunting. Right, Earl?’
The big man tore his eyes away from Tara. ‘That’s up to you, Lee. Might get me a coyote or two. Charlene wants a coat.’
‘I’d like a lynx,’ his wife said pointedly.
Seale said: ‘Have you got any Haig left, Lee?’
‘Why, you have Scotch,’ Tara exclaimed. ‘Give me some of that, Lee.’
Farrell exchanged a glance with Seale and reached for a third glass. Miss Pink felt a surge of gratitude that her friend should have stocked not one but two ports of call with palatable drinks; she had already noted the unfamiliar contents of the shelves.
The ladies served, the men picked up what was apparently an interrupted conversation about hunting while the others drifted away to seats at the end of a long dining table. There was an odd little pause during which Miss Pink reflected that the women had deliberately segregated themselves from the male element and wondered if the practice prevailed throughout the West in more or less public places.
‘Have you been riding today?’ she asked of Charlene.
‘We went over towards Hoodoo. Earl was looking for elk.’
Seale said easily to Miss Pink: ‘People start looking before the season starts. Hoodoo is the next creek to the west.’ She turned to Charlene. ‘Did you see any game?’
‘We didn’t see a thing except some deer. Earl reckons there’s nothing on Pioneer or Wapiti. What can you expect with Jed Trotter and Zack Coons around?’
Tara said: ‘It’s obvious this isn’t your first visit.’
‘We come here every fall for the hunting. Earl got a fine bull moose last year. You haven’t been here before.’ It sounded like an accusation.
Tara gave her gentle smile. ‘I saw the place advertised. I’m from Seattle and fall is so wet in Washington. I thought I’d have an Indian summer in the Rockies, a fun trip. Tell me, where do we ride?’
‘Anywhere. There are miles of trails—providing you can ride.’ Charlene’s animosity was blatant but Tara gave no sign that she was aware of it, in fact, she appeared to accept the attempt at domination. Now she said: ‘We go together, I hope? I wouldn’t want to ride alone.’
‘You’ll be all right. You can ride with us if you like.’
‘I would prefer that. This place is not quite what I expected. Don’t get me wrong; I mean—’ she shivered, ‘—it’s wild. Are there snakes and things?’
‘Snakes?’ Charlene stared.
‘They’re hibernating,’ Seale said. ‘You won’t come to any harm in a party. In fact, you’re not likely to see any more of the animals than their tracks. People scare the game off.’
‘Tracks of what?’ Tara asked.
Miss Pink tried to imagine how Tara had visualized a dude ranch: saddled horses led to the door by lusty wranglers? Idyllic saunters through flowery foothills?
‘Deer,’ Seale was saying. ‘Bobcat, bear.’
‘We have bear at home,’ Tara said. ‘They’re sweet, particularly the babies.’
‘Those are black bears,’ Seale said. ‘We have the odd grizzly.’
‘No!’ Tara cried. ‘Not grizzlies! Not here!’
‘Make sure they give you a fast horse.’ Charlene smiled unpleasantly.
‘I don’t believe it.’ Tara looked stricken.
‘Earl! Earl, honey! Lee! Don’t we have grizzlies?’
‘I’d like to see a grizzly, hon. Wouldn’t that be something, take home a bear pelt?’ Earl’s eyes glittered.
Farrell said from behind the bar: ‘Could be, Charlene, but no one’s seen a bear yet this fall.’
‘Grizzlies.’ A small figure materialized from the shadows beside the kitchen hatch and limped towards the table. ‘There was a time when you’d see a dozen feeding on my garbage dump. If you see one bear now, it’s only a glimpse of his butt going fast away from you. By the time you got him in your sights he’s out of range.’
‘You should know, Wilbur.’ Charlene’s tone was suddenly winning. ‘Come and sit beside me.’
Wilbur Farrell acquiesced obligingly but gave his attention to the newcomers. Miss Pink saw a wizened old fellow in his seventies who appeared to combine resilience with fragility. It was obvious from his probing glance that he regarded her as a competitor in the age stakes. She accepted his inspection with an enigmatic smile and was not surprised when, removing his cap and placing it on the table, he adopted an air of heavy gallantry towards Tara.
‘You’ll be quite safe if you ride with me, ma’am; safe from bear, that is.’
‘Why, you don’t want to be bothered with me!’ Tara sparkled at him.
‘I gotta look at my cows tomorrow. You come along o’ me and I’ll show you where the game is at.’ His glance slid casually over the men at the bar.
‘Even bears, Mr Farrell?’
‘He won’t be showing no one no bears.’ The voice was rough and deep as a man’s. The speaker advanced: a big blowsy woman, her hair gleaming metallically under the lights, her eyes fixed grimly on Wilbur. ‘You forgot your calcium.’ She dropped some tablets on the table in front of him. ‘And you ain’t going after no cows with that leg.’ She went to the bar, accepted a glass of whisky from Farrell, returned and placed it in front of Wilbur. He eyed her resentfully but swallowed the tablets and washed them down with half the whisky. She watched him, her arms folded below large breasts on one of which a tattooed butterfly showed above a greasy blouse. Heavy buttocks and thighs strained her Levis and her large feet were encased in boots held together with silver duct tape.
‘This is Flossie,’ Charlene said brightly. ‘She looks after us all.’
Flossie ignored her but she acknowledged Miss Pink’s presence with a nod. ‘I’m the housekeeper,’ she said. ‘For what that’s worth.’
‘Would there be some of your chocolate chip cookies?’ Charlene was ingratiating, emphasizing her familiarity with the establishment.
‘Come on, Floss,’ Seale said. ‘You been baking. Bread too. Smells clear down to the creek.’
Flossie g
runted and her lips twitched but as she started to plod across the floor a telephone rang. Before she reached the kitchen door there was movement beyond the hatch and the ringing stopped. A woman’s voice started a one-sided conversation.
In the dining room Charlene was expounding on Flossie’s cooking, qualifying every compliment. Miss Pink’s attention wandered as she caught phrases of the men’s discussion and wondered how she might obtain a second drink.
Flossie returned carrying a plate piled with cookies and was followed shortly by the remaining member of the household: Mildred Farrell, whom Seale had categorized as exhausting. She was tall and plain, with straight pale hair caught back in a ribbon, and spectacles. She smiled a lot but not with her eyes. Miss Pink assumed a neutral expression, murmured politely, then pricked up her ears.
‘That was Edna Lenhart on the phone.’ Mildred was addressing Charlene. ‘She sounded hysterical. Shelley’s missing.’
‘Where?’ Charlene asked, and Mildred looked at her blankly. ‘I mean, lost,’ she said, glancing towards the bar, but the men were paying no attention to her.
Seale said: ‘Why should Edna be hysterical? They weren’t due down until today. Why call you anyway?’
‘She’s calling everyone. She called Sim and he told her you didn’t see them between here and Cow Camp. She thought maybe they’d stopped off here, see if Lee would give them a lift home.’
Farrell called from the bar: ‘I was supposed to give someone a lift?’
‘Edna Lenhart’s looking for Shelley, wondered if she was here.’
‘Shelley Patent? Why would she be here?’
‘Edna reckons they’re lost.’
Farrell came over, followed by Dorsett who looked like an old bull uncertain of his ground.
‘Lost?’ Farrell repeated, staring at his wife. ‘Does Edna think they’ve had an accident? Where did they go?’
‘Not all four of them!’ Seale exclaimed. ‘Two would have come down. Besides, they couldn’t! I mean, there’s no snow where they were so there’s no chance of an avalanche. They wouldn’t all climb a mountain—would they?’ She stared at Miss Pink then went on quickly: ‘Even so, four people don’t fall off a mountain.’
Charlene said: ‘They were climbing? They had a climbing accident?’
‘They haven’t had an accident,’ Mildred said calmly. ‘They’re just late coming out. Edna’s like that.’ She looked at her husband. ‘They got a lift round to Wolverine coupla days ago and were coming back over Dead Horse. It’s not them Edna’s worried about but Gale’s wedding. Gale was scheduled to call her mother tonight and when she didn’t, Mrs Harmon called Edna. That’s how the fuss started: two mothers getting in a flap—and then Otis would have jeered at Edna and made it worse.’
‘Supposed to come out tonight,’ Wilbur repeated thoughtfully, staring at the table. ‘Know what I think?’
‘What d’you think, Grandpa?’ Farrell’s voice was soft.
‘They got lost. ‘Stead of coming down Cougar they took the trail down Hoodoo or Hell Roaring.’
Several people spoke at once. Seale asked if the party had a map and Miss Pink said they hadn’t, but this exchange was lost as Dorsett asked what time they were on Dead Horse, and Charlene said they would have become separated in last night’s rain. She was shouted down by Earl: ‘Snow—it was snow up there. They could all be froze to death.’
‘All?’ Farrell repeated. ‘How many were there?’
‘The four of them,’ Mildred told him. ‘Shelley and Irving, Gale and Joe. You could be right, Grandpa. But if they came down Hoodoo or Hell Roaring, they ought to be out by now.’
‘Not if they realized their mistake. Shelley could have. She’s rode in the back country enough to recognize which creek she’s on, for Gosh sakes. If she knew she’d got into Hoodoo then she’d try to get up, strike the trail accrost Pioneer Ridge. Likewise, if she knew she were on Hell Roaring, she’d try and get over Wapiti.’
‘Would she?’ Seale asked. ‘In her place I’d go on, not try and bushwhack through all that timber. Ten miles of it, either way. She’d follow the creeks down.’
‘She didn’t,’ Mildred said.
There was a short silence, broken by Wilbur. ‘They’re lost in the timber.’
The argument started again. Miss Pink felt a hand on her sleeve.
‘Is this serious?’ Tara asked, her eyes wide. ‘Who are these people they’re talking about?’
Miss Pink explained quietly, giving the gist of her encounter with Shelley’s party. She was still talking when the outer door was thrown open and Edna Lenhart entered, her eyes wild with fear or fury, or both. She did not close the door but faced Lee Farrell. ‘You’re responsible!’ she cried hoarsely. ‘Shooting horses—leaving their bodies anywhere—everywhere. If anything’s happened to her, I’ll kill you! You hear that?’ She whirled on Mildred. ‘Why didn’t you put a stop to it?’ She shrieked at the company: ‘Why didn’t any of you stop it? You all stand there as if nothing had happened, is happening, up there—For God’s sake, why aren’t you out there looking for my baby? She could still be alive. The others were alive, in Glacier, and they let them die because they were afraid to go out and look for them without guns! You all got guns. You’re supposed to be hunters. Deer run away. Bear don’t. So you stay here where it’s safe—’
Miss Pink moved purposefully towards the bar, Seale stood up but as she edged towards Edna, eyeing Miss Pink as she did so, Otis Lenhart came through the doorway and approached his wife. Hooking out a chair with his foot, he tried to ease her into it but she turned and beat at his chest.
‘You’re as bad as all the rest of them! No one cares—’
He pushed her down by main force and she slumped, dropped her head on her arms and sobbed uncontrollably. Miss Pink handed Lenhart a glass. There was a concerted movement of retreat.
‘Don’t go,’ Lenhart said, and looked at Wilbur. ‘You tell her what you think happened.’
Wilbur shook his head. No one could tell Edna anything at this moment. The rest of them withdrew to the kitchen and Mildred closed the hatch.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ Tara asked.
‘Bears,’ Miss Pink said. ‘She is convinced a bear got her daughter and she’s blaming Lee Farrell because he puts old horses out for bear bait, that’s all.’
‘All!’
Seale started to speak and was interrupted by Mildred: ‘We always shot horses or sick cows for bait and we never had any trouble, did we, Grandpa?’
‘There’s no trouble now,’ Lee Farrell said firmly. ‘Edna’s always on a short fuse, and Otis don’t help. It’ll blow over.’
‘Are you going to send out a search party?’ Tara asked.
The younger Farrells exchanged looks. ‘If they’re lost in the timber—’ Lee Farrell began, and brightened. ‘Guess I’ll give Logan a call, see what he thinks.’
Lenhart entered the kitchen, his face flushed. ‘I’m taking her home,’ he said. ‘She got herself worked up and there was no way I could stop her coming over.’ He paused. People murmured sympathetically. ‘She’s like this with Shelley,’ he told them. ‘Just the one child, you know how it is.’
‘We know what you mean,’ Mildred said. ‘Lee’s calling Sim Logan. If they’re in the timber we can ride Pioneer and Wapiti tomorrow.’
Lenhart glowered. ‘We can’t all be expected to stop work just because they’ve taken it into their heads to spend another night out. You met Tye: he could get up there on Dead Horse and decide to go any way. They could even have gone back, down Wolverine. Hell, they could be holed up in a motel at this moment, having themselves a party.’
Seale said: ‘If Otis suggested to Edna that her daughter could be having a party when Edna reckons she’s been attacked and eaten by bears, I see why Edna went off the deep end.’
They were back in the Logan kitchen, the four of them sitting at the scrubbed and empty table. The Logans had been given the background to the telephone calls they had rece
ived from Edna and from Lee Farrell. Now Seale turned suddenly to Miss Pink: ‘Well, what’s your opinion?’
She was wary. ‘I have no experience of this kind of country.’
‘There’s no difference between this and anywhere else you’ve climbed. You know as much as anyone of what’s happened—I mean, anyone down here. You met Shelley and her party; you were the last person to see them. Come on: what do you think?’
‘Have you got a map?’
‘No one uses maps here. Sim carries the lay-out in his head. Get some paper, Sim, and make a sketch.’
With Seale prompting him he produced a map showing the west-east range of the Silvertips, the rift of Cougar Creek running south to Dead Horse Pass with the fault line continued on the south side of the divide by the line of Wolverine Creek.
‘Put in Loon Basin,’ Seale said. ‘Now Hoodoo and Hell Roaring. See, Melinda: Cougar runs due north from Loon Basin under Dead Horse, but there’s this second basin west of Loon and on a higher level—that’s Sundance Basin. Now, running northwest out of Sundance is Hoodoo Creek and between Hoodoo and Cougar is Pioneer Ridge. That’s at the back of Farrell’s place. It’s a huge stretch of timber, more of an inclined plateau than a ridge really. They could be there, on Pioneer, but it must be—what? well over fifty square miles of timber—imagine trying to search that!—or they could be here, on Wapiti Ridge.’
‘Why there?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Because Hell Roaring Creek goes out of Loon Basin to the north-east, and between Hell Roaring and us is Wapiti. For my money, that’s where they are: on Wapiti.’
Logan and Miss Pink agreed.
‘Why?’ asked Ginny.
‘Because to get into Sundance they got to climb out of Loon, Mom. They’d know they was going uphill. But suppose they was coming down in the dark, or in a snowstorm, they could easily mistake Hell Roaring for Cougar. Snow would have covered the trail.’
They were silent, staring at the crude map. Miss Pink made to speak and decided against it.
‘Yes, Melinda?’ Seale prompted. ‘She’s been on a lot of mountain rescues,’ she told the Logans.
Miss Pink sighed. ‘Not like this.’