by Gwen Moffat
‘But she came back. He must have mellowed towards her.’
‘Well, it’s history, isn’t it? And when she divorced Sam, Charlie would have taken it as a point in his favour, and then he had a soft spot for Jen. That little girl had the pick of his horses to ride and I guess it would have been because of her he let Val move into the old homestead. I had a place down Irving way when I was teaching and after she divorced Sam, Val and Jen came to stay until I worked out the deal with Charlie. I’d lease the old ranch from him, buy some of his stock and start a business with Val to run it. She had a roof over her head and a job, and all the horses she could do with. And then, as the business grew, she took on Paul Skinner. I figure he talked her into marriage… However, it wasn’t long before she threw him out.’ There was a pause.
‘Jen was seventeen,’ Miss Pink murmured.
Sophie nodded but she ignored the cue. ‘And like I said, the child could twist Charlie round her pinkie. She’s his blood, after all. Of course, Val is too, but then Val defied him. Threatened him even. That was nasty, for all that Jen seemed to heal the breach. Not totally; he said to me once, after I’d remarked what a good job Val was making of the business, that it was surprising she could do anything right, she couldn’t keep a man nor a daughter. I could have killed him. Jen’s going broke her heart. And he’s got Val where he wants her now; she’s on his property and a sitting duck for all his little teases like the business with Byer this morning. I just hope he doesn’t try something with Jen now she’s back. He could ruin everything. Val’s suffered enough.’
They rode in silence until Miss Pink thought to ask what explanation Charlie gave for his granddaughter’s absence.
‘I have no idea. Edna may know but if she does, she’s not talking, not even to me. She says Jen will come back in her own time: a typical Edna remark. She’s soft. Always was. She’s my sister but she’s got no backbone.’
3
Edna called at ten o’clock the following morning. They were about to leave the apartment for the old ranch when the telephone rang. Sophie’s end of the conversation was brief. ‘Why? We have to check the horses; can’t we… Now?... When did he leave?... Right, I’ll be there’ — a surprised glance at Miss Pink — ‘I said, all right! I’m on my way.’
She dropped the receiver on its rest. ‘That was my crazy sister,’ she grated. ‘She has to see me and — well’ — she was rattled — ‘she’s on her own. Charlie’s left for the hunting cabin. That’s it. No indication what it’s about, but she’s flipped. I’m sorry. I have to leave you.’
‘Of course you do.’ Miss Pink was genial. ‘I can amuse myself; I’ll visit the library… I only hope it’s nothing serious.’
Sophie grimaced. ‘With Edna, it has to be Charlie. Still, he can’t get into much mischief, given his age. It won’t be women or money.’
‘There’s one way to find out.’
‘What? Oh, yes. Right, I’m off. I’ll have a word with Russell, ask him to let you have the loan of a car.’
When she’d gone Miss Pink lounged at the open window and allowed her mind free rein. If Edna stipulated that Sophie should desert her house guest then it had to be a serious problem and that meant family. Since the son and daughter were on the trail (and if Sophie were right and Charlie was too old for sexual shenanigans) it could be something to do with the granddaughter. Had Edna heard the news that the girl had been spotted in Irving and felt the need to discuss it with the only member of the family available at the moment? Or had there been a new development? Could Jen be at Glenaffric?
The doorbell rang. Russell Kramer stood in the corridor, beaming. He had no car free for her but she might care to accompany him on a supply run to Irving, this being their local metropolis and well worth a visit. Miss Pink saw that he had his orders: to keep her out of the way. Oh, rubbish, she thought, I’m paranoid; he’s just aiming to keep me amused.
He worked hard at it, talking as he drove: about the history of the Rothbury from the Twenties, about the current tenants, the skiers who thronged the restaurant in winter, the hunters and the tourists. When Miss Pink could get a word in she was equally garrulous concerning her visit to Glenaffric, pausing suggestively for his comments, but on the subject of the Gunns and their property he was suddenly taciturn, except in one direction. She returned to Ballard surprised and puzzled at what he had revealed, if unwittingly, but thinking that it could have no bearing on the problem of Jen Jardine.
She had a key to the apartment. She entered, thinking it was unoccupied, to find Sophie in the living-room — and she knew immediately that there was trouble. At two o’clock in the afternoon there was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the coffee table and Sophie was either drunk or so tense she seemed unable to utter a greeting. She stared mutely.
‘Been waiting long?’ Miss Pink asked politely.
‘Not long.’ The other made a clumsy gesture as if wiping something away. ‘How was your morning?’ The bright tone was at odds with the fixed glare.
‘So-so. How did you find Edna?’
‘Sit down.’ It was brusque: an order, not an invitation. ‘A drink?’
‘No thanks. I had wine with my lunch. Have you had lunch?’
There was no answer. Miss Pink subsided into an armchair. Sophie stood up and started to pace, carrying her glass, sipping, pausing before a picture of Yellowstone Falls.
‘She called last night. Jen. She called Charlie.’
‘I thought it might concern her.’
‘Weird!’ Sophie turned, flinging out her hands, spilling bourbon. ‘We still don’t know where she is. There’s nothing we can do. Edna doesn’t know I told you. The bastard!’
‘What did Jen say to her grandfather?’
‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Sophie turned bewildered eyes to the window. ‘We don’t know what’s true any more.’ She laughed harshly. ‘Did we ever? One of his jokes? No, it can’t be a joke. And when he didn’t know she was listening, then he could have been speaking the truth — but then he never knew she was listening. He’s a monster. You know something? I figure mental torture is worse than the physical kind.’
Miss Pink stood up and went to the kitchen, returning with a tumbler. ‘I’ll join you,’ she said firmly and poured herself a drink. Sophie regarded her with astonishment.
‘I didn’t know you liked bourbon. I’d have offered —’
‘No need.’ She had offered and had forgotten. Miss Pink didn’t like bourbon; she was trying to jolt this woman into some semblance of normality, of coherence. ‘Tell me what happened after we left last evening,’ she ordered. ‘It had to be afterwards; everything was all right when we rode away.’
Sophie nodded slowly, accepting the need to collect herself. ‘Edna was tired and she went up to bed. Charlie stayed in the den watching TV. Edna was reading when the phone rang. She lifted the extension but he still had the television on and there was a lot of shouting so he wouldn’t have heard her pick up. When he did switch off the TV she heard Jen’s voice. She seemed quite cool, asking after him and Edna — she would have broken in at that point but he said quickly that Jen was to wait, to stay on the line, not ring off, and she heard him put the receiver down so she replaced her own and pretended to be asleep over her book. He must have glanced in, satisfied himself she wasn’t listening and gone back to the den.
‘She didn’t dare pick up the extension again so she crept down the stairs but she only caught the end of the conversation. She heard him say, “You don’t know how she’d take it, sweetie, let’s you and me talk it over first, decide what’s best.” And then he told her to meet him at the hunting cabin tomorrow. That’s today.’
‘Did Edna confront him?’
‘Oh, yes. He said she was drunk, that she’d been dreaming, she’d imagined it all. There was a row but she couldn’t get through to him and they went to bed. Separate rooms, of course. She couldn’t sleep and she tackled him again this morning. Would you believe it, he told her the whole story!’ Sophie w
as incredulous. Miss Pink’s eyes were narrowed. ‘He said that Jen was pregnant all those years ago and she came to Charlie for money. He made her tell him what she wanted it for but she wouldn’t name the father. He gave her the money. And he never told a soul. You believe that?’
‘Go back a bit. What did Jen want the money for?’
‘To go away of course.’
‘Yes, but for an abortion or to have the baby adopted — or to bring it up herself?’
‘We don’t know. Of course Edna demanded he tell her but Charlie says he has no idea either. He knows, I’m sure of it; he knows if he has a great-grandchild nine years old. But how can you force an answer out of a man like that? All the same, Edna says when he comes back she’ll find out where Jen is if it kills her.’
‘The story’s suspect. If Jen was pregnant she’d have gone to her mother — or to you.’
‘Not if the man responsible was her stepfather.’ They regarded each other thoughtfully, Sophie calmer now. ‘And she’s come home,’ she went on, ‘wants to make contact with her mother, if that phone call means anything — and Charlie’s trying to prevent a meeting? I hate that man. What are we going to do, Melinda?’
‘Is there any way of getting to her before Charlie does?’
‘You mean, ride to hunting camp ahead of him? Impossible. There’s only one trail from Ballard and he’s on it. Besides, the situation’s too fraught. How could any of us stop her talking to Charlie? I hate to say this but right now Jen’s closer to him than to me, or’ — her voice rose — ‘even her own mother. And God knows how Val is going to take this. If only we could think of some way of luring Jen back without alienating her…’ Sophie stared hard at her friend. ‘She might listen to a stranger.’
‘You’re clutching at straws.’ Miss Pink knew exactly what was in the other’s mind and would have none of it. ‘For the moment all you can do is wait, let her make the moves. She left of her own volition, she has to return that way.’ And without her meddling old grandfather putting his oar in.
Sophie sat down. She looked a hundred years old. ‘I guess you’re right: the objective view and all that — which is why I thought — oh shoot, forget it. But we’re going in there tomorrow; we’ll make a point of calling on Charlie at the cabin, see if he might let something slip about where Jen is. We might even bump into her ourselves, by accident.’ She sighed. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Melinda. I don’t know what I’d have done in this apartment all on my own.’
‘You’d have consulted Russell.’
Sophie blinked and looked wary. ‘Maybe. He’s a good friend. What did you make of him? He said he’d ask you to go to Irving.’
‘He’s amusing. We had lunch in a restaurant on the river bank. Do you know it?’
‘My dear! There are so many places to eat in Irving.’
‘This was a gay establishment.’
Sophie’s jaw dropped. ‘I’m amazed!’
‘That such a place should exist?’
‘No, Irving’s much more liberal than Ballard. I’m surprised he should take you there.’
‘The food was good.’ Miss Pink was poker-faced.
‘Did he — What did you talk about?’
‘I wouldn’t say he told me anything personal. He didn’t have to. It isn’t common knowledge, then?’
Sophie said wearily, ‘I should have known you’d guess, you notice everything. No, it’s not common knowledge, definitely not. Only his closest friends know and the obvious people.’
‘Like his wife.’
‘Of course Pat knows. They have a modern marriage and she leads her own life, presumably. But I suspect Pat’s not much interested in sex. She’s a businesswoman. He married for respectability and she — well, for security, mainly, although I guess money came into it. This building belongs to Russell. It’s worked out. There aren’t many married couples you’ll find make such an effective working team as Russell and Pat. But the only other person I know he’s confided in is you.’
‘And Clyde.’
‘Now why would you say that?’
‘It’s obvious. Russell won’t talk about the Gunns, with one exception, and then his face softens —’
‘Damn! They’ll need to watch themselves. Imagine Charlie’s reaction.’
‘I think he knows already.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Yesterday he said that Clyde would never be the man that Val is. I thought then that it was a remark with an edge to it, now I see it was loaded. And then there’s Edna. Mothers usually know the sexual orientation of their sons.’
‘She’ll keep quiet about it.’
‘I think Charlie knows. They’d have given themselves away. People can easily identify heterosexual couples, why not homosexual ones?’
‘Not in Ballard, Montana.’ Sophie was grim. ‘This is redneck country. They’d know better than to be indiscreet around here. San Francisco’s OK, even Irving, although they’d never risk being seen together, even there: too much at stake.’
‘I’d wondered about that.’
‘Yes, I guess you would.’
‘Millions of dollars do tend to intrude on one’s mind.’
4
Sophie had to check the horses at the homestead before they could leave next morning and the sun was high by the time they crossed the swing bridge and climbed to the main Ballard trail. Once they were traversing the slopes of the canyon the outlook was stunning: the river way below, while on the far side a confusion of cliffs and boulder fields was threaded with thin game trails. Not a road nor a house to be seen — only once, an osprey’s nest on a pinnacle. On their own side they saw few animals other than chipmunks but there was evidence of bears: clawed trees, rotten logs torn apart in the search for grubs.
They came to a landslide that had swept the slope clear, leaving a chute of gravel as unstable as ball bearings. The water was so far below that calculations were immaterial; a hundred feet or a thousand, you were dead if your horse put a foot wrong, yet Sophie’s grey walked across the faint line of the trail without breaking stride. The Arab followed as if she were in her home pasture.
‘How on earth did Charlie cross that, leading a pack-horse?’ Miss Pink asked on the far side.
Sophie laughed. ‘Well, he got across, didn’t he? No sign of bodies.’
‘There wouldn’t be. They’d have gone all the way to the bottom and been swept away.’
‘Like Carol Skinner.’ It was only a murmur.
‘What was that?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
The canyon trail wasn’t suitable for conversation, the riders forced to move mostly in single file. They rode on and below a steep section Miss Pink emerged from speculation on the fate of another Skinner — Paul’s wife? — to sniff the air. ‘There seem to be more than two horses ahead of us.’
Sophie paused. ‘First time you noticed? There were droppings way back and tracks in the mud where we crossed that creek. It’ll be hunters; not hunting, but looking to see where the game is. They have to apply for permits in advance so they need to know whether it’s worth applying for a given area. A lot of people come in from Benefit; that’s a ghost town back of the rim.’ She gestured vaguely. ‘We passed the junction but it’s easy to miss if you don’t know where it is.’
They climbed zigzags to emerge on a crest and stop for a blow. A flash of light glinted on a spur about a mile away. ‘Val and Clyde,’ Sophie announced, adding, ‘I’m not going to say anything about Jen. I’m wondering, if she did come to the cabin yesterday, if she’ll be around today. I need to know if Val’s seen her without her guessing what I’m driving at.’
‘You’ll know by her manner, surely. She’d be full of it if she’d met Jen.’
‘You’re right. It’s just that, if she’s still in ignorance, I don’t want her to know Jen came to the cabin to meet Charlie. There’s no knowing what Val might do: gallop back to confront him, gallop home to see if Edna’s heard anything more, either way riding hard in th
is old canyon is the last thing she should be doing, and leaving Clyde to cope with two pack-mules. No, we won’t say anything about Jen.’
‘We were going to take pictures,’ Miss Pink reminded her, a little resentful that this family problem should intrude on such a glorious day.
‘So we were. They should look good coming up to this crest.’
They dismounted, tied their horses and prospected for vantage points. It was quiet except for the sound of the river.
Eventually Val and Clyde appeared below, leading the mules. Val saw them immediately and greeted them from a distance. They responded; if you didn’t do that the horses could take fright when they realised there was someone — some thing — on the trail. It could be a bear.
‘Keep coming,’ Sophie called. ‘We’ll get shots as you pass, then stop there on the top. How’re you doing, Clyde?’
Val kept talking. ‘Just you two? Hi, Melinda. We’ve cleared the trail, no problem. There’s snow on the pass but we got through, made a sort of trench. It was quite an adventure.’ She walked past, Miss Pink and Sophie clicking away. Clyde grinned engagingly for the cameras but made no move to adjust his position. He had no need to, he looked marvellous on a horse.
They stopped on the crest and Sophie made her way towards Val. Miss Pink approached Clyde. ‘You met the others?’ she asked chattily.
‘No.’ He looked mystified. ‘What others?’
‘We’ve seen fresh tracks. Someone’s ahead of us.’
‘That’ll be my dad. He’s at the hunting camp.’ He was observing her closely. ‘There could be someone else around,’ he conceded. ‘People come in from Irving, leave their trailers at an old ghost town. It cuts the distance if you want to reach the back country.’