by Bob Wade
“Couldn’t we come with you?”
John Henry looked up sharply. “What did you say, Sin?”
Trim frowned whimsically at the girl. “Hardly. You’d just be in the way for sure, Mrs. Conover. Besides, I’d imagine that the Bar C was about the last place on earth you’d care to go back to.”
“It is,” said Sin earnestly and grabbed the little man’s hands. “But, Mr. Trim, look — wouldn’t you like to follow Barselou and Jones and Robottom or whoever it is to the Queen? That way you could — ”
“What are you talking about, Sin?” John Henry interrupted. “I thought you — ”
“It has its points,” Trim mused. “I might find out pretty definitely about the subversion angle. It would certainly catch Robottom off base.” He laughed harshly. “But, unfortunately, Mrs. Conover — I don’t know the way. All I can do is wait at the ranch for one or both of them to come back.”
“That’s it exactly,” said Sin, jumping up and down with excitement.
“Sin, talk sense,” John Henry insisted angrily. “We’ve got enough trouble without borrowing any. Let’s get back to town and start looking for a good lawyer.”
“Johnny, don’t you see? We know where to start — Walking Skull.”
“What do you mean we know where to start? Where’s Walking Skull?”
“Never mind,” said Trim quietly. “I know where it is. Let her talk.”
“And we’ve got a third copy of the combination — me.” Sin pointed a proud forefinger at herself.
John Henry was disgusted. “Don’t be silly. You’ve said it once. Now it’s gone. Why should that list of numbers stick with you?”
“Because,” Sin explained slowly and deliberately, “they don’t make sense!”
“She hasn’t had much to eat,” her husband said to Trim.
“No, Johnny! Just to prove it, here’s the first two directions. R dash one. L dash three.” Her words tumbled over one another getting out of her mouth. “I know I can remember it, Johnny. It just isn’t a silly old quotation or anything — it doesn’t have any order and I can remember it perfectly. I knew it when I recited it for you back at the ranch, but I didn’t want to tell you then for fear it would spoil things or you’d want to go after the Queen by yourself later on. But now we’ve got help. And, Johnny, honest — I can’t get the darn thing out of my head!”
“It’d be too dangerous for you, Sin. I don’t want you — ”
She put her arms around him. “I don’t want to go to jail, and I don’t want you to, either. This way we won’t have to, honey. Because Jones will be at the Queen.”
“But aren’t you scared, honey?”
“Uh-huh. I’m scared to death. But I want us rid of this horrible thing. The only way we can be is to find Jones.”
John Henry felt the tempting excitement begin to bubble inside him again. “I wouldn’t mind running into the guy responsible for all this, at that. I feel I owe him something.”
Triumphantly, Sin turned to the wizened agent in the sedan. “There! Now how about it, Mr. Trim? What do you say?”
Trim didn’t say anything for a moment. He opened the glove compartment and took out a heavy service automatic. Leaning back in the car, he checked the magazine under the dashlight. When he came into view again, he shoved the gun at John Henry, butt foremost.
He said, “Stick close to your wife then, and come along. This may be the bag of the year or it may be a wild-goose chase. I guarantee it won’t be any picnic.”
The tan-shirted cop pounded loudly on the door to Cottage 14. Then he opened the door and motioned Thelma Loomis into the room ahead of himself and his companion.
She scanned the room coolly. Every light in the cottage had been turned on and the air was hazy with cigarette smoke. The desk, the wastebasket and the area around the doorknobs had been dusted with a gray powder. Near the desk, the carpet bore the dark oval of dried blood like a seal.
“Wait here,” one of the policemen said, and they went into the bedroom. Voices wandered back out to her. Miss Loomis fished in the unaccustomed pocket of her blue patrolman uniform and brought out a package of Fleet-woods. She was lighting the cigarette with a steady hand when Lieutenant Lay came in from the bedroom. His brown suit was wrinkled and his horse face was hemmed about with tired lines. He still needed a shave.
“Thelma Loomis?” he asked heavily. The blonde woman nodded her helmeted head slightly. Lay motioned at a chair and sank into the one opposite. His eyes studied her keenly. Thelma Loomis worked her lips and a smoke ring came out. Then she crossed her legs without hitching up the knees of her trousers.
“That your real name?” Lay asked suddenly.
“Don’t you know?”
“Don’t be smart. I asked you a question.”
“It’s my real name.”
Lay nodded. He pulled a brown imitation-leather notebook from his inside coat pocket and flipped a couple of pages. Then he looked up. “You say you’re a writer?”
“That’s right.”
“Work for Fan Fare. Campbell Publications.”
“That’s right.”
Lay closed the notebook and shook his head. “That’s wrong. We checked with Campbell Publications this evening. Want to see the wire we got back?”
Thelma Loomis grinned. “Never mind.”
“Okay, then. Suppose you tell me who and what you really are, Miss Loomis. Campbell says they never heard of you or anybody like you.”
The blonde woman took another slow drag on the cigarette. “If you want to know what I really am, check the Castle-Scudder Detective Agency in L. A. They’ll tell you. So should this.”
He looked at the plastic-sealed card in her wallet and handed it back. “Private cop, huh?”
“Yep. Except the movies say shamus, Lieutenant.”
“Glad to know. Let’s have the whole story,” Lay suggested and closed his eyes to slits as he leaned back in the chair.
“It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. Errant-husband stuff.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“Sagmon Robottom. The archaeologist. You’ve probably talked to him by now — and he probably told you plenty about himself. What he didn’t tell you was that he walked out on his wife a week ago. Myra Robottom. Now Myra’s not the gal to take that sort of thing lying down.”
“Jealous?”
“Sagmon’s quite a hand with the girls. It’s been going on too long but now Myra’s gotten tired of it. Last week — the old last straw. Sagmon dashed down here without explaining and Myra’s sure there’s another woman involved. She’s pretty upset but if there’s to be a divorce it’s to be Myra who gets it. So here I am.”
“What have you got?”
“Nothing that’ll stand up in court — yet. But I’m getting warm. There’s a gal here at the hotel, name of Faye Jordan, that Glamor Boy thinks is hot stuff. She’s playing him on a line right now. But it’s just a question of time.”
“At twenty bucks a day. God, women!” said Lieutenant Lay scathingly. He opened his eyes again and rubbed his unshaven jaw.
“I was looking for Robottom when your men put the arm on me. It’s my guess that he’s off somewhere with the Jordan dame.” Thelma Loomis uncrossed her legs. “Now that I’ve shot square with you, Lieutenant, how about giving me a break and letting me go back to work?”
Lay got up. He smiled bitterly. “You’re about as square as a tennis ball — all you private cops. But go ahead, get back to your keyhole.” Thelma Loomis grinned and nodded thanks, no trace of resentment in her impassive face. “Oh, by the way,” Lay added, “since you’re looking for Robottom — ” He paused tantalizingly.
“You know where he is?” the blonde asked eagerly.
“The man I got in the lobby says he grabbed a taxi this evening and said something about going out to the Bar C Ranch.”
“Good.” Thelma Loomis rubbed her white gloves together “Good.”
Trim moved a hand to the horn button and turned
off the car lights. Then they rolled slowly down the incline toward the rambling shadow of the Bar C Ranch. Beyond the gallows-like archway, the low ranch house showed no lights.
“Looks like Faye’s still here,” Sin said, speaking in an unnecessary whisper from the back seat. The Mercury still lowered inanimate before the house. The only cloud in the sky had floated mischievously before the moon, a cottony mask.
Trim coaxed the sedan to a quiet halt. He ceased listening to night sounds from the surrounding desert. “Still want to go through with it?” he inquired.
“Sure,” Sin said, pretending she meant it.
They opened the doors and got out. John Henry caressed the automatic pressed against his stomach. He tried to remember which button was the safety. He recalled too distinctly his most embarrassing army habit — during the one or two practices he’d undergone with firearms — of pressing the safety catch and watching the magazine plummet to the ground. Wisely, John Henry merely patted the gun butt and left it alone.
Trim led the way across the graveled lot. The cloud chose to drift from in front of the moon and the three furtive figures seemed to spring into focus. Sin was regretting her insistence on the expedition. Her white blouse made a distinctive target under the gleaming moon.
When John Henry veered toward the front door, Trim caught his sleeve with a quick hand. He shook his head. “Never mind stirring up trouble we don’t have to. Where are the horses?”
“The stable, I suppose.”
“Can you two ride?”
“Well — we’ve ridden.”
“Lead the way,” said the Federal man and stood aside. Hoping he was going in the right direction, John Henry tiptoed cautiously along the front of the silent house and turned the corner. The boxlike building, a half-story higher than the house, loomed in sharp outline a hundred yards away.
Trim nodded approval and brushed a finger across his lips. The trio started the long, exposed march from house to stable, pausing every other step to inspect the ranch house and listen for alien noises. As they entered the square black shadow cast by their goal, Sin let out a shivering sigh of relief.
“Now,” Trim began, “if we can — ” He made a convulsive movement. His boot heel landed on John Henry’s toe, and Conover doubled over groaning. Sin froze next to him, wide-eyed.
Something white fluttered in the gap between the sliding doors of the stable.
“Everybody just stand where they are,” Odell said, “and don’t make any sudden moves.”
He came plodding from the dark slot, the barrel of his .32 shiny over his fist. John Henry forgot his bruised toe.
“Imagine,” Odell said pleasantly. “Mr. and Mrs. Conover, back again. Who’s this?” He swung the revolver toward the little man.
“My name is Trim.”
Odell wasn’t impressed. His plump shoulders shook with inner laughter. “I figured somebody’d be along, just as soon as I heard Gayner got his.” The evening was not cold and he’d taken off his coat and tie. The white shirt seemed disembodied above the brown trousers. “Looks like I was right.”
“Where’s Barselou?” John Henry asked. “There’s some questions — ”
“Forget it. But let me tell you, Junior, I’m mighty happy you got back before he did. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining that rope trick, believe me.” His blood-shot eyes canvassed Sin. “I’m glad you came back, too.”
“Johnny — ” Sin’s voice shook.
Odell gestured with the gun. “Okay, turn around and put your hands on the back of your head.” He peered at Trim. “What the hell kind of hat you got on, anyway? Go ahead — turn around.” They faced the ranch house. Behind them Odell’s voice said, “Now start walking. Not too fast.”
The three head-clutching figures began to walk slowly back across the moonlit yard. Sin shifted her head enough to see her husband’s tight-lipped profile. “I’m sorry, Johnny,” she murmured.
“Keep moving,” Odell said. “And cut the talk.” He coughed.
They marched forward quickly in silence. Nearly to the ranch house, Sin glanced quickly to either side of her. Trim and John Henry were intent on where they were walking. But strain her ears as she might, Sin couldn’t hear any footsteps behind them. Maybe that was because of the sandy ground. She wondered if she dared peek around. Gritting her teeth, she lowered her hands cautiously from her neck, braced for a possible blow.
Nothing happened. Emboldened, she looked back. Then she whirled, grabbing at the two men. “Look!” she cried. “There’s no one following us — ”
“Where’d he go?” asked John Henry, astonished.
“Let’s get out of here before he comes back!”
Trim’s small arm clutched her in mid-flight, held her back. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Conover. He’s not coming back.” His finger pointed. Just outside the stable’s square shadow was a mound of dark and white. Something like a furled pennant stuck up from the sprawled figure.
John Henry ran toward it. Trim and Sin followed. Nearly there, Conover checked, turned and pulled his wife against his chest. “No. Just look the other way for a while.” A moment later, Trim rejoined them. His humpty-dumpty face was grave in the moonlight.
“Dead,” he said quietly.
“But how did it happen — no noise — ” Sin gulped.
“He was hit in the neck by an arrow. Death must have been almost instantaneous. Paralyzed him, maybe.”
Sin remembered Odell’s cough and shuddered. John Henry’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “Pretty lucky for us,” he said soberly, “though I guess that’s a kind of horrible thing to say.”
Trim said, “Save your sympathy. He didn’t deserve anything better.” He glanced at Sin’s trembling form. “Think about the otherwise.”
“Where — who could have shot the arrow?” she asked.
“There’s an archery range around at the other side of the house,” John Henry said. “Saw it this afternoon, coming out of the cellar.”
“That’s where it came from, then,” Trim ruminated. “Want to take a look?”
“I guess so,” said John Henry reluctantly. “What’ll we do with Sin?”
“Not a thing, Johnny. Where you go, I go.”
“Stay a little behind us, honey.” He pulled out the .45 as if he knew just what to do with it.
The archery range was empty. Nobody lurked out on the sparse brass behind the targets. Far off, a coyote howled.
Trim opened the coffin-size box against one side of the ranch house. “Unlocked,” he said. “Could have been anybody.”
The arrows were loose in felt-lined canisters on the floor of the outdoor closet. One space was empty in the rack that clamped the unstrung bows against the wall.” Someone had leaned the last weapon carelessly within the archery cabinet and its cord was still taut from tip to tip.
The agent lifted it out and tested the pull idly. It was a hickory longbow, taller than he was. “All longbows,” he commented. “Try that.”
John Henry took it and plucked at the cord. To bend the bow slightly required most of his strength. “I guess Barselou’s a pretty powerful guy.”
“I guess somebody else is, too,” said Trim and replaced the bow. The coyote howled again.
“Let’s get away from here,” Sin quavered.
Disturbed, the three hurried back to the stables. Sin gripped John Henry’s fingers and managed not to look at the crumpled body mercilessly floodlighted by the moon.
The horses in their stalls were restless. They tossed their heads and reared and neighed when the men approached. Sin huddled on a bale of hay by the doorway while Trim and her husband first pacified and then saddled three mounts. John Henry had a good deal of trouble subduing his steed, but the wizened FBI man proved surprisingly adept at the job and finished two saddlings while John Henry struggled with one.
Trim carried the last of the saddles and bridles into the feed room and banged the wooden door to behind him. Then he wedged the huge rusty padlock shut and
jammed it with one blow of an old stirrup iron. “That’ll slow up anybody who’s going our way,” he remarked, his smile satisfied. He tossed the stirrup iron down and dusted his hands.
They swung silently onto their horses and moved out into the moonlit yard, the erect little pirate leading. Sin’s white blouse had lost all crispness and a shoulder seam was threatening to part. Her bright full skirt was wrinkled. It kept hitching above her knees ever time she changed position on the saddle. John Henry’s sport clothes looked no better.
The crunch of hoofs on the sandy ground was the only sound, but at the archery range Sin reined in and reached out a hand toward her husband. John Henry halted his horse. “Huh?”
After a minute she put on a faint smile. “It’s all right. For a minute there, I thought I heard a sound — like somebody trying to call.”
Her smile faded and she kicked her horse in the ribs. “Too much imagination, I guess.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“THIS IS WALKING SKULL,” said Trim. “And that’s the start of the Badlands.” He gestured into the night.
The Conovers looked it over. Walking Skull was a rough bowl-shaped depression in the desert, several hundred yards across. It was littered with huge boulders and dotted with a few stunted palms.
“Why?” Sin wanted to know.
“Good thing the Bureau made me into a guide book before I came down,” Trim said. He explained that a weathered skeleton had been found leaning against one of the rocks years before, looking as if it were still trying to take the few steps that separated it from the tiny water hole. Of course, the bones were all gone now — carried home as souvenirs by tourists. But the skull had never been discovered. “The legend is that the skull still roams these parts at night searching for water.”
“Oh, no!” Sin said.
“You shouldn’t have told her,” was John Henry’s reaction.
To the south and to the west, the smooth desert had been carved into a twisted labyrinth of narrow, deep canyons, writhing snakes that turned here and there, joining and separating and losing themselves in the night shadows. A single canyon cracked the side of the rough bowl on the southwestern edge.