by Gwen Moffat
‘Did she reach home?’
Jo was silent and they looked towards Paula who made no sign that she had heard. A log shifted in the stove. A cricket chirped in a corner.
‘How far is it from the field where they were playing to here?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘About half a mile.’ Jo was looking miserable.
‘Show me.’
They went outside and moved away from the door. ‘It’s that that’s bothering the menfolk,’ Jo explained, drawing Miss Pink still further away. ‘It’s such a short distance but the quickest route, on a pony, is to cross the creek.’ She gestured vaguely in the direction of the Olson place but creek and cabin were hidden by the dense growth of willows and cottonwoods. ‘The creek’s running high since the storm,’ she went on, ‘so they’re searching way down the banks.’
‘But the level of the creek was low before the storm.’
‘Yes, but if she didn’t come straight home? I mean, Birdie, she’s always going missing … But the pinto’s here. He stayed with her when she was— ’ She could not go on, could not utter the word ‘alive’.
‘We must go back to Paula,’ Miss Pink said.
They returned to the hot kitchen. They made tea and they talked. Frankie Gray arrived, bringing a bottle of brandy and some shot glasses. They accepted the brandy gratefully and still there was no sign from Paula. Darkness had fallen. Miss Pink went outside and, by the light of a torch, walked round the buildings trying to see something of the searchers but it was impossible. The Estwick place was an enclave of cleared land surrounded by trees.
She felt a breath of air and looked up to see the first stars showing through a break in the clouds. When she looked down she saw that lights were approaching from the direction of the creek. She went to meet them. It was John Forset and Estwick and they had found nothing.
Estwick went towards the cabin. Miss Pink asked Forset: ‘Is there no sign of any kind? Couldn’t you trace the pony’s tracks backwards, to try to discover where it had left her?’
‘We tried, but all the tracks were washed out by that hard rain, time we came to start looking. And there are dozens of places where horses go down the banks to drink out of the creek. It would have been impossible to find where she crossed this afternoon.’
‘But John, the creek was low when she left the other children. The storm hadn’t started. If the pony stumbled in the water she might have come off but she couldn’t have been drowned.’
‘No? S’pose her head hit a rock?’ She was silent. ‘Then the storm came,’ he went on, ‘and the flood washed the body downstream. We have to search the banks clear to the river. After that, of course, it’s hopeless.’
Then they were both silent, thinking that there was little hope anyway, even if Birdie had not reached the Colorado.
They searched throughout the night. The women managed to move Paula into a more comfortable chair and they brought a mattress from a bedroom so that one person could doze while the other stayed awake beside the listless mother. She looked more relaxed now and had closed her eyes. The watchers felt a certain relief at that but it lasted no longer than the first doze. On waking there was only dread.
At seven o’clock Jo’s two oldest girls, Tracy and Sandy, brought food down in a pick-up and cooked breakfast. Sarah was now sharing the watch with Miss Pink. They had just started to eat when a truck drove into the yard. Paula seemed to be asleep and she did not stir. Miss Pink went outside to find Erik Olson standing by the open door of the truck, evidently waiting. John Forset came round the rear of the vehicle and she saw by his face that something had happened. His eyes were those of an exhausted old man.
‘We found her,’ he said. She glanced in the back of the truck and he guessed the thought. ‘No, we left – it – where we found it.’ She stared at him. ‘There are – wounds,’ he said.
After she had absorbed the initial impact of the shock and understood what he was trying to tell her – that the child had been raped – she said she would see the body. He refused to allow it. She said: ‘There are a number of men in this community. If one of them is responsible then it’s imperative that the right man is arrested. This state has capital punishment. However good the local police are, no one’s infallible.’ She held his eye. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen a murdered child.’
Evidently he knew that already. He showed no surprise, and her argument had good sense behind it. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said. ‘But you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think it was someone in this valley. There’s nobody, nobody, here would have done what’s been done to that child. It’s a maniac’s work, a monster. No one could keep a nature like that hidden all these years in a little place like this. We know everything that goes on— ’
She edged him towards the truck. ‘All the more reason why an innocent man shouldn’t be suspected.’
‘The police are hopeless.’ He stood immovable by the passenger door. ‘They can’t find a thief in Nebo; they can’t find a lost horse!’ His voice cracked.
‘I’ll drive.’ She was behind the wheel. ‘Get in, John; let’s do something before the police arrive. There’s not much time.’
He got in. ‘It could have been a river-runner,’ he said. ‘Or a tourist – a motorist from out of state. Now, why did I say that? Could have been a man from Nebo; there was a fellow last winter, shot his wife in cold blood … and there was that hippie— ’
‘John!’
‘What?’
‘I asked how far? On whose land did you find the body?’
‘Eh? Oh, mine, I s’pose. Of course it’s my land; we came out of the gate in the South Forty, just up here, where the creek comes close to the road. Don’t drive in; you’ll get mired. Leave the pick-up on the shoulder.’
As she got down and started across the grass she made a deliberate effort to change gear, to eliminate emotion. There was a time when she had considered a career in medicine, and decades later realised that had she become a surgeon she might well have gravitated to forensic work. Here was yet another acid test and she must forget about beauty and small children on ponies, must concentrate in advance – trying to forestall the shock – on blood and a corpse.
There was no blood because she had been in the water too long. They had lifted the body out of the creek and laid it on the bank face upwards. The eyes were open. She appeared to be wearing the same clothes she had worn yesterday morning: the white T-shirt, the jeans and sneakers.
‘Is this how you found her?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘No.’ He was staring dully at the body. ‘It was snagged in those willows there and the pants were kind of dragging from the ankles. Someone pulled them up.’
‘Who found her?’
‘Erik Olson. The others don’t know yet.’
She was stooping but she glanced up at that. He looked back blankly and she thought that she must get him home soon and find Dolly; she would look after him. She bent back to her task and drew in her breath as she lifted the damp shirt and saw the wounds like small mouths on the livid flesh. She heard him move away. She looked at the rest of the body, forewarned now and cold. She joined Forset.
‘Are there wounds on the back?’ she asked.
‘Not knife wounds. The back of the skull is crushed in.’
She stiffened. She went back and lifted the head. The skull was soft and yielding to her fingers. She stood up and looked round, hearing voices. Jerome Gray and Sarah were crossing the meadow towards them. Supported by numbers, Forset came back and the four of them stood above the body in silence, as if they were at a graveside. After a while Jerome asked: ‘Did she die from the wounds or did she drown?’ He spoke softly as if to himself.
‘I think the blow to the head would have been fatal,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Probably the knife wounds all occurred after death. There is no bruising.’
‘Why should she be knifed after she was dead?’ Sarah asked, and Miss Pink remembered with a shock that the girl was only seventeen.
�
�To cover evidence of rape.’
‘Rape would be obvious in a child of six.’ Sarah’s voice was like ice.
‘The genitalia are lacerated.’
The water chuckled past the willows, its sound laced by the trilling of blackbirds. ‘Come along now,’ Jerome touched his daughter’s elbow. ‘There are things to be done.’ He hesitated and turned to Miss Pink. ‘Shouldn’t we leave some kind of guard here?’
‘I’ll stay,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll wait by our car. You can give Dad a lift.’
‘I called the police,’ he said, as they came to Forset’s pickup. ‘Frankie said probably no one else had thought of it.’
Miss Pink got in behind the wheel. The men stood irresolute on the road, waiting for guidance. Sarah leaned against her father’s Mercedes and regarded the skyline of the Barrier. She had an air of being apart from them, aloof. Observing her, Miss Pink said absently: ‘Paula has to be told. Does Sam know yet?’
‘I don’t know where he is,’ Forset said.
She looked at them sharply and saw two badly shocked old gentlemen. There was nothing to be done for Birdie now. The immediate concern was to try to mitigate the repercussions of her violent end on the community. She turned the truck and called to Sarah: ‘We’re going to your house. If anyone comes to take your place, you follow us. We’ll see you there.’
Her tone alerted the men and they climbed into the truck. She drove to the Grays’ cabin, vaguely aware of some anomaly about the distribution of her companions. She went slowly and no one protested, the others too preoccupied with their concerns to notice that the vehicle was crawling. If these two had to be nursed like children, if only temporarily, how could she have left a young girl on guard beside a murder victim? She pondered this in amazement and with a sense of guilt, then remembered that it was Sarah who had suggested the arrangement. Back there in the meadow she had been in charge. Of course, thought Miss Pink, a seventeen-year-old would not be aware of the full implications.
Frankie was not at home, and the cabin was empty, the living room full of sunshine reflected from the pool. Seeing that Jerome had automatically assumed the role of host in his own house, she allowed him to start brewing coffee while she went to the telephone to discover what was happening elsewhere.
Beside the phone was a card with the numbers of everyone in the canyon. She called Dolly’s cabin but there was no reply. She tried the Olson number. Jen answered and said that her mother was at the Estwick place. The girl’s voice was strained.
‘Is your father home?’ Miss Pink asked. Erik Olson came on the line. ‘It sounds as if you’ve told them,’ she said.
‘They had to know some time.’
‘I’m not criticising. It’s just that we need to know the situation in the other houses.’ She explained where she was and who was with her. Had Paula been told? Did Sam Estwick know the body had been found?
‘I don’t know as anyone’s looked for him,’ Olson said in astonishment, as if he had forgotten Estwick’s existence. ‘I don’t even remember where he went. Ask John Forset; he’ll know.’
‘So Paula hasn’t been told – you didn’t tell her when you came to the cabin at breakfast time, when I drove off with John?’
‘No, ma’am. I told Sarah and she said to leave Paula sleeping, not to wake her. Then Jo come down to sit with Paula and I come up to our place. I remember now: Sam and Mr Plummer and Art Stenbock, they all went downstream below Forset’s place, working their way down to the river. That’s where you’ll find ’em, down to Gospel Bottom. Do you want me to do anything?’
‘Leave it a while. We’ll talk about it here. The best thing you can do is stay with your children … Then we know where you are – if we need you.’ She bit her lip; what was she saying?
‘Stay with the children?’ There was a long pause on the line. ‘I’ll be around,’ he said with transparent casualness.
She put down the receiver slowly and turned to encounter Forset’s eyes. ‘It wasn’t one of us,’ he said firmly, offering her brandy.
‘What I was thinking was that the children need an adult there to keep them on the right track. They could invent fantasies – nightmares, become terrified, fly right off the handle. There’s no saying what they might do. The father’s presence will control them. That was all I was implying.’ She was being garrulous.
‘It didn’t sound like that.’
‘I’m too shaken to pick my words. Thank you, John.’ She took the brandy. Jerome came over with a tray of coffee mugs. She dialled the Estwick place. Dolly answered.
Miss Pink said without preamble: ‘Just say yes or no if it’s difficult. Is she awake?’
‘Yes, but— ’
‘Does she know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hysteria?’
‘No. I can talk, Melinda; she’s in the bedroom and the door’s shut. Jo’s with her. I don’t think she took it in when Jo told her. She said she’d always expected the worst, every time Birdie went off, she’d picture her lying dead. She went through hell every time, she said, she knew it would happen eventually. She says it’s her judgement. I told you, didn’t I? All the concern’s for herself, not for Birdie. She said: “Now it’s all over,” and she sat there and I thought: Christ, she’s off again, but after a while she got up and said she’d go and lie down a while. Jo went with her.’
‘Dolly, you must make some excuse and look in on them.’
‘They’re all right; I can hear them talking – both of them.’
Miss Pink relaxed a little. ‘Well, at least she’s been told. Now there’s Sam.’
‘Yes. Poor Sam.’
‘Who would be the best person to break it to him, d’you think?’
‘Why, Jo. I could go in and spell her … Here’s Frankie, just pulled into the yard. Jo could go and find Sam now.’
But Jo never had to perform that onerous task. She started down the canyon and at the gate into Forset’s South Forty she saw several cars, among them Estwick’s. There was no one in them but there were people on the bank of the creek. After a short time Sarah came across the meadow followed by Estwick, Art Stenbock, and Glen Plummer. Sarah and Jo went to the Grays’ cabin, leaving Stenbock by the body. When Miss Pink was told this she frowned but she made no comment. Sarah was drinking coffee that her father had laced with brandy.
‘How did Sam take it?’ he asked. They had all been wondering that.
Sarah sipped her drink and seemed to be studying the design on the mug. ‘He went mad,’ she said flatly. Her lips stretched in what might have been a smile in different circumstances. ‘There was no question of not disturbing the body – ’ she stared at her father, ‘ – of guarding it so that the killer couldn’t come back and remove something that pointed to him. Sam picked her up, and hugged her tight, and rearranged the clothing; he felt the skull and he saw the wounds— ’
‘All of them?’ Miss Pink was aghast. ‘Does he know— ’
‘I didn’t tell him. What difference does it make? He can’t do more than kill the man, which he’s going to do – when, if he finds the one responsible.’
Jerome nodded. ‘That would be the best solution. And done right away, in hot blood, still in shock, he’d get off. Every normal person would be behind him, but, in that kind of mood, will he get the right man?’
The question dropped like a stone in a well. No one answered it and no one met his neighbour’s eyes until Miss Pink noticed that Jo was looking, not at her, but through her. She recalled that when they met Olson yesterday he had been going home to fix his chicken-house.
‘You were up to Wind Whistle,’ Forset said suddenly, barked rather, and glared at Jo.
‘Erik was fixing the chicken-house,’ she said, shaken.
He didn’t pursue that. ‘You visited with the Duvals.’
‘With Bob. Alex was— ’ She stopped. Miss Pink was watching Forset and saw him shake his head fractionally.
‘He was there,’ Jo said, but she was overridden by Sarah: ‘Alex w
as with Mike Olson, up Horsethief, pulling fence.’
‘That’s what I was going to say,’ Jo said.
‘Ah.’ Forset seemed to subside, his face, momentarily agitated, was that of an old man again, tired but relaxed. ‘Some bum,’ he muttered. ‘A river-runner.’
Miss Pink said: ‘Jo, could I ask you to give me a lift? I left my car at the Estwicks’.’
Forset stared at her. ‘I can’t think where everybody is,’ he complained, ‘let alone their cars. It’s Sunday morning, for God’s sake!’
‘It’s the shock, John.’ Jerome seemed to have recovered his equilibrium. ‘Spend the day with us. Here, let me give you a refill— ’
‘I shall be asleep.’
‘You can sleep in the guest room.’
‘No, no. I have to go back, see to the animals.’
‘I’ll come with you, John,’ Sarah said.
‘John’s taken it badly,’ Miss Pink remarked as they drove down the track. Jo murmured inaudibly. ‘But Sarah!’ Miss Pink exclaimed. ‘She’s behaving as if it hadn’t happened, totally without fear: volunteering to stay by the body, going off alone with John … ’
‘You’re not suggesting she’s in danger from John?’
‘Someone is dangerous.’ There was a long pause, then Miss Pink continued: ‘There are eight men in this canyon. Jerome Gray is surely too old to be considered. If you don’t think it was John, and one assumes you’re certain it wasn’t Erik – and the Duval brothers are out because they have alibis, that leaves Glen Plummer and Art Stenbock. Apart from Sam Estwick, that is. I wonder how those two reacted when they saw the body.’