by Gwen Moffat
‘How long has he been here, John? How long does it take for scavengers to reduce a body to this?’
‘Not long. There’s not much smell. I’d say not more than twenty-four hours. I mean, he’s been dead twenty-four hours.’
‘And why did he die here?’ She looked back at the wooded cove and added, as if to herself: ‘Of course, it isn’t murder.’
‘He couldn’t get down to the valley,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘There’s no way up to the cove, only down from Rustler: the way we came.’
‘Where is the way down to the valley, then?’
‘There isn’t one.’
From behind them Dolly said: ‘I never thought there was – but I didn’t know about this.’ She was blocking out the presence of the body, staring defiantly at the enigma painted on the wall. ‘You kept all this from me, John; I’ll never forgive you.’
‘I’d have brought you here eventually.’
‘So Birdie was right,’ Miss Pink said. ‘How old do the children have to be before they’re shown this place?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘Old enough to keep the secret. There’s nothing mystical about it.’ She was suddenly earnest. ‘It was just that, you know what happens when Anasazi relics are found: graffiti, litter, tourists, commercialism? We kept it to ourselves, that’s all. But Birdie guessed – and then Shawn.’
‘Why was Shawn so eager to find the place?’
‘Simply because it was a secret? Because adults knew and children didn’t?’
‘So he was spying on you that day you met him in Rustler, trying to find out where the cave was?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘How would he know where to start? Or did he follow you through the Maze that day?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I haven’t been down here since last spring when I came with Sandy and Tracy. But everyone knew the bit about getting the Stone Hawk and the Blanket Man in line – although that’s just for the start of the route – and anyone who’s ever been in Rustler has seen that the only gap in the Barrier, apart from the Twist, is the one beside the Pale Hunter. Ride to that point and you’ve got the start of the trail.’
‘Marked with cairns, too.’
‘Only so far,’ Forset put in. ‘Remember that place with the ash tree where we stopped? There are three joints from that place, not counting the one you came in by. There’s no cairn marking the right joint, and none afterwards. That’s deliberate.’
‘So from that point you need a guide.’
‘Exactly.’
They stepped back to Dolly who had picked up the old skull and was smoothing it with her hand. ‘I know who this is,’ she said. ‘And I always thought it was a legend! This is the poor guy who went searching for the Cave of Hands and never came back. What d’you think happened to him?’
‘The same as the boy,’ Forset said. ‘Rattlers got him.’
‘How appalling.’ She turned wide eyes on them. ‘Is that why Shawn lasted so long, why he didn’t try to get back to Rustler?’ She looked through the trees. ‘He must have gone across the cove, thinking that was the way out – it’s obvious, look: there are the Crimson Cliffs – and then he came to the top of the precipice above Forbidden Creek, and the trail only a short distance below … He’d look over the edge and see the trail, even the houses, and the lights when it got dark, but he couldn’t get down – and too far away from a house for anyone to hear his shouts. So he’d come back to here – meaning to go back to Rustler? – but on the way he trod on a rattler in the dark— ’
‘All right, my dear; it’s all over.’ Forset went to take her arm but she recoiled.
‘Don’t! If we’re going back through that lot,’ – she motioned to the trees – ‘we’re going to make so much noise there won’t be a rattler within a hundred feet of us.’
‘We’ll do that.’ He turned to Miss Pink. ‘What are we going to do about the body?’
‘Someone will have to come up with a large bag. I suppose it will have to be the police.’
‘Not necessarily; it’s obvious it was an accident. However, there’s no way we can take it down.’
‘Then we’d better do what we can to protect it.’
It took them some time to build a kind of shelter over the body, trying not to drop rocks on it, although that was mere sentimentality for it was in such a state that it must be immaterial if another bone were broken. When they had finished they retreated to the shade of a pinyon.
‘Where is the spring?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘Can we drink the water?’
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It’ll be dirty this time of year.’ But she took them all the same. In different circumstances their progress would have been amusing: noisy and rowdy in that quiet place, but they were taking no chances in an overgrown basin where two people had died.
There was a pool and it was scummy. Water bubbled in the centre but they were not tempted to drink. There was mud but no tracks. The sight of water made them thirsty and there was a concerted movement towards the slickrock. The sun was now in the south and shining straight into their eyes. They pulled their hat brims down and trudged doggedly up the slabs towards the Maze, Miss Pink struggling in the rear, the distance increasing between her and Dolly. The gap closed as the younger woman, not so agile on slickrock, paused for breath.
They retraced their steps through the joints with the terrible sunshine close above them on the glaring walls and the air stagnant as still water. They went slowly; all were accustomed to heat and knew the dangers of speed, however easy the gradient, however tempting the thought of containers full of water back where they had left the horses.
They turned right towards the wall, then left from the ash tree, into the hot depths of a joint, turning into one in deeper shadow, marginally cooler, and—
‘Where’s Miss Pink?’ Sarah asked.
‘Shit!’ Dolly exclaimed.
They went plunging back, Dolly in the lead now, Forset stumbling behind her.
‘Wait,’ Sarah shouted. ‘Wait!’
They stopped. ‘Don’t panic,’ she said quietly. ‘Sit down, John – and Dolly. Sit in the shade and wait. I’ll go back.’
Miss Pink was waiting too. She was standing on the edge of the tower above the short jump, the jump that could not be reversed because one cannot leap upwards if there is nothing to grab hold of on the upper tower, the cap of which had been as smooth as a billiard ball. Except that it was no longer smooth. Where she was standing, at the place where the eighty-foot joint might be leapt with ease by an elderly lady, or a ten-year-old boy, was a cairn.
Sarah was breathing hard. She stopped a few yards away and looked at the cairn and the tower below and back to Miss Pink. The pistol on her hip no longer looked incongruous. Each waited for the other to speak and Sarah gave in first.
‘We thought something had happened to you. Why did you come up here?’
‘Because I saw another cairn.’
Sarah looked puzzled. ‘You can’t see this from below, surely?’
‘I saw one in a joint leading out of the well.’
Sarah thought back. ‘I didn’t.’ She moved forward a step.
Miss Pink drew aside. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Back there. What is this cairn for?’
‘This one is to mark the place where you can virtually step across to the next tower.’
‘Oh. You’ve done that?’
‘No, because you can’t get back.’
‘So what are you trying to tell me?’
‘That Shawn didn’t die of snakebite. Most of his bones were broken. He fell from the top of a tower – that tower.’ She pointed to the next. ‘He jumped down from here, walked across the lower one and found himself rimrocked. And he couldn’t get back. He was stuck on that cap, and no one knew he was there. Eventually, probably delirious from thirst, he walked over the edge.’
‘How did you work it out?’
Miss Pink moved towards the way down. ‘It was just an educated guess. It ma
y not have happened like that at all.’
There was a rattle of stones behind her and she turned to see Sarah demolishing the cairn, kicking the rocks into the joint. ‘We’ll make sure no one else makes the same mistake,’ she said.
They climbed down the crack and squeezed through the hole behind the jammed boulders. At the foot of the gully they turned left and, at the place where they should turn towards the well, was another cairn.
‘I missed that one,’ Sarah said, and kicked it to pieces.
‘Who built them?’
‘I don’t know. Ask John. They’ve been here for decades.’
‘I don’t understand— ’ Dolly began.
‘I’m not sure that I do,’ Forset interrupted. ‘Why would anyone build a cairn in a place that was dangerous?’
Miss Pink’s gaze was unfocused but she was looking straight at Dolly who dropped her eyes. They were sitting in the shade under the Pale Hunter, eating a belated lunch.
‘I think that’s exactly why it was put there,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Usually people build cairns to mark a trail, but since the basic motivation is to mark something, occasionally you’ll find one built as a warning; it’s still a marker but it denotes danger. There’s a big cliff in Wales with an easy way down for walkers, and several hard climbs further along. Some thoughtless people built a cairn at the top of a climb which a hiker might well think marked the start of the easy way down.’
‘That’s highly irresponsible,’ Forset said angrily, visualising it. ‘And a hiker got rimrocked?’
‘No. Someone demolished the cairn.’
‘You should have demolished this one, on top of the tower.’
‘I did,’ Sarah said. ‘There was another, down below, in the joint. Who built them, John?’
Miss Pink’s eyes passed casually over Dolly, who concentrated on opening a can of beer.
‘There were cairns already when my dad brought me up here,’ he told them. ‘The kids will have added a few stones down through the years.’ He paused, staring in the direction of the Maze. ‘You can feel sorry for the boy now; I guess he came to the well with the ash tree, scouted around, found the cairns and ended up on top of the tower – and there, you say, was this crucial one, right at the spot where he shouldn’t go?’ His voice rose. ‘The guy that built that cairn’s got a lot to answer for.’
‘He must have died long ago,’ Dolly pointed out. ‘Jesus!’ They stared at her. ‘I know who built them. It was the guy who died in the cove – remember, the skull? He was building cairns all the way through the Maze so’s he could find the way back; that’s what— ’
‘I don’t know,’ Miss Pink interrupted, apologising immediately, but continuing: ‘I’m sorry, but wouldn’t the place to put the cairn be after the jump, not before? Oh, he couldn’t: there were no stones on the last tower … ’
‘Thanks for stopping me there.’ Dolly topped up Miss Pink’s glass with lemonade and lowered herself into a wicker chair on her porch. ‘I thought I did very well on the whole; there was no way they could have guessed we’d been in the Maze already – but why should we keep quiet with Sarah and John?’
‘Because they might talk,’ Miss Pink said absently. ‘The fewer people who know we were there the better, particularly now … You did very well, my dear.’
‘I’m not a child.’
‘What?’
‘You’re treating me like a child. You’re miles away, Melinda; what’s on your mind?’ Miss Pink said nothing. Dolly resumed, but more gently: ‘It was a terrible shock and, personally, I couldn’t bear to look, but, as John said, it’s over. I’m sorry for Maxine, though. Do you think she feels things very deeply? Perhaps not. But then there’s Myrtle; she adored Shawn – and she’ll have Maxine to cope with— ’
‘Could he have been pushed?’
‘Maxine will flip – what did you say?’
‘He was too bright to go into the Maze with Birdie’s killer. Besides, if he was pushed, how would the killer get back? You can’t jump back – there’s nothing to grab hold of. No, it had to be an accident.’
‘Of course it was an accident,’ Dolly said, and listened. ‘Damn, there’s a car coming.’ She stood up. ‘Who do we know drives a white Porsche? And someone behind him in a green Subaru. This is an invasion.’
‘It’ll be the police.’
‘The Subaru maybe, not the Porsche.’
Neither car held the police. The driver of the Porsche was very large and fat and genial, inclining his head to them but waiting without self-consciousness for the arrival of the other car and the emergence of a copper-haired girl in mirror glasses and hot pants. They approached the porch together and introduced themselves. The girl was Carol Taft from the Nebo Examiner; the jolly Porsche driver was Butch Maguire and he was a repossessor. He collected cars when people defaulted on the payments, which was how he came by the Porsche, as he explained to Dolly who admired it; a beautiful automobile but somewhat cramped, he said, and how might he get in touch with her neighbour, Glen Plummer?
There was a charged silence. ‘Just go and knock on his door,’ Dolly said weakly. ‘May I get you all a drink?’
‘That would be very welcome,’ Maguire said, settling in his chair and stretching his log-like legs.
Carol Taft said brightly: ‘He was here yesterday afternoon?’ She raised her eyebrows at Miss Pink who smiled, interpreting it as a statement.
Dolly brought bottles of beer and glasses. She stared pointedly at the bulge under Maguire’s jacket. ‘I’ll allow you to remove your jacket, Mr Maguire, provided you also remove your gun.’
‘That’s most congenial of you, ma’am.’ He was not in the least discomfited. He stood up and, watched by the women, draped his jacket over the back of his chair, placed his gun underneath it, and resumed his seat, beaming at them.
‘I want Plummer’s Volvo,’ he said.
Dolly made a strangled sound. ‘Are you telling us that Glen Plummer defaulted on payments of a car?’
‘That’s what I’m all about, ma’am, it’s what you might call the reason for my existence.’
Dolly looked at Miss Pink. ‘But he’s a multi-millionaire!’
‘Oh, yes?’ Maguire smiled politely.
Carol Taft’s eyes were sparkling. ‘What did he tell you?’ she asked in a tone of patronising amusement.
Dolly was furious. ‘We take people on trust here!’
Miss Pink studied the outline of Calamity Mesa and tried to hide a smile.
‘You knew, ma’am.’ Maguire didn’t miss much for all his appearance of softness.
‘I didn’t know anything,’ she confessed. ‘Was someone after him besides yourself?’
‘There, you see? It was some people from up north, around Salt Lake. He had a lot of irons in the fire, I suspect, but the scam they want to talk to him about concerns a company building log cabins out in the desert, sub-development, you know? Mr Plummer wouldn’t start work without he had a nice little advance and the idea was to collect commissions from a lot of people with more money than sense, and run.’
‘How much?’ Dolly asked.
‘I should think the rake-off there was about ten thousand.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Well, he wasn’t very clever, not at the top of his profession, but that was just one little company and it was mostly profit. All he needed was letterheads and an office and a clerk, but he owes money to printers throughout Utah and Nevada, and he never paid his rent, and his clerk was his wife.’
Miss Pink laughed helplessly but Dolly was livid. ‘You’re telling us he was just an ordinary con-man!’
‘Well, not all that ordinary; he had a modest success.’ Maguire seemed concerned that denigration of his quarry might diminish himself.
‘What was he doing here?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Lying low after the log cabin scam and waiting for his wife to join him. She’s on a trip to the coast to see the children. They live with Plummer’s in-laws when their parents are wo
rking away from home.’
Dolly said spitefully: ‘He left here at a bad time. Now the police will be after him.’
‘I doubt— ’ Miss Pink began, and stopped. Carol Taft was taking a notebook out of her bag.
‘You don’t think he’s a suspect?’ she asked Miss Pink.
‘How much do you know?’
For a moment the girl was disconcerted. ‘Your colleagues will be with the police,’ Miss Pink said meaningly.
‘Probably. They’re a bit slow. I’ve been with the police and I know that you found the little boy’s body and he was thrown over a precipice by the same person killed the Indian kid. That’s the gist of it.’
‘You know more than we do,’ Miss Pink said drily, and turned back to Maguire. ‘The police will try to find him simply because he did make a break for it, but he can’t be a suspect if they’re thinking Shawn was murdered. Plummer can’t ride so he was never in Rustler Park. However, your best bet is to work with the police; they’ll lead you to him.’
‘Perhaps his landlord has an address.’
‘For my money, Mr Maguire, his landlord will also have been bilked of his rent.’
‘Not John,’ Dolly said stoutly. ‘He’d have insisted on rent in advance.’
Chapter 15
That evening the news spread like a forest fire and local people reacted nervously, resentfully, as if the finding of Shawn’s body was an interruption in their attempts to return to normal after Birdie’s death. Maxine was the exception. She went into deep shock and was taken to hospital where she could be supervised as she came out of the stupor engendered by alcohol and drugs to face a reality exacerbated by withdrawal symptoms. Myrtle went with her.
As for Plummer’s flight, Sprague and Pugh did not seem interested, nor did the press. Even the most inexperienced reporter thought that professional con-men were too wily to commit murder.
There was no news of Alex Duval who was presumed to be still out in the country beyond the Straight Canyons. Bob Duval had been questioned again. He was suddenly eager to help the police, said he had gone up to Bighorn Spring to tell Alex the police wanted to talk to him, but had found no sign of him, and there was no telling where he was; the only way to find him was with a helicopter. And Bob knew as well as the police did that no one was going to authorise the expense of another chopper to look for a man who knew these canyons like the back of his hand.