The Man Who Followed Women

by Bert Hitchens

  Randy turned away and headed for the tent, and Kernehan jumped from the car and went after him. Randy flung around. “You keep away from me.”

  Kernehan stood with sweat running down his face, his fists clenched. “It’s pretty big, isn’t it? Too big for you to blab about.”

  “It’s not so doggone much,” Randy said, “and I don’t have to talk to you about it. We didn’t ask you to come here, we weren’t the ones who offered about furnishing meals, or anything. We …” Randy’s voice was shaking, his face white even in the heat. “I even liked you,” he blurted out, then ran into the tent.

  Kernehan yanked up the tent flap and went in. Randy had sat down on a cot, his face turned away. There were two army cots, the bedding folded in a heap on one, the one Randy must have moved out by the chicken house last night to guard against coyotes. Kernehan saw a stack of apple boxes in the corner, shaped up into shelves, with clothes piled in them. No TV of course, not even a battery radio. A single chair. In that moment Kernehan took in something that had heretofore escaped him. He said quietly to Randy, “How much did it all cost … two tents, the truck, the gear, chickens—”

  Randy didn’t look up. He said, “Grandad had a thousand dollars saved. He’s got about two hundred left. He put four hundred and fifty into the truck, painted it with me helping. He spent about two hundred for the tents and the groceries, the rest for chickens and feed. He took some eggs into town today to trade on more feed. If we can make a go of the chicken business, we’ll stay.”

  “And if you don’t stay?”

  “I’ll go back to jail.”

  Kernehan sat down on the other cot. “What’s it all about?”

  “I stole a car. There was a gun in the glove compartment, just like in yours. I wrecked the car, and when the cops came I got excited and I … I used the gun to try to get away. I didn’t shoot, I just … showed it. They put me in a reform school and I didn’t get along so well, and I was headed for the … for something tougher. It didn’t seem as if anybody gave a hoot. My mother was in the hospital, and the county was paying my board with some people. Well, I guess that really didn’t have much to do with it.”

  “Maybe not. Other kids have lived through it without getting into trouble,” Kernehan said. “What happened next?”

  “My grandad was in a rest home in Vermillion. He’s got a bum heart.” Randy’s hands were clenched between his knees, the wrists bulging with strain. “When he heard about me, he got up out of bed and took all his money, and went to see the judge in L.A. Just to give me a break. He promised that we’d get out where I’d have … different surroundings.”

  Through the lifted flap Kernehan could see the deserted, falling-in town and the high ridge and the empty sky. The hens were singing against the desert quiet. Kernehan said, “Well, I was wrong about you two.”

  There was a space of silence. Kernehan knew he had to be on his way. All at once Randy said, “There was one time I was really scared. When I first figured you for a cop.”

  Kernehan was startled. “When was that?”

  “When you tried to get me to fire the gun. I figured you’d been sent out here to test me, to see if I was doing what I’d promised.”

  Kernehan shook his head. “They won’t notice you until you get into trouble again, if you do. Do you still think I’m a cop?”

  “Yeah. I guess it must have something to do with the railroad, though. That’s what you seem to be interested in.”

  The kid was more observing than he’d given credit for, Kernehan admitted to himself. There wasn’t time now to think out all the angles to this thing, but one thing stood out like a light—the tough resolution of the old man determined to salvage his grandson.

  Kernehan stood up. “I’m with the railroad, and I’m a cop. You can tell your grandad when he gets back. I’m going into town, and I don’t know whether I’ll see you again.” He put a hand on Randy’s shoulder. “So I’ll say this now. You’re doing fine. You’ve got a damned good chance to leave it all behind and forget it.”

  “I sure can’t let him down,” Randy said.

  “That’s right.”

  Randy followed him out to the car. “If everybody … if every kid who got into trouble had somebody like him—”

  He looked away into the empty sunlight as if suddenly embarrassed.

  Kernehan had paused with his hand on the switch. He sat that way, quite still, for several moments. “Come back by, if you have time,” Randy invited. “Yes, I’ll do that.”

  In Vermillion, Kernehan called the yard office, but since it was Sunday, Richie wasn’t on duty and the relief patrolman didn’t know how to get hold of Farrel.

  Kernehan drove on down to the river, made inquiries about renting a boat. He learned that north of town was a fishing camp where outboards could be had by the hour. He drove out there, parked, walked down through a lot of clutter—boats being painted and caulked, stacks of lumber, supply sheds—to a row of cabins and a float. He rented an outboard, bought an extra can of gas. The owner offered fishing gear, and Kernehan took it as a cover for his real errand. Then he listened to a word of advice about currents and sand bars, and took off.

  It was cooler out on the water. He passed several other fishing parties, some stationary with lines in the water and others headed up or down river looking for a better spot. Soon he was out of sight of the camp, and then of the other boaters. He was headed directly upstream at maximum speed.

  All signs of cultivation dropped away. The riverbanks had wild, weedy growth, the hills rising starkly behind, tiger-striped with gullies and crevasses. The only sound was that of the motor.

  He came after a long time to the old deserted river station. It was strange, looking at it again from out here; the adobe ruins and the falling corrals, the stubby piling, seemed so much more insignificant, almost lost against the long reach of the river and the tawny bareness beyond. He drew past, rounded a long curve in the river, and found himself looking at a new kind of country.

  The hills grew steeper, they closed in upon the riverbanks. There was no growth, just a footing of fallen rock. Great striations of red sandstone jigged and jagged across the face of the cliffs. At the river level here and there the water had washed away soft layers, and Kernehan saw the black mouths of caves.

  It seemed that there would be no landing place for miles here. He crept on, the cliffs growing higher, the muddy flood pushing hard against the laboring propeller. Then on his left, the west bank, he saw a break in the precipice. Some long-past upheaval had split the bank all the way down to the water, the crumbling walls had shed clay to pave the floor. It was a narrow, straight-sided canyon. He pulled in for a closer look, and saw all the marks on the muddy bank, tire prints and the prints of shoes, the long streaks where a boat had been beached.

  He circled, idling the motor enough to keep headway. Inside the narrow canyon were several caves. He remembered how he and Farrel had speculated, and Farrel’s words: something big that belongs to the landscape. Well, it was big. And it belonged. It had been here longer than anything, including the old river station and any of the mine tunnels.

  It was time to go back to town and report, come back with official reinforcements. Notify the FBI—they were always in on cases of theft involving interstate shipments. Get hold of Farrel, find out what progress he’d made, pinning down the gang’s connection in the office.

  Kernehan drew in a little closer, trying to get a look into the caves. If he could make out just one box, one crate … he let the boat creep against the muddy bank, swinging against the current. He listened and waited. The muttering of the outboard echoed back from the tunnel-like opening, but that was all. He edged on, to a spot where the bank hadn’t been chewed up; he cut the motor, stepped out, grabbed the bow and pulled. He had a bad moment. The current surprised him, almost tearing the boat out of his hands. He felt the sudden wrench all the way up his arms and across his back. Then he had most of the keel out of the water, sliding up on the damp cl
ay. He tipped the motor on its hinge, heaved the boat all the way out, stepped free. His boots were soaked, covered with mud. The sun was far in the west, so that there was shadow here under the cliff. There was a breath of cold from the narrow canyon. He had a sudden hunch, which he perversely ignored, that he was doing something that was a mistake.

  He went a dozen feet and then stopped. He had reached for his hip, and then had remembered the gun—in the dash compartment of his car.

  He shook his head over it, feeling the color come into his face at his own stupidity. Knowing what an old hand like Farrel would have said about it. Knowing that Ryerson would have canned him on the spot.

  Farrel didn’t like him anyway. It was probably exactly what Farrel would have expected him to do.

  He hesitated. But he was here, and this was what he had come to see. He shrugged inside the jacket, went on up into the mouth of the canyon. The slight wind that drew down through the slot had the smell of dust in it, and something more. The gas-and-oil smell of a place where a car is kept. He went twenty feet farther, and there, tucked under an overhanging ledge, was the truck. It was high off the ground on big wheels; it was rusty and dilapidated, if he had seen it anywhere on the desert he would have figured it for an abandoned wreck. He went past it, walking warily, and now he could see into one of the biggest caves.

  He thought, a modern version of Aladdin’s.

  There was a rattling, scratching kind of sound, and he turned. A man had been under the truck with a tool in his hand. He was crawling out. The wrench in his fist looked as big as a baseball bat.

  He was very dark. Black hair grew low on his forehead. His waist was thick inside denim coveralls. His left hand hung free, and suddenly Kernehan saw the star-shaped tattoo on the wrist, and knew him.

  This was Pethro.

  Chapter 20

  In that moment of astonished confrontation Kernehan was suddenly aware of and grateful for the clothes he wore, the faded dungarees and the old khaki shirt, the scuffed boots and leather jacket. The man facing him with the wrench in his hand stood solidly as if blocking him from the river, but in Pethro’s expression there was only annoyance; and Kernehan had a hunch that this same sort of thing might have happened before.

  “What the hell do you want?” Pethro growled. He had a low, husky voice, in it a dragging hesitation that was almost a speech defect.

  Kernehan glanced around, shrugged. “My damned outboard motor’s acting up, I pulled into the bank, and then thought I’d just see what was back here.”

  “This is private property, no trespassers allowed,” Pethro said, in a tone of repeating something in which he had been instructed. “I’d advise you to move along, bud.”

  Kernehan knew better than not to show interest in the truck. He walked forward a couple of steps. “That thing looks pretty beat up to me. Think you can get it running again?”

  Pethro’s eyes didn’t change, didn’t warm up a bit. “I’m working on it.” He moved closer to the fender as if to let Kernehan get past.

  “You herd cattle with it?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “This is a long way from anywhere.”

  “It sure is, and it’s private property.”

  Kernehan waved an arm. “Okay, okay. I can take a hint.” He went by, looking at the river ahead but wary for any movement from Pethro. Then he saw something that gave him a jolt. A big wide-keeled boat with double outboards had swung by the slit of view, obviously slowing for a stop. “Hey,” he said to Pethro, “there’s a boat, a big one!”

  The pop-popping of the double outboards must have reached Pethro at about that moment. There was a flash of sour anger in his face, and he said, “Well, that does it. You’re going to be sorry, bud.”

  “What have I done?”

  “You’ll be sorry,” Pethro repeated, the dragging impediment in his speech almost tying his tongue. “You just stay put until we hear from the Big Man.”

  “The Big Man? Who’s he?”

  He had his answer in about five seconds. Apparently the sight of the strange boat on the bank brought them in a hurry—two men in dungarees and cotton T shirts, barefooted. The big one in the lead must be about six-foot-seven, Kernehan judged. Tall as he was, and wide as he was, he seemed to fill the narrow canyon almost from wall to wall. He had blond hair, almost taffy-colored; it looked as if he’d cut it himself. He had a lot of freckles on his face, a lot of yellow hair on his arms, and fists like a pair of hams.

  Unnecessarily, Pethro muttered, “That’s the Big Man.”

  “You’re right.”

  The second, trailing behind, was about the size and build of Kernehan himself. At one time in his life he had broken his nose. He had the blackest sun tan Kernehan had ever seen.

  The Big Man stopped in his tracks and regarded Kernehan and Pethro in silence. Pethro laid the wrench carefully on the truck’s hood. “He had motor trouble,” he said to the Big Man, “and he thought maybe I could help him.”

  The Big Man thought it over and then smiled, or at least showed a double row of outsize white teeth. “He thought you could help. And how the hell did he know you were in here?”

  “I went down for a smoke,” Pethro said. “He saw me and pulled in.”

  Kernehan saw Pethro’s maneuver, to keep the Big Man from knowing that a stray stranger had been allowed to come so far unchallenged, and he judged that Pethro’s job had been that of guard rather than of repairing the truck. “I just came up here for the wrench, see if I could do anything with his motor,” Pethro added.

  “And brought him along to carry it?”

  The eyes were ugly, close-set in the broad freckled face, the color of two steel pellets. Kernehan said, “I guess I kind of barged in on him. I sure didn’t aim to cause any trouble. It’s private property. He explained that.”

  The pale eyes turned to Kernehan. “You. Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “Kernehan.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  Kernehan looked as puzzled as possible. “I was fishing, or rather I was looking for a place to fish.”

  “Where you from?”

  “L.A.”

  “You came all the way over here to fish?”

  “No, I really came over to look for gem stones. You know, just rockhounding around a little.” The word was a snap. “Where?”

  Kernehan nodded westward. “Out there. Crossed a big salt sink and looked around a couple of old mines. Didn’t find anything worth taking.”

  “Where’d you stay?”

  He had the ugliest mouth Kernehan thought he’d ever seen, the upper lip long and held stiff while he spoke, so that he seemed to be talking through a mask. “I stayed at a camp, bought grub from an old man and a kid. They keep a kind of store, and chickens.” He noted the flashing glance the second man turned on Pethro. They knew what he was talking about. “But now I thought I’d fish a couple of days and then head for home.”

  “You got any I.D. on you?”

  The I.D. he might have produced would have ended things pretty quickly. Kernehan shook his head. “Hell, I left everything in my car in town.”

  The Big Man looked at his second-in-command, and a sort of silent conference took place. Pethro was left out of it, and Kernehan judged his subordinate position by this. Pethro’s expression was sulky and apprehensive, and he kept wiping his palms against the legs of his coveralls, a nervous motion.

  The Big Man spoke to Kernehan. “We’ve got a big operation here, a big strike, I’m not saying what it is but you can guess. Something everybody comes looking for in the desert and damned few of them find.”

  Kernehan showed a lot of interest. “Uranium?”

  “I’m not saying,” the Big Man repeated. Even lying, he was impressive, Kernehan thought. The strangely immobile mouth had the look of letting out a secret. “It’s just that we can’t afford to take chances on strangers. We can’t afford to have our land run over and grabbed up by a lot of knot-headed amateurs.
”

  “My God, I’m not interested in your uranium, I’m just a rockhound. Really,” Kernehan protested, trying to look innocent.

  “If you’re what you say you are, you’re all right. Only, we’ll have to check.”

  If they checked the car at the boat landing, they’d find all the junk he had packed in L.A., private papers among the rest, and somewhere in it the fact that he was a cop, plus the gun in the glove compartment. He braced himself to give them an argument, and at the same time tried to figure his chances of getting away if he charged the Big Man and second-helper—not good, he admitted—but then it turned out that the Big Man had another idea entirely.

  “You say you stayed with the old man at the spring, and that he knows you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s all we need, then.”

  Kernehan tried to analyze that one, tried to pin down the tone—did the Big Man mean that Bucklen was a kind of lookout for them and that if he said Kernehan was okay, they’d take his word? He remembered that he had told Randy that he was a railroad cop and given permission to the kid to tell the old man. So if Bucklen was in with them, as he had thought all along, his goose was cooked as of this minute.

  “I’m going to take the truck,” the Big Man said, “and I’ll be back inside a couple of hours or so, and if things check out you can be on your way, mister.”

  “Okay by me,” Kernehan said, trying to sound indifferent.

  “Billy here”—the Big Man was looking at the guy with the broken nose—“and Pethro will keep you company. Play a little poker if you want. Or listen to the radio. Pethro’ll show it to you. Only just stay put and don’t make like you’re running for the river.”

  They herded him into a cave where there were some broken-backed chairs, some apple crates serving for tables, and a big transistor portable radio. From inside he heard the truck start, a deep-throated powerful roar. He heard the gears take hold, smooth as silk, and then the air held a whiff of gasoline, there was a crunch of broken rock, and the truck and the Big Man were gone.