As I studied the land below, she emerged on the far side of the pine grove, skirting Morgan property the long way around, hurrying toward home—toward Mark Ingram. I wondered how much she was his captive.
One thing I was sure about. I would have to tell Persis Morgan quickly of my stand. I would have to admit to what was now mere boasting and let her know that I thought she was right in her resistance to Mark Ingram. Even if she was wrong, she must do what she most wanted to do—hold on to her house and the valley.
Euphoria still lifted my steps as Red and I followed the downhill trail to the gate I had come through a little while ago. I walked more slowly now, trying to gather my thoughts so that I could face Persis again and sound more sensible than I felt. I went through the gate and neared Jon’s small cabin, wondering idly if he had put it up himself, as seemed likely. It was no primitive cabin. The roof had a good overhang of extended logs, and the windows were wide enough to offer a view of ranch and mountains.
Had he lived here with the “wild little thing” who had been his wife, and who now slept with their baby in a mountain cemetery? Again I felt a personal grief, as though his loss were mine. Yet it was difficult to think of Jon as married, since he always seemed so much a loner.
Though the cabin door stood open, I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to see him right now. My sense of his loss, so newly fresh in me, as well as the knowledge of the step I’d just taken, blocked my way. This was what Jon wanted of me, yet it mustn’t be idle boasting when I told him. I sought to accomplish something real first. Nevertheless, I might stop and speak to him for a moment. About other things.
I approached the cabin door and looked inside. Warm, earth-colored Indian rugs lay on the floor, and an ocher and red weaving hung diagonally over the stone mantelpiece. Some of the furniture looked beautifully hand-hewn, and there were two pottery jars set at either side of the door. A rather Spanish touch.
“Jon?” I called, and then spoke his name again, more loudly.
There was still no answer, but now I heard sounds from the direction of the barn—a man’s voice raised in a shout, the neighing of a horse. As I stood watching, two men on horseback came around the corner of the barn and went galloping furiously toward the far gate of the property. It had been left open, and they went through without stopping, dust flying beneath the hooves of their horses as they pounded away up the valley. Grotesquely, incongruously, both men wore ski masks—somehow ugly and inhuman when there was no skiing.
The two hadn’t looked my way, and I didn’t think they had seen me. Jon was nowhere in sight, and I began to run, with Red beside me. In moments we reached the barn, and I dropped his leash. The stool where Jon had sat when I’d seen him that first time had been knocked over, and his guitar lay on the ground. I ran inside and found him there, just within the door. He had risen to his knees, and there was blood on his face, more seeping through the shoulder of his torn shirt. Shocked and frightened, I ran to bend over him.
“Can you get up? Can you stand? Let me help you to your cabin.”
He seemed dazed, uncertain, and I held his arm as he struggled to his feet. He put an arm about my shoulders, leaning heavily, and we moved slowly toward the cabin. Close as it was, it seemed a mile away, but we managed to reach it. I helped him up the low step and over to the couch by the fireplace before he sagged again. There weren’t many rooms, and I found the bath, caught up a towel, dampened it, and ran back to him.
A lump was rising on his head, and several lacerations were bleeding. I wiped his cut cheek and saw that he was reviving.
“I’ll call the house,” I said. “Gail can help. Where is Sam?”
“He’s gone to bring the horses in from the corral. There’s a phone over there.”
I found the telephone on a low table and sat beside it, dialing quickly. Caleb answered and summoned Gail. I told her that Jon had been hurt.
She wasted no time, sounding professional for once. “I’ll be there right away.”
“She’s coming,” I told Jon. I wanted to kneel beside him, put my arms about him—neither of which I’d dare to do. The shock of seeing him hurt had shaken me badly. “Can I fix you anything?” I managed.
“Coffee might help.”
I left him holding the towel to his face and went into the small galley kitchen. When I’d started coffee in a percolator, I found cup and saucer and set up a small tray. Then I ran back to see how he was doing.
“I’m okay.” His voice was stronger now. “Don’t look so scared. If they’d meant to kill me, they could have.”
“Of course I’m scared. I saw those men galloping away. Can you talk about what happened?”
He took a deep breath. “I think there were two of them. I had only a glimpse before they jumped me. Ingram’s men, of course.”
Belle’s words up in the cemetery came back to me—that I’d better remember to be frightened. Now I was. Terribly frightened.
I went back to the kitchen for the coffee and poured him a cup, brought it to the couch where he lay, trying not to let it rattle in my hands. He sat up gingerly to sip the hot drink as I held it for him.
“Tell me what you saw,” he said.
Now at least I could kneel on the floor close to him. “There were two men in Levi’s and jackets. No hats, but they wore ski masks. One green and one blue. Both horses were roan, I think.”
“Ingram has some of his own hands working around Jasper.”
“But why would he have you beaten like this?”
“I’ve already been warned to stay out of your grandmother’s affairs. Indirectly warned, of course. Caleb Hawes delivered a message from Ingram just recently. He likes a pretense of velvet gloves. Since I’ve paid no attention and have been throwing my weight against him, he seems to have taken off the gloves. He means business now.” Jon moved his head angrily and winced. “God! I can’t think. Why wasn’t I more careful? But I suppose I didn’t expect much more than threats. Not right off. But you’d better follow your hunch and get away, Laurie.”
“I’m not leaving.” I thrust back the depleting fear. “I don’t want to see my grandmother being pushed around. Now what they’ve done to you makes it all the worse. If it was Mark Ingram who ordered this, he can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
Jon managed a faint smile. “Hooray for us! But what’s just happened makes a difference. This may be a lot nastier than I expected. So maybe it’s better if you don’t stay.”
“I’m staying,” I told him. I felt increasingly angry, and I was growing stubborn too, stubborn enough to overcome my fears.
The sound of a car reached us from outside, coming down the rough track from the house. I ran to the door and saw Caleb, Gail, and Hillary get out of the jeep and hurry toward the cabin. Gail ran ahead into the room, carrying a small flight bag.
“Let me see,” she said, bending over Jon.
“What happened to him?” Caleb demanded.
I repeated my account of what I’d seen and what Jon had told me.
Caleb listened and nodded. “Yes, I can believe that Ingram might pull just this sort of thing. It’s a threat. He’s begun to put on pressure.”
“You can’t let him get away with it,” I said.
“And just what do you think can be done?” He was frowning at me, his mouth corners turned down.
Hillary had been moving about the room, and I knew he wasn’t thinking so much about Jon as he was admiring an interesting setting, a dramatic situation. But now he surprised me.
“You can throw Ingram out,” he said.
Even Gail turned her head to stare at him. Jon had been lying with his eyes closed, but now he opened them and looked at me with a faint grin.
“The cavalry is moving in,” I said. “If we all work together, perhaps we can throw him out.”
Caleb had no patience with either Hillary’s words or mine. “There isn’t any cavalry.”
“Sure there is.” Jon winced under Gail’s touch, and then went on. “S
he’s standing right over there looking like Persis Morgan. Better tell them, Laurie.”
I had nothing to tell, but I did my best in Jon’s support. “It’s just that I’ve decided to stay for a while and see if there is something specific that can be done to stop Mark Ingram’s plans.”
Hillary came to put an arm about me. “That’s my girl.”
I still felt surprised. I hadn’t thought that Hillary was really in this fight. He had seemed a little too indifferent to Jon’s injuries, and I didn’t want to play dramatic games.
Caleb’s words cut through our rally round the flag. “You are talking nonsense, all of you. You are young and inexperienced, Laurie, and this is becoming much too dangerous.”
“Dangerous enough to call in the police,” I said.
Before he could answer, the phone rang, startling us all.
“Answer it, please, Laurie,” Jon said.
When I spoke into the receiver, Persis’ voice sounded in my ear, strong and indignant. “Laurie, is that you? What has happened? Caleb said that Jon was hurt, and then he went rushing off. Tell him to come back here at once and let me know what is happening.”
“I’ll tell him,” I said. “I’d like to see you myself if you’ll tell me when I may—” But she had hung up with a click that expressed her displeasure and gave me neither yes nor no.
I repeated her message to Caleb, and he shook his head. “I can’t leave now. Jon may have to be driven to a hospital, and I would need Hillary’s help. You go and talk to her, Laurie. You’re the only one we can spare right now.”
“All right,” I said, “I’ll do what I can. But you’d better call her and tell her your plans as soon as they’re made.”
“Just don’t upset her with your nonsense.” He gave me a light push toward the door, as though he feared I might change my mind. I glanced at Jon, whose eyes were closed again, and at Gail and Hillary. No one had anything else to offer, so I went outside and whistled for Red. He didn’t come, and I thought nothing of it. With all this acreage in which to run loose, my feckless dog could have followed his interests in a hundred directions by now. He would come back when it pleased him, and he couldn’t get outside the fence.
Over in the direction of Old Desolate the ranch gate that opened on the trail up the valley stood wide, as the riders had left it. I was a city girl, and I didn’t even glance in that direction.
XII
Persis awaited me in a chair by the window that looked out toward the barn and Jon’s cabin. When I tapped at the open door she called to me to come in, still sounding vigorous and outraged. If Gail had tried to sedate her, it hadn’t worked this time.
“Well?” she said when I stood beside her. “Pull up a chair and sit down. I don’t like to be kept in the dark about what’s going on. Why isn’t Caleb here? Why you?”
I found that she alarmed me less when she was out of bed and not fading away against a pillow.
“I’m glad you’ve decided not to die,” I said. “Getting mad suits you.”
The lines between her thick dark eyebrows deepened. “Don’t be impertinent, Laurie. Tell me about Jon.”
“I’m sorry. Caleb sent me because Jon has been beaten, and may have to be driven to a hospital. Two men on horses came in and jumped him. They got away. I saw them go. But they wore ski masks and I could never identify them.”
Someone had helped her into a long wine-colored robe and placed a blanket over her knees. Her hands, weathered by life and marked with veins and freckles, clenched themselves upon the blanket.
“That cruel, terrible man! How is Jon?”
“Gail doesn’t think it’s serious. She’s patching him up. Why do you believe that Ingram was behind this?”
“Because it’s what he would do. He’s ruthless. I’ve had Caleb investigate that big operation of his in Kansas. There was plenty that was unscrupulous in the way he got the land, and others always suffered. But he moved just this side of the law, or bought the law when he could. I don’t think he’ll stop at much to get what he wants.”
“But why Jon? Even if Jon wants you to fight him, what can either of you really do?”
“He’s making a threat to me through Jon. A promise of what may come if I don’t give in.”
I could readily believe that. “It’s more than the ski resort, isn’t it? Is there any real way he can hurt you, force you?”
She stared at me grimly, and I knew she wasn’t going to answer. When she spoke again, the strength was draining out of her.
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” she said.
“You can’t give up now. You can’t let Ingram get away with this!”
Her eyes came wide open. Those deep-set eyes that could see so much and that still burned with an appetite for life. “I won’t give up if you can go on sounding like that. But you could be hurt too, Laurie.”
“I think we’ve got to try.”
She held out her hand, and I felt again the force that could still surge through her weakened body.
“Maybe you’ll do,” she said. “I can still remember you as a little girl. You were curious about everything. I taught you to ride and shoot and play a rope. Your father was always a tenderfoot, with his nose in books, so he and your mother hated what I was doing. Maybe they were right and I was wrong. But I wanted you to grow up to take over the ranch and make it the way it used to be. Now maybe you will.”
“Nothing’s the way it used to be,” I said. “And it won’t ever be again. You can’t go back to those days you liked best.”
“Yes, I can! I go there all the time. Even back to Domino. Whenever things get too much for me here, I go there in my mind. And when I return I don’t feel so helpless anymore.”
“I haven’t ever thought you were helpless.”
“They think I am. Not Jon. Caleb and that nurse. I don’t need a nurse, but Dr. Burton believes she’s necessary. I pack her out of my room whenever I can, and I don’t always take those pills she shoves at me.”
“Then let’s send her away, now that I’m here.”
“In a little while. I want to know what she’s up to first. I don’t trust her, Laurie. I’m not sure why she’s here. I’m not sure of the real reason.”
I thought of what Belle had said about Gail sneaking over to the hotel, and I began to think I knew. Ingram’s machinations reached everywhere.
Persis turned her attention sharply upon me. “How is Caleb behaving about all this?”
“Caleb?” I was surprised at the question. “He seems his usual self—counseling caution, and all that.”
“Has he sent for the police?”
“He hadn’t at the time I left, but I suppose he will.”
She was shaking her head. “Sometimes he worries me. I understand him very well. All his life he has been a projection of what others thought he should be.”
“How do you mean?”
“First, his father. Always criticizing him. Never letting him breathe for himself. Not even trusting Caleb to take over the firm when his father got too old. I haven’t given him an easy time either. That’s why—” She hesitated, letting the words die away.
“That’s why—what?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you one of these days. At least Caleb has his own ways of fighting. Sometimes they can be rather tricky ways of trying to get his own back. But he’s been loyal to me for most of his life, and I think he still is. Just don’t trust him completely, Laurie. I’m never quite sure anymore what he’s up to.”
I felt mystified by her words, and not at all reassured. “He doesn’t like me. And I don’t trust him at all.”
“That was to be expected—his not liking you. But never mind about Caleb now. There’s something else I want to talk about. I still don’t like the way you went into the Domino house today when I’d asked you not to.”
“If I stay, Grandmother, I may not always do exactly what you tell me to.”
“I don’t suppose you will. Not if you’re Morgan and Tre
mayne. Tell me about the house. Tell me what you felt and thought when you were in it.”
I was willing enough to talk about Domino. “I don’t know why, but I feel a strong pull to that place. As though something in me belongs there. I loved the house, and I kept trying to imagine Malcolm and Sissy Tremayne living there. And you as a little girl. Jon says you were born there.”
“I was. Go on.”
“One of the rooms I went into was yours, and I brought this back with me.”
I still had the bit of torn wallpaper in my jacket pocket, and I held it up for her to see. Away from the house where they belonged, the daisies that had once been bravely gold and lavender looked faded, dingy.
Nevertheless, her eyes brightened. “My mother loved those mountain daisies that grow everywhere in the summer, and she picked that wallpaper from a catalogue. I remember her telling me that she wanted to bring summer back in the long wintertime. Why did you tear that piece off the wall?”
“To remember Domino by. Perhaps to have something from a time that belongs to me too.”
She closed her eyes, and I couldn’t guess what she was thinking.
“Shall I come back after dinner tonight at the Timberline and tell you about whatever happens? There has to be a confrontation now.”
“Yes.” She spoke without opening her eyes. “I don’t sleep long at a time these nights. So look in on me. I’ll want to hear.”
I hesitated, and then put the question that was haunting me. “Tell me one more thing, Grandmother. When my father died—did Noah Armand come back here? Caleb says he left the week before. But I wonder if that’s true. Did he come back to this house, Grandmother?”
Though she was looking at me again, her eyes were lost in shadow, and I couldn’t read their expression. For a little while she was still, though I saw the tightening of her hands on her lap, so that the knuckles grew white against the splotches of brown.
“He came back,” she said. “I’ve cursed him for it a thousand times since—but yes, he did come back.”
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