He caught and held her gaze for a minute before answering. “No.” As if shaking off a mood, he hooked the basket packed with provender that Mrs. Nelson had provided and that had been sitting on the front seat between them. “Here. Let’s have a picnic.”
“A picnic sounds nice, but it’s going to be dark pretty soon.” She tried to sound enthusiastic but feared she didn’t quite make it.
Mari’s idea of a picnic, fostered by copious novel reading, should be held on a quilt spread out at the seashore. Or on some vast green lawn somewhere overlooking a lake. Something like that. Squinting at her cabin, the two half whiskey barrels in which she’d planted geraniums in an effort to perk the place up, and the bare earth spreading out on every side thereafter, she decided this scenario didn’t fit her mental pictures of proper picnic places.
But that was nothing to the purpose. She smiled up at Tony when she exited the car, having waited without murmur as he walked around to open her door. “A picnic sounds very nice. We can set out the food on my table and pretend we’re in the mountains.” What the heck, she was good at pretending, wasn’t she?
As soon as Tony opened the back door, Tiny bolted out of the automobile and frolicked around his two human friends for several seconds. Then he bounded away, celebrated his return home by lifting his leg against a cabin wall, and proceeded to gambol off into the desert.
“He looks like he’s dancing,” Tony commented with a smile.
“He likes to be home.” Even this home. Mari pushed her door open and stepped inside. She frowned. “Something’s not right in here.”
Instantly Tony shot past her into the cabin, looking around as if he were searching for bandits. “What? Where? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, dear, will you look at that?” Mari walked over to the fireplace, where faded photographs of her parents were displayed in yellowing paper frames. Both photographs now lay face down on the mantel. She picked them up and set them in their proper places. “That chair wasn’t on its back when I left, either.”
Tony’s nose wrinkled as he scanned the tiny cabin. As he picked the chair up and set it right, he asked, “What could have done this?”
“I have no idea. I know we didn’t have an earthquake since this morning.”
“Do you think somebody’s been in here?”
Slowly, Mari circumnavigated her home. It didn’t take long. The box where she kept her clothes neatly folded had been moved, and her clothes looked as though they’d been gone through. “Yes,” she said at last. “But I don’t know why.”
Tony rubbed his chin and frowned. “I don’t like this. It might be part and parcel of the other things that have been going on.”
Shaking her head in bewilderment, Mari asked, “But why go through my house? I don’t have anything worth taking.” Pathetic, but true.
“I don’t know. Can you lock the door?”
“I can bolt myself in at night, but there’s never been any need to have a lock on the door. Heck, sometimes prospectors pass by, and it’s customary to leave the latch ring outside the door so they can come in and grab some water and bread and butter if they’re hungry and no one’s home.”
Lifting his eyebrow in a faintly ironic gesture, Tony murmured, “Magnanimous.”
Miffed, Mari snapped, “We share what we have. It may not be much by your standards, but it’s what we can do.”
He held up his hands, as if surrendering to superior forces. “I didn’t mean anything by my comment, Mari, honest.”
She didn’t believe him, but she let it pass. “But this doesn’t look like a miner’s doing. This looks-strange.”
“Is anything missing?”
She shook her head, since her one walk around the cabin had been sufficient for her to know the answer to that one “Nope. Like I said, I don’t have anything to steal.”
“Maybe they were looking for money.”
“Don’t have any of that, either,” she said sourly.
“What about your Peerless pay?”
She gaped at him. “I don’t keep, money lying around my house, for heaven’s sake. That first check I got from Martin, I put in the bank as soon as I could.”
He eyed her curiously. “You didn’t spend any of it? None?”
She shrugged. “On what?”
“I don’t know. Food? Clothing?” He glanced around her pathetic home. “Curtains? Rugs?”
Her heart gave a painful spasm. “For this place? Be serious, Tony. Why would I waste money on luxuries for this dump?” She hadn’t meant to sound so bitter. Bitterness was an unbecoming and unpleasant characteristic, and Mari tried never to give in to it.
He stared at her for several seconds, fully long enough for her to get itchy. At last he said, “Mari.” But his voice petered out, and he didn’t continue.
Irked with herself and annoyed with him for making her nervous, she said curtly, “Yes?”
“Mari, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Oh?” Figuring there was nothing to do about a long-departed intruder but pick up after him, Mari refolded her clothes as Tony thought and shoved the box back into the corner where it belonged. Then she got the checked tablecloth she used for company from the shelf where she stored it, flapped it open, and laid it on her rickety table. She might not be able to create elegance, but she could at least use a tablecloth for company.
Tony didn’t speak again for several moments, and she glanced up at him, curious. He seemed remarkably ill at ease for such a man of the world. She raised her eyebrows in a question. He licked his lips.
Strange. Mari’d never seen him disconcerted before. Well, except when he’d been mad at her. But that was only natural. She’d probably be pretty peeved if somebody’d hit her with a rock, too. She grinned as she went to the kitchen area of her cabin and found two forks, two knives, and two spoons. None of them matched, but a body didn’t need matched flatware to eat a basket lunch. No matter what the Tony Ewings of this precious world might think
He started speaking again when her back was turned. “You see, Mari, it’s like this. I . . . well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and . . .”
Tony didn’t finish that sentence either, but only because both he and Mari had their ears assaulted by the report of a gun, followed instantly by a hideous howl from Tiny. Mari, whose heart stopped at the sound of her dog in distress, dropped her silverware and bolted toward the door. Tony caught her before she could race outside and rescue Tiny.
“Wait!” he shouted.
“Tiny’s hurt!” She started crying, in spite of telling herself she wouldn’t. “I have to get to him!”
“Dammit, wait a minute. Somebody’s out there with a gun, for God’s sake, and he might be just as happy to shoot you as your dog.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care! Tiny’s all I have!” If she’d been in possession of her senses, she’d have been embarrassed by her pitiful wail, but she wasn’t. All she could think about was the possibility of losing Tiny, and she couldn’t bear it:
“Stop it, Mari. Here, I’ll help you look for him But don’t run out until I find out if it’s safe.”
“No!” It was no use. She knew he was right. With her heart breaking and her life crumbling around her, Mari crumpled up onto a chair and buried her face in her hands. “Go ahead,” she sobbed. “Go ahead and see if it’s safe. If Tiny’s been hurt, I-I’ll—”
But she had no idea what she’d do. Kill herself? Already she wanted to. Life was hard enough. If she had to face it without Tiny, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t survive.
Tony watched Mari for a minute to be sure she wasn’t going to dash out the door when he opened it. Damn, she looked awful. He wished he could hold her and pet her and tell her he’d take care of everything. But he had no right to do that. Anyhow, that might be a lie, and he discovered within himself a distinct reluctance to lie to her. The poor kid had it hard enough already. She didn’t need to contend with lies, too.
If he ever caught the per
son who was doing these things, he’d kill him with his bare hands. Thinking quickly, he got Mari’s battered old hat from its peg by the door, grabbed the broom from a corner, and stuck the hat on the broomstick. Carefully, he opened the door and showed the hat-on-a-stick in a way that he hoped resembled a person cautiously peering outside.
Nothing happened. A faint, faraway whine came through the open door, and Tony turned his head to see if Mari’d heard it. She had. She lifted a tear-stained face, eloquent with longing, and stared at the open doorway.
“Tiny?” she asked in a small voice.
“I’ll get him,” Tony promised. “As soon as I know it’s safe.”
She nodded. He hadn’t known she could be so reasonable. He had a strong hunch this was an aberration brought about by too much excitement, too many bad things happening, and sheer terror over the fate of her dog. He understood, even though he’d never been in a similar position himself. It was astonishing how having sufficient money could shield one from the rough side of life.
Taking a chance and hoping he’d survive it, Tony sucked in a deep breath and stepped into the doorway. Nobody shot him, so he ventured a step away from the cabin. Tony’s whine became louder, as if he were begging for help.
The chair scraped behind him, and Tony turned in time to catch Mari before she could rush past him and out to her dog. “We’ll go together,” he said calmly. He didn’t feel calm. He felt like hell. As a precaution, he took his revolver out of his jacket pocket.
Mari eyed the gun with astonishment. “I didn’t know you carried a gun.”
“It’s a concession to the Wild West,” he said ironically. The truth was, he hadn’t known what to expect when he’d agreed to come to. California. For all he’d known, there were desperadoes on every corner, and life was as cheap as depicted in those torrid yellowback novels. He hadn’t expected to discover California to be almost as civilized as the eastern seaboard.
Mari didn’t question his assumptions about her home state. He had to hold her back from running out onto the desert. “Stick by my side, Mari,” he said in a hard voice. “If we separate—well, I don’t know.”
For all he knew, someone wanted to kidnap Mari and hold her for ransom. What with all the other kinds of vandalism going on, that didn’t sound as fantastic to him as it might have a couple of weeks ago.
“Oh, please, Tony!” she begged. “I’ve got to get to Tiny.”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Tears still rolled down her face, and his heart swelled with compassion.
Daylight was fading fast out there in the desert, where light didn’t linger long after the sun went down. Tony snagged the lantern Mari kept on a hook beside the door and handed it to Mari. As they warily walked farther away from the cabin, he patted his pockets until he found a box of matches. Then, not daring to stop to be efficient, for fear Mari would get away from him, he fumbled around until he’d got the wick lighted. The lantern didn’t help much now, but if they had to search very long for Tiny, it would come in handy. “You’d better call him, Mari.”
She obliged in a voice trembling with emotion. “Tiny? Tiny! Where are you, boy?”
If her dog had been killed, Tony wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he’d never stop looking for the perpetrator. Mari loved that nonsensical horse of a dog and, therefore, so did Tony. The realization came upon him suddenly and didn’t surprise him He’d almost given up pretending he didn’t care about Mari. Hell, he’d been on the verge of proposing marriage when Tiny’d been shot.
He shivered in the cooling evening air, wondering if that had been a propitious escape or the other kind. As he’d never even considered marriage before he’d bumped into Mari, he wasn’t sure. However, although he deplored the reason for it, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat relieved that his proposal had been thwarted. He really ought to think good and hard about what marriage entailed before popping the question.
After all, he and Mari were about as far apart socially as a bird was from a mole. Which wasn’t an altogether inapt comparison if he did say so himself.
Deciding to help out on the calling front, Tony called softly, “Tiny, where are you, boy?”
“Do you think we need to be so quiet, Tony? Do you think whoever shot him is still lurking?”
Lurking. Good word. Made Tony’s skin crawl. Before he could answer her, they both heard the distant rumble of a motorcar starting up. Mari gripped his arm convulsively. Tony’s lips tightened.
“I guess that answers your question,” he muttered. “Whoever did the deed is evidently escaping.”
A strangled sob greeted this piece of conjecture. Tony put his arm around her waist. “Buck up, Mari. I’m sure we can save him.”
“Oh, Lord!” For only seconds, Mari seemed in danger of total collapse. Then, as Tony might have expected, she pulled herself up straight, wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, and shouted, “Tiny! Tiny, where are you!”
A pathetic whimper, totally unlike anything else Tony’d heard issue from the Great Dane’s throat, responded to her. Mari cried out and broke away from Tony.
“Damnation.” He pelted after her, disconcerted because she was only a couple of yards away and already fading into the twilight gloom. Having longer legs than she, he caught up at once.
They both stopped dead at the sight of Tiny huddled on the ground, a large black heap, looking as though he’d been cut down in full stride. Mari clapped her hands over her mouth, and Tony heard another sob break from her lips. He felt like crying, too.
He’d never have imagined Tiny in such a pitiful condition. The dog lay on his side, evidently unable to lift his head but staring at them as if they were his salvation. As incongruous as it seemed, his tail began to wag. Tony thought what a great pair this girl and her dog were. They both had more spirit than brains, and he couldn’t think of any two beings on this earth that he honored more.
Snapping out of his stupor almost immediately, he barked at Mari, “Stay with him and give him what comfort you can. I don’t want to try to lift him and carry him back to the cabin. He might not make it
Another strangled sob from Mari.
“So I’ll get the motorcar.”
“But the tires . . .”
“To hell with the tires. Tiny’s more important than a dozen Pierce Arrows.”
As he loped back to the cabin, Tony couldn’t believe he’d actually said that. Even more, he couldn’t believe he’d meant it. But he had. Still did, for that matter.
Cursing the minutes as they passed, he cranked the car’s motor to life, leaped behind the wheel, and as carefully as could be, drove to Tiny. Mari’d been right to worry about the tires, he thought grimly as something spiky pierced one of them and he heard air whooshing out of it.
But to hell with the tires. To hell with the whole car if it came to that. Mari’s dog was in peril, and Tony was going to rescue it or die trying.
Perhaps not anything that dramatic. But he was going to do his very best to see that Tiny survived this ordeal.
For one thing, he felt responsible, even though he knew intellectually that he wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault someone was trying to disrupt production of Lucky Strike. Still, his father’s money was backing the picture, and Tony was presently in charge of his father’s movie money. Ergo, he did feel responsible, logical or not.
He was grateful he’d thought about a lantern when he came upon the tableau created by Mari and her pooch. The lantern light directed Tony to a perfect spot. Mari, huddled beside her huge dog and smiling pathetically, waved at him. As if he could ever misplace her. Still, the lantern helped.
Driving as close as he could get to the pair, he let the engine idle while he scrambled out of his jacket, rolled his shirtsleeves up, and snatched a blanket out of the car’s rumble seat. “Let me look at him before we do anything.”
“He-he’s got a hole in his side, and it’s bleeding. I think the bullet’s still in him.”
The brokenhearted comment almost broke Tony’
s own heart, but he swore at himself to be strong. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. But lots of folks survive bullet wounds. And so do lots of animals.” As if he knew anything about bullet wounds. Still, it was probably true.
“Oh, I hope so.”
Her tone of voice was so fervent that Tony very nearly dropped the blanket and kissed her. She wouldn’t have thanked him for that however, so he didn’t.
Kneeling beside Tiny, he spoke softly to the beast. “It’s all right, boy. We’ll just see what’s going on here, and then we’ll get you back home to rest and recuperate.”
Although Tiny whined and whimpered with pain when Tony felt around the bloody hole, he didn’t try to bite, which Tony thought was quite magnanimous of him, considering he was a dumb animal, in pain and didn’t know what was going on. “I think he’s only shot in the one spot.”
“That’s all I could find, too,” confirmed Mari, again wiping her eyes.
“Okay. Let’s see if we can get him onto the blanket. Then we can lift the blanket and carry him to the motor.”
“All right.”
Tony heard her take a big breath, as if she were bracing herself for the coming ordeal. He did the same thing. “All right, Tiny,” he whispered, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible. “This might hurt, boy, but we’re trying to help you.”
“It’s all right, Tiny,” Mari added. “That’s a good boy. Come on now.”
Inch by painful inch, they maneuvered the gigantic dog onto the blanket. Tony had to pass a sleeve over his dripping forehead to wipe away perspiration when they finally succeeded. It wasn’t all that hot, but his heart was hammering like a bass drum, his nerves were jumping like frogs in a pond, and he was sweating like a pig. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks, and asked God for a little more good luck. “All right.” He glanced at Mari over the inert body of her dog. “Do you know how much Tiny weighs?”
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