Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (Ss) (1999)

by L'amour, Louis

  He'd helped locate the original claims, he an' Dunhill together.

  Ten years he worked around, tryin' to find what happened to that vein. Then he found a pocket and got enough ore out of it to hire an engineer. He hired Tom Marshall.

  Marshall came in here and worked for two months, and then quit, turning in a report that it was useless, the mine was played out. Campbell gave up then, and he took a regular job, mostly to pay his daughter's tuition at some school she was goin' to out in Los Angeles.

  Finally, he got an offer for the mine. It wasn't much, but it was something, and he sold. Sold it out for a few thousand dollars.

  Soderman looked up, grinning wryly. His teeth were big, white and strong looking. When the new outfit moved in, Marshall was the superintendent. They opened the mine up an' he had the vein uncovered in less than a week!

  That's bad. He finds the vein, lies to Campbell, then gets backing. That was dirty.

  You said it! Soderman's voice was hard with malice. I couldn't blame him. Probably most of the townspeople sympathized with Campbell.

  Anyway, he continued, the day shift came out of the hole, and Marshall went down to look it over. They didn't have a night shift, but were plannin' one. Nobody ever saw Marshall again alive.

  How does Campbell tie in?

  Weber, he was watchman at the mine, saw Campbell go into the mine. He ran to stop him, but Campbell was already inside. So Weber let him go.

  When did they find Marshall?

  Day shift man found him when he came on the next morning.

  Nobody looked for him that night? What about his wife?

  Soderman shook his head. Marshall usually worked at night, slept during the day. He'd been working night shifts a long time, and got used to it. Habit he had.

  Work at home?

  He had an office at the mine.

  I shifted my coat to the other arm and pulled the wet sleeve free of the flesh. Then I mopped my brow. The jail was at the far end of town. It was hotter than blazes, and as we plodded along in the dust, little whorls lifted toward our nostrils. Dust settled on my pant legs, and my shoes were gray with it.

  This looked like they said, pretty open and shut.

  Why was Lew Marshall suspicious? He had told me nothing, just sent me along with a stiff retainer to look into the killing.

  The jail was a low concrete building with three cells.

  It was no more than a holding tank for prisoners who would be sent on to the county building up north.

  You got him in there?

  The big man laughed. The old fool cussed the prosecutor at the preliminary hearing. He wouldn't post a bond, so the judge sent him back here.

  The air was like an oven inside. There was an office that stood with the door open, and we walked in. As we stepped into view of the three barred doors, I saw the gray-eyed girl from the bus standing in front of one of them. She started back as she saw us.

  Who are you? Soderman wasn't the polite sort.

  I'm Marian Campbell. I've come to see my father.

  Oh? He looked at her, then he smiled. I had to admit the guy was as good-looking as he was tough. I left him looking at her and stepped to the cell door.

  Campbell was standing there. He was a short, broad man with heavy shoulders and a shock of white hair.

  I'm Bruce Blake, a private detective, I said. They sent me down here to look into Marshall's death. You the guy who killed him?

  I haven't killed anybody an' I told 'em so! He looked right straight at me and his gray eyes reminded me of the girl's. Tom Marshall was a double-crossing rat, an' maybe he needed a whippin', but not killin'. I'd not waste my time killin' him.

  What did you go to the mine for? I mopped my brow. Soderman and the girl were both listening.

  To get some of that ore for evidence. I was going to start suit against him.

  You see him?

  He hesitated. No, he said finally. I never saw hide nor hair of him. The snake!

  If I was going to ask intelligent questions I was going to need more information. I ran my fingers through my hair. Whew! I said. It's hot here. Let's go.

  Soderman turned away and I followed him out into the white heat of the street. It was a climb back, and that didn't make me any happier. Certainly, Campbell had motive and opportunity. The guy looked straight at you, but a lot of crooks do that, too. And he was the type of western man who wouldn't take much pushing around.

  However, that type of western man rarely dodged issues on his killings.

  What do you think? Soderman wanted to know.

  He stopped, sticking a cigarette between his lips. He cupped a match and lighted it.

  What can a guy think? Crotchety. Seems like he might have the temper to do it.

  Sure. Ain't even another suspect.

  Let's talk to the wife.

  Why talk to her? Soderman said roughly. She's been bothered enough.

  Yeah, but I can't go back and turn in a report when I haven't even talked to his wife.

  Grudgingly, he admitted that. When he started up to the house, it was easy to see why he'd hesitated. It was a climb, and a steep one.

  What the devil did they live up here for? I asked.

  It would be a day's work to climb this hill, let alone anything else!

  This ain't their home. She's just livin' here a few days. The Marshall house is even further up, but it's easier to get at. He pointed to a small white house with two trees standing on the open hillside in full view of the town. That's it.

  Donna Marshall was sitting in the living room when we rapped on the door. She looked up quickly when she heard Soderman's voice and started up from the divan.

  Private detective to see you, Soderman said sharply. I tried to head him off.

  She was something to look at, this Donna Marshall was. She made a man wonder why Tom Marshall worked nights. On second thought, if they had been married long, you could imagine why he might work nights.

  She was a blonde, a tall, beautifully made woman who might have been a few pounds overweight, but not so that any man would complain. She was a lot of woman, and none of it was concealed.

  Come in, won't you? she said.

  We filed into the room and I sat on the lip of an overstuffed chair and fanned myself with my hat. It's too hot, I said.

  She smiled, and she had a pretty smile. Her eyes were a shade hard, I thought, but living in this country would make anything hard.

  What is it you wish to know?

  I just thought I'd see you and ask a few questions.

  It looks like Soderman here has the right man in jail, so this is mostly routine. Anyway, it's too hot for a murder investigation.

  She waited, a cigarette in her fingers. There was a bottle of beer on the stand beside the divan. I could have used one myself.

  Been married long ?

  She nodded. Six years.

  Happy?

  Yes. Her answer was careless, and she didn't seem very positive or much interested. Her eyes strayed past me toward Soderman.

  Like living in these hick mining towns?

  For the first time she seemed to look at me, and she smiled. I don't see how anybody could, she said.

  There's simply nothing to do. I didn't care for it, but Tom had his work to consider.

  Somehow I couldn't picture her fitting into such a town as Winrock. She was the sort of woman who likes nightclubs, likes dining and dancing. I didn't blame her for not liking Winrock, however, I didn't care for it myself.

  How much did Marshall have invested in this mine?

  Not much, she said. It was mostly a job.

  Was that what she thought? I stared at the floor, faintly curious. Lew and Tom Marshall owned this mine, and from all the evidence it had turned into a whale of a rich hole. Well, maybe Tom Marshall was the cagey sort.

  Maybe he didn't tell his wife everything.

  Are you going to stay here?

  Here? She spoke so sharply that I glanced up. Her voice and her
expression told me what she thought of the town a lot better than what she had to say. I wouldn't stay here even a minute longer than I have to!

  She rubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. Soderman got up. Any more questions? he asked. We'd better move on.

  I guess that's right. We all got up, and Soderman turned toward the door. He sure was one big man. When he moved you could see the weight of muscle in his shoulders.

  Donna Marshall started after him, and it gave me a chance to pick up a familiar-looking magazine that lay on the table near the ashtray. It wasn't exactly the thing to do, but I slid it into my coat pocket as casually as possible.

  They were going to the door together, so the move went unnoticed.

  When we got outside in the sun, I mopped my brow again. Good-lookin' woman, I said. If I had a woman like that, I'd stay home nights.

  He looked around at me, a question in his eyes. They weren't nice eyes when they looked at you like that, and I found myself being glad I wasn't a crook who had to come up against him. This Soderman could be a rough customer.

  Where to now? he asked.

  Let's go up to their house, I said, up where they lived.

  You got a craze for walkin', he said with disgust.

  Can't we let it ride until later? When it cools off a little?

  You go on down if you want, I said. I'll just look around a little more. I want to finish up and get out of here. I haven't lost anything in this town.

  He led the way along the path that led to the Marshall house, and we swung back the gate and entered.

  Once inside, I stopped and looked back. From the door you could see all the way down the winding path to the town and the Dunhill mine beyond. You could see everything that happened in town from this viewpoint, and likewise, anyone on the street in town could see anyone who came and went from this house.

  There was little enough to see once we were inside.

  There were three rooms in the house, and a wide porch.

  The kitchen and living room offered nothing. There were dirty dishes on the table and in the sink, and one thing was plain enough: Donna Marshall was no housekeeper.

  I wandered into the bedroom, not sure what I was looking for. More than anything, I was looking and hoping for a break, because I didn't even know why I was up here. Lew Marshall had given me little to nothing with which to work, merely telling me he wanted his brother's murderer punished and wanted to be very sure they got the right person.

  Soderman had seated himself on the edge of the porch outside. He was plainly disgusted with me, and he wasn't alone. I was disgusted with myself, so when I'd taken a quick look around, I turned to go. Then I saw something under the head of the bed. I knelt quickly and picked up several fragments of dried red mud.

  After studying them a few minutes, I put them into an envelope and slid them back into my pocket. Then I took the head of the bed and, with a lift, swung it clear of the wall. The dust under the bed was thick, but it had been disturbed recently, for something had been lying under that bed, something long and heavy, something that could have been a man, or the body of a man.

  What've you found? Soderman appeared in the door behind me, the last person I wanted near right then.

  He must have moved swiftly and silently when he heard me moving the bed. He was staring at me now, and his lips were drawn over his white teeth. I shrugged and motioned vaguely at the room.

  Nothing, I said. Just looking around.

  Haven't you had enough yet? he demanded impatiently.

  I'm gettin' fed up!

  Then suppose you go on down to town? I suggested.

  I can find my way around now.

  His eyes could be ugly. No, he said, and I didn't like the way he said it. If you turn up anything, I want to be the first to know.

  As we went out I palmed a map of the mine that I had noticed on the sideboard. It was creased where it had been folded to fit in someone's, probably Tom Marshall's, pocket. We started back down the steep path. I asked, Rained around here lately?

  He hesitated before answering my question, and I could see he was weighing the question in his mind, trying to see what it might imply.

  Yes, it rained a few days ago, he said finally. In fact, it rained the day before the killing.

  The day before? I glanced off across the canyon.

  Whatever had been under that bed, it could scarcely have been Marshall's body, although it looked like something of the sort had been lying there. No man, not even so powerful a man as Soderman, could have carried a body from here, across town, and to the mine shaft.

  Not even if he dared take a chance in leaving the house with an incriminating load when he had to cross the town from here. Certainly, crossing the town was not much of a task, but at any time, even in the dead of night, he might meet someone on that path or in the street itself. And if he, or anyone else, had done such a thing, he would have had to pass several houses.

  There was no way a car could approach the house. It was on a steep canyon side, and there was no road or even a trail beyond the path on which we had come.

  One thing remained for me to do. To have a look at the mine itself, to examine the scene of the crime. There was, in the back of my mind, a growing suspicion, but as yet it was no more than the vaguest shadow bolstered by a few stray bits of evidence, none of which would stand for a minute in court under the examination of a good lawyer. And none of them actually pointed to the guilty party or parties.

  There was the magazine, a bit of red mud that might have come from a shoe, and some disturbed dust under a bed. There was also a very attractive young woman of a type who might have caused trouble in more selective circles than were to be found among the lusty males of Winrock . . . and she was tied in with a mining engineer who did not sleep at home.

  We walked back to the jail. It sat close against the mountainside, and there had been some excavation there to fit the building into the niche chosen for it. There was a pump set off to one side of the entrance that leaked into the earth to one side of the path. Bright yellow bees hovered around the evaporating pool in a landing pattern like water bombers on their way to a forest fire. Soderman led the way inside. The jail office was scarcely more than the size of one of the cells.

  What did he have on him when he was found?

  I asked.

  Impatiently, Soderman opened his desk and dumped an envelope on the desktop. I loosened the string and emptied the contents. It was little enough. A box of matches, a tobacco pouch, some keys, a pocket knife, a couple of ore samples, and a gun.

  The gun was a .38 Police Positive, an ugly and competent-looking gat, if you asked me. It was brand spanking new. There were no marks in the bluing from the cylinder having been rotated, no dirt between the rear of the barrel and the top frame, and no lead in the rifling.

  It was fully loaded and had never been fired.

  That gun was something to set a man thinking, and it needed no more than a glance to tell me how new the gun was. Why had Tom Marshall suddenly bought a gun, apparently just a few days before he was murdered?

  Wonder what he had that for? I mused.

  Soderman shrugged. Snakes, maybe. Lots of us carry guns around here.

  He hasn't had it long.

  Listen. Soderman leaned his big heavy hands on the desk and glared at me. What are you gettin' at?

  You've been nosin' around all day, diggin' into a closed case. We've got the guilty party right in this jail, an' we've got enough evidence for a conviction.

  It was time to start something. If I was going to crack this one, I was going to have to get things rolling. If I could get them worried, perhaps I could do something.

  Anything I told him would get around. I hoped it would get to the right people.

  Then you can guess again, I told him. I've a hunch Campbell didn't do it, and a better hunch who did!

  He leaned farther over the desk and his face swelled.

  You tryin' to make a fool of me? You tryin' to c
ome in here an' show me up? Well, I'm tellin' you now! Get out!

  Get out of town on the next bus!

  Sorry, I said, I'm not leaving. I'm here on a legitimate job, and I'll stay until it's wound up. You can cooperate or not as you please, but I tell you this: I'm going to hang this on the guilty parties, you can bet your last dollar on that!

  Turning on my heel, I left him like that, and walked back to the hotel. He didn't know how much of a case I had, and to be honest, I didn't have a thing. The mine remained to be looked at, and I was hoping there would be something there that would tell me what I wanted to know.

  Above all, something concrete in the way of evidence.

  Yet why had Tom Marshall bought a gun before he was killed?

  Why was the alarm clock in the Marshall home set for five a. M., when Tom Marshall remained at the mine all night?

  And who, or what, had been under the bed on that last rainy day?

  These things and a cheap magazine were what I had for working points, and none of them indicated a warrant for an arrest. And I had nothing to offer a jury.

  Had he been afraid of Campbell, would he not have bought the gun before his return? Tom Marshall had been a rugged specimen, much more than a physical match for Campbell, and he did not seem to be a man who resorted to guns.

  Hence, it stood to reason that he bought the gun for a man he could not handle with his fists. Flimsy reasoning, perhaps, but there it was.

  Tom Marshall had spent his nights at the mine.

  Donna Marshall wasn't one to rise at five in the morning.

  Who had set the alarm I'd noticed beside the bed? It was set for five, and Soderman and I had been in the house from a quarter to five in the afternoon until at least quarter after. No alarm had gone off.

  Daylight came shortly after five. Supposing someone wanted to be away from the house while it was still dark .. . An interesting speculation.

  That afternoon I sent a wire, in code, to my home office.

  Soderman would find out that I had sent it, and that coded message was going to worry him.

  My feet ached from walking. I went up the stairs to my room and lay down across the bed. There had to be an angle, somewhere. I sat up and took off my shoes, but when I had the left one in my hand, I froze with it there and stared at the rim of the sole and the space in front of the heel.