by Gwen Moffat
Spikol sighed and lowered his bulk into a chair. ‘We can’t hang around,’ Pearl said quickly. ‘The sun’s coming up; we should have been on the road half an hour ago. We’ll eat on the way.’
They collected canteens and bags of muffins and plodded out to the corral. Miss Pink was amused to see that, far from locking her house, Pearl didn’t even close the door, merely latching the screen with a hook. ‘Stop the thieves getting in,’ she explained, noting her guest’s interest, ‘like skunks and stuff.’
The sun was streaming through the cottonwoods now, showing three horses at the rail: a blue roan, a chestnut (a sorrel in the West), and Miss Pink’s mount: a large dark bay with bulging muscles and a phlegmatic eye. In view of that eye she relaxed, mounted, and followed the others out onto the Las Mesas road, the bay as sedate as an old cow.
Above the village the escarpment was without shadows, every crevice and gully naked in the light: a tiger wall of tawny rock and long black stripes where water poured over the lip in the rainy season.
‘You brought slickers,’ Miss Pink observed, seeing that they each had a yellow roll behind the saddle. ‘Are you expecting rain?’
‘Any day now,’ Pearl said cheerfully. ‘August is the time for storms.’
‘We could do with it.’ Spikol squinted towards the river. ‘I never seen the water so low.’
‘There’s someone ahead of us,’ Pearl said. There were hoofprints in the dust.
‘Early for people to be riding.’ Spikol was casual. ‘Only one way too. Is he bound for Las Mesas or the rim?’
It was Las Mesas. From the road they could see a saddled horse tied to the fence outside the ranch house. ‘That’s Clayton Scott’s.’ Pearl smiled slyly. ‘Funny time to come calling.’
‘I have to speak to Mrs Beck; it’s her land.’ Spikol turned in under the crossbar and the others followed. At their approach two people emerged from the house: a well-built man and a plump woman in her forties.
‘Good morning you guys!’ Miss Pink’s eyebrows rose fractionally at the woman’s tone which was so high as to sound false. ‘We have to go to Las Cruces and take delivery of a new pick-up,’ she went on, opening the gate, addressing Pearl. ‘Clayton’s coming with you.’
Pearl nodded casually and introduced Miss Pink. ‘A compatriot of yours,’ she said. ‘She writes books – and she knows the West better than I do.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Miss Pink murmured a polite response as she tried to place the accent: Texas on a base of urban Sussex? Avril Beck had gone native with a vengeance, and was aiming at an image that was over twenty years too young. She had blue bows in her yellow hair, pink lipstick and too much mascara. She was wearing a frilled blouse, tight Levis and tooled boots. Her cheeks were flushed; she was obviously ill at ease. ‘We must get together at a more convenient time,’ she said, turning to the deputy before she’d finished, conveying the impression that Miss Pink was of minor importance. ‘I should really have someone along with you, Wayne, seeing as it’s my property, so I asked Mr Scott if he’d represent me – my interests. That’s in order – I mean, there’s no objection—’ It hung between statement and question.
‘It’s your land, ma’am, you can send who you like to watch over your interests.’ Spikol eyed her companion who had unfastened his horse and mounted. Clayton Scott exchanged a nod with Miss Pink in lieu of introduction. He had an arresting face, what she thought of as a frontier face: a well-shaped mouth, a strong nose and pale eyes that looked as if they were accustomed to far horizons. Under the wide hat brim she guessed there would be a high forehead. She tried to recall what he did for a living: it was most likely ranching; his tack and his clothes were worn but serviceable.
‘Don’t you have time for coffee?’ Avril asked, in the tone of one anxious to be on the road herself.
‘Another time,’ Pearl said. As far as social graces were concerned, Spikol was leaving them to her. ‘It’s going to be a hot day for the horses,’ she pointed out. ‘All right for you’ – as a pick-up came round the corner of a barn – ‘you’ll have air-conditioning all day.’
A gangling, bearded fellow in bleached jeans climbed out of the truck and stared at them, his arms hanging loose. ‘I’m about ready, Fletcher,’ Avril told him, not introducing anyone. ‘Do we have plenty of water for the truck?’
‘Enough.’ The group appeared to fascinate him. He ignored Miss Pink but regarded the others with something that was more than surprise, more like anger; he didn’t look like a comfortable man to have around. Spikol watched him impassively. It was Miss Pink who broke an awkward silence, and with her peculiar brand of chattiness. ‘It was quite a shock,’ she observed, ‘coming on human remains when one least expected it; not that there is any time when one might expect it, unless of course, one knows that a person is missing?’
Pearl giggled nervously. The others registered various degrees of amazement. Fletcher Lloyd said quickly: ‘No one’s missing.’
‘As if—’ Avril began heatedly, then moderated her tone: ‘As if we wouldn’t know. He had to be from – well, some distance away. There’s no one local missing, is there?’ She looked from Pearl to Spikol.
‘No one’s been reported,’ the deputy said. ‘Could be some guy disappeared and the wife hasn’t reported it.’
‘But she would! Oh, you mean a husband may be – there may be another woman.’
‘Actually, ma’am’ – he drew it out and Miss Pink stiffened – ‘I was thinking more in terms of the wife being responsible for his disappearance.’ The mobile mouth turned up and the laughter wrinkles deepened.
Clayton Scott said weightily, ‘It’s not a subject to joke about, particularly with ladies present,’ and Miss Pink remembered that Avril was a widow. Evidently Spikol remembered too. ‘Sorry ladies, it’s the policeman’s mind: always suspicious.’ The suddenly bland eyes met those of Miss Pink and conveyed nothing personal but she felt a charge, as if a connection had been made. Someone is missing, she thought, and guessed that sooner or later she would learn his identity, not that it had anything to do with her any more than the sighting of Kristen Scott climbing out of Slickrock Canyon, she was merely intrigued by these people’s behaviour.
They left the ranch and took the trail towards the escarpment, riding in pairs, Miss Pink with Scott. He opened the conversation. ‘How did you come to be in Rastus?’ he asked curiously, and once again she recounted how she had chosen to try a short-cut on the descent from Angel’s Roost, and he displayed the familiar astonishment laced with criticism that a foreigner – and an elderly woman at that – should have the temerity to enter the wilderness, let alone the ability to find her way around in it.
‘You need to get high,’ she told him. ‘Once you have the structure of the area straight, you shouldn’t go wrong. These canyons and mesas run north-west to south-east. It’s a simple pattern. Of course,’ she smiled, ‘it doesn’t take into account the terrain, but apart from the rim’ – she glanced at the escarpment ahead – ‘there’s nothing you can’t retreat from, or circumvent. The timber isn’t dense and you can always scramble round the crags; they don’t go on for great distances.’ Excluding Slickrock, she qualified, but to herself; he had the hard look of a man who doesn’t relinquish an attitude easily, a man who thought women should know their place.
‘You ran into my daughter,’ he said.
Her thighs tightened and the bay horse stumbled. ‘Pick your feet up,’ she snapped, playing for time. And: ‘Excuse me’ – pushing the bay in front. They had reached the first rise and the trail narrowed. ‘That’s right,’ she called back, ‘Kristen and Tammy were over at Pearl’s last night.’
There was no response from the rear and she gave her attention to the trail, which seemed much more exposed when viewed from the back of a horse. On foot the walker sees his boots and tracks in the dust, the occasional lizard on a stone. Looking down from a point some eight feet above ground level there was nothing to be seen between her foot and a drop that incre
ased with every stride. She slackened her reins, allowing the bay to see where he was going.
‘You’ve done this before,’ Scott said as she rounded the first elbow.
‘A little, but he’s a steady horse.’ With a most peculiar gait, she might have added; she was going to be saddle-sore after this ride.
Halfway up the slope the party stopped for a blow; the horses were big, powerful animals but the roan was labouring under Spikol. Pearl gave them time to calm down a fraction and then chivvied them upwards. People and horses were subdued. The sun was hot on wet backs and the only sound was the slap of hoofs on baked earth and the creak of leather. As they plodded towards the rimrock a bald eagle drifted by, its head as brilliant as new white paint, then they felt the thermal that had lifted the bird from the valley: a warm draught of air on the skin. The horses quickened their pace and the mood of the caravan changed as the angle eased and they stepped out along the level path that in a few yards brought them to the sand of Badblood Wash.
On Midnight Mesa Spikol stopped and addressed Scott. ‘Who’s been riding here? I seen no cows since Badblood.’ He didn’t miss much; on that ground hoofmarks were few and far between.
‘I ride on the mesas,’ Pearl told him. ‘Kristen does.’ She glanced at Scott. ‘We all do; it’s too hot to ride down below in the summer time.’
‘You shouldn’t come up here on your own,’ Scott told her.
‘I don’t – usually. Often we’re all together: Kristen and Tammy and me.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘The men come alone. Like Fletcher.’
‘Avril Beck will know where he’s at. I don’t know where Kristen is. She didn’t tell me she rides up here.’
‘Young girls need their own space, they can’t be tied to their parents all their lives. Anyways, the kids are safe with me; I know where I’m at.’
Miss Pink eased her thighs gingerly, longing to dismount. Spikol stared glumly at the bright gravel between the junipers. The horses drooped with heavy heads.
‘You saw her yesterday?’ Scott asked of Miss Pink. For the second time. He couldn’t leave it alone.
‘Why, yes.’ She blinked and looked to Pearl for help. Pearl said: ‘He’s talking about up here.’
‘Oh. No. I met her at your place.’
‘You saw a horse here?’ Scott pressed.
‘Did I? There were cows in Badblood, I remember, but a horse? No.’
‘She was riding yesterday.’ He was tight-lipped. ‘In the full heat of the sun. That’s no way to treat a horse ’less you have to.’
‘I don’t think what your kid was doing yesterday had anything to do with a guy died months ago,’ Spikol said. He took up his reins and sighed. ‘So if you’ll lead on, ma’am, we’ll try to find these remains we’re supposed to be looking for.’
Thus directed Miss Pink went ahead, pushing steadily up the mesa, seeing Angel’s Roost half-left, the big red cliff showing above the tops of pinyons on the right, and when she calculated that they were past the place where Kristen tethered her horse she diverged sideways until the ground started to drop away into Rastus Canyon. She stopped and the others ranged alongside.
‘I’m not going down there,’ Pearl said.
‘It’s all right on foot.’ Miss Pink implied that this was the way she’d come out of the canyon herself.
‘We’ll leave the horses,’ Spikol said, and climbed down.
Miss Pink was comfortable in her walking boots but the others had trouble in their high heels and smooth soles, so much so that she felt guilty as Spikol crashed and slithered down the unstable talus and she thought about having to carry him out if he broke a leg. But he reached the creek without injury – although he must be badly bruised – and as he scrambled up the rocks the others held back, as if by rescinding the lead they acknowledged that they had moved into his territory.
They came to the confluence of the two streams. Nothing had changed. There was the rocky point, the talus slope and the ruin under its massive rock ceiling.
‘Did you know it was here?’ Pearl asked Scott.
‘I had no idea.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘Herb Beck never mentioned it to me, but then they’re everywhere, these old cliff dwellings. Maybe he knew it was here and didn’t think nothing to it.’
Spikol, advancing, had seen the rifle. The others stepped forward while Miss Pink studied the overhang, then they all moved slowly up the flaky scree to stop at the rib shaft curved round the prickly pear. ‘Well, well,’ Spikol breathed, and shook his head. They climbed a little further to the pitiful remains of the spine. No one spoke but Miss Pink caught Pearl’s sharp look of inquiry directed at the deputy. His face was wooden. No one suggested that the bones might be those of a deer.
They came to the doorway of the ruin and the others stood aside for Spikol to enter. Pearl turned to Miss Pink. ‘I’d have been terrified to go in there! How could you?’
‘I shouted, and I was carrying a rock. By the time I reached this spot I was virtually certain that there wasn’t even a snake inside.’
‘My God!’ She looked down the sun-drenched canyon and shuddered. ‘Poor guy; it must have been horrifying at night.’
Spikol squeezed out of the doorway, the old boot in one hand, the branch in the other. Pearl’s breath hissed between her teeth. ‘I didn’t believe you,’ he told Miss Pink. ‘But I guess you’re right.’ He held out the branch and they stared at the skeletal fingers. ‘He wasn’t killed by the fall,’ he said.
‘Unless—’ Pearl began, to be interrupted by Scott: ‘He coulda been; he coulda grabbed a branch as he felt himself start to slip, he coulda been holding the branch to look over the edge, and it broke.’
Spikol glanced up but the overhang blocked the view. ‘Could be. We’ll look.’
‘Who was he?’ Pearl asked, and it wasn’t rhetorical; she was looking at Spikol.
‘How many times—’ He didn’t trouble to finish. ‘They’ll have records in Santa Fe,’ he conceded. ‘But if he’s from out of state, and poaching – he had to be poaching, these bones ain’t been here since hunting season – then there’d be no record of him going missing—’
‘But if a woman didn’t know her husband was poaching—’ Pearl began hotly, and stopped as Spikol looked at her. ‘Didn’t know?’ he repeated sceptically. ‘Wives know everything.’ He transferred his attention to the boot. ‘This is old; it’s ancient. Was it old when he died, or did it get like this since?’
‘Not under cover,’ Miss Pink said. ‘And animals haven’t been tearing at it to try to get the foot out. He took it off before he died. People do that,’ she added in the face of their surprise: ‘take off all their clothes before the end.’
‘So it was already old before he died.’ Pearl spoke as if prompted, staring at Miss Pink. ‘No one wears boots as old as that. He couldn’t have walked in them, for Heavens’ sakes! So he rode. So where’s his horse?’
‘A horse came down without a rider?’ Spikol made a question of it. ‘But someone surely would have reported that.’
‘Not if he kept the horse and tack for himself and said nothing about it,’ Pearl pointed out. ‘A poor person – like a Mexican.’
‘Where’s the trailer?’ Spikol mused. ‘A guy comes in from out of state, he don’t ride here; he has to bring the horse in a trailer.’ He looked down the slope. ‘I guess we better try and find the rest of him. We don’t have much to go on here.’
They separated: Pearl and Scott searching the bed of the stream on the far side of the rocky point, Spikol and Miss Pink clambering up the gorge under the cliff.
‘What are we doing?’ Miss Pink asked when they stopped for breath. ‘Looking for the skull is hopeless; the animal that carried it off could have crushed it anyway. And what with packrats and coyotes you can’t expect to find clothing.’
‘I can’t go back and report that I didn’t look at all. And maybe we’ll find something by accident.’ But his movements had an air of method about them and he was doing what she might have don
e herself but which now she realised was illogical, except from the point of view of elimination. Looking back at the profile of the cliff she confirmed that it was indeed close to a hundred feet high: convex at the top, then vertical as far as the overhang.
‘If he’d come off that,’ she said, ‘he’d have been too badly injured to crawl up the slope into the ruin.’
‘You reckon? Are you a doctor?’
‘No, but I’ve seen the results of a lot of falls. Look at the landing, man!’
The emphasis forced him to study the boulders. ‘You’re right,’ he said at length. ‘He’d have been killed.’ He looked at the rocky point and its twenty-foot walls. ‘And yet that don’t seem high enough.’
‘It depends on the fall. With the sole flapping on his boot he could have caught his foot in a crack on the edge and landed awkwardly, probably breaking his leg.’
‘There are no trees – neither on the big cliff nor on the point.’
‘Trees?’
‘For him to have grabbed a branch as he fell.’
‘Oh, that. The branch could be driftwood he picked up in the stream bed. That’s odd.’
‘What’s that, ma’am?’
‘Why didn’t he take his rifle into the ruin with him? He needed that for defence against animals. Well, he could have been concussed’ – she was speaking her thoughts aloud – ‘not blinded by blood because he saw the ruin.’ Her glasses flashed as she turned to him. ‘Is it loaded?’
‘No.’
They stared at each other: fat man and elderly woman suddenly on the same wavelength. ‘Where are the shells?’ she asked.
‘He would have fired off all his ammo to attract attention? Yes, so where are the shells?’
‘Or – he was carrying the rifle unloaded – like a very correct sportsman – but this is a poacher. However – hypothesis: it was unloaded when he fell or otherwise came to grief; in which case, where is his ammunition now? How would a poacher carry bullets? In his pocket or on a belt?’
‘Either way the ammo’s missing.’
‘Now that is curious.’ She stopped, embarrassed, and shot him a look of apology.