by Gwen Moffat
‘Most of it was from his nose – but he’ll need some stitches and he should have a tetanus jab.’
They crawled over the rim and trailed after the men, bumping into each other as if their legs were made of rubber. Tension had been high in the canyon and on the wall; on the level mesa they felt it was safe to relax. So it came as quite a shock to realise that one of the horses was missing and that the flaps of the saddle-bags were unbuckled.
It was the sorrel that was missing. Pearl started to swear. Lloyd said, ‘He’ll look after it; he has to, going down that trail, or he’ll be off—’
‘Don’t you believe it. If he can ride well he’ll whip it down that old trail.’
‘Whipping won’t hurt it,’ Harper said. ‘Funny thing: how’d he get here if he didn’t come on a horse?’
Scott seemed uninterested, he was leaning against his own mount, waiting to move on.
‘What did he take from the saddle-bags?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘He couldn’t have got anything from mine,’ Pearl said. ‘I didn’t bring any cash, only a sandwich.’ She lifted the flap on the nearer bag and felt inside, then walked round and felt the other. ‘The bugger’s taken my sandwich!’
Lloyd stared at her, did a double-take and looked in his own bags. ‘I had a coupla buns and a sausage. They’re gone.’
They looked at Scott’s bags but his were still buckled.
‘He was hungry,’ Pearl said superfluously. ‘God, I hope he doesn’t hurt the sorrel.’ Then she remembered and looked at Miss Pink with contrition. ‘I’m terribly sorry. You ride the pinto.’
Miss Pink started to protest but Lloyd said his horse could carry two riders, and the four of them set off across the mesa on three mounts, leaving Harper to go back and rejoin Gafford in Slickrock.
There was no sign of the horse thief on the mesa but crossing Rastus Canyon they saw the deep prints made by a horse in a hurry. Pearl’s face set. At the escarpment she slid down from behind Lloyd, saying that she could move as fast as a horse on the steep descent. But she stopped on the edge and Miss Pink reined in beside her. They studied the ground below. No horse was visible on the zigzags and nothing was moving on the road to Regis, and there was only one vehicle between the village and the interstate so far as they could see. Las Mesas seemed abandoned; there were no trucks in the yard and the only living things were the steers in the feed-lot.
When the zigzags ran out at the foot of the scarp Pearl mounted again and the horses, scenting water and feed, stepped out on the home stretch. As they approached Las Mesas the sorrel came trotting to meet them. He trod on a rein and snapped it but no one was bothered. Pearl jumped down and ran to the animal which was dark with sweat. ‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that great? Oh, my God, just look how he’s been ridden! But he’s undamaged far as I can see.’
The others were looking beyond her, at Las Mesas. She sobered and went to pick up the severed rein. She knotted the ends absently and stared at the ranch where nothing stirred. Even the steers were hidden from this angle.
Scott rode forward and the others followed, Pearl leading the sorrel. He turned in at the big road gate and walked up the drive. No one came to meet them and the house door remained closed. He dismounted at the garden gate, took his rifle from its scabbard and loaded it with shells he took from his pocket. Pearl gaped. Miss Pink got down and after a moment so did Lloyd. They stood at their horses’ heads while Scott opened the screen and tried the door. It was locked. He turned and looked past them. The others turned and surveyed the empty yard.
Lloyd said coldly, ‘He’s taken the pick-up.’
‘And Avril’s out in the new one?’ Pearl ventured.
‘That’ll be it. He jumped off the horse and took the truck. Keys would be in the ignition.’ He didn’t seem concerned.
A pick-up came along the road from the village and turned in at the ranch. It stopped and Avril got out, glaring at Lloyd. ‘Who’s driving the old Ford? I thought it was you! Who did you lend it to, without asking permission?’
‘Where did you see it?’ Scott asked.
‘In the village. He – whoever it was, was going like a madman. He couldn’t drive neither.’
‘Who was it?’ Pearl asked.
‘That’s what I’m asking. Don’t you know?’
Scott went to push past the others, moved too fast and staggered. They grabbed at him before he fell. His face was yellow.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Avril asked.
‘We have to get him to hospital,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Will you take him?’
Avril looked bewildered. ‘I’ll come with you,’ Pearl said. ‘I’ll tell you about it as we drive, OK?’
‘But – who’s in my other truck?’
‘God knows. Never mind about that now; Clayton’s been hurt. I’ll tell you soon as we get on the road. Will you take our horses home, Melinda? Fletch will see to Clayton’s.’
Scott was helped into the pick-up, Pearl squeezed in beside him and Avril drove away. ‘Well!’ Miss Pink breathed and, walking across the yard, pulling the sorrel and the pinto after her, she sank down on the ground in the shade of the barn.
‘Let me see to these,’ Lloyd said, ‘and I’ll give you a drink. Or you can go in the bunkhouse and fix one yourself. Fridge is on the porch.’
She raised her eyebrows, unaccustomed to Lloyd’s being solicitous, but she didn’t move. He took the other horses into the barn.
‘You ought to be rubbed down,’ she told the sorrel. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll matter, it’s far too hot to catch cold.’ She leaned back against the planks and closed her eyes.
She dozed, still holding the reins, vaguely aware of footsteps as Lloyd unsaddled, of the clump of hoofs passing and fading as he turned the horses out. She woke with a start as the reins were eased out of her fingers. ‘You’ve had a hard day,’ he said. She realised that he was making overtures and wondered what he could want from her.
He took her through the barn to a frame bunkhouse. The door and window were open wide and the building was shaded by trees so that, with curtains drawn against the sun, the interior was marginally cooler than the air outside. She looked round the neat and folksy room: patchwork quilts on two beds, a plastic check cloth on a table, Remington prints on the walls. ‘You’d better look at your cash,’ she said. ‘And the food. Did he take any food?’
‘He wasn’t here. I looked while you were asleep.’
He went out. She sat on a bench and stared in surprise at a plate and mug, knife, fork and spoon set neatly on the opposite side, and sparkling clean. At the other end of the table was a pressure lamp with a box of matches beside it, and a book: Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. He came in with a pitcher of iced tea. She indicated the book. ‘You’re interested in flying?’
He sat down slowly, seeming to need time to orientate himself. ‘In the author,’ he said. ‘She was great. Did you read that? I’ll lend it to you.’ He didn’t wait for a response, his eyes were alight with enthusiasm. ‘She was a free spirit.’ He stopped as if suddenly switched off.
‘We all admire free spirits.’ She took a long draught of tea. ‘What can Tammy be frightened of?’ She wasn’t looking at him but, drowsy with heat and fatigue, she could have been talking to herself. ‘She likes Pearl; the child’s not really a maid, Pearl’s befriended her, she understands her – probably a lot better than her own mother does, and there has to be some antidote to Ira’s spoiling. And yet she ran away when Pearl approached the cabin.’
‘There was a snake – but you knew that! You told Pearl.’
‘Yes, but Tammy knew we were in the canyon; why didn’t she come to us?’
He shrugged. ‘The kid’s got her own reasons. Pearl’d know more about that than me.’
‘You don’t think Tammy being in Slickrock could have had anything to do with the marijuana?’
‘No.’ He showed no surprise that she should raise the subject. ‘She’s too young to be mixed up in anything li
ke that.’
‘But if she’d seen the plots and Gafford knew she’d seen them?’
‘By the time she got there the pigs had ruined that crop. Besides, Jay would never touch her. Kristen’d kill him.’
She regarded him blandly and he fidgeted with his glass. The words hung between them. ‘Pearl told you about the red frock?’ she asked.
He raised his eyes slowly. ‘And that Marge Dearing said I was in that house around the same time as Tammy Sunday afternoon. Prove it!’
She blinked. ‘Prove you were there?’
‘Prove I go after kids.’
The sweat was trickling down her ribs. She fingered the edge of the tablecloth. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘we all had the thought. Marge merely put it into words—’
‘You all thought it was me?’ It was said quietly, with a hint of curiosity; there was no anger, no bluster.
‘You couldn’t help but think of a man, a deviant, but no one discussed it, at least to my knowledge.’ She raised innocent eyes. ‘But Tammy seems unharmed – and yet terrified. You think there’s a man in this somewhere.’
‘You don’t believe Marge.’
‘Of course not.’ She shifted impatiently. ‘You were on Midnight Mesa at that time. Marge is jealous of Pearl.’
His face softened. It was a remarkable transformation and she looked away to hide her astonishment.
‘One of your free spirits,’ he said, and glanced at the book. ‘Like her.’
‘No, not like Beryl Markham. Pearl has principles.’
‘Of course she has’ – indignantly – ‘so did she!’ He snatched up the book as if it were a child in need of protection.
‘She was fearless,’ Miss Pink conceded, ‘a fine aviator, but totally amoral.’
He was speechless. She could have dealt him a personal insult.
‘She was like an animal,’ she explained pleasantly, ‘without—’
‘We’re all animals!’ It was a shout of rage.
‘Pearl is in a different league.’ It was the tone she would use to a fractious horse. ‘I like Pearl; I wouldn’t have any time for Beryl Markham. May I have some more tea?’
‘Help yourself.’
He turned the pages of the book, not reading, just doing something with his hands while he tried to make sense of what had been said. ‘Pearl’s a very special person,’ he muttered. ‘She’s young and pretty and she can ride, and she’s great company. You see the problem?’
‘Jealousy and resentment.’
‘You got it.’ He nodded eagerly.
‘So Marge made a wild insinuation about you in order to involve Pearl in Tammy’s disappearance and – to drag Pearl down? Incriminate her?’
‘She fantasises.’
‘Exactly.’ And not the only one to have fantasies, she thought. The conversation ground to a halt. She looked round with simulated interest and focused on the beds. ‘Of course,’ she murmured, ‘you shared with Gregorio.’
He followed her gaze. ‘Yeah, that was his bed.’ He was casual.
‘He was something of a lady’s man.’
‘Not really. No more’n any other hand. He was engaged to a girl from Casas Grandes.’
‘Pearl didn’t tell me.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe she kept quiet about it ’cause she was fond of him. But that’s why he left. He wanted to get married and he couldn’t live here with his wife. He asked Mis’ Beck would she bring in a mobile home for ’em, but she wouldn’t.’
‘So you knew he was planning to leave.’
‘Eventually, yes. Not sudden though, while we was away. The cattle was left without food.’
‘Where did Veronica fit into this? Are you telling me he was engaged to marry a Mexican girl, and he seduced Veronica?’
‘How would I know?’ He was angry again. ‘He wasn’t the kind of guy would boast about women, just the opposite.’
‘What kind of guy was he?’
‘Very polite to women; he always called ’em “ma’am”, and he’d open the door for Mis’ Beck when she got in the pick-up and like that.’
‘How did he treat other women?’
‘Pearl and the kids, he’d hold their horses for ’em when they got on and off; he seemed to enjoy doing things for folk.’ He thought about that. ‘I liked the guy,’ he said defiantly.
‘So you must have been shocked when you learned the truth.’
‘He didn’t steal that ring. I’ll tell you what happened there: it rolled down a crack in the floorboards and she didn’t know. She only discovered it missing after Greg took off, so she blamed him. She’s like that; always blaming people for something.’
‘And Veronica?’
‘Yes, well’ – he was embarrassed – ‘she was a sweet kid but – you know – defective? And Greg, he’d go out of his way to be kind, see what I mean?’
‘You’re saying she made the running.’
‘It’s all I can think.’
‘But he never said anything about her to you.’
‘Never, but it need only have happened the once – just a chance meeting in the creek or somewheres. Come to that, he never mentioned a friend in the locality neither. I knew he’d worked in Arizona before he come here, but he never told me he’d met up with someone locally, a guy I mean.’
‘What makes you think he did?’
‘After he left here he had to stay with someone – because he came back, didn’t he? He wasn’t alone up in Rastus, we know that.’
Miss Pink stood up to stretch her legs. She walked to the doorway and stared through the screen at the corrals. ‘Has it occurred to you that he could have had someone staying here while Mrs Beck and you were away, and that they went up to Rastus from here; there was an accident and Gregorio was shot, and his companion came back with the two horses?’
‘I don’t see it matters how he was killed.’ She said nothing and he blinked, thinking it through. ‘If they was poaching,’ he said slowly, ‘as they had to be – it was out of season – then it could happen that way, particularly if this other guy was illegal, like a wetback. But then’ – he swung round and surveyed the cabin – ‘he took all of Greg’s gear too!’
‘Pearl said he didn’t own much. No saddle for instance.’
‘All he had went in one old backpack. It were gone when I come back. I was fishing in Colorado. That other guy musta been dirt poor if he had to steal Greg’s stuff. But then probably he was.’
‘He had a vehicle.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘One assumes he had. How did he arrive and leave otherwise?’
‘Greg coulda picked him up – no, wait! We only had the one pick-up at that time, and I’d taken it to Colorado after I dropped Mis’ Beck off in town. There was no truck left behind. You’re right; if Greg had someone staying here, that guy had to have his own wheels.’
Chapter 13
‘You’ll look after her?’ Lloyd had his hand on the sorrel’s neck detaining Miss Pink, who said diffidently, ‘Pearl?’ Then, more firmly, ‘Pearl can look after herself.’
‘She’s scared.’
‘Who’s she scared of?’
He ran his hand over the sorrel’s shoulder and studied its leg.
‘Who’s after Tammy?’ she pressed.
‘Well, that’s it! Who is it?’
The man was a mass of emotions interwoven with this prickly anger, the latter accentuated by his fierce stare. ‘Anybody’d be scared,’ he said. ‘Someone putting the fear of death into little kids, like having a mean bull running loose.’
‘Who is it, Mr Lloyd?’
Her quiet persistence reached him and his face set. He stood back. ‘You all got to be on guard,’ he told her, and stopped, and stared at the escarpment as if he saw something, but not there on the skyline; he was contemplating something a long way back: in space or time or the recesses of his own mind.
She started home, leading the pinto. As she turned south on the dirt road the world darkened, and she was so
preoccupied, so accustomed to the continuous day-long sunshine that she cringed. But the sorrel merely flicked an ear and she glanced up and saw it was only a cloud that had reached the sun.
Eastward the desert mountains were washed with a deeper gold than was usual in late afternoon. The sky beyond them was still clear and bleached by the heat but above her, boiling forward above the cliffs, still very high, rose splendid thunderheads: grey deepening to graphite in the depths, and the leading edges dazzling as clotted cream. Far back in the high country there was a growl and a crack. It was the crack that alerted her and sent a chill down her spine. Her thighs tightened and the sorrel broke into a sharp trot.
By the time she had attended to the horses, had showered and changed, she had recovered from her initial relief that Pearl was absent and that no one came visiting, and she had started to wonder where everyone was, particularly Marge. It was gloomy now and no light showed in the house across the street. At long intervals there were claps of thunder but as yet there was no rain. She went to Marge’s front door, opened it and called. There was no reply.
She stood on the front step looking down the street where nothing moved except dust lifted by a vagrant breeze. From the creek came a sound like rain but it was only a current of air stirring the cottonwood leaves.
She moved into the road. There were vehicles outside the Scott house and there were lights in both the Scott and Vosker places. She relaxed; it had been disturbing to realise that no one was about – and the storm coming, and the situation unresolved … What situation? Which situation? And there was Lloyd’s warning that kept returning to puzzle her: to look after Pearl. Surely it was Tammy who needed protection?
‘Did you find her yet?’ Thelma cried as Miss Pink entered the Scotts’ crowded living-room. Belatedly she remembered that Thelma had intended returning from Texas this morning.
Tammy’s mother looked older than she did three days ago, which was hardly surprising considering what she’d been through emotionally, not to speak of the plane journeys which must have been a strain in themselves, not knowing what awaited her at either end.