Browning in Buckskin

by Peter Corris

  'How? Coral'd get the money.'

  'Sure she'd get it. Then you turn up alive. You figure she's going to give it back? No chance. It's hers which means it's yours, and some of it's mine. 'Course you'd have to get away from here, but that wouldn't be a big problem would it, Nick?'

  I shook my head and drained the glass.

  'So, whaddya say?'

  I swayed in my chair, let my head wag loosely from side to side and collapsed forward onto the table. 'Think about it,' I said. Then I let go a long, paint-stripping snore.

  5

  Of course, I didn't believe a word of MacMurray's plan. I pretended to sleep across the table, while he smoked another cigarette and finished his drink. I could sense that he wasn't nearly as drunk as he'd pretended to be – that made two of us. After he'd gone off to his shack, I washed my face, made a pot of coffee and sat drinking it and smoking while I thought things out. It wasn't too hard to figure – I remembered the night MacMurray had stayed over while I passed out drunk. Ten to one on he'd slept with Coral. And there was her unwillingness to even consider not coming back to Three Cedars. The question was, when did they cook the scheme up? My guess – before I even arrived in town.

  It's no fun feeling like a mark, but better to suspect it beforehand (which I haven't always done). Once I'd seen the light, my moves were obvious. I went to bed and grabbed a couple of hours uneasy sleep. Coral was wearing a silk nightgown I liked and she looked pretty fetching. In other circumstances I'd have disturbed her briefly, but the knowledge that a woman is planning to murder you sort of dampens your ardour.

  But I was affectionate enough in the morning despite a hangover. She kidded me about my drinking and I kidded her about putting on weight. MacMurray was having breakfast when I got to the diner. I gave him a haggard look and a brief nod when he raised a questioning eyebrow. He winked, paid his bill and drove off. It was Coral's day to go to Red Springs for shopping. Sometimes she drove the La Salle, sometimes she got a lift with Pop, who went in to get sugar for his sourmash or chewing tobacco or something. I told her the Cadillac had an oil leak which I'd be working on, so she went with Pop.

  As soon as she'd gone I began a thorough search of the house – cupboards, drawers, boxes, coat pockets, the lot. Coral had kept a haphazard collection of things over the years – official documents, letters, photographs – and it wasn't too hard to piece together the elements of her life story. She was born Coral Anne Smith in Buffalo, New York, not Denver, although she'd given the date correctly. From the family snapshots it looked as if she had three brothers and two sisters, or maybe one of the sisters was her mother, it was hard to tell. Anyway, a big family, and to judge from the clothes, not much money. There was a grade school but no high school record. She'd been married not once but twice, the first time to a Buick dealer in Chicago. He died in a car crash in 1922. I wondered what she'd got out of that.

  She came west with some money because there were photographs of her in smart clothes in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In one of the pictures the clothes look a little too smart and the men a bit too confident. I couldn't be sure, the photo was faded and cracked, but one of the men looked like my former agent, N. Robert Silkstein. If it was Silkstein's hand on her knee there could be no doubt that Coral had gone a'whoring. There was no indication of what had brought her to Three Cedars, but here she was – twice widowed and a property owner. I'd have laid a bet that an exhumation and autopsy of Canetti would have showed up something interesting. What's more, she had a lover who talked a ruthless, smooth line of bullshit and a husband worth twenty thousand dollars dead, all tied up with a red ribbon.

  I didn't hesitate: I packed the clothes she'd bought me into one of her suitcases, cleaned out all the money in the house (about sixty bucks as I recall) and stacked the trunk of the La Salle with as much champagne and liquor as it would hold. I removed every sign of my presence, from razor to nail clippings and a few other things such as the marriage licence and the insurance policy papers, the ownership of which was debatable. I drove the Cadillac across to Pop's and filled the tank and two spare drums which I stowed in the back. The imbecile who looked after the place while Pop was away helped me. By 11 a.m. I was on the road out of Three Cedars. Anyone who wanted to catch me was going to need a better car, of which there weren't many around, and a better motivation for travelling as far and fast as me, which would be pretty hard to find, since mine was to avoid being murdered.

  My main thought was to put as many miles between Three Cedars and myself as I could. I didn't go south because that way lay Mexico. After my experiences down there a few years back I had no wish to return.9 Anyway, I didn't have a passport. I'd just come back from the east and couldn't face the drive again. I went north, intending to skirt Los Angeles and get to San Francisco. From there, the world was waiting. I could go by rail to New York or by boat to Peru or Australia.

  I'd had very little sleep the night before, it was hot driving the desert road and I was feeling lousy by mid-afternoon. I stopped in a one-horse town called Rail Spur, on the edge of the desert. The name came from the fact that a branch line from the main railroad had run out to a point near the town when it had been a prosperous cattle-raising centre. The desert had swallowed the grass and the railway line twenty years ago. I got these facts from a tattered pamphlet I found in the hot little room I rented in the adobe brick hotel which was one of the three or four buildings that still held human beings.

  I had a nap and took a walk around the place just before sundown. I have to admit Rail Spur was a pretty place, even as decayed as it was. There was a soft blueness to the light, and the sage brush smelled sweet and clean. The fact that I noticed these things meant that I was starting to relax. There was a general store and a shop that sold Indian curios, both open for only a few hours per day. The board sidewalk had collapsed; the bank was a crumbling ruin and the words 'Post & Telegraph' could just be made out across the front of a building that had been taken over by cactus and stray dogs. I remember thinking that it would've made a great movie location.

  Back at the hotel I had a few good belts of New Orleans bourbon before going down for dinner. There were two other people staying in the place, a crazy gold prospector who'd come in from six months in the desert, and an anthropologist who said he was looking for a lost tribe of Indians.

  'They're out there,' the prospector said.

  We were in the bar, where no one seemed to have heard of the Volsted Act. The anthropologist immediately bought the prospector a shot of rye. I put my empty glass on the bar, and he bought me one too. 'Where?' he said.

  The prospector, who must have been over seventy to judge from the absence of hair, teeth and hearing, waved his arm at the desert. 'Out there. Seen 'em.'

  The anthropologist leaned towards him. 'Look, Mr . . .'

  'Simpson, "Dry Gulch" Simpson to you.'

  'Mr Simpson, my name is Keating. I'm doing a PhD at Harvard on these lost tribes. You could be a big help to me.'

  Dry Gulch Simpson's washed-out blue eyes went shrewd as he downed his drink. The barman, a thin, consumptive-looking individual, who was also the hotelkeeper, cook and floor sweeper, put a bowl of stale peanuts on the bar. Keating bought us all another drink.

  'Mebbe we c'n help each other,' Simpson said.

  The barman responded to a burst of Spanish from his Mexican wife in the kichen. 'Food, gents,' he said.

  Keating and Simpson didn't reply. The prospector had spread a faded, creased old map on the bar, and they were pouring over it.

  'What's to eat?' I asked.

  'Tortillas 'n beans,' the barman said. 'Have it here or in the dining room.'

  I chose the dining room and sat down with the rest of my whisky and a stein of beer. The room still held ten tables, but there were only four chairs ranged around one of them. The Mexican woman bought the bowls in and I ate alone, washing the hot, spicy food down with the tepid thin beer. Keating and Simpson ate in the bar. I suppose they spilled chilli on the map. T
he funny thing is, I can still see them, bent over the map, jabbing at it with their fingers and sipping whisky. Maybe they found the gold and the Indians, but I doubt it.

  I went to bed early and didn't sleep well. The room was hot and airless, and my stomach was having trouble with the food and the cheap whisky. I should have drunk some water before going to bed and I kept waking up and wanting water but not doing anything about it. If I had got up, things might have been different. I might have noticed something. As it was, I'd finally got into a deep sleep around dawn when the door was thrown open so hard it splintered against the wall. I sat up and looked into the business end of a Colt .44. The man holding it wore a sheriff's uniform and a grin on his big, meaty face.

  'Nick Brown?' he said.

  'Well, I suppose . . . Yes, I . . .'

  'I'm arrestin' you, Brown. The charge is murder.'

  6

  I opened my mouth to speak and he told me to shut up. He took the car keys from the dresser and gestured with the pistol for me to get up. He let me get dressed. Then he marched me out into the early morning chill. The desert didn't look nearly so good now – it was cold and empty and the light was yellow. There were three deputies outside, all armed to the teeth and looking disappointed because I was coming quietly.

  'Got 'im, Sheriff Westwood?' one of the deputies said.

  The sheriff looked at him. 'No, Eban, he's running across the desert jackass naked. You wanna take a shot at him?'

  The deputy looked confused. He certainly wanted to take a shot at something. 'Mean-looking bastard,' he said.

  Westwood prodded me in the back with his .44. I gathered he wanted me to move towards the big Dodge with the markings of the county sheriff's office. I did it. Westwood tossed the keys of the La Salle to one of the other deputies who caught them neatly.

  'Follow us in, boys,' the sheriff said.

  I shivered, not just from the cold. 'In where?'

  Westwood looked at me. Now that he was relaxed, the flab hung on his face and body in loose folds. His eyes were small and hard and his teeth were stained yellow by tobacco smoke. He seemed to be considering answering my question, but he decided against it in favour of another dig in the ribs with the Colt. I stumbled across to the Dodge and collapsed into the deep front seat.

  The sheriff's driving style didn't suggest a compassionate nature. He rammed the gear shift into place as if he was hammering nails; he thumped his big feet on the clutch and brake and swore at every other vehicle on the road. He drove flat out when he could and when he couldn't. After a few miles I started to sort things out. There were grounds for hope. One, they hadn't shot me and didn't seem to be planning a lynching party. Two, they were bringing in the Cadillac – I could see it raising a dust trail behind the Dodge's dust trail – which meant that I could argue my way out of car theft. The liquor in the trunk might be useful as well. Three, I'd been saved the hotel bill – little victories like that always cheer me up. And, of course, I knew I hadn't killed anybody.

  I found a crumpled packet of Camels and a book of matches in my shirt pocket. I offered one to the sheriff who scowled, patted his own pockets, failed to find anything and accepted a smoke and a light. We smoked in silence, apart from Westwood's cursing at other cars and ruts in the road. I thought I'd be lucky to get three questions answered so I'd better make them good ones.

  'Tell me, sheriff, who's been murdered?'

  He shot me a look that was half hate, half puzzlement. 'That's a new one,' he grunted.

  'What is?' I said, wasting a question.

  He didn't answer; he'd practically finished the cigarette in four savage drags, and I calculated I wouldn't have his goodwill for much longer.

  'Damn it, who's dead?'

  He flicked the butt out of the window. 'Your wife, asshole,' he said.

  They took me into San Diego which was less than great. Coral was friends with half the cops there. I still couldn't believe she was dead, and they wouldn't tell me anything about it. They fingerprinted and photographed me, gave me a cup of coffee and a sandwich (it was lunchtime by now) and put me in a cell in the basement of the police building. It was a small cell, but I paced it anyway, tramping up and down for an hour or more trying to work out what could have happened. Eventually, I accepted that Coral was dead and that I was in trouble. The spouse is always the prime suspect – anyone who's ever been to the movies knows that – plus I'd taken off with the car and what money I could find. I stopped pacing, sat on the hard bunk, smoked and worried.

  Westwood came in with another cup of coffee and a female stenographer. The cell was cramped with all three of us in it. He pulled out a sack of Bull Durham and rolled cigarettes for us both. After we'd smoked a minute, he said, 'Let's make this easy on everyone, Brown. Why'd you kill her?'

  'I didn't.'

  The stenographer had that down in no time. Westwood sighed and finished his smoke. 'Go outside a minute, will you, Nora?'

  'I shouldn't, sheriff.'

  'But you will, won't you?'

  She went out and Westwood shifted his big rump uncomfortably on the bed. 'Look, man. Jus' between us, no one's going to be too upset 'bout Coral. 'Course she was a lovely lady an' all that, but she knew too many things than was healthy for one body to know. D'you see what I mean?'

  'No.'

  'Goddamn it, Brown. Don't be dumb. Her bein' dead gives some folks clean slates as needs 'em. You plead you was drunk, or crime o' passion or something like that, an' I guarantee you can get out of this with a ten year stretch, maybe less.'

  'I didn't kill her. She went into Red Springs to go shopping with Pop. That's the last I saw of her.'

  He rolled again, just one cigarette this time. 'She didn't get to Red Springs. She was feeling sick an' Pop stopped a car was heading back to Three Cedars and she got a lift.'

  'I'd've been gone by the time she got back.'

  'Kid in Pop's store's not so sure about that.'

  'He's an idiot.'

  'You sticking to this story?'

  I nodded.

  'You'll fry for it.'

  'It's the truth.'

  Sheriff Westwood opened the door and beckoned the stenographer back. When she was seated with her pen and pad, he said, 'You refuse to answer any questions?'

  'I don't refuse. She went into Red Springs and I left Three Cedars for personal reasons. That's it.'

  'You admit you ransacked the house, took the car and the money?'

  'I wouldn't say ransacked. The rest, yes. I can explain . . .'

  Westwood grinned; it was a terrible sight to see amusement in that fat, corrupt face expressed by a baring of those yellow fangs. Suddenly I broke out in a heavy sweat.

  'How're you going to explain the rifle she was shot with having your fingerprints all over it?'

  I swallowed hard. I needed a cigarette, a drink, a shave and a bath, and it looked like it might be a long time before I got them. 'I want to talk to a lawyer,' I said.

  About two hours and no cigarettes later he walked in. Abe Kurtz was one of the tallest men I ever met. I guess he was about six feet eight, but he looked more because he was thin with it, rail thin. At this distance in time, I can't remember anything much about his face except that it was bony and clever-looking. Likewise I couldn't describe his eyes and hair; you didn't notice such things. He was tall and thin. And smart.

  He sat on the bunk and had to tuck his legs up to get them into the cell at all. 'I'm Abe Kurtz. Well, Mr Brown,' he drawled, 'looks like you're in quite a spot. I'm a lawyer by the way. Thinking of representing you, 'less you've got someone else in mind.'

  I shook my head. 'I didn't do it.'

  'That's interesting. Most husbands do kill their wives . . .' He broke off and laughed softly. 'I mean, when wives get killed. But you say not. Any idea who might've done it?'

  'Have you got a cigarette?'

  'No, dirty habit. Dulls the brain. I can get some for you though, if you want.'

  'Thanks. I don't even know when or where sh
e was killed. The sheriff told me she was shot. That's all I know.'

  He filled me in on the details. Coral was found dead in our bedroom a few hours after I'd left Three Cedars. Maria found her; she'd been shot once through the head with the .22 rifle which lay on the floor. There were signs of a struggle and the house was in a mess. The cash drawer was empty. Coral's Cadillac was missing, so was her husband and his clothes and personal effects.

  'Problem is,' Kurtz said, 'no one saw her get back to town and as I understand it, the boy at the grain store can't say what time you took off.'

  'He's an idiot.'

  Kurtz stroked his long, bony nose. 'Now's there's one of your problems, saying things like that. I get the feeling people in Three Cedars don't like you too much.'

  'What's that got to do with it?'

  'Plenty. It's a strange case. Truth is, here in San Diego, nobody's too mad at you at all. Now you got the facts you need, why don't you tell me all about your strange and suspicious behaviour that got you in this pisspot of trouble.'

  I told him. Well, I told him some of it. I kept the Nicholas Brown identity, admitting a few strayings from the truth along the way. When I mentioned the name of Walter MacMurray, Kurtz's nose twitched.

  'Insurance man, you say?'

  'That's it.' I told him about MacMurray's proposition and how I'd reacted to it.

  'I'd say you behaved pretty smart, Nick. You just couldn't anticipate the course of events.'

  Something about his cool, logical speech got my brain working clearly. 'That's it! MacMurray killed her. He came by and when he saw that I'd taken off, they had a fight and he killed her. He needed the money. When do we go to court?'

  Kurtz took a big watch from his vest pocket and consulted it. He took his time about every least movement.