by Gwen Moffat
‘Who’s Karen?’ Ingrid asked.
‘She’s the younger Fraser girl.’ Chadwick sounded eager. ‘She’s a beauty; takes after her father, of course. Her mother’s plain.’
‘You know these people?’ Nielsen was incredulous.
‘Of course not.’ Simon laughed deprecatingly. ‘But I hadn’t enough gas to get home once so I stopped to fill up. And then I went in the store, just out of nosiness, you know? It was a weekend so the young girl was home from school.’
Mollified, Nielsen had returned to his own train of thought. A plate was put in front of him and he regarded it absently. ‘They’re a nuisance,’ he said. ‘The dump’s going to be all of twelve miles away.’
‘They should have left years ago,’ Ingrid put in. ‘Besides, the waste’s harmless, or virtually so. The only reason you had it relocated was because they’d have to build a road to it; you didn’t object to the dump itself.’
‘I didn’t have it re-located; I wouldn’t have it in these mountains, that’s all. The further away, the better. Birds could carry contaminated stuff on their feet; migrants could bring it to the marsh.’
‘Anywhere else but here,’ Emma murmured. ‘And if it’s the cause of them having to move, it’s for their own good, isn’t it?’
There was consternation on her husband’s face but Nielsen looked thoughtful. ‘It is for their own good,’ he told her. ‘There’s nothing for them at Molten. There are six inhabitants. Six! And only the Frasers are worth salvaging. The man’s a good worker, I’m told; he should take his family and move to a place where he can make a decent living. This desert will never support poor men. He owes it to his dependents.’
‘Work’s kind of difficult to find just now,’ Emma said.
‘The work’s there if they’ll look for it! But not in the desert.’ He smiled kindly at her. ‘I know what you’re thinking, my dear, but my father had five dollars in his pocket when he reached Texas. This—’ he made a gesture that included the valley beyond the room, ‘—came from five dollars. And hard work. Unremitting hard labour. I respect my father not for what he made but how he made it.’
‘Well,’ Chadwick said carefully, ‘he didn’t have to farm you out to his friends to learn how the other half lived. You were in there with him, beavering away. No idle man expands a business empire in the twentieth century.’
‘I’m idle,’ Nielsen protested, but smugly. ‘I’m reaping the fruits now.’ A thought struck him and he became fierce: ‘But I’m keeping them even though I have to employ armed men to do it. Next thing we know, hunters’ll be after the puma!’
‘Look on the bright side,’ Chadwick said. ‘No one can get into Bighorn Basin without crossing your land or the restricted areas. He’s safe. Let’s hope a second puma may honour us with its presence: of the opposite sex, of course. Do female pumas sound like tom cats?’
‘I’ll play you a tape after dinner.’
They turned to their tournedos. Myron went round the table with claret. The conversation lightened, Miss Pink and Chadwick, as if by tacit consent, manoeuvring gently to keep it on an even course. The manager was an able fellow, she thought, and in more ways than one. She considered his wife as Emma picked at her food: not a silly girl so much as careless. Her husband was competent in the social graces but there seemed to be no way that he could anticipate her gaffes. However, Nielsen had treated her kindly despite the fact that, in the circumstances of her husband’s employment, she was sailing very close to the wind.
Chapter 5
The palomino was tied to a cottonwood tree, his chestnut haunches bright in the chequered light. He pivoted as the grey approached and whickered softly. Miss Pink looked around for Hal Brewer but failed to see him. The rifle scabbard on the palomino’s saddle was empty. She considered it unhappily. One did not ride home late in the afternoon, leaving an unattended horse and not knowing where its rider might be, alone and carrying a gun.
She dismounted and tied her horse to a branch. Taking binoculars from the saddle-bag she started to search the sunlit slopes above but they were steep and from the bottom she could not see depressions, nor if anything moved on invisible ledges. She wondered why the horse had been left.
A shot exploded, followed by its echoes. She turned and squinted into the light coming over the shadowed side of the canyon but the sun was low and she was blinded. The horses must be trained to gunfire; they had not been greatly startled and stood now with pricked ears, staring up the canyon where its wall eased off to a shelf before it rose again. She caught a movement on the shelf and through the glasses saw a man walking without haste or stealth. She waited, relieved that he did not appear to be harmed, but puzzled.
Several minutes elapsed before a second shot rang out. Now she was annoyed at her own helplessness, wondering what was going on and whether she should take some course of action.
The man reappeared, made his way along the shelf and scrambled down a gully to the canyon floor. It was Hal Brewer and he was not surprised to see her; he would have identified her horse from a distance and she always rode Breeches.
‘Did the shots worry you, ma’am? The coyotes were after a deer and it was running lame.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess I should have left it to them. They’d about finished it off by the time I got up there.’
‘You shot the coyotes?’
‘No. I shot in the air to drive them off. You don’t kill animals at Sweetwater.’ He smiled; he was teasing her. ‘That’s against the rules. I just drove them off, but I had to shoot the buck.’
‘An anti-climax. I thought you were stalking a poacher.’
‘Wouldn’t that be something?’ He tightened his cinch.
‘Are you going to the ranch?’ she asked as he swung himself into the saddle.
He smiled with great charm. ‘I guess I’m late. I’ll have to push this old horse. Sorry I have to leave you, ma’am. Will you be all right on your own?’
She accepted without resentment the implication that he would go too fast for her. The end of the day was far too delightful to leave it quickly. She would amble happily out of the canyon enjoying the expanding views of the desert as she emerged from the Last Chance Range, watching the little lizards streak up vertical walls, the chipmunks that stared bright-eyed at her horse, never realizing that there was a person on its back. This was the way to see the country and its wildlife. She was already calculating the cost of keeping a pony in England but she knew that there she would see only a fraction of the wildlife that she was seeing here, despite the fact that much of it was hibernating. Rattlesnakes for instance. She was quite relieved that rattlers were not abroad. Certainly, she thought, as she stood at Breeches’ head, waiting for the palomino’s dust to settle, listening to the fading beat of hooves, certainly the last thing I would want to do this evening is gallop. He didn’t want my company either.
The two ‘wranglers’, Brewer and Doyle, had come to the ranch from their bunk-house on her second evening there: well-scrubbed young men in silk shirts and Gucci ties, their hair cropped fashionably short as if they aspired to the armed services. They were respectful and polite but devoid of small-talk, which was not surprising in view of the fact that the only member of the company who came close to them in age was Emma Chadwick. But they avoided the girl as if they were genuine wranglers ill at ease in the company rather than the rich young men they were. Certainly Tony Doyle, the more ingenuous of the pair, had stared at her; she looked beautiful but tired that night and her turquoises did nothing to lighten the effect of the dark gown she wore—but to be the focus of a young man’s attention was natural. It was less natural that, so far as Miss Pink could see, Brewer had ignored her.
That was two nights ago and Miss Pink had been at Sweetwater for four days. She had learned a lot about the ranch and the valley, had watched the Indians harvesting the alfalfa crop, had swum in the fern-draped pool under the date palms; she had met the red cat, Kermit. Miss Ginny was a fan of the Muppets. There was no television at the ranc
h but rented movies were shown every evening in isolated and soundproofed rooms: one for the Indians, a second for the whites. They liked different subjects.
The Indians had odd preferences, not only in movies where they were fascinated by wildlife films and violence, but in mundane matters such as dress. The men wore levis and shirts but the plain dress of the maids, blue shirtwaisters and red aprons, was their own choice. ‘They’re all right,’ Miss Ginny said cheerfully. ‘I treat ’em like cats. We get along fine.’
Miss Pink had talked with Ingrid and learned that she did not spend the summers in the desert but took trips abroad from which she returned with innumerable slides of Greek temples, Swiss chalets, Cotswold villages, to copy them in watercolours. It was her work that adorned the walls of the dining room, and many other places. They were bright and meticulous and, once Miss Pink had learned what could well be the reason for this absorbing activity, they were sad.
The Nielsens had had two sons. The elder had been a helicopter pilot. He was shot down in Vietnam, captured, tortured and decapitated. The younger son had been eighteen and visiting family friends in San Francisco when a party of drunks shot up his car. They hadn’t been shooting at him, merely at his tyres. He had a blow-out, left the road, and was incinerated in the car. The men responsible had been charged with manslaughter, convicted, and were now walking the streets again, alive and free.
Chadwick had told her the story. Miss Pink had repeated Brewer’s words: ‘The West will be held by the gun.’ ‘A joke,’ Chadwick said. ‘It sounds like Jack in a sick mood. He had cause to make it, wouldn’t you say?’ She had changed the subject.
It was Chadwick who had been her informant concerning the domestic arrangements in the house. He was a great filler of gaps. They had their own air strip and most supplies were flown in. He had a pilot’s licence himself and if an emergency occurred—a fracture, a dubious internal complaint, toothache—he could take the patient out—although the doctor would fly in if summoned, and the veterinarian. Bulky supplies, such as hay when needed, came in by truck, through the bombing range, Nielsen arranging passage with the commanding officer. Chadwick did not say that money was no object at Sweetwater. ‘We’re well looked after,’ he’d told her, which meant the same thing. Miss Pink thought that this was truly eating the lotus, and was surprised to catch herself qualifying that. It was all right for some people.
She had fallen in love with the valley and had not yet entertained the thought of leaving. She was enjoying herself; the person who forced her to qualify the comment on lotus land was Emma Chadwick.
From casual but rather heavy conversation with the girl it transpired that she had worked in a boutique in the King’s Road, London, and had married Chadwick when he returned from the States to make arrangements to move there permanently. That part of the story he had told her: how he had met Ingrid on Corfu when they were both angling for pictures of the fishing fleet coming back to harbour at dawn, had learned that her husband was looking for a pilot for his private aircraft, and how she had sent him straight to California to meet Jack, who had engaged him, first for flying and then, as it became apparent that Chadwick had a head for figures, to keep the books. ‘I don’t do much,’ he’d said modestly. ‘There are accountants for the proper business of course, all those oil wells in Texas, but someone has to look after the expenditure at Sweetwater. I even have to interpret Miss Ginny’s bank statements for her. The place would be a shambles without someone in charge of that side.’
It was plain that he enjoyed his work, and the life-style. He had all the advantages of wealth without any of its responsibilities, and there was no reason to doubt Nielsen’s contention that the man was indispensable. He’d struck lucky with the job and evidently he gave good service. But—Emma?
Each day Miss Pink had left the ranch after breakfast with or without her host, or he would join her later at some prearranged point. She returned around sunset. She wondered what Emma did with her days, apart from ride. She rode hard and fast, on a small brown horse, streaking across the desert like a Valkyrie. ‘If that pony puts its foot in a hole—’ Nielsen said one morning as she came galloping out of the mesquite, but he didn’t complete it. Instead he said indulgently: ‘She needs to work it off,’ but he didn’t elaborate. He could have meant youthful spirits; if so, she did indeed work it off. In the evenings she was quite listless, except for occasional sharp flashes of contrariness such as she had exhibited on that first evening.
It was Nielsen who explained the background to the radioactive dump, protesting that there had never been any controversy, that the matter was no longer even a talking point. He had learned of a proposal to dump the waste in the mountains between Sweetwater and Molten at a point that came close to his boundary. He had suggested that the site be located the other side of Molten. The townsfolk said that their water would be polluted. That was ridiculous. It was contrived. Their water was already so alkaline they shouldn’t be drinking it so their grudge against himself wasn’t on the grounds of a health hazard; it was a class grudge. He repeated that if their water were further contaminated it would be the best thing that could happen. They’d have to leave Molten. Of course no expense would be spared in monitoring the water; they’d be in no danger.
*
Later in the evening after she had met Brewer in the canyon she was passing the fountain on her way to the terrace when Myron approached. ‘Come,’ he ordered, and turning, led the way to Nielsen’s room which they called his den. This was devoted to natural history and here he kept his books and maps, his journals, tapes and slides, projector, viewing table, stereo equipment. Here he would retreat occasionally without warning or excuse and then people on the way to the pool might hear a warbler in full spring song in November, or a great horned owl calling repeatedly in the middle of the day. But this evening he was not alone with his tapes; he had a visitor.
Myron retreated, closing the door. The stranger shook hands. Verne Stuart. ‘Verne is a detective from Calcine,’ Nielsen was saying. ‘I’ve known him for twelve years.’ Miss Pink wondered if that were meant to convey something to her. She sat down and accepted a sherry.
Stuart was an attractive man, probably in his mid-forties, with a tanned skin, pale eyes under heavy brows, pale hair. He was tall and lean, and supple enough that she would have revised her estimate of his age but for his face. It was not a young man’s face.
‘He needed to talk to you in private,’ Nielsen explained. ‘D’you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ She was intrigued.
Stuart didn’t waste words. ‘Friday evening you stayed over at the motel at Molten, ma’am: the El Dorado.’
‘Good gracious! Is that what it’s called? I hadn’t realized.’
‘The El Dorado, owned and managed by Muriel Webber.’
‘That was the person’s name.’ She regarded him expectantly. She thought she knew something of what was coming, and she was half right.
‘Did you meet any other guests while you were there?’
‘Yes. There were only two. Donna and Bunny. I don’t remember that I heard their surnames. I had supper with them.’
‘That might be important. This isn’t pleasant, ma’am, since you ate a meal with them; I mean, you got acquainted. Their car’s been found. It was burned out and there were two bodies in it.’
She blinked slowly, staring at him. Nielsen said, peering at her: ‘Nasty shock for you, Melinda.’
‘Not at all,’ she said absently, and stiffened then, her face serious.
‘Seale told me you’d had to do with homicide,’ Nielsen said accusingly.
‘Homicide?’ She turned to Stuart. ‘It’s murder?’
‘No one’s said so, and I’m waiting for the autopsy reports, but if you’ve been involved with violent death then I don’t have to watch my words to spare your feelings. It would make things easier.’ He sounded hopeful.
She admitted to having been involved, in a strictly private capacity. He was relieved, said
he’d like to hear about it some time and returned straight to the business in hand: with the reason why he had wanted to see her. Could she remember what was talked about when she was with the girls?
It was a few moments before she complied, sipping her sherry, projecting her mind back to that evening when she had followed Donna along the cement path in the afterglow—the same time of evening as now—and entered Bunny’s room. Carefully she started to recall the conversation and the incidents: Bunny’s having lost her shoes, the arrival of the truck driver, Bunny’s revelation that they must wait in Molten until the heat was off. No, she said, there had been no indication concerning the origin of that threat.
She related how, the morning after sharing the girls’ supper, she had been wakened by an altercation between Donna and Mrs Webber which, if not resolved by a man whom she thought could have been Hammer, had been checked by him. She described him. Stuart said the description fitted Wayne Hammer. ‘We knew the girls owed money,’ he went on. ‘That is, I know now; after five minutes with Muriel Webber you know that if nothing else. But she didn’t mention Hammer intervening. She didn’t tell me he knew the girls. He went into their rooms? I’ll have to follow that up.’
‘He gave me the impression of carrying a lot of weight with Mrs Webber too.’
‘Aragon paid the bill,’ Stuart said. ‘One bill.’
‘Aragon?’
‘That was Donna’s last name. It has to be false: Donna Aragon. The other one was Bunny Kraus.’
Miss Pink absorbed this and returned to the subject of money. ‘They owed 150 or 160 dollars on Saturday—’ She stopped. She had been going to say: ‘If they did a brisk business over the weekend they could have raised the money.’ She didn’t say this less through fear of offending her hearers’ sensibilities than because she realized that never, even on July 4th, would business be brisk in Molten.
‘She went to Las Vegas on Saturday,’ Stuart said. ‘She came back Sunday and paid Muriel Webber. They left last night—Monday—or early this morning. They took most of their belongings but didn’t pay the bill from Sunday, which comes to sixty dollars.’
