Miss Pink Investigates series Box Set Part Two

by Gwen Moffat

There were six people in the rescue party: all that he could spare, Nielsen said dryly. He had decided to take Hal Brewer, three Indians and Miss Pink. With the exception of herself everyone was armed, so although it seemed a small party to be setting out to bring in two armed criminals, these would hardly be aggressive after a night spent at seven thousand feet, and wearing lightweight suits. In fact, it was doubtful if they were still alive, and hence Miss Pink’s inclusion in the party: another pair of eyes to search, an extra pair of hands to prod the drifts. Moreover, if the men were found alive, or only one of them, assistance might be needed for the evacuation. She could return to the ranch with a message. Alternatively, someone would have to bring up reinforcements if the men were holed up in the Stone Cabin and had to be persuaded to come out.

  ‘Persuaded?’ queried Miss Pink.

  ‘We can keep them inside because we have rifles, but we can’t get them out. We’d need tear gas for that. You’ll be quite safe, Melinda; you’re going to stay well out of range if they’re in that cabin.’

  They took two pack-horses, loaded with sleeping bags and food. The party left the ranch at a walking pace and on the smooth going of the desert floor conversation was possible. Miss Pink found herself riding beside Brewer. She remarked that the cloud was lifting; they could see the snow-line now, below five thousand feet.

  ‘At what height is the Stone Cabin?’ she asked.

  ‘Around four thousand.’

  ‘So they could well be alive.’

  He grinned. ‘And ready to shoot it out? I reckon they pushed on. The cloud was down and even though it’d be raining at the cabin they wouldn’t realize, city guys, that it would be snowing on top. They’d just follow the road into the cloud. It’s a fairly good surface, passable for cars—without snow.’

  ‘Why didn’t we bring vehicles then?’

  ‘We need horses in the snow, ma’am.’ He was humouring her.

  ‘We could have taken trucks to the snow-line and pulled horse trailers. You have trailers.’

  ‘That would have been quicker.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She did a double-take. ‘You mean that we’re deliberately going slowly?’

  ‘Perhaps Jack didn’t want to jolt the horses about in a trailer.’ His eyes were bland. ‘And if these men are still alive, the extra waiting time will have softened them some.’

  Or killed them, she thought.

  ‘I’ve heard it’s an easy way of dying,’ he went on. ‘Not like being roasted to death in a fire.’

  Light dawned on her. ‘So everyone thinks these men were responsible for those deaths.’

  ‘Don’t you? We all know the women were on the run, and these are the men who were looking for them, right?’

  ‘But these men came looking for them after they were dead.’ The fewer people who knew Bunny was alive, the better for the girl’s safety.

  ‘This is different men,’ Brewer was saying, ‘sent down to check that the two dead girls didn’t talk to anyone else.’

  ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘Why, whatever it was that was forcing them to keep their heads down. They could have been witnesses to a murder, something like that. Could have been anything. Hookers are mixed up in all kinds of rackets.’

  ‘You’re young to be cynical.’

  ‘It’s not cynicism, ma’am. Two weeks ago I might not have made the same remarks but they hadn’t been killed then. We were sent here to complete our education. Our people are going to get a shock when they hear what’s happened.’

  ‘Your people?’

  ‘Our fathers.’

  ‘What do you mean by completing your education?’

  ‘Didn’t Jack tell you? Tony’s father is great on self-awareness, realizing your potential, achievement. He made his way up from the bottom, like Jack’s father did: Nielsen Senior. So one of their achievements was providing for their families. Everything: homes, land, jewels, stocks, the best education for the kids. And when the kids grow up the fathers say they don’t appreciate everything that’s been done for them, that we never knew what it was to work for a wage packet. So how can we know if we’ve never experienced it? Is that our fault? We got them to see it our way but there had to be a compromise. We were sent here to learn how the other half lives; I recall someone actually saying something about “character moulding”. We decided we’d go along with them until we’d had a look round, found out what it was like.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to put you both to work as labourers in the oil fields? I gather both your fathers are in oil.’

  ‘Among other things. People diversify these days. No, ma’am; oil wouldn’t have been prudent. There’s too much money about, even at the bottom of the ladder. And bad company.’ His smile was impish. ‘At Sweetwater the only bad company comes out from Calcine after bighorn. We’d sure like to mix with them: at eight hundred yards, or a bit closer maybe?’ His smile broadened as he looked up the canyon they were approaching. ‘And with these,’ he added softly.

  ‘And your father felt the same way as Tony’s father?’

  ‘His persuaded mine. Tony needed company. Everyone else at Sweetwater was so old.’

  ‘Except—’ She checked.

  ‘Emma?’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Yes, there’s Emma. Perhaps that’s what Tony’s old man had in mind,’ he added, half to himself.

  ‘Emma?’

  ‘No, not Emma. Just that—’ he was vehement, ‘—I mean, sending Tony here would get his mind off girls for a while. No one knew Jack’s manager had a gorgeous young wife. Sorry,’ he was airy, ‘forget it. Tony’s at the impressionable age.’

  ‘You’re about the same age.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not Tony.’

  ‘How long will you stay here?’ Her tone was casual.

  ‘Good question. We’ve been here a couple of months. I guess they’ll want us home for Christmas but I don’t want to leave now. The desert does odd things to a man.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Ah, you have noticed. You’re right; Tony doesn’t want to go home either. For different reasons, of course. But he’ll have to go, before things get complicated. Me, I’m going to stay on, tell my father I want to go in for ranching. Funny, how it’s worked out. Here’s me sent along to be a brake on Tony, stop him running after—ah, forget it; you make me talk too much—and I’m the one who’s fallen. Fallen for the life-style.’ His tone held deep conviction.

  ‘You mean Jack’s life-style?’

  ‘I don’t mean the house: servants, food, wine: I’ve had those all my life. I mean the other side: this.’ He made a sweeping gesture. ‘I’ll buy me some land up in the Texas panhandle and I’ll live in a one-room cabin so long as I’ve got a big spread and a horse herd and some cows, that’s all I’ll need.’

  ‘You’ll need company.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll hire a man or two to help out, and eventually I’ll marry. Later rather than sooner. The girls I know wouldn’t be interested: raising kids in a cabin.’

  ‘So you’re going back to the simple life.’

  He shrugged. ‘Simple pioneering life.’

  ‘Quite. I don’t see you on five acres with a goat and subsisting on health foods.’

  ‘Those freaks? They make me sick to my stomach. Excuse me, ma’am, but I’ve got no time for them. They’ve dropped out; should be left where they dropped. They’re parasites, living on welfare and food stamps.’

  Miss Pink took refuge in the activities of her mount. Breeches was mincing down an earth bank on to the road. In crossing the desert they had cut a corner and now they were on a dirt trail that was marked by wheel tracks where the sand had not drifted: three sets of tracks. Nielsen stood to one side waiting for them.

  ‘I want you to stay at the back, Melinda. We’ll keep ahead just in case they’re making their own way down the canyon. And if we do meet them and there’s shooting, I want you to ride as fast as you can to the house and call the police. Got that?’

  She nodded
, grateful that the road had a good surface; she might hope that Breeches would not put his foot in a hole.

  They strung out, Miss Pink ambling sedately in the rear. The road passed through the portals of the canyon where the walls lay back, not restricting them in the bottom of a chasm. This open nature of the ground was comforting until she realized that, if ambush were intended, broken slopes gave cover where a steep-walled canyon would not. Common sense came to the rescue. Nielsen had said that there should be no talking so they moved quietly, thus anyone descending the canyon would not have time to take cover before the Sweetwater party appeared. In any event, surely—if the men they were seeking were going to fire on the party—they would fire on the leaders, not the last person.

  Nevertheless, she rode with her naturalist’s eye ranging the canyon sides, watching for unusual behaviour in the birds, straining her ears above the slop of hooves for the sound of stones trickling under clumsy feet. And, as she rode, she remembered Emma Chadwick sitting in the palm grove under the moon, saying of the Nielsens: ‘Maybe they love each other too.’

  Watching the slopes and preoccupied with her thoughts, she lost sight of the immediate foreground and was suddenly brought back to full consciousness as Breeches’ hooves splashed wetly and he lowered his head to drink.

  The vegetation had changed, at least in the bottom of the canyon. To the right of the road there was a line of small willows while, beyond the other riders, she could see tall hardwoods, their foliage still green, untouched by frosts. At this point she would have been wary had she been alone, but the men were pushing forward stolidly with no change in their formation. The sun came out and the air was suddenly warm. There was a smell of mud and fresh horse dung. It would have been a pleasant ride but for their mission.

  They passed through a long strip of woodland where the ground was dappled by leaf shadows. A black and white shrike sat on the top of a dead tree, observing their progress, flycatchers jumped and fluttered as the heat brought out the flies. They left the springs behind and a saddle appeared in the headwall. The road climbed the slope on a sweeping diagonal, visible for most of its length. As yet they could see no snow. They stopped and Nielsen studied the road through binoculars, then they continued.

  Between the springs and the headwall the road ran at the side of the wash, under a clay bank that had been eroded by flash floods. The effects of last night’s rain were obvious here where miniature landslides had spread muddy fans across the track. In one place a great boulder weighing several tons was poised ten feet above them and the party left the road for a few yards, picking their way through the stones of the wash. The boulder looked as if a puff of wind would bring it down, or gravity.

  At midday they came to Bighorn Basin in the centre of which stood a fine conical butte striated in cream and pink and black. Some way beyond it a small square building was perched on a knoll above the road. Beyond that again was the pass, and below the pass was the snow. The cloud had lifted completely now and the mountains were white against a sapphire sky. There was no sign of their quarry, nor of their car except its mark, less clear now, almost obliterated by the rain and the two sets of tracks superimposed on it.

  Below the Stone Cabin a solitary cottonwood stood beside a spring. As they approached it was obvious that the road was far enough from the cabin to be out of range of handguns, but Nielsen was taking no chances. One window faced them, unscreened and closed. The door was at the back, invisible from the road. He sent an Indian forward to look for tracks while the rest of the party covered the window with their rifles. Miss Pink had halted at a discreet distance.

  The Indian studied the tyre marks without dismounting then gestured towards the pass, indicating that the occupants of the car had not stopped or at the least, had not left it. But the absence of footprints below the cabin was not conclusive evidence that it was unoccupied; the missing men could have walked back and not approached by the road. The Indian moved forward, staring at the ground.

  Nielsen rode wide to the back of the cabin and lifted his binoculars. After one glance he motioned them forward. The door was fastened on the outside: a wire hook in a ring. The cabin was untenanted.

  The interior was clean and neat, if spartan. There was a divan bed, a table covered with a plastic cloth; another, rougher, on which was an old metal tray. There were two tubular chairs, and a shelf on which were glass jars and tins containing salt, sugar, coffee, curry powder, some matches. At one end of the room was a magnificent stone fireplace and a heap of ashes. The ashes were cold. There was no sign of recent occupation.

  ‘They passed it without stopping,’ Nielsen said. ‘I’m relieved. I was afraid they would burn it. We’ll have something to eat and press on. How’re you doing, Melinda?’

  She was doing fine. She had been riding all day for a week, for months it seemed. Stiffness had attained its peak and passed. She felt as if she had spent all her life on the back of a horse.

  After something to eat they pushed on, up another long gradient and into the snow which was melting fast in the sun although there was ice in the shade. They passed the first Joshua trees: strange shaggy trunks with two or three branches girdled with a brush of green spikes pointing skyward like bayonets. There were pinyon pines above the Joshuas, black and bare against the snow. Everything sparkled in the sun but for all that it was an empty world, and even more desolate when the road vanished under deep, dry snow. Miss Pink felt the tension of all rescuers as they approach, not necessarily the end of the search, but definitely a fixed point in it. She tried to see past the other riders but they blocked her view.

  They reached the pass to find themselves on the edge of a high and swelling tableland that seemed to stretch to infinity: white, with a scattering of pinyon and Joshuas, and deathly still. There were no birds. They looked for the birds, particularly eagles which are carrion eaters, but there was no sign of life.

  At one point the horsemen were silhouetted against the sky before passing out of sight and Miss Pink found herself taking great comfort in the marks of their hooves in the snow. She rounded a spur and saw them angling into a draw that was full of powder. Her eyes travelled along the pristine line that must be the road, looping back until, on her own level across the depression, the line was obstructed by a snow-covered boulder, black where the snow had melted, but not black rock: black metal.

  She wondered why Nielsen didn’t stop, was not taking the kind of precautions he had employed at the Stone Cabin, and then she realized that if the men were inside the car they would be in no condition for hostilities. Had they been they would have tried to walk out.

  This appeared to be just what they had done for the car was empty. Locked but empty. There was nothing on the seats: no clothes, no cases, maps, nothing. Nielsen looked at Miss Pink. ‘I figure they went on.’

  ‘Or we passed them because they wandered off the road. I wonder when the snow stopped. There are no tracks here.’

  ‘The Indians say this lot fell in the night, not after dawn. So if they went on in the dark we’re not likely to find them alive. In fact, we won’t find them till the snow melts.’

  ‘How far are we from the Base?’

  ‘Thirty-five miles.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t they go back? They could have reached the cabin. Even an old map wouldn’t show a town for thirty-five miles.’

  ‘Ah, but it could. There’s an abandoned mine a little further on: the Great Constellation. It’s marked on some maps as Constellation. They could have reached it. We’ll take a look.’

  They rode on for half a mile and halted. Miss Pink approached. ‘They’re there,’ Nielsen said grimly. ‘the Indians can smell woodsmoke.’

  That they could smell anything was incredible for when they came in sight of the mine, there was no sign of smoke. The place looked curiously familiar to a mountaineer accustomed to old mine and quarry workings: hunks of rusted machinery, leaning and fallen timbers, a hovel squashed flat by its own roof, a crumbling pockmarked barracks
of a building—and one standing cabin with a dirt roof and its door askew on one hinge.

  Again she sat her horse and waited, this time holding the two pack-horses. The others dismounted and surrounded the cabin, Nielsen facing the doorway. They were still getting into position when a man appeared: holding the door jamb and regarding them with lack-lustre eyes. His clothing looked peculiarly bulky and there was something brown round his head. She saw Nielsen walk up to him and lift an arm, feeling inside his clothes. The man stared at Miss Pink but did not appear to see her. Nielsen went inside the cabin, leaving the man clinging to the door post, then, slowly, he sank to the floor and rested his head on his knees.

  Nielsen appeared and called to the others. Miss Pink got down, tied the horses to a beam, walked past the seated man who was shivering violently, and stopped on the sill. Nielsen was looking down at a figure on the floor, dressed only in under pants. Even the feet were bare, a pair of shoes lying beside two guns among hay and mouse droppings.

  ‘Died in the night,’ he told her. ‘So he said—’ nodding to the doorway. ‘Know anything about the effects of cold, Melinda?’

  She looked back at the bowed head which she now saw was swathed in stained sacking, the bulkiness of the fellow evidently due to his wearing two sets of clothing. She suggested the man be given a warm drink and some food.

  There was a fire in one corner of the cabin, only the embers burning now. The smoke must have escaped through the door. They lit another outside where they didn’t have to contemplate a corpse, and brewed coffee. The survivor drank greedily. It was impossible to visualize in this sunken face with its apathetic eyes, the man who, twenty four hours ago, had arrogantly demanded that Emma be produced. The elements were a great leveller. He was offered food but he refused it, hugging the coffee as if they might take it from him and begging for a cigarette. One of the Indians proffered a pack but his fingers were too swollen to manipulate a small object and the Indian had to light up for him. He held the cigarette awkwardly, his eyes never meeting those of anyone else. Miss Pink sat on a fallen rafter and studied him as if he were a dead snake on the road.