by Gwen Moffat
‘Can I go to my wife?’ Patent asked wistfully.
‘Poor fellow.’ Miss Pink appeared to be struggling to the surface, blinking. ‘He’s been out searching for his wife since dawn, and all that time he thought she’d died a ghastly death, or could be still alive but dying, then his control snapped and he accused Mr Logan of murdering her, of killing Tye too. Then he spoke to his wife on the telephone. I don’t think he can take much more, Mr Coachman.’
‘He can go any time.’ Coachman’s look belied the words. ‘Where’s he staying?’
‘At the Lazy S,’ Seale said. ‘I’ll take him home. Melinda, will you follow me if I take his car?’
Coachman looked at Ross who said: ‘That won’t be necessary, ma’am; I’ll drive Mr Patent to the ranch.’
He stood up and with a hand on Patent’s elbow, guided him towards the door, waiting anxiously as his charge apologized for the trouble he’d caused Logan, thanking Ginny for her hospitality. Coachman stared at the table, impatient for the man to leave.
The door slammed. Coachman looked at Seale. ‘I’d like to see your work permit.’
‘I don’t have one.’
Logan’s face portrayed polite expectancy; Ginny turned and opened the oven door to reveal a sizzling joint. The smell was tantalizing.
Coachman said: ‘Did Tye know you hadn’t got a work permit?’
‘Possibly. I don’t need one. These people are my friends.’
Logan said: ‘You’ve lost me; what would a work permit have to do with a murder—if Tye was murdered?’
‘What was the result of the autopsy?’ Miss Pink asked, and when Coachman’s eyes came round to her, beamed fatuously. ‘Post mortem?’ she ventured uncertainly. ‘Is that the correct term? There was the bear too. The sheriff said—’ She trailed off before Coachman’s stare.
‘The bear was killed by a poacher,’ he said heavily.
‘Oh. Really. How do you know?’
‘Because it was skinned. Someone wanted the pelt.’ He looked at Logan. ‘Someone who’s making a business of killing grizzlies.’
‘But,’ Miss Pink pressed, ‘how was the animal killed?’
‘By a bullet.’
‘Okay,’ Seale said roughly. ‘You know we’re all dying to hear what kind of bullet. What was it?’
Coachman kept his eyes on Logan. ‘It had been cut out,’ he said. ‘A marksman’s shot: through the heart, the bullet extracted; even the track gouged out.’
‘Wow!’ Seale breathed. ‘You’re up against a professional, aren’t you?’
‘What about Tye?’ Logan asked. ‘Was the bullet extracted from the man’s body too?’
‘No.’ Coachman continued to watch him. ‘Tye was killed by a blow to the skull. It was smashed by a blunt instrument, could have been a rifle butt.’
Miss Pink said: ‘I met Irving Tye on Wolverine Creek four days ago. He was carrying a gun then and he struck me as the kind of man who would put up a struggle if he were attacked.’
‘Probably he did,’ Coachman said. ‘We found his pistol and there were three rounds fired from it.’
‘So the murderer is wounded?’ Miss Pink asked brightly.
‘I’ve not met anyone who’s obviously wounded,’ Coachman said with regret. ‘But I’ve not long started. I’ve not got beyond the basic questions yet.’ He paused. ‘I’ve not even mentioned the one I’m going to ask everyone eventually. Like where they were last Saturday and Sunday.’
‘Good gracious!’ Miss Pink was intrigued. ‘Can’t they get the time of death any closer than that in this technological age?’
Coachman refused to rise to the bait. His eyes remained on Logan who said: ‘All day Saturday?’
‘That’s what I shall be asking people.’
‘Saturday,’ Logan mused. ‘Saturday we vaccinated the heifers, right?’ Seale nodded. ‘And in the afternoon we treated the calves for pink eye,’ he went on. ‘And I shoed some horses, and that was my day.’
‘You left out the evening.’ Miss Pink was eager to contribute. ‘I arrived around dusk on Saturday evening.’
Coachman said viciously: ‘You don’t have to answer any questions.’
‘Oh, I know,’ Logan said. ‘I’m volunteering. It’ll save your time. Sunday now. I took some bulls over to Doug Spears in the morning; in the afternoon I worked on the corrals.’
‘You worked on a Sunday?’
Logan shrugged. ‘I’m bringing my cattle down this week; the corrals had to be fixed.’
Outside in the yard a car door slammed. Coachman stood up. ‘I’ve got a lot more questions to ask of other people. Shall I find you here when I need to come back?’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Logan said.
There was a knock at the door and Ross stood on the sill, blinking in the light. Coachman walked across the kitchen, then turned. His lips stretched in a smile. ‘Someone came into a lot of money since the weekend,’ he said. ‘Who’s been buying expensive presents in Prosper?’
Miss Pink said carefully: ‘This is associated with Tye’s death?’
‘His billfold hasn’t been recovered. He was carrying something like two thousand dollars. A stupid man would spend it but a clever killer won’t do that—yet, but then he’s got to hide it, hasn’t he? Where it’s safe?’
Chapter 11
‘It’s a police job,’ Seale said furiously as the horses picked their way between patches of ice, blowing smoke like dragons in the bitter cold. Miss Pink did not reply for, as the chestnut emerged into the horse pasture, she felt his muscles bunch. ‘Keep his head up!’ shouted Seale, and then swore as her mare gave a few preliminary bucks.
‘Not today!’ Miss Pink hissed at her mount. ‘Wouldn’t they play up just when there was so much to do?’
‘They feel the tension. I think what you’re doing is wild.’
‘We’re going to the Trotter place to confirm that Jed understands he is to get his horses to the Logan ranch by six, and to ask for Zack Coons’ telephone number.’
‘You think they’ll believe that’s what we’ve come for? I know you. You’re determined to find out where Jed got that money, and how. And that’s dangerous.’
‘I was thinking—’ Miss Pink was on the defensive, ‘—so far as the money is concerned, I’m keeping an open mind, but do you think that the person who cut the bullet out of the bear can be the same man—or woman—who doesn’t seem much bothered about our seeing an expensive new stove? Why take elaborate precautions to conceal the crime, and then flaunt the proceeds?’
‘For one thing, around here it’s not considered a crime to shoot a grizzly. If a bullet had been taken out of Tye, then that would be a cover-up. But why is everyone so sure that Tye was murdered? The fractured skull could have been the result of a blow from a bear’s paw.’
‘Someone undid his belts.’
‘He could have done that himself; he could have been having a shit when the bear attacked him.’
‘But Shelley says Tye heard a shot. Why would she be lying about that?’
‘Perhaps Tye heard the poacher fire a shot that missed, and he ran out of the tent and straight into a bear that took one swipe at him and killed him. Then the poacher killed the bear.’
‘And stole Tye’s wallet?’
‘Why not? What poacher would leave a wallet lying around with all that money in it?’
‘You’d expect him to take the money and leave the wallet.’
They rode on in single file, each lost in her own thoughts.
No dogs barked as they approached the Trotter place but the hounds were there: at young Billy’s heels as he carried buckets of water from the creek. He nodded to the visitors, eyed their horses, hesitated, and passed into the tent. Miss Pink dismounted, picked up her reins, took a pace towards the chestnut’s head and stopped, staring at Seale but hearing Billy’s voice.
‘Don’t do it; I’m a better shot than you.’
Seale was rigid in the saddle, her hand arrested inches from he
r scabbard. Billy stood outside the tent, his feet planted in the classic stance, a rifle covering them both.
‘Why are you frightened of me?’ Seale asked.
‘Why d’you come here armed? You never did.’ It was plaintive rather than belligerent, as if Billy felt himself betrayed. As Seale had remarked, he was more frightened than hostile.
‘There’s a bear about,’ Miss Pink said. ‘We’re all armed since yesterday. I would expect your father to be too.’
Billy looked at his rifle. ‘He’s not. This here is his new gun. My dad’s not bothered.’
Seale rested both hands on her saddle horn and said easily: ‘So what did we do? Billy, the police are back at our place searching for the pelt.’
Billy looked shifty. ‘What pelt?’
‘The grizzly that was shot in Sundance. You can forget about going after elk with your dad; the fuzz are only interested in bear. They’re not bothered about game.’
‘We don’t know nothing about game.’ It was an automatic statement. ‘So they think—’ At a movement he swung round, then he relaxed and the barrel dropped. His mother came riding through the pines, dressed for the cold in a ragged sheepskin and a cap with ear muffs. Miss Pink was not surprised to see that there was a rifle in her scabbard too.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, and there was an edge of panic in her voice. She made no attempt to greet Seale and Miss Pink—who felt the situation slipping out of control.
‘Good morning, Mrs Trotter.’ She was amiable, even urbane. ‘We rode over to tell your husband to be sure to get the horses to the ranch by six tomorrow. And Mr Logan wants Zack Coons, so we need his telephone number. He’s not in the book.’
Mae stared at her son who was now holding the rifle in one hand. The look he gave her was alert and questioning. ‘We’ll be there,’ Mae said, frowning, preoccupied with something other than the Logan’s cattle drive.
‘This is a bad time for everyone,’ Miss Pink said. ‘It’s not nice for people having to go around armed.’
‘Well, I got nothing against you.’ Mae was sulky.
Peripheral vision warned Miss Pink that Billy again had both hands on the rifle. She said carefully: ‘It wasn’t Seale nor I, nor Sim Logan; we were all at the ranch, each of us under someone else’s eye. Unless we were a gang—and that would have to include his mother—no one from the Logan ranch could have been in Sundance when Tye died.’
‘No one said it was you.’ Mae seemed suspicious rather than surprised.
‘So why is Billy so hostile?’
‘He’s not hostile! Billy, put the gun away.’ He glared, but what he read in his mother’s face made him turn and enter the tent. Mae went on: ‘We get blamed for everything: missing calves, break-ins, it’s always us. Billy’s not thinking straight; he reckons as how we’re going to get blamed for this too.’
‘He’s certainly not thinking straight.’ Miss Pink passed her reins over a rail and the atmosphere lightened perceptibly. Seale and Mae dismounted and tied their horses beside the chestnut but Mae, instead of offering hospitality, clutched her elbows and stood looking up the slope, the way she had come.
‘He’d be better off with a gun,’ Miss Pink murmured.
The woman swung round, her eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘I thought I’d convinced you that we’re not a threat but, yes, a threat exists. I don’t know where it would come from, and the police have no idea, which is why they’re searching for that bear pelt. If they find it, the assumption is that they’ve found the killer—providing it’s on his premises.’
Mae shrugged, the anger gone. ‘They won’t find it here. Nor any other skins barring coyote.’
‘The police questioned us last evening: two detectives from Sweetgrass. They dress like city people but they’re sharp. They were asking who had come into a lot of money recently.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Billy thrust aside the tent flap.
‘You shut your mouth!’ Mae was so savage that he recoiled before her. She turned on Miss Pink. ‘Why’d they ask that?’
‘Tye was carrying two thousand dollars and his billfold is missing.’
Billy caught his breath, glanced at Mae, sniffed, and scuffed at the ground with his boot.
‘They’re going to be interested in your new stove,’ Miss Pink said. ‘And in your husband’s rifle.’
After a while Mae said: ‘So am I. The stove’s all right but he didn’t need no new gun. I don’t go along with that, didn’t go along with any of it, but it’s done now; no sense crying over spilt milk. Jed stole—he took my savings. Well, they was all our savings, but I always kept ’em.’
Billy swallowed convulsively, his eyes wandering, giving the impression that he would have turned and run had he dared.
‘You’ll have to convince the police of that,’ Miss Pink said. ‘They’re going to ask why, if you had a lot of money saved, you lived so—frugally. Why, for instance, you didn’t buy the stove before the cold weather came.’
‘We didn’t—’ Mae stopped. Miss Pink said nothing. Seale leaned on a rail and looked bored. Mae said: ‘We didn’t have it long. Not all of it. I were saving up for a stove, see, than Jed got some elk and he sold them.’
Miss Pink sighed. ‘You’re in a fix. What did Jed tell you to say?’
‘He didn’t tell me nothing. I’m saying the truth.’
‘Which is true: that Jed stole your savings or that he sold some elk?’
‘I don’t have to tell you! Why’re you asking? What right have you got?’
‘No official right. But innocent people shouldn’t have to suffer, and Jed is in danger. Haven’t you realized that yet, woman?’
Seale stiffened, her attention divided between mother and son, and the fact that her rifle was on the other side of her horse, but Miss Pink’s exasperation had the desired effect. Mae said miserably: ‘I know. He do too. I didn’t realize it ’til now; I didn’t believe him but with you knowing it too—’ She looked at Billy. ‘Did you believe him?’
‘He didn’t tell me he were in danger, Mom.’
‘What about them? Didn’t he tell you they were after him?’
‘No! Who’s them? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Mae shook her head. ‘No more do I.’ She turned back to Miss Pink. ‘Jed went last evening. I been out looking for him since first light. I can’t find him.’
‘What did he say when he left?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You mean he just walked out—’ Miss Pink turned to the horses in the corral. ‘How many—’
‘He didn’t take no horse,’ Billy said. ‘He just walked out.’
‘He said nothing at all?’
‘Not a word.’ Mae was adamant.
‘He did so, Mom. He said he were going to unsaddle.’
‘She meant did he say where he were going, son.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He left the tent to unsaddle. Did he do that?’
‘Yeah,’ Billy said. ‘The saddle were on the ground. I found it there when I went to look for him. The bridle too, and his blankets.’
‘Where was his horse?’
‘In the corral.’
‘So he took off then,’ Mae said. ‘And he didn’t have no clothes to stay out all night.’
Miss Pink asked ‘When did he tell you “they” were after him?’
‘Yesterday, after you’d left. I didn’t take no notice. Jed said things like that, like they would never catch him, or they was all creeps, you know the kind of thing.’
‘Meaning the fuzz,’ Seale said.
Mae shrugged. ‘I s’pose so.’
‘But then,’ Miss Pink persisted, ‘his tone changed—yesterday? He said they were after him, as if they’d got him on the run. He still meant the police?’
Mae and Billy exchanged puzzled glances. ‘No,’ Mae said. ‘He wouldn’t be running from the police. He’d hole up. They wouldn’t bother him.’
‘So who wa
s he referring to?’
‘I didn’t believe him!’ It was a wail. ‘I never asked him. Should I have done?’
Billy cried: ‘Who’s after him? Them as killed Tye?’
Miss Pink asked: ‘Who gave him the money, Mae? If we knew that it might help.’
‘No,’ Mae shouted. ‘I don’t know. He said it were for some elk he sold. I’m not lying, not now. I believed him: that him and Zack had killed some elk and got the money—that’s what he said.’
‘Why don’t you try to track him with your hounds?’
‘Them’s hunting dogs,’ Billy said. ‘They wouldn’t know what was wanted. What’s happened to him?’
‘We have to tell the police,’ Miss Pink said. ‘They’ll organize a search and I don’t think they’ll bother you about the elk. Forget the cattle drive, at least for the present, but give us Zack Coons’ number. We’re going to need him.’
She had noted it down and was zipping her anorak when Billy said someone was coming. There was no sound, but the dogs were stiff-legged, pointing in the direction of the road. Miss Pink and Seale were in their saddles when a mud-splashed car came lurching up the track. Billy glanced at his mother who shook her head in warning.
The car stopped and two men got out. They wore quilted jackets and fur caps, and one carried a camera. Miss Pink urged her horse towards the game trail. Seale followed. The man without the camera shouted: ‘Hi! Hang on a minute—’ and hurried to intercept them. Miss Pink and Seale smiled and waved and the horses broke into a lope.
‘They’re going to put the Trotters through the wringer,’ Seale said when they were beyond pursuit and had slowed their pace.
‘I doubt that. Mae’s accustomed to turning questions; she’ll send them away with a flea in their ear. Remember, the Press don’t know the Trotters have come into money so the reporters haven’t got a handle. Mae won’t tell them that Jed’s missing either. She’ll stall them—for a time.’
‘What do you think’s happened to Jed?’
‘That’s the wrong question. Who gave him the money? If Jed connected the donor with Tye’s murderer, then Jed is either on the run at this moment, or he got caught.’
