by Gwen Moffat
Seale considered this and then said earnestly: ‘I’m not sure that you’re right. You could be judging the Trotters by standards that don’t apply here. These people are liars and thieves; they’re totally amoral. What’s the difference between poaching elk and killing bear?’
‘In the context of the bear in Sundance, the difference is that a man was killed too.’
‘That could have been an accident. All over the States, every fall there are hunting accidents.’
‘Incompetent people are responsible for those. Men who poach grizzlies will have to be expert; no poacher could make a living if he weren’t a marksman.’
‘You’re right. Trotters don’t have hunting accidents, but what makes you think Jed wouldn’t deliberately kill a man who threatened him with exposure? Besides, we’re both forgetting that Tye wasn’t shot; his skull was smashed. This is the West, Melinda; life is cheap out here.’
‘That cheap?’
‘It’s less than a hundred years since men were killed over a stolen cow. Even in England, now, poachers take potshots at game-keepers. The Trotters live by stealing cattle and poaching. Killing a man is only one step removed. And Tye was asking for it; he was born a victim.’
‘You’re getting too imaginative, although I see your point—and one you don’t see. The Trotters are known criminals and yet even Sim Logan employs them—’
Seale shrugged. ‘Labour’s hard to get, and they’re good riders, and Wapiti Ridge is Jed’s patch; he’ll have hunted every acre of it. I reckon he’s holed up there somewhere; after all, there’s something like eighty square miles of Wapiti that he’s familiar with, and that Otis Lenhart and Sim don’t begin to know even though it’s their grazing.’
‘What did Jed do with the bear’s pelt?’
‘The same as he did with the elk skins. And I know he had those; I saw them. None of ’em, bear or elk, will ever be found. Mel, I reckon it’s time we told the police about Jed’s new stove; a man who’s killed once isn’t going to be bothered about the second time. Do you feel safe?’
Miss Pink twitched her shoulders and glanced back.
‘He doesn’t have to be behind us,’ Seale said. ‘And he’s almost certainly armed.’
‘He left his new rifle behind.’
‘He could prefer his old one.’
‘Let’s ride along the road.’
‘We’d be sitting ducks out in the open. We’ll stay in the forest and gallop. Watch out for low branches.’
‘Take over,’ Logan said, and sat back on his heels. Seale picked up a handful of straw and started to massage the new calf. Behind the slats of a loose box its mother stared, breathing heavily.
Miss Pink sat on a bale of hay and reflected how pleasant it would be to watch the West at work without any compulsion to participate, and how desirable if the West were nothing more than a glamorous version of the Highlands instead of this bizarre world where, as Seale had pointed out, life was cheap.
‘Is it going to live?’ she asked, her voice hollow with despair.
‘I doubt it,’ Logan said. ‘I’ll leave it to her. I’m going to the house and call Zack Coons.’
‘Oh, no you don’t.’ Seale did not pause in her ministrations. ‘What are we going to do about Jed Trotter?’
Logan smiled. ‘All you told me is Jed suddenly started spending money, and he’s disappeared. What’s sinister about that? Come off it, Seale. Jed shot some elk and he’s laying low until the heat’s off. It’s none of our business.’
Seale looked hard at Miss Pink who said helplessly: ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Seale glowered and pressed on the calf’s ribs. ‘What about heart massage, Sim?’
‘It’s breathing. You got to get it on its feet.’
‘I don’t think anyone gives a damn,’ Seale muttered.
Footsteps sounded in the barn and Ginny appeared. She surveyed the tableau round the calf and asked with mild interest: ‘Did it get up yet?’
‘We’re working on it,’ Logan said, and looked at her expectantly.
‘They found the bear’s skin.’
In the ensuing silence the cow rustled and weaved, making woofing noises.
‘Where?’ Seale asked.
‘In a slough twenty miles north, on the Sweetgrass road. The man whose land it’s on called the police. Funny.’
‘What’s funny, Mom?’
‘It had no head nor paws.’
Logan burst into laughter and everyone stared at him. ‘Why, here’s us thinking it’s the pelt as come off the bear in Sundance, but it could be any old skin, like someone threw it out, it had been lying around in a barn somewhere and got some bugs in it.’
‘It were fresh,’ Ginny said. ‘Just been killed.’
‘Well then it’s a—a cow hide is what it is.’
‘The scientists have seen it, son.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘Someone telephoned?’
‘Randy from The Covered Wagon. The Highway Patrol was in and told him.’
Seale asked: ‘Can they match the pelt to the carcass?’
‘I have no idea,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Why are the head and feet missing, Sim?’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t think. The skin’s not worth much without them.’
‘What’s a complete pelt worth?’
‘Depends on the state of it. And you’re talking about the black market, not retail. I’d make a guess at two thousand dollars for a pelt in prime condition.’
‘So why mutilate it?’ Seale asked. ‘It’s worth nothing—Whoops, he’s getting up, Sim.’
The calf was feebly moving its legs. Seale stood up, stooped and lifted the little beast, her hands under its ribs. It gave a surprisingly loud bawl. Behind the slats its mother threshed in the straw and bellowed.
‘He’s wobbly,’ Seale said. ‘But he can support himself. See?’
‘That cow ought to be tied,’ Miss Pink said with disapproval.
‘You ever tied a range cow?’ Logan took the calf from Seale, she opened the gate of the loose box a crack and he pushed the baby inside. The cow whisked about and eyed them like a wild beast. The calf staggered towards her udder. Of one accord everyone retreated. There was a soft low from the loose box.
‘He got there,’ Logan said with satisfaction, then: ‘What are the police saying, Mom?’
‘Randy didn’t know.’
Seale glanced at Miss Pink, who was frowning. ‘Why cut off the head and paws?’ she repeated.
‘And where are they?’ Miss Pink asked generally. ‘The pelt was on the Sweetgrass road. Why there, in particular?’
‘Just, to get it out of the way?’ Logan looked at Seale. ‘I’m not much bothered. I got some fence posts to get to Cow Camp and I’m leaving now, soon as I call Zack Coons. Looks as if we may not get the Trotters after all, the way things are. You go over to Farrell’s, Seale; see how many people you can get together there. Lee said everyone will come but I only want people who can ride, and herd cows. Go and see to it.’
Chapter 12
There was an atmosphere of carnival about the dude ranch. They had been warned of what they might expect by the presence of strange cars, one of which looked familiar. ‘The men who came to the Trotter place were in that,’ Seale said, parking the Bronco. ‘What line do we take?’
‘Dumb cowhand for you. Try not to look intelligent.’
The door opened on a scene more like a crowded English pub than a ranch except that this place, ill-lit and facing east, was darker than most pubs. As they paused on the threshold, trying to identify the occupants, George Osborn detached himself from a cluster of people at the bar. ‘We expected you last evening,’ he said. ‘What kept you?’ His eyes glittered and his face was sharp rather than morose, as if he had shed one or two inhibitions in the bar.
Miss Pink smiled. ‘The police kept us. The F.B.I.’
His jaw dropped. The place was hushed and faces turned towards them. Disconcerted, she glanced at
Seale. ‘Weren’t they F.B.I.?’
Seale looked sullen. ‘Did they identify themselves?’
Tara appeared at her husband’s elbow. ‘But Miss Pink, why did the F.B.I. come to you?’
‘No, no. Their business was with Sim Logan. About that old bear.’ She peered around and located Wilbur Farrell, seated at the dining table, half-hidden by a figure in a bulky overcoat. ‘The bear that came here four years ago, Mr Farrell; the one with the radio collar?’
Wilbur swallowed and wiped his mouth. Tara took Miss Pink’s arm and edged her towards the bar. ‘That poor old beast has become a cause célèbre. I suppose the police implied that Sim Logan shot it? They seem to have tried accusing everyone in turn. That surprises you? You must have been out of circulation for a while. This place has been swarming with police. Now, what will you have to drink? And Seale?’ Tara was being prettily hospitable as if she were in her own drawing room, ordering her husband to respond to her guests’ preferences. ‘I don’t think your visitors were F.B.I.,’ she went on, watching Osborn relay their orders to Farrell. ‘They were only local detectives, weren’t they, Lee?’
Farrell reached for the Tio Pepe. ‘I don’t think we’re important enough to rate the F.B.I.’
A woman with a mass of dark frizzy hair, in a Norwegian sweater and fur-lined boots, said: ‘You’re the English ladies working for Sim Logan?’
Seale stiffened. ‘Partway accurate,’ murmured Miss Pink. ‘I am English and we’re both friends of the family.’
‘Pardon me. But it was you who found the body.’
‘That’s right.’ Apparently confused by this attention, Miss Pink’s eye wandered and caught that of the man whom she had last seen at the Trotter place, the fellow to whom she’d waved before pushing her horse to a run. And where the brunette was thinking of her paper, this man was watching Miss Pink’s face with more than casual interest.
Around them individual conversations, interrupted by her arrival with Seale, had been resumed. She accepted her sherry from Osborn and sipped it appreciatively, looking about her, seeing that, apart from the Farrells and the Osborns, the remaining people were unfamiliar—and they were all Press. This was obvious less by virtue of their appearance than their cohesion. Their attention was directed outward; none of them was interested in each other.
In addition to the woman with the teased hair and the man from the Trotter place, there was a ravaged fellow with deep-set eyes—and he was the one carrying the camera at the Trotters’. There was a callow youngster with an auburn moustache and spectacles, and the person talking to Wilbur. This was a middle-aged woman in an overcoat that seemed to be made of plastic quilting, and wearing high leather boots. She had neat hair, a plain face and eyes like a turkey vulture.
Tasting her sherry, aware that more than one person was focused on her, Miss Pink weighed them for danger and then wondered if danger had some personal significance: for her or Seale. There was tension in this room. Did that imply a threat, or threats, and if so, to whom? Was danger, like the reporters, waiting for a break?
‘Surely,’ the dark woman was saying, ‘the case hinges on the illegal killing of grizzlies?’ She had been talking to Seale but, perhaps in view of Seale’s lack of response, was now addressing Miss Pink, who said: ‘One needs more information, Miss—I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Glennell. I’m from the Sweetgrass Chronicle. You don’t have all the information?’ She was incredulous.
‘We have too much,’ Miss Pink confessed. ‘For days we’ve been bombarded with facts, and opinions. My brain feels as if it’s scrambled.’ She looked at the watchful man. ‘We would welcome an objective view. And you are—?’
He nodded, as if it were time she acknowledged him. ‘I’m Munster, of the Jefferson Tribune. You surely know the salient facts. A bear was skinned and a hiker was found dead. It appears that the person who killed the man killed the bear too. It seems simple enough.’
‘So it does!’ She was beaming. Then her face fell but she said nothing, waiting, regarding him with expectation. He refused to respond and it was the girl, Glennell, who filled the gap. ‘After that,’ she supplied, ‘it’s conjecture. Whodunnit?’ Miss Pink looked blank. ‘Suspects,’ Glennell elaborated.
‘That shouldn’t be difficult in this day and age.’ Miss Pink reconsidered. ‘Or am I being obtuse? There are fingerprints, tracks …’ She brightened. ‘Alibis.’
‘And Irving Tye’s missing billfold,’ Munster said.
‘And the pelt.’ Her eyes shone. ‘The pelt is a vital clue.’
Osborn smiled. ‘That pelt will be under six feet of dirt by now.’
‘Not in the Rockies,’ Miss Pink said sharply. ‘The rock is too close to the surface. In any event, it’s been found.’
Someone gasped. Tara’s eyes moved to her husband who looked confused, angry. Lee Farrell regarded Miss Pink with a faint smile, his eyes lazy. Wilbur’s face was blank. The members of the Press focused on Miss Pink avidly and only Munster showed any sign of disbelief.
‘Where was it found?’ he asked.
‘In a slough on the Sweetgrass road.’ She pronounced it “slew” as she had never seen it written. She turned to Seale. ‘What is a slough?’
‘It’s a swamp. It’s immaterial.’
Glennel pounced. ‘Why should it be immaterial?’
Seale hesitated but Miss Pink made no move. ‘The pelt was beside the Sweetgrass road,’ Seale said. ‘That’s the material bit.’
‘Thrown from a vehicle?’ Miss Pink asked brightly. ‘A pelt would be heavy; one could hardly toss it from a motor car as if it were a pack of cigarettes, even though the head and paws are missing.’
Expectant faces became puzzled; those who had been puzzled looked resentful as people wondered if they were being ridiculed.
‘The head gone?’ Wilbur repeated. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Why?’ Osborn asked.
Lee Farrell said: ‘Where did you get all this?’
Miss Pink looked apologetic. ‘It’s very much at third or fourth hand. Randy Someone at The Covered Wagon had it from the Highway Patrol.’
The woman in plastic quilting got up and, without a word or a glance, strode out of the room and into the back quarters. Tara said diffidently: ‘It sounds as if it might be some old rug: no paws, no head.’
Mildred Farrell came out of the kitchen. ‘Something happened?’
Since no one was inclined to answer her Miss Pink said: ‘The pelt has been found.’
‘What pelt?’
‘From the bear that was shot and skinned in Sundance, or that is the inference.’
‘Well, someone had to have it. Where was it found?’
Several people answered her at once and Miss Pink found herself ignored as they speculated on this latest development. As she listened she realized that the reporters were doing most of the talking; like herself, the Osborns and the Farrells were alert observers. The woman called Glennell asked suddenly: ‘Who’s responsible for attracting these bears anyway?’ Her voice shook and she was staring at Mildred.
‘Who’s responsible for killing them?’ Munster smiled thinly at Miss Pink. ‘You mentioned alibis. They’re hard to come by around here.’
‘Nonsense. Everyone will have an alibi.’
Glennell said: ‘That bear was shot, and for its skin. It sounds like Belsen.’
There was an air of rejection among the company as if this were not the first time the opinion had been voiced; on the other hand they could have been merely turning their attention to the woman in the quilted coat, who had come back in the room.
‘They found the rest of it,’ she told them. ‘At least, they found the head and one foot. They were beside the road, like he’d thrown them out as he drove.’
Questions flew again.
‘Drove where?’
‘Who said it was a man?’
‘Did they find Jed Trotter yet, Margie?’ Munster asked, and a hush fell.
The woman shrugge
d. ‘I guess not. Nothing was said. He’ll be over the state-line by now.’
‘Who’ll be over the state-line?’ Earl Dorsett had come in by the outer door, Charlene close behind, peering round her husband’s bulk like an anxious squirrel.
‘Jed Trotter,’ Osborn said. ‘They’ve got him set up for the killer.’
Dorsett glanced from him to Farrell. ‘I’ve had enough of this! There’s not a moose or an elk left on Pioneer; everything’s been driven out of the area—at least away from this side—by them helicopters. We’re wasting time and money. This is my goddam vacation!’
‘And a man’s got himself murdered.’ The reporter called Margie made no effort to hide her contempt. ‘So why don’t you split?’
Charlene rose to the bait. ‘No one can leave. We’re all suspects.’
Dorsett’s glare faded to truculence. He strode to the bar, nodded brusquely from Farrell to a bottle, and turned back to the room.
‘I reckoned as how it was Trotter all along,’ he said. ‘That bum’s been poaching right through the Silvertips since I’ve been coming here, him and young Billy; that’s why we never had much game on the north slope. What hasn’t been poached they’ve drove out.’
Charlene said: ‘But he never killed a man before,’ and stopped short as every eye was turned on her, including Dorsett’s. ‘Of course he hasn’t,’ she insisted primly, and then, as people still stared: ‘He was out hunting Sunday too.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Dorsett shouted. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Why, I thought you told me, honey. Who said Jed was out Sunday?’ She appealed to the room at large, spreading her hands.
‘Poor old Jed,’ someone intoned.
‘I wonder,’ came Miss Pink’s voice, clear and very English: ‘Why didn’t he kill Shelley?’
Margie moved forward and faced her. ‘Shelley saw him?’
Looking at the circle of attentive faces, seeing Flossie Schmitz beyond the kitchen hatch arrested in mid-stride, watching and listening, Miss Pink thought: when people are intensely interested you can’t isolate any emotion: fear, protectiveness, terror; you can assume that any of these exists but there’s no proof that people are other than—just curious. Aloud she said: ‘No, Shelley didn’t see him; she didn’t even hear the shot.’
