by Gwen Moffat
They reached the top of the slope and plunged into the forest. Behind them the first sunlight touched the crest of Pioneer. It made no difference to the shadowed side of Wapiti where dry icicles depended from rocks and branches and everything seemed petrified by the cold. There was no sound but that which they made themselves: the thud of hooves, the ring of iron on stone, the creak of leather and jingle of bits.
Miss Pink thought of bears, of Seale’s rifle, and wished passionately that she had accepted Logan’s offer of a gun. She found this fact curious: that she would have felt far more comfortable had she been armed.
They came to a long meadow where a couple of bull moose lifted massive heads to watch them pass, and the horses paid them less attention than they would have accorded cattle.
An island of conifers appeared in the meadow and the riders parted, each taking one side. Immediately Miss Pink felt vulnerable, alone, watching her horse’s ears for signs of danger. It was quite a time before she remembered that she was supposed to be looking for tracks.
The grove of conifers tailed to a point and Seale came pacing through the dead grass. They continued to follow the meadow until it ended and they re-entered the forest. A woodpecker tapped a dead tree. From below and behind them came the scream of a red-tailed hawk. The cold crept up their legs to their knees, to their thighs.
The tops of the taller trees were bright in the sunshine. Now and again a small bird sang a snatch of song. Through gaps behind them they could see Pioneer Ridge basking in the golden light. They regarded it stonily and turned to their horses’ manes, to the frozen trail under the shadowed trees. They were sick with discomfort, and the only reason they looked for cows was that there was nothing else to do.
A black bulk loomed ahead, its crest a frieze of shining stalks, its face a scarp of rock. The horses picked their way along the foot of the crag between angular chunks, over sharp scree to a slope of earth and rubble.
They went up it in the familiar pattern of claw and lunge, the horses snorting, the riders’ hands on their horns, knowing that there could be no rest until they reached the top. If a horse hesitated it would slide; only its impetus kept it going.
They emerged on the crest in a welter of steam and sweat and the pervasive warmth of the sun. Looking back down the miles they’d covered from Cougar Creek they hoped that they had missed no cows in the forests, but it was unlikely; cows kept to meadows and there were few of those on this slope. In one of them they saw dark forms moving, but only two scattered at random, the other two moved steadily uphill in single file.
Seale took binoculars from her saddle bag. ‘It’s Mae and Billy,’ she said. ‘The other two are moose. You know, we’ve seen no sign of bear—and we won’t now we’re on top. If there is one around, he’s moving ahead of us.’
Wapiti may have been a ridge in topographical terms but on the ground it resembled a plateau gently inclined towards the north where it dropped through the lower levels of Lenhart’s lease to the main valley. However, where Miss Pink and Seale had emerged, the plateau eased off to a maze of small depressions, some of which held frozen tarns, of hillocks covered with what would be good grazing in summer. Over all of it was flung a ragged quilt of timber. It was beautiful riding country and as their legs started to thaw they began to take a pleasure in the day.
They rode up a small hill and the Silvertips were revealed, peeping over the tops of foreground firs. Down on their left, a group of elk were grazing.
‘No cows,’ Seale murmured. ‘And I’d think we’re the first on top judging by those elk. No one’s disturbed them recently. Ah!’
They were bull elk and now they lifted their splendid heads and stared down the slope towards Hell Roaring. ‘Someone coming up,’ Seale said. ‘That will be Spears and Lenhart or Zack Coons and Archie.’
The elk trotted a short distance towards the watchers, stopped and looked back. Away beyond them a white flash appeared on the lip of an escarpment. ‘Pinto,’ Seale said. ‘That’s Zack. We’d better go down to him and find out what’s happening.’
They descended the slope and the elk took off at an unhurried trot. Zack Coons saw the riders coming and waited, his piebald horse startling against the timber on the far side of the canyon. This was the first time Miss Pink had looked into Hell Roaring and she regarded it with interest as they approached its lip: a long dogleg of a rift with side canyons, one of which the pinto was poised above at this moment, and at the most dramatic spot. Below the horse was a drop of several hundred feet. The situation was impressive but deceptive. To right and left, beyond either extremity of the scarp, grassy slopes descended to the bottom of the subsidiary canyon and down there were meadows and some timber and a lake. Down there too were cows.
‘You found some,’ Seale said.
Coons ignored her and looked at Miss Pink. ‘Where’d you come up?’ he asked.
‘By way of the Trotter place,’ Miss Pink said.
‘Did you speak to Mae?’
‘Yes.’
He eased himself in the saddle, polished the horn with his gloved hand, squinted down the canyon. ‘What’s Mae say about that money?’
‘First she maintained that Jed stole their savings, then she said he’d killed some elk and sold them.’
‘When’s he supposed to have done that?’
‘Sunday.’
‘Oh. Sunday. Where’d he get these elk?’
‘Up here I would imagine. Two of the hikers, the ones who were missing, heard shots Sunday morning. But he didn’t pay for the stove and a new rifle with money he got from the sale of some elk.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Because he received a lot of money Sunday night or early Monday morning, before he left for Sweetgrass. Elk meat would have to be sold well away from Prosper and Jed didn’t go out Sunday. That is, he didn’t leave his place until Monday morning and he had the money then.’
‘How d’you know that?’
‘It fits. Who are these people Jed was frightened of? Who are “they”?’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t think. Last time I saw him he never said nothing about that.’ He shot her a glance. ‘And last time I saw him he didn’t have no money.’ He held up a hand as she made to interrupt. ‘I’ll tell you something—ma’am. Jed called at my place last Monday morning. I live out Sweetgrass way and he come there to see me. I wasn’t home for a coupla days and the wife didn’t know where I was so I never saw him. But I reckon, like you say, he had the money with him then because he went on to Sweetgrass and that was when he had to buy the stove and the rifle, and I know he didn’t have enough money without someone give him a lot. I reckon them as he called “they”, as was after him, they give him that money.’
‘Did he leave no message with your wife for you?’
‘No. Just said he’d be seeing me. I didn’t think much to it. I was coming up this weekend anyway.’
‘Didn’t you think it was something important to bring him to your house when he didn’t even know you’d be there?’
Coons sucked his moustache. ‘Well, I had a bit of money I owed him. He came to collect.’
She regarded him steadily. ‘How much?’
‘I dunno. I forget. Nowhere near what would buy a stove.’
‘What happened to the elk he shot Sunday?’
After a pause he said: ‘It didn’t have to be Jed on Wapiti—’
‘But Mr Coons, it puts Jed in the clear if he was on Wapiti when a man was murdered in Sundance!’
‘What good’s that to him? He’s dead.’
They stared at each other and in the silence faint shouts could be heard from below. Reluctantly they looked away to the bottom of the canyon where the cows were starting to move, but not cohesively, a horseman racing to and fro, trying to contain them.
‘That’s Archie,’ Seale observed. ‘He needs help.’
As if she’d given him permission to go, Coons was away, cantering along the back of the scarp, disappearing behind some s
pruce, reappearing in the distance to move fast down steep grass, smooth as a centaur.
‘Beautiful,’ Seale said, and Miss Pink knew she was referring to his horsemanship. ‘Let’s have lunch.’
They dismounted, tied their horses and took ringside seats for the show below. Coons was weaving now, slowing down on stony ground above the grey lake that must be skinned with ice.
‘How do you know Jed didn’t go out Sunday night?’ Seale asked.
‘I didn’t know. I was guessing. But if he’d gone anywhere Mae would have said so. She was puzzled as to how he’d got the money so if he’d left the camp, that is if he’d gone out in a truck or on a horse, she’d have said.’
‘So how did someone hand over that two thousand without Mae and Billy knowing about it?’
‘I don’t know. The police will be saying that no one did hand it over because Jed had it all the time, since he was in Sundance.’
‘But Jed wasn’t—’
‘Hi, Seale!’
They looked up to see Spears and Lenhart approaching. ‘You call this working cattle?’ Spears asked, dismounting. ‘My, wasn’t it cold before the sun come up? Who’s that down there?’
‘Zack and Archie,’ Seale said.
‘Zack Coons, eh?’ He smiled slyly.
They sat and munched meaty sandwiches, frankly enjoying the spectacle of the two riders below, pushing reluctant cows towards the timber. The cries that rose to them were savage.
‘We got our job,’ Spears said contentedly. ‘We stay up here in the sunshine on nice smooth grass. I’m sorry for them: driving cattle up Hell Roaring through the timber. Those old cows’ll want to go down the creek, not up.’
‘Sim says some of us may have to go down and give them a hand this afternoon,’ Seale said.
‘Damn! I’m not helping Zack Coons nor Archie Burg. They know that canyon like I know my own bull pasture.’ He stopped, looked at the others thoughtfully, and returned to contemplation of the drive below.
‘What puzzles me,’ Miss Pink said, ‘is how he got in and out of the canyon without your seeing. But he didn’t, did he? You saw him.’
Spears smiled, Lenhart stopped chewing. Seale’s eyes were wide. Spears said: ‘He got in without me seeing, and I never troubled to look as he went out Sunday afternoon, although I knew when he did. The dogs barked. I saw his trailer early in the afternoon. I’d gone out myself—’ he pursed his lips, ‘—to look at my cattle. They’re on the east side of Hell Roaring. And I looked down and I saw this trailer. Wouldn’t be visible from a lot of places but it was from where I were. Four-horse trailer. Ranchers have big trailers, leisure riders have two-horse outfits mostly; a four-horse trailer’s not all that common around here. And a green pick-up. I knew whose that were.’
‘Here’s Logan,’ Lenhart said. ‘Time we was moving.’
They walked to their horses, the women turning their mounts and speaking behind the shield they made. Seale said: ‘If Zack was with Jed on Sunday on Wapiti, why is he saying he wasn’t?’
‘Because they were poaching elk.’
‘Hell, Jed was killed.’
Miss Pink fussed with her cinch, glancing across her saddle at Logan and Lee Farrell approaching. ‘The police think Jed was the killer because he had the money and he was a poacher. Zack’s a poacher and Jed’s buddy. That’s why he’s keeping quiet. Zack’s frightened of the police. But it looks as if Jed was set up because Tye’s killer thought Jed was alone on Sunday. The police think they have the killer and Jed can’t deny the charge. He’s dead. But Zack Coons knows that Tye’s killer was not Jed.’
‘Zack’s in a vulnerable position. Do we tell Sim?’
The men were all together, looking down the canyon.
Miss Pink said. ‘How could Coons act the tethered goat in safety?’
‘What?’
‘The killer won’t confess, and there’s no evidence against him. But if he made an attempt on Coons—’
‘You wouldn’t tell Zack? You’d use him as bait?’
‘You’d have used Jed’s body as bait for a bear. All the same, if one of us could go down there without attracting attention and persuade him to co-operate—’
A shout of laughter went up from the men. A flask was being handed round. Suddenly everyone was mounting. ‘On your horses, ladies,’ Logan shouted. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’
Seale looked at him bleakly. ‘Where do you want us?’
‘On the scarp,’ Miss Pink said quickly. ‘We’ll ride along the edge.’
Logan looked around. The other three men were riding slowly to the crest of the ridge. Miss Pink was staring at him. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You and Seale take the edge.’
‘Where’s Zack going?’ she asked. ‘Zack and Archie?’
‘They’re pushing that bunch up Hell Roaring. Tell you what: why don’t you guys go down the next canyon, picking up any cows you come across, and join Archie and Zack in Hell Roaring? Then someone can come up the next canyon still and get the cows out of that one. That covers all three side canyons on this slope.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Push ’em south along this ridge. Why?’
Miss Pink said urgently: ‘Look, Mae and Billy are coming up behind us. When you reach the top, why don’t you send them down to help us?’
‘The Trotters are coming after all? They can stay on top; you don’t need help pushing cows down one little canyon, two of you.’
Miss Pink put her foot in the stirrup. Logan swung round and started up the slope, then checked. ‘Hey, Seale?’
‘What?’
‘Jed was on Wapiti Sunday, with Zack Coons. Doug Spears just told us; he saw Zack’s trailer. They were poaching my elk. How d’you like that? What’s the matter? Why you staring?’
‘They’re not your elk.’ To Miss Pink she whispered: ‘Do we tell him?’
Miss Pink was still debating the question as he turned and cantered to the crest. They started to make their way along the escarpment. Once Miss Pink said grimly: ‘Just so long as they all stay above us, and Zack Coons is below …’
‘Then we have a breathing space,’ Seale said. ‘And we’re in the middle.’
Chapter 16
A cow trail ran south-west behind the rock escarpment and roughly parallel with the edge. Miss Pink and Seale followed this, their attention distracted by the cowboys below who were still having difficulty in getting the cattle to move towards Hell Roaring.
‘It’ll be just one old devil causing the trouble,’ Seale said. ‘Once she agrees to go, the whole lot will move. Whoops, here they come!’ A bunch of cows had broken back towards the headwall and streaking after them with wild cries came the riders.
‘Spears was right,’ Seale said. ‘We’ve got the best men down there. I can’t imagine anyone getting the better of Zack on his own ground, and no one’s armed except me. Had you noticed that?’
‘No one’s carrying a rifle,’ Miss Pink amended. ‘But you can carry a pistol in a saddle bag.’
‘No one would dare! I mean, it wouldn’t be done by gunfire, would it? So far it’s always been an accident.’
‘So you noticed.’
Seale held in her mare and Miss Pink came level. ‘Mel, you know who it is.’
‘So should you by now. You could have got it by elimination, if only by eliminating the people who were telling the truth—or to whom you could give an alibi. So Sim and Dorsett would be in the clear—’
‘Dorsett? You never suspected that wind-bag?’
‘Of course. Everyone.’ Miss Pink was amazed at such naïvety, but as she was about to continue, they heard calls from above: not spontaneous yells such as those in the canyon but the gentle “Hi, cow; hi, cow,” of people coming up behind cattle already disposed to move in the right direction.
Ahead of them a cow, followed by a calf, walked out from some firs, turned aside when she saw the advancing riders and started to move away, but diagonally up the ridge. ‘Nice,’ Seale sai
d. ‘That’s how it’s supposed to go.’
Logan appeared on the skyline, unmistakable in his stiff khaki coat, his horse’s legs delicate in silhouette. He paced parallel with them and Seale said: ‘We’ll separate at the timber; I’ll take the inside edge between you and Sim, you stay on the scarp.’
It was about two miles from the back of the first canyon where they had eaten their lunch, to the inner point of the next. As the riders, strung out across the spine of Wapiti, walked slowly forward, cows appeared out of the scarps of timber, or were encountered already making their way southward from depressions where they had been alerted by cries, by the lowing of other beasts, by bawling calves. These were spring calves, fat and almost as big as their mothers. Unused to being driven, they bawled in panic but the panic was held down by the cows which, with so many riders behind them, moved steadily: stringing along the paths, the people on the flanks keeping the loose formation from drifting sideways off the ridge. They made a fine sight from below on the occasions when the ground fell back and the herd could be glimpsed as a frieze on the skyline with Logan keeping his careful distance in the rear.
Suddenly he came down the slope to Seale. They spoke for a moment then, instead of returning to the crest, he started to contour the slope. Seale cantered down to the scarp.
‘We’re to push on,’ she said. ‘We have to turn them back from the head of the next canyon because they’ll want to go down there.’
They sped along the path, the angle below them easing until the escarpment ended in grassy slopes—and they saw the leaders of the herd were turning downhill and starting to run. The horses broke into a gallop, the cows saw them coming, swerved, and then Seale was up against the leaders, whipping with the ends of her reins, shouting. Miss Pink leaned with the chestnut and saw heads turn away, furry flanks broadside, and then they were a mass of rumps and waving tails, heading back for the crest. In the rear Logan stood and waited for them to resume their plod along the top, then he dropped down towards the edge.
