I whistled. “What the hell. Why bother with a map? Charley Redwine should have been able to walk you right to the spot. Why didn’t he?”
“Yes, he should have.” Mr. Riker’s voice was curiously quieter. And about twenty years older.
Las Vegas suddenly grunted. “Guess you didn’t know, Noon. Charley Redwine’s been blind for years. Was, that is.”
9
There had to be more. Lots more. There was far too much left hanging in the air. The story could stretch into next week. With chapters, installments and verse. I looked at my watch and was surprised to find it was still running. It was such a quiet country. I hadn’t heard so much as a bird sneeze.
“Charley Redwine couldn’t have been killed to keep you from finding the gold?” I asked.
Mr. Riker shook his head. “Inconceivable. We are the only people in these parts. The nearest sheep ranch is miles away. And why kill Charley when the map is the only key to the hiding place? He was blind, as Las Vegas told you. No, I’m afraid Charley’s murder can have nothing to do with the gold.”
Las Vegas shifted uncomfortably, his dark face casting glances at Riker and Rita. Suddenly, he picked up the deck of cards, made a neat waterfall of them, closed the deck and tucked it in a hip pocket.
“Well, you tell him the rest of it. I’m turning in. See you in the morning, Noon. Night, Mr. Riker. Night, Beautiful.” Without waiting for responses, he left the cabin.
Rita Riker shook her head so that the pony tail danced. “Now who would have thought that a slob like him would have some delicacy?” she asked nobody in particular.
Mr. Riker looked somber.
“Las Vegas is not a bad man, basically, my dear. He is also not an idiot. It was quite obvious to him that I might not wish to discuss my failure as a father in front of him. Knowing what a shame and disgrace it is —”
“Look,” I said, getting up myself. “It’s been a hard day. Maybe we all ought to turn in. You’ve given me enough to think about for one day. We could discuss all this tomorrow.”
Rita Riker went into the kitchen and rummaged for something. Her husband stared at me blankly for a moment and then recovered. “Yes, of course. You must be worn to the bone. There is a cabin empty at present. Small but comfortable. Mrs. Riker will show you to it. I think I’ll just sit here awhile — if you have no objections.”
All of the sand seemed to have run out of his glass. In the lamplight, he looked more like sixty than forty. His big hands were unconsciously toying with Charley Redwine’s map. But his eyes were unseeing.
“Come on, Noon,” Rita Riker called. “I’ll get you bedded down.” She had a long flashlight. She walked past Riker’s chair and kissed him quickly on the cheek as she went by. I mumbled a good night and followed her. Outside, darkness had closed in tight on Agreeable Wells.
There wasn’t any light from any of the cabins now. No noises at all save for a whisper of night wind. The sky was clouded over and troubled-looking. A horse suddenly wickered in the stillness. A coyote howled from the distance. It was welcome.
“This way,” Rita Riker said, thumbing the flashlight on. A stab of light speared the ground ahead of her, picking up a dirt path through the barren ground.
She was easy to follow. The bare parts of her body between halter and shorts gleamed dully in the darkness. A nice aroma wafted back from her that wasn’t anything like perfume from a bottle. It was the freshness of her hair and the warm husk of her animal body. I tried to think about what had made Mr. Riker so sad but I didn’t have much luck.
Up ahead, she turned suddenly and the flashlight beam showed a low, wooden door. Another cabin, even smaller than the rest. She pushed the door in, found a light and adjusted it. Another kerosene lamp. Its rising glow exposed a bed, chairs, and stacks of magazines and newspapers much too high for safety. The place sloppy.
“This’ll do you for the night,” Rita said blankly from the doorway. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
“Thanks.” The way her eyes shone darkly in her fantastic face was too intimate. Her hand was on the doorknob now but she wasn’t going out. “Dinner was great and so’s this. See you tomorrow.”
“Noon,” she said suddenly, her face curiously pained. “Do me a favor, will you?”
“Name it.”
“Don’t be such a nice guy.”
I blinked. “I suppose I should know what you mean but I honestly don’t.”
She talked fast, now. “Don’t be human. Don’t be cute and try not to appeal to me. I’ve always hated making love behind another man’s back.”
“You,” I said, “are way ahead of me. What the hell are you talking about?”
She started to close the door. But she left me with one last puzzle. “Don’t be dumb,” she said. “Riker hasn’t been good for a woman for years. That ought to give you something else to think about.” The door closed in my face before I could even think about reaching for her.
I did a few things before bedding down for the night. I put a chair against the door, surrounded the bed which turned out to be an Army cot, with some of the newspapers. I turned the lamp off before flopping down on the cot with all my clothes on and my shoes off.
Everybody had given me some mental homework. Mr. Riker, Las Vegas and now, Rita Riker. What it all meant was probably something for an Einstein to work out with pencil and paper. But it was too late in the day for cerebral gymnastics.
I went to sleep, homesick for the roomy front seat of my own little Buick. I thought I heard a plane engine buzzing somewhere but the sound passed quickly and I finally relaxed.
Outside the cabin, the coyotes howled and the wind blew free.
10
I don’t know what time it was when the chair I had propped against the door started to grate along the floor. I opened my eyes in the darkness. The cabin was as quiet as Little Big Horn after the Custer massacre. There wasn’t much light coming through the windows because outside it was darker than a bat’s larynx.
I slid my hand to my shoulder holster, released the .45 and waited, all my concentration focused on the door. It must have eased in sufficiently for the outsider to get inside. The chair had stopped rubbing along the floor.
My eyes adjusted to the dark. Confusing masses of shadows straightened out to become chairs, walls and windows. A darker, heavier shadow moved in from the direction of the door and paused. I waited until the unwary feet reached the spread-out newspapers.
Their crackling sound ignited me. I rolled across the bed to its foot and leveled the .45 at the crackles.
“Don’t move,” I said quietly, “Or I’ll blow you out of your shoes.”
“Oh —!” an unmistakable voice gasped. “For gosh sakes — it’s me!— Mary Lou —” Now I could hear her hoarse, frightened breathing.
“Okay.” I relaxed. “I won’t shoot. But come over here and sit on the bed. Don’t raise your voice. And don’t put on a light. You’re liable to get me lynched with this stunt.” I holstered my .45 and swung over the bed to a sitting position. Mary Lou collided with me in the gloom and said “Oh!” again. But she found a spot on the bed and sat down meekly. She sounded meek anyway.
I wasn’t exactly sure how she was dressed, which was worth thinking about.
“What are you wearing?” I whispered.
“My nightie — flannels —” Her voice was very girlish and naive in the darkness. “Does it matter —?”
“Forget it. I’ll ask the questions. What are you doing here and couldn’t it have waited until morning?”
“Mr. Noon, I had to talk to you.”
“You’re talking, Mary Lou.”
“You don’t understand.” She touched my arm gently. “You might go away tomorrow and that will be too late.”
“Too late for what?” The whispering was getting funny.
“Pa needs help, Mr. Noon. I don’t trust that Vegas and the rest of his pals —”
“You trust Rita?”
“She’s okay I guess
. Anyhow, she’s a woman. Like me. Even if she is lots older. We can’t do anything if Vegas and the rest of them try something awful —”
She sounded awfully weepy for a girl who liked to chase around the countryside on a motorcycle.
“Look, Mary Lou,” I said. “You’re not making sense. I know you’re worried. You sound worried. But what are you worried about?”
“Well, it’s just —” Her face was a blurred patch of pale beauty near mine. She smelled good too. But not like Rita. Rita smelled cocktails and bedpillows. Mary Lou was clean white sheets and beauty soap.
“I can keep a secret,” I reminded her.
“Can you?” She was real eager now. “I suppose Pa told you all about the gold and all. Sounds silly to me. After all, that was so long ago. Anything could have happened in all this time. Course, I’m having a ball. But I wish we were back in Portola. That’s in California. Pa had his church there. We’re Lutherans you know. But then Las Vegas and his bunch came down from Reno. That’s where Pa met him and you know Vegas, he came in on the business right away. But I don’t trust him. He’s so greasy. You know what I mean.”
“I know. But what was the deal?” It was crazy talking to her with the lights out. But I’ve never done anything smarter.
“I’d love a smoke,” she said. “But we better not smoke. Pa would have fits if he knew I were here.”
“I’ll bet. What about the deal?”
“Well —” She took a deep breath the way the really young do when they think they’re talking to an adult. “Vegas had this map from Charley Redwine. Been carrying it for months, he said, since he got it from Charley. Charley sold it to him for a case of Scotch when Vegas met him in Rock Springs. But he needed a stake, Vegas said, so he’d be able to come back and look for the gold properly. Now Pa is a sensible man, Mr. Noon. Real sensible. But for years, he’s talked about nothing but building a tabernacle here in Wyoming. A place where the poor and needy of all faiths could come and pray and be cared for. I guess the idea of all that gold made Pa a little silly. He left the church and took all his savings and brought us out here. The fellows with Vegas — Tubby and the rest of them, are all Vegas’ friends. That’s why I’m scared. If we do find the gold — if there is any — I don’t think Vegas intends to share it with anybody.”
She had something to worry about. I wouldn’t think so either. It certainly sounded like Las Vegas had sold the old man a big fish on the sucker market. But what was the slicker doing out here if he really didn’t believe the map business himself?
I took Mary Lou’s warm hand in mine and squeezed.
“You’re worried about Rita and Las Vegas — is that it?”
“Well —” She was loyal.
“Come on. Tell me.”
“Rita’s really swell, Mr. Noon. After Ma died, Pa needed a woman. But Rita’s still pretty young yet and Pa is set in his ways. Vegas could talk Rita into something foolish real easy, I think.”
She couldn’t see me grin in the gloom. She couldn’t know, as young as she was, that it was more likely to be the other way around.
“Okay, Mary Lou. I’ll stick around a while. I can’t go anywhere unless I steal a horse anyway. Unless you lend me Ringo. Besides, I’m lost.”
“Gee — you’re swell. I wish you could meet Jingo. He’d like you.” She paused. “You won’t say anything to Pa about me talking to you like this and all?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. But will you tell me one thing more?”
“Sure.”
“Who’s P.J.?”
I thought MM and BB were provocative initials but P.J. had them both beat for results. Before I could stop her, Mary Lou got off the bed, cracked across the newspapers like a grey ghost, murmured, “S’cuse me, I gotta go now —” and took off as fast as her sandals could take her. She closed the door fast too.
I sat there on the bed with egg on my face thinking over some memorable tidbits. The fright on Brandy’s face when she had seen the plane buzzing across the sky, the long scar marring Mary Lou’s lovely puss and Las Vegas’ comment about P.J. and his tactful withdrawal from Mr. Riker’s cabin. Who was this oddball who caused so much trouble?
I didn’t have much time to think about it. Sleep was gone for me, anyway. The radium dial of my watch said four o’clock plus ten. Dawn would be breaking soon over the flatlands and Agreeable Wells.
But the hours before dawn are sometimes the most eventful. Mary Lou hadn’t been gone five minutes before the cabin door eased in gently.
Rita Riker stared in amusement at the .45 in my hand. She was holding the flashlight under her face.
“You won’t need that,” she said softly, closing the door she had shut in my face earlier. Only this time, she was inside and I didn’t need a flashlight to see the shimmering outlines of the nightie she was wearing. It must have been pure silk the way it gleamed in the blackness. The flashlight had winked off.
“Are you crazy?” I asked just as quietly.
“I waited until you finished with the kid,” she said briskly. “Now how about a real woman?”
“You don’t think I’d —”
“No I don’t,” she said, coming toward me, swaying like a dream filling out to lifesize. “That’s why I’m offering you something I need very much. Something I’ll go bugs without. And something you could use too. For laughs. For friendship. For nothing. You name it.”
“What the hell,” I said.
“If you make love to me I’ll tell you exactly what your chances are of getting out of here alive.”
“What the hell,” I sounded like a parrot.
She was tired of my voice. When she reached the bed, she stepped out of the nightie and crawled around me where she spread herself out on the broad mattress. Her pale body was wide and waiting.
“You’re quite a girl,” I said.
She nodded, her long hair still bound in a pony tail. “I am,” she admitted. “Now let’s see what you are —”
Our murmurs filled the darkness. Rita Riker sighed and snuggled closer to the hollow of my shoulder.
“When better studs are made —” she began. Then she traced a pattern on my chest with her forefinger. “You ought to do this for a living. You’d make a fortune.”
“Not if I’m going to be killed tomorrow,” I said. “Tell me about it, Rita. Las Vegas, I suppose.
She nodded. “You suppose right. He’s too hot for this gold to want another partner. Oh, he won’t shoot you or bushwhack you or anything like that. He wouldn’t cross Thaddeus — yet. Not while Father has the purse strings. But if I were you, watch out for falling rocks and dangerous horses, if you know what I mean.”
I knew. “Vegas didn’t happen to mention all this to you?”
Her eyes were surprised with me.
“You’re not that dumb and neither is he. But I know how his type thinks. All smiles and then the knife-in-the-ribs. Besides, he’s been spreading hints all over me for weeks now. You know the pitch — me and you, baby, and a million bucks — and forget the old guy.”
I reached for my shoes, remembering what a friendly camp I had blundered into. She sat up in bed and stretched luxuriously. I took my mind off her luxuries. “What about the swim scene tonight, Rita? It looked like Las Vegas had gone for a dip too.”
She poked her arms into the nightie and her answer came out muffled as she snaked its shimmering folds over her head.
“What it looked like and what it was is two different horses. Riker understands me. I’m not the type to go sleeping around with a Las Vegas. He tries, of course. All the time. He wanted to wash my back in the pool. But it’s no soap from this end.”
She was quite a girl. We weren’t that far from the infidelity of twisting sheets ourselves. “And me?” I said without inflection.
Her face reappeared above the nightie.
“Riker would understand that too. He’s a pretty great Joe in his own right.”
“Why did you marry him?”
She lo
oked surprised again. “I was stranded out of L.A. in Portola. I fell for him. He looked great, you know. Looked thirty five. I found out he was fifty-five. He’s sixty now. I also found out something else.”
“What was that?”
“He loves only two things. Mary Lou and the Bible. All the hots he ever had for women died with his first wife. Oh, there’s nothing really wrong with him. He just loves — with his mind — quite a switch for a girl like me. It was all right too in the beginning. Kind of a novelty.”
“It isn’t now.”
What a crew. I had one more question to ask her.
“Before you go slipping off to your tent, will you answer me something? But you have to promise not to clam up when I mention his initials —”
“P.J.?” She laughed. “Guess you’ve wondered about him. Tell you what. After I leave, turn up the lamp and take a good look around this cabin. It was P.J.’s. It’ll tell you a helluva lot more about him than I can.”
“No you don’t,” I said. “Who the hell is he?”
“Old Riker’s son,” she said. “Who’d you think he was?
“Then — he’s Mary Lou’s brother —”
“Not bad thinking, Noon. You’ll get ahead with brain-work like that.”
“So why isn’t he here with his family?”
Her laugh was low but the scorn in it was loud.
“Because he’s crazy. Crazy as a bedbug. Riker sent him packing three weeks ago. He’s only twenty-two but they don’t come any wilder. They can’t. You know Dennis the Menace? Well, that’s P.J. with wings on — but he’s mean. Really mean. He ought to be in the laughing academy.”
“So that’s it,” I said, more to myself than her.
“That’s it,” she agreed, going toward the door. “See you in the morning, lover. And — thanks for the ride.”
“Rita,” I called softly. She turned. Our glances met. We looked at each other in a silence that no one but us would ever know. “Sure,” she said low and then her back was to me again. Words don’t do very much at times like that.
She was gone before I remembered to turn the lamp on. The rising glow illuminated the cabin slowly, then fanned out into a light that reached into the dimmest corner. It was getting lighter outside too, with the first fingers of dawn tickling the rocky horizon. But the cabin still required a lamp. I took a long look around.
Lust Is No Lady Page 6
