The Shasta Gate

by Dick Croy

  * * *

  As Catherine raced back to the ranch, the Gang, stimulated by their trashing of Mom ‘n Pop and seeking more nubile game, was swarming up the drive. Douglas came running out at the commotion, while Normund ducked inside the barn and loaded both barrels of the shotgun hanging there. Then he planted himself in the doorway, legs spread, holding the gun pointed up but at the ready. Lucille peered cautiously from the kitchen door held slightly ajar. The Gang came on up the drive and stopped within 20 feet of where Douglas was standing.

  “Hey kid—where’s the young lady?” yelled Fu.

  Douglas didn’t answer, mainly because he wasn’t sure what this dude was talking about but also because he plain didn’t like the looks of these people—and he didn’t like being talked to like that either.

  “I’m talkin’ t’ you!”

  “Don’t pay no attention to the yellow peril, man,” said the Fool in disgust. “He just talks tough. He’s mean all right, but that ain’t hardly the same thing. Lissen, we seen a good-lookin’ chick ride in here on a horse yesterday—an’ we was won’drin’ if, uh…if you give ridin’ lessons.”

  The Fool’s improvisation was rewarded with a few guffaws. This was all he needed. Yelling above the noise of his bike, he began stunting around the paddock area, gouging up the ground and frightening the horses in their corrals. “See, we can ride pretty good…but that ain’t the same as ridin’ a horse, now, is it? Not as aristocratic. …So ya see—we figger t’ get us a little…respectability. Ya know what I mean? Yeah, a horse…now, a horse gives a man respectability.”

  Normund had had enough. He walked toward the gang, his hands nervous on the barrel and trigger guard of the gun. “Normund!” The screen door banged shut behind Lucille. She stood there wringing the dishtowel she held, not knowing what else to say or do.

  “Hold up there with that gun, Pop,” said the Leader. Rather than being intimidated by the weapon, the gang was drawn to it, the way a crowd gathers at the scene of an accident. The Fool wheeled in close behind Normund, who swung around to face him, bringing the gun up but not quite pointing it.

  “Hey-hey, man! he told ya t’ be careful with that! If we was to spread out a little, you couldn’t hardly hit all of us, now, could ya?”

  At this of course the gang began to do just that, while Normund turned first one way, then the other with the shotgun. Lucille was immobilized, not daring to cry out and unable to move. Douglas saw the whole incident as if in slow motion, like on TV. The Gang drew a web around Normund, spinning their ear-splitting sound like motorized spiders. The revving engines—random, compelling, maddening—made a wall of sound, obliterating everything from Normund’s mind. He reeled in the middle of their deadly circle, mesmerized, increasingly more helpless. The all but forgotten shotgun now dangled uselessly in his right hand, while his left was at his eyes, as if he were trying to peer through the engulfing sound.

  Then suddenly, bike by bike, the wall came down. Rider after rider peeled out of the tight circle to gape at the man walking across the paddock toward them. His unhurried pace and his bearing seemed out of all proportion to their effect. Even the Leader seemed taken aback.

  The Indian walked unhindered to Normund’s side and unburdened him of the gun, his expression of approval as clear as the relief on Normund’s face. Ram emptied the shells and handed the shotgun back to him, nodding toward the barn. Normund looked surprised but didn’t question the Indian’s authority. Ignoring the intruders’ icy stares, he returned the gun to the barn. Lucille thought it best to leave him alone. She shook her head and retreated to her kitchen, where she stood looking out through the screen door.

  The uneasy silence was broken when a mare in the adjoining corral whinnied. Pretty Boy seized on the chance to get things started in another direction.

  “Hot-damn! If she can ride that thing, I sure as hell can!”

  Douglas, who had come back to life by now, burst out laughing. “That ain’t even…” Feeling Ram’s eyes on him, he stopped in mid-sentence and glanced over to confirm the Indian’s silent command. But he couldn’t leave the words just hanging there. Inaudibly to all but himself, he completed them: “…a stalyun.”

  Pretty Boy revved his bike like a cock’s crow and rode over to the corral. Douglas shot a questioning glance at the Indian. Ram’s impassive face clearly indicated there was nothing to worry about—at least on the mare’s behalf. While the rest of the gang egged him on, glad to have action restored even if it amounted to nothing more than Pretty Boy’s Rodeo Follies, the Leader hadn’t taken his eyes from the Indian.

  From the fence the horse looked to Pretty Boy a little more formidable, and a lot farther from the ground than his chopper. How was he going to climb onto its back without a saddle and them things you put your feet in? Then he noticed the foals at the far end of the corral. “Hey—we got us a buncha little dirt bikes over here! C’mon, let’s get a de-molition derby goin’!”

  He climbed into the corral as the others—except for the Leader who didn’t bother to move—gunned their bikes over to watch. Again Douglas looked to Ram for reassurance that the foals wouldn’t be harmed, and this time the slight smile on the Indian’s face struck home. Douglas’s broke like an egg, into a grin so broad he had to cover it with his hand to keep it from turning into laughter. He loped over to see what would happen.

  The bikers were spread out along the top rail in the best rodeo tradition as Pretty Boy walked cautiously across the corral. He saw now that even the foals, growing more skittish as he approached, were going to be harder to handle than he’d counted on. “C’mon, li’l doggy,” he sang tunelessly, zeroing in on the smallest and meekest-looking foal. This was the little filly Ram had taken such a liking to—and whose mother was the mare at the other end of the corral. The Gang whooped it up from the fence.

  Pretty Boy cut her off from the other foals—as sharp as a damn cowboy he thought, and he wasn’t even on a horse—and backed her toward the rail. He crouched, waiting for her attention to wander for just a second. Frightened, the filly whinnied. The poignant little plea was answered immediately.

  The mare bared her teeth and laid her ears back for action, clearing the rail as she turned in the direction of the gang. Now it was Pretty Boy who was cut off; the foal was between him and the fence. He lit out for it anyway but hadn’t made it halfway when her mother overtook him and bit him in the back. He squealed even though the enraged mare had gotten mostly his jacket. Cowering to avoid her flashing teeth and hooves, he scuttled sideways with a frantic crabbing motion and then broke for the fence again.

  The bikers were falling off the rails in their appreciation of Pretty Boy’s clown act. He didn’t hear their laughter, just those hooves behind him. He leaped headlong for the bottom railing—and fell about a foot short. Gasping for breath, pummeling one another, the railbirds shouted derisive encouragement.

  Pretty Boy had wet his pants but didn’t know it yet. He was doing his famous sidewinder imitation. Who’d have thought a man on his belly could move so fast? Trouble was, he was moving in all directions at once instead of forward; it really wasn’t a very good sidewinder imitation at all. Those damn rails he had to get through weren’t getting any closer. How could a foot be so far?

  At least his frantic wriggling had thwarted the mare’s intentions. Twice she reared and came down with her flailing hooves, and both times she missed. Finally Pretty Boy managed some traction with the ground. The accumulated torque from all his twisting and thrashing shot him under the bottom rail before the mare could make good on her third attempt to trample this child molester into the ground.

  The gang ran up to congratulate their fallen comrade, and it was the vet’s buddy who was the first to notice that the dust he was caked with from head to foot had turned to mud in his crotch. “Look!” he crowed. “He pissed his pants!” The Gang went into another paroxysm of applause and laughter. Pretty Boy’s career as a rodeo clown was assured, and he’d performed without a barrel!
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  The frivolity was cut short by the peremptory roar of the Leader’s bike. He hadn’t even ridden over to see the show. His signal that the fun and games were over was met with disappointment and hostility, but he was equally disgusted himself and wasn’t about to argue the matter. The gentlemen, and Becky, started their engines.

  Eyeless as it was from behind his sunglasses, the Leader’s gaze nonetheless had real power behind it. No one in the Gang could return that blank stare for more than a second or two when confronting it at full force. Yet all this time he’d held the Indian in his sight, and not once had Ram so much as glanced at him.

  The Leader could detect no fear in this, but to him it had to mean some kind of weakness—whatever the medicine-man mojo he’d buffaloed the superstitious bikers with. The Leader rated his followers’ gullibility a lot higher than their courage; it didn’t take much to con them. To have them turned against him now, even temporarily, only increased his determination to make the Indian yield and acknowledge him. Somehow that would make up for the Gang’s disgrace and his own loss of face.

  But they were ready to leave now, hostile and impatient behind him, and still the Indian stood with imperturbable dignity overlooking the corrals and the ranch, insulting the Leader with his back. All right, if he was too chicken-shit to turn around, the biker would take it to him. He released the clutch and swung out to pass in front of Ram, looking full into the Indian’s face.

  As always, the Leader managed to maintain his composure. He saw not the lined, leathery visage he was anticipating—but his own blank countenance staring back at him impassively from behind the dark glasses. It’s just a mirror—some kind of trick! his quick mind reassured him. But when Ram’s hand came up to remove the glasses, it was the Leader who had to look away. Had the others seen it? Had they seen the same thing?

  As the bikers departed in a cloud of dust and noise, Douglas was clambering through the fence. He hugged the little filly while the others clustered excitedly around him, and the indignant but proud mare looked on over his shoulder.

  Chapter 16

  Cathrun! Motorcycles! While you was gone—people on motorcycles was here!”

  Catherine hadn’t even had a chance to dismount when Douglas came running up with the news. At first she didn’t understand. He seemed to be telling her what she’d ridden back to report, or what had happened the day before.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “While you was gone,” he said breathlessly—“a buncha motorcycles came and tried to start trouble. Only nothin’ bad happened.”

  Catherine slid from the horse. “Well who…what did they do? What happened?”

  Gesturing, Douglas relived the incident as he related it: “They came up the drive; it was so loud…I didn’t know what it was. I was in the barn an’ I ran out—an’ they said, ‘Where’s Cathrun?’“

  Her eyes widened.

  “Only they didn’t…I don’t think they said your name exackly. They said, ‘Where’s the lady?’—or somethin’. I knew they was talkin’ about you though, but I…’n so I didn’t say nothin’.

  “Then they started ridin’ all aroun’ here—see the tracks? An’ Normund came over an’ he had his shotgun.”

  Catherine had had enough of this narrative. “Douglas, here—hold Jebel for me, will you? Where’s Ram?”

  “In the barn.” He was left staring after her in frustration, his exciting story unfinished.

  “Ram!…Ram!” She burst into the tack room, where Ram was working on the ranch’s books at a desk squeezed into a corner beside the door. “Douglas said there were bikers here.”

  His usual calm was as unruffled as ever. “We had visitors. They didn’t stay long.”

  “That gang I told you about?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But I saw one of them—the one who came after me—out at the pool. I was coming to get you or Normund to help me get rid of him.” Ram was amused by this, but so subtly that Catherine didn’t notice. “So what happened?”

  “It seems they were looking for you.” He chuckled. “They learned something of Arabians instead.”

  “Why would they be looking for me?” she asked in alarm.

  “I wouldn’t worry about them,” he said. “They were looking for diversion—a game. They saw you ride in here yesterday.”

  “But what if they come back?”

  “They won’t.”

  “You…” About to protest the assurance of his answer, Catherine suddenly remembered to whom she was speaking. Then she recalled what had brought her back in such haste. “I wonder why he wasn’t with them?” she said more to herself than to Ram.

  “All of a sudden we’re overrun with bikers. The one I told you about was swimming at the pool. Can you believe it? I was so mad I was totally inept. I didn’t handle the situation at all. I told him I was going for help, but really I just had to get out of there. If I’d had a gun, I’d have tried to kill him—I swear!”

  “I have the feeling this one is different from the others,” Ram said. “From what you’ve told me, I don’t think he is one of them.”

  “But I saw him with them.”

  “If I had been there yesterday, I’d have seen you with them too.”

  “Sure, a quarter of a mile away.”

  “And you were racing the one at the pool.”

  “Racing?”

  “It might have appeared that way.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter if he is by himself. What he did was dangerous and stupid. And now he’s trespassing.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said impatiently. “Now I’m confused. What makes you so sure about this guy anyway? You’ve never even seen him.”

  “Perhaps not…but I feel no danger for you in this man. No immediate danger anyway.”

  “No immediate danger? Just what do you see, Ram?”

  He picked up his pen and smiled. “I see a headstrong young woman who is going to do what she thinks is best, no matter what I say…and who does a much better job of it than she gives herself credit for.”

  This took her by surprise. She stood there confused for a moment before realizing how pleased she was by Ram’s remark. Beaming, she walked over, knelt quickly, and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re right about the first thing. And about the second, well—thanks. I hope you’re right about that too. I just remembered, I left Douglas holding Jebel. I’m going back out to the pool to check this out for myself.” Ram grunted contentedly. So did the world move through its ineffable cycles.

  Catherine stayed for lunch, primarily to give Jebel Druze a break but perhaps also in token resistance to the compelling urge to turn right around and go back. After all, she was spontaneous, not compulsive; there was a difference. On her return she kept the stallion at an easy canter most of the way and rummaged through the babble of half-formed thoughts in her mind. She couldn’t remember another summer as frenetic as this one was beginning.

  To tell the truth, they were usually so idyllic she was all too ready to return to the city at summer’s end. But this year! Ram had said she’d need to be alert. Could all this be part of what he’d seen? Who was this biker who kept showing up? Where did the others fit in? Why was she returning without help? Why was she returning at all? There was a good chance he might still be here—with or without the others. He was more likely to be gone tomorrow.

  Sure enough—there was his goddamn bike. She hadn’t noticed it before. It was protected by a thin plastic cover, over which he’d arranged pine boughs as effective camouflage. She pushed Jebel up the ledge at a gait too fast for safety—feeling her anger rising again, as if her spine were the tube of mercury in a thermometer. Christ, is this what she’d come for? Is this what she wanted?

  Nothing could have prepared her for what awaited her in the clearing. Like a great white bird—at rest but with every feather responding to the slightest breeze—a tent of some brilliant rippling white fabric nestled in
the high grass. Emblazoned on its satiny side was a Chinese yin/yang symbol in red and blue, like two tears or drops of blood and ink, curved so that the head of one lay snug within the tail of the other to make a circle.

  In front of the tent was, of all things, a gorgeous Indian rug: an electric pool of vibrant reds and blues in the glade-green grass. It seemed so out of place here that it tricked and confused the eye. Its vivid, pulsating motifs seemed to sweep across the fabric in cyclic repetition. And on the rug, propped on an elbow, his rolled-up sleeping bag for a pillow, was the biker. He had been reading; the open book was still in his hand. Now he was watching her, relaxed but alert. Neither of them spoke at first.

  “…Decided you didn’t need any help after all?” Eugene finally asked.

  “I just came back from the ranch. There were bikers there. A motorcycle gang came in and tried to terrorize the place.”

  “Tried?”

  “I told you we couldn’t be pushed around.”

  “That you did.”

  “…Do you know who they were?”

  “I can guess. Probably that bunch you saw me with yesterday. What happened?”

  “Nothing. They were looking for me. By the time I got there they were gone.”

  “Good timing.”

  Her tone of voice, already flat and constricted, became frostier: “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Are those people…friends of yours?”

  “Not hardly. Believe it or not, I passed them on the road, two days ago in Mexico. Now they show up here.” He lifted his free hand slightly in a gesture that passed for a shrug. Catherine’s eyes narrowed. He expected her to believe that? “I heard what you said about trespassing,” he said. “I’ll be gone in the morning. In the meantime, I’ve got some water on the stove. I can make us a couple a cups of coffee real quick.” He grinned. “The water here makes good coffee.”

  “No thank you,” she replied in that same frosty tone. There was another long silence, broken only by the restless snorts and pawing of the stallion.