by Gwen Moffat
‘Or torching his cabin,’ Dolly said.
Frankie gasped, then turned on Sarah. ‘Did Sam think Shawn was that bad?’
‘I’m just telling you what Paula told me.’
‘But she lets him have the pony— ’ Frankie stared at them. They looked at each other in amazement.
‘Deliberately?’ Dolly breathed. ‘Hoping … expecting the animal to throw him?’
‘I wonder if he did speak to Glen Plummer,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Glen seems ambivalent about Maxine.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Frankie asked.
‘He was talking to me about women, and he was concerned about someone who had set her cap at him.’
Dolly clapped her hands in delight. ‘Is that what they say in England? That’s neat. I’d put it a bit heavier myself. Maxine’s got her talons in and won’t let go. But if Sam did warn Glen he was taking on a subnormal stepson, you wouldn’t see Glen’s dust.’
‘Shawn’s not subnormal,’ Jerome said. ‘He’s highly intelligent.’
‘Glen hasn’t gone,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘And I suspect he knows all about young Shawn. It occurs to me, however, that the story Shawn told Lois couldn’t have been in retaliation for the threat about a special school. If Sam uttered that on Friday, the sequence is wrong. I got the impression from Lois that Shawn told her his nasty little story some time ago.’
‘Immaterial,’ Dolly said. ‘Shawn would always be in a state of retaliation for something someone said. You don’t need a time sequence with that piece of bad news. Incidentally, was there any good news, Sarah, like he hasn’t come back yet?’
‘I hope he does come back, for your sake,’ Frankie said with only a trace of amusement. ‘Still, we’re all friends here; your indiscretions will go no further.’
The telephone was ringing. Sarah got up to answer it, came back and told Miss Pink that John Forset wanted to speak to her. She approached the instrument warily.
‘We took some of Bob’s cows up Sheep Canyon,’ he told her. ‘Alex said he met you yesterday.’
‘That’s so. I changed my mind and went up Horsethief.’
‘You wouldn’t have been looking for Alex?’
‘You didn’t tell me where he was.’
‘Have you told anyone?’
‘No one. I promised him I wouldn’t.’
‘Are you going to keep quiet?’
‘Of course. John, did you see Shawn Brenner today?’
‘Yes, we did. Why?’
‘Oh, good. We thought – well, he’s been out alone for two days running and it seems, it doesn’t seem safe for a little boy who— ’
‘Don’t concern yourself with that young rip. Alex says he was up to Rustler yesterday. Today he was at the Upper Jump, fishing at the pool below the waterfall.’
‘What time was that?’
‘When we came down from the Straights, getting on for three.’
‘Where are you calling from now?’
‘From home.’
‘Yesterday Shawn was inside Wind Whistle when it was empty. Bob was with you. I saw the boy come out of the back of the house.’
‘So Alex said. Bob isn’t missing anything.’
She returned to her hosts and told them Shawn had been seen. Four faces were turned towards her: Frankie relieved, Dolly mock-resigned, the Grays, father and daughter, noncommittal.
‘Where did John see him?’ Frankie asked.
‘Fishing the pool at the Upper Jump.’
‘I never knew Shawn to fish,’ Sarah said.
Dolly grinned. ‘He probably stole a rod when he was in Wind Whistle yesterday.’
‘He didn’t have a rod when he caught me up in Horsethief,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Not even a telescopic one on the saddle.’
‘Anyway, he’s found,’ Dolly said. ‘Now we can all revert to normal, wondering what his next trick will be.’
They laughed, not quite naturally; their relief was tinged with hysteria. And they were less relieved that a small boy had been found than because everyone had been wondering what had happened to him. He was the second child missing, thought to be missing, in four days, and no one could forget what had happened to the first.
The relief was short-lived, although Miss Pink remained in ignorance until late in the evening when Frankie telephoned to say that people were searching for Shawn, had been doing so since early evening but in a desultory fashion then because no one had been much concerned. They were more bothered about the pinto, or Paula was. He had been badly cut by wire and he was extremely nervous but she managed to quieten him and clean the cuts and apply salve. No bones were broken but the point of his shoulder was very tender and swollen, and he was lame. Paula thought he had jumped wire, not cleared the top strand and come down on the shoulder. And since his chest was lacerated she thought he must have crashed through another fence. Bob Duval thought the pony must have broken loose when the boy was fishing and run home, jumping and crashing through weak points in the upper and lower boundaries of the Duval property.
Paula had called Maxine when the pony came home, but it was Myrtle who answered. She telephoned Bob Duval to ask if Shawn were there and he was not, so Bob saddled a horse and rode to the Upper Jump. There was no sign of Shawn anywhere. Duval came back and summoned John Forset and a few others and they concentrated on searching below the Horsethief trail, thinking that the pony must have fallen and thrown the boy, who would have rolled down into the canyon.
‘That’s where they are now,’ Frankie said. ‘Sarah’s with them.’
Miss Pink said: ‘You’d think that a pony going over the edge of a trail would leave tracks; the path would be broken away, plants flattened. Besides,’ – she had another thought – ‘the creek is within shouting distance of the trail. He can’t be far away. He should be able to hear the searchers – if he’s there – if he can answer.’
Chapter 12
They searched the canyon until nightfall and then they had to give up because, rough as it was in daylight with crags and fallen timber, the gorge was a death-trap in the dark. Besides, by that time they were convinced that he was not there; people had ridden back and forth between the Upper Jump and the boundary of Wind Whistle and no one could see any sign of a horse having gone over the edge. Had it stumbled and the boy fallen off, and rolled, they would expect to see a swath of flattened vegetation, even if he had crawled under a tree and lost consciousness. They saw nothing untoward.
They abandoned the canyon as darkness fell and started to search the Wind Whistle meadows and the rest of the ground as far as Paula’s cabin, and across the road towards the boy’s home. They discovered where the pony had crashed through the Duvals’ upper boundary; there were white hairs sticking to sagging wire on the bank of the creek. They could track the pinto well enough; from the broken wire they back-tracked to the gate. The pony had come down the Horsethief trail, reached the gate and followed the fence line to the creek looking for a weak place. They knew Shawn had not been on the animal at this point because he would have opened the gate. The reason why they searched the meadows was on the chance that the boy, having been thrown from the pinto, perhaps concussed, had wandered down the trail, seen lights, attempted a short-cut towards his home and lost consciousness. That was how they rationalised; the truth was that no one could bring himself to go home while the boy was missing.
The men using Wind Whistle as a base were Bob himself, John Forset, Olson and Stenbock. They had not called on Glen Plummer, nor Jerome, and Alex was still in the Straights. No one remarked his absence, so presumably some kind of explanation had been given for it. In Wind Whistle’s kitchen Sarah, and later Miss Pink, brewed coffee and made sandwiches. Myrtle kept telephoning for news. She did not come across because she would not leave Maxine, who had not yet been told that Shawn was missing. Myrtle had given her a sleeping pill. Miss Pink raised her eyebrows at this: sleeping pills on top of alcohol, but at the moment it was far better that Maxine should be comatose in her own bed, rather t
han drunk at Wind Whistle.
Not long before dawn Miss Pink, who had been dozing in a chair, awoke to a stir in the yard. Dolly appeared in the doorway and glanced round the bright, untidy kitchen.
‘Where is everybody?’
Miss Pink rubbed her eyes and reached for her spectacles. ‘They’re all snatching some sleep. Coffee?’
‘Thanks. I’ll get it. I rode over. I’ll come out today, least I can do. They haven’t found anything – no sign?’
Miss Pink shook her head. ‘He’s vanished. If he’s in Horsethief he can’t be conscious. The same applies if he’s between here and his home.’
‘Could it be amnesia?’
‘But he could still answer shouts, Dolly. An amnesiac isn’t unconscious.’
‘A snake. Did anyone think of that: snakebite?’
‘I’m sure they did. What difference does it make whether he fell off his horse or got bitten by a rattler? It’s not what happened to him that concerns people but where he is.’
‘You think he got bitten?’ Sarah had entered the kitchen. She went to the sink and dashed cold water on her face. ‘Thrown, then bitten?’ she hazarded, reaching for a towel.
Miss Pink asked suddenly: ‘Sarah! What was he doing in Rustler Park two days ago?’
The girl showed no surprise at the question. ‘He said he should have gone on the picnic but his mother kept him home.’
‘Was that all?’
‘It was all he said, but the press were with Maxine that morning. Shawn could have found reporters more interesting than a picnic.’
‘He told me he wasn’t asked.’
‘The young Olsons aren’t all that mad about Shawn.’
‘Your father said he came down with you from Rustler the following day. I wondered if he followed you up there.’
‘Maybe he did, but not closely. He went in to Wind Whistle and then he talked to you on the trail.’
‘I meant, did he go up there after you, because you went? At what point did you meet him?’
‘You mean where, or when?’
‘Both.’
Dolly, who had been following this with interest, said: ‘You think this has some bearing on what’s happened?’
They didn’t answer her. ‘I met him as I was coming home,’ Sarah said. ‘He caught me up.’
‘What was he doing when he was in the park?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him, but it’s a big park with hollows, as you know, and then there’s the reef in the middle; you can lose sight of people. That’s where I was, by the reef: trying to get pictures of the rattler; I wouldn’t have noticed Shawn.’
Dolly said: ‘What on earth would a kid of ten find to do in Rustler Park? In any case, that’s got nothing to do with what happened yesterday, because he was fishing in Horsethief.’
There were voices and other sounds from the back of the house. The men were getting up. The women started to busy themselves with breakfast.
It was Erik Olson who was to ask the crucial question. He paused as he wiped egg off his plate and turned to Forset. ‘I s’pose he was fishing when you saw him from the stockway? He wasn’t laying down or something?’
Forset blinked at him. ‘I assumed he was fishing. There was the pinto, tied— ’ He turned to Duval. ‘Wasn’t anything wrong with the animal then; remember, he lifted his head when he heard our voices? He looked all right to me. ’Course, we were some way above— ’
‘He hit the wire after that,’ Duval pointed out. ‘But he wasn’t tied; he was drinking.’
For a moment no one spoke, then Dolly said: ‘Shawn couldn’t have been fishing at the same time his horse was drinking. He had to be holding it. Although maybe, if he wasn’t, that was the moment it got away. So Shawn— ’
‘He wasn’t holding it,’ Duval said, and looked at Art Stenbock.
‘I never saw anything,’ the man said quickly. ‘You rode out to the top of that draw, to look at the fencing, where you would put the new fence, and you only glanced down Horsethief. I stayed back on the stockway, with Mike.’
Forset looked at Duval. ‘You saw the boy.’
‘I didn’t. It was you who said: “There’s young Shawn.” I only saw the pinto. You really saw the boy?’
Forset grimaced. ‘No, I didn’t. I just assumed – you do that, don’t you? There’s someone’s horse so you think the rider’s with it.’
Miss Pink asked curiously: ‘What made you connect the pinto with Shawn?’
‘Everyone knew he was using the pinto; besides, Alex mentioned it.’ He held her eye. ‘Alex is up in the Straights, putting out salt and stuff for the cows. He saw Shawn in Rustler on the pinto the day before so he knew the boy had the loan of the pony.’
Sarah said: ‘How could Alex be in Rustler if he was in the Straights?’
‘I didn’t say he was in Rustler. He looked down on the park from the rimrock above Bighorn Spring.’
‘I didn’t see him.’
‘Yes, you were up there too. He didn’t say he saw you but your horse don’t show up like the pinto. Anyway, is this important?’
Miss Pink said: ‘It shows Shawn had an interest in Rustler – and that since you didn’t see him fishing, and the pony wasn’t tied by the pool, the animal could have been loose at that point: loose and on its own. Shawn could be in Rustler.’
They stared at her. It was Dolly who broke the silence. ‘Or points between. No wonder you couldn’t find him in Horsethief.’
Everyone who could ride turned out that day, even the Olson twins. Only the younger Olsons were kept at home with Jo. Glen Plummer stayed in the valley, as did Jerome and Frankie. Myrtle telephoned to say she was keeping Maxine ‘sedated’ and by now no one was in the least concerned how she was doing it: with alcohol or sleeping pills or a combination of both.
Lois Stenbock stayed at home but Paula Estwick came out: quiet and tight-lipped, riding a bony horse, no longer the bereaved mother – or at least, not showing it, but a plain, tough ranch woman.
The column of riders went up the Horsethief trail without a pause but when they reached the fork above the Upper Jump and turned uphill their interest quickened. From this point onwards there had been no search.
They climbed the slickrock slowly, exploring the ledges, looking behind boulders, dismounting to peer into holes where there had been a rockfall. They found no recent falls but they knew that people overtaken by darkness may crawl into shelter, and often they stay there, asleep or unconscious.
‘I figure he’s dead,’ Paula said. Miss Pink was momentarily alone with her, holding the reins while she clambered over a heap of fallen rocks. Coming back, taking the reins, she made no move to mount. ‘There’s no hurry,’ she said. ‘He were dead before the pony come home.’
Yaller rested one leg as if they had all the time in the world. Miss Pink looked along the ledge and saw a bright gleam as a horse turned and halted. Someone shouted: ‘You find something?’
‘No,’ she called, and looked down at Paula. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s obvious. Shawn knew who killed— ’ She would not pronounce the name, but Miss Pink knew. She went on: ‘But Sam were in town so he couldn’t have nothing to do with this.’ She indicated the searchers. ‘They let him go coupla days back, did you know that? No. Well, they did, but he stayed in Nebo ’cause he were afraid of me, still is, I reckon. He called me though, said he’d got to stay, the police said so. He can come home now, I reckon he’s been punished enough.’ Miss Pink looked startled. ‘I mean, for going to that woman,’ Paula said coldly. ‘He didn’t have nothing to do with – with any of – the other business, although it were his knife.’
‘It was? Definitely?’
‘It were his knife they took out of the creek.’
‘And you reckon the same man was responsible for both deaths.’ Paula regarded her calmly. ‘Do you have any idea as to who— ?’
‘If the body’s in Rustler then it had to be someone who could ride, so that lets out Gle
n Plummer and Jerome Gray. Mr Gray can ride but I don’t see him coming up here yesterday on Sarah’s horse— ’
‘He didn’t.’
‘So that leaves five men – and young Mike. Four of ’em, and Mike, was herding cattle yesterday, and that leaves just Erik Olson, and he were with me till dinner time.’
‘What time do you eat dinner?’
‘At noon.’
She mounted and they walked along the ledge towards the black hole of the Twist. There were tracks in the sand but since Shawn had ridden the pinto past here two days ago, and some of the picnic party had been mounted on ponies the day before that, small hoofprints held no special significance. They worked their way through the Twist at a snail’s pace, inspecting every hole and crack, and it was midday by the time they collected in Rustler Park. They dismounted in the shade and ate their lunch, and discussed the afternoon’s programme.
‘He won’t be any further than here,’ Forset said, ‘so this is our last chance to find him. You know the place best, Bob; how should we work it?’
‘Sarah knows it better than me; it’s years since we put cows up here.’
Sarah said: ‘There’s the reef in the middle, that’s the most likely place if he’s been bitten, so watch out for snakes. I’ll take the old line camp because I know there’s a rattler in the cabin, but I’m used to him. Apart from the reef, there’s all the rocks right round the edge, and then there are shallow draws everywhere in the grass.’
‘Sweep search,’ Miss Pink murmured.
‘What’s that?’ Forset turned to her.
‘We form a line, say, fifteen to twenty feet apart, and ride across the park. When we come to the far side the line returns on a parallel course. In theory every inch is covered systematically.’
‘Excellent. We’ll do that after we’ve ridden round the edge. And everyone,’ – he eyed the youngsters – ‘don’t forget to make plenty of noise. But when I signal – ride out in front, wave my arms – everyone stops calling and we listen, see if he’s calling.’
All through the stifling afternoon they searched the park. There was no water apart from that which they had brought themselves, and Forset had made sure that everyone carried a good supply, but the horses suffered.
