by Gwen Moffat
‘It was bad weather; the cloud was down.’
‘Of course. One never thinks of that in California.’ She looked across the headwall of Malachite Canyon to the road that climbed to Breakneck Pass. ‘If I hadn’t been up and down that road already, the sight of it would terrify me. No wonder people warned me not to take it.’
‘It’s the same as everything else in the wilderness: riding, skiing, hunting; fine so long as nothing goes wrong, but it’s coping with emergencies that weeds out the survivors. You wouldn’t want your brakes to fail coming down that road; there’d need to be some quick gear-changes. And you have to take those bends carefully: up as well as down; you’ll have discovered that for yourself. A number of people have gone over the edge.’
As these words penetrated her brain Miss Pink’s casual regard started to sharpen. She turned and saw that Rose was watching her. She took a pair of binoculars from her saddlebag. ‘There’s nothing obvious,’ she said, focusing. ‘Wherever it did come off, a vehicle would fall towards the creek, and I can see all of that except the bit below the bottom bend.’ She started to move along the ridge, traversing below the north wall of Sardine Butte.
‘That’s a very dark chasm,’ Rose called, squinting downwards. ‘If a truck was upside-down it wouldn’t show any blue paint.’
Miss Pink had moved out of sight round a rock buttress. Rose glanced back at the horses, then followed. Her companion was standing at the top of a shallow gully, a seasonal water-course, dry now, which ran down the slope like a funnel and pointed towards the lowest bend on the Breakneck road.
Below the point of the bend dark rock plunged for over a hundred feet to what must be a small level platform between waterfalls. And there, resembling something stranded, something that might have leapt upstream like a salmon but was more likely to have dropped, was a pale blue object the size of a Jeep.
The road was only two miles away but the slope was precipitous; they had to continue the line of their intended route by way of Trouble Pass to Breakneck and approach the Jeep from the divide. ‘I wonder can we reach it ourselves,’ Rose said. ‘We might be able to traverse in from the side; we certainly can’t climb up or down to it, because of the waterfalls.’
Miss Pink made no response; someone had to reach the Jeep even if it meant bringing in climbers with ropes.
They were shocked, of course, and it affected them differently. Rose couldn’t stop talking, Miss Pink was thoughtful. As they plodded up the slope towards the aircraft wreck Rose said, following her own train of thought: ‘But she didn’t just walk away and leave him! If she was with him, if she’d been with him, she’d have been killed too. Are you certain it was Joanne came down to Credit?’
‘Is it likely there are two beautiful English half-castes – or quadroons – in one corner of California at the same time?’
‘Maybe she jumped clear.’
Miss Pink dropped back, and since it is difficult for riders to converse when they’re in single file, they continued in silence until they reached the wreckage of the plane. It lay strewn about a stony knoll and all around was the evidence of fire: scorched and melted plastic, charred foam attached to contorted metal, blackened rocks.
‘The bodies must have been flung clear,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘Otherwise currency bills would have been burned.’ She stopped and looked back at Sardine Butte and beyond, to Crazy Mule Canyon.
Rose was walking on, approaching the brow of Trouble Pass. Miss Pink trotted after her and they crossed the saddle to find their trail contouring the slope of the divide, almost level and just above the timber. Westward the lateral ridges sloped majestically to the flat lands with here and there a glimpse of meadows like alps. In this dry season grass was tawny as a lion’s skin. A great raptor banked on a thermal. ‘That could be a condor,’ Rose said. ‘My first condor,’ responded Miss Pink. Neither of them evinced any excitement.
They started to descend – Breakneck was lower than Trouble – and entered a stand of red firs. Soon they saw the flash of dirt through the trees and they stepped out on the road and turned for home.
The Jeep was invisible from any point on the road, which was why no one had seen it. They stopped at the lowest hairpin and looked at the ground. There were fresh scars on the lip of the chasm but new growth had erased all signs of where the Jeep had left the road.
‘It didn’t skid,’ Miss Pink said. ‘So wherever it went over, he wasn’t braking.’
‘So what? It had to fall from here, didn’t it?’
Miss Pink looked up the slope. ‘It may have gone over from higher up and tumbled down the bed of the creek, but then it would be more knocked about. From a distance it looked scarcely marked. The reason why I was looking for signs here was because I wondered whether it was going up or down when it left the road.’
They descended a short distance and saw the faint line of a game trail running in to the platform between the falls. Leaving the horses they continued on foot. In the lead, Miss Pink stopped suddenly.
‘A bear’s been here. There’s a paw mark.’
‘My God! If it’s still there – ’
They moved a few paces and the Jeep came into view, the passenger door hanging broken from one hinge, a litter of paper spewing from the interior. They stood still, holding their breath. The Jeep didn’t move.
‘Hi, bear!’ Rose shouted. ‘Bear! Go away!’
The echoes died and they watched like hawks.
‘There’s nothing inside,’ Miss Pink said. ‘No bear.’ But their approach was still cautious; they didn’t want to see what was inside the Jeep. There were flies; those were to be expected. There was a mess of trash in the passenger seat, and in the well in front of it: a welter of paper and plastic bags, and rags that had been clothing. The driver’s seat was somewhat stained, but with mud rather than blood, and empty. They peered into the back and poked about gingerly, discovering cartons under the clutter produced by the bear in its search for food. The flies had been attracted by scraps in the smashed icebox. There was no body in the Jeep.
‘He was thrown clear?’ Rose asked doubtfully.
From points round the lip of the waterfall they peered at the pool below the drop. Sodden sheets of paper had accumulated at the outlet but there was nothing else.
‘He survived and crawled away?’ Rose ventured, and answered her own question: ‘He couldn’t have; look at that drop between the road and here: it’s over a hundred feet! Even with the Jeep landing upright, the jolt would have detached most of his organs.’
Miss Pink turned back to the Jeep. ‘It’s in gear,’ she said, ‘bottom gear. Was he going up? What gear would he be in?’ Her Cherokee was automatic.
‘On that bend? Second, I would think.’
Miss Pink picked up a sheet of paper. ‘This is a copy of Permelia’s diary. I wonder?’ She reached behind the passenger seat and moved some clothing scattered with cereal flakes to expose a squashed carton. She straightened its sides and they saw the spines of books: field guides to wildflowers, birds, mammals, a hardback on the California Trail, three paperback Chandlers, a tour guide to the western states. Rose crowded close then stepped back and reached down. ‘Look what I was treading on.’
It was a thick spiral notebook. The ink on the pages had run but it had been open, face-down, and the cover had escaped the water. On the outside was the title: Joplin Trail. Inside was Argent’s name, James Dorset’s address and telephone number, and the legend: ‘Substantial Reward to Finder’. Although the writing on the pages was indecipherable they could see that the book was nearly completed.
‘It’s his notes,’ Rose breathed. ‘I wonder could a laboratory bring up the writing somehow? You could use it.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Aren’t you interested? This was the basis for his book!’
‘Let’s see what’s missing.’
‘Nothing will be missing. This is the most valuable item. It’s priceless – to an author.’ But Miss Pink was clearing the passeng
er seat, carefully transferring objects to the well.
They searched the Jeep methodically, seeing what was there and what was absent. They could tell; both knew what was needed in wilderness travel. The results were interesting. There was a large rucksack and a small tent but no sleeping bag. There appeared to be a full complement of clothing but no boots and no down jacket. There were maps, personal items such as shaving gear and towels but a sponge-bag was ripped and empty. They did find a cake of soap and a tube of toothpaste which had been punctured, almost certainly by large teeth. There were no cameras and no binoculars. In the glove compartment, along with a pair of designer sunglasses in a case, a tyre pressure gauge, Band-Aid, toothpicks and the driver’s manual, was a black biro pushed to the back with an address stamped on it: ‘Thunderbird Motel, 190 Main Street, Seeping Springs, Texas’. ‘When was he in Texas?’ Miss Pink murmured, and clipped it to her shirt pocket. ‘And who took the cameras?’
‘How do you know he had any?’
‘The book was to be illustrated, and he always took his own photographs. He was something of a naturalist too so he’d have had binoculars. Why am I talking in the past tense? There’s no body. And where’s his sleeping bag?’
‘The bear?’
‘Never. A bear might pull it out and rip it but once it found there were only feathers inside, it would lose interest. Where are the feathers? No, someone else was here besides the bear.’
‘Of course. Timothy was.’
‘Why did he leave his notebook behind?’
Chapter 8
‘I’m too exhausted to cook,’ Rose said, closing the corral gate. ‘I guess I’ll join you for supper at the Queen.’
Miss Pink, about to say she must go to her cabin first, changed her mind. Rose hadn’t been out of her sight since they found the Jeep, had had no chance to use a telephone. ‘A good idea,’ she agreed, ‘I’ll wash my hands in your kitchen.’ Rose blinked at such familiarity but evidently she was too tired to remind her guest that the cabins were only a few yards away.
It had been dark by the time they returned to Dogtown. The horses were stumbling with weariness and their riders were in little better shape, but by the time they’d unsaddled, Miss Pink had found her second wind. She staggered a little as they walked to the Red Queen but her brain was functioning smoothly. There was a light in a cabin at the back of the museum and she was considering the question of the Semples when Rose asked: ‘What do we tell them?’
‘Why,’ Miss Pink stopped as if she were too tired to walk and talk at the same time, ‘just tell people what we know.’
‘We don’t know anything.’
‘So we’ll tell them that.’
‘We’ll have to call the sheriff.’
‘Leave that to Blair and Lovejoy. We’ve done our bit for today.’
‘I can’t hold out much longer.’
‘What you need is a good stiff drink.’
The restaurant was empty of customers, the partners sitting at one of the tables drinking coffee and reading newspapers. Lovejoy smiled as he stood up. ‘We were expecting you,’ he said. ‘We heard the horses –’ his smile faded, ‘– What’s wrong?’
Miss Pink and Rose subsided in the nearest chairs.
‘Something happened?’ Blair approached, full of solicitude. ‘Are you all right?’
‘We’ve had quite a day.’ Miss Pink gave him an apologetic smile. ‘We could revive with brandy.’ Lovejoy rushed to the bar.
‘We found the Jeep,’ Rose said. ‘Timothy’s rig.’
‘My God!’ Lovejoy froze, a bottle in his hands.
‘Were they –’ Blair’s eyes were horrified.
‘No.’ Rose’s voice climbed. ‘He’s not there! No one’s there. Only a bear was there.’ She giggled.
Miss Pink said loudly: ‘The bear had just pulled out the food, that’s all. There’s no sign of Timothy. Mr Blair, I wonder if you would call the sheriff and tell him the Jeep’s been found – empty. Now I come to think of it the sheriff on this side won’t even know that a Jeep was missing, unless the one at Credit told him. However, it has to be reported. Perhaps you should tell the Semples as well; they knew Timothy. We’re too tired to go over. They might like to come here.’
Rose was quiet now, regarding her in a lacklustre fashion. Lovejoy came over with the brandy and she started to drink it.
‘Here, go easy,’ he chided. ‘That’s not water, Rosie.’
Blair went to the kitchen where he could be heard telephoning. Miss Pink sipped her brandy. Lovejoy turned to her. ‘No horrors?’ he asked meaningly.
‘No. Just a crashed Jeep. He – it left the road at the first bend on the way to Breakneck and landed right way up in the creek.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘We have no idea.’
‘Could you get down to it? Oh, of course, you had to or you wouldn’t have known –’
Disjointedly she told him what they had found. Blair returned and Lovejoy repeated it to him. He said the sheriff would be out in the morning, and that he had called the Semples. Rose had another brandy. Food was forgotten. Charlotte Semple came in, looking puzzled.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘If the Jeep broke down why didn’t they go back for it? Or was it a total wreck?’
The other women were silent. Alcohol had been the final straw for Rose whose eyelids were drooping, while Miss Pink regarded Charlotte with a bemused expression and took another pull at her brandy.
‘It’s in the creek,’ Lovejoy supplied eagerly. ‘He ran out of road on the first bend up to Breakneck.’
Charlotte stared at him with parted lips. ‘How ghastly,’ she whispered, and glanced at Miss Pink who nodded earnestly. ‘You found them?’ Charlotte went on, frowning as she took in their appearance and realised that they’d come straight to the restaurant without changing their clothes. Blair spoke for them: ‘They’ve been riding all day. They’re exhausted. I’m going to heat some minestrone.’ He went to the kitchen and Lovejoy, after a glance at the wilting customers, took up the story. Charlotte listened with an air of increasing bewilderment, while Miss Pink exuded approval as if Lovejoy were a pupil repeating his lesson. When he said that the Jeep must have been empty when it left the road, Charlotte made the obvious comment: ‘So they jumped before it went down.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ Rose, who had been sprawled across a table, raised her head from her arms and made an effort to pull herself together. ‘Someone said “they”. I thought you were talking about the Jeep.’
Blair came back with steaming bowls of soup. ‘We were,’ Lovejoy said. ‘But if they were both in the Jeep to start with, then they both had to jump clear, one out of each door.’ He turned to Charlotte. ‘Are you thinking the same as me: why didn’t they come back to Dogtown? That’s easy. They didn’t want to run into Brett Vogel. So they walked past here – in the night? – hiked out to the highway and thumbed a lift to LA.’ He beamed with satisfaction. Blair regarded him doubtfully, Charlotte looked confused. Miss Pink, who had turned her chair to the table, applied herself to her soup.
Rose picked up a spoon and tasted the minestrone. ‘God, that’s good! I’m hungry.’
‘I can’t see Timothy being worried about Brett Vogel,’ Blair said. ‘Even if he had gone off with Brett’s lady.’
‘He didn’t.’ Rose was reviving with every spoonful of soup. ‘Joanne wasn’t with him –’
‘Now, wait a minute – ’ Miss Pink began, but the two men were speaking together. Blair stopped. His partner was saying: ‘ – can’t be another girl like her. It must have been Joanne. You thought it was her originally, didn’t you?’ He was addressing Miss Pink. ‘You said a hooker was working the logging run on the Pacific slope.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Charlotte jeered.
‘True! She heard it when she was over to Credit. The sheriff told her.’
Miss Pink finished her soup and asked Blair for a second helping. She seemed much more alert now. She repeat
ed what she had learned from the deputy in Credit about the girl who called herself Fay, and that included the story of the deer. At this point Lovejoy interrupted: ‘That’s not true for a start. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, Timothy didn’t have the Jeep on top. It was sitting in Malachite Creek.’
‘Exactly,’ Miss Pink said. ‘The story was just a cover for bloodstains on the girl’s clothing.’
‘She must have hurt herself falling out of the Jeep.’ Charlotte was starting to work things out. ‘What a tragedy. I suppose they’ve found a cabin on the west side of the divide and he’s drinking, living on what Joanne can earn – But that’s uncharitable!’ She was suddenly defiant. ‘What he’s doing, he must be beavering away at his book – and – and what she does is no business of ours.’ She avoided their eyes.
The others were plainly embarrassed, except for Rose. ‘Miss Pink didn’t finish,’ she said coldly. ‘Joanne was alone. She went to Bakersfield with the logger and then she split. The deputy didn’t say anything about her coming back, did he?’
‘No,’ Miss Pink said.
‘So where’s Timothy?’ Lovejoy asked.
‘That’s for the sheriff to find out,’ Miss Pink said. She was thinking that the discovery of the Jeep hadn’t taken them much further forward. At one time there had been a connection between Timothy, Joanne and the truck but at some point they became separated. Did that separation occur when the truck left the road? Were Timothy and Joanne together at that point, or had they parted previously? She looked down at a fresh bowl of soup, veiling her eyes. That question might be answered in the morning, with the help of tracker dogs.
‘No way, ma’am. After two months? There wouldn’t be a trace of scent left.’
The county line followed the crest of the Sierras so Malachite Canyon came within the jurisdiction of the sheriff at Endeavor: a big, florid man with a thin mouth under a beak of a nose. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Yorkshire dale and Miss Pink wasn’t surprised to find that his name was Charlie Raistrick. He was accompanied by a young dark fellow, Leon Padilla, with honey-coloured skin and looks that were pure Spanish.
