by M. K. Wren
So, what was the outside influence? Conan stared across at the door opening into the living room. Someone might have brought that influence through that door, or it could have come in the form of a phone call or radio message. All the ranch pickups were radio equipped, and a transmitter sat by the telephone at one side of the desk.
Or there was the outside door. It was locked; he’d already checked that. And the window. A turn of his head to the left gave him a clear view across the open yard to the pool of light at the barn door.
Last night, sometime after eight, when a light was last seen in this window, George had left this room and crossed to the barn through that pool of light to saddle his horse and ride—where? Was the Spring Creek reservoir his intended destination? If so, why?
Conan vented a long sigh, lit a cigarette, and began studying the ledgers and papers. The ledgers contained stock inventories: cows bred, calves branded, calves, yearlings, and steers sold, breeding stock purchased, head counts of cattle left in particular summer grazing areas and BLM allotments, the number of known fatalities with notes of probable cause. Under that heading on this year’s list was the notation “Thirty head (Benson Flat) Cyanide.”
George had been comparing head counts with those of the previous three years. Conan generally avoided anything associated with accounting, but he was familiar with this kind of inventory, and a little study made it clear that this year’s head count was running low. Still, all the cattle hadn’t been brought down from the summer pastures yet.
He gathered the notes scattered on the desk; terse reminders, most of them routine, one particularly poignant: “Laura’s b’day—11/5.” Only three held his attention for more than a glance.
“Check w/Gil—hd. ct. Dry Creek Pstr.” He frowned over the last abbreviation. Pasture. The other was clear enough. Head count.
The second note read, “Red car—L?” In association with “red car,” the initial could only stand for Linc, but it still made no sense. It was even more mystifying because it was paperclipped to two other notes, the one on top reading, “Conan—Hoi. Bch. 779-7070.” The other was dated July 25. “Bert—Nev. lie. HUT710.”
Bert Kimmons, who had succumbed to a heart attack while trying to bring two old friends together in a common cause: the possibility they were both victims of cattle rustlers. This would be the license of the cattle truck Kimmons saw.
The date rang a bell. Conan took out his notebook, and his frown deepened. July 25. Two days before the last deposit in Linc’s Boise account.
He looked through the desk until he found the ranch checkbook, a large folder, five checks to a page. The monthly payments of five hundred dollars to Linc were there, along with equal amounts to Ted, eight hundred to George, and varied amounts to the ranch employees. Salaries. But nowhere was there a check to Linc or even to cash to explain the deposits in the Boise account.
He began a systematic search through the desk drawers, but found nothing unusual, nor any of the thoughtless leftovers accumulated by less orderly minds. He did, however, find something he considered a stroke of luck. Taped at the back of the bottom drawer was a paper with three numbers on it. He smiled at that. The safe combination. He had some practice at opening safes sans combinations, and the Mosely wouldn’t have been beyond his skills, but this saved time.
He found six hundred dollars in the safe, a temptation no city businessman would risk, plus a sheaf of legal documents: deeds, the oldest dating back a century to the founding of the McFall dynasty; water and grazing rights; insurance policies; and two wills, George’s and Aaron’s.
He took the wills to the desk and smoked three cigarettes in succession while poring over the crotchety involutions of fine-printed legalese. George’s will was relatively simple. Laura—”or their heirs”—was the chief beneficiary except for a few sentimental bequests, and the estate consisted mainly of life insurance policies. The ranch wasn’t involved simply because in this “family run” business George had no legal claim to so much as an acre. Aaron McFall was sole owner of the Black Stallion.
Still, George’s estate was impressive. Laura would collect from various insurance companies a total of half a million dollars. Now he could add that to a divorce George dismissed as impossible. Freedom and money. Two compelling motives.
Aaron’s will was a labyrinth of provisions and codicils, and Conan recognized the first faint throbs of a headache, but the general purport was clear. On Aaron’s death, ownership of the Black Stallion, a three-million-dollar empire, devolved upon the “eldest surviving son.”
Linc was now the eldest surviving, and perhaps that also constituted a motive for murder.
He put the wills back in the safe, lit one more cigarette, and attacked the file cabinets, checking the suppliers and buyers with whom the ranch did business. Each company was alloted a folder marked with its name and address, but he found none with offices in Winnemucca.
At length, he closed the file cabinets, put the paperclipped notes and the one referring to Dry Creek Pasture in his briefcase, and locked it. He considered a judicious application of fluorescent powder but decided against it. Subjecting the family and employees to black-light examination would only arouse antagonism, and it would be closing the barn door too late. No one would be returning to this room now to cover any criminal tracks; there had already been ample opportunity for that. Sheriff Tate had been assured that the office hadn’t been entered since George left it, but Conan had a handful of keys surrendered over twelve hours later, and even without a key the locks would be child’s play to pick.
He climbed the stairs wearily, body protesting with assorted aches and pains its hard use this day. Eleven o’clock. At home, he would consider this the shank of the evening, but here it was the middle of the night, and Linc and Potts hadn’t returned from Burns yet. He’d have heard the whining roar of the Mercedes. Linc’s toy. A very expensive toy bought with a forfeited dream.
CHAPTER 13
Conan woke to the sound of hoofbeats, and it became enmeshed in his dream, in which a stampeding herd of cattle was bearing down on the bookshop, while Miss Dobie assured him the rain would discourage them, and Meg played cat-and-mouse with a crumpled copy of his will.
When he recovered from the shock of waking in a strange bed and recognized the hoofbeats as the buckaroos riding out, he was faced with the realization that he was paralyzed from the neck down.
No, not paralyzed, or he wouldn’t be in pain.
A few hours on Molly and a few minutes on Domino all in one day—it wasn’t the best way to approach the saddle after an interregnum of several years.
Getting out of bed was the worst part. After that he hobbled to the bathroom and immersed himself in a stinging-hot shower, then subjected his knotted muscles to five minutes of agonizing calisthenics. By the time he had shaved and dressed, he was recovered enough even to anticipate breakfast.
It was seven-thirty when he undertook the descent of the stairs, but the house was empty, and he knew the ranch workday was already well begun. In the kitchen there was a residual odor of bacon, but the breakfast dishes were in the dishwasher, which emitted a steady, nerve-fraying roar. The room gleamed sterilely with enamel and chrome, betraying its age only in its old-fashioned generous dimensions.
He went out the back door to the breezeway where a water pump indicated that all the old ways hadn’t been usurped. The men washed up there before going into the cookhouse for meals. But the kitchen in the cookhouse was another bastion of modernity, better equipped than most restaurant kitchens. Laura was there with Irene Mosely and Ginger Vasquez, producing pies with assembly-line efficiency. He’d forgotten the quantities of food working buckaroos consumed, and the hours necessary to its preparation. Laura, floured to the wrists, put aside her rolling pin to give him a warm smile.
“Well, good morning. How are you?”
He leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets.
“Mobile, which is a small miracle. How are you?”
Her eyes flicked down. “I’m all right, Conan,” she said, turning away to wash her hands at the sink. She’d gone to some trouble with her make-up, but it didn’t hide the bruised puffiness around her eyes.
Then as she dried her hands, her smile restored, “Come on to the house. I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
He followed her back to the kitchen, giving up after a few attempts at helping. She worked with a nurse’s efficiency, answering his questions without so much as a waste movement. Linc and Potts were alive and well, and she wondered how they managed it; she was sure they hadn’t returned before midnight. They left half an hour ago for Jordan Valley—”Jerd’n,” she ironically corrected herself—to look at some Durham bulls. Aaron and Ted had gone out with the buckaroos to ride fence; even without the feud, that was imperative at this time of year. Hunting season. The yearly toll of cut fences and strayed, lost, or wounded cattle was incredible. Aaron seemed to be feeling fine this morning. Good appetite, good color. His old cantankerous self.
And incidentally, since probably no one else would get around to telling him, the funeral would be tomorrow. Service at the Methodist churcli in Burns, burial in the cemetery at Drewsey. It would be the first time Aaron set foot in church since his cousin Jed’s son was married ten years ago.
She answered his questions about Bert Kimmons with little indication of curiosity, adding nothing to George’s account When Conan asked if Kimmons had mentioned a red car, she frowned, scooped his eggs—sunny-side-up to perfection—onto his plate, and brought it to him before she responded.
“I don’t remember Bert talking about a red car. Did George say something about one?”
“No, not exactly. Mm. I haven’t had hashbrowns like these since”—he laughed—“since I left the Ten-Mile. By the way, I seem to be afoot here, or I guess ahoof. Do I need Aaron’s consent to borrow a car?”
She laughed at that as she poured two cups of coffee and sat down across the table from him.
“You can use the Buick. It was officially George’s and mine, but I used it more than he did. He always preferred pickups.” Her light mood wavered only briefly. “Well, where are you off to today?”
“Burns.”
“What will you be looking for there? Some vital clue?”
“Hopefully.”
She studied him a moment, fleetingly surprised.
“Am I out of line asking that sort of question?”
“No, of course not.”
“Does that mean I’m not among your suspects?”
He shrugged. “At this point everyone is a suspect, simply because I haven’t enough evidence to eliminate anyone, but you’re low on the list.” A large rock would be an impractical murder weapon for her, which didn’t eliminate her as an accomplice, but he didn’t pursue the subject. Her hand was trembling as she reached for her cup.
“Laura, did George say anything recently about Dry Creek Pasture?”
“What? Well, I…no. Not that I remember.”
“Where is it?”
“Oh, south beyond Jenny Butte. It’s sort of a basin, I guess. Actually, I’ve never been there. It’s rough country, and George used to call it a rattler reserve.”
“How far away is it?”
“I think about eight miles from here. It’s close to the K-Bar property line.”
“K-Bar? That was Bert Kimmons’s ranch?”
“Yes.”
He nodded and concentrated on his breakfast. George had mentioned a county road running along the property line. Kimmons had seen the Nevada cattle truck on that road.
Laura rose, seeming ill at ease with his preoccupation.
“I’ll get the car keys for you, and consider the car yours for the duration. If I need transportation, I have plenty of alternatives. I always said this place looked like a used car lot.”
*
The Harney County Courthouse was a sturdy, square, stone building of WPA vintage, its economic lines softened only slightly by plantings of arborvitae. The lawn was a little patchy at this time of year.
Sheriff Joe Tate occupied an office whose decor was in keeping with the architecture, an austere, heavily waxed shine about it, but Tate seemed a little ragged around the edges, tie loose, cigar well frayed. He had surrendered his files to Conan almost eagerly, an index of his desperation.
“That rock is the murder weapon; Doc says there’s no doubt about it.” The rock rested in inanimate gloom on his desk, a pocked hunk of black basalt weighing perhaps twenty pounds. “Doc says George prob’ly got hit before the dam blowed; there was dirt in the wound didn’t come from that rock. But he can’t say how long before.”
Conan was glancing over the autopsy report a second time, his respect for Walter Maxwell growing. It was meticulous, objective, and thorough.
“Was there any evidence that George had handled dynamite?”
“Nope, but I s’pose he could’ve been wearin’ gloves and took ’em off to light the fuse. That place was so tore up, it’d be easy to lose a pair of gloves.”
Conan raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Tate didn’t seem too impressed with that explanation, either.
“You checked Drinkwater’s explosives inventory?”
“Ain’t nothin’ missin’—accordin’ to his records.”
“What about the Black Stallion inventory?”
“Harley talked to Wil Mosely; he keeps all them records. Same story.”
That wasn’t particularly surprising. “Is there anyone around here who could do some soil comparisons for me?”
“Well, lessee, your best bet’d be Cliff Spiker. He’s with the county agent’s office downstairs. Cliff’s a geologist; been in Harney County near twenty years. I’ll give him a call, tell him you’re workin’ with me.
“Thanks, that should grease the wheels a little. I’d like to have him look at this rock.”
Tate puffed at his cigar a moment, then shrugged.
“Sure. You know how to handle evidence.”
“That would be a little hard to lose.”
He sorted through the sheets in the file, stopping at a report on the employees at both ranches. Ranch hands tended to be itinerant and rootless as tumbleweeds, but this group was relatively stable, most of them employed at the same ranch for periods of two to ten years. Only two men had arrest records: Pete Harkness of the Double D, with an A and B conviction, suspended sentence; Morgan Hayes of the Black Stallion, with a manslaughter conviction for which he spent two years in the state prison.
“Sheriff, do you know Pete Harkness?”
He gave a short laugh. “Yep. That A and B don’t mean nothin’. Ol’ Pete jest can’t hold his likker; got hisself in a fight with a California dude. Most of the time he’s ’bout as mean as a puppy dog, and anyhow he ain’t too smart, y’know. Good steady hand, but he can’t handle nothin’ too complicated. And if you’re wonderin’ about Morgan Hayes, I know all about how he come to do that time in Salem. Woman trouble.”
Conan looked up. “Who did he kill, the woman or the lover?”
“The lover. That wife of his weren’t worth a hill of beans, but you couldn’t tell Morgan. Then one night he come home and found Nancy keepin’ their bed warm with somebody else, and he flew mad. Don’t figger he meant to do more’n beat the feller up good, but he cracked his head on the bedstead. Since then, Morgan’s been straight as an arrah.”
“In other words, an unlikely candidate to mastermind a long-term effort like the feud or a premeditated murder.”
“Premeditated?” He eyed him skeptically. “Can’t argue that now. No, not Morgan. He jest don’t think that way.”
“Do any of these people?”
“No, and I know ever’body on that list. Most of ’em been around here a good long time.”
“What about Gil Potts? He seems to be fairly new to Harney County.” He studied Potts’s employment record, a nomadic history: Idaho, California, Nevada, Oregon; generally buckarooing, but occasionally working in various towns, cooking, pu
mping gas, construction work. The job tending bar in Winnemucca was noted; from there he came to Burns, worked at a Shell station for six months, then another six months at the Double D. His four years in the Army was also on record, including the paramedic training Laura had mentioned.
“0l’ Gil done a lot of movin’ around.” Tate commented, leaning forward to dispose of his cigar in a chipped ashtray. “But he never got hisself in trouble, you notice, and never took no rockin’-chair pay. Lotta guys like Gil around; don’t like gettin’ tied down. But, y’know, since he signed on at the Runnin’ S, he’s sorta put down roots. I told you he took a likin’ to Linc. Sometimes havin’ somebody to look out for steadies a man down.”
“He seems to be successful as a steadying influence on Linc. I wonder what happened between him and Alvin.”
Tate shrugged. “I guess they got into it hot ’n heavy, but I don’t know what set it off. Course, Gil signed on there not long after Chari died; Alvin was purty broke up.”
“And cantankerous?” Conan asked absently, thinking of Aaron McFall’s bitter grief. “What can you tell me about Chari’s death?” That called up a sharp and questioning look.
“Well, like I said, it was diabeteez. Nothin’ out of the way ’bout it ’cept mebbe where she was found. She come to town that night for the Burns-Crane basketball game. We found her car in the school parkin’ lot, but she was clear t’other end of town in a phone booth, out cold. Coma. That’s what Doc called it. But he says people goin’ into diabetic spells sometimes do queer things. Mebbe she forgot she even had a car and jest started walkin’ for help. Doc’s place is out to that end of town.”
Conan’s eyes narrowed. “But she was in a phone booth? Did she call the doctor?”
“Nope. Some feller phoned the hospital, says he seen her lyin’ on the ground by the booth; didn’t know if she was sick, drunk, or took some drug. He wouldn’t give a name; jest passin’ through town, he says.”
