Relentless

by Brian Garfield

  He hoped the Major appreciated that. It might be worth mentioning later on.

  They went forward very slowly; it was pitch dark in here. Baraclough was guiding on the light from the house windows. Walker kept close, ducking now and then to pick up Baraclough’s silhouette. Baraclough moved like a cat. Quickly from tree to tree; then stand and listen; then move again.

  They went past the back of the house, fifty feet from it, screened in the trees, and angled toward the garage. The overhead doors were shut; there was a small window at the narrow end and Baraclough was headed for that. Walker shifted the automatic to his left hand and wiped his sweaty right palm on the thigh of his trousers, and shifted the gun to his right hand again. His thumb rested on the safety.

  Baraclough motioned him to halt with a swift descent of his outstretched, downturned palm.

  Walker waited there, ten feet from the end of the building, while Baraclough went right up against the side of it and put his ear against the wall.

  It seemed a very long stretch of time, nothing moving. Then Baraclough straightened slowly and edged his face to the window to peer in with one eye, cupping a hand around his temple to block night reflections on the glass.

  When Baraclough turned to wave him forward his teeth were showing. Walker eased up beside him and Baraclough whispered, “Have a look” He seemed in an odd good humor. Walker made a mask of his two hands to look in through the window. It took a moment to sort out the darkness inside. Very faint streaks of light came into the garage, lamplight from the house coming through cracks under the doors. He saw an old DeSoto station wagon, wheelless, up on masonry blocks; a horse trailer in the far stall; and in the center space between them, a white police car with a big translucent red globe on its roof.

  “We’d better get out of here.”

  Baraclough was amused. “What for? Come on. No noise, now.”

  Right by the corner of the garage, leaning against the building under the shelter of the roof overhang, stood a hand-painted sign which evidently had been stored here under cover for the winter:

  MONUMENT ROCK RANCH-HORSES FOR HIRE-PACK TRIPS amp; HUNTING SAFARIS-BEN amp; MARIANNE LANSFORD, PROP’S.

  Baraclough led the way back into the trees and around through a slow arc toward the rear corner of the house where the trees came up close to the porch. It was a plain stucco house like a cube, Spanish tile roof and screened porch tacked onto the back. Baraclough halted just within the trees and when Walker looked to his left he saw something moving beyond the house, toward the barn. His thumb tightened against the pistol’s safety catch but Baraclough pushed his hand down and shook his head with a grimace of exasperation. Well all right, it was probably the Major, but how could Baraclough be so sure?

  It was the Major. He came up through the fringe of trees with Hanratty and Baraclough breathed, “They’re being cute. They hid the cop car in the garage.”

  “Waiting for us to walk into an ambush,” the Major said. “Check it out-Walker, wait here with me.”

  Baraclough moved off, disappeared around the corner and was gone, silent as an eel, and Walker stood listening to the pound of his own pulse and the uneasy rasp of Hanratty’s breathing.

  He felt weight behind him and wheeled in panic but Hargit’s fist had closed down over his gun: it was Baraclough, coming around the far end of the porch after making a complete circuit of the house.

  Baraclough reported in a taut whisper, lisping because it was the sibilants that carried. “Jutht one cop. Making himthelf comfortable in the living room with the woman.”

  Walker said, “How do we know there aren’t more of them hiding around here?”

  “Coffee cupth in the kitchen. Two of them and one hath lipthtick on it.”

  The Major made a few hand signals and Baraclough took Walker in tow and led him to the far end of the porch. Walker plucked his sleeve. “Maybe you ought to tell me what we’re putting over.”

  “Well we want to take that cop out, don’t we. Let me have that thing back a minute, will you?” Baraclough took the gun and smiled vaguely, and led him around the corner along the side of the house. Walker banged his shin on a water faucet that protruded from the foundation; he almost cried out, bit his tongue, limped after Baraclough.

  Lamplight spilled out of two windows on this side of the house. Baraclough ducked under the first one and went right by, toward the front of the house. When Walker came by the first window he had an oblique look inside, saw a refrigerator and overhead cabinets, and ducked his head to hunch below the windowsill going past. The well pump started up with a muffled clatter somewhere off to his left. Up ahead Baraclough had frozen by the front window and as Walker approached a buzzer rang, very loud in his ear-it made him jump and tremble and then he recognized it for a telephone.

  Between rings a woman’s voice said, “It may be for you,” and the second ring was cut off in its middle and the woman’s voice, closer to the window now, said, “Monument Rock.”

  The window was open an inch. Baraclough was down on his haunches below it, listening patiently. Walker stopped and breathed shallowly through his open mouth.

  The woman had one of those husky smoky voices and made him think of those sunwhacked sun-streaked blondes you saw around expensive California swimming pools.

  “Hi, Ben, how’s it going?… Oh crap, that means you’ll have to stay over and wait for the garage to open in the morning, is that it?… No, darling, nothing’s happened but I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight all the same. Isn’t this ridiculous? It must have been like this for the old timers when they knew there was a pack of renegade Indians loose in the countryside.” A throaty laugh, and then the voice dropped, became low and intense; Walker could barely hear her now: “Of course he’s still here. What do you want me to do, throw the poor man out in the cold?… Darling, he’s a perfect gentleman and he’s an officer of the law… What? No, he’s one of Constable Cunningham’s deputies from San Miguel.”

  Now Walker could hear the crackle of a voice on the telephone earpiece: he couldn’t get words but the effect was angry; the woman’s answer was a hiss. “Ben, don’t be childish. He’s right here in the living room and I really can’t discuss it with you. Now just calm down and be a good fellow and I’ll see you in the morning, chastity intact… My word? You want my word? For God’s sake this is the last straw, Ben Lansford!”

  The telephone jangled when she slammed the receiver down and Walker saw the crooked grin on Baraclough’s face; Baraclough shook his head with amusement and slowly uncoiled his legs to stand up beside the window. Baraclough’s left hand took a grip on the lower sash, ready to heave it open.

  The woman’s footsteps clicked across the floor and her voice, receding from the window, climbed on a false-gay note that masked the anger underneath: “It looks like our old pickup is really on its last legs. The generator’s all burned out. Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of coffee, Frank?”

  And a man’s voice, uncomfortable, edgy: “Why thank you, Miz Lansford, I don’t mind if I do.” Then: “Maybe I really ought to spend the nat out to the barn, ma’am.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s cold and damp and you’d have bats all over you.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Maybe better bats than Ben Lansford.”

  The woman’s dry nervous laugh was cut off by the crash of the front door slamming open and Major Hargit’s voice, hard and crisp:

  “Freeze.”

  4

  Then Baraclough was sliding the window open and poking the 9-mm. pistol inside, elbow resting on the sill, and Walker stepped out behind him to see into the room over his shoulder. Baraclough said, to draw attention, “Don’t move, you’re whipsawed.”

  It was a big comfortable room with exposed rafters and heavy Spanish furniture of dark wood and leather. The deputy was a big man gone soft, belly sagging over his belt, wearing a blue uniform and a black Sam Browne belt His hands were flat against the leather couch cushions as if to propel him to his feet but he was arre
sted in that strained attitude, fearful glance rolling from the Major to Baraclough.

  The woman stood in the middle of the room, one foot on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Her head was turned, she was staring at Hargit. Her nostrils flared but she didn’t speak. She had walnut-brown hair and she wore it proudly, like a lion’s mane; she was encased in a vertically striped shirt with pearl buttons and a pair of bleach-blue Levi’s, long of leg, tight and round at the hips. She had a starkly sensual face-prominent bones, heavy mouth, big eyes surrounded by sun tracks.

  You could see what it was that made her husband the jealous type.

  The Major’s voice clacked abruptly, breaking the ugly silence: “All right, Steve.” And Baraclough put one foot over the sill and climbed in.

  Walker went in after him. Baraclough had walked across the room, going around behind the woman, staying out of the Major’s line of fire; now he went behind the couch and bent over to unsnap the flap of the deputy’s holster and pluck the service revolver out of it. Then he stepped back and tossed the revolver underhand toward Walker. Walker caught it awkwardly in the air and turned it around in both hands, got his grip adjusted and pointed it vaguely in the woman’s direction.

  A corded muscle rippled in her cheek. Baraclough was staring at her, frankly and obviously undressing her in his mind. His expressive lips pulled back slowly in a smile.

  The woman slid her glance off Baraclough as if he were some kind of zoo animal. “All right. What do you want?”

  “Keep your lip buttoned,” the Major said mildly. Hanratty came inside and closed the door behind him. The Major said, “Hanratty, find a bathroom and see if there’s any surgical tape. A few wire coat hangers. Go on, now.”

  The woman said, “You’re going to tie us up?” She was controlled and angry but underneath that she was a little relieved: if they were going to tie you up they weren’t going to kill you.

  Baraclough put one of his menthol cigarettes in his mouth and got a lighter from his pocket.

  The deputy’s hands came together in a prayer clasp. Hanratty left the room and the deputy said, “Look, y’all ain’t got no way to get clean out of this. We got this whole area surrounded and they gon close in on you. Y’all give yosevves up to me and it mat go a whole lot easier.”

  The woman said, “You’re wasting your breath, Frank.”

  “Very astute.” Baraclough was standing against the wall, shoulder tilted, smiling slightly, the smoke of his cigarette making a vague suspended cloud before his long face.

  The woman turned without hurry and settled on the edge of a chair. She seemed incredibly calm; she acted with complete aplomb, perfect attention, absolute control-control so rigid, in fact, it seemed quite possible to Walker that she might begin to scream at any moment.

  The Major said conversationally to Baraclough, “I counted eleven horses in the barn,” and then Hanratty came into the room with a handful of coat hangers and a white roll of first-aid bandage tape.

  Baraclough handed the second pistol to Walker. “Keep both eyes open.” And went over to bind the deputy’s wrists and ankles with coat-hanger wire.

  5

  They tied the deputy to the steam radiator in the corner of the living room. Baraclough said, “Come on,” and took Walker outside with him: they left the Major and Hanratty standing guard over the woman and the deputy. Baraclough led the way up the hill.

  Before they reached the crest Baraclough sent his call out ahead: “Gentle down, Eddie, it’s Baraclough.”

  Burt was waiting with an expression of mild impatience on his brutal broad face. “What took so long?”

  “We had to get the jump on a hick cop.” Baraclough made gestures. “All right, everybody load up. Let’s see if we can cart all this stuff down there in one trip.”

  The money sacks seemed to have gained weight in the interval. Walker staggered under two of them and they paused every few yards on the way down.

  “Dump it here, it’ll be all right.”

  They left it piled in a heap in the middle of the yard and went into the house.

  The Major had found the rancher’s arsenal. There was an array of hunting rifles laid out on the coffee table. Two of them were ’scope-sighted. 30–06’s. “Pick yourselves a weapon.” There was a pile of ammunition boxes.

  Walker said, “What are we planning to do, stand off a siege?”

  “Hardly.”

  The woman sat in the chair with her legs crossed and her eyes heavy-lidded. “I don’t suppose it matters but those rifles cost us a lot of money.”

  Baraclough said, “In this land of Western hospitality, what’s yours is mine.”

  The Major said, “Now who’s had experience with horses?”

  Walker turned, looked up from the rifle collection. “I’ve had a little. Grew up on a farm.”

  “Fine. Pick us out six mounts and saddle them up. If you can find a couple of pack saddles put them on two more.”

  “Six?”

  “Just do it,” the Major said. “Steve, you might go on out to the garage and see what you can pick up on the police radio. Sergeant, go upstairs and see what you can find for us in the closets by way of coats and hats and overshoes.”

  Walker started for the door but then he hesitated. “Look, why can’t we use the police car?”

  “Because every road within fifty miles of here is blocked off.”

  “They’d let a police car through.”

  “With five of us in it? Forget it. You’d better get moving, Captain. Take Hanratty with you and show him what to do with the saddles-we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll be closing in on this place by morning.”

  “But what happens to these two?” The cop and the woman.

  “Just saddle the horses, Captain.”

  “In a minute, maybe. First I want to know your plan. Maybe the rest of us won’t like it. We’ve got a say in this.”

  “Captain, I’m trying to get all of you out of this fix with whole skins and you stand there arguing with me.”

  “All I want is a simple answer.”

  “You’ll get it in due course.” Hargit’s hard eyes penetrated him. “We agreed from the beginning this was a strictly military operation. Now I’m in command of this party and I don’t put decisions to a vote. If you keep arguing with me I’ll assume it’s because you want to find out how much of a beating you can take-I’m sure Sergeant Burt will be happy to accommodate you.”

  Walker’s toes curled inside his boots. He went outside.

  6

  It had been a long time since he’d fooled with any kind of livestock. Fortunately the horses were kept in separate box stalls and he didn’t have to chase them all over a corral to catch them up. He had several bad moments getting bridle-bits into mouths without having his fingers chewed. The saddle blankets were soft worn Indian fabrics and the hulls were solid Western saddles, heavy wooden trees with a lot of leather on them, double-cinch rigged, leather tapadero boot-guards around the wooden stirrups, a lot of concho strings and saddle pockets. Each one of those saddles had probably cost five times the price of a good horse. He found a stack of X-frame pack saddles built on old Army McClellan trees, with open slots down the middle over the horse’s spine; he cinched up two of those on big horses and tied lead-ropes to their bridles.

  He showed Hanratty how to smooth down the blankets and settle the rigs in place before cinching them up. Under the yellow forty-watt barn bulbs Hanratty looked pale and unhappy, afraid the animals were going to stomp him or bite him or kick him in the belly. He wasn’t much help but in the end Walker had the eight horses strung out on a picket line of nylon rope and he led them out into the front yard and tied the picket rope to the front porch of the house. Horse smell was oddly, pungently nostalgic in Walker’s nostrils.

  Inside he found Burt and the Major trying on coats and galoshes. They had strewn the couch with clothing. The woman sat watching them without blinking and the cop had his head back against the wall; he sat awkwardly
on the floor with his knees drawn up and his hands out to one side, wired to the radiator. His eyes were closed but he was breathing in and out very fast.

  Baraclough came in. “You were right about the roads. They’ve got us sealed off but good.”

  The Major nodded, not surprised. “Anything else?”

  “I gathered there are a couple of state troopers trying to follow our tracks on foot and the FBI seems to have summoned a vast army of people to pounce on us once we’ve been fixed for them.”

  “Any weather report?”

  “The storm could hit any time. Hell you can see that for yourself by stepping outside.”

  Hanratty was rooting through the pile of clothes, tossing discards on the floor.

  The Major said, “We’d better start tying down the loads. Sergeant, scrape together whatever you can find in the kitchen by way of provisions and utensils. Sack them in something we can tie on a horse. Captain, did you find any rifle boots in the barn?”

  “Any what?”

  “Saddle scabbards for rifles. It’s a hunting resort, they must have them somewhere.”

  The woman said tonelessly, “You’ll find them in the tack room.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Baraclough said.

  Walker went out and found the scabbards. Took five and strapped them to the saddles. Baraclough and Hanratty were tying down the duffel bags on the pack saddles and Walker said, “You’ll want diamond hitches over those to keep them on-I’ll show you.”

  When they had finished loading the animals he looked at his watch. Just past midnight. He went inside and shoved his feet into a pair of Wellington boots, found a plaid hunter’s coat and a pair of mittens, and helped himself to one of the blankets piled on the couch. There was also a stack of oilskin rain slickers Burt had brought downstairs and he collected one of those. He put an earflapped hunting cap on his head and picked up a Remington. 302 rifle, shoved a box of cartridges in his pocket and said, “I guess I look the part.” He was feeling hazy, disoriented, vaguely euphoric as if drugged.