by Jim Thompson
Well—Donna gave herself a little shake—well, so she was alone. Lord’s car was nowhere in sight, so apparently he was away, and she was alone. And what of it? Mr. Howard would wait for her indefinitely. Nothing was changed. There was nothing to get alarmed about.
She pounded on the door. She tested it, found it unlocked, and went in.
There was a table and a few chairs, a huge kerosene refrigerator-freezer, and a medium-sized kerosene range. Two long shelves angled halfway around the room; stacked with books mostly, but also holding a small radio, several boxes of rifle shells, a doctor’s medicine kit, and various other items. The bed was a crude, knocked-together bunk, but it had a box-spring mattress.
Tom Lord, obviously, liked to rough it in comfort. Donna sniffed disapprovingly, and sat down to wait for him.
About a half-hour had passed when she heard his car approaching. Edging back one of the scrim window curtains, she looked out.
He wasn’t coming up the trail, but across the prairie, riding along a ridgeback of rock to the rear of the house. He was scrounged down comfortably in the seat, one leg hung over the door. His Stetson was pushed back on his head, and a cigar was cocked in his mouth.
Donna’s lips pressed together. That he should carry on like this, utterly carefree, with poor Aaron so soon in his grave!
She took the gun from her purse, checked the chamber. She flung the door open and stepped through it.
He had to see her, of course, as he jounced up the slope toward the house. But he gave no sign of the fact. He ran the car under the lean-to, clambered out lazily with a rifle cradled under his arm. Then, as he turned toward the door of the shack, he at last took note of her presence. Falling back in exaggerated surprise, he swept off his hat with a flourish.
“Now, don’t tell me, ma’am,” he smirked. “I’ll think of it in a minute. Face looks awful familiar, but I don’t quite place the body.”
“Mr. Lord,” Donna snapped. “You know quite well who I am, and you must know why I’m here. I am going to kill you.”
“Well, there ain’t no point in bein’ cross about it,” Lord said. “You just come right on in an’ get yourself set, and I’ll cook us some steak an’ smashed pertaters.”
“I’m quite serious, Mr. Lord!”
“An’ you think I’m jokin’? Well, you just wait and see. Might even whip up some batter biscuits an’ cream gravy.”
He waved her ahead of him, adding a firm push to the gesture. Then, righting her as she stumbled across the threshold, he handed her the rifle.
“Mind puttin’ this up on them pegs?” He nodded toward the wall. “I’ll be diggin’ us out some meat.”
He went over to the refrigerator. Bending from the waist, his pants drawn tight across his buttocks, he peered into the freezer bin.
Donna almost moaned in fury, looked helplessly from the rifle in one hand to the pistol in the other. Her hat had slipped over one eye when he pushed her. And now a wisp of hair fell down across her nose. She blew upward on it, eyes turned in to watch the result. Blindly, she poked and probed with the barrel of the rifle; and the muzzle hooked in the crown of her hat and the hat rose neatly from her head.
So she stood, eyes rolled in, hat held aloft like a standard. Lord withdrew his head from the freezer and looked at her between his legs.
“You don’t look very comfortable, ma’am. Like me t’ get you a drink of water or somethin’?”
Donna groaned. She hurled the rifle to the bed, the hat sailing along with it, and slapped the hair from her eyes.
“Y-you!” she stammered. “Y-you—you—you! Do you hear me, Tom Lord? I’m going to kill you!”
“Oh, yeah,” said Lord. “Guess you did say somethin’ like that, didn’t you?”
“You stand up!”
“What for?” He reached up and patted his rump. “Got yourself a better target this way.”
“Y-you—you stand up!”
“Well, okay.” He straightened himself lazily. “But it’s gonna hold up our dinner. Now, how you want me—front view or profile?”
Donna ignored the question. Hand suddenly steady, she took aim at his chest. “I am a very good shot with this, Mr. Lord,” she said evenly. And she was a good shot: she had practiced for this moment. “Now, if you have anything to say for yourself, any excuse for killing my husband, you’d better speak quickly.”
“Can’t think of a thing,” Lord said. “Reckon I just got primed up to kill someone, so I done it.”
“That…that’s all you have to say? Y-you just—”
“Well, you know how it is.” An edge came into his voice. “Seems like you ought to, anyways. Got your mind made up to kill someone, you don’t need no excuse.”
“I see,” said Donna grimly. “I see.”
She pulled the trigger.
She kept pulling it, and Lord pitched to the floor with an agonized scream.
He threshed about wildly, writhing in the death throes, his screams still ripping from his lips. And then suddenly, with a violent shuddering gasp, he was silent. Completely silent. He was still. Completely still.
The gun dropped from Donna’s fingers. She stared at him, eyes growing wider and wider, and from what seemed a great distance she heard a voice. Her own voice:
“No,” she said. “Oh, no, no, no, no.…”
She choked on a great sob. She sank down on her knees by the still body and buried her face in her hands.
Why? she asked herself. How could I? I knew he didn’t do it. I KNEW IT! But I lost my temper, and…and Mr. Howard…he…he…
But why? Where the reason for this terrible deed? She had demanded a reason of him, his excuse for a crime of which he was guiltless. Now, she had done this, and what was her reason?
She wept in bewildered terror. “Why?” she sobbed aloud.
“Oh, God, why did I do it?”
“Now, I’ll ask you one,” said Tom Lord. “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
She gasped; slowly took her hands from her face. Lord drew his shirt open, revealing his broad, unmarked chest.
“Look, Mom,” he said. “No holes.”
16
Gus Pellino slowed his car and turned up the trail to the abandoned drilling well. He had set no definite time for picking Donna up. Obviously, he could not have, since there was no way of knowing whether Lord was away from his shack or how long he might be gone. So he had told her simply to wait for him—either in the shack or its vicinity—implying that he would somehow manage to arrive immediately after her mission was accomplished. Actually, he did not intend to return until well after dark.
He hadn’t got a good look at his surroundings last night. He’d been far too busy watching the road and keeping an eye on Lord. Today, however, he’d quickly seen the danger in the terrain; noted the distance that almost any sizable object could be observed. And he knew he must not loiter in the open for long.
He’d gotten all the breaks thus far, passing no one on the road out from town or on his way back to the well. Except for Lord, then, the only person living in the area, no one could have seen his car. And if Lord had seen it from his shack, it didn’t really matter. For the ex-deputy was as good as dead.
Lord would take no decisive action against the girl. Aside from foolish considerations of chivalry, he couldn’t do it, and the fact that he couldn’t was apparent in his flight out here from Big Sands.
Rough up a woman? Stand up to her in a showdown—the widow of the man you’d killed?
Huh-uh. They’d throw the book at you, no matter how right you were or how wrong she was.
Lord’s only chance had been to run away from her, to hide out until she gave up and quit. That hadn’t worked, and now he was a dead man or soon would be.
Pellino parked his car behind the bunkhouse. He got out, yawned and stretched lazily, and looked around him. There wasn’t much to see. Just more of the same, with minor variations, that he’d been seeing.
The land sloped downward gentl
y, clustered with the usual rock outcroppings, cacti, and sagebrush. Then, as the slope sharpened, it became wooded, gnarled blackjack trees thrusting up from the rocky and shallow soil. And finally the trees became so thick as to obscure all else.
Pellino noted the weathered framework of a building, and he shook his head cynically. McBride’s house, or house-to-be. Virtuously, he’d filed itemized reports of his use of company materials—and he’d been docked plenty for them! And now the stupid sap was dead.
How dumb could you get, anyway, Pellino wondered. Why, a smart guy could have knocked down twenty grand a year on the company, and no one would have been the wiser! Just grab a little here and a little there, and you’d have it made. Yet this cluck McBride hadn’t left his widow a pot to toss it out of.
Well…something brushed against Pellino’s cheek and he slapped at it absently…well, to hell with McBride and his widow, too. She’d be as dead as he was before long. She had to be to complete the picture that someone would discover, weeks or perhaps even months from now.
Lord with his tail shot off…the girl beaten to death.
She’d wounded him mortally, he’d injured her fatally. They’d killed each other, see, and the setup was such that they logically could have done that. There wasn’t a chance of a kickback; no more, at any rate, than the ever-present one-in-a-million chance. By the time someone did get around to stopping by the shack—something which no one had any reason to do—it would be impossible to dope out the approximate time of the two deaths. Impossible to say that the girl had died hours later than the man. Or if such was possible, well, what the hell did it prove? They could have died at widely separate times from injuries incurred at about the same time.
Pellino doubled his heavy fists, flexed the bunched muscles of his arms. It would be good to have a little real action again. There was nothing like heavy work for keeping a man in shape. With a dame, of course, you hardly had a chance to get up a sweat. But there were compensations for the dearth of exercise.
After all, there was more than one kind of exercise, just as there was more than one kind of sweating. And no one knew it better than Gus Pellino.
Thinking of Donna and his plans for her, his thoughts drifted automatically to his wife. And the lewd smile on his face changed to a frown.
He called his wife each night at six o’clock and gave her a seemingly innocuous coded report of the day’s happenings, plus his plans—insofar as he knew them—for the next day. His wife passed the report on to his associates. As long as he reported, all was presumed to be well with him. If he failed to—exactly at six o’clock—an opposite assumption would be made. And it would be far later than six before he could report tonight.
“Goddamn!” Gus scowled. “Now, what the hell…?”
His associates knew of his plans only in the most general way. Necessarily so, since most of them had been made after six last night. And if there should be a foul-up, they would have only the vaguest idea of where he was or what to do about it.
Pellino cursed viciously. There would be no foul-up, of course. The deal was in the bag, and the bag had no holes. But still, a thing like this wasn’t good. It would hurt him, even though he checked in the minute he hit town. By that time, the boys would have gotten jumpy. They might even go to the point of swinging into action. He’d have pulled them out of the soup, naturally, and that was all to the good. But they’d still be irritated with him. Unavoidably or not, he’d ’ve put them on a spot where they could have been left high and dry. And a thing like that you didn’t live down in a hurry.
Pellino brushed at his face again. Another one of those goddamned bugs, or something. They’d been doing it last night, zipping past him and plinking down around him, making him jump and look around in spite of himself. And they were at it full-force today. But they didn’t bother him now. He wouldn’t let them. Had enough on his mind without worrying about a bunch of stinking bugs or grasshoppers…or whatever the hell they were. They’d gotten him kind of jumpy last night, but that was in the dark. Today, when he could see there was no one around, when he knew there couldn’t be anyone—
There was a small sound behind him. Angrily, he ignored it.
Then something jabbed into his spine, a something that could only be a gun, and a drawling voice addressed him:
“Don’t turn around, mister. First time you do, it’ll be the last.”
Pellino nodded jerkily. Guns he didn’t argue with. It was Lord; it had to be. And talking, rather than action, was in order.
“Looks like I stubbed my toe, Lord,” he said, his mouth very dry, “but maybe we’re going the same way. You play along with me, and I’ll give you a deal that—”
“Reckon I’ll do my own dealin’, mister. Kind of come out better that way with me holding the aces.”
“Not all of them, Lord. Let me show you my hand.”
“Show me the way down to that toolhouse,” the voice advised him. “Just follow that big nose of yours, an’ it’ll lead you to it.”
“But, listen, Lord.…”
“Stop talkin’ and start walkin’ ”—the gun, a rifle apparently, jabbed painfully—“just keep followin’ your nose, or you won’t have no head to wear it on.”
Pellino obeyed. The rifleman—Lord, naturally; it had to be Lord—meant what he said.
Hands half-raised, he moved toward the open door of the toolhouse. The rifle continued to press against his back, its owner almost treading on his heels. Yet despite his predicament—the outrageous fate that had placed him here—he was not badly frightened, nor by any means hopeless.
Lord didn’t mean to kill him; not in the immediate future at any rate. If he had meant to, he could’ve done it back there behind the bunkhouse. So seemingly—and at Lord’s convenience—they were destined to have a talk. And when it came to talking, Gus Pellino could…
His heart skipped a beat, a sickish feeling coming into his stomach, as he saw the high-banked oval abutting the well. The slush pit! He knew enough about the oil racket to identify it—a small, man-made lake, filled with the oozing mud from the well.
Was this why he hadn’t been killed immediately? Was Lord marching him down here toward the pit, so that he…?
But, no—he began to breathe again—no, he was continuing on toward the toolhouse. Going straight ahead instead of to the side. And now he was stepping up on the loading platform, approaching the dark doorway.
The rifle suddenly came away from his back. Something smashed against his head, and he pitched forward through the door.
He was out only a few minutes, or what seemed only a few minutes. Head throbbing, he came shakily to his feet, squinted about the toolshed’s shadowy interior. The door was closed tightly—barred, he guessed, after leaning his weight against it. He patted his pockets, and emitted a grunt of surprise.
This didn’t add up. Lord rolling him for his wallet. Lord wouldn’t mess around with mere robbery. So maybe it wasn’t Lord, huh? Maybe…
But, no, it had to be. Had to, because it just couldn’t be anyone else. Lord wasn’t after his dough, of course. He was looking for information—something incriminating. And a hell of a lot of good it would do him. Gus Pellino was no sap, even though he momentarily appeared to be. A few bucks in cash, a few receipts for bills paid, a couple of credit cards—that would be about the size of Lord’s findings.
Pellino listened, holding his ear to the door. He circled the walls, listening, peering through the tiny cracks between the boards.
He could see nothing and hear nothing; nothing, at least, to indicate that Lord was around. But that didn’t mean—Gus remembered grimly—that he wasn’t. The guy was like a lousy cat. Sneak right up on you and tease you while he was doing it.
Pellino tested the door again. He braced his shoulder against it, pushing with his legs, and the door bulged slowly outward. A little bit more and he’d snap those bars like matchsticks.
But hell—he stood back from it suddenly—that wouldn’t do. He’d be e
xpected to crash out the door. That side of the building would be watched, if there was anyone around to watch. Any getting out would have to be done on the other side, and with a minimum of noise.
His eyes were becoming adjusted to the dimness now, and he could see reasonably well. The heavy planking of the walls (need a sledge-hammer to smash through them). The grimy floors, splintered here and there where some heavy object had been dropped. Some greasy work clothes, piled in a corner. Pellino raked the pile with his foot, and uncovered a rusted object with a hook at one end. He snatched it up, chuckling in ugly triumph.
A crowbar! Now, wasn’t that nice? Wasn’t that thoughtful of Lord to leave him a crowbar?
He went down on his knees, jammed the flattened end of the bar between two floorboards, and pried cautiously but firmly upward. He loosened them quickly, then loosened two others. Using his bare hands, working in virtual silence, he pulled them free of the floor. For this was the best way out, the only logical way. The shed sat up on a high foundation, so that its floor was high, to facilitate the loading and unloading of trucks. There was plenty of room for a man to crawl under it—even a man like Gus Pellino—and on out from beneath the rear of the building. At least, there appeared to be plenty of room. Any native of the area would have known that there might not be, that any covered-over place—even the space beneath a fallen tree—was apt to have other tenants: Golden-skinned creatures with sinuous, diamond-patterned bodies.
It was not an extraordinarily populous den for this region. During the periodic rattlesnake drives, some dens of two and three hundred had been found; and the one that Gus Pellino crawled into held only a few dozen. But that was still a great many—even one can be a great many. And the majority of these were young, their venom at its deadliest.
Pellino struggled back through the floorboards, eyes fixed and bulging, teeth bared in the hideously insensible grin of absolute shock. A huge bull, jaws locked in a death grip, dangled from his nose. Others swung from his ears and throat and shoulders. Little ones—infants and youngsters—swarmed up his pants legs and under his shirt; raced over his body in squirming, angry tangles.
