The Removers mh-3

by Donald Hamilton

  The old pickup truck was running well, and it was nice, wild, clean country; and if I got lost I'd just heat a can of beans over the gasoline stove I carried, and crawl into my sleeping bag in the rear, under the weatherproof metal canopy, and find my way in the morning.

  I came upon the gate quite abruptly. It was a kind of rustic arch composed of two massive uprights and a long cross timber that sagged slightly in the middle as they always do after they've been up some time. The Double-L brand had been carved into the timber, and in case you were too dumb to figure it out, it was spelled out for you, too: DOUBLE-L RANCH. On one of the uprights was a small, weather-beaten metal sign: Guests.

  I turned in. The road wasn't bad, now, in dry weather, but I could imagine it would be a real experience in winter, impassable at times. Coming around a bend, I found myself on an open shoulder of the mountain with a view that merited a photograph-I'd brought a camera along to get some shots of the kids. I got out, and climbed up the hill to snap the picture. I shoved the camera into my hip pocket as I started back down. They've got a new model now that'll feed the baby, walk the dog, and even take pretty good photographs, but somehow then notion of a miniature camera as a portable pocket instrument seems to have got lost along the way. I still like the little old Leica you can carry in your pants.

  When I reached the road, the first thing I saw was the horse. It was standing docilely, reins loose and trailing, just an ordinary brown horse with an ordinary stock saddle. It did carry a scabbard for a carbine, not unusual for a ranch. I had time to note that the scabbard was empty. Then the owner of the horse came around the rear of the truck with a Winchester.30-30 in his hands and aimed it at me.

  "Put your hands up!" he said.

  He was a compact young fellow, I saw, in his early twenties, dressed about like I was in jeans, boots, a work shirt, and a big hat. It's the costume of the country, and I'd changed into it at the motel, not wanting to come to a family reunion looking too much like a dude. Besides, a boot-top makes a handy place to carry a revolver if you don't like holsters-and after all, Beth had called for help. I also had a knife.

  "Stop right there!" the kid snapped as I continued walking towards him. He waved the gun-barrel at me. "I told you to put 'em up."

  He was talking too much. He wasn't going to shoot. I could see it in his eyes. I was almost close enough to take the gun away and spank him with it. I don't like fool kids who wave those things in my face.

  "Peter!" somebody called from up the slope. "Pete, where… 7 Oh, there you are!" There was a little pause, and then, "Why, it's Matt!"

  I recognized the voice. It wasn't surprising. I'd lived with it for better than a dozen years, once-pretty good years, at that.

  "What in heaven's name…? Pete, what are you doing with that gun?"

  There was the sound of a horse coming down the hillside. I put my hands into my pockets deliberately. The boy let the gun-barrel drop. We both turned stiffly to watch Beth approach, letting her horse pick its way in the stilt-legged way they have of going downhill.

  She was wearing a light, immaculate, wide-brimmed Stetson with a braided leather cord, a white silk shirt open at the throat, and the kind of high-class, tailored denim pants-I won't insult them by calling them jeans-that are constructed by somebody aware that men and women are shaped differently in the rear. She'd never gone in for sloppy clothes much, I recalled, not even for doing the housework or digging in the garden. She was only a few years younger than I, never mind the exact figure, and she'd had three kids-my kids-but she looked like a slender girl on the back of the big horse.

  I stepped forward to hold the animal as she reached us. She looked down at me from the saddle.

  "Well, Matt," she murmured. "It seems like a long time, doesn't it?"

  "You look like a movie cowgirl in that hat," I said. I jerked my head towards the kid with the carbine. "What's the reception committee for?"

  She hesitated, and laughed quickly. "Let me introduce you. Peter Logan, my stepson. Mr. Matthew Helm." I waited, and she said, "Oh… why, we've been having trouble with rustlers, of all things! They'll drive in with a pickup or panel truck and butcher one of our steers and be off with the meat before anybody sees them. When Peter and I saw your truck from up above, we thought it best to investigate… I didn't tell you to use a gun, Pete!" she said to the boy.

  Peter Logan said quickly, "Dad said not to take any chances."

  She said, "Well, if you'll lead my horse home, I'll drive back with Mr. Helm…" About to dismount, she changed her mind. A gleam of mischief came into her eyes, and she gave me a glance, and spoke to Peter: "On second thought, suppose you lend Mr. Helm your horse. We'll cut back over the ridge and meet the boys while you bring his truck to the ranch."

  Young Logan frowned. "Dad said for me not to let you ride anywhere alone."

  "But I won't be alone," Beth said, laughing. "I'm sure Mr. Helm will take very good care of me."

  I said, "Stick that carbine back in the scabbard, and I'll do my best to protect her from rustlers and outlaws."

  The boy gave me a look that indicated he didn't think I was very funny. Then he turned on his heel, strode to the horse, rammed the Winchester into place, and came back leading the animal.

  "We generally get on from the left, sir," he said, straight-faced. "It's just a local custom, but the horses are used to it."

  "Sure," I said. "That's a four-speed shift in my truck. Reverse, in case you should need it, is to the left and back. Think you can manage?"

  We looked at each other coldly. I was born in Minnesota, but I came west to horse country at an early age. He'd probably been driving old Chevy trucks before he was old enough to smoke.

  "I'll manage," he said.

  He turned and walked quickly to the pickup, kicked the starter, released the brake, and took off, throwing gravel from the rear wheels. I looked my new transportation over, and gave it a tentative pat on the nose. It didn't shy away or try to take my arm off, so I figured it was safe to climb aboard, and did so.

  The stirrups were too short, and I'd forgotten about the Leica in my hip pocket, which didn't help me fit the saddle comfortably. Beth waited until I was mounted, wheeled her horse, and sent it up the hill with a rush. I gave my beast a couple of kicks and got it into motion, but she had to wait for me at the top.

  "There's the ranch," she said, pointing.

  It was in the valley beyond, a rambling collection of peeled-log buildings with enough large windows to qualify as rustic modern. It looked like quite a spread, as we say out West.

  "Do you live there all year?" I asked.

  "Oh, no," she said. "We move into town winters to be near the children's schools. And Larry has a little place in Mexico, too, where we go sometimes… Follow me. We've got to head over this way to intercept the boy. Pete and I came straight down the mountain, but they'll be following the trail."

  She took it fast. Her cross-country riding had improved since I'd seen her last. Undoubtedly this was why she'd decided to bring me to the ranch on horseback, to show off her new skill. Besides, she'd probably guessed I hadn't been on a horse for a year, and a man who's limping and saddle-sore is kind of at a disadvantage in delicate personal negotiations demanding an air of ease and dignity. I don't mean she was a malicious person or a calculating one. After all, we'd known each other for a long time. She was entitled to her little joke.

  She led me around the side of the mountain, and pulled up at last in a wooded hollow, through the center of which ran a well-used trail. I checked my horse beside her; and she turned to face me, flushed and breathless from the ride. I thought she looked very attractive, but then, I'd been prejudiced enough on the subject to marry her, once.

  "They'll be coming along soon," she said, "if they haven't already passed. I told them to head straight for home. There's a man with them, of course, but they ride very well now, both of them." She laughed. "We've even had Betsy on a pony. She's crazy to come riding with us, but she's a little small ye
t. She's barely three, you know."

  "Yes," I said dryly, "I know. I happened to be present when she was born, if you'll remember. At least I was in the expectant papas' waiting room."

  She flushed slightly. "Yes," she said. "Of course..

  Well, we might as well get down and wait." She hesitated. "Besides… besides, there's something I have to tell you."

  I said, "Yes, I got your note." When she did not speak at once, I went on idly, "I don't know as I have much faith in these rustlers of yours, Beth."

  She said quickly, "Then you don't know much about modem ranching-"

  "Oh, rustlers that slip in at night and make off with a beef now and then, sure. But not rustlers that cause your husband to give orders not to let you go riding in broad daylight without an armed escort. What's the trouble?"

  She hesitated again. Her mount fidgeted, and she pulled it up sharply. "Let's get down, shall we?" she said. "I'm still not enough of a horsewoman to trust these animals completely."

  "Sure."

  I dismounted, and stepped forward to take her horse as she swung from the saddle. It was a funny damn experience, watching her. I mean, it had been a year, and I hadn't exactly spent it as a hermit. Whatever she'd meant to me once, I'd thought I was over it. But now, watching her drop lightly to the ground, I knew I should have stayed away.

  She glanced at her watch, and looked up the trail. "I didn't realize we'd taken so much time. They're probably halfway to the ranch by now. Well, we can wait a few minutes longer and make sure."

  Her voice was unnaturally level, but at least she had one. I wasn't quite sure how I'd sound if I tried to talk. I hadn't stayed away. I was here on a mountainside in Nevada, holding a couple of horses and watching her come forward-tallish, willowy, with big brown eyes and light brown hair under the big Stetson hat. She stopped in front of me.

  I said, "Mrs. Logan."

  My voice sounded about the way I'd expected it would. She glanced at me sharply. "Matt-"

  I said, "It's a funny thing, Mrs. Logan, but you look just like a girl I used to know… a girl I used to know pretty well, as a matter of fact."

  "Matt," she said. "Please! I should never-"

  "No," I said. "You most certainly shouldn't. But you did."

  I dropped the reins. If they were any kind of western horses, they ought to stand ground-hitched, and if they didn't, to hell with them. I reached out and took her by the shoulders, and she started to speak. She started to tell me not to touch her, but it would have sounded very corny, and she didn't say it. She started to tell me that she was happily married to a lovely guy named Logan, to whom she was deeply devoted, but she didn't say that, either.

  It was all in her eyes, however, and I suppose I should have had the decency to leave her alone, but it had been a long year without her, and I didn't owe Logan a thing. All he'd ever done for me was marry my wife.

  "Matt!" she whispered. "Please, no-"

  I didn't really draw her towards me. At least, if I did, there wasn't any great resistance to overcome. Then she was in my arms, her face upturned, and her big hat fell off to hang down her back by its braided cord.

  She was no longer trying to hold me off, quite the contrary. There was a disturbing kind of desperation in the way she clung to me. It wasn't really flattering. I couldn't kid myself she was thinking of me as a lover she'd missed; it was more that I was something solid and familiar and reassuring in a troubled world, and I suppose I should have been a gentleman and offered her an absorbent shoulder and an attentive ear instead of kissing her hard.

  This changed the whole nature of the operation, as I had hoped it would. I'll be a rock of refuge if I have to, but only if I have to. Suddenly I wasn't any longer, and we'd known each other much too long and much too well for it to end with a kiss-and that was the moment our two boys picked to come charging down the hill, accompanied by a middle-aged cowboy who should have known better than to run a horse like that. Beth and I had barely time to jump apart and put respectable looks on our faces before they all raced into sight.

  Chapter Four

  LATER, Beth and I rode sedately down the trail while the boys and their escort ranged ahead. I noted that the man's horse, like the one I was riding, carried a lever-action.30-30 on the saddle.

  My reunion with my sons had been undramatic. Matthew, age eight, had said 'Hi, Daddy,' and Warren, age six, had said 'Hi, Daddy,' and they'd both sat there uncomfortably on their ponies wondering if I'd brought them any presents from wherever I'd been, but too polite to ask. Then they'd ridden off, whooping. An extra daddy or two means very little, at that age, when you have a horse to ride.

  Presently I heard a small sound from Beth. I glanced at her suspiciously. She kept her face averted as we rode along; then she looked at me quickly, and I saw that she was trying very hard to keep from laughing.

  "Yeah, funny," I said, and grinned.

  I mean, we'd been through it all before. It wasn't the first passionate moment in our lives that had been interrupted in this manner-in fact, I sometimes used to wonder how any parents ever managed to achieve more than one child. Somehow, after the first one, at the critical moment there's always a small voice outside the bedroom door telling you to come quick, the cat has just had kittens, the dog has just had pups, cc there's a large brown bug in the bathtub.

  My truck was standing in the yard when we rode up. Beth glanced at it with a kind of nostalgia.

  "I see the wheels haven't fallen off it yet," she said.

  "Best damn car I ever had," I said. "I don't see your station wagon around."

  "It needed a grease job, so Larry took it to town this morning," she said. "He'll be back soon. I want you to meet him."

  "Sure," I said.

  "I really do," she said. "I think you'll like each other." My friend, the young rifleman, came around a corner to take the horses. The boys, who'd reached the ranch well ahead of us, were all over him, telling him he had to come meet their real daddy. He was good with them, I saw, in that tolerant, mildly dictatorial way that, coming from someone they respect, someone three times their own age but still not too old to be approachable, goes down well with youngsters. He put them to work, giving them each a horse to lead away and unsaddle, and reminding them not to neglect their own mounts.

  Beth said, "Peter, could you ask Clara to get the baby up and dress her? She's had a long enough nap, and I'm sure her father would like to see her."

  "Yes, ma'am," young Logan said, and went off.

  Beth watched him go. "He's a nice boy," she said. "I suppose it's hardly to be expected that he should be enthusiastic about me. A bomb killed his mother in London during the war. After a lot of knocking around here and there, Larry brought the boy to this country. There were only the two of them for years. Of course, Peter was away at school a good deal of the time, but still, there's a kind of special relationship between a widowed man and an only son… And then I came along, with three children! Naturally he can't help considering us as rivals. It speaks a lot for his character and training that he can be as nice to us as he is." She shook her head, dismissing the subject. "Well, I'm going to take a shower. Come on and I'll show you to your room, first." She hesitated. "Matt."

  "Yes."

  "It was a mistake. Let's not repeat it."

  "If you say so," I said politely.

  She said, "It would be all wrong and… and kind of complicated and unpleasant, wouldn't it? I don't know what I was thinking of. I…" She drew a long breath. "Anyway, here comes Larry."

  A car that I recognized was coming up the road to the ranch. She walked quickly towards the front of the house to meet it. I saw her pause briefly as she realized that the driver was not alone.

  I saw a funny, hard look that I didn't recognize come to her face. Then she was going forward again, but not as rapidly as before. I held back, since it seemed advisable to give her time to prepare her new husband for my presence. When I approached, she was talking to him at the side of the station wagon; but i
t wasn't Lawrence Logan who caught and held my attention first. It was the young girl who'd got out of the car on the other side, and the dog this girl had with her.

  Of the two, the dog was slightly more spectacular. I'd seen red-haired girls before, but this was the first gray Afghan hound I'd met. It's not a breed with which I'm really familiar-not many people are-and the few specimens I'd encountered previously had all been brown or tan. This one was a silvery, bluish gray. Like all Afghans, it was short-haired along the back and long-haired down the legs so that, lean and bony, it looked rather like a greyhound with shaggy cowboy chaps on. It had a long, narrow, inbred head and big pleading brown eyes; and when I first saw it, it was protesting against something by standing erect on its hind legs, waving its woolly forepaws skyward, as tall as the girl on the other end of the leash.

  She wasn't exactly inconspicuous herself, since her hair was that wonderful reddish-golden color that I doubt any woman ever grew naturally, but who cares? It was done up kind of casually about her head, with a loose swirl in back secured by a few pins that didn't look very trustworthy. She was quite young, not tall, but well developed or, as the saying goes, stacked. In other words, except for a trim little waist and neat small wrists and ankles, she wasn't skinny anywhere.

  She was wearing sandals that would have looked swell on a Florida beach but seemed slightly impractical on a Nevada ranch; and emerald-green, skin-tight pants, the narrow kind that terminate about six inches above the ankles. You could hardly call them slacks since they didn't have any. Above them, she wore a kind of thin, loose jacket adorned with a wild, Japanese-looking print, predominantly the same bright shade of green as the pants. It was quite a costume. It seemed a pity for her to waste it on us mountain folks. In Bermuda, it would have gone over big.