by Gwen Moffat
‘Gregorio?’ murmured Marge.
‘He went back to Mexico.’
There was a pause. ‘Who’s Gregorio?’ Miss Pink asked, making conversation.
There was no sound from the kitchen. Marge said coldly, ‘He was a hired hand at Las Mesas – Avril Beck’s place at the mouth of Badblood—’
‘She knows Las Mesas.’ Pearl appeared, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘She went up that way. How else would she get to Rastus?’
‘He’s a Mexican.’ Marge spoke to Miss Pink but stared at her neighbour. ‘Gregorio Ramirez. He left suddenly.’
There was another pause during which Pearl poured herself a glass of wine and Miss Pink sipped thoughtfully, and sipped again.
‘When Kristen comes back,’ Pearl said, addressing Miss Pink, ‘don’t say anything about – you know – three months back? There was a tragedy in the family; her sister—’
‘A beautiful girl.’ Marge sighed heavily.
‘She got into trouble,’ Pearl said.
‘A baby. Four months gone.’ Marge looked across the street at her house which was bathed in evening sunshine. ‘Poor Veronica.’
‘They were very close,’ Pearl told Miss Pink: ‘Kristen and Veronica. And Ada Scott – the mother; she’s never been the same since, virtually an invalid.’
‘Had some sort of stroke,’ Marge contributed.
‘What happened to Veronica?’ Miss Pink asked.
They were startled; they’d thought it was implicit. ‘She put an end to herself,’ Marge whispered.
‘Threw herself in the river,’ Pearl elaborated. ‘Of course, it was in flood in May, not like now. You couldn’t drown in the Rio Grande in August, not till it rains.’
‘I see. And – the father – disappeared?’
‘Oh no!’ Pearl was astonished.
‘She means the father of the baby,’ Marge pointed out, and smiled indulgently. ‘Gregorio disappeared but no one – no one – ever mentioned the two events in the same breath.’
‘Not publicly,’ Pearl corrected. ‘But everyone knew, and the awful thing was – the worst thing, it was all awful – Veronica was, well, a little immature.’
‘She was retarded,’ Marge said. ‘But so lovely. It was bound to happen, I guess. They couldn’t watch her all the time. They tried, God knows, but even Clayton Scott couldn’t be with her twenty-four hours of the day. That’s her father: a very upright man, it broke his heart, made him fiercely protective of Kristen, and she’s a girl won’t have anyone protect her, give her orders; always was the wild one, independent – there she was: riding alone today up to the mesas, she’s out of control, if her daddy was to know—’
‘She can look after herself,’ Pearl broke in roughly. ‘She’s a sensible girl.’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, dear.’ They exchanged looks while Miss Pink stared somnolently at a picture of a boy on a donkey. ‘You’re very quiet,’ Pearl told her.
‘I was thinking that if they don’t find the skull they’ll never know who that is in Rastus Canyon.’
‘How would the skull help?’ Marge asked.
‘His dentist could identify him from dental records.’
‘Mexicans don’t have dentists,’ Pearl said, and stopped short.
‘They could tell from the rifle,’ Marge said.
The silence stretched. ‘It’s a curious place to be poaching,’ Miss Pink mused. ‘Surely there’s only one trail into the high country. How could he be certain no one would see him riding up the escarpment – and what happened to his horse? He’d need a horse to carry out the carcass.’ No one responded to this. ‘The map does show a trail up a canyon to the south,’ she added diffidently.
‘It goes up Scorpion Canyon from the Markow place,’ Marge supplied.
‘You can’t get across Slickrock,’ Pearl said. ‘Rastus is north of Slickrock.’ Marge smiled. Pearl’s voice rose. ‘I’ve ridden all over the mesas but there’s no way you can get into Slickrock from either side; it’s a box canyon.’
‘There speaks the townie.’ Marge held the other’s eye. ‘I’ve hunted the high country all my adult life. I came here as a young bride,’ she told Miss Pink, ‘a child-bride, you might say: sixteen’ – there was a gleam in her eye – ‘and I was out hunting with Mr Dearing soon’s I arrived. We were married in the fall. Mr Dearing taught me all I know about the back-country. Many’s the time we shot our deer from the rim and he had to go down into Slickrock and butcher it and pack the meat out on his back while I stayed on top with the horses.’
‘Where’d he go down?’ Pearl asked.
‘The trail’s there if you know where to look.’ Marge nodded smugly and, having disposed of that argument, turned to Miss Pink. ‘It can’t have anything to do with the dead man because he’d no more have gone in past the Markow place than past Las Mesas. Like you said, he’d be seen. He had to go in from the top highway. If you’re interested in hunting you must come and see Mr Dearing’s heads: trophies, all of ’em. I got a barn out back with moose and a coupla old grizzlies and Lord knows how many lions and stuff.’
‘She’ll love that,’ Pearl said coldly.
‘It’s not the heads,’ Marge assured Miss Pink, ‘but what they tell you about the hunter. Either Mr Dearing got his beast with the first shot or he followed up and dispatched it.’
‘How long have you been on your own?’ Miss Pink asked diplomatically.
The plump face sagged. ‘Sometimes it seems only a week, other times I can’t remember what he looked like.’ Pearl stood up and went to the kitchen. Marge sighed. ‘Six years, and here I’m still grieving. They say time heals all wounds but it gets worse. I cry a lot at night. He shouldn’t have died, he was only seventy. I blame myself.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Why—’ Marge looked surprised. ‘Maybe I fed him wrong? It was bleeding into the brain, they said his arteries was coated with fat; there was a powerful build-up of blood and it leaked out in the brain. Well, I mean: all that fat, men love their steaks and fries, don’t they? Then there was the bourbon.’
‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘I did what I could.’ A tear fell and glinted on the chubby wrist. ‘I tried all kinds of tricks with his feed: sunflower oil and oleo, and I’d invent commissions where he had to take a horse out, like find me some herb or shoot me a squirrel – anything to make him take gentle exercise because he carried a lot of weight, did Mr Dearing, otherwise if I didn’t force him out he’d be sat all day on the back porch there, drinking and smoking and watching television. And what does he do after his evening stroll but come home across the patio and drop dead at my feet.’
‘Mercifully quick.’
‘It shouldn’t never have happened. He had another ten years of life in him if he’d been more careful.’
‘We can’t live with what might have happened.’
‘Ah, but it never happened to you. Or maybe it did?’
‘Few people get to our age without some kind of bereavement.’
Marge stared at the other’s hands. ‘You were married?’
Miss Pink looked up. Pearl was back, grinning, her hands on her hips. ‘I’d make a guess,’ she said lightly, ‘that this lady never suffered for want of gentleman friends. Now we’re going to have a venison casserole. You’ll stay and eat with us, Marge?’
‘No, my dear; I have to walk Pedro.’
‘You be sure and take a flashlight.’
‘I promise you; I don’t want Pedro bit.’
Pearl watched her cross the street and shook her head in exasperation. ‘She’s getting so careless in her old age.’ She shot an apologetic glance at the visitor. ‘Not that she’s really old, it’s just she’s aged so much since Mr Dearing – there, now she’s got me doing it – since Sam’s death. No one around here would go out in the dark without a flashlight, even when there’s a moon. You know what she did? Walked her dog along the Markow road with no light and the moon not up yet – and there was a diamondback
in the dust. Only the dog warned her. Two nights later it was there again, Ira Markow ran over it. That snake was over six foot: seventy-four inches, can you believe that? I tell you, Marge Dearing walks her dog without a flashlight, she’s got a death wish.’
‘She was very attached to her husband.’
‘You can say that again. Well, married going on fifty years, probably never known another man, what do you expect? And they had no children, just the two of them on their own: unhealthy, I call it.’
‘What did he do, I mean for a living?’
Pearl shrugged. ‘A bit of ranching, and hiring himself out to the big ranchers: seasonal work. He got by – and he had the lease of some old mines: one-man shows, you know the kind of thing? Guys dig out a few ounces of silver, gold even sometimes: enough to keep them in tobacco and bourbon. Some men go fishing but when Sam wanted to get away from it all he went back in the canyons and shovelled dirt. It’s a hobby; sometimes one of these old miners will be found dead in his shack in the hills, but no one’s sorry for them, it was how they wanted to go. Never saw the point of it myself; women don’t. Marge put a stop to it, of course, but it didn’t do any good. He just drank more. The heart went out of him.’ Her tone changed. ‘Now you come and sit down and I’ll bring the food; you must be starving after your hike, and we got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.’
They had finished the casserole by the time Kristen returned with the pick-up. Entering the living-room as if it were in her own home, she collapsed in an easy chair and eyed the women. ‘Miss Pink’s famous,’ Pearl told her. ‘She writes books and stories for magazines, and she’s a lawyer—’
‘A retired magistrate,’ Miss Pink corrected. Kristen stared.
‘And she’s got a house on a cliff above the ocean in Cornwall,’ Pearl enthused, ‘and a housekeeper to cook and look after her; isn’t that neat?’
‘Cornwall is something like Big Sur,’ Miss Pink explained.
‘What’s Big Sur?’ Kristen asked.
‘This girl’s never been further than El Paso and Santa Fe—’
‘I have so! We go to Denver for Christmas shopping.’ Her voice dropped sharply.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie. Did you see Ira?’
‘Of course I did. Tammy’s on her way.’
‘It’s getting dark. It’s too late to take the horses out but that’s fine; they’ll have plenty of exercise tomorrow. Will Tammy be all right?’
‘It’s not quite dark and she was right behind me. No one’s going to be curled up in the dirt waiting; I frightened ’em off, didn’t I?’
‘Oh, you mean rattlesnakes!’ Miss Pink smiled at her own obtuseness. No one else smiled. They were intent on something else, their heads raised, and then she heard what they had heard already, and she marvelled at their hearing: the soft thud of hoofs on earth, a click of iron against stone. Kristen pulled herself out of her chair.
‘Put the saddle in the wash-house,’ Pearl told her.
When the screen door closed Miss Pink said quietly: ‘It’s comforting to know that places exist where children can be out on their own in the dark – although, of course, people are still at risk from wild animals.’
‘Not really. Even kids are safe from rattlers providing they’re careful. You have to know that yourself; you’ve done a lot of travelling in the States.’
‘It’s like everything else, I suppose: the survivors have learned to be careful. How about yourself? Were you brought up in the back-country?’
‘For what are known as the formative years.’ Miss Pink was struck, not only by the formality but the hostility in the tone. ‘I like to think I’m from San Jose,’ Pearl went on: ‘in California. I had a beautician’s business, but I had this dream of a little place in the country and horses. I love riding. I was put on the back of a horse before I could walk.’ She looked away and her voice was distant. ‘I was raised on a ranch at the head of the San Joaquin Valley but I left there when I was younger than Kristen and went to the big city.’
‘You didn’t want to go back there when you retired?’
‘No way.’ Pearl’s eyes were flat. ‘They were all dead; there was nothing left. Who wants to remember their childhood?’ She brightened. ‘And when I’d got enough cash together to retire I realised California ranches cost a fortune, and then someone told me about New Mexico. These old adobes sell for a quarter the price of a place in the Sierra foothills.’
‘It must have been a change: San Jose to the valley of the Rio Grande.’
‘I love it. I was sick of people and traffic and the rat-race and I’m allergic to smog. Aren’t we all? You got room to breathe here, you got air to breathe, not fumes. You have to feel the same way; why do you go hiking on the mesas?’
Before Miss Pink could respond the two girls came in, Tammy now in jeans and a shirt. They stood in the doorway, watching her.
‘Don’t stand there,’ Pearl chided. ‘Help me clear the table and we’ll have some dessert. Did you two eat yet?’
‘We had supper.’ Tammy moved to collect the plates.
When they were settled with pie and ice-cream Pearl returned to the subject, addressing Miss Pink: ‘I was asking, what attracted you to the mesas in the first place?’
‘I’m a free agent: just drifting and looking for material for a book’ – her eyes gleamed – ‘and for adventures. Angel’s Roost was marked on the Forest map and I liked the name, and I saw you could reach it by way of a trail from Las Mesas.’
‘You climbed Angel’s Roost!’ Tammy was astonished.
‘Of course. That’s how I found the Indian ruin. I wasn’t wandering about up there without a purpose. What did you think I was doing?’
‘I’d assumed that looking for ruins was your hobby,’ Pearl said.
‘No, it was the mountain that was my objective; finding the ruin was pure chance.’
Kristen said: ‘I didn’t know there was a trail up Angel’s Roost. Not that I would know; I’m not a hiker.’
‘You ride on the mesas,’ Tammy pointed out. ‘Horses cover more ground than hikers do.’
‘The trail goes up Badblood Wash to the divide,’ Miss Pink said, ‘then it turns left and approaches Angel’s Roost from the north.’
They looked bewildered. ‘So how come you were in Rastus Canyon?’ Kristen asked. ‘Did you see the ruin from the top of the mountain?’
‘To tell you the truth, I saw nothing from the top. It was very warm and as soon as I’d eaten my lunch I went to sleep in the shade. When I woke up and looked at the map I saw that I might save myself some miles on the way down if I could get into the head of Rastus. That’s how I came on the ruin.’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Pearl was amazed. ‘You don’t know the country, you were all alone, no one knew where you were; suppose you’d sprained your ankle.’
‘I’m careful. You ride up there. Kristen rides on the mesas.’ She smiled to show no criticism was intended.
‘I was up Badblood today,’ Kristen said. ‘I didn’t see you.’
‘Ah, I saw fresh horse tracks. I guessed someone was around.’
‘We all ride up there,’ Kristen said, ‘Pearl and me, and Fletcher Lloyd.’
‘He’s the hand at Las Mesas,’ Pearl put in. ‘Avril Beck only has one man now …’ She trailed off, then came back with a rush: ‘Avril doesn’t ride so Fletcher has to do everything. You have to meet Avril – she’s English, did I tell you? She’s American now, of course; she married Herb Beck, then he died. This is a village of spinsters and widows.’
There was one of those odd silences until Kristen observed airily, ‘So you saw no one all day?’ and Miss Pink, accepting it as a question, reassured her. ‘No one. Not even in the distance.’ If the girl maintained that she went no further than Badblood Wash, it was no business of a visitor to divulge the fact that she’d been seen climbing out of Slickrock.
Chapter 3
At six o’clock in the morning Pearl’s kitchen was unoccupied but there were mugs on the table a
nd an enamel pot on the stove. Miss Pink poured herself coffee and stepped outside. The light in the patio was cold and grey but beyond the corral and the wooded creek the sky was flushed with the approach of sunrise. She became aware of movement and realised that the horses were tied to the rail of the corral. Carrying her mug she crossed the patio.
‘Good morning. Can I do anything?’
‘Morning,’ came Pearl’s voice from the huddle of solid backs. ‘Isn’t it lovely and cool? I’m about finished here, thanks.’ A saddle was swung high and settled on a blanket. ‘I’ll be in directly and we’ll pick up something to eat. This must be Wayne now.’ Miss Pink hadn’t heard an engine but she did hear a door close. A bear-like shape ambled round the corner of the house and started for the back door. ‘Go in and introduce yourself,’ Pearl said. ‘I’m right behind you.’
By the time she reached the kitchen the deputy had helped himself to coffee and was spooning sugar into the mug. He was, as Pearl had warned, a very large fellow and, where he had sounded unhappy last night on the telephone, this morning he looked positively morose.
‘I’m not at my best at six a.m., ma’am,’ he confessed when they had introduced themselves. ‘And August’s not the ideal time to be riding in them canyons.’ He had removed his cap and his bald head shone with moisture. ‘It’s my day off,’ he explained, indicating his jeans and check shirt, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief that was none too clean. He had a clown’s face with heavy brows, a blobby nose and a wide mouth – a mobile face that would no doubt change with his mood. At that moment he looked mournful but there were laughter wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and those eyes, framed in fat, were shrewd.
‘You look like death,’ Pearl said, entering the kitchen. ‘I got a good horse for you, he’s built like an elephant. I’m coming too so I’ll look after you, OK?’
‘I don’t mind who comes as long as we don’t have any problems, any extra problems I mean besides the heat. Are you sure you can find the place again, ma’am?’
‘We can’t go wrong,’ Miss Pink assured him. ‘Rastus is the next canyon to Badblood Wash.’
