Twisted Trails (12 page)

Busying herself over the table, where she mixed the biscuit dough, Helen hesitated a moment before answering. When she spoke, there was accusation in her voice.

"Why do you ask me about that? You took charge of it."

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry I asked you."

"Why should you be sorry?" Helen asked stubbornly. "Did you think I had taken it?"

There it was, bare and ugly and in the open, the suspicion she did not want to acknowledge.

"No, Mother. I must have lost it. I thought you might have found it," Norah said too quickly.

"Perhaps Eglund found it," Helen said coldly, "or Paul Scott himself."

Norah ate her breakfast. No, Paul had not found the letter, of that she was sure. She almost bolted her food, as though she had to rush after something that was mocking and threatening her; some monster which, if she did not contrive to capture and strangle it, would eventually destroy her.

It was mid-morning when Paul met Carmody in the Lone Chance. The big-chested contractor with his high boots and big, floppy hat looked like a dressed-up bear. From his hairy face the stump of a cigar protruded, and he was puffing smoke faster than a donkey engine going upgrade.

"Hope you ain't changed your mind about that job, Scott," he said around his cigar.

"I gave you my word," Paul said levelly.

"Farrow, up at the mine, is running into the trouble he was afraid of. Somebody's getting their fingers into the pie."

Paul frowned. He recalled Farrow's story about the high grade gold ore. Well, Farrow would have to protect that ore himself. Paul knew that, if he started taking on that job, he'd find himself stuck there. The only other occupant of the Lone Chance at the time, besides the bartender, was Alonzo Finch. He was playing a haphazard game of solitaire, ostensibly disinterested in everyone and everything about him. But he had ears like an elephant's.

"Sorry about that," Paul said.

"But not sorry enough to do anything about it? Farrow would pay big—bigger than me."

"No," Paul said.

Without looking up, Finch said, "I heard a rumor that you're taking on some weight around here, Paul."

"Maybe it isn't just a rumor," Paul said.

"You know, Paul, sometimes stage scouts get hurt —hurt real bad, especially if they're armed. What makes you think you could ever kill a man? You've never been bloodied."

"That's right, Finch," Paul said. "I hope you're around when I have to make my first try."

"I'll probably be around before, and after. Will you?"

"That's an interesting question," Paul said, and went out on the porch to sit and watch the railroad crew far up the side of the mountain grading the roadbed for the switchback track.

At noon he ate dinner at the Lone Chance, and Addie came to share his table, but she said little. It was as though she had said everything there was to say. There was a pensiveness about her that Paul had not seen before.

"What're you thinking, Addie?" he asked, then added quickly, "No, don't tell me if you don't want to."

"I have a strange feeling, Paul," Addie said slowly. "I can't understand it. I have a frightening sense something is going to happen, something horrible, but I don't know just who it's going to happen to."

"Didn't know you were a fortune teller, Addie." Paul smiled.

"I'm not."

"Then forget it. It's just because of the way things have been going lately: Big-head killed, me shot at—"

"Maybe that's part of it. This new job you took on for Carmody might make the killer the more determined."

"I've been thinking it over. Maybe that shot missed on purpose the other night. They might just have wanted to scare me."

"They didn't try to scare Big-head; they cut a hole in his back. Be careful, Paul."

Later in the afternoon, he went back of the Lone Chance toward the stables to check his gear. It was then he saw Norah on her pinto, still dressed in flannel and buckskin, riding toward him. She was upset, sad, her eyes were clouded with despair.

"Will you go for a ride with me, Paul?" she asked without any preliminaries.

"I'd like to, Norah," he said. "What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you as we ride," she answered without enthusiasm.

Paul saddled up quickly, realizing that whatever secret it was Norah had to tell, she wanted to divulge it at once. That it was bothering her was apparent. When he was in the saddle, she said, "Let's take the mountain trail that leads back toward the cow camp."

Paul agreed, and for the first few minutes a heavy pall of silence hung between them. They rode north toward the mountain where the railroad crews worked; after crossing a deep swale, the cow camp trail swung to the left and skirted Gull Canyon. The sun was hot and the smell of sage rose sharp and bitter from the dark bushes that lined the trail. At last Norah spoke slowly, uncertainly.

"I don't know just what you think of me, Paul," she said.

"Neither do I know what I think of you," he surprised himself by saying. "I mean there are some things that are confusing."

"Yes, there are. For instance, that letter I had for you," she went on, her eyes on the trail.

Yes, the letter. How was she going to explain that? Paul wanted to spare her.

"What happened to it," he asked without rancor.

"That's just it. I don't know!" she said in a low, agonized voice. "I had it in the pocket of my jacket that night I brought a horse for you. But Uriah made me take his heavier coat, and he took mine back into the house. In all the excitement, I forgot the letter that night, and when I looked for it in the morning, it was gone."

She paused so long that he prodded, "Lost?"

"I thought I had lost it in the yard when Uriah and I surprised the prowler, but I looked everywhere for it. Then Big-head's murder came up, and the questioning at the post. I didn't get a chance to see you. Then you moved out without saying goodbye or anything. You saw Uriah, and he mentioned the letter, and you must have thought—"

"Of course I was curious, Noah, but I never really believed you had kept the letter. I knew there must be some mistake. If it wasn't lost, then where is it? Uriah didn't have it. Who—" Paul halted lamely. Helen was the only other one who might have appropriated it. It was not for him to accuse her.

"I know what you're thinking. I don't blame you, but I can't see why Mother would do a thing like that. Anyhow, she denied it."

"Let's not accuse her. It could have been lost. Did you notice the postmark, where it had come from?"

"It was from Oklahoma, all right."

Paul felt a deep concern, because that letter might have been the most important thing in the world to him right now. There might be no other communication from the sheriff back home, and the letter could have contained the information necessary to get Alonzo Finch back to face trial. But the letter was gone. If the stage tomorrow carried nothing further, then what?

They were riding up a steep part of the trail now, with Norah riding ahead of him, so they could not carry on a conversation very well. The horses breathed hard at the climb, their sharp hooves edging into the soft earth. The pinion and cedar trees, scrubby and dwarfed, were giving way to real pines. The valley dropped away below them, green and gray and purple. Smoke rose from the Indian village, all but invisible to the south. The fields of the ranch were huge emeralds strung together along the stream. The army post was a blurred scar in the lighter green of the greasewood.

When they reached the flat summit of a long escarpment forming a natural lookout point, they dismounted, letting the horses' reins hang. Norah sat on a big boulder, her eyes looking into the valley; Paul stood near her.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he hazarded.

"Nature's always beautiful," she said vaguely. "It's man who rejects and mars nature, who destroys the beauty."

"But men are nature, too, Norah. Nobody's perfect, but every man does what he must do. Some achieve great things, others small things, but they all try— Oh," he interrupted his thought, because it sounded pompous, "I don't know how to put it. If things were different—"

"I know," she said with some bitterness. "You're trying to apologize for being the way you are. Your hate comes before your love; your pride comes before your happiness."

There was no point in arguing, so he held his tongue and watched a cloud shadow racing across the flat below. Then, looking around, he saw that his horse had strayed some distance away around the curve of the mountain, so he went quietly to catch him. When he rounded the shoulder of the mountain, he had a clear view down into Gull Canyon. Then he tensed and looked back over his shoulder. From where he was, he could just see Norah, but she could not see down into the canyon, for which he breathed a prayer of thanks. As he looked down, the line cabin was plainly visible beside the road in the canyon. Behind the cabin, hidden from the road but easily seen from that high trail, stood the Youngs' buggy, and tied to a wheel of the buggy was Finch's horse.

At first Paul couldn't quite grasp the significance of what he saw, and when he did, he had a sick, lost feeling. No one could be there at such a rendezvous with Finch except Helen Young. How safe they must feel on that little traveled road with their horses hidden. The fools!

Paul knew now the thing that was bothering Norah. He was aware of a wild, relieved feeling that was almost like drunkenness. Norah must have spurned Finch, and Finch had taken this vicious way of getting even with her. Paul realized, too, that he could not mention what he saw to Norah without increasing her shame.

Capturing his horse, Paul went quickly to the rock on which Norah still sat. She rose and stood before him, in her eyes a defeated look. Before he knew it, Paul had her in his arms, soft, yielding and compliant. His lips were on hers, hard and hungry, and he became alive to depths and heights he had not known he possessed. When the storm of passion subsided, he felt humble and unworthy.

"I'm sorry, Norah," was all he could say. He couldn't tell her how he had discovered she had spurned Finch. He couldn't divulge what he had seen in Gull Canyon. Norah knew about her mother, or suspected what was going on, but she could not defend herself.

"Never mind," she said shortly. "You've made your try and found out what you could do. You'll be gone in a day or two, or you'll be dead."

Paul said, "What do you mean by that? It sounds sinister."

"Finch is an evil man—more evil than a gunman who merely takes life. He takes more than that and ruins it, letting his victims live. He's not above killing, oh no, but killing is too fast and final. He likes a longer, more deadly game. How do you ever expect to get him back to Oklahoma?"

Her speech was so vituperative and vehement that for a moment Paul was silent. She was right—Finch had proved himself in the past—but how had she come to see the man so clearly? Of course she could see, because Finch was not only ruining the person closest to her, but also the home she loved and cherished. He was ruining Uriah, too. There must be some way to stop the poison Finch was spreading, some way to destroy the evil he conceived. Tomorrow there must be a showdown.

Paul suggested another, rougher trail down the mountain that led toward the mines and away from Gull Canyon. He thought of a thousand things he wanted to say, but he was afraid that, put into words, none of them would sound right. He wanted to tell her that he'd come back from Oklahoma when everything was settled, but that would sound like an empty promise. Who knew what would happen once he got Finch back home? It might take months to convict him, and Paul wanted to give no promise that he could not keep.

When they reached the Lone Chance, Norah insisted that he let her go on alone. Knowing why she asked it, afraid that he might see Helen driving home, he did not insist. He started to take her hand but drew back. To touch her would be more than he could bear. He watched her ride away, unhappy and forlorn, until her small, brave body was swallowed by the shadows of the trail.

When Norah left Paul, misery rode with her, misery and helplessness. How could her mother put her in such an unfair position? She was a mature woman, and even though she was still attractive, she must know the difference between infatuation and deep abiding affection. Norah felt her lips tingle when she remembered the kiss Paul had given her back there on the mountain. Why had he become so suddenly amorous? Before yesterday, she would have welcomed his kiss, would have savored the pleasure and fulfillment of it. But now all she could say over and over to herself, was tomorrow he'll be gone and I'll be free—tomorrow he'll be gone and I'll be free! But deeper down, an echo repeated, Please don't let him go—please don't let him go!

The sun had set when she reached the ranch. She rode to the barn, unsaddled her horse and turned him into the pasture. She picked up her saddle and took it inside, where she placed it carefully on the saddle buck, then hung up the bridle. She saw the buggy was missing. It could mean only one thing. Then another thought struck and startled her. When Paul had gone to catch his horse up on the mountain, he could have looked down into Gull Canyon. Had he seen anything? Had he seen the buggy there? Was that why he had come back to kiss her so passionately?

She was about to leave the barn when she heard the rattle and clink of the buggy coming into the yard. So her mother had gone to meet Finch, and now she had come back to exclaim how exhilarating her lone rides were. But when Norah looked out the door, she saw Alonzo Finch helping her mother from the buggy. They were talking seriously, and Finch was smiling as they went into the house.

Norah felt a new pang of anxiety. How did her mother dare to take such a chance as this? Did she care nothing for the feelings of others? Suppose Uriah should happen to come home just then? Knowing what she must do, and furious because she had no alternative, Norah went to the house. Should Uriah come and find the three of them there, he could have no cause for suspicion.

She reached the porch and was about to enter the door when she froze in her tracks. Voices, low and urgent, were audible just inside.