Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

They had been seen now and Ames was aware of curious glances from people who were seated in folding canvas chairs, items of luxury which he knew could have been brought in only at much cost to the tourist and at much trouble to both packer and pack horse.

He tried to demur, but somehow the right words wouldn’t come, and he couldn’t let himself seem to run away. Even while he hesitated, they entered the camp, and he found himself meeting people with whom he felt awkwardly ill at ease.

Harvey W. Dowling was evidently the business executive who was footing the bills. He, it seemed, was in his tent, taking a siesta and the hushed voices of the others showed the fawning deference with which they regarded the man who was paying the bills. His tent, a pretentious affair with heating stove and shaded entrance, occupied a choice position, away from the rest of the camp, a small tributary stream winding in front, and the shady pine thicket immediately in the back.

The people to whom Ames was introduced were the type a rich man gathers around him, people who were careful to cultivate the manners of the rich, who clung tenaciously to their contacts with the wealthy.

Now these people, carefully subdued in voice and manner, so as not to disturb the man in the big tent, had that amused, patronizing tolerance of manner which showed they regarded Frank Ames merely as a novel interlude rather than as a human being.

Dick Nottingham had a well-nourished, athletic ease of manner, a smoothly muscled body and the calm assurance of one who is fully conscious of his eligibility. Two other men, Alexander Cameron and Sam Fremont, whose names Ames heard mentioned, were evidently downstream fishing.

The women were young, well-groomed and far more personal in their curiosity. Eleanor Dowling relied on her own beauty and her father’s wealth to display a certain arrogance. Sylvia Jessup had mocking eyes which displayed challenging invitation as she sized up Frank’s long, rangy build.

Conscious of his faded blue shirt and overalls with the patched knees, Frank felt distinctly ill at ease, and angry at himself because he did. He would have given much to have been articulate enough to express himself, to have joined in casual small talk; but the longer he stayed the more awkward and tongue-tied he felt, and that in turn made him feel more and more conspicuous.

There was good-natured banter. Sylvia Jessup announced that after this she was going to walk in the afternoons and see if she couldn’t bag a little game, veiled references to open season and bag limit; then light laughter. And there were casually personal questions that Ames answered as best he could.

Whenever they would cease their light banter, and in the brief period of silence wait for Frank Ames to make some comment, Frank angrily realized his tongue-tied impotence, realized from the sudden way in which they would all start talking at once that they were trying to cover his conversational inadequacy.

Sam Fremont, camera in hand, came into camp almost unnoticed. He had, he explained, been hunting wildlife with his camera, and he grinningly admitted approaching camp quietly so he could get a couple of “candid camera” shots of the “sudden animation.”

He was a quick-eyed opportunist with a quick wit and fast tongue, and some of his quips brought forth spontaneous laughter. After one particularly loud burst of merriment, the flap of the big tent parted and Harvey W. Dowling, scow ling sleepily at the group, silenced them as effectively as would have been the case if some grim apparition had suddenly appeared.

But he came down to join them, a figure of heavy power, conscious of the deference due him, boomingly cordial to Frank, and with regal magnanimity saying nothing of the loud conversation which had wakened him.

A few moments later Alexander Cameron came stumbling up the trail, seeming to fall all over his heavy leather boots, boots that were stiff with newness. He seemed the most inexperienced of them all, and yet the most human, the one man who seemed to have no fear of Dowling.

There were more introductions, an abrupt cessation of the banter, and a few minutes later Ames found himself trudging angrily away from the camp, having offered the first excuse which came to his tortured mind, that he must inspect a site for a string of traps, knowing in his own mind how utterly inane the reason sounded, despite the fact that these people from the city would see nothing wrong with it.

Once clear of the camp, Frank circled up Deerlick Creek and cut back toward the main trail of the North Fork, so that he could retrieve his rod and creel.

He knew that it was too late now to try any more fishing. The white, woolly clouds had grown into great billowing mushrooms. Already there was the reverberation of distant thunder echoing from the high crags up at the divide and ominous black clouds were expanding out from the bases of the cloud mushrooms.

The thunderstorm struck just as Ames was crossing the top of the ridge which led down to the main trail.

The first patter of heavy raindrops gave a scant warning. A snake’s tongue of ripping lightning dissolved a dead pine tree across the valley into a shower of yellow splinters. The clap of thunder was almost instantaneous, and, as though it had tom loose the inner lining of the cloud, rain deluged down in torrents until the sluicing streams forging their way down the slope were heavy with mud.

Knowing better than to seek shelter under a pine tree. Ames ran along the base of a granite ridge until he found the place where an overhanging rock, sandblasted by winds and worn by the elements, offered a place where he could crawl in and stretch out.

The lightning glittered with greenish intensity. The thunder bombarded the echoing crags and rain poured in cascades from the lip of the rock under which Ames had taken shelter.

Within ten minutes the heaviest pan of the rain had ceased. The thunder began to drift sullenly to the south, but the rain continued steadily, then intensified into a clearing-up shower of cloudburst proportions and ceased abruptly. Half a minute later a venturesome shaft of afternoon sunlight explored its way into the glistening pines.

Ames crawled from under his protecting rock and resumed his way down the slippery slope to the main trail.

The soaking rain had obliterated the tracks in the trail. In fact, the ditchlike depression in the center of the trail still held puddles of water, so Ames, so far as he was able, kept to one side, working his way between rocks, conscious of the sudden chill in the atmosphere, conscious also of the fact that the clouds were gathering for another downpour, one that could well last all night.

Ames found his fishing rod and creel where he had left them. He slipped the soggy strap of the creel over his shoulder, started to pick up the rod, then stopped. His woodsman’s eyes told him that the position of the rod had been changed since he had left it. Had it perhaps been the wind which accompanied the storm? He had no time to debate the matter, for once more raindrops began to patter ominously.

Picking up his rod, he swung into a long, rapid stride, the rain whipping against his back as he walked. He knew that there was no use trying to wait out this show. This would be a steady, sodden rain.

By the time Frank Ames reached his cabin he was wet to the skin.

He put pine-pitch kindling and dry wood into the stove, and soon had a roaring fire. He lit the gasoline lantern, divested himself of his wet clothes, took the two medium-sized fish from the creel and fried them for supper. He read a magazine, noticed casually that the rain on the cabin roof stopped about nine-thirty, listened to the news on the radio and went to bed. His sleep was punctuated with dreams of women who screamed and ran aimlessly through the forest, of shrewd-eyed city men who regarded him with patronizing cordiality, of snub-nosed, laughing-eyed women who pursued him with pronged spears, their mouths giving vent to sardonic laughter.