Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

‘My name’s Boyd,’ I said. ‘I’m a geologist working on contract for the Matterson Corporation. I’m...’

She held up her hand and looked at me with frosty eyes. I’d never seen green frost before. ‘That’s enough. This is as far up valley as you go, Mr Boyd. See to it, Jimmy.’

‘That’s what I told him, Miss Trinavant, but he didn’t want to believe me.’

I turned my head and looked at him. ‘Stay out of this, Jimmy boy: Miss Trinavant is on Matterson land by invitation — you’re not, so buzz off. And don’t point a gun at me again or I’ll wrap it round your neck.’

‘Miss Trinavant, that’s a lie,’ he yelled. ‘I never—’

I whirled and hit him. It’s a neat trick if you can get in the right position — you straighten your arm out stiff and pivot from the hips — your hand picks up a hell of a velocity by the time it makes contact. The back of my hand caught him under the jaw and damn’ near lifted him a foot off the ground. He landed flat on his back, flopped around a couple of times like a newly landed trout, and then lay still.

Miss Trinavant was looking at me open-mouthed — I could see her lovely tonsils quite plainly. I rubbed the back of my hand and said mildly, ‘I don’t like liars.’

‘He wasn’t lying,’ she said passionately. ‘He had no gun.’

‘I know when I’m being looked at by a 30.30,’ I said, and stabbed my finger at the prostrate figure in the pine needles. ‘That character has been snooping after me for the last three days: I don’t like that, either. He just got what was coming to him.’

By the way she bared her teeth she was getting set to bite me. ‘You didn’t give him a chance, you big barbarian.’

I let that one go. I’ve been in too many brawls to be witless enough to give the other guy a chance — I leave that to the sporting fighters who earn a living by having their brains beaten out.

She knelt down, and said, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy, are you all right?’ Then she looked up. ‘You must have broken his jaw.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hit him hard enough. He’ll just be sore in body and spirit for the next few days.’ I took a pannikin and filled it with water from the stream and dumped it on Jimmy’s face. He stirred and groaned. ‘He’ll be fit to walk in a few minutes. You’d better get him back to wherever you have your camp. And you can tell him that if he comes after me with a gun again I’ll kill him.’

She breathed hard but said nothing, concentrating on arousing Jimmy. Presently he was conscious enough to stand up on groggy feet and he looked at me with undisguised hatred. I said, ‘When you’ve got him bedded down I’ll be glad to see you again, Miss Trinavant. I’ll still be camped here.’

She turned a startled face towards me. ‘What makes you think I ever want to see you again?’ she flared.

‘Because I know where the bodies are buried,’ I said pleasantly. ‘And don’t be afraid; I’ve never been known to hit a woman yet.’

I would have sworn she used some words I’d heard only in logging camps, but I couldn’t be certain because she muttered them under her breath. Then she turned to give Jimmy a hand and I watched them go past the marker and out of sight. The coffee was pretty nigh ruined by this time so I tossed it out and set about making more, and a glance at the sun decided me to think about bedding down for the night.

It was dusk when I saw her coming back, a glimmering figure among the trees. I had made myself comfortable and was sitting with my back to a tree tending the fat duck which was roasting on a spit before the fire. She came up and stood over me. ‘What do you really want?’ she asked abruptly.

I looked up. ‘You hungry?’ She stirred impatiently, so I said, ‘Roast duck, fresh bread, wild celery, hot coffee — how does that sound?’

She dropped down to my level. ‘I told Jimmy to watch out for you,’ she said. ‘I knew you were coming. But I didn’t tell him to go on Matterson land — and I didn’t say anything about a gun.’

‘Perhaps you should have,’ I observed. ‘Perhaps you should have said, “No gun”.’

‘I know Jimmy’s a bit wild,’ she said. ‘But that’s no excuse for what you did.’

I took a flat cake of bread out of the clay oven and slapped it on a platter. ‘Have you ever looked down the muzzle of a gun?’ I asked. ‘It’s a mighty unsettling sensation, and I tend to get violent when I’m nervous.’ I handed her the platter. ‘What about some duck?’

Her nostrils quivered as the fragrance rose from the spitted bird and she laughed. ‘You’ve sold me. It smells so good.’

I began to carve the duck. ‘Jimmy’s not much hurt except in what he considers to be his pride. If he goes around pointing guns at people, one of these days there’s going to be a bang and he’ll hang as high as Haman. Maybe I’ve saved his life. Who is he?’

‘One of my men.’

‘So you knew I was coming,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘News gets around these parts fast, considering it’s so underpopulated.’

She selected a slice of breast from her platter and popped it into her mouth. ‘Anything that concerns me I get to know about. Say, this is good!’

‘I’m not such a good cook,’ I said. ‘It’s the open air that does it. How do I concern you?’

‘You work for Matterson; you were on my land. That concerns me.’

I said, ‘When I contracted to do this job Howard Matterson had a bit of an argument with a man called Donner. Matterson said he’d straighten out the matter with someone called Clare — presumably you. Did he?’

‘I haven’t seen Howard Matterson in a month — and I don’t care if I never see him again.’

‘You can’t blame me for not knowing the score,’ I said. ‘I thought the job was above board. Matterson has a strange way of running his business.’

She picked up a drumstick and gnawed on it delicately. ‘Not strange — just crooked. Of course, it all depends on which Matterson you’re talking about. Bull Matterson is the crooked one; Howard is just plain sloppy.’

‘You mean he forgot to talk to you about it?’ I said unbelievingly.

‘Something like that.’ She pointed the drumstick at me. ‘What’s all this about bodies?’

I grinned. ‘Oh, I just wanted to talk to you. I knew that would bring you running.’

She stared at me. ‘Why should it?’

‘It did — didn’t it?’ I pointed out. ‘It’s a variation of the old story of the practical joker who sent a cable to a dozen of his friends: FLY — ALL IS DISCOVERED. Nine of them hastily left town. Everyone has a skeleton in some cupboard of their lives.’

‘You were just pining for company,’ she said sardonically.

‘Would I pass up the chance of dining with a beautiful woman in the backwoods?’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly. ‘You can cut out the flattery. For all you knew I might have been an old hag of ninety, unless, of course, you’d been asking questions around beforehand. Which you obviously have. What are you up to, Boyd?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How’s this for a starter? Did you ever get around to investigating that Trinavant-Matterson partnership agreement, together with the deal Matterson made with the trustees of the estate? It seems to me that particular business transaction could bear looking into. Why doesn’t someone do something about it?’

She stared at me wide-eyed. ‘Wow! If you’ve been asking questions like that around Fort Farrell you’re going to be in trouble as soon as old Bull finds out.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I understand he’d rather forget the Trinavants ever existed. But don’t worry; he won’t get to hear of it. My source of information is strictly private.’