Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

Then we were kissing frantically and her arm was about me under my shirt and drawing me closer. There was a hiss and a sudden wooof as half a jigger of good Scotch got knocked into the fire, and a great yellow and blue flame soared to the sky.

Later that night I said drowsily, ‘You’re a hard woman — you made me gather twice as many spruce boughs as we needed.’

She punched me in the ribs and snuggled closer. ‘You know what?’ she said pensively.

‘What?’

‘You remember when you slept in the cabin that time — when I warned you about making passes?’

‘Mmm — I remember.’

‘I had to warn you off. If I hadn’t I’d have been a gone girl.’

I opened one eye. ‘You would !’

‘Even then,’ she said. ‘I still feel weak and mushy about it. Do you know you’re quite a man, Bob Boyd? Maybe too much for me to handle. You’d better not radiate maleness so much around other women from now on.’

I said, ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I mean it.’

A few minutes later she said, ‘Are you awake?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘You won’t think I’m silly if I tell you something?’

‘Depends what it is.’

There was a silence, then she said, ‘You earned that negotiator’s fee, you know — and never forget it. I was glad you earned it for another reason.’

I said sleepily, ‘What reason?’

‘You’re too goddam proud,’ she said. ‘You might never have done anything about me if you’d thought about it too much. I thought you’d be scared off by my money, but now you have money, and it doesn’t apply.’

‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘What’s a mere six hundred thousand bucks? I want the lot.’ I pulled her closer. ‘I want everything you’ve got.’

She gave a small cry and came to me again. Finally, just as the false dawn hesitated in the sky, she went to sleep, her head on my shoulder and one arm thrown across my chest.

The survey that should have taken four days stretched to two weeks. Maybe we were taking the honeymoon before we were married, but, then, so have lots of other folks — it’s not the worst crime in the world. All I know is that it was the happiest time of my life.

We talked — my God, how we talked! For two people to really get to know each other takes a hell of a lot of words, in spite of the fact that the most important thing doesn’t need words at all. By the time two weeks were up I knew a lot about archaeology I didn’t know before and she knew enough geology to know that the survey was a bust.

But neither of us worried about that. Three of the days towards the end were spent near a tiny lake we discovered hidden away in the folds of the hills. We pitched our camp near the edge and swam every morning and afternoon without worrying about costumes, and rubbed each other warm and dry when we came out shivering. At nights, in the hush of the forest, we talked in low tones, mostly about ourselves and about what we were going to do with the rest of our lives. Then we would make love.

But everything ends. One morning she said thoughtfully, ‘Matthew must be just about ready to send out a search-party. Do you realize how long we’ve been gone?’

I grinned. ‘Matthew has more sense. I think he’s got around to trusting me.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘Still, we’d better get back, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ she said glumly.

We cleaned up the camp and packed our gear in silence. I helped her on with her pack, then said, ‘Clare, you know we can’t get married right away?’

Her voice was soft with surprise, ‘Why ever not?’

I kicked at a stone. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. If I marry you and stay around here, things are going to bust loose and you might be hurt. If they’re going to bust at all I want it to be before we’re married.’

She opened her mouth to argue — she was a great arguer — but I stopped her. ‘Susskind might be right,’ I said. ‘If I probe too deeply into my past I might very well go nuts. I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.’

She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Supposing I accept that — what do you intend to do?’

‘I’m going to break this thing wide open — before we’re married. I’ve got something to fight for now, besides myself. If I come through the other side safely, then we’ll get married. If not — well, neither of us will have made an irrevocable mistake.’

She said calmly, ‘You’re the sanest man I know — I’m willing to take a chance on your sanity.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Clare: not having a past — or having two pasts, for that matter. It eats a man away from the inside. I’ve got to know, and I’ve got to take the chance of knowing. Susskind said it might break me in two and I don’t want you too much involved.’

‘But I am too involved,’ she cried. ‘Already I am.’

‘Not as much as if we were married. Look, if we were married I’d hesitate when it’s fatal to hesitate, I wouldn’t push hard when pushing might win, I’d not take a chance when it was necessary to take a chance. I’d be thinking of you too damn’ much. Give me a month, Clare; just one month.’

Her voice was low. ‘All right, a month,’ she said. ‘Just one month.’

We reached her cabin late at night, weary and out-of-sorts, neither of us having said much to the other during the day. Matthew Waystrand met us, smiled at Clare and gave me a hard look. ‘Got the fire lit,’ he said gruffly.

I went into my bedroom and shucked off my pack with relief, and when I’d changed into a fresh shirt and pants Clare was already luxuriating in a hot bath. I walked over to Matthew’s place and found him smoking before a fire. I said, ‘I’m going pretty soon. Look after Miss Trinavant.’

He looked at me glumly. ‘Think she needs it more’n usual?’

‘She might,’ I said, and sat down. ‘Did you mail that letter she gave you?’ I meant the Matterson contract going to her lawyer in Vancouver.

He nodded. ‘Got an answer, too.’ He cocked his head. ‘She’s got it.’

‘Good.’ I waited for him to say something else and when he didn’t I stood up and said, ‘I’m going now. I have to get back to Fort Farrell.’

‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. You wanted to know if anything unusual happened about the time old John was killed. Well, I remember something, but I don’t know if you’d call it unusual.’

‘What was that?’

‘Old Bull bought himself a new car just the week after. It was a Buick.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t call it unusual.’

Waystrand said, ‘Funny thing is that it was a replacement for a car he already had — a car he’d had just three months.’

‘Now that is funny,’ I said softly. ‘What was wrong with the old one?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Waystrand laconically. ‘But I hardly know what could have gone wrong in three months.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘Don’t know that, either. Just disappeared.’

I thought about it. It would be a devil of a job trying to find out what had happened to a car twelve years earlier, especially a car that had ‘just disappeared’. It didn’t seem as though there would be much hope in following up such a tenuous lead as that, although who could tell? It might be worth a check in the licensing office. I said, ‘Thanks, Matthew — you don’t mind me calling you Matthew?’

He frowned. ‘You took a long time on that survey of yours. How’s Miss Trinavant?’

I grinned. ‘Never better — she assured me herself. Why don’t you ask her?’

He grunted. ‘I don’t reckon I will. Yeah, I don’t mind you calling me by my given name. That’s what it’s for, ain’t it?’