Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

It was dusk when I came to the cabin and I lay on the hillside looking down at it for some time. Everything seemed to be quiet and I noted with disappointment that there were no lights in the big cabin, so evidently Clare was absent. Still, it seemed old Waystrand was around because a bright and welcome gleam shone from his place.

I came in to the cabin on a spiral, checking carefully, and was not too stupid to look through the window of Waystrand’s cabin to make sure he was alone. He was sitting before the stove, the air about his head blue with pipesmoke, so I went round to the door and tried to walk in. To my surprise it was locked, something very unusual.

Waystrand’s voice rumbled, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Boyd.’

I heard his footsteps on the wooden floor as he came to the door. ‘Who did you say?’

‘Bob Boyd. Open up, Matthew.’

The door opened a crack after bolts were drawn and a light shone on me. Then he flung the door wide open. ‘Come in. Come in, quick.’

I stumbled over the threshold and he slammed the door behind me and shot the bolts. I turned to see him replace a shotgun on the rack on the wall. ‘Have they been bothering you, too, Matthew?’

He swung round and I saw his face. He had a shiner — the ripest black eye I’ve ever seen — and his face was cut about. ‘Yeah,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ve been bothered. What the hell’s going on, Boyd?’

I said, ‘Howard Matterson’s gone wild and he’s after my blood. He’s got his boys worked up, too — told them I hammered the daylights out of old Bull.’

‘Did you?’

I stared at him. ‘What would I want to hit an old man for? Right now I want to massacre Howard, but that’s different. Old Bull had a heart-attack — I saw it and McDougall saw it. So did Howard, but he’s lying about it.’

Matthew nodded. ‘I believe you.’

I said, ‘Who gave you the shiner, Matthew?’

He looked down at the floor. ‘I had a fight with my own son,’ he said. His hands curled up into fists. ‘He whipped me — I always thought I could handle him, but he whipped me.’

I said, ‘I’ll take care of Jimmy, Mr Waystrand. He’s second on my list. What happened?’

‘He came up here with Howard three days ago,’ said Matthew. ‘In that ‘copter. Wanted to know if you were around. I told him I hadn’t seen you, and Howard said that if I did I was to let him know. Then Howard said he wanted to search Miss Trinavant’s cabin, and I said he couldn’t do that. He said that maybe you were hiding out in there, so I asked him if he was calling me a liar.’ Matthew shrugged. ‘One thing led to another and my boy hit me — and there was a fight.’

He raised his head. ‘He whipped me, Mr Boyd, but they didn’t get into the cabin. I came right in here and took that shotgun and told them to get the hell off the place.’

I watched him sink dejectedly into the chair before the stove and felt very sorry for him. ‘Did they go without any more trouble?’

He nodded. ‘Not much trouble. I thought at one time I’d have to shoot Jimmy. I’d have pulled the trigger, too, and he knew it.’ He looked up with grief in his eyes. ‘He’s gone real bad. I knew it was happening but I never thought the time would come when I’d be ready to shoot my own son.’

‘I feel sorry about that,’ I said. ‘Did Howard cause any ructions?’

‘No,’ said Matthew with contempt. ‘He just stood back and laughed like a hyena while the fight was going on — but he stopped laughing when I pointed the shotgun at his gut.’

That sounded like Howard. I took off my pack and dumped it on the floor. ‘Seen anything of Cl — Miss Trinavant?’

‘Not seen her for a week,’ he said.

I sighed and sat down. Clare hadn’t been back to her cabin since this whole thing started and I wondered where she was and what she was doing.

Matthew looked at me in concern. ‘You look beat,’ he said. ‘I’ve been going on about my own troubles, but you sure got more.’

I said, ‘I’ve been on the run for six days. These woods are crawling with guys hoping for a chance to beat my brains in. If you want to earn a thousand dollars, Matthew, all you have to do is to turn me in to Howard.’

He grunted. ‘What would I do with a thousand bucks? You hungry?’

I smiled faintly. ‘I couldn’t eat more than three moose — my appetite’s given out on me.’

‘I got a stew that just needs heating up. Won’t be more’n fifteen minutes. Why don’t you get cleaned up.’ He took some keys looped on a string from a box, and tossed them to me. ‘Those will open the big cabin. Go get yourself a bath.’

I tossed the keys in my hand. ‘You wouldn’t let Howard have these.’

‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘He ain’t a friend of Miss Trinavant.’

I had a hot bath and shaved off a week’s growth of beard and then looked and felt more human. When I got back to Matthew’s cabin he had a steaming plate of stew waiting for me which I got on the outside of at top speed and then asked for more. He smiled and said, ‘Outdoor life agrees with you.’

‘Not this kind of life,’ I said. I reached over to my coat and took from a pocket one of the rifled slug cartridges which I laid on the table. ‘They’re loaded for bear, Matthew.’

He picked up the cartridge and, for the first and last time in my experience, he swore profusely, ‘Good Christ in heaven!’ he said. ‘The goddam sons of bitches — I wouldn’t use one of those on a deer.’ He looked up. ‘Old Bull must have died.’

I hadn’t thought of that and felt a chill. ‘I hope not,’ I said sincerely. ‘I’ve been hoping he recovers. He’s the only man who can get me out of this hole. He can stand up and tell those loggers that I didn’t hammer him — that he had a heart-attack. He can get Howard off my back.’

‘Isn’t it funny,’ said Matthew in a very unfunny and sad voice, ‘I’ve never liked Bull but he and I have a lot in common. Both our boys have gone bad.’

I said nothing to that; there wasn’t much I could say. I finished eating and had some coffee and felt a lot better after this first hot meal I’d had in days. Matthew said, ‘There’s a bed for you all made up. You can sleep well tonight.’ He stood up and took down the shotgun. ‘I’ll have a look around — we don’t want your sleep disturbed.’

I turned in to a soft bed and was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow and I slept right through until daybreak and only woke with the sun shining into my eyes. I got up and dressed then went into the main room. There was no sign of Matthew, but there was coffee steaming on the stove and a frypan already laid out with eggs and bacon near by waiting to be fried.

I had a cup of coffee and began to fry up half a dozen eggs. I had just got them ready when I heard someone running outside. I jumped to the window, one hand grabbing the shotgun, and saw Matthew making good time towards the cabin. He crashed open the door and said breathlessly, ‘A lot of guys... heading for here... not more’n ten minutes... behind me.’

I took my coat, put it on, and hoisted my pack which felt heavy. ‘I put some grub in your pack,’ said Matthew. ‘Sorry it’s all I could do.’

I said quickly, ‘You can do something else. Get into Fort Farrell, get hold of Gibbons and tell him what’s going on up here. And see if you can find out what’s happened to McDougall and Clare. Will you do that?’

‘I’ll be on my way as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘But you’d better get out of here. Those boys were coming fast.’

I stepped out of the cabin and made for the trees, slanting my way up the hill to the place from which I had looked down the previous night. When I got there I unslung the glasses and looked down at the cabin.