Damon Knight - Orbit 20

His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of an automobile, or the cloud of dust from a car, at the top of the hill overlooking the ranch buildings. The car came down too fast, screamed around the curve at the bottom of the hill; the dust cloud increased.

“You want me out here?” Will asked from inside the screen door.

“No point in it. I’ll talk to him.” Farley watched the car careen around the last curve, screech to a stop. The driver was a thin, balding man wearing a pale blue sports coat, white shirt, tie, navy trousers. He made Farley feel hot. He went down the steps to greet Victoria’s father.

“Mr. Dorsett? I’m Farley Chesterman.”

The man ignored his hand and walked quickly to the shade cast by the house. “This is where she came to spend a week? In this hellhole?”

“You might as well come up and sit down,” Farley said. He went up the steps and sat in one of the canvas chairs. “You want a drink? Beer, Coke, anything? That’s a long hot drive.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Dorsett said shrilly. “I just wanted to see for myself. A pack of lies, that’s all I’ve had from your sheriff. Nothing but a pack of lies. You don’t look like someone almost dead to me. And this sure as hell doesn’t look like any resort hotel where my girl would spend even five minutes, let alone a week. I want to know what happened up here, Chesterman, why my girl came here, what you’ve done to her.”

Farley told him the official story of the campout, the landslide. “I was found and taken to the hospital. They haven’t been found yet.”

“I’ll take that beer,” Dorsett said, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.

Farley went in for it and when he came back Dorsett was sitting on the porch.

“Why did your sheriff send people poking around in my affairs? What’s any of this got to do with me?” The belligerence was gone from his voice.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s trying to account for the fact that Victoria and Sam weren’t found.”

“Ha! Because she’s just like her mother—follow anyone who whistles.”

“It’s hard to believe they’d leave anyone hurt, not try to help.”

“Didn’t her mother leave me in a jam? She ran off with one of my buyers, vanished without a word, nothing. Left me with a two-year-old baby girl. What was I supposed to do with a girl?”

“Did you ever find her?”

“I didn’t look! She found me a couple years later when loverboy ran out of cash and things got tough.” He drank his beer and stood up. “As for Victoria, she’ll show up again. If you have any pull with that sheriff of yours, just tell him to keep his goddamn nose out of my business. I haven’t seen her and don’t expect to. I wasn’t sure if it was just him, or if you were making insinuations too. Now I know. If it’s a shakedown, he’s bucking the wrong man. I didn’t get where I am today being intimidated by two-bit politicians. You tell him, Chesterman.”

Farley didn’t stand. Dorsett regarded him for a moment, turned and went back to his car. He drove away in a cloud of dust as thick as the one he had brought with him.

Victoria had said her mother died when she was a baby. Maybe she did, Farley thought.

Farley lay on his back, his hands under his head, on top his sleeping bag, and listened to his father and Tom Thorton exchange stories. Tom was talking about his dude-rustling days for Leon Stacy, before he had been elected sheriff twelve years ago.

“He says to me right off, ‘Mr. Thorton, I don’t know a damn thing about horses, trails, desert country, nothing else I should know. All’s I know is Egypt, history, pyramids, anything you want to know, I can more’n likely tell you. Now if I agree not to treat you like an ignorant slob because you don’t know shit about my specialty, will you agree not to treat me like one because I don’t know yours?’ ” Thorton poured himself more coffee from the thermos. “Real fine fellow. Teaches at the University over at Eugene. Came back every year, still does, more’n likely. Nice wife, kids. Questions! Never heard so many questions. And they all listened to the answers. Fine people.”

Farley counted stars, lost track, and went over the steps again. In the valley there was enough dynamite to blow up ten acres. On the ridge was the detonator. He had already cut the fence up there, made a four-foot opening. They could step through, observe whatever was in the valley, get out, and set off the explosives. On the cliff and at the bottom gate there were powerful searchlights. “It will work,” he told himself again.

But there was nothing to blast. Halfway through their second night the men had seen nothing, heard nothing. The horse tethered fifteen feet inside the area remained quiet.

“Three nights,” Will had said. “If there’s nothing for three nights will you give it up? Admit there’s nothing you can do.”

He had been so certain. Victoria hadn’t waited. Her first night, there it was. When they came again, it was right there. He got up, walked to the gate and watched the horse a few minutes. The starlight was so bright that if it acted up, they would be able to see it. He sat and poured coffee.

“You should get some sleep,” he told Will.

“Intend to. Want to check the ridge again first?”

Farley shrugged. “No point. Not until the horse tells us.”

Tom Thorton unrolled his sleeping bag. “Call me at three.” He grunted several times, then began to snore softly.

“Me too,” Will said. “If there’s a sound, anything . . .”

“Sure, Dad.”

The night remained quiet and Farley didn’t bother to awaken either of the men. At dawn his father got up first, grumbled, and roused Tom, and when their relief came, two ranch hands who would guard the dynamite during the day, they returned to the house where Farley went to bed.

The third night was the same.

“Farl, that was the agreement,” Will said stubbornly. “You agreed.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t say I would or wouldn’t. I’m taking the camper up there and staying a few more nights. I’ll hang around during the day. You won’t have to send anyone up to relieve me.”

“It isn’t that, and you know it. If it was this easy don’t you think someone would have done it years ago? That thing comes and goes when it gets ready. It might be quiet up there for months, years. You planning to wait it out?”

“Yes!” Farley stamped from the room, up the stairs. He began to throw his clothes into a pack.

His door opened and Serena slid inside and shut it. “Farley, why are you carrying on like this, giving your father more grief? What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m crazy! Haven’t you learned yet? I’m crazy! Get the hell out of here, Serena.”

“You’re crazy all right. Driving off Fran, driving your father beyond what he can endure. Why don’t you stop all this foolishness and help your father now that he needs you.”

“I can’t help him.”

“You can! Just let yourself instead of rushing off after ghosts all the time.”

“There’s something out there, Serena! I know because it almost killed me! Do you understand that? It almost killed me!”

“And it will kill you the next time! You think your father can stand that?” Serena’s voice rose.

“You don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand? You’re the one who doesn’t understand anything, Farley Chesterman! Right through the years everyone else’s had enough sense to leave it alone.”

Farley indicated the door. “Beat it!”

“You pig! You don’t care, do you?”

“All right! There’s something out there! A devil. You understand devils, you Catholic bitch! There’s a devil out there and I’m going to get it off this land! That’s what I have to do!”