Elmore Leonard - Escape from Five Shadows

It was almost ten o’clock, the next morning, before Karla finished helping her father with the monthly report to the main office. She put aside the mail for the convict camp, then saddled her horse and brought it around to the front of the adobe. The next quarter of an hour was spent carrying in water from the pump to the big wooden tub in her bedroom. Her cold-water bath took only a few minutes and after it she brushed her hair and put on a fresh blouse and skirt.

John Demery’s eyes studied her appraisingly as she came out of her bedroom. “Something special about today?”

Karla smiled. “I don’t have time to be drawn into one of your traps.”

“You’re the only girl I know who can look dressed up in a man’s shirt. Maybe if Willis had seen you, he would’ve stayed.”

“Mr. Falvey was here?”

“He waved going by. Headed for the bar at Fuegos.”

“The last time he was here,” Karla said, “I think I frightened him. I told you-he was talking about wanting somebody to talk to-I felt sorry for him, but the way he was going about it I had to tell him to leave.”

“Well, I don’t imagine even his wife understands him,” Demery said. He picked up the small bundle of convict camp mail from the desk and handed it to Karla. “There’s a couple there for Willis. I didn’t think about it…I could’ve given them to him.”

“I’ll give them to Lizann,” Karla said.

“Don’t get too close to her,” Demery said. “Some of that gild might brush off.”

“Now…you can’t judge people just by looking at them.”

“It seems to me I said the same thing not too long ago-about a man not having to look like a jailbird to be one.”

Karla shook her head. “When you look at Corey Bowen, you know he’s good. When you look at Lizann, you give her the benefit of the doubt.” She leaned toward her father and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m going now. Before you think of something else to argue about.”

She rode for the willow stand, passed through the dim silence of the trees, then entered the vast sunlight of the slope beyond and followed the sweeping curve of wagon tracks to the shoulder of the hill. There she left the tracks, riding straight on, up into the close-growing pines that covered the crest of the hill, following a horse trail now that twisted narrowly through the trees. Coming out of the trees, the horse trail dropped down a steeper grade, crossed the wagon ruts that had circled the hill, then followed the length of a narrow grama meadow before climbing again up through fields of house-sized boulders.

A mile farther on Karla emerged from a thin, steep-walled pass to stand above the canyon which the new road followed. Far below her, the dead end of the canyon was choked with pinyon and mesquite. The brush clumps thinned gradually as they spread and finally the dusty green patches of color disappeared completely, almost evenly, before reaching the end of new road construction.

Karla walked her horse along the west rim until she reached the trail that dropped down into the canyon: a rock-slide draw that fell to a shelf, the shelf hugging the wall narrowly until it reached the floor of the canyon. Karla descended and a quarter of a mile farther on, she stopped at the waterhole among the sycamores where she had talked to Bowen.

She let her horse drink. Coming out of the trees, her gaze caught the wisp of dust farther up canyon; but she reached the stretch of new road, passed the timbers that were used for grading, passed fire-blackened circles where brush had been burned, before she saw the rider who was leading the dust trail down the wash, down into the canyon and following the road now toward her.

It was Frank Renda. As she recognized him-her gaze going to him then sharply away from him-she saw the grave and the crude cross marking it off to the side of the canyon. Renda came directly toward her, making her rein in. His horse crowded Karla’s and as their knees touched, Karla prodded her quirt at Renda’s horse, backing away as she did.

Renda was smiling and he wiped the back of his hand over his heavy mustache. “This must be my day.”

Karla was thinking of the new grave and she nodded to it, saying, “Someone was killed?” consciously making the question and the tone of her voice sound natural.

Renda followed her gaze. “Somebody tried to run away.”

“Who was it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I might have a letter for him,” Karla said. She reached back, her hand touching the strap of the left-side saddlebag.

“His name was Miller,” Renda said. Karla’s hand hesitated on the strap. Now her fingers unfastened it and she drew out the bundle of letters. “You got something for him?”

She knew there was nothing for a Miller, but she loosened the string binding the letters and leafed through them. “None for that name.”

“What about me?” Renda asked.

Karla glanced down and up again. “Nothing for you either.”

“What’s all the mail about then?”

“One for Mr. Brazil…one, two for Mr. Falvey.”

“I’ll take them back for you,” Renda said.

Karla looked up. “It’s all right. I’ll take them. You go ahead wherever you’re going.”

Renda nodded to the letters. “That’s where I was going. So I’m saving you a trip.”

“I’d just as soon ride up and leave them myself,” Karla said.

“There’s no sense in that, if you don’t have to.”

She tried to smile. “I don’t have anything to do anyway. Sunday’s a funny day. There’s nothing ever to do.”

“Let me have the mail, Karla.”

“Honestly, it’s no trouble for me to ride to the camp. I want to.”

“I don’t care where you ride,” Renda said. “Long as you give me the mail.”

She was aware of his stare and the cold, threatening tone of his voice and only then did she realize that he wanted the letters for another reason, not simply to save her a trip to the camp. Still, she hesitated.

“Karla, you hand them over else I’ll take them off you.”

“If you’re that anxious,” Karla said, “all right.” She leaned over to hand him the bundle then sat back in the saddle and watched him leaf through the envelopes. He pulled one of them out and looked at the return address on the envelope flap. Then, before Karla could speak, he had ripped open the envelope and was unfolding the letter.

“You can’t read other people’s mail!”

Not looking at her, Renda said, “Keep quiet.”

“That’s against the law!” Karla screamed. Then, more calmly, “Mr. Renda, you’re tampering with the United States mail. You can go to prison for what you just did.”

Renda looked up then. He was smiling and his eyebrows raised as if to show surprise. “I didn’t know it was a personal letter.”

“It wasn’t addressed to you!”

Renda nodded calmly. “It was addressed to Willis. But Willis ain’t at camp. What if it was something had to be tended to right away? Honey, it was my business to open it.” He held up the second letter addressed to Falvey. “This one, too,” he said, and tore it open.

The quirt, thonged to Karla’s wrist, dropped from her hand as she kicked her horse against Renda’s and reached for the letter. “Give me that!”

Renda pushed her and his horse side-stepped away. “Now don’t get excited.” She came at him again and he held her away until he finished reading the letter.

“No,” Renda said. “That one wasn’t business either.” He grinned then. “It seems Willis put in for a transfer, but this”-he glanced down at the return address on the envelope-“Everett C. Allen, of Washington, D.C., thinks Willis ought to stay right here. Says there aren’t any good openings now, but he’ll let him know when one comes along and in the meantime, superintending a”-he looked down at the letter again-“a territorial penal institution was valuable experience and would equip him for a more responsible position when the opportunity presented itself.”