A hundred yards of it between me and the safety of the trees on the ranch-house side of the valley. I lay down flat on the ground for a few exhausted minutes, looking up at the dawn-filled sky: a high clear pale blue taking over from grey. The tracks of the mares and foals and both the stallions led straight uphill. I gave the wranglers time to go some way after them, and then quietly got to my feet and slipped unhurriedly across the sage brush and down through the trees to my cabin.
It was ten past six. Broad daylight.
I pulled off my filthy sweaty clothes and ran a deep hot bath. Tiredness had gone down to the bone, and the water tingled like a friction rub on my skin. Relaxing, reviving, I stayed in it for half an hour.
The tape played back for me the heavy knocking on Yola’s door and the head wrangler telling her that the mares and stallions were out.
‘What do you mean, out?’
‘The tracks lead down to the bridge. They’re out on the hills.’
‘What?’ Yola’s voice screeched as the full meaning hit her. ‘They can’t be.’
‘They sure are.’ The wrangler’s voice was much calmer. He didn’t know the size of the disaster: wasn’t in the game. ‘But I can’t understand it. The padlock was fastened like you said it must be, when I checked around yesterday evening.’
‘Get them back,’ said Yola sharply. ‘Get them back.’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘That new stallion. Get him. Get him back.’
There were sounds after that of drawers being pulled roughly open, and a door slamming, and silence. Yola was out looking for Chrysalis. And, Chrysalis was on his way to Kentucky.
The ranch guests knew all about it, at breakfast.
‘What a fuss,’ Wilkie said. ‘You’d think they’d lost the deeds to a goldmine.’
They had.
‘I’m glad they found the dear little foals anyway,’ Samantha said.
‘They’ve found them?’ I asked. The small paddock was still empty.
‘They’ve put them in the barn,’ agreed Mickey. ‘With their mothers.’
‘Someone left the gate unlocked,’ Betty-Ann told me. ‘Isn’t it a shame? Yola’s obviously in a fearful state.’
Yola had been in the dining room when I strolled in to breakfast, standing silent and rigid by the kitchen door, checking that all the guests were there, looking for signs of guilt.
Poise had deserted her. The hair was roughly tied with a ribbon at the nape of her neck and the lipstick was missing. There had been no professional reassuring smiles. A muscle twitched in the strong jaw and she hadn’t been in control of the wildness in her eyes.
I ate a double order of bacon and buckwheat hot-cakes with maple syrup, and drank three cups of coffee.
Betty-Ann opposite me lit a cigarette and said did I have to leave, couldn’t I stay another few days. Wilkie gruffly said they shouldn’t try to keep a feller. Wilkie had cottoned on, and was glad to see me go.
Strong footsteps came into the room from the door behind me. Betty-Ann looked over my head and her eyes widened.
‘Why hello there,’ she exclaimed warmly, transferring her attentions. ‘How good to see you.’
Wilkie, I thought in amusement, should be used to it by now. But the Wilkersons’ problems blinked out of my mind for ever when someone else called the new man by his name.
Matt.
Matt Clive spoke from behind my shoulder; a drawling bass voice under strict control.
‘Listen folks. I guess you know we’ve had a little trouble here this morning. Someone let out the mares and horses from their paddock over there. Now if it was any of you kids, we’d sure like to know about it.’
There was a short silence. The various children looked uncomfortable and their parents’ eyebrows peaked into question marks.
‘Or if anyone knows that the gate wasn’t properly fastened yesterday at any time?’
More silence.
Matt Clive walked tentatively round the long table, into my line of sight. About Yola’s age, Yola’s height. Same jawline. Same strong body, only more so. I remembered the two bedrooms in their cabin: the ring-less fingers of Yola’s hand. Yola’s brother, Matt. I drank my coffee and avoided meeting his eyes.
One or two of the guests laughingly mentioned rustlers, and someone suggested calling in the police. Matt said they were seriously thinking of it. One of the stallions was quite valuable. But only, of course, if it was absolutely certain that none of the guests had left the gate open by accident.
Sympathetic murmurs were all he got. He might indeed be brave enough, or desperate enough, to call in the police. But if he did, they wouldn’t recover Chrysalis, who should by now be hundreds of miles away on a roundabout route, accompanied by a strictly legal bill of sale.
Matt eventually went away, trailing a thunderous aura and leaving the guests unsettled and embarrassed.
I asked the girl who waited at table if she could fetch my account for me, as I wanted to pay up before leaving, and after an interval she returned with it. I gave her cash, and waited while she wrote a receipt.
The Wilkerson family said their goodbyes, as they were hoping to go riding if any of the wranglers had come back from searching for the missing horse, and I walked unhurriedly back to my cabin to finish packing. Up the two steps, across the porch, through the two doors, and into the room.
Yola came out of the bathroom carrying a rifle. The way she handled it showed she knew how to use it. Matt stepped from behind the curtained closet, between me and the way out. No rifle for him. A shotgun.
I put on the puzzled act, German accent stronger.
‘Excuse me. I do not understand.’
‘It’s the same man,’ Matt said. ‘Definitely.’
‘Where’s our horse?’ said Yola furiously.
‘I do not know,’ I said truthfully, spreading my hands out in a heavy shrug. ‘Why do you ask such a question?’
Both the guns were pointing steadfastly my way.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘I have my packing to finish. I have paid the bill. I am leaving this morning.’
‘You’re not going anywhere, friend,’ Matt said grimly.
‘Why not?’
‘You get that horse back here, and then you can go. Not before.’
He was going to have a fine old time if he intended to keep a prisoner silent indefinitely on a ranch full of holiday guests.
‘I can’t get him back,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where he is. Several friends of mine, however, do know where I am. They will be expecting me to be leaving here this morning.’
They stared at me in silent fury. Children in crime, I thought, for all their ingenuity. They had walked straight in with their guns without thinking clearly through. They were, however, lethal children, ruled by impulse more than reason.
I said, ‘I am unlikely to go around saying “I stole a horse from the Clives.” If you do nothing, and I now drive safely away, you may hear no more of it. That’s the best I can offer. You will not, whatever you do, recover the horse.’
The only sensible course open to them was to let me go. But Yola’s finger tightened on the trigger, and I reluctantly decided it was time for the Luger. Watching her, I saw a split second too late in the looking glass that Matt had taken a step behind me and was swinging his gun butt like a bludgeon.