My hand had been bleeding. I hadn’t even felt it. I looked dispassionately at the scraped skin, and loathed myself. I shut my eyes, and the desolation went so deep that for an unmeasurable age I felt dizzy with it, as if I were in some fearful pitch black limbo, with no help, no hope, and no escape. Spinning slowly down an endless shaft in solitary despair. Lost.
The spinning stopped, after a while. The internal darkness stayed.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the farm, only half seeing it, feeling myself trembling and knowing that there wasn’t much farther to go.
Matt came out of the house, walked across the yard, took a look into the barn, and retraced his steps. I watched him in a disorientated haze: those horses in the barn, what did they matter? What did anything matter? Who cared a sixpenny damn about blood lines, it would all be the same in a hundred years.
Dave Teller cared.
Let him.
Dave Teller cared a ten thousand dollar damn what happened to them.
Crystal clear, like distilled water logic, it occurred to me that I could give us both what we wanted if I postponed my walk into the desert until later that night. I would pack the horses off with Hengelman, and instead of driving back to Kingman after him, I would set off on foot, and when it was nearly dawn, and everything looked grey and shadowy, and the step would be small... then...
Then.
I felt, immediately after making this firm decision, which seemed to me extremely sensible, a great invasion of peace. No more struggle, no more fuss. My body felt relaxed and full of well-being, and my mind was calm. I couldn’t think why such an obvious solution hadn’t occurred to me before. All the sweat and sleeplessness had dissolved into a cool, inner, steady light.
This stage lasted until I remembered that I had once been determined not to reach it.
After that, creeping in little by little, came the racking conviction that I had merely surrendered, and was not only despicable but probably insane.
I sat for a while with my head in my hands, fearfully expecting that with the false peace broken up and gone, back would come the shattering vertigo.
It didn’t. There was only so great a tiredness that what I’d called tiredness before was like a pinhead on a continent. The dreary fight was on again; but at least I’d survived the bloodiest battle yet. Touched bottom and come back. I felt that after this I really could climb right out, if I went on trying.
A long way to go. But then, I’d have all the time I needed.
Chapter Seventeen
I had cramp right down both legs. Matt came out of the house and I woke up to find that the shade patch had moved round while I hadn’t. When he went into the barn I started to shift the necessary two yards and found my muscles in knots.
The shade wasn’t much cooler, but much better cover. I sat in it waiting for Matt to come out of the barn and for my legs to unlock. What they needed was for me to get to my feet and stamp about: but if Matt caught sight of anyone moving so close to him the whole project would lie in ruins.
He fetched water for the horses, for the calves, and for the hens. I looked at my watch, and was horribly startled to see it was nearly six. It couldn’t be, I thought; but it was. Four hours since I last checked. Four hours. I shivered in the roasting air.
Matt brought the empty muck barrow around and into the barn, and came out with it filled. For the whole afternoon I’d fallen down on the surveillance, but looking back I was fairly sure nothing had changed at the farm. Certainly at this point things were as they had been: Matt had no helpers and no visitors, and when he left for Las Vegas the horses would be alone. For that piece of certainty I had been prepared to watch all day, and a poor job I’d made of it.
Matt shut the barn door and went into the house. Half an hour later he came out in a cream-coloured jacket and dark trousers, a transformation from his habitual jeans and a checked shirt. He opened the doors of the shed containing the car, went inside, started up, and drove out across the yard, round the bend on to the road, and away over the desert towards Kingman.
Satisfied, I finally got to my feet. The cramps had gone. I plodded tiredly off to the two-mile distant hidden car, and wished the night was over, not beginning. I hadn’t enough energy to lick a stamp.
Matt’s dust had settled when I followed him along the empty road, but when I got into Kingman he was still there. With shock I saw him standing outside a garage I was passing, and I drew into the kerb fifty yards on and looked back. The black saloon he had hired and his own blue Ford were both standing there in the forecourt. An overalled girl attendant was filling the Ford’s tank from the pump, and Matt was looking in snatches at his watch and exhibiting impatience. Seven-twenty; and a hundred miles to Las Vegas. He would be a few minutes late for his appointment with Walt.
Slumping down in my seat I fixed the driving mirror so that I could watch him. He paid the girl for the petrol and hopped into his car over the top, without opening the door. Then he pulled out on to the road, turned in my direction, and went past me with his foot impressively on the accelerator. I gently followed for a while at a respectable distance, content to keep him only just in sight, and turned back to the town once he was conclusively topping the speed limit on Route 93 to Las Vegas.
Outside the unprosperous looking Mojave Motel Sam Hengelman’s horse van took up a sixth of the parking space. Inside, they told me that he had arrived at four-thirty and was along in Room 6, sleeping. I left him to it, because we couldn’t move anyway until I’d phoned Walt at eight, and went into the bus station for some coffee. It came in a plastic carton out of an automat, black but weak. I drank it without tasting and thought about some food, but I wasn’t really hungry enough to bother, and I was too dirty and unshaven for anywhere good. Until after eight I sat on the bus station bench staring into space, and then used the bus station telephone to get through to Walt.
He came on the line with little delay.
‘How’s things?’ he said.
‘Matt left Kingman for Las Vegas at seven-thirty, so he will be a little late.’
‘Left Kingman?’ Walt sounded surprised.
I explained about Matt changing cars.
‘I suppose his Ford wasn’t quite ready when he got there. Anyway, he’s coming in that, not the hired one.’
Are you all right?’ Walt said hesitantly.
‘Of course.’
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘Sam Hengelman’s here,’ I said, ignoring him. ‘He’s asleep along at the Mojave Motel. We’ll start as soon as I get back there and wake him up.’
‘It’s all safe at the farm?’ He seemed anxious.
‘Deserted,’ I assured him. ‘Has been all yesterday, all last night, and all today. No one around but Matt. Stop worrying. You just see Matt and put on your act, and then head straight back to Santa Barbara. As soon as Sam’s clear of the area I’ll follow you. See you for breakfast about twelve hours from now.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well... keep your nose clean.’
‘You too.’
‘Sure thing. It’s not me that’s nuts.’
The line clicked clear before I found an answer, and it left me with a vague feeling that there was more I should have said, though I didn’t know what.
I knocked on Sam’s door at the motel, and he came sleepily stretching to switch on the light and let me in.
‘With you in a minute,’ he said, reaching for his shoes and looking round for his tie.
‘Sam, you don’t have to come.’
‘Eh?’
‘Go back to sleep. I’ll go and fetch the horses. That way you won’t be so involved.’