“I don’t think they’ll be back.”
“Nor do I. But there are always buts. Where do you suppose they’re headed?”
“South, probably. The original colony was in the San Gabriel Mountains.”
Lassiter lit a cigarette, put out the match and broke it in two before tossing it out the door. “Now if I were the Master, which God forbid, that’s the last thing I’d do, unless I wanted to be caught. Even though they’ve all put on ordinary clothes, twenty-five people in a truck and a station wagon are pretty likely to attract attention.”
“So what would you do?”
“Disperse. Drive to the nearest big city, L.A., and separate completely. They don’t stand a chance in the mountains.”
“They don’t stand much of a chance in the city, either,” Quinn said. “They have no money.”
In the back seat, lulled by the motion of the car, Mother Pureza went to sleep sucking a Life Saver. With her legs drawn up and her chin dropped on her chest, she looked like a very old foetus.
Lassiter rode in the front. When they reached the main road he turned around to frown at Quinn. “You said there was a ranch near here?”
“Yes. The turn-off’s a couple of miles down the road.”
“We’ll have to stop by and get some help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Only a city boy would ask that,” Lassiter said with a grunt. “The livestock has to be looked after. Cows can’t milk themselves. It’s a funny darn thing, the Brothers walking off and leaving behind a valuable herd like that.”
“With only a truck and a station wagon, they had no alternative.”
“I wonder if there’s any possibility that they’re hiding out in the hills near here and intend to come back for the cattle, perhaps during the night. Being a city boy, you wouldn’t understand how much a colony like the Tower depends on its livestock. The herd looked healthy and well-tended.”
“It was,” Quinn said, remembering the intensity of Brother Light’s voice as he had spoken of the cattle, the sheep, the goats. Wherever Brother Light was now, in the hills nearby, in the San Gabriel Mountains, or in the city, Quinn knew what he would be thinking of as the sun set.
The turn-off to the ranch was marked by a wooden sign, Rancho Arido, decorated with horseshoes. Half a mile up the road they were met by a man driving a jeep with a couple of collies in the back seat, barking and wagging their tails furiously.
At the approach of the sheriff’s car the man stopped the jeep and climbed out.
“What’s up, Sheriff?”
“Hello, Newhouser,” Quinn said.
Newhouser leaned over and peered through the window. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, it’s you again, Quinn.”
“Yes.”
“Thought you’d be back in Reno by this time.”
“I hit a detour.”
“You know, Quinn, it’s been kind of on my conscience, my leaving you on the road like I did. I’m glad you’re O.K. You never can tell what’ll happen.”
Quinn’s sudden deep breath was like the gasp of a man drowning in a flash flood of memories. Riding the crest of the flood was Sister Blessing, smiling a greeting to him: “Welcome, stranger... We never turn away the poor, being poor ourselves.”
“No,” he said quietly, “you never can tell what will happen.”
Twenty
At nine o’clock Quinn was still in the sheriff’s office waiting for the operator to put through a call to Charlie Featherstone on the sheriff’s private phone. When the phone finally rang, Lassitter glanced first at it, then at Quinn:
“I’m no good at this kind of thing. You answer it.”
“It’s not my duty.”
“You knew his mother, I didn’t. Answer it.”
“All right,” Quinn said. “But I prefer speaking to him alone.”
“This is my office.”
“It’s also your phone.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Lassiter said and went out, slamming the door behind him.
Quinn picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Featherstone?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“My name is Quinn. I’m calling from San Felice, California. I’ve been trying to reach you for some time.”
“I was out.”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“I’m not surprised.” Featherstone’s voice had the whine of a chronic complainer. “I never get any good news from that part of the country.”
“Your mother died this afternoon.”
For a long time there was no response. Then, “I warned her, I told her she was a fool to stay there, neglecting her health, never looking after herself properly.”
“She didn’t die of neglect, Mr. Featherstone. She was poisoned.”
“Good God, what are you saying? Poisoned? My mother poisoned? How? Who did it?”
“I’m not sure of the details yet.”
“If that hell-ranting maniac is responsible, I’ll tear that holy carcass of his apart.”
“It was not his fault.”
“Everything’s his fault.” Featherstone was shouting now, translating his grief into anger. “If it weren’t for him and that line of bull he shoots, she’d have been here, leading a decent life.” “Her life was decent, Mr. Featherstone. She did what she wanted to do, serve others.”
“And these others were so full of gratitude that they poisoned her? Well, it figures, from what I know of the place, it really figures. I should have suspected something funny was going on when I had a letter from her last week. I should have—should have acted.”
He must have broken down at this point: Quinn could hear muffled sobs and a woman’s voice pleading, “Charlie, please don’t take it so hard. You did everything you could to reason with her. Please, Charlie.”
After a time Quinn said, “Mr. Featherstone? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Yes, I— Go on.”
“Before she died, she spoke your name. I thought you’d want to know that.”
“I don’t. I don’t want to know it.”
“Sorry.”
“She was my mother. It was my duty to look after her, and I couldn’t do a thing once that madman got to her with a line that wouldn’t fool a two-year-old child. Other women lose their husbands, it doesn’t mean they have to stop wearing shoes.”
“About that letter she wrote you—”
“There were two letters,” Featherstone said. “One was a short note telling me she felt well and happy and not to worry about her. The other letter was in a sealed envelope which I was to post here in Evanston as a favor to her.”
“Did she explain why?”
“Only that the letter would clear up a situation that was making someone unhappy. I thought it was just some more of her religious nonsense so I posted it. It was an air-mail letter addressed to a woman named Mrs. O’Gorman, in Chicote, California.”
“What about the handwriting?”
“It wasn’t my mother’s. It looked more like a kid’s, third- or fourth-grade level, or perhaps it was other-handed writing.”
“Other-handed?”
“Written left-handed by a right-handed person, or vice versa. Or else whoever wrote it was semiliterate.”
He was, Quinn thought. It must have been a chore for Brother Crown to have written the letter at all. Why had he done it? Fear of dying before receiving absolution? It hardly seemed possible. He appeared to be in excellent health, much better than any of the rest of them. If fear hadn’t motivated his confession, what had? Or who had?
Quinn recalled his second visit to the Tower when he had gone to see Sister Blessing, in isolation for her sins. He had told her about Martha O’Gorman and her uncertainty over her husband’s death: “She deserves a break. Give it to her if you can, Sister. You’re a generous woman.” He had thought Sister Blessing wasn’t listening to him, but she must have heard, must have considered Martha O’Gorman’s plight and then gone to Brother Crown, demanding that he write the letter and set the record straight. She was a persuasive, strong-minded woman, and Brother Crown had agreed to her demand.