The sheriff was saying, "The copper mine is the biggest employer at this end of the state."
"Okay, we'll put the girl to work in the copper mine."
He stiffened. "What in hell do you mean by that? Nobody said anything about putting her to work."
"It was just a joke."
"It's not funny. We've got to get her out of that funny farm before some harm comes to her. My wife and I can put her up for the night. We have a nice spare room-it used to be our own daughter's room. Let's get going, eh?"
The sheriff left Fred in the deputy's custody and drove me up the mountain in his official car. He parked it in the lane behind Fred's old blue Ford. A dented white moon watched us over the mountain's shoulder.
The big house in the canyon was dark and silent, its stillness hardly broken by a man's random snore, a girl's faint crying. The crying girl turned out to be Doris. She came to the door when I called her name. She had on a white flannelette nightgown that covered her like a tent from the neck down. Her eyes were wide and dark and her face was wet.
"Get your clothes on, honey," the sheriff said. "We're taking you out of this place."
"But I like it here."
"You wouldn't like it if you stayed. This is no place for a girl like you, Miss Biemeyer."
Her body stiffened and her chin came up. "You can't make me leave."
The leader had come up behind her, not too close. He didn't speak. He seemed to be watching the sheriff with the detachment of a spectator at somebody else's funeral.
"Don't be like that, now, will you?" the sheriff said to Doris. "I've got a daughter of my own, I know how it is. We all like a little adventure. But then it comes time to get back to normal living."
"I'm not normal," she said.
"Don't worry, you will be, honey. What you need is to find the right young man. The same thing happened to my girl. She went and lived in a commune in Seattle for a year. But then she came back and found Mr. Right, and they've got two children now and everybody's happy."
"I'm never going to have any children," she said.
But she put on her clothes and went out to the sheriff's car with him. I lingered behind with the leader. He stepped out onto the porch, moving rather uncertainly. In the light from the sky, his eyes and his white hair seemed faintly phosphorescent.
"She would have been welcome to stay with us."
"For a price?"
"We all contribute as we can. We practice tithing, each paying according to his ability. My own contribution is largely spiritual. Some of us earn our keep at humbler tasks."
"Where did you study theology?"
"In the world," he said. "Benares, Camarillo, Lompoc. I admit I don't have a degree. But I've done a great deal of counseling. I find myself able to help people. I could have helped Miss Biemeyer. I doubt that the sheriff can." He reached out and touched my arm with his long thin hand. "I believe I could help you."
"Help me do what?"
"Do nothing, perhaps." He spread his arms wide in an actorish gesture. "You seem to be a man engaged in an endless battle, an endless search. Has it ever occurred to you that the search may be for yourself? And that the way to find yourself is to be still and silent, silent and still?" He dropped his arms to his sides.
I was tired enough to be taken by his questions, and to find myself repeating them in my mind. They were questions I had asked myself, though never in just those terms. Perhaps, after all, the truth I was looking for couldn't be found in the world. You had to go up on a mountain and wait for it, or find it in yourself.
But even as I was taking a short-term lease on a piece of this thought, I was watching the lights of Copper City framed in the canyon mouth, and planning what I would do there in the morning.
"I don't have any money."
"Neither do I," he said. "But there seems to be enough for everyone. Money is the least of our worries."
"You're lucky."
He disregarded my irony. "I'm glad you see that. We're very lucky indeed."
"Where did you get the money to buy this place?"
"Some of our people have income." The idea seemed to please him, and he smiled. "We may not go in for worldly show, but this isn't exactly a poorhouse. Of course it isn't all paid for."
"I'm not surprised. I understand it cost you over a hundred thousand dollars."
His smile faded. "Are you investigating us?"
"I have no interest in you at all, now that the girl is out of here."
"We did her no harm," he said quickly. "I'm not suggesting you did."
"But I suppose the sheriff will be bothering us now. Simply because we gave shelter to Biemeyer's daughter."
"I hope not. I'll put in a word with him, if you like."
"I would like, very much." He relaxed visibly and then audibly, letting out a long sighing breath.
"In return for which," I said, "you can do something for me."
"What is it?" He was suspicious of me again.
"Help me to get in touch with Mildred Mead."
He spread his hands, palms up. "I wouldn't know how. I don't have her address."
"Aren't you making payments to her for this house?"
"Not directly. Through the bank. I haven't seen her since she went to California. That was several months ago."
"Which bank is handling the account?"
"The Copper City branch of Southwestern Savings. They'll tell you I'm not a swindler. I'm not, you know."
I believed him, provisionally. But he had two voices. One of them belonged to a man who was reaching for a foothold in the spiritual world. The other voice, which I had just been listening to, belonged to a man who was buying a place in the actual world with other people's money.
It was an unstable combination. He could end as a con man, or a radio preacher with a million listeners, or a bartender with a cure of souls in Fresno. Perhaps he had already been some of those things.
But I trusted him up to a point. I gave him the keys to the blue Ford and asked him to keep it for Fred, just in case Fred ever came back that way.
XXII
We drove back down the mountain to the substation and found Fred sitting inside with the deputy. I couldn't tell at first glance whether he was a prisoner or a patient. He had an adhesive bandage across the bridge of his nose and cotton stuffed up his nostrils. He looked like a permanent loser.
The sheriff, who was a small winner, went into the inner office to make a phone call. His voice was a smooth blend of confidence and respect. He was making arrangements to fly Doris home in a copper-company jet.
He lifted his head, flushed and bright-eyed, and offered me the receiver. "Mr. Biemeyer wants to talk to you."
I didn't really want to talk to Biemeyer, now or ever. But I took the receiver and said into it, "This is Archer."
"I've been expecting to hear from you," he said. "After all, I'm paying you good money."
I didn't remind him that his wife had paid me. "You're hearing from me now."
"Thanks to Sheriff Brotherton. I know how you private dicks operate. You let the men in uniform do the work and then you step in and take the credit."
For a hotheaded instant, I was close to hanging up on Biemeyer. I had to remind myself that the case was far from over. The stolen painting was still missing. There were two unsolved murders, Paul Grimes's and now William Mead's.
"There's credit enough for everybody," I said. "We have your daughter and she's in reasonably good shape. I gather she'll be flying home tomorrow in one of your planes."
"First thing in the morning. I was just finalizing the arrangement with Sheriff Brotherton."
"Could you hold that plane until late morning or so? I have some things to do in Copper City, and I don't think your daughter should travel unaccompanied."