Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (16 page)

 
          
“Your
father?”

 
          
“He
thinks I’m a m-m—” Her teeth were beginning to chatter as if with cold. “Murderess,”
she whispered; and then she was clinging to him again, shivering violently. He
led her to the bed and wrapped a blanket around her; she clutched it to her.
Her face looked up to him. “This is perfectly silly!” she gasped, and her voice
was suddenly quite sane, but her whole body was trembling.

 
          
He
sat beside her and held her against him. A shadow fell over them. He looked up
to see Mrs. Pruitt with a small filled glass in her hand.

 
          
“Give
her this,” the older woman said. “Pete’s heating up some grub and coffee.”

 
          
Emmett
looked at her and saw himself accepted. He said, “Have him put gas in the car,
will you? You have a pump?”

 
          
Mrs.
Pruitt studied him for a moment before nodding. “Yes, we’ve got a pump. But
might be it would be better if Pete brought it over in a five-gallon can. Pump’s
right over by the stable where anybody can see.”

 
          
“That’s
fine,” Emmett said. “Use the pump and turn on the lights.”

 
          
“I
hope you know what you’re doing, Sonny.”

 
          
“You,”
said Emmett, “and me both, Mom. And don’t let anybody use your phone, Mom.”

 
          
The
woman’s eyes smiled slowly. “Okay, Sonny. Okay.”

 
          
When
she had left he sat holding the girl, who had begun to cry softly. He waited
for her to stop crying and wondered, as he had before, how he had ever got into
this.

 
          
Half
an hour later they came into the kitchen to find the small man busy at the coal
range; when he turned to wave them to seats at the oilcloth-covered table,
Emmett saw that the double-action revolver was missing from his belt. Ann
Nicholson sat down in the chair he held for her. He heard her laugh
uncertainly.

 
          
“I’m
quite, quite drunk,” she breathed. “Everything is wonderfully hazy.” Her eyes
were still not quite normal, but it was a good effort nevertheless.

 
          
“It’ll
do that on an empty stomach. You’ll be all right as soon as you get some food,”
Mrs. Pruitt said.

 
          
The
girl smiled at her, her hands buttering a roll with hungry haste. Emmett
studied the small drawn face across the corner of the table. He saw the smile
and the words she had been about to speak die on her lips; he realized that he
was not looking very happy. He straightened up in his chair and reached for the
coffee pot. Pete Mack put steaming plates in front of them.

 
          
“At
this time of night,” the small man said, “you take ham and eggs, and I don’t
give a damn who you are.”

 
          
Presently
Emmett rose and caught Mrs. Pruitt’s eye and walked into the living room. The
woman came in behind him, walked past him, and stood regarding the snarling
dead bear.

 
          
“I
call him Amos,” she said. “He looks kind of like him, doesn’t he?”

 
          
They
were in a dead world peopled by ghosts that had lived before the war. Emmett
did not speak. She tapped the animal on the nose and turned to face him.

 
          
“Your
car’s all ready, Mr. Emmett. Gas and tires O.K. Your duffle’s in the trunk.”

 
          
“How
many calls did you get about her?” Emmett asked.

 
          
“Two,”
Mrs. Pruitt said. “Her father and a doctor Einsinger, who claimed she was an
escaped patient from Young’s Valley. Is she?”

 
          
Emmett
said, “They were going to put her in, but she got away from them.”

 
          
“Is
she crazy?”

 
          
Emmett
said, “Why ask me?”

 
          
“Do
you know what you’re doing, Sonny?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
“Do
you want a gun?”

 
          
Emmett
shook his head. “How did you know where to call me?” he asked.

 
          
“You
said in your letter you’d be stopping at the Harvester, Sonny.”

 
          
“Did
I?”

 
          
For
the first time her direct glance wavered.

 
          
Emmett
said, “You never got a call from a
Denver
number: Arapahoe six two six two.”

 
          
Mrs.
Pruitt asked, “How would I know the number that was calling?”

 
          
“He’d
have you call back. He’d have you look up the number, or ask the operator to
give you the number, and call him back, so you wouldn’t take his word for whom
you were talking to.”

 
          
“What’s
his name?”

 
          
“Kirkpatrick,”
Emmett said. “That’s the one I talked to. There’s another one in the office
named Long. You never talked to either of them?”

 
          
“No,”
Mrs. Pruitt said. After a pause, she went deliberately on, “We don’t have much
truck with federal men up here, except the
Forest
Service… You’re sure you don’t want a gun?
I’ve got an old one nobody’d ever trace; Amos took it off a drunk in a bar
once.”

 
          
“No,”
Emmett said. “The hell with guns. I might shoot somebody, and then where would
I be?”

 
          
Walking
back into the kitchen behind her, he reflected on the unpublicized side of
adventure; you got tired, you got sleepy, and you could not keep from worrying
how what you were doing now would affect what you would like to be doing a year
from now. Or ten years from now, he thought. He lit his pipe and watched the
girl cleaning the second, or maybe the third, helping from her plate. The food
had put a little color in her face. She looked up and saw him.

 
          
“Let’s
get going,” he said.

 
          
“Let
the child finish eating,” Mrs. Pruitt said.

 
          
Ann
Nicholson got up quickly, wiping her mouth on the napkin. “I’m all through,”
she said, and turned to the small man by the stove. “Thanks ever so much, Mr.
Mack. It tasted wonderful.”

 
          
Mrs.
Pruitt said, “Don’t let it go to your head, Pete. After starving herself for
two days, she’d think a horse was tenderloin.”

 
          
Emmett
watched the girl begin to laugh, glance at him, stop, and go out through the
door; in the slacks and shirt she seemed smaller and still, in a way, more
human and durable, than he remembered her. He walked slowly to the door and
turned to look at Mrs. Pruitt.

 
          
Mrs.
Pruitt said, “I’m betting that girl’s all right.”

 
          
He
was a little tired of Mrs. Pruitt’s carefully rough-hewn picturesqueness; and
he reflected that it was very easy to be magnanimous and kindly about a girl
you weren’t ever going to see again.

 
          
“You
are?” He asked, “What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

 
          
She
laughed at his irritability. “So long,” she said. “And watch your step, Sonny.”

 
          
“So
long. And thanks a lot,” he said. “Mom.”

 
          
Ann
was waiting for him at the car. He opened the door for her, and closed it
behind her, and walked around to get in beside her. He felt curiously
breathless. The feeling had nothing to do with the girl; it was as far removed
from sex and love as any emotion could be. He glanced at an object in his hand,
and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

 
          
“What
was that, Mr. Emmett?” Ann asked. He remembered her naive way of asking
questions.

 
          
“A
nail,” he said. “A ten-penny nail. It was on the steps. Mrs. Pruitt must have
been doing some carpentering.” He glanced at her as he turned on the lights and
started the car. “Turn around so you can look behind,” he said. “I want to know
if anybody is following us.”

 
          
The
road climbed up to the ridge above
Hogback
Lake
and followed it for a mile, the lake
gleaming black in the darkness below and behind them; then plunged down into
the canyon on the far side. Emmett let the convertible down the grade in second
gear, dragging the engine. The headlights showed alternately raw earth
cutbanks, to the left; and to the right, the tops of small pine trees rising
out of the darkness.

 
          
“I
can’t see anything yet,” Ann said, kneeling on the seat to look behind.

 
          
Emmett
said, “He’s going to kill himself on this road, running without lights.”

 
          
“Who
is it?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” he said. “Probably a guy named Plaice who works for your father;
although I thought your old man had convinced himself you weren’t up here.
Maybe he just sent somebody to follow me and make sure. Anyway, there was
somebody trailing the bus up the
Summit
, and I thought I caught a glimpse of him
behind us, coming out to the Lodge.”

 
          
She
crouched on the seat beside him. “It’s just as if the war had never stopped,”
she whispered. “And it’s even worse in a way because you feel like such a
dreadful fool all the time; as if you were playing a sort of silly drunken
game. At least, during the war, everybody else was doing the same thing.”

 
          
He
glanced at her, a little startled by the accuracy with which she had described
his own feeling of embarrassment and isolation at having to think and act like
a character in a cheap melodrama. He had a guilty sense of having
underestimated her. She returned his look briefly.

 
          
“I
prayed you would come,” she said. “Really. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I
mean somebody I’d never met before. But there wasn’t anything else left to pray
for. There wasn’t anybody else. Dad… seems to have given me up as hopeless.”
She hesitated. “I couldn’t even make myself go outside the cabin. Just wait and
hope you’d come.”

 
          
Emmett
did not say anything.

 
          
“He
tried to kill me,” she said. “He tried to
kill
me!”

 
          
“Take
it easy,” he said, watching the road.

 
          
“I’m
all right,” she said. “Really, I’m all right. I won’t make another exhibition
of myself. Don’t sound as if you thought I… I’m all right.”

 
          
“I
know you are,” he said.

 
          
She
said, “… and suddenly I began to wonder if the
other
time, eighteen months ago…” Her voice trailed off. “I never
really remembered,” she said after a while. “It was just the same way. She gave
me the pill, I was getting one every night, then; and when I woke up they were
doing things to me and everybody said I’d tried to… But I never really
remembered doing it.” Her voice died away and started over again. “In those
days I was having so many dreams. I’d often thought about… I didn’t really know…
It was easier just to let them think… I wanted to go to the hospital.” She kept
running down, and having to wind herself up again. “But
she
saved me, that time. At least they said it was she who found
me. And it was
he
who treated me for
it. Shouldn’t that prove they didn’t…? It gets all mixed up when I try to think
about it.”

 
          
The
car rolled out across the mountain meadow at the bottom of the canyon, crossed
the bridged stream in the center, and began the long grind up again in second,
finally in low.

 
          
“In
Boyne
,” she said, “you saved my life, didn’t you?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
She
glanced at him, and he heard her sigh as if giving up the idea of thanking him.

 
          
“I
still can’t see anybody,” she said presently, raising herself to look through
the rear window. “Are you sure—?”

 
          
“He
may have spotted your car at the Lodge and headed back to town to telephone,”
Emmett said. “If he does, we’re sunk. There are only two ways to go from
Summit
: back toward
Denver
, or west across the pass. With your dad’s
money, he can probably manage to have both ends covered, if he’s notified in
time. But I’m hoping the guy didn’t dare take the gamble of leaving us to hunt
for the telephone, for fear we’d take a couple of Mrs. Pruitt’s horses and head
back into the mountains before he could get back to keep an eye on us.” He
shrugged. “Well, we’ll find out.”

 
          
Ann
asked, “What happens if Dad catches us?” Emmett did not answer at once, and she
said, “He wants to have me committed to an institution, doesn’t he? I heard him
talking to Dr. Kaufman.”

 
          
Emmett
nodded.

 
          
She
asked, “What will he do to you?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” he said. “He threatened to have me blackballed if I didn’t
cooperate. I’ll believe he can do it when I see it happen.”

 
          
“Then…
you’re taking quite a risk for me.”

 
          
“I’m
glad you appreciate that,” he said dryly. “And don’t forget the ten thousand
dollars.”

 
          
“Ten
thousand!”

 
          
“That
he offered me for letting him know if you got in touch with me.”

 
          
She
glanced at him, remaining silent.

 
          
He
said, “Not to mention the check for five hundred that I tore up in
Boyne
. For saving your life and keeping my mouth
shut.” He let his voice change. “Don’t be silly, Nicholson. Let’s not get
started on big words like gratitude and appreciation.”

 
          
She
hesitated. “I wish you wouldn’t call me Nicholson,” she said at last.

 
          
“All
right: Ann,” he said, and paused a moment, as if her given name had raised an
obstacle to going on. “Look, Ann,” he said, “I’ve spent my whole life being
sensible. I became a chemist when I wanted to become a free-lance photographer—that’s
why I still keep lugging that damn camera around; I worked my way through
college with the thing—because I didn’t quite have… well, I didn’t know if I
had what it took to make a living in a cut-throat field like that. I knew I
could always get some kind of a routine job in chemistry. Then the war came
along. I wanted to go; and still, I didn’t particularly like the idea of
getting killed, and I again wasn’t quite sure that I had what was needed. So I
compromised: I figured I’d do the best I could as a civilian and leave the
decision up to the draft board.”

 
          
The
car lurched, throwing her shoulder against him; he stiffened his arm to support
her.

 
          
“Hang
on,” he said. “Well, the trouble with being sensible is that it’s a sort of
self-limiting reaction. Every time you make another safe, prudent decision, you
raise the pressure another notch. One day the time will have come when you just
say to hell with it. You say, this time, just once, I’m going to act like a
reckless damn fool. This one time I’m going to play my hunches and blow the works
and get it out of my system.”

 
          
“And…
am I one of your hunches?” the girl beside him asked.

 
          
He
did not answer her directly. He said irritably, “People trying to bribe me.
People trying to scare me. People trying to kid me with double-talk. It was,”
he said, “well, sort of a challenge.”

 
          
The
car negotiated the last rise and the headlights burst out into the open barren
country, the road two deep ruts across the high meadows. Every so often the
transmission would hit bottom with a scraping sound.

 
          
She
glanced at him. “In other words, you’re not doing it for me, you’re sort of
doing it for yourself.”

 
          
He
ignored the trace of amusement in her voice. “That’s right,” he said. “And for
a gent from the FBI who claims to think I’m a communist agent with designs on
Reinhard Kissel’s life.”

 
          
He
felt her start. “A com—!” She caught her breath. “But that’s just ridiculous!”

 
          
“Thanks,”
he said.

 
          
“Did
he really say that?”

 
          
“Yes,”
Emmett said. “You were my Trojan horse, so to speak. I was planning to use you
to get in and see Kissel, whom I would then shoot with a gun disguised as a
fountain pen.”

 
          
Ann
laughed uncertainly, clearly half convinced that he was joking.

 
          
“I’m
not kidding,” he said. “That’s what the man said. Of course, we can make a
distinction between what Comrade Kirkpatrick says and what he means, Comrade
Nicholson. If the federal Comrade really wanted you to be kept from seeing Dr.
Kissel, why did he have Mrs. Pruitt get in touch with me, instead of turning
you over to your dad, who’d have been delighted to take you out of circulation?”

 
          
“You
mean, he knew I was—?”

 
          
“Damn
right, he knew,” Emmett said. “That woman back there talks in circles, too, but
she let me know that much.”

 
          
“Oh,
I liked her!” Ann protested.

 
          
“Yes,
I love her like a mother, but she will be cryptic,” Emmett said ruefully. “However,
there’s no doubt from what she hinted that Kirkpatrick knew you were there; and
I suspect he pretty well told Mrs. Pruitt how to behave. I can’t see Mrs.
Pruitt sticking her neck out as far as she did without orders. Suppose you’d
been lured up to her place by some blackmailing Casanova; she hadn’t seen me
for ten years, how did she know what kind of a heel I’d turned out to be? She
was taking an awful risk of having her place in the papers as another weekend
love-nest; she could have been ruined, with your dad and your doctor calling up
like that. Granted that she has a heart of gold, it was an awful chance to take
for a girl she’d never seen before and a guy she’d met only once for a couple
of weeks ten years ago. No,” he said, “I think she had her instructions.”

 
          
“But
why…?” Ann licked her lips.

 
          
“If
I knew that,” Emmett said, “I’d be a lot happier. I mean, is he giving you rope
to hang yourself with; or is he setting a trap for somebody else?”

 
          
“But
why should the FBI be interested in Dr. Kissel at all?” she demanded. “I don’t
understand. I thought he was just teaching at
Fairmount
University
.”

 
          
Emmett
told her.

 
          
“I
don’t like that,” she whispered when he was through, her voice barely audible over
the sound of the motor. She clung to the back of the seat, looking through the
rear window. There was nothing there, Emmett saw, glancing at the mirror; only
the black saw-toothed horizon of pines against a gun-metal sky.
“I don’t like that!”
Ann breathed, a
small edge of hysteria in her voice now. “It’s as if people were going out of
their way to make things complicated.”

 
          
Emmett
said, “Are you just beginning to catch on? They are.” She did not say anything,
and he went on, abruptly changing the subject, “You woke up in
Boyne
, knowing that Dr. Kaufman had tried to kill
you, yet you didn’t mention it to anybody. You came out of the room on his arm,
letting him touch you, the man who’d tried to murder you; you drove off, with
him in the car. Not a word about his trying to poison you; at least your father
seemed to have no suspicions of Kaufman when I saw them in
Denver
.” He glanced at her quickly. “What’s the
matter, were you afraid your dad had something to do with it, that they were
both in it together? Were you afraid to bring it out into the open? Is that why
you ran away instead of accusing Dr. Kaufman?”