from the Listening Hills (Ss) (2004) (2 page)

After buying his ticket he turned to a phone booth and, pulling the door shut, dropped a dime in the slot. After speaking with an operator and holding for a minute or so a voice responded. "Robbery-Homicide, Lieutenant Ragan speaking."

Jackson took a deep breath. "Lieutenant Ragan, don't think this is a crank call. I'm going to outline a case for you. Listen...."

Without mentioning his name he outlined his story from the moment he'd been accosted by the woman on the street. He told how he was lured into her home, that he'd been knocked out, and the plans to fire the house. He ended suddenly. "Ragan, I need help. This man, whoever he was, was killed, shot, and these people are looking for a cover story...something that doesn't implicate them. I'm not a killer, but you can see the spot I'm in, can't you?"

"I guess so," the policeman said. "What do you want from me?"

"Look into it from my angle, don't just believe everything you're told."

"We never just believe what we're told." Ragan's voice was dry, nearly expressionless. "Look, it's not my case. All I can tell you to do is to give yourself up. Just come in and let us do our job."

Monte Jackson hung the receiver gently on the hook.

He had done what he could. Once on his claim, it might be months, even years before they found him. But he knew too much to believe he could escape forever.

Yet he must have breathing space. He was in a trap, but if he had time he might think his way out or perhaps, the investigation would turn up something that led away from him. He had made an attempt to offer an element of doubt. The police might accept the woman's story, yet if they had cause to look further, what might they find?

They were calling his bus, and in a minute he was moving with the line, then boarding the bus north to Inyokern. Fortunately, it was soon moving.

WHEN THE BUS stopped at Adelanto he glanced out the window and saw someone who gave him an idea. "Hey, Jack!" he called. "How far you going?"

"Bishop," he said, walking toward Monte. "Why?"

"Look," Monte explained. "I've got to call L. A. and I've got to leave the bus here. No use to waste my ticket, so you might as well take it and ride to Inyokern, then buy one on from there."

The fellow hesitated briefly. "Sure thing. What do you want for it?"

"Don't worry about it," Jackson said, turning away quickly. Now the bus driver would never realize he had lost a passenger, and if the ticket was traced it would have been used to Inyokern.

He was a tall young man with broad shoulders and he had always walked a lot. Fortunately, the morning was cool. If he remembered correctly it was seven miles to Oro Grande on Highway 66. He started out, walking fast along the intersecting road. Yet he was in luck, for when he had gone scarcely a mile a pickup slowed and the door opened. He got in.

"Goin' far?" He was a dark-haired man in boots and Levi's.

"Oro Grande, to catch a bus for Barstow."

"Lucky," the fellow grinned, "I'm drivin' to Barstow. On to Dagget, in fact, if you care to ride that far."

At Dagget, Jackson walked over the connecting road to Yermo and waited four hours for the bus for Baker. Arriving in Baker he walked through town to the little house owned by Slim Garner, who worked the neighboring claim over in Marble Canyon. He found Slim watering his rough patch of lawn.

"Hey, Monte! Didn't think to see you here."

"Are you headed back to Death Valley? I could use a ride."

"Sure, no problem." He turned off the hose, looking around at the yard, which was mostly dirt. "I'm not here enough to grow weeds, I should give up and save the water. Put your haversack in the truck, I'll load up and we'll go."

SLIM'S POWERWAGON GROUND northward and a hot wind blustered in through the open windows. Jackson dozed in the passenger seat, trying to get some rest, although the shaking of the truck made his head throb. The radio played old songs through a speaker that was stuck to the top of the dash by the magnet in its base, the two wires connecting it running down into the defroster vent.

When the news came on, however, Monte Jackson found himself coming fully awake.

"In Riverside, a prominent doctor was killed last night. Martin Burgess was shot to death in an apparent robbery attempt and his house caught fire and burned either as a complication of the struggle or in an attempt to cover up the crime. The doctor's wife, Paula Burgess, was returning home and saw a man flee from the burning house. The assailant is still at large."

The news continued. There was a war going on in Indochina and a scandal brewing in the L. A. City Hall, the weather was expected to be hot and get hotter.

"We'll be workin' nights this week," Slim groused.

"What?" Jackson made believe he'd just woken up.

"Gonna be hot!"

"Yeah? So what else is new?"

LEAVING GARNER IN Marble Canyon, Monte Jackson hiked west in the long summer twilight. His claim was near Harris Hill and coming from Slim's place was the back way in. That was good given everything that was going on right now, he thought. He wanted to have a chance to look over the site and confirm that no one was there ahead of him. If he was going to have a sit-down with the authorities, he wanted to walk into a police station under his own power like an innocent man, not be arrested, like a fugitive.

But as the light faded from the sky he could see that his cabin was undisturbed. And for about forty-eight hours, his life returned to normal.

THAT NIGHT HE slept long and deep, a needed escape from all that had happened. The next day he carefully cleaned the wound again, this time properly, with peroxide, and then bandaged it. He noticed, while looking in the mirror, that the pupil of his left eye was noticeably larger than the right...he'd been right, the man who'd hit him had given him a concussion. He puttered around the house that day doing small chores and cleaning up. He also repacked his haversack with some food and a canteen, and then cleaned his rifle, an old Savage Model 99 that had belonged to his uncle.

On the second day Monte Jackson walked up to the diggings. He wore his sunglasses until he was inside the tunnel, and that seemed to help his head a bit.

At the end of his drift he picked up a drill steel and, inserting it into the hole, started to work, yet after only a few blows with the single jack his head began aching with a heavy, dull throb, and he knew that the scalp wound had taken more out of him than he had believed.

Leaving his tools in the drift, he picked up his canteen and shirt and started back to the cabin, yet he had taken no more than a dozen steps before he heard a car. It was, he knew, still some distance off, rumbling and growling along the rough road that came in from the west. Having listened to other cars on that road he knew approximately where it would be, and he knew that before it could reach his cabin it must go south at least two miles, then back north. It was the merest trail, and the last of it uphill.

HE WAS NO more than a minute climbing the sixty feet to the crest. Lying on his stomach, he inched the last few feet and scanned the trail. It was a utility wagon, the kind that was available for rent in Bishop for day trips into the Sierras, and in it were two people.

Jackson squirmed swiftly back, then arose and started at a trot for the drift. Once inside the tunnel he caught up a few handfuls of dust and dropped them from above so that they would filter down over his tools and the spot where he had worked to give an appearance that would lead them to believe he had not recently used them. Hurrying to his cabin he gathered his things, padlocked the door, and then paused to listen. There was no sound.

That meant they had left the vehicle at the spring and were coming on foot. Keeping to rocks and gravel, he went down into the arroyo and crossed it, cutting over to enter a deep gash in the hill. Then coming out of the small canyon he climbed to the crest overlooking his cabin.

After about twenty minutes he saw them coming. It was Paula and the big blond man. The man walked slightly in advance, and had an automatic pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants. Monte settled down to watch and, despite the pain in his head, was amused to find himself enjoying it. That they had come to kill him he had no reason to doubt, yet as he watched their cautious approach he found himself with a new idea.

He was the one man who actually knew Paula Burgess guilty of murder, yet by coming here they had delivered themselves into his hands. This was his native habitat. He knew the desert and they did not. Their jeep was the tenuous link to the world they knew, and if anything happened to that vehicle they were trapped.

Their incompetence was obvious from their movements. Once the man stepped on a stone that rolled under his foot, causing him to fall heavily. He caught himself on his hands, but had Monte been in the cabin he would have heard it. They looked at the lock, then peered in the windows. Certainly, no one was in the shack with a padlock on the door. After a few minutes of conversation the man started toward the drift. Paula Burgess remained alone before the cabin.

Monte Jackson stared at her with rising anger. She had chosen him for killing exactly as she might have chosen a certain fly for swatting. Now they were here, hunting him down like an animal.

He had his rifle and he could kill them both easily. For a man who had made Expert with a half-dozen weapons, two hundred yards was nothing, yet shooting was unnecessary. Of their own volition they had come into the desert but, he vowed, they would leave only when he willed it.

Sliding back from the ridge he got up and walked fast, then trotted a short distance. The sun was high and it was hot now, but he must get there first, and must have a little time.

THE JEEP STOOD near the spring. Squirming under it, he opened his clasp knife and, using a carefully chosen rock as a hammer, he punched a hole in the side of the gas tank. The fuel spurted out and, working the knife blade back and forth, he enlarged the hole. Given the angle of the vehicle and positioning of his hole he figured that no more than two gallons would soon remain in the tank and if this was like the trucks that he had used in the Army, the last half gallon might well be useless. He worried that they might see or smell the drained fuel but it was over one hundred degrees and there was no humidity, so the gas would evaporate quickly. He scattered several handfuls of sand over the widening stain to help out. Then he flattened out behind some creosote brush about twenty yards from the jeep, and waited.

THEY CAME DOWN the path, the woman complaining. "He's got to be around somewhere, Ash! He has to hide, and where is there a better place?"

"Well he's not here now! It was a fool idea. Let's just sit tight and wait for that insurance!" Ash shook his head. "Let him stay here and rot...they'd never believe him, anyway! If anybody knew we were up here it would look suspicious."

"Oh, shut up! I started this and I want to finish it!" Paula got into the jeep. Her blouse was damp on the shoulder blades and armpits and the two-mile walk had done neither of them any good. She was in heels, and he wore tight city shoes. They were good and hot now, and dry.

"I'm going to get a drink," Ash said, "it's a long ride back."

"Come on! We can stop by that last place for a Coke! I thought you wanted to get out of here?"

Ash got in and the jeep started willingly enough. When they had gone Monte Jackson got up. He took his time for there was lots of it, he knew about how far they would be able to get. He made up a few sandwiches, put them in the haversack with a blanket and his leather jacket, then stuffed cookies into his pockets and with his rifle and canteen, walked east, away from the road.

From time to time he stopped and mopped sweat from his brow, and then walked on toward Marble Canyon. They would make anywhere from five to ten miles with the gas they had, traveling in low as they would. It was only six miles to Dodd's Spring but he doubted if they would get so far.

SLIM GARNER WAS washing dishes when Jackson showed up. "Too late for coffee," he said.

"Not hungry, Slim." He grounded his rifle. Garner glanced curiously at the pack and rifle but said nothing. "Tell you what you might do, though. About the day after tomorrow you might drive over to Stovepipe Wells and call the sheriff. Ask him to meet me at Dodd's Spring and to bring Ragan from the Riverside Police Department. Robbery-Homicide. You tell him it's the Burgess case."

Garner stared. "Homicide? That's murder!"

"You're darn' tootin', it is! Call him, will you?"

"You ain't fixin' to kill nobody?" Slim protested.

"No, the fact is I'm takin' a gamble to prove I haven't killed somebody already." Knowing he must not walk again until the cool of the evening, he sat down and quietly spun his yarn out while Slim listened. Garner nodded from time to time.

"So they come up here after you?" Slim asked. He chuckled, his old eyes twinkling. "Sure, I'd like to see their faces when they find they are out of gas clean over there on the edge of the Valley!"

"Do you suppose they could find Dodd's Spring?"

"Doubt it. Ain't so easy lest you know it's there." He grinned. "Let 'em sweat for a while. Do 'em good: Make 'em feel talkative."

DUSK WAS SETTLING over the desert when Monte Jackson again saw the utility wagon. Evidently gas had not been their only trouble, for a punctured tire was now lying in the backseat. The jeep was stopped on open ground and the man and woman stood beside it, arguing. Their gestures were plain enough, but when he crawled nearer, he could hear them.