Jack and Susan in 1933 (35 page)

“That's right,” Blossom agreed. “But would it make a difference to her if your husband was rich?”

“I don't see why it should,” said Susan. “They're only friends…”

Blossom looked at Susan meaningfully.

“Oh no!” Susan cried. “That's impossible. She's not his type. He only goes after singers, and hat-check girls, and girls who work in Macy's.”

Blossom said nothing.

“Besides,” Susan went on hurriedly, “Marcellus always
wanted
Harmon to marry Barbara. But Harmon didn't want to marry Barbara, and Barbara wanted to marry Jack. Barbara and Harmon grew up together. They were too close, Harmon said.”

“But she got married,” Blossom pointed out, “and he got married, too. Then they weren't so close anymore. So maybe then…”

Susan thought about this for a minute.

“Yes, it makes sense. It makes perfect sense. Harmon wanted to divorce me so that he could marry
Barbara
. And that's why Barbara wanted to divorce
Jack
. It also explains those photographs that Marcellus showed me. The ones that were faked. MacIsaac was working for Marcellus, but he was also working for Harmon. Harmon set up the photographs himself, hiring the girl from the Villa Vanity. That way Marcellus and I were supposed to think that Harmon was being unfaithful to me, but we would never guess that he was being unfaithful to me with
Barbara
, of all people…”

“Buzzards of a feather…” Blossom remarked.

Susan shook her head. “I feel as if I've been walking around with my eyes closed for the last three months. And poor Jack—I'm sure he doesn't know either.”

“Still some things that don't make sense,” said Blossom in deep thought. “Barbara inherited everything from her father's estate, didn't she? Once you'd torn up the will?”

“Yes.”

“Then why does she care whether Harmon gets the money from this mine or not?”

“If Harmon's not as well off as I thought, maybe Marcellus wasn't either. Jack didn't even know how much Barbara inherited. She was very quiet about it, he said. Kept saying she couldn't understand anything the bankers or the lawyers said to her, but she wouldn't let Jack take care of it for her either.”

“So if they both had less money than you thought they did, that would be a reason for both of them to stay married. You'd be rich, and they could still carry on. Of course, if anything happened to you—if, for instance, you were chopped up in the propellers of an airplane, then Harmon would inherit everything.”

“Then Barbara could divorce Jack, and marry Harmon, and they'd live happily ever after.” Susan shook her head, grieving for her own stupidity and blindness. She'd underestimated both her husband and Jack's wife. What she'd taken for insouciance, for deliberate superficiality of behavior and speech and attitude, was only a mask hiding deep-seated greed, selfishness, perfidy. In an odd way, she'd trusted their self-involvement, their laziness, their lack of passion or ambition.

She'd been betrayed in that trust.

Harmon and Barbara were wily, cunning, and avaricious. Compared to those two, she and Jack were babes in the woods, about to fall asleep forever beneath a blanket of leaves.

“I feel very stupid,” she said at last to Blossom.

Blossom shook her head. “You're not stupid. Now that we've discovered the truth—and I feel sure that it
is
the truth—there's nothing they can do.”

“Oh no, there's actually a great deal—”

Susan was interrupted then by two noises that sounded at once.

One was a friendly sort of knocking at the door, and two voices outside that pleaded,
Oh, may we come in?
Harmon's and Barbara's voices.

The other noise was that of barking dogs, just outside the window. Scotty and Zelda.

Susan leapt instantly out of bed and started for the wardrobe where her clothes had been put. “Jack's in trouble,” she said.

“You can't go!” Blossom cried in a loud whisper.

“How can I
not
?” asked Susan. “Of course I'm going.”

She whisked off her nightgown, threw on a blouse, and pulled on trousers.

Susan? Miss Mayback? Are you in there?

“Let them in,” said Susan to her cousin.

Blossom shrugged, went over to the door, and unlocked it.

Barbara and Harmon sauntered in, and then stopped dead at seeing Susan perched on the side of the rumpled bed, at once buttoning the blouse, zippering the trousers, and pushing her bare feet into boots.

“You're well,” cried Barbara. “I take back what I said—that doctor isn't a quack.”

“This is splendid,” said Harmon. “You look as if we'll be able to start for New York tomorrow.”

“You and Barbara?” Susan asked. Blossom knelt at Susan's feet, helping her into her boots.

“No,” said Harmon carefully, glancing at Barbara, “you and me.”

“Residency isn't up for another three weeks,” Susan pointed out. “I certainly can't return to New York before then, Harmon.” She stood, her boots on, and turned her back in order to tuck her blouse into her trousers.

“Where are you going?” Barbara demanded. It was the old Barbara. Imperious and shrill.

“To see Jack,” said Susan, turning around.

Barbara and Harmon stared.

“Jack?” Harmon asked.

“She's hallucinating,” Barbara said to Blossom. “We ought to strap her down.”

Outside, Scotty and Zelda started up another frantic round of barking. Susan went to the window long enough to gesture to them with a finger on her lips. They went instantly silent.

Blossom rummaged in the drawer of a rickety dresser. She pulled out a battery operated torch. “Take this,” she said, handing it to Susan. “Here are extra batteries. I'll go saddle Coral.” With that, Blossom hurried out of the room, leaving Susan alone with her husband and her new best friend in all the world.

As she hurriedly finished her dressing, Susan glanced in the mirror and saw Barbara and Harmon conferring with looks.

Oh yes, it all made perfectly wicked sense. She wondered why she'd never understood it before. These two had come much closer to each other than had she and Jack. Much, much closer.

“Jack is here?” Barbara asked at last.

“Yes,” said Susan. “Didn't you know?”

“No, I didn't. Why is he here?”

“I believe,” Susan said, “that he came here with the express purpose to tell me he loved me and that he wanted to marry me as soon as he had divorced you.”

Harmon gaped. Barbara tried hard not to gape.

“So, when the divorces are final, I'll marry Jack, and, Barbara, you can marry Harmon. There's no way you could possibly know it, I realize, but, Barbara, I'll make you my confidante—Harmon is a splendid husband when the lights are turned out, if you know what I mean. Perfectly splendid. I just hope Jack is half as nice. This is very droll, isn't it? Talking about such things so frankly. Oh well,” she laughed, “it's just us giddy New Yorkers, I guess. Then we'll all live happily ever after, I presume. The only difficulty, of course, is that you and Harmon will be possessed of the combined assets of two fortunes, and Jack and I will be poor as church mice, with nothing but this worthless Nevada land to call our own. Life is unfair, but unfair or not, we have to live it out to the bitter end, don't we?”

Susan exited the room.

“Blossom!” she called. “I'm on my way!”

S
USAN BROUGHT NOT
only the batteried torch, but more candles and matches, a spade, a trowel, two canteens of water, and a length of rope.

She'd left Blossom behind to make certain that Barbara and Harmon didn't follow. If they asked, she was headed for Pyramid, where Jack was ensconced with the thieving McAlpines, paying ten dollars a night for a room that wasn't worth seventy-five cents.

Wesley and Colleen actually were in Pyramid, and as soon as they got back, Blossom would send them on, in case Jack's trouble was direr than Susan was capable of alleviating alone. In the meantime, it was Susan alone…

The first disappointment was that Jack was not to be found just outside the entrance of the mine, having twisted his ankle, for instance, or suffered a mild case of sunstroke, or been bitten by a snake whose poison induced temporary paralysis of the legs.

While Susan was untying the spade from the back of the saddle, Scotty and Zelda barked and yelped and flew into the mine and then flew out again when she didn't immediately follow.

Susan nervously switched on the battery torch and went into the mine.

The first few yards seemed almost like home.

But Jack wasn't there.

She called his name, softly at first, then loudly. Then more loudly still. No response.

Scotty and Zelda eagerly pushed on, and Susan unenthusiastically but hastily followed, the handle of the spade bouncing and jarring against her shoulder.

Down, and down more deeply still.

Past crumbling walls, and bowing ceiling supports.

Following the metal tracks laid in the floor of the corridor.

There were times she could touch both walls at once.

Sometimes her head brushed the ceiling.

She shone her light on the walls, on the ceilings, on the supports.

She did not shine it into the holes and passages on either side. She only followed the dogs onward.

Down, and more deeply still.

If Susan doubted the depth of her love for Jack Beaumont before, she could not doubt it now.

The tracks ended.

The dogs stopped in their tracks.

“Where is he?” Susan demanded.

There was no reply.

She shone her light around, but saw nothing but the walls of dirt, the ceiling of dirt, the floor of dirt, and the two dogs.

“Jack!” she screamed.

No reply.

Then an echoed noise, low and rumbling.

Snoring.

“Jack!” she screamed again. “Wake up!”

Then his voice, low and confused, “Susan?”

“Where are you?”

“Here.”

“Where is here?”

“I don't know. I'm trapped. Right in front of you maybe.”

Because of the acoustics of the tunnel, it was not possible for Susan to tell exactly where the sound was coming from. Then she realized she had two excellent scouts with her.

“Zelda, where is Mr. Beaumont? Scotty, do you know?”

The dogs trotted through the last portal of wood, and Susan followed with the light.

The passage got narrower and smaller, which was a very nasty perception for Susan.

It was so dense and dark that the light she shone all around seemed dampened.

“Why did
you
come?” Jack's voice asked from somewhere.

“Because you sent the dogs.”

“But you said if I got in trouble in the mine, you wouldn't come. I never expected you to—”

He broke off suddenly.

“What's wrong,” she cried.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “It's just a little difficult to talk with this mountain on my chest.”

Finally she saw light reflected off a tiny patch of white.

“Jack, move your head.”

The white thing was Jack's scalp.

“I see you,” she said. “Thank God.”

Then the batteries gave out, and Susan was left in darkness.

She closed her eyes and prayed a real prayer for the first time in many, many years.

“What happened to the light?” Jack asked from the blackness.