Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) (2 page)

Those pages were a strange document. Why these particular pages? Why were they hidden as they were? The gun was broken, so nobody would try to fire it, and whoever had hidden the pages must have hidden them in a hurry, in fear of being searched.

The mystery was compounded by the disappearance of John and Clyde Toomey. After driving four thousand head of cattle into the country, twenty-seven men had simply dropped off the edge of the world.

John Toomey had been no writer, but there was a consciousness of destiny in the man, and even a vein of poetry. He was aware that there might not always be such cattle drives, and he wanted to record his for whoever might read.

I might have dismissed the thing as a hoax but for the little points of fact and incident that could not have been known by anyone who was not present…or by a skilled researcher. They were the things a hoaxer would not think of, and they were evidence of authenticity to me.

The Texas end checked out easily. The Toomey family records were complete right up to the day of their departure. There were deeds, wills, jury and coroner’s records. Old-timers recalled stories about the family and the tough Toomey boys.

There had been four brothers. The oldest had been killed fighting for the Confederacy. Clyde and John had gone north to fight for the Union because they believed in the country, and returned to find themselves objects of hatred. It was this that caused them to sell out and leave Texas.

Theirs had been an active, prosperous, and prominent family, important to the community in which they lived. They were definitely not the sort of men to be overlooked, wherever they might be, and they were sure to leave their mark upon the land.

Yet they had vanished. There were no records of them that I could find in Arizona.

“How much farther?” I asked the driver.

“Five, six miles. You a friend of Colin’s?”

“I’m a writer. Colin Wells heard I was in town and invited me out. It gives me a chance to get the feel of the country.”

“Likes folks around, Colin does.…What sort of writin’ you do?”

“Frontier background, mostly. Some western history.”

“This here was Indian country. Apaches, mostly.”

“I didn’t get your name.”

“Name’s Reese…Floyd Reese.”

It gave me an odd turn. In that cattle drive ninety years ago there had been a man named Reese. Not one of the originals, but a man picked up on the way. Until they reached the Pecos Valley there had been forty men with the herd; actually it was two herds, about equal in size. A dozen of the riders had come along only for the drive to New Mexico, and they had turned off toward Santa Fe. By that time the herd was trail broken and easier to handle, but an extra hand was always convenient.

John Toomey had hired Reese, but with misgivings. The man was surely running from something, and he proved a troublemaker. This Reese might be a relative.

“Is this your home country?”

“My old man worked for Strawb’ry. I was born on the place.”

Obviously the world began and ended on Strawberry range, as far as Floyd Reese was concerned. I had met several such men, had grown up with them, in fact.

It always irritated me that people would take it for granted, as they often did, that a man would write about something of which he knew nothing. Colin Wells had assumed that, being a writer, I knew nothing of ranch life.

I had grown up on a ranch in Wyoming. From the time I was old enough to sit a saddle I had punched cows, and in my teens I had drifted south during vacations to ride for an outfit in Colorado, and later had ridden for another in Montana. I’d put in a year working the mines and lumber camps before I enlisted to fight in Korea. Korea had lasted two years.

The landing at Inchon, the march north to the Yalu, when we had been assured we would be home in time for Christmas, and then the bitter retreat back down the peninsula when the Chinese, who we had been assured would not fight, decided to fight. Wounded, I’d struggled three days through the snow before the Chinese caught me. Believing I was in such bad shape that I was a safe prisoner, they guarded me poorly, and I was able to slip away. Recaptured by another outfit, I met Pio Alvarez and we escaped together, fighting and running and hiding all the way back to the American lines.

After a battlefield commission I’d returned to the States, went to a school for guerilla fighters, did a year of Stateside duty, followed by a school for Military Intelligence.

That was followed by a year in Berlin and West Germany, and then I was shipped out to Saigon and guerilla warfare in the jungles of Vietnam. Wounded again, captured again, I escaped again. And that convinced me I’d stretched my luck too far, so I returned to civilian life and to writing.

The station wagon slowed and I saw two riders coming down from the slope of a hill, a dried-up old man with a wide but not pleasant grin, and a tough-looking rider of thirty-five or so. Both were armed.

As they rode up alongside, Reese stopped. “This here’s the writer,” he said. “Name’s Sheridan.”

He indicated the two men. “Dad Styles and Rip Parker. Been ridin’ for Strawb’ry for years.”

As the wagon rolled on I commented, “They were armed.”

“Sure. We run into rustlers sometimes, and it makes a long trip for the sheriff. He doesn’t much like to be bothered, so I hold a dep’ty’s badge.”

“Is rustling a problem?”

“You bet. They come out in trucks and hoss-trailers. They unload their horses, tear down a piece of fence and round up a few head of cattle. They load ’em into trucks and take off. They don’t get far, usually. Not with us, they don’t. The only road runs along or through our property for fifteen miles.”

He turned to look at me, his eyes faintly taunting. “You been ridin’ over Strawb’ry range for seven or eight miles now. Everything, anywhere you look, is Strawb’ry. Only way a man could get out of here unless we leave him go is to sprout wings.”

“Do they ever make a fight of it? The rustlers, I mean?”

“Sure…who wants to get caught? They know what they got comin’.”

The station wagon rolled up before the house and frankly, I was glad to get out. I did not like Floyd Reese, and I was glad to be free of him.

A Mexican in a white coat took my bag and type-writer from the back of the car as Colin Wells came down the steps with a drink in his hand. “Welcome to Strawb’ry! Come on in and have a drink. You’re just in time to round up a few before supper!”

There was a girl standing on the steps, a dark-haired girl with gray eyes who wore beige slacks and blouse. She was looking at me with neither appraisal nor welcome. It was a startled look, I thought, and apprehensive as well.

“My sister-in-law, Sheridan, Belle Dawson,” Colin said. “Belle, this is that writer you heard me speak of.”

“How do you do.” Her smile was quick and friendly. “A reader always enjoys meeting a writer.”

“And vice versa,” I said, smiling at her. “But don’t be frightened. I’m not going to ask you if you have read anything of mine.”

“Oh, but I have, Mr. Sheridan! All of them, I believe. You have a gift, a very real gift, for reconstructing the past.”

“It isn’t a gift. It’s just a lot of hard, dusty work in the files of old newspapers, in catalogues, diaries, coroners’ reports, anything of the kind I can put my hands on.”

My eyes swung away from hers, glimpsing a low, squat building of stone. It stood near the crest of a knoll about three hundred yards away, beyond the corrals. It was built of native stone and had no windows, only slits from which a rifle might be fired. Into my mind flashed words from John Toomey’s journal:
“and on the second day we began building a fort, a place of refuge against attack by the Apache. It was a low, stone building that we finally completed, situated on a knoll near the spring.”

“Be careful, Mr. Sheridan,” Belle said ironically. “Your curiosity is showing.”

“That stone building out there reminded me of one back home. It startled me for a moment.”

“It was on the place when Colin’s grandfather settled here. They use it to store old harness, saddles, odds and ends of tools. It’s a sort of catch-all, really.”

Four thousand head of cattle and twenty-seven men, and it was to this place they had come.

“Bourbon, wasn’t it?” Colin Wells came over, holding out a glass. “I’ve got a memory for drinks. Now if there’s anything you want to know about the place, you ask Belle. She knows as much about it as I do.”

Ninety years was a long time, and there was small possibility that I could find anything in the nature of a clue. That old building might be one of many such. The past was fresh in my mind because I had worked with it so much, and had been living it through all my books, and all the painstaking research that went into their writing.

“You will want to freshen up,” Belle said abruptly. “Bring your drink and I’ll show you to your room.”

“Show him where the pool is, Belle. Chances are we’ll all be out there when he comes out again. If you’d like a swim, Sheridan, climb into a suit and come on.”

She led the way along a shadowed arcade that bordered the patio on three sides, passing the doors of several rooms, finally to stop opposite a fountain. Around the fountain were palm trees and flowers, keeping the patio green and cool.

“Right along and through the arch to the pool,” Belle said, and I could see the glint of blue water through the opening.

“Thanks,” I said, and she turned to leave, then hesitated.

“Mr. Sheridan,” she said, keeping her voice low and deliberate, “if I were you I would make any excuse that comes to mind and leave as quickly as possible, and I mean tomorrow. Make any excuse—any at all—but leave. When you get back to town, if you are wise, you will leave Arizona.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I have read your books, Mr. Sheridan. None of the others have. I may be a fool, and you will probably think me one, but don’t stay in this house after tonight. And please do not repeat what I have said.”

“My books are harmless enough.”

“You’re very thorough, Mr. Sheridan, and a book such as you may write can be dangerous. I do not know why you were invited here, but you must realize that there is little interest here in either books or writers…rather to the contrary. Colin does like guests, but he does not care for strangers. For some reason, Mr. Sheridan, you are very special.”

“Colin Wells introduced you as his sister-in-law,” I said.

“His brother was married to my sister.”

“Was?”

“They were killed. They were killed last year in an accident when their car ran off a cliff over east of here.”

“I’m sorry.”

She walked away from me then, and I stood watching her go, a lovely girl, but a strange one.

Why had she taken enough interest to warn me? She was related to these people, in a sense at least. Was she a highly nervous, neurotic girl? I did not think so, not for a minute. She was a bright, intelligent girl, and not at all the type to be an alarmist.

Yet she had made a point. Why was I invited here? How did it happen that of all places I should be invited to the very place I wished to go? Did they hope that my being here might publicize the ranch so they might perhaps make a better sale? Were they celebrity collectors? Neither of these reasons seemed likely, and the uneasiness I had been feeling ever since being called to look at the body of Manuel Alvarez suddenly sharpened.

The room was spacious, cool, comfortable. As I undressed and showered I considered the situation. After all, this was what I had been looking for, and surely somebody here could tell me about the Toomeys. This was, I felt sure, the place they had elected to stay.

Only a few miles away was the Verde River, all the peaks mentioned as landmarks were nearby. This had to be the place.

Yet I had been advised to leave. Had the mystery of the vanishing brothers not been so far in the past I might have suspected a connection, but how could a ninety-year-old mystery possibly matter to anyone except someone as curious as myself?

But I was a man who preferred to avoid trouble, having seen enough of it in every way. I decided I would take a couple of rides around the country, but would arrange to leave very soon, as soon as I had scouted the terrain a little. I did want to see Lost River, and I wanted to be inside that old stone building for a few minutes at least. I had a hunch about that building, and if the hunch paid off, I might have the answer to many of my questions.

Irritating, nagging little suspicions kept coming to mind. After all, my training had been such as to make me notice, and I had noticed. Yet what did it all add up to?

Floyd Reese’s odd expression when I mentioned Lost River…well, why not? It was a remote, unlikely place for a stranger to know about or ask about. His expression was natural.

The clerk in the land office? He had looked a bit startled when I asked about the Toomeys…more so than a man would who knew, as he maintained, nothing about them. He had handed me the T file and walked away, and a few minutes later, returning the file to its case, I had overheard him on the telephone.

I heard him say, “Yes,
Toomey
. That’s right…
Toomey
.”

And when I left the land office, the fat man was outside. He had been in the motel lobby and outside the Historical Society library before that. But he was probably a policeman, no matter how little he looked like it. He might be somebody from the D.A.’s office, checking up on me.

The hell with it. I was going to leave Arizona. It was a state I liked, a state I knew pretty well. It was, in fact, this very country through which I had ridden…how many years ago?

It had been twenty years ago, and with two others of my own age. We had been punching cows in Colorado and decided to drift back across country to the Colorado River, crossing at Needles.

The drink tasted good, and the shower felt even better. The view at the pool was breathtaking, and that did not mean the far-off hills, lighted by the fires of a setting sun. It was the immediate foreground that gripped the attention.

On the edge of the pool, beautifully tanned and wearing a white bikini, was Belle Dawson. Walking toward the diving board was a golden blonde in tune with a music all her own.