Blood Sport

Chapter Ten

When I woke up it was pretty clear that I wasn’t intended to be a hostage, but a corpse.

The cabin was full of smoke, and small flames rose in a long uneven swathe across the floor. I couldn’t remember anything at first. Looked at the scene muzzily, half sitting up, my head dizzy and splitting with pain. The Clives, I thought. They’d emptied the whole tub of pep out into a straggling line, and set it alight. Sawdust and diesel oil burning slowly and billowing out unbreathable gases.

They’d laid me against the stove so that it would seem as if I’d fallen and hit my head on it. The empty pep tin rolled away from my foot as I tried to get up, and my hand brushed against a cigarette and a book of matches.

Most deaths in fires weren’t caused by burns but by asphyxia. The cabin wouldn’t burn down from fire on the floorboards: fire never burnt downwards, only up. The Clives were staging my exit for no better motive than revenge. And as an accident it was one of their poorer efforts.

Having staggered its way through those useless random thoughts, my brain cleared enough for me to decide it was high time to move if I was going to do anything about living. And I supposed I would have to.

I stumbled on to my feet, pulled the quilt off one of the beds, tottered into the bathroom with it and soaked it under the taps in the bath. Smoke was well down in my lungs, thick and choking. It’s bloody stupid, I thought groggily, it’s damn bloody stupid that boy-and-girl keep trying to shove me where I want to go, and I keep trying not to let them. Ridiculous. Ridiculous...

I found myself on my knees, half unconscious. The bath water still running. Pulled myself up a little, hauled out the dripping quilt, flung it over the worst of the fire. Silly, I thought. Much better to go out of the door. Tried that. Damn thing was stuck.

Window, then. Stuck.

Wrapped my hand in the curtain and pushed it through one of the panes of glass. Some air came in. The insect screen stopped more.

Down on my knees again. Terribly dizzy. A black hell in my head. Smelt the quilt burning, lifted it off one lot of fire, and on to the next. Damped it all out into a smelly black faintly smouldering path and felt old and weak from too much scrambling up and down mountains and deeply ill from the crash on the brain and too much smoke.

Opened the front of the fat black stove. Shapleigh, it said. Gradually the smoke began to clear away up its stackpipe while I lay in a poor state beside the cabin door and breathed the fresh air trickling in underneath.

Several eras later I stopped feeling like morgue material and the hammer in my head died to a brutal aching throb. I began to wonder how long it would be before Matt and Yola returned to make their horrified discovery of my death, and wearily decided it was time for action.

I stood up slowly and leaned against the door. They’d fastened it somehow from the outside, in spite of there being no lock: and it was simple enough to see when one’s eyes weren’t filled with smoke. The screen door opened outwards, the wooden door inwards. A small hook leading in through the latch was holding the two together. I pushed it up, and it slid away as the inner door opened.

My wallet lay on the table, not in my pocket. They’d been looking. Nothing for them to find, except their own photograph. They’d taken that. But they hadn’t searched very far: the Luger was still in its holster at my back, under my outhanging shirt. I checked the magazine — still loaded — and put it back in place.

The only other thing I really wanted to take with me was my radio. I squashed down its extended antenna aerial and shoved it into my old suitcase on top of the things I’d packed before breakfast. Then, picking it up and fighting down the whirling chaos which resulted, I opened the screen door. Behind me the cabin lay in a singed shambles. Ahead, the comparatively short walk to the car seemed a marathon.

I might have made it in one if I hadn’t felt any worse: but at the end of the woodland track, when all that was left to go was the open expanse of the car park, a wave of clammy sweating faintness seethed through me and I dropped the suitcase and leaned against a tree, waiting weakly for it to pass.

Yola came out of the kitchen door and saw me. Her mouth fell open, then she turned on her heel and dived back into the ranch house. For the rifle. Or for Matt. My hand closed on the pistol at my back, but I was very loath to use it. Too many explanations to authority would be involved, and I preferred to avoid them at this stage.

‘Hello,’ said a cheerful voice behind me. ‘We thought you’d gone ages ago.’

I turned my wonky head and let my hand fall away from the gun. Mickey and Samantha were coming down the track from the branch which led to the Wilkersons’ cabin.

‘And I thought,’ I said, ‘that you’d gone riding.’

‘The wranglers haven’t brought in enough horses,’ Mickey explained sadly.

‘Are you sick or something?’ asked his sister, coming to a halt and staring up into my face.

‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘I’d be awfully glad if you’d carry my suitcase for me, across to that black car.’

‘Sure,’ said Mickey importantly, and Samantha took my hand in motherly solicitude. With one child at each side I completed the trip.

It was the rifle Yola fetched. She stood with it stiffly in her hands and watched the children put the suitcase in the car and stand close to my window while I started the engine. An accidental drowning, an accidental smothering she could manage: but three public murders by shooting were outside her range. Just as well. If she’d lifted that rifle towards the children, I would have shot her.

‘Bye,’ they said, waving. Nice kids.

‘Bye.’

I released the brakes and rolled away down the drive in a plume of dust, accelerating fast as soon as I hit the metalled road, and taking the main branch down to Jackson. If Yola thought of following in the pick-up, she didn’t do it fast enough. Repeated inspection in the mirror showed no Clives chasing on my tail. The only things constantly before my eyes were bright dancing spots.

Through Jackson I turned north and west on the winding road to Idaho Falls. Along there the Snake River and the Pallisades Reservoir, sparkling blue against the dark pines, were stunningly beautiful. But my several stops weren’t for appreciation: the cold sweating waves of dizziness kept recurring, like twenty-two over seven. I drove slowly, close to the side, never overtaking, ready to pull up. If I hadn’t wanted to put a hundred miles or so between me and the Clives, I wouldn’t have started from Jackson. Most of the time I wished I hadn‘t.

Walt was pacing the motel lobby like a frenetic film producer when I finally showed up at five-thirty in the afternoon.

‘You are four-and-a-half hours late,’ he began accusingly. ‘You said...’

‘I know,’ I interrupted. ‘Book us some rooms. We’re staying here.’

He opened his mouth and shut it tight.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, softening it, ‘but I feel ill.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Concussion.’

Walt gave me a searching look, booked the rooms, and even went so far as to carry my suitcase. I lay straight down on the bed, and he sat in an easy chair in my room and rubbed his fingers.

‘Do you need a doctor?’ he said.

‘I don’t think so. It’s not getting any worse.’

‘Well... what happened?’

‘I’ll give you some free advice,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever let Matt Clive come within bashing distance of your head.’

The dizziness wasn’t so bad lying down.

‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked.

‘No... Let’s listen to a tape recording instead.’ I told him how to open the back of the radio and to rewind the reels.

‘Neat little job,’ he commented. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Had it specially made, two or three years ago.’

Walt grunted, and switched on. The head wrangler banged on Yola’s door and told her that the mares and stallions were out. Walt’s face lifted into a half grin.

The recorder played twenty seconds of silence after each take, and began again at the next sound. The next piece was very short.

‘Yola?’ A man’s voice, very loud. ‘Yola! Where the hell is everybody?’ A door slammed. Silence.

‘That’s Matt Clive,’ I told Walt. ‘He came back before breakfast.’

The voices began again. Yola speaking, coming indoors. ‘... say the tracks go straight up the hill, but he turned back at the high patch of scree and came down again.’

That was a bit of luck.

‘They’ll just have to go on looking,’ Matt said. ‘Yola, for God’s sake, we can’t lose that horse.’ His voice was strained and furious. ‘I’ll go over to the house and see if any of those kids had a hand in it.’

‘I don’t think so. Not a darned one of them looks nervous.’

‘I’ll try, anyway.’ His footsteps receded.

Yola picked up the telephone and made a call.

‘That you, Jim? Have you seen any horse vans coming through Pikelet since last night?...

‘Well no, I just wondered if you’d seen one. Not this morning, early?...

‘No, it was just a chance. Sure. Yeah. Thanks anyway.’ She put down the receiver with a crash.

Walt raised his eyebrows. ‘Pikelet?’

‘Couple of shops and a filling station where the Clives’ own road joins the main road to Jackson.’

‘Just as well we didn’t...’ he began, and then changed it to, ‘Is that why you insisted on the long way round?’

‘Partly,’ I agreed. ‘I wanted it to look as if Chrysalis had gone off by himself. I wanted to avoid them realizing he’d been deliberately stolen. Keep them guessing a bit, give us time to get well clear.’

The tape began again. Matt came back running.

‘Yola. That man. That damned man.’

‘What man?’ She was bewildered.

‘The man that pulled Teller out of the river. How long has he been here?’

Yola said almost in a whisper, ‘Here?’

Matt was shouting. ‘Here. Having breakfast. Staying here, you stupid bitch.’

‘I don’t... I don’t...’

‘I saw him at Reading too,’ Matt said. ‘He called to see Teller in the hospital. They let him in past all the watchdogs. I saw him looking out of the window. How the hell did he get here? Why in God’s name didn’t you spot him, you stupid, stupid... He’s the one that’s taken the horse. And I’ll damn well make him bring it back.’

‘How?’ Yola said, wailing.

‘Excuse me,’ said the voice of the girl who waited at table. ‘Excuse me, Miss Clive. Mr Hochner wants his bill.’

‘There on the desk,’ Yola said.

‘Which is Hochner?’ Matt, urgent.

‘The German in cabin three.’

‘Where was he sitting at breakfast? What does he look like?’

‘He had his back to the door from the hall,’ the girl said. ‘He’s wearing a blue-and-white check shirt, and he’s quite tall and has dark brown hair and a tired sort of face.’

‘Give him the bill then,’ Matt said, and waited until she had gone. ‘Hochner!’ The voice was almost incoherent with rage. ‘How long has he been here?’

‘Since... Tuesday.’ Yola’s voice was faint.

‘Get your rifle,’ Matt said. ‘If he won’t give us that horse back... I’ll kill him.’

There were small moving about sounds, and the tape went quiet. The time they had spent in my cabin telescoped into twenty seconds of silence; and the recording began again.

‘He was right, Matt,’ Yola said. ‘We should have let him go.’ Her voice had gone quiet with despair, but Matt’s still rode on anger.

‘He had his chance. He should have told us what he’d done with Chrysalis.’

After a pause Yola said, ‘He wasn’t going to do that. He said so. Whatever you do, he said, you won’t recover the horse.’

‘Shut up,’ Matt said violently.

‘Matt.’ A wail in her voice. ‘He was right. We won’t recover the horse and his friends will come looking for him, like he said.’

‘They’ll only find an accident.’

‘But they won’t believe it.’

‘They won’t be able to prove any different,’ Matt insisted.

After another pause Yola said almost without emotion, ‘If he got the horse clean away... if someone else has him now, and he’s on his way back to Teller... they’ll know we had Chrysalis here. We’ll be arrested for that.’

‘Hochner wasn’t going to say he’d stolen the horse from here.’

‘But you wouldn’t listen.’ Yola suddenly flared into anger of her own. ‘He was right all the time. We should have let him go. We’d have lost Chrysalis... but this way we’re in terrible trouble, they’ll never believe he died by accident, we’ll have the whole FBI here and we’ll end up... we’ll end up in...’

‘Shut up,’ Matt said. ‘Shut up.’

‘He might not be dead yet... can’t we go and stop it?’ Her voice was urgent, beseeching.

‘And have him accuse us of attempted murder? Don’t be such a fool. No one can prove it isn’t an accident, can they? Can they?’

‘I suppose not...’

‘So you leave him, Yola. You just leave him. He had his chance. I gave him his chance... You just wait for some of the guests to see the smoke and come and tell you, like we said. Don’t you try going up there. Just don’t try it.’

‘No...’

‘And I’m going back on the mountain with the wranglers. Chrysalis went across the bridge. His tracks are there. Well... I’m going tracking. Mr Clever Hochner might be bluffing all along the line. He might have Chrysalis tied to some tree up there, and he might not have told anyone where he is, and no one will come asking.’ He convinced himself that this view of things was reasonable, and in the end Yola halfway agreed.

‘We’ll have to tell Uncle Bark,’ she said finally.

There was a blank pause while they considered this.

‘He’ll blow his top,’ Matt said gloomily. ‘After all that planning.’

‘He’ll have to know,’ Yola said.

‘I’ll call him this evening, if we have to. But we might have found Chrysalis by then.’

‘I sure hope so...’

Matt went away then on his search, and presently, after Yola had left to go back to the ranch house, there was continued silence on the tape.

Walt switched the recorder off and looked across at me with a complete absence of expression.

‘What did they do?’

I told him.

‘Would it have passed as an accident?’

‘I expect so. Neat little picture: man lighting cigarette, throws match absentmindedly in tub of pep instead of waste basket, panics, spills the stuff, steps wildly back from flames, trips over stove and knocks himself out. Bingo.’

‘Do you smoke, though?’

‘Sometimes. They used my own pack from the bedside table. And my own matches. It was impulsive, unpremeditated. They just looked round and used what came to hand. They’re quite good at it.’

‘Lucky you woke up in time,’ Walt said.

‘I suppose so.’ I shut my eyes and wondered how he would react if I asked him to go out for some codeine.

‘I’ve worked with one or two people like you before,’ he said. ‘And I can’t say I like it.’

‘Thanks,’ I said sardonically. No pills.

‘With your kind,’ he said, ‘dying comes easy. It’s living takes the guts.’

I opened my eyes. He was watching me steadily, his sober face removing any possibility that he was intending to be funny.

‘How are you on guts?’ he asked.

‘Fresh out.’

He sighed deeply. ‘That figures.’

‘Walt...’ I began.

‘It struck me first last night, on the mountain. You were sure anxious about Chrysalis, but you didn’t give a goddam about falling off the top yourself. It made me freeze just to watch you leading him along that ledge... and you came back as calm as if it had been your own yard.’

He was apologizing, in his indirect way, for his startling appearance on the path.

‘Walt,’ I said, half smiling. ‘Will you go get me something for a headache?’