Death of a Dude

Chapter 2

I could tell you a lot about the Bar JR Ranch — how many acres, how many head, the trial and error with alfalfa that had been mostly error, the fence problem, the bookkeeping complications, the open-range question, and so on — but that has nothing to do with a dead dude and how to get Harvey back where he belonged. Irrelevant and immaterial. But the person who appeared inside the screen door as I got out of the car was relevant. As I approached she opened the door and I went in.

I have never met a nineteen-year-old boy who gave me the impression that he knew things I wouldn’t understand, but three girls around that age have, and little Alma Greve was one of them. Don’t ask me if it was the deep-set brown eyes that seldom opened wide, or the curve of her lips that seemed to be starting a smile but never made it, or what, because I don’t know. When I had mentioned it to Lily a couple of years back she had said, “Oh, come on. It’s not her, it’s you. Every pretty girl a man sees, either she’s a mystery he could learn from, or she’s an innocent he could — uh — edify. Either way, he’s always wrong. Of course with you she’s seldom a mystery because what don’t you understand?”

I had grabbed a clump of paintbrush and thrown it at her.

I asked Alma who was around, and she said her mother was taking a nap and the baby was asleep. She asked me if her mother had asked me to get fly swatters, and I said no, they were for Pete.

“Maybe we could sit and talk a little,” I said.

Her head was tilted back because her eyes were nine inches lower than mine. “I told you,” she said, “I’m talked out. But all right.”

She turned and I followed her into what they called the front room, but they could have called it the trophy room. Harvey and Carol, his wife, had formerly both been rodeo stars, and the walls were covered with pictures — him bulldogging steers and both of them riding broncs and tying calves. Also there were displays of ribbons they had won, and medals, and in a glass case on a table was a big silver cup Harvey had got one year at Calgary, with his name engraved on it. Alma went to a couch by the fireplace and sat with her legs crossed, and I took a nearby chair. Her skirt was mini — she never wore shorts — but her legs were no match for Diana’s, in either length or caliber. There was nothing wrong with what there was of them.

“You look all right,” I said. “You’re getting your sleep.”

She nodded. “Go right ahead. Ride me. I’m saddle-broke.”

“You chew the bit.” I regarded her. “Look, Alma. I love you dearly, we all love you, but can’t you get it in your head that someone is going to take the rap for killing Philip Brodell, and it’s going to be your father unless we produce a miracle?”

“This is Montana,” she said.

“Yeah. The Treasure State. Gold and silver.”

“My father won’t take any rap. This is Montana. They’ll acquit him.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody had to tell me. I was born here.”

“But too late. Fifty years ago, or even less, a Montana jury might not convict a man who had shot a man who had seduced his daughter. But not today, not even if you go on the stand with the baby in your arms and say you’re glad he killed him. I’ve decided to tell you exactly what I think. I think you have an idea about who did kill him, maybe even actual knowledge, and you don’t want him to take the rap, and you think your father won’t have to because they won’t convict him. You’ve admitted you’re glad somebody killed him.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Nuts. I can repeat it verbatim, all of it. You’re glad he’s dead.”

“All right, I am.”

“And you don’t want anybody to get tagged for it. For instance, suppose you have reason to think that Gil Haight killed him. Gil says he was in Timberburg all day that Thursday, he has told several people that, but suppose you know he wasn’t? Suppose he was here that day, and he said things, and from here it’s only a couple of miles to where Brodell was shot, and he had a gun in his car. But you’re saving it because you think your father will be acquitted, and you also think that if he isn’t, if he’s convicted of first-degree murder and sent up, you could get him out by telling then what you know. Well, you couldn’t, for several reasons, the best one being that nobody would believe you. But if you tell me now I can take it from there and we’ll see what happens. Gil Haight would stand as good a chance as your father does. He’s a local boy with a clean record, and he was hoping to marry you, and when the man who had seduced you last summer showed up again this summer he went off his nut. At least as good a chance as your father, maybe better.”

There was a sound from the other side of an open door, not the one to the hall, which could have been a baby turning over and kicking the crib, and she turned her head. Silence, and she returned to me. “Gil wasn’t here that day,” she said.

“I didn’t say he was, I was only supposing. There are other possibilities. Someone might have killed him for some other reason, nothing to do with you. If so, the reason was probably a carry-over from last year, because Brodell had only been here three days this year. If it was something from last year, for instance some kind of trouble with Farnham, he might have mentioned it to you. When a man gets close enough with a woman to make a baby he might mention anything. Damn it, if you would drop your cockeyed idea that your father will be acquitted, and put your mind on it, you might give me a start.”

Her lips almost made the smile. “You think my mind’s not on it?”

“Your feelings are on it, but your mind, no.”

“Certainly my mind’s on it.” She uncrossed her legs and put her hands on her knees. “Listen, Archie. I’ve told you ten times, I think my father killed him.”

“And I’ve told you ten times, you can’t. I don’t believe it. You’re not a halfwit, and you’d have to be one to live with him nineteen years and not—”

A voice said, “She’s not a halfwit, she’s just a dope.”

Carol was there in the doorway. “My daughter,” she said, “the only one I’ve got, and what a piece of luck that was.” She was coming. “You might as well quit on her. I have.” She looked down at Alma. “Please go and milk a mule or something. I want to talk with Archie.”

Alma stayed put. “He said he wanted to talk with me. I don’t want to talk at all. What’s the use?”

“None at all.” Carol sat, on the couch, at arm’s length from Alma. From the neck down she was close to frowzy, with a rumpled shirt and old brown work pants, and socks but no shoes, but her face could still have been the face of a cowgirl in her twenties except for the wrinkles around the sharp brown eyes. The eyes focused on me. “I guess you haven’t scared up any dust or you wouldn’t be here.”

“Right. You saw Harvey yesterday?”

She nodded. “For half an hour. That’s all Morley Haight would allow. I’ve known that man — Someone ought to pin his ears back. Maybe me.”

“I’ll help. Anything from Harvey?”

“No. Nothing but more of the same.”

I shook my head. “I want to ask you something. I told Lily today that she might ask Dawson if there’s a good private detective in Helena. Product of Montana. People might tell him things they won’t tell me. What do you think?”

“That’s funny,” she said.

“Funny how?”

“Two people have had the same idea. Flora and a friend of mine you don’t know. I asked Harvey yesterday what he thought, and he said no. He said there wouldn’t be any detective in Helena half as good as you, and anyway Dawson thinks he shot that man, and so would anybody he got. Everyone around here does, you know that.”

“Not everyone. Not the man that shot him. Okay, skip it for now. You said you want to talk.”

She looked at her daughter. “You’re not my little heifer now, you’ve dropped a calf. I can’t shoo you out.” She stood up and said to me, “If you will please, we’ll go outdoors.”

Alma rose, thought she was going to say something but decided not to, headed for the door, and was gone. When she was out Carol went and shut the door, came back and sat at the end of the couch, closer to me, and said, “You could be right about her, but maybe not. She ought to know her father, but maybe she doesn’t because he is her father. I can remember, I thought I knew mine when I was nineteen, but I didn’t. I didn’t find out until — To hell with it, that trail’s grown over. What I wanted to tell you, I had an idea, but I’m not saying it’s any good.”

“Even a bad idea would be welcome.”

“It’s that couple at Bill Farnham’s. Not the pair from Denver, that doctor and his wife from Seattle. Didn’t I hear you say he’s a doctor?”

I nodded. “Robert C. Amory, M.D., and his wife Beatrice.”

“How old are they?”

“Oh, around forty.”

“What’s she like?”

“Five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds. Fairly lookable. Hair dyed red, and I doubt if she brought a supply along. Tries to pretend she likes it here, but she came only because he needed to get away from the grind and he loves to ride and fish.”

“What’s he like? If that Brodell laid her and he found out, what would he do?”

“Brodell would have had to move fast. He had only been here three days.”

“We’ve got a bull that doesn’t even need one day.”

“Yeah, I’ve met that bull, as you know. Brodell wasn’t that type, but I admit it’s possible. I also admit that I had that idea Tuesday, four days ago, and I asked some questions that Bill Farnham resented. I got a couple of facts that didn’t hurt, but they didn’t prove anything. One, Dr. Amory has no alibi for that Thursday afternoon because he was upriver alone, and two, he can’t shoot worth a damn. I was hoping for a fact with juice in it, for instance that he had taken a gun along that day in case he met a bear, but Farnham said no.”

“Of course he said no. He wouldn’t want one of his dudes corralled for murder.”

“Sure. I’m just telling you what he said. As for believing him, I believe damn little of what a lot of people have told me the last six days. Even you. You told me day before yesterday that you never saw Philip Brodell. Do I have to believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“He was here six weeks last summer. Just four miles from this spot.”

“It might have been four hundred miles. I wish it was. Bill Farnham has a dude ranch and this is a working ranch, and Harvey and Bill have had some words, you know that. You were here the time a few cattle found a bad spot in the fence and made it to the woods and one of his dudes shot a steer. We don’t visit. The only way I know Alma met that Brodell at a dance at the hall, that’s what she told me. She never mentioned him once last year, but if you don’t want to believe I never saw him it’s your rope. Are you quitting on that doctor?”

“I’m not quitting on anybody. The only reason you’re not on the list is that it wouldn’t help any to tie it on you. Trading you for Harvey would be no improvement, even if you would shoot a man in the back.”

“If I did I wouldn’t hit him in the shoulder.”

“Unless you wanted to.” Our eyes were meeting. “I don’t think I’ve asked you, have I?”

“Asked me what?”

“If you shot him.”

“Nope. Twice. You haven’t asked me and I didn’t shoot him. You must be awful hard up for a meld.”

“Certainly I am. You know I am. But I’m not just talking to hear myself. Let’s see if we agree on a couple of points — three points. First, you’re not Harvey, you’re you, and you’re a woman, and you might shoot a man in the back. Second, you’re a good shot, and the bullet would go within half an inch of where you wanted it.”

“Not half an inch. It would go where I wanted it.”

“Okay. Now the third point. A lot of people, probably including Haight and Jessup, are saying that Harvey got him in the shoulder to turn him around, and then in the neck because everyone knows he can shoot and he wanted it to look as if the man who did it couldn’t shoot. The trouble with that is that Harvey simply hasn’t got that kind of a dodge in him. Granting that he would shoot him in the back at all, which I don’t, it would never enter his mind to kink it like that. But your mind is different. It would enter your mind. Do you agree on the three points?”

A corner of her mouth was twisted up. “Lily,” she said.

“What about Lily?”

“She thinks I shot him, huh?”

“If she does she hasn’t said so. This is just you and me. Even if Lily thinks that and has told me so, I do my own thinking. Do we agree on the three points?”

The corner of her mouth stayed up. “Suppose I say yes, then what? You said yourself that trading me for Harvey would be no improvement. Maybe you didn’t mean it?”

“Certainly I meant it. It’s obvious. But I asked Alma to do some supposing, and now I ask you to do some. Suppose you shot him, but I go on as if you didn’t. In that case, where am I? I can’t dig up evidence that would pin it on somebody else, because there isn’t any. I’m hog-tied, and anything and everything I do will be crap. But if I knew you shot him maybe I could do something that wouldn’t be crap. I’ve had some experience helping with tough problems, and I have been known to come up with an idea now and then. Strictly between you and me, let’s talk turkey.”

Her look was a squint, the squint that had made the wrinkles. She said, just stating a fact, “So you do think I shot him.”

“I do not. I only realize it’s possible. Alma’s saying you were both here all afternoon that day doesn’t prove anything, because of course she would say that. I admit you would be a damn fool to tell me you shot him if there was the slightest chance that I would pass it on, and I guess you don’t know me well enough to be dead sure of me. There are a few people in New York who do, nobody here does except maybe Harvey. As you know, I can’t get to him. If you tell him that I’ll give you my word that I’ll pass it on to no one, not even Lily, no matter what happens, I think he would tell you to open up.”

“So you’re sure I shot him.”

“Damn it, I am not! But I’m hobbled and I’ve got to know. Don’t you see the fix I’m in?”

“Yeah. I see. Well...” She looked around. “We haven’t got a Bible.” She got up and sent her eyes around again, and crossed to a corner where a saddle, not much used, hung on a wooden peg. “You know about this saddle,” she said.

I nodded. “A hand-made Quantrell, with silver stirrups and rivets and studs, and you won it at Pendleton in nineteen forty-seven.”

“I sure did. My biggest day, that was.” She cupped her palm over the horn and aimed her eyes at me. “If I shot that Brodell toad may this saddle mold up and rot and stink and get maggots, so help me God.” She turned to pat the cantle and back to me. “Is that good enough?”

“I wouldn’t ask for any better.” I was on my feet. “All right, you’re out, we cross you off, and it’s a job. Tell Harvey I hope I’m as good as he thinks I am. I’ll need to be.” I pointed. “The tobacco is for Mel and the fly swatters are for Pete. I won’t wait until they come in because I want to take a look at something. You heard what I said to Alma?”

“Most of it.”

“She was here with you that afternoon? All of it?”

“I’ve told you, yes.”

“And Gil Haight wasn’t here?”

“I’ve told you, no.”

I started out, turned, and said, “Still on the saddle.”

“It’s still yes and no,” she said.