Escape from Five Shadows

9

The second letter from Lyall Martz, the Hatch & Hodges attorney, arrived on the Saturday afternoon stage. It came unexpectedly, for Karla had written to him only the day after talking to Bowen, Tuesday, and there had not been time for her letter even to reach Prescott, much less receive an answer already.

Her father watched her. “Well, go ahead and read it.”

“I’m afraid to,” Karla said.

“You’re not going to change what’s inside by staring at the envelope.”

“It’s bad news,” Karla said tonelessly. “Either he’s decided not to work on it or else he’s run up against a stone wall.”

“Sis, that’s some gift you have-being able to read letters without opening them.”

She glanced at her father. “It has to be one or the other. Mr. Martz hasn’t even received my letter yet. He couldn’t have been working on it-he needed the information he asked for first.”

“Then,” Demery said, “he couldn’t have run into a stone wall…not yet.”

Karla nodded dejectedly. “He’s decided he can’t spare the time. That must be it.”

“Sis, if you don’t hurry up and read it, I’ll have to.”

“I will,” Karla said.

Demery watched her finger work open the envelope, take out the letter and unfold the pages bearing Lyall Martz’s large, down-slanting scrawl. He watched her-a frown, a somber tight-lipped expression on her face, now biting her lower lip lightly, thoughtfully, now her lips parting and not biting them, her eyes opening, opening wide, glancing up, but only for part of a moment, concentrating on the letter again, and her mouth began to form a smile. She looked up again and the smile was in her eyes: a moist, glistening smile that struck John Demery as the most genuinely happy smile he had ever seen in his life.

“Bad news?”

Karla’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“Are you going to read it to me,” Demery said, “or do I have to guess.”

She stared at him, still smiling, and handed him the letter. “Read it out loud.”

“This must be some letter,” Demery said. He began to read:

Dear Karla,

As soon as I accepted this “spare-time job” as you call it, I had to admit to a weakening of the will. I am afraid my giving in has touched off a complete breakdown of my mental faculties, for now I must admit to even a weakening in the intellect department. (Don’t tell your father that, though he wouldn’t understand it anyway.)

Demery looked up, but before he could speak Karla said, “Go on, read.”

After I wrote to you [Demery continued] outlining the information I needed, it occurred to me: how is Karla going to get information from a man locked up in a convict camp? That could be difficult even for Karla. Then I realized that all I need do was talk to McLaughlin myself. He was at the trial and, of course, he saw the bill of sale. Which I did.

Mac stated that the handwriting on the bill of sale was clearly an imitation of his own, and a fairly good one, especially the signature. My reasoning then eliminated both your friend Bowen and the other one, Manring, as the forger. It is possible that they know how to write but highly improbable they write well enough to copy the ornate signature Mclaughlin has been practicing for fifty years.

That pointed to a third man. I asked Mac if the identity of the forger was established at the trial. He recalled that it had not even been brought up. He also told me that Manring had worked for him once before, though had denied it at the trial. Could Manring have procured a blank bill of sale at that time? Yes, but that had been three years ago, Mac stated. Only six months before the trial, he had purchased new stationery and forms. The bill of sale was of the new batch.

Now, so far we have established that there must be a third man. But, who?

Probably anyone who worked for McLaughlin could have come by a blank bill of sale. He admitted that. But again, we eliminated three-quarters of his hands on the basis of not being able to write at all. So it must be a man who wrote well enough himself to copy another so exactly. Still, a man who worked for McLaughlin.

His bookkeeper? No, Mac said. He kept his own books since firing Roy Avery. McLaughlin looked at me and I looked at him and that, Karla, was how it happened. You see, McLaughlin always tended his own paper work until deciding a man of his holdings should have a bookkeeper of his own. (It took him twenty years to decide this.) So he hired Avery, who lasted two months. He did nothing dishonest, then. But Mac didn’t care for him in general and when he fired him they had an argument over the justice of it.

If the identity of the forger had been investigated at the trial, Mr. Avery’s name would already appear in the record. That is how obvious it was his doing. Being obvious, Roy Avery of course left Prescott at the time the two men were apprehended. But-and it is questionable whether this is evidence of nerve or imbecility-Mr. Avery returned to Prescott upon learning there had been no mention of him made at the trial. Hence, he was arrested right here in Prescott, McLaughlin having agreed to proffer charges.

Yesterday morning Roy Avery signed a statement admitting his part in the case. He stated that his dealings were with Earl Manring only, that he had never met a Corey Bowen, had never even heard of him until the trial.

As far as he knew, Manring had planned to take the cattle alone. If Bowen helped him, Avery stated, then he was fairly certain Bowen was working at what he believed to be an honest job. Avery reasoned it this way: if Bowen knew it was rustled stock, he would have demanded a close to equal share in the profit. Knowing Manring, Avery said, Manring would never have agreed to that. Therefore, since Bowen did go along, Avery believes he was drawing nothing more than trail wages. We must compliment Mr. Avery on a piece of uncommonly sound reasoning.

This morning, Karla, I filed a motion for a new trial. The date has not yet been set, but I think your friend has a much better than average chance of winning an acquittal. And I generally do not make predictions.

Incidentally, the court record stated that neither of the two men had been arrested previously. However that meant only that the Prescott sheriff’s office did not have a wanted dodger on either of them. Tracing Manring’s past seemed almost impossible to begin with and after a wire to the Tucson authorities, and receiving a negative reply, I gave up on him. However I was able to find out something about Bowen.

His last job was with a cattle company headquartered in the San Rafael valley. But before that he seemed to have spent most of his time mining. His record showed his first job had been with the Moctezuma people in Bisbee. I wired them and found out he had lived there most of his life. His father had been a mine foreman with Moctezuma and Bowen worked for him on and off, sometimes going up into the hills alone to try his own luck, until the father was killed in a mine shaft cave-in. Shortly after that, Bowen left Bisbee. He worked for a horse trader about two years then joined the San Rafael cattle outfit. His mother had passed away some time before the father and as far as I can discover, your friend has no other kin in the territory.

Girl, if all this sounds overly quick and simple, put it out of your head. I have been working harder at my “spare-time job” than at my regular practice or for Hatch and Hodges. It is fortunate, Karla, that you have a pretty face (even if your father does claim you are half boy), or you never would have talked me into this.

I expect to be in Willcox some time next month and look forward to seeing your mother and sisters. If I have time, I will stop by Pinaleño on the way back.

With love,

Your Uncle Lyall

“Your Uncle Lyall,” Demery repeated, looking up at Karla. “I hope he isn’t claiming kinship from my side of the family.”

Karla was still smiling. “And you said he’d be wasting his time.”

“He hasn’t proved anything, Karla.”

“He has for me.”

“And now you’ll want to go up and tell your friend about it.”

“I have to take the mail anyway.”

“Not today, you won’t. It’d be dark before you got back.”

They were in the main room, standing near the roll-top desk and now Karla glanced toward the open door. “I might have time.”

Demery shook his head. “It’d be dark before you even started back.”

“Well…I’ll go in the morning then.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” her father reminded her. “They don’t work on Sunday. So how’re you going to get to him?”

“That’s something you can’t plan,” Karla said. “A way just happens.”

“Sis, even with your sunny outlook, how do you think it’s going to just happen?”

“It happened the other day.”

“You were lucky. Tomorrow they’ll be standing in front of the barracks smoking, your friend one of them. Or maybe he’ll be inside.”

“If I don’t see him tomorrow,” Karla said, “then the next day. One more day isn’t going to matter now that he’s as good as out.”

“You’re taking a lot for granted. Lyall still has to prove his innocence.”

“He will.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Pa, when something that looks almost impossible to start with all of a sudden turns possible and everything falls into place as if all you have to do is wish and it happens, then you know it’s going to turn out all right.”

“You figured that out all by yourself?”

“It makes sense.”

“Do you know that your talking to him, even though he might be innocent-”

“Might be!”

“Listen to me. Your talking to him like that, even though he might be innocent, is against the law. You know that, don’t you?”

“Sending an innocent man to jail is against the law, too, if you all of a sudden want to be ethical about it.”

“Karla, if I told you not to see him, but wait for Lyall to do something…would you listen to me?”

“Of course I’d listen to you.”

“But you’d go ahead and try to see him.”

“It’s only fair. If you were in prison, and were going to get out, wouldn’t you want to know about it?”

“You’re taking things for granted again,” Demery reminded her.

“You just want to argue,” Karla said.

Demery shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t have your sweet faith in human nature.”

“Some men,” Karla said pointedly, “have to put on a big front of not believing in anything-hoping, I don’t know why, that everybody will think they’re very smart.”

“You’re some keen observer.”

“If we had time, I’d tell you some other things.”

“I guess you would,” Demery said. “Listen, I’ll tell you something now. I’ll bet you four bits you don’t talk to him tomorrow or the next day.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I’m just playing law of averages, Sis.”

“Make it a dollar,” Karla said, “and you’ve got a bet.”

It was almost ten o’clock, the next morning, before Karla finished helping her father with the monthly report to the main office. She put aside the mail for the convict camp, then saddled her horse and brought it around to the front of the adobe. The next quarter of an hour was spent carrying in water from the pump to the big wooden tub in her bedroom. Her cold-water bath took only a few minutes and after it she brushed her hair and put on a fresh blouse and skirt.

John Demery’s eyes studied her appraisingly as she came out of her bedroom. “Something special about today?”

Karla smiled. “I don’t have time to be drawn into one of your traps.”

“You’re the only girl I know who can look dressed up in a man’s shirt. Maybe if Willis had seen you, he would’ve stayed.”

“Mr. Falvey was here?”

“He waved going by. Headed for the bar at Fuegos.”

“The last time he was here,” Karla said, “I think I frightened him. I told you-he was talking about wanting somebody to talk to-I felt sorry for him, but the way he was going about it I had to tell him to leave.”

“Well, I don’t imagine even his wife understands him,” Demery said. He picked up the small bundle of convict camp mail from the desk and handed it to Karla. “There’s a couple there for Willis. I didn’t think about it…I could’ve given them to him.”

“I’ll give them to Lizann,” Karla said.

“Don’t get too close to her,” Demery said. “Some of that gild might brush off.”

“Now…you can’t judge people just by looking at them.”

“It seems to me I said the same thing not too long ago-about a man not having to look like a jailbird to be one.”

Karla shook her head. “When you look at Corey Bowen, you know he’s good. When you look at Lizann, you give her the benefit of the doubt.” She leaned toward her father and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m going now. Before you think of something else to argue about.”

She rode for the willow stand, passed through the dim silence of the trees, then entered the vast sunlight of the slope beyond and followed the sweeping curve of wagon tracks to the shoulder of the hill. There she left the tracks, riding straight on, up into the close-growing pines that covered the crest of the hill, following a horse trail now that twisted narrowly through the trees. Coming out of the trees, the horse trail dropped down a steeper grade, crossed the wagon ruts that had circled the hill, then followed the length of a narrow grama meadow before climbing again up through fields of house-sized boulders.

A mile farther on Karla emerged from a thin, steep-walled pass to stand above the canyon which the new road followed. Far below her, the dead end of the canyon was choked with pinyon and mesquite. The brush clumps thinned gradually as they spread and finally the dusty green patches of color disappeared completely, almost evenly, before reaching the end of new road construction.

Karla walked her horse along the west rim until she reached the trail that dropped down into the canyon: a rock-slide draw that fell to a shelf, the shelf hugging the wall narrowly until it reached the floor of the canyon. Karla descended and a quarter of a mile farther on, she stopped at the waterhole among the sycamores where she had talked to Bowen.

She let her horse drink. Coming out of the trees, her gaze caught the wisp of dust farther up canyon; but she reached the stretch of new road, passed the timbers that were used for grading, passed fire-blackened circles where brush had been burned, before she saw the rider who was leading the dust trail down the wash, down into the canyon and following the road now toward her.

It was Frank Renda. As she recognized him-her gaze going to him then sharply away from him-she saw the grave and the crude cross marking it off to the side of the canyon. Renda came directly toward her, making her rein in. His horse crowded Karla’s and as their knees touched, Karla prodded her quirt at Renda’s horse, backing away as she did.

Renda was smiling and he wiped the back of his hand over his heavy mustache. “This must be my day.”

Karla was thinking of the new grave and she nodded to it, saying, “Someone was killed?” consciously making the question and the tone of her voice sound natural.

Renda followed her gaze. “Somebody tried to run away.”

“Who was it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I might have a letter for him,” Karla said. She reached back, her hand touching the strap of the left-side saddlebag.

“His name was Miller,” Renda said. Karla’s hand hesitated on the strap. Now her fingers unfastened it and she drew out the bundle of letters. “You got something for him?”

She knew there was nothing for a Miller, but she loosened the string binding the letters and leafed through them. “None for that name.”

“What about me?” Renda asked.

Karla glanced down and up again. “Nothing for you either.”

“What’s all the mail about then?”

“One for Mr. Brazil…one, two for Mr. Falvey.”

“I’ll take them back for you,” Renda said.

Karla looked up. “It’s all right. I’ll take them. You go ahead wherever you’re going.”

Renda nodded to the letters. “That’s where I was going. So I’m saving you a trip.”

“I’d just as soon ride up and leave them myself,” Karla said.

“There’s no sense in that, if you don’t have to.”

She tried to smile. “I don’t have anything to do anyway. Sunday’s a funny day. There’s nothing ever to do.”

“Let me have the mail, Karla.”

“Honestly, it’s no trouble for me to ride to the camp. I want to.”

“I don’t care where you ride,” Renda said. “Long as you give me the mail.”

She was aware of his stare and the cold, threatening tone of his voice and only then did she realize that he wanted the letters for another reason, not simply to save her a trip to the camp. Still, she hesitated.

“Karla, you hand them over else I’ll take them off you.”

“If you’re that anxious,” Karla said, “all right.” She leaned over to hand him the bundle then sat back in the saddle and watched him leaf through the envelopes. He pulled one of them out and looked at the return address on the envelope flap. Then, before Karla could speak, he had ripped open the envelope and was unfolding the letter.

“You can’t read other people’s mail!”

Not looking at her, Renda said, “Keep quiet.”

“That’s against the law!” Karla screamed. Then, more calmly, “Mr. Renda, you’re tampering with the United States mail. You can go to prison for what you just did.”

Renda looked up then. He was smiling and his eyebrows raised as if to show surprise. “I didn’t know it was a personal letter.”

“It wasn’t addressed to you!”

Renda nodded calmly. “It was addressed to Willis. But Willis ain’t at camp. What if it was something had to be tended to right away? Honey, it was my business to open it.” He held up the second letter addressed to Falvey. “This one, too,” he said, and tore it open.

The quirt, thonged to Karla’s wrist, dropped from her hand as she kicked her horse against Renda’s and reached for the letter. “Give me that!”

Renda pushed her and his horse side-stepped away. “Now don’t get excited.” She came at him again and he held her away until he finished reading the letter.

“No,” Renda said. “That one wasn’t business either.” He grinned then. “It seems Willis put in for a transfer, but this”-he glanced down at the return address on the envelope-“Everett C. Allen, of Washington, D.C., thinks Willis ought to stay right here. Says there aren’t any good openings now, but he’ll let him know when one comes along and in the meantime, superintending a”-he looked down at the letter again-“a territorial penal institution was valuable experience and would equip him for a more responsible position when the opportunity presented itself.”

Renda was still smiling. “Karla, did you know Five Shadows was a territorial penal institution?”

“My father’s going to hear about this,” Karla said.

“Your father’s going to hear about it. Now that’s something.”

“You won’t think it’s funny then-opening other people’s mail.”

Renda crumpled both of the letters in his fist. “What mail?”

“Give me those!”

He held Karla away as she came at him again and threw the tight ball of paper over his shoulder. “I don’t have anything, Karla. Just this pack of letters. That what you want?”

For a moment she stared at him, feeling a rage she could do nothing about. She dismounted then, looping her reins about the saddle horn, and walked around Renda’s horse to pick up the crumpled letters.

“I’m giving this to my father,” Karla said. “Just the way it is. You can count on a United States marshal visiting you within two weeks.”

“Why? Because you found a piece of thrown-away paper?”

“You won’t talk like that to a marshal.”

“Whatever you’re holding, I never saw before in my life,” Renda said. “And you and all the United States marshals in the country aren’t going to prove I did.”

“We’ll see,” Karla said.

Renda swung down from the saddle and walked toward her. Watching him Karla began to back away. “What’s the matter with you?” Renda said. “I only want to give your letters back. You’re so anxious to ride them up to the camp, all right. Here.”

As Karla took them, Renda’s hand went to her shoulder. “Karla, there’s no good reason we have to fight.”

“Take your hand off me.”

“Why don’t we just talk awhile. Get all the misunderstanding cleared away.”

“I’m happy the way it is,” Karla said. She shifted the mail to her left hand and her right hand closed around the quirt that hung from her wrist.

“Karla, we could go over and sit in that sycamore shade. Let the horses water-”

“I said take your hand off me!”

Renda grinned. “Like nobody ever touched you before.”

The quirt came up. Before Renda saw it, the rawhide lashed across his face; before he could bring up his hands the whip came back stinging across his eyes, and as he covered his face Karla ran.

Five strides and she was in her saddle, spurring, reining tight to the left, cracking the quirt across the rump of Renda’s mount, then at Renda as he ran to her, as he caught her leg, almost pulling her from the saddle. She swung viciously again and again, the quirt hissing, slashing at his straining upturned face, until suddenly he was no longer there.

As Renda went down, Karla’s horse broke into a gallop. Over her shoulder she saw Renda on the ground, now rising to his feet and pausing to look after her, now running for his horse as it disappeared into the sycamore grove.

It rushed through Karla’s mind that she was heading up canyon. To return home the way she had come, she would have to come about and run past Renda. He would have caught his horse by the time she passed the sycamores and would overtake her easily before she reached the end of the canyon. So there was no choice.

She would go to the camp. There were people there, and even if they worked for Renda it would be better there than being alone. He would follow her; but he would have had time to think of what he had done. Lizann would be there. She would tell Lizann about it and Frank Renda would have something else to think about. She could worry about returning home when the time came.

To her right, the wagon-trail wash came winding down through the talus and Karla reined toward it. Reaching the rim of the canyon she stopped long enough to look back. Far below her Renda, mounted again, was moving unhurriedly up the new stretch of road.

Minutes later, Karla was riding down the slope that stretched to the convict camp. The gate guard recognized her two hundred yards out. He unlocked the chain and swung half of the gate open to let Karla ride in.

“Is Mrs. Falvey home?”

The guard looked over toward the ramada. “That’s her horse. I judge she’s fixing for a ride.”

“I want to deliver her mail,” Karla said.

“Go right ahead, honey.”

Karla dismounted. She glanced at the bundle of letters as if to leaf through them. “Maybe there’s something for you.”

The guard shook his head. “Don’t take the bother to look.”

“If you’re that sure-” Karla said. She looked back as the guard started to swing the gate closed. He hesitated, squinting out into the glare and she knew he had seen the dust line coming down the slope.

“You might as well leave it open,” Karla said.

Now they could make out the form of horse and rider. Still squinting the guard asked, “Who is it?”

“Your boss,” Karla said. She moved away then, leading her horse toward the main adobe. Reaching the end of the building, she entered the shade of the ramada and moved along the edge of it to the support post where Lizann’s horse stood. She half-hitched her reins to the post and walked over to the Falveys’ quarters.

As she stepped into the doorway, Bowen and Lizann turned, moving apart, Lizann’s arms coming down from Bowen’s shoulders. Bowen’s hand pushed into his shirt front, but not quickly enough. Karla had already seen the revolver in his hand.