The Removers

Chapter Four

LATER, Beth and I rode sedately down the trail while the boys and their escort ranged ahead. I noted that the man's horse, like the one I was riding, carried a lever-action.30-30 on the saddle.

My reunion with my sons had been undramatic. Matthew, age eight, had said 'Hi, Daddy,' and Warren, age six, had said 'Hi, Daddy,' and they'd both sat there uncomfortably on their ponies wondering if I'd brought them any presents from wherever I'd been, but too polite to ask. Then they'd ridden off, whooping. An extra daddy or two means very little, at that age, when you have a horse to ride.

Presently I heard a small sound from Beth. I glanced at her suspiciously. She kept her face averted as we rode along; then she looked at me quickly, and I saw that she was trying very hard to keep from laughing.

"Yeah, funny," I said, and grinned.

I mean, we'd been through it all before. It wasn't the first passionate moment in our lives that had been interrupted in this manner-in fact, I sometimes used to wonder how any parents ever managed to achieve more than one child. Somehow, after the first one, at the critical moment there's always a small voice outside the bedroom door telling you to come quick, the cat has just had kittens, the dog has just had pups, cc there's a large brown bug in the bathtub.

My truck was standing in the yard when we rode up. Beth glanced at it with a kind of nostalgia.

"I see the wheels haven't fallen off it yet," she said.

"Best damn car I ever had," I said. "I don't see your station wagon around."

"It needed a grease job, so Larry took it to town this morning," she said. "He'll be back soon. I want you to meet him."

"Sure," I said.

"I really do," she said. "I think you'll like each other." My friend, the young rifleman, came around a corner to take the horses. The boys, who'd reached the ranch well ahead of us, were all over him, telling him he had to come meet their real daddy. He was good with them, I saw, in that tolerant, mildly dictatorial way that, coming from someone they respect, someone three times their own age but still not too old to be approachable, goes down well with youngsters. He put them to work, giving them each a horse to lead away and unsaddle, and reminding them not to neglect their own mounts.

Beth said, "Peter, could you ask Clara to get the baby up and dress her? She's had a long enough nap, and I'm sure her father would like to see her."

"Yes, ma'am," young Logan said, and went off.

Beth watched him go. "He's a nice boy," she said. "I suppose it's hardly to be expected that he should be enthusiastic about me. A bomb killed his mother in London during the war. After a lot of knocking around here and there, Larry brought the boy to this country. There were only the two of them for years. Of course, Peter was away at school a good deal of the time, but still, there's a kind of special relationship between a widowed man and an only son… And then I came along, with three children! Naturally he can't help considering us as rivals. It speaks a lot for his character and training that he can be as nice to us as he is." She shook her head, dismissing the subject. "Well, I'm going to take a shower. Come on and I'll show you to your room, first." She hesitated. "Matt."

"Yes."

"It was a mistake. Let's not repeat it."

"If you say so," I said politely.

She said, "It would be all wrong and… and kind of complicated and unpleasant, wouldn't it? I don't know what I was thinking of. I…" She drew a long breath. "Anyway, here comes Larry."

A car that I recognized was coming up the road to the ranch. She walked quickly towards the front of the house to meet it. I saw her pause briefly as she realized that the driver was not alone.

I saw a funny, hard look that I didn't recognize come to her face. Then she was going forward again, but not as rapidly as before. I held back, since it seemed advisable to give her time to prepare her new husband for my presence. When I approached, she was talking to him at the side of the station wagon; but it wasn't Lawrence Logan who caught and held my attention first. It was the young girl who'd got out of the car on the other side, and the dog this girl had with her.

Of the two, the dog was slightly more spectacular. I'd seen red-haired girls before, but this was the first gray Afghan hound I'd met. It's not a breed with which I'm really familiar-not many people are-and the few specimens I'd encountered previously had all been brown or tan. This one was a silvery, bluish gray. Like all Afghans, it was short-haired along the back and long-haired down the legs so that, lean and bony, it looked rather like a greyhound with shaggy cowboy chaps on. It had a long, narrow, inbred head and big pleading brown eyes; and when I first saw it, it was protesting against something by standing erect on its hind legs, waving its woolly forepaws skyward, as tall as the girl on the other end of the leash.

She wasn't exactly inconspicuous herself, since her hair was that wonderful reddish-golden color that I doubt any woman ever grew naturally, but who cares? It was done up kind of casually about her head, with a loose swirl in back secured by a few pins that didn't look very trustworthy. She was quite young, not tall, but well developed or, as the saying goes, stacked. In other words, except for a trim little waist and neat small wrists and ankles, she wasn't skinny anywhere.

She was wearing sandals that would have looked swell on a Florida beach but seemed slightly impractical on a Nevada ranch; and emerald-green, skin-tight pants, the narrow kind that terminate about six inches above the ankles. You could hardly call them slacks since they didn't have any. Above them, she wore a kind of thin, loose jacket adorned with a wild, Japanese-looking print, predominantly the same bright shade of green as the pants. It was quite a costume. It seemed a pity for her to waste it on us mountain folks. In Bermuda, it would have gone over big.

What with Beth and Logan to think about, and the exotic dog putting on its standing-bear act, and the boys coming racing from the corral to admire it, and the other attributes of the girl to consider, I hope I may be excused for not paying immediate attention to her face-besides, it was partly turned away from me, as she tried to calm her panicky, rearing pet. She got it back to earth, but it wasn't happy, and it stood there trembling with its long, snaky tail tucked between its legs-something I never like to see in a dog, nor am I very fond of these narrow-headed animals, in any case. Selective breeding is all very well, but you ought to leave room for a few brains.

"Matt," Beth was saying now, coming towards me, "I want you to meet my… my husband. Larry, this is Matt Helm."

The moment was upon us, and it was no time to be staring at stray young females or their unlikely-looking dogs. Logan was standing in front of me. He was pretty much as Mac had described him, a spare, sinewy man in khakis, very English, with a bushy, sandy moustache and sharp blue eyes under sandy brows and lashes. He was older than I'd expected him to be, however: somewhere in his forties. I should have been ready for that after learning that he had a son over twenty. The British don't go in for child marriages much.

He held out his hand. It wasn't a sign of friendship, or even a gesture of peace; it was just a gentleman greeting a guest in the proper manner, regardless of possible personal differences.

"I have," he said, "heard quite a bit about you, Mr. Helm."

"Yes," I said. "Probably you'd have preferred to hear less."

After a moment, he smiled. "Quite," he said.

We'd made contact, at least. It seemed as if we might get around to understanding each other, with a little effort on both sides. We studied each other briefly, standing there, and I knew what Mac had meant when he said this man looked as if he might be able to take care of himself. It wasn't a look, as much as a smell or an aura. I tried to tell myself I was imagining things, or that if I wasn't, it was just that at some time Logan had been in somebody's army and had fought somebody's war, like most men of his generation and mine. But there are lots of men who've worn uniforms and fought battles and got nothing much out of it but a few unpleasant memories and an allergy towards military discipline. He wasn't one of those.

He started to speak, but Beth grabbed his arm. "Is that animal safe?" she asked, pointing to the dog, now fiat on the ground like a bearskin rug, its head between its paws, obviously suffering agonies of shyness, while the two boys scratched and petted and stroked it, and asked questions of its owner.

"Yes," I heard the girl say, "they can run pretty fast. In rough country, they can outrun a greyhound."

"Gee!"

Logan was laughing at Beth. "I don't know how safe the animal is, my dear," he said. "But I assure you the boys are perfectly safe. Afghans are quite gentle, and this one seems to be rather a shrinking violet, even for its breed."

Beth was still looking over there. Her face had again that strange hardness that I couldn't recall having seen before.

"Why did you bring her here?"

"It's a male dog, Elizabeth," Logan said. I gave him a quick look. He was absolutely deadpan, but he was kidding her just the same, in his quiet British way.

"I wasn't referring to the dog," she said sharply.

"Oh," he said, still deadpan. "Why, I met her on the street. She asked about Peter. They used to be quite good friends, you know. Childhood playmates and all that. When I said he was home, she asked if she could come out with me. I could hardly refuse. She's had a rather rough time, you know, with both parents. She used to consider us as her second family, somewhat preferable to her own. I did not want to hurt her feelings, even if… Here comes Peter now, with his hair combed, something parental authority has never been able to accomplish. Let us go inside and leave the children to their play. Are you a martini or a bourbon man, Mr. Helm?"

"Either one," I said. "It depends on the circumstances. For the long haul, bourbon, but for a quick jolt, nothing beats a martini. I think tonight may be classed as a martini night, Mr. Logan."

"Ah, yes," he said.

"If you'll excuse me," I said. "I'll join you in a minute."

He glanced towards the door, where a colored maid, was just bringing Betsy out, scrubbed and shining in a crisp little dress.

"We'll be in the living room," Logan said, taking Beth's arm and moving tactfully away.

I gave him a glance. It occurred to me that if I didn't watch myself I was going to start liking the guy. Then I turned to greet my daughter who, it turned out, wouldn't have known me from Santa Claus, except that Santa has a beard. When I came into the high-ceilinged living room, it was empty. Then Logan came in through a door near the fireplace which apparently led into a study or office with an outside door of its own. He was carrying a tall drink. He gestured towards a stemmed glass awaiting me on the little bar in the corner. I took a quick drink out of it.

He said, "It's always a bit of a shock when they don't remember you, isn't it? I had the same experience during the war." He raised his glass. "Well, cheers, and all that sort of thing."

"Cheers," I said. "I gave them a few presents, stuff I picked up over in Europe recently. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

"Where's Beth?" I asked.

He said, "I asked Elizabeth to withdraw temporarily. There is something I wish to say to you, Mr. Helm. I thought it would be easier for us to talk in her absence."

"Sure," I said. "Do we conduct the negotiations sitting or standing?"

He smiled quickly. "I say, I am making this sound terribly formal, am I not? Have a seat, by all means. I recommend that big chair by the window." He indicated the one, and started forward to take another, facing it. "Mr. Helm.."

I'd picked up my drink. As I turned from the bar, I brushed against it, and the camera in my hip pocket struck wood with a solid, quite audible thump. I reached back instinctively to check on its welfare. He was still speaking in his polite way; but at the sound, and my motion, his voice stopped and his hand moved, very fast, towards the lapels of the khaki bush jacket he was wearing.

It was a gesture that called for some violent response on my part. Fortunately, my encounter with the boy, earlier, had put a guard on my reflexes. I merely stood still and waited. His hand stopped. I drew a long, slow breath and continued reaching back without haste, drew the Leica from my pocket, and laid it on the bar.

"I thought I'd get some pictures of the kids before I left," I said.

His face was quite wooden. His hand rose to straighten the knot of his necktie. "Quite so," he said.

Then there was silence in the big room. I wanted to laugh, or to cry. I had him taped now. The practiced, instinctive gesture had told me everything I needed to know about him. That's the trouble with holsters. They give you away too badly, shoulder-holsters in particular.

Not that a shoulder-holster isn't a neat rig for carrying a heavy weapon outdoors in winter; it is. It puts the weight up where it belongs, supported by a substantial harness, instead of down on a narrow belt that tries to cut you in two. You don't have to open your coat much to get at it if you need it, and the gun doesn't freeze up in the coldest weather. A good spring shoulder rig is surprisingly comfortable, the gun is safe even if you.. stand on your head, it's protected from the elements, and it doesn't get in the way around camp the way a belt gun will. The fact that it's relatively slow needn't worry the outdoorsman, who's not apt, these days, to meet a grizzly on the trail without warning.

That's speaking of a big revolver carried by a hunter or trapper. When it comes to small, flat, inconspicuous automatics packed by competent-looking gentlemen with exaggerated British accents, you're speaking of a different matter entirely. I looked at him grimly. j knew him now. I knew what it was I'd smelled or sensed about him, that Mac hat noticed, too. It was the smell of smoke, of gunsmoke. It never quite blows away, as I ha1d reason to know.

It was funny, I suppose. This was what Beth had married, after leaving me because she couldn't stand being married to a man of violence-this slightly superannuated soldier of fortune, one of the armpit-gun boys, for God's sake!