Vineyard Fear (21 page)

Wilma and Mack looked at each other. Billy Jo looked at me. “I'm glad,” she said, and reached her hand toward mine.

Just then I heard the ringing of the phone in the house. Billy Jo's hand stopped. We all looked toward the sound. Wilma rose and waved the rest of us down. “I talked to him before, I'll talk to him now.” She looked down at me. “I'll tell him to go to the ranch. That someone will meet him there in an hour . . . Who? . . .”

“Your nephew,” I said.

“My nephew.” She nodded. The phone rang. She trotted toward the house.

“The world's getting mighty strange,” said Mack. With one hand, he squeezed his beer can flat. I opened another can.

Wilma went into the house and the phone stopped ringing. After a while she came out again.

“Done,” she said. “I gave him the message, then called the deputies at the house, but nobody answered. They must be outside. I'll try again in a few minutes.”

“How'd he seem?” I asked.

“Soft voice. Cheerful.”

“I guess now we wait.”

“Well, I'm going to wait up in the north quarter section,” said Mack. “Still got half a field to plow. I'll see you all later. Wilma, you stick close to the house. Billy Jo, you might show J.W. around a bit.”

He went off.

“Finish your beer,” said Billy Jo, easing back in her chair. “Nothing's going to happen for an hour.”

Once you got out of the shade, it was a thirsty day. I took the remains of my six-pack with me and we finished it while Billy Jo led me down to the corrals and through the barn and outbuildings. It was a well-maintained place. There were horses in a pasture behind the barn and there was a pond beyond them and a grove of piñon and cedar trees beyond that.

“All sagebrush once,” said Billy Jo, sweeping her hand across a panorama of green fields. “My grandfather ran
cattle here, but now we mostly farm and only keep enough beef for our own table.”

We circled back to the house.

“Pit stop,” said Billy Jo.

“You can't buy beer,” I said, quoting the ancient wisdom. “You can only rent it.”

Wilma was coming out of the house as we went in. She was carrying a basket, wearing cotton gloves, and headed for the garden.

“Those deputies must be hunkered down in the chicken coops or somewhere. Called them half a dozen times, but never got hold of them. Damnation, people should stick to their plans. Too late to call them again. I'm going to do some weeding.” She went past us and I looked after her. I didn't like what I'd heard her say.

Billy Jo was first in line for the bathroom, and thus it was that when the phone rang I was the only one there to answer it. I did.

A gentle, ironic voice asked for Mrs. Skye.

“She's outside. Can I take a message?”

“Who's this?”

“Just a friend. Who's this?” I thought I knew.

“Another friend. Yes, you can give her a message. Tell her that her nephew never showed up and the two guys that came instead didn't know a thing about where John Skye is. Tell her I'm really disappointed with her.”

“Orwell, is that you?”

There was a silence. Then, “Who's this?”

“J. W. Jackson. Don't hang up. You're after the wrong man. Call me at . . .”

The phone clicked in my ear.

Billy Jo came out of the bathroom and saw me with the phone in my hand. She also must have seen something in my face.

“What happened? What's the matter?”

“I think there's trouble at Vivian's place. Do you have another gun in the house? I prefer a rifle or shotgun.”

She nodded.

“Get it, please. And some shells.”

She went away without a word and I phoned the Sheriffs Department and told them to get some people out to Vivian Skye's ranch. As I hung up, Billy Jo came back with both a deer rifle and a shotgun. I took the shotgun and punched shells into the magazine. “I'm going to Vivian Skye's house. Stay here by the phone.”

“No. I'm coming with you. I can shoot.”

A rifle had better range than the shotgun. “All right. Let's go.” We went out and got into my car. I saw Wilma coming out of the garden as we drove out. She dropped her basket and started running toward us, but I didn't stop.

There was a low ridge west of Vivian Skye's place. A large irrigation ditch ran along it, and there were willows and cottonwood trees growing there. When I got there, I stopped the car and looked at the farmhouse and then at the corrals and outbuildings on the other side of the road. The gates on either end of the corrals were open. No one was in sight. Beside me, Billy Jo punched shells into the magazine of the 30-06 she held, muzzle down, between her legs.

“When we get there,” I said, “I'm going to stop the car on the road and leave the engine running. I want you to stay by the car with the rifle and cover me while I go into the house. If you see somebody laying for me, shoot him. If I get inside and you hear shooting, but don't see me come out afterward, I want you to get away. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“And watch your back. Maybe Orwell isn't in the house at all. He might be on the other side of the road in the outbuildings.”

“Yes.”

There were beads of sweat above her upper lip, and her eyes were bright.

I drove up to the gate to the driveway and stopped and looked at the house, then at the outbuildings. No movement. I felt as I'd felt when I'd gone out on patrol in Vietnam. Hollow, fatalistic, jumpy, frightened. I got out of the car, pumped a shell into the firing chamber of the shotgun, and ran toward the house, trying to see everywhere at once.

Nothing moved.

I slanted toward the front door, stood to one side of it, and pushed it open. I heard muffled sounds from somewhere inside. If I'd had a grenade. I could have tossed it in and then ducked in after the explosion; but I didn't have a grenade. I listened some more, flattened against the wall of the house. I heard the sound again. A voice somewhere deep inside the house. I heard nothing in the room beyond the door. I took a deep breath and ducked through the door, shotgun level.

An empty room. Doorways leading out of it. I went silently to the first one. An empty kitchen with a door leading outside and another into a hall. I went to the hall. The muffled voice seemed louder.

It took me ten minutes to go through the ground floor and second floor of the house.

Nobody.

The only place left was the basement. I stood to one side and pushed open the door to the basement stairs. The muffled voice was suddenly silent. There was a light switch on the wall beside the stairs. I reached across with the barrel of the shotgun and flicked it on. Light flared up from below.

I waited, listening. I didn't want to go down the stairs.
I popped my head out and tried to see down there. No good. I went down the stairs fast, shotgun thrust in front of me, waiting for the bullets. I saw a wall and spun, putting my back to it, swinging the shotgun across the room as I looked for Orwell and his Beretta machine gun.

The two deputy sheriffs I had talked to were staring at me with white faces and wide eyes. Their hands were cuffed to water pipes. Their pistol holsters were empty. One had a bloody head.

“If he's here, say so quick!” My voice sounded flat and small.

“No. No, he's gone! We're mighty glad to see you!” The deputy I'd first spoken to nodded toward a table across the room. “Our guns and the keys to the cuffs are over there.”

I got the keys and gave them to the deputies and went upstairs and outside. Billy Jo stood behind the car, looking at me over the sights of her 30-06. I walked out to her and told her about the deputies. “Now we'll do the outbuildings,” I said. “Cover me again. You're good at it.”

She looked over my shoulder. “Wait a minute. Here comes some help.”

The deputies came up. They looked happier than they had looked in the basement. I told them I was going to search the outbuildings.

The first deputy looked at Billy Jo. “You better stay out of this, miss.”

“Nobody's taken her gun away from her,” I said. “You two ever in the service?” They both nodded. “Okay, let's sweep these outbuildings. Billy Jo'll cover our asses.”

With three men, the job was faster. In the barn we found the deputies' truck parked right where they'd left it, but we didn't find Orwell. We went back to the road.

I heard sirens to the west, and soon two Sheriffs Department cars and a State Police car topped the hill to the west and came toward us, lights flashing. The deputies looked embarrassed.

“I'll listen in while you explain to everybody what happened,” I said, as Billy Jo and I unloaded our weapons and put them back into my car.

Soon we were surrounded by more policemen than had probably ever been in one spot on the Florida Mesa. One was the sheriff of La Plata County. He did not look pleased.

“The guy was here when we got here,” explained the first deputy. “We put the truck in the barn and went up to the house and he was waiting for us. Must have been watching us all the time. Covered us when we came through the door. Jake tried for him and got his head broke. Took our guns and cuffed us to the pipes in the basement. Asked us why we were there. I told him we'd gotten an anonymous tip. He didn't push it. Then he went upstairs and made a telephone call and came down again.”

“Asked us who'd given us the tip,” said Jake, as a colleague tended to his bloody head. “Ted said we didn't know. Seemed to just be making talk to pass the time. Got nervous when the phone rang, but we never told him it must be for us. Scary bastard. Asked where John Skye was, but didn't act like he really expected us to know. Finally he said somebody would be along by and by. Told us to be sure to keep working in the country where we'd be safe. Then he left. That's all there is to tell. Guy's dangerous.”

“More than can be said for you two,” growled the sheriff. “What'd this fella look like?”

Jake looked at his partner. “Average-sized guy. Levi's, denim shirt, blue baseball cap, army boots. Hairy, hippie-looking guy. Brown hair, stringy, down to his shoulders almost. Big moustache, beard. Tanned, blue eyes, wire glasses. Favored one leg a little. That about it, Ted?”

“Left-handed,” said Ted. Jake nodded.

The sheriff grunted. “Sounds like a makeup artist. Grant, put that description out.”

Grant, who was young and clean-cut and staring at Billy Jo, jerked to attention and went to a radio.

The sheriff looked around. “You obviously didn't see his car when you came in. How do you figure he got here and then got away?”

“If I was going to do it,” said Billy Jo, “I'd have parked my car in the woods behind the barn. He had the same idea. Look for yourself. The corral gates are still open and there are fresh car tracks under and on top of the ones the deputies' truck made when they put it in the barn.”

All of the policemen looked at her, then all of them looked at the gates and tracks.

“Young lady,” said the sheriff, “if you ever want a job, come and see me. All right, a couple of you men follow those tracks down into the woods and see if you can find anything useful. I doubt if there'll be much there. We got anything to make a cast of these tire prints? I didn't think so. Well, trooper, let's have a look at the house. Maybe this guy left his name and address and telephone number behind. We need a couple of clues like that to make up for my deputies' police work.”

Ted and Jake looked unhappy.

I drove Billy Jo home. Orwell was apparently a man who was good at disguises. A blond grad student, a bearded doctor, a hippie with long hair and wire glasses. Who would he be next?

Wilma met us with a frown, and we told her what had happened. She looked at the ground and then at me. There was fire in her eye.

“Billy Jo's a grown-up woman, so I've got no say about what she does with herself, but I don't take kindly to you putting her in harm's way like that.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Mom, I made him take me,” said Billy Jo.

Wilma sighed. “Yes, I imagine you did.” Then she swept us both with hard, worried eyes. “I still don't like it.”

“It's okay, Mom.”

“Spilt milk,” said Wilma. “Well, put those guns away where they belong before your father gets back to the house. No use to get him worked up for no good reason.” She turned away.

“Mrs. Skye,” I said. “I need some help.”

She stopped, her back still turned. Then, slowly, she faced me and stood silent.

“I need to talk to Orwell. When I told the police about his phone call, I made a mistake. I should have met him myself. If I'd done that, I could have talked to him. I might have been able to convince him that he's after the wrong person . . .”

“And you might have gotten yourself handled worse than he handled the deputies,” said Billy Jo fiercely. “They didn't know where John was, but you do. He might have made you tell him.”

“Maybe.” I looked at Wilma. “I need to talk to him.”

“So?”

“So if he contacts you, will you tell him where I am, and give him my telephone number? Will you do that, at least, and tell him I want to talk to him?” I had a thought. “Tell him that he owes me that much, at least, since he almost killed me three times.”

“He won't call.”

“If he does . . .”

She frowned at me, then said, “Hmmph. All right. Billy Jo, you'd best get those guns back where they belong.” She turned away.

Billy Jo flashed me a look. “I'll see you tonight,” she said.

I blinked, then remembered. “Yes. Tonight.”

I drove to my motel and got ready for the date I'd almost forgotten. My cowboy clothes were all pretty grungy, so I wore clean jeans, an almost-as-good-as-new thrift shop polo shirt with a little animal over the pocket, and my Tevas. Casual, but not too far from tourist chic. When Billy Jo knocked on my door, I was ready to go.