Vineyard Fear (15 page)

I crossed the road again and went into the house. There was a phone on the wall of the kitchen. I called Wilma Skye and told her where I was.

“Nobody home,” I said. “No Mazda. Can you tell me how to get to the Hermosa range?”

“I sure can. We all used to run our cattle up there, before the cattle business got so bad we couldn't afford it anymore. But that's big country up there, and I don't rightly know where Cousin John is camped. Might be he's down on Clear Creek, though I doubt it. Might be there on the flats where the old Turnip Patch Cabin used to be. Might be up on Little Elk. Or he might be up at the top
of the Hermosa Cliffs, up near where the old Arnold Cabin used to be. We all used to crawl around the cliffs when we were kids. Danged near scared our parents half to death when they caught us. If I was to guess, I'd guess he's up there someplace, up toward the top of Dutch Creek. Around the Bath Tub, maybe. Good graze for the horses up there, good water, sun comes up early and goes down late, not too far from some good fishing. You get yourself a horse and somebody who knows the land, and I imagine you can find John's camp in a couple of days. Not that many places to look, if you know where you're looking.”

“Where is this place?”

“Why, you just drive up the valley north of Durango and a few miles along you'll cross Hermosa Creek. You can drive up the creek for a ways, and you'll go through a drift fence. That's the lower drift fence for the range. Then you can go on up past the old sawmill for a half mile or so. But from there on, it's all trail. The Hermosa range is mostly on your right. All those little creeks come down out of it and run into the Hermosa. Range runs all the way up to the other side of Big Elk. A lot of square miles and some rough country until you get up to the meadows at the head of Dutch. The cliffs mark the east end of the range. You're going to like them! A thousand feet high, rising right out of the Animas Valley. You jump off one of them, you might starve to death before you hit the ground!” Wilma had a healthy-sounding laugh, I thought.

“So you think I'll need a horse and a guide.”

“Heck, there are hikers and mountain bikers and dirt bike people who get way up there, too. And you can get yourself a Forest Service map, and try to find John's camp by yourself, if you want. But unless you know the area, you might walk around there for a week and never find squat, if you know what I mean.”

“I don't have a week to spare. Where can I find a horse and a guide?”

“Where can you find a . . . ? Just a second.” I heard her distant voice. “Billy? Billy Jo, come here.”

Billy Jo apparently came. I heard an exchange of voices. Then Wilma Skye came back on the line. “Tell you what,” she said. “I think we can take care of you right here. We've got horses and a horse trailer and Billy Jo, who knows that range better than I do. That is, if you don't mind being guided around by a genuine college graduate who doesn't have a steady job yet.”

A voice protested in the background.

“I don't mind,” I said. “I don't have a steady job myself. How do I get to your place?”

She told me. I went west to 550, then north, then east again at the top of the big hill. “If you go down the big hill, you've gone too far,” Wilma had said. I spotted the big hill just in time and took the road to the right. A couple of miles farther along I came to a gate topped with steer horns and the name Flying Shirt-tail Ranch. There was no missing that name, and I pulled in and stopped in front of another large farmhouse. A tall, handsome, rawboned woman came out of the house as I climbed out of my little car. She put out a hard hand.

“You'd be J. W. Jackson. I'm Wilma. Mack's in town getting some part or other for that danged tractor. Pouring good money after bad, if you ask me. He should be home anytime.” A dazzling girl in jeans, cowboy boots, and a checkered shirt came out into the sunlight. Her hair was dark and fell in two braids down over her shoulders. Wilma grinned and waved her forward. “Come here, sweetheart. Mr. Jackson, this is my youngest, Billy Jo. Billy Jo, this is Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson's come all the way from Massachusetts. He's a friend of Cousin John.”

Something tingled between me and Billy Jo. She came forward and I saw that she wasn't a girl, she was a woman.

My hat, the forest green one with the Martha's Vineyard Surfcasters Association logo on the front, which I had carefully selected for the trip from my collection of hats
with other things printed on the front, was already in my hand.

“I'm the one without a steady job,” she said, putting out her hand. A little smile played across her lips. Her hand was firm and lightly callused.

“My friends call me J.W.,” I said. “I'm a stranger in a strange land, and I need somebody to lead me to John Skye. I gather that you can do the job.”

“I can find John Skye for you, if that's what you want. When do you want to go up there?” Her eyes were dark, like her mother's, and she had the same fine bone structure in her face.

“I want to see him as soon as possible.”

“That'll be tomorrow, then. Too late today. I've got to bring in the horses from the north pasture.” She looked up at me. “Must be important.”

I put a smile on my face. “Life or death,” I said.

Billy Jo had wise eyes, for one so young. “Can you ride a horse? If you can't, you can either walk in, which will be tough on you because of the altitude—it's nearly ten thousand feet at the top of the cliffs—or you can give me a message to take up to John.”

“I imagine I can stay on a tame horse for a while.”

Her quick smile flickered across her face. “All right. Where are you staying?”

“I don't know. I just got here.”

“It seems like there are a thousand motels in Durango. Find one and call me and tell me where you are, and I'll meet you there in the morning. Say, nine o'clock?”

“Nine o'clock is fine.” I pulled my eyes away from her and looked at her mother. “You and John close?”

Wilma looked at me thoughtfully, then nodded. “Yes. We're kinfolk. We're friends, too.”

I thought of how policemen always start looking at the kinfolk when they encounter a crime of violence and don't know who did it.

“All right,” I said. “There's a man from back east who wants to meet John, but it's not in John's best interests to meet him now. The guy may come around here pretty soon looking for John. If he does, I advise you not to tell him where John is. Instead, I think you should phone the Sheriffs Department and tell them that the man is here. They should know what you're talking about. If they don't, have them call the Chief of Police in Edgartown, Massachusetts. I need to see John right away so he can decide what he wants to do.” I looked at Billy Jo. “The story's too long to put in a letter. I need to talk to John.”

The women looked at me.

“Of course, you could be the guy from back east that John shouldn't meet,” said Wilma. “Billy Jo here might be taking you right to him.”

“I can't prove I'm not.”

“What's this fellow's name?”

“I don't know. He's about thirty, Caucasian, about average size, has something wrong with one leg that makes him run with a limp but may not be noticeable when he's walking. He's left-handed, and he may have blond hair, or a blond wig. That's all I know.”

“No.” Wilma shook her head. “That's not all you know.”

“You're right. He may be dangerous. Not to you, though.”

“To John.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

A pickup truck turned in at the gate and pulled alongside
my little car. A big man got out. He was wearing the regional uniform of cowboy boots, jeans, and Western shirt. His broad-brimmed hat was stained around the sweatband. He looked cheerful and curious. When he got near, he put out a large, leather-like hand.

“Howdy. I'm Mack Skye. You ain't the guy that's been trying to sell me a new tractor, I hope, 'cause if you are, you're out of luck. I just got the part I need to keep the old Case running a while longer.”

“I'm not that guy,” I said. “I'm trying to talk your daughter into taking me up to find John Skye's camp.” I gave him my name.

“Mr. Jackson's from back east,” said Wilma, without too much expression one way or the other. “Says he's a friend of John's.”

“Martha's Vineyard Surfcasters Association,” read Mack Skye, squinting at the hat that was now back on my head. “That's that island where John's got a summer place. He's been trying to get us back there for years to try ocean fishing, but I'm happy with the trout we've got right here.”

“We never go anywhere,” said Billy Jo. “I'm a college graduate, for goodness' sake, and I've never been east of the Mississippi. And I wouldn't have gotten that far if we didn't have kin to visit in Kansas.”

“Kansas!” exclaimed Mack Skye. “One trip to Kansas is enough! Nothing to see. Flatter than a punctured Texan! No mountains! Telephone poles walking in a straight line from horizon to horizon. Hell, honey, we don't have to go anywhere; we got the best of everything right here.”

“Now, Mackenzie,” warned Wilma, “you just stop that kind of talk. There's a world on the other side of these mountains and your daughter is going to have a look at it.”

“Well, I imagine she will, but I hate to think about it. Tell me I'm right, J.W., I'm outnumbered by all these women.”

“A whole lot of men can be outnumbered by just one woman,” I said. “I'm staying out of this argument.”

“Smart. I can just see this sweet child back east at one of them resorts, wearing one of them crotch-flossing bathing suits by the pool, and gettin' all foofed up when the sun goes down, and God knows what all . . .”

“I'm old enough to know what I'm doing, Daddy.”

He wiped his broad brow. “I know you probably are, honey, but you're the last chick in the nest, and I hate to see you go. Man, it's hotter than a sheep. You like a brew, J.W.?”

“I've got to find somebody to take me up to John Skye's camp,” I said. I looked at Billy Jo. “I'm not sure your daughter still wants the job.”

Billy Jo opened her mouth, but her mother spoke first.

“Oh, I guess she'll take it,” said Wilma. She looked at me. “If you were the man you've been talking about, you wouldn't have told us about him unless you were crazy, and you don't look crazy to me.” She turned to her husband. “Mack, you take J.W. around back to the table under the big elm. J.W., you tell Mack what you've been telling us. Come with me, Billy Jo. We'll lay out some cheese and crackers and beer for all four of us. No reason why the women should work while the men loaf.”

Mackenzie Skye and I walked around the house and sat in the shade of a tall elm. Once out of the sun, we were cool. I commented on it.

Skye smiled. “Air's so thin up here that your sunny side can be hot and your shadow side cold. It can be below freezing in the morning and hotter than a two-dollar pistol by noon. What is it that Wilma thinks you should be telling me?”

I told him what I'd told her. About then, the back screen door of the house swung open and Wilma and Billy Jo came out carrying a platter of cheese, crackers, and sliced ham, and four cans of Coors, made with pure Rocky
Mountain spring water. Not a great beer, but not a bad beer, either. There is no bad beer.

The Coors was just what I needed. The dry Colorado air was already sucking the moisture from my skin.

“You ain't told us much,” said Mack Skye.

“He's told us enough, I reckon,” said Wilma. “John's business may not be any of ours.”

“John's kin,” said Mack. “If he's got troubles he doesn't deserve, maybe we should know more about 'em.”

“I don't know about his troubles,” I said. “But I do have reason to believe that this guy doesn't have John's best interests at heart.”

“Why do you think that?” asked Billy Jo.

I got some cheese and ham and put it on a cracker, took a bite and chewed, then washed the crumbs down with a slug of Coors. The Skyes munched along with me as they waited for me to decide whether to answer Billy Jo. I finished off the cracker and got myself another one. Then I told them of the incidents in Weststock and on the island. While I talked, I looked at the huge landscape to the north of the house. The green fields on the mesa flowed north to a line of willows a mile or so away. An irrigation ditch, I guessed. Miles beyond was a ridge of blue foothills topped with a jagged rimrock. Beyond that, blue-green mountains climbed into the air and beyond them, far to the north, peaks like fangs thrust toward a high bank of thunderheads. John Skye was up there somewhere. Tomorrow, with Billy Jo's help, I'd go find him.

I became conscious of a silence at the table and realized that I had stopped talking.

Mack Skye tipped up his beer and drained it. “That's a pretty good story,” he said. He looked at Billy Jo. “Well, honey, I agree with your mom. You should take this man up to find John tomorrow. J.W., we'll keep an eye on Vivian's place.”

Wilma nodded. “I'll get on the phone and let the other
Skyes out here know about this fellow. We've got to figure he'll phone one or another of them looking for information about John. I'll tell them to call the sheriff if this guy contacts them, and to get his name if he gives it, even though it'll probably be a fake.”

“And I'll go bring in the horses right now,” said Billy Jo. She looked at me with her dark eyes. “Has John got a wild side w£ don't know about?”

I'd wondered about that myself. “Not so far as I know. Do you know anything about him that I don't?”

“John Skye doesn't have an enemy in the world,” said Wilma firmly.

“He's got one at least,” said Mack. He looked at me. “Our boys are both grown up and gone, so we got room for you to put up for the night, if you'd like. Be more than welcome.”