Vineyard Fear (16 page)

I thanked him, but declined the offer and asked him how to get to Durango. The three of them walked me out to my car. I pointed a finger at Billy Jo. “You make sure you get a nice, gentle horse.”

“Sure.” She grinned. “Trust me.”

“Give him Mable,” said her mother.

“I thought maybe I'd give him Big Red,” said Billy Jo.

“No,” said her father. “Don't give him Big Red.”

“No,” I said. “Don't give me Big Red. Give me Mable.”

“I'll make sure you have a rope to tie yourself on,” said Billy Jo.

“Good.” I felt myself smiling at her, and thought of Ulysses. A rope had kept him from responding to the call of the sirens. Maybe it would do the same for me.

I drove back to 550 and headed down the big hill. At the bottom I took a sharp left and drove up a wide, dry valley to Durango, crossing the Animas River not once but twice before getting into town, and crossing it once again before I found a motel I could afford. As I'd crossed it the second time, a river raft full of life-jacketed passengers
and crew, everyone looking happy and excited, had swept under the bridge and downriver.

Durango was a fair-sized town, with a Victorian air about parts of it. It lay in the valley, and foothills and the beginnings of mountains climbed away from it on both sides. Narrow-gauge train tracks led through the town and followed the river north, up the Animas Valley, between rising mountainsides. Steps of white and red stone lined the valley above town, and beyond them blue mountains climbed into the sky.

I'd seen signs of abandoned coal mines south of town, and knew there was farming and ranching on the Florida Mesa, at least, but it was clear that Durango, like Martha's Vineyard, lived off its tourists.

My first impression of Main Street was that it consisted entirely of saloons and shops selling souvenirs and Western arts and crafts. Once I crossed the river, heading north, the choice seemed to be between fast food places and motels. I found a room in one of the latter, went to the nearest liquor store (it wasn't far), bought myself a cooler, ice, and—when in Rome—two sixes of Coors, and went back to my room. It was hot and there seemed to be dust in the air, although I couldn't see it. I sucked up a Coors and opened another one and called the Edgartown police station. I was two hours ahead of Edgartown time, so I thought I might just catch the chief before he went home.

I didn't. He'd already gone home. I called him there. His wife answered and I told her who I was. A moment later, the chiefs voice said, “Yeah?”

“It's me.” I told him about my day.

“So you're going to see John Skye tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“I'd pay some money to watch you try to ride a horse up a mountain.”

“Hey, you don't have to be born out here to be a cowboy, you know. Hell, Billy the Kid was born in New York and Bill and Ben Thompson were born in England, for
God's sake. Maybe I have a natural talent for riding horses.”

“Billy the Kid was just a punk who went west, and I never heard of those other two guys. I do have a name that might mean something, though: Gordon Berkeley Orwell. Ring any bells?”

“No.”

“Old New Jersey money. Men mostly career military officers. This guy is the latest in the line. Family belongs to the same health club as our Dr. David Rubinski. Orwell was there the morning Rubinski says he lost his wallet. Thing is, this guy picked up a leg wound somewhere down in Central America or some such place. Some sort of a botched job. Limps sometimes. What leg did that guy at your place favor?”

“The right.”

“That's the one. What hand you say he shot with?”

“The left.”

“This guy's a southpaw. He's about Rubinski's size, but a lot more physical. Special Forces type. Runs, limp or no limp, works out, stays fit. Sounds like a man we'd like to talk to.”

“Sure does.”

“Trouble is, Orwell's up north somewhere in the Maine woods. Camping and white-water canoeing. Went in the day Rubinski's wallet went missing, and nobody knows how to get in touch with him.”

“That's too bad. Anyone see him go in?”

“Yeah, he left his Jeep at some outfitting place up in the Allagash. The Orwells have done business with them before. People there saw him go off with his canoe.”

“No word of him since? The family's not worried?”

“Apparently he's done this sort of thing before. Outdoorsman, like the rest of the Orwell men. His mother expects him out anytime. She's not worried.”

I ran that through my head. “If he went in that day,
maybe he came out someplace else, got back into his rented car, and drove to Weststock.”

“Yeah. Dom Agganis and me had the same thought. If we find him, we'll ask him about that.”

“And if I find John Skye, I'll ask him about Gordon Berkeley Orwell.”

“If you don't fall off that horse and break your neck, let me know what you find out. I'll try to get a picture of this Orwell guy. We'll send that and what we know about him to the police out there. If you go by the Durango police station in your travels, you might pop in and have a look at his face. See if it looks familiar.”

I rang off, then phoned Wilma Skye and told her where I was.

The next morning at nine o'clock, a pickup truck towing a horse trailer stopped in front of the motel, and I got in. Billy Jo, wearing her very own cowgirl hat, smiled at me as I got in, checked the rearview mirror, and pulled out. She gestured at a paper bag on the seat beside us.

“Colon cloggers, in case you missed breakfast.”

I peeked into the bag. Fresh doughnuts, a thermos bottle, and two tin cups.

“I was up with the sun, almost,” I said. “Ate down the block. Sausage and eggs, hash browns, toast, juice, coffee.”

“The old bloat breakfast, eh? Well then, you're probably not interested in these cloggers and coffee.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said. “I think I might choke one or two down.”

She grinned. “Me too. You pour.”

I did and we munched our way up the Animas Valley.

Between rising mountains, the valley was narrow, green, and fertile. The river wound through it and the railroad tracks paralleled the highway. A black engine sending puffs of dark smoke into the air chugged along, towing a string of yellow cars filled with people. It looked like something out of the last century.

“The
Little Flier,
” said Billy Jo. “Goes up to Silverton and back through the canyon. A lot of fun, and in places pretty spectacular even by local standards. Tourists love it. You should take the trip before you go home. The best way is to ride the train up to Silverton, then have somebody meet you up there in a car and bring you back down by the highway. That way, you get two good looks at the country.”

“It's worth looking at,” I conceded. I'd never seen such mountains. Their lower slopes were covered by oak brush and pines. Farther up the slopes, quaking aspen grew, mixed with more pine and spruce. Great rimrocks broke the slopes into steps, and red sandstone escarpments climbed up from the valley floor. Along the edges of the valley, houses, old and new, could be seen.

“Old ranch houses and new places built by folks who've retired or who just love the country,” said Billy Jo. “Lots of Texas and California money. Otherwise, this hunk of country is what you might call economically deprived. It used to live off of mining and ranching, but now it lives off of tourists.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Wages are low, unions are rare, prices are high, houses are expensive, and work that really pays anything is hard to find.”

She nodded. “You've got it. How did you guess?”

“Places that live off of tourists are all like that. I live on an island that's like that. College kids who want to vacation come in the summer and take what jobs there are, and then leave in time to go back to school . . .”

“Right again.”

We crossed a small, clear river running from the mouth of a narrow valley off to the left. A promontory topped by red cliffs split this valley from the Animas Valley.

“Hermosa Creek,” said Billy Jo. “We could go up there and ride in from the end of the road, but we're not going to. We're going around to the foot of the Hermosa Cliffs and taking the Goulding Trail up to the top. I think John will be up there somewhere. He likes the meadows and the cliffs more than he likes being down in the canyons.”

We left the flat green valley floor behind us and drove into wilder, rockier country. Farms gave way to pasturelands scattered between granite cliffs and forests of pine, spruce, aspen, and oak brush. Rivulets of clear water flowed in and out of marshes and between rocks. To our left, quite suddenly, a row of gigantic cliffs broken only by a few narrow rimrocked cuts rose into the sky. The farther we drove, the higher they got. Ahead of us, huge ragged mountains touched the clouds with their peaks.

“Engineer Mountain,” said Billy Jo, nodding toward it. “Spud Mountain yonder. Those are the Needles off there. Lots of peaks around here over fourteen thousand feet. We won't be going quite that high today.”

She slowed and turned off the highway. We rattled along a dirt road between pines and oak brush, pulled off it, and stopped.

“Here we are,” said Billy Jo, setting the hand brake.

I got out and looked up. The cliffs seemed to hang over me. I could see hawks wheeling in the air way up there. It was a long way to the top.

“Would it make any difference,” I asked, “if I told you I have a mild sort of acrophobia? When I stand on cliffs, I'm always sure they're going to choose that very moment
to crumble. When I lean on balcony railings, I'm sure they're going to break right then. When I'm on the edge of something high, I always feel like the wind is going to blow me over.”

“A fine time to tell me,” said Billy Jo, putting shapely hands on her shapely hips. “If you want to see John, you have to go up there. Or you can stay here and I'll go up alone. I can tell John what you told us. What do you want to do?”

“We manly men actually know no fear,” I said. “We just claim to so lesser mortals won't feel so jealous.”

“It's worked with me,” said Billy Jo. “I'm not a bit jealous. Shall I unload the horses or not?”

I eyed the horses. It had been a long time since I'd been on a horse. “These guys don't bite, do they? Which one is Big Red?”

“Neither one.” Billy Jo laughed. “And they aren't guys, they're mares. Maude here is for you. We use her for a packhorse, usually. Not too smart, but not a mean bone in her. I'll ride Matilda. Maude's her mother, but Matilda's got some Thoroughbred in her from her sire. Good spirit. They're both good in the mountains. Shall we get them unloaded, or do you want to go home?”

She was about half my size and obviously not afraid of mountains or big animals. I looked at her, at the horses, and up at the cliffs. On the Vineyard, fishermen say, when speculating about future possibilities of success, “If you don't go, you won't know.”

“Let's do it,” I said.

“Good. I think you'll be okay.”

The mares were already saddled. Billy Jo backed them out of the trailer, tightened cinches, eyed my legs and adjusted the length of my stirrups, put bridles over the halters, and lashed on saddlebags.

“Food,” she said. “We'll be up there about lunchtime.” She handed me a yellow slicker. “Tie this on behind your
saddle. Weather changes fast up here, and we could get a shower.”

Except for the clouds over Engineer Mountain and the Needles, the sky was brilliant blue. Nevertheless, I tied the slicker on. Local knowledge should never be ignored. When I finished admiring my work, I saw Billy Jo slide a rifle into a scabbard on her saddle. I must have raised an eyebrow.

“My 30-30,” she said. “Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

She waved toward the mountains across the valley. “You never know. Fellow over toward Emerald Lake swears he saw a grizzly earlier in the summer.”

“What do you usually shoot?”

“Deer. Got an elk last year, too.”

“I don't think it's deer or elk season.”

“I don't plan on shooting any deer or anything else. But, you never know. Like they say, it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it.” She swung up onto her mare with an effortless grace. “Time to move out. Let's see you climb aboard.”

Billy Jo and Manny Fonseca would probably hit it right off, I thought. They could sit around and swap quotations about the benefits of shooting irons. I looked Maude in the eye and told her to stand still while I got on. She did, and we started up the trail.

The trail zigzagged up through a break in the cliffs. Maude was a wide-backed, comfortable old mare, and did her best to make my ride an easy one. Ahead of me, Billy Jo rode easily, looking back at me now and then to make sure I was still there.

We climbed steadily, stopping now and then to let the horses blow. Maude began to sweat early and kept it up, but rolled along without complaint. Behind us, the valley began to fall away, and across it more distant mountains began to rise into view. We passed through a break in a
rimrock and later climbed through another. The oak brush disappeared and we climbed through evergreens and white-barked aspen, whose trunks were marked in black lines by the initials and dates of previous travelers. The aspen leaves danced in the light breeze and sunlight shimmered on them.

A tiny stream had, over millennia, cut through the thousand feet of stone that formed the cliffs and had created the crevice through which we now climbed. It still flowed through the gorge, falling over rock faces, winding through tiny marshes, and then plunging on down the slope. We rose beside it and later crossed it as the gorge began to open into a more gentle vale.

Suddenly Maude's ears were up. Ahead, Billy Jo was pointing. Three deer, heads high, were looking at us from the trail in front of us. They flicked their white tails and bounded away out of sight.