Slickrock (Gail McCarthy Mystery) (13 page)

Why had the man shot himself, really? Why was his death upsetting Ted so much? And what, if anything, did it have to do with me?

Naturally I had no answers to any of these questions, but that didn't stop them spinning uselessly around my mind. Along with unwanted images of Bill Evans's face, and bloody chest, and confusing words.

Damn. I didn't want this. I didn't want anything to do with it. Why in hell had I happened to find him?

The fire gave me back no reasons. It flickered and smoked. I stared at it from my sleeping bag, wishing I could drop the subject of the unfortunate man's suicide.

Roey snuggled up against me, and I reached down to stroke her head. "I can't even go to sleep," I told her pointlessly. "This is bad." Little did I know.

TWELVE

The next day, I saw Blue Winter. I'd saddled and packed up in the morning and was on my way to Wilma Lake. I met him in Grace Meadow.

I was in new territory now. Once I left Summit Meadow and crossed Bonn Pass, I was on trails I'd never seen, only traced on my map. Of course, I'd heard plenty of stories. All my years with Lonny had been filled with recounted pack-trip sagas and I knew many secondhand details about the trail to Wilma, and Jack Tone Canyon, and Benson Lake.

Still, everything I saw was new to me. Bonn Pass, the highest pass I'd cross on my trip, was less spectacular than I'd supposed. Dorothy Lake, which I passed en route, more severe and dramatic than I'd ever imagined. And, unlike my ride to Snow Lake, I had to stop and consult my map often.

Unfamiliar trails were challenging. I didn't know where the tricky spots were ahead of time; I found myself getting tense when I saw steep, rocky climbs or descents ahead of me. I never knew whether they would be easy or downright dangerous until I was right in the middle of them.

Experienced packers can tell slickrock at a glance, at least sometimes. Sometimes they can't, until a horse slips. Slickrock doesn't always look much different from less slippery granite.

And though I knew the basics-enough not to let my horses step in V -shaped wedges, and to keep them off obviously loose stepping stones-I wasn't experienced enough to eyeball a section of rocky trail and know immediately where the worst parts were.

Thus, although I enjoyed the new scenery, I was pretty tense by the time we'd worked our way down Bonn Pass. So far, so good; no cuts or scrapes on either horse, and we were in level forest land, a ride in the park.

Grace Meadow appeared up ahead of us, a long, rambling grassland that followed Hetch Hetchy Creek down to Jack Tone Canyon. I rode until I found a pretty spot along the creek with a sandy bank and a convenient pine grove nearby. Lunch time.

Roey plopped herself down next to me when I sat. She'd traveled well today, neither wearing herself out with unnecessary excursions nor falling behind. She trotted patiently in Plumber's wake, conserving her strength. She was learning.

I took my boots off and soaked my feet in the truly bone-chilling water. It was snowmelt, and I could only bear it for a minute.

Burying my toes in the warm sand to thaw and dry them, I busied myself making a tortilla sandwich. Roey snoozed next to me; my horses dozed in the shade of the pines. None of them saw the approaching horseman. Only me.

Riding along the trail through Grace Meadow, going the same way I was going. At first he was just a distant rider; I watched him curiously. First person I'd seen today. The details began to sink in. A dun saddle horse, a smaller sorrel pack horse. A gray hat with a fedora slant. I could see a small white dog running alongside.

My immediate reaction was mixed. I'd liked this man when I met him, but Dan Jacobi's insistence that he was a thief, and Ted's obvious mistrust, had made me wonder. I could see his red hair under the gray hat now. I wonder if he knows about Bill Evans, I thought.

He had left the pack station the morning after we'd found Bill. I hadn't known, then, whether the man was dead or alive. I didn't know that Blue Winter even knew that Bill Evans had shot himself, though surely he couldn't have missed the chopper.

And Ted had said that Blue had lived with Bill's wife for a while. The solitary rider was close enough that I could see his face, as well as the red-brown freckles on the white dog. What should I say, or not say?

Blue Winter rode up the trail until he was fifty feet away from where I sat on the banks of the creek. Reining his horse to a halt, he watched impassively as his young dog raced up to me, wagged her tail in my direction, and sniffed noses with Roey. The two dogs began an elaborate greeting ritual, composed of much tail wagging, sniffing, and leaping about.

"Hello, Stormy," Blue Winter said.

I smiled. This man had that effect on me. Reminding myself that Dan Jacobi had said he was a thief, and I didn't know what, if anything, he might have had to do with Bill Evans's suicide, I let my smile die.

"Hi," I said.

We were both quiet for a moment. Normal backcountry etiquette called for a least a few words of pleasant conversation here. And normally, I would enjoy exchanging some polite talk with another traveler; it made a nice break from the solitude of my own thoughts. But I was wondering what in the hell I ought to say to Blue Winter.

For his part, the man seemed quite content to be quiet, a trait I'd noticed in the bar. He regarded me without a sign of impatience, seeming happy to sit on his horse in the sunshine and watch me.

His stolen horse, if Dan Jacobi was to be believed. The big blaze-faced dun gelding looked worth stealing. Unlike Dan Jacobi's gray, this horse had the sort of long, flat muscling that I liked, and he wasn't overly pretty. He looked to be in good flesh, too; traveling in the mountains didn't seem to have stressed him any. If Blue Winter had stolen him, at least he was taking care of him.

"So, how's it going?" I said at last.

"Good enough. How about you?"

As I'd remembered from our previous conversations, his face remained remote, giving no clues to his thoughts. If I had any curiosity at all about him, I was going to have to work at satisfying it.

"I'm doing okay," I told him. "I've been camped at Snow Lake the last two nights. How about you?"

"I'm going to Tilden," he said briefly.

Well, it was one piece of information. Tilden Lake was several miles from Wilma Lake, and a popular backcountry destination because of its large size and good fishing.

"Planning to catch some golden trout up at Mary?" I asked. Nearby Mary Lake had one of the few remaining populations of native California golden trout. Most of the other lakes had been overrun by imported rainbows and brookies.

Blue Winter smiled. "I'm not much of a fisherman."

We watched each other with what I thought was mutual curiosity. I had the idea we both wanted to ask, "So, what do you come here for?" but courtesy forbade it. There was no answer to the question, anyway, but the discussion would be interesting.

Instead, I said, "I ran into Dan Jacobi and Ted Reiter at Snow Lake."

If I'd been hoping for a reaction to this, I'd have been disappointed. As I expected, Blue Winter's face showed nothing. Since it wasn't a question, he made no answer. Just sat there on his horse, watching me.

Suddenly I felt self-conscious, sitting on my sandbank, barefoot and defenseless. I stood up, scanning the meadow for my dog. She was wrestling happily with Blue's dog, twenty yards away. My two horses were still safely tied to pine trees. I turned back to my visitor.

"They mentioned you," I said.

He continued to say nothing. He was a master at it.

Then to my surprise, he dismounted. Holding his reins in one hand, he said, "Mind if I have lunch with you?"

"No, of course not." I stumbled over the words, too startled to consider what to say. I wasn't sure if I minded or not. But Blue Winter was already tying his horses up. He returned and sat down on a log, a polite ten feet from the sandbank where I'd settled back down. He was carrying his saddlebags, and produced an apple and some beef jerky.

Eyeing my tortilla, cheese, and salami, he smiled. ''I'll trade you some apple for some cheese."

"Deal," I said, smiling back. Damn, he had a nice smile.

We swapped food and munched. The apple was a fine complement to my sandwich. I was still wondering what, if anything, to say to him, when he spoke.

"Did Dan Jacobi tell you I stole the dun horse?"

"Uh, yeah, he did." I swallowed a mouthful of tortilla and regarded the man cautiously.

I should have guessed. His face remained quiet; he said nothing. Just ate a piece of cheese.

As a conversationalist, he was difficult. But I was genuinely curious now.

"So why did Dan say that?" I prompted.

"He thinks I did, I guess," was the reply.

"And did you?"

"We disagree about that." Blue Winter ate a piece of apple and watched me quietly. "I'll tell you the story, if you're interested.”

"Yes, I'm interested."

"All right, then." He paused. "I've known Dan awhile, and he knows me. About a year ago a friend of mine wanted a rope horse. He had plenty of money, but not much knowledge. He came to me to help him." Once again Blue Winter smiled. ''I'm the opposite. I've got some knowledge and no money to speak of.

"Anyway, I went with this guy to Dan's and helped him try horses, and eventually we settled on this one." He looked over at the dun.

"My friend took him home, pending a vet check." He looked at me and I nodded. I knew about buying horses with the caveat that they would pass a veterinarian's inspection. I was often the vet in question.

"Of course, you know all about that. Anyway, that night the horse colicked, bad." He looked at me, and I nodded again.

"My friend didn't even realize something was wrong until the horse was in pretty bad straits. He called me; I came out and had a look and called Bob." Once again, the look.

I nodded and said, "Uh-huh." Bob was Bob Barton-our main competition for the equine veterinary market in Santa Cruz County.

"Bob said the horse needed to be operated on right away. You know what that costs."

I nodded and said, "Uh-huh" again. I did.

"My friend didn't want to pay that kind of money to fix a horse he didn't own yet. I called Dan and explained things to him. Dan wasn't willing to pay for it either. 'Just keep treating him,' he said. 'He'll either die or live. I'm not paying five thousand dollars for surgery.' But Bob was sure the horse had a twist. He'd die." Blue Winter shook his head.

"I don't have a whole lot of money. But the horse was just five years old. And he was a real nice horse and a hell of a rope horse. I called Dan back and asked him if I could have the horse if I paid to have him operated on. He said, 'Take him. I don't care.' " Blue shrugged.

"I didn't have five thousand dollars to spare. So I convinced Bob to do the operation at his place in Watsonville. He didn't want to, but it was either that or let the horse die. He has enough of a facility to do minor surgeries on horses, and I convinced him that I wouldn't blame him if the horse didn't make it."

I nodded again. I knew that Bob, just like Jim and I, did not normally do colic surgeries. We all sent those off to the major surgery centers, where they did, indeed, cost five thousand dollars, minimum.

"Bob operated on the horse and fixed him. Cost me a thousand dollars." Blue Winter's face stayed quiet. "That was all the money I could spare, period.

"Dan called and asked me what became of the horse a few weeks later. I told him, and said I was taking care of the horse and that in six months or so, I'd know if he'd really be all right."

I nodded and said, "Uh-huh," yet again. Colic surgeries have a long recovery period.

"So eventually I knew the horse was all right, and I took him to a couple of ropings. Dan rides up to me at one of them and says, 'You owe me six thousand.'

"And I said, 'Why is that?'

"And he tells me, 'That's a seven-thousand-dollar horse, and you paid one thousand for his vet bill, and you owe me the other six thousand.'

“
'Well,' I said, 'wait a minute, my understanding was that 1 could have him for the price of his vet bills.'

"And Dan, he said, 'That's not right. You owe me for what he's worth. For all I know, that horse would have been fine without the operation. You only paid a thousand dollars for him. You owe me six.' "

Blue looked at me. "You can see the position I was in. I couldn't afford to give Dan six thousand dollars, even if I thought he was right, which I didn't. I could give him the horse back, but I'd spent every spare cent I had to fix him, and I'd taken care of him and fed him for a year. As far as I was concerned, he was my horse.

"So I didn't say anything. I just rode off. I figured if he thought I'd stolen him he could take me to court."

"So, did anything come of it?" I asked.

"He rode up to me one other time and said he owned Dunny; he still had the papers and I had no bill of sale. The horse was his, he said.

"I told him it was true enough about the papers and that I had no bill of sale. But I told him he knew and I knew what had really happened. And Bob Barton knew. And my friend who had originally taken the horse knew."