The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (76 page)

Potifer pursed his thin lips. “I’ll make it a thousand, Mr. Shannon. An even thousand.”

“Why,” Shannon asked suddenly, “did you specify that I stay in town? Do you have reason to believe she is alive, but out of town?”

From Potifer’s expression, Shannon knew he had hit it. Certainly, Potifer knew something, but what? And how had he found out? Suppose he had been the one who—but no. None of these three admitted to knowing each other or Darcy before becoming heirs to the Buckle estate. Further, Darcy had vanished six months before Buckle died, and none of them had known about the will. Or had they?

“You forget,” Shannon said quietly, “there’s a five-hundred-dollar bonus if I find her—and one would suspect that she might be quite grateful herself. Why, she might give a man four or five thousand dollars for finding her in time!”

“Well?” Potifer got to his feet. “You’re trying to boost the ante. No, Mr. Shannon. You have my offer.”

Neil Shannon tipped back in his chair. “So you know something about Darcy Lane’s whereabouts? If I were you, I’d do some tall talking, right now and fast!”

“You can’t frighten me, Shannon,” Potifer said coldly. “Good day!”

When the door had closed behind Potifer, Shannon rose. Thrusting all the papers into a briefcase, he raced around to his apartment and hurriedly packed a bag with the barest necessities for a two-day trip. Then he went down to his car.

He was afraid to take the time, but he drove by Braith’s office to check in. He met the attorney coming toward the street. Braith was a tall, handsome man with a quick smile.

“Any luck, Shannon?” he asked. “Only a week left, you know.”

“That’s what I was coming to see you about,” he said. “I got a lead.”

“What?” Watt Braith was excited. “You don’t mean it!”

“Yes, I’m going to investigate now. I’m driving over to Kingman.”

“Arizona?” Braith stared at him. “What would a model be doing over there?”

“Well, she was a secretary before she was a model, you know. Anyway, I’ve a good lead in that direction. I think,” he added, “that Potifer knows something, too. He dropped around today and tried to bribe me to lay off.”

“I’m not surprised. He stands to make more money if she’s not found; however, I doubt if he had anything to do with her disappearance. What information do you have?”

“Not enough to be definite. But, from what I know, I’m fairly certain that we have our girl.”

“Kingman, eh? Any idea what name she’s using?”

Shannon hesitated, then he said, “If I did, I’d be a lot better off. But there will be lots of ways of finding out, and she’s a girl who is apt to be remembered.”

Watt Braith studied him sharply. “You know anything you’re not telling, Shannon? I hired you, and I want whatever information you have.”

Shannon just looked at him.

Braith didn’t like it. “Have it your own way. It’s probably a wild-goose chase, anyway. If she had been able to, she would have communicated with us long since.”

“She may not have known anything about this Buckle will. Even if she has returned to her right senses and normal attitude, she may have decided to stay on.”

Braith shook his head. “I doubt it. This trip to Kingman seems a wild-goose chase. Probably the girl drowned or something, and her body simply wasn’t recovered.”

“Drowned?” Shannon laughed. “That’s the last thing I’d believe.”

“Why, what do you mean?” Braith stared at him.

“She was a champion swimmer. It was an old gag of hers to tell new boyfriends that she couldn’t swim, and seven or eight of them gave her lessons, and Darcy Lane started winning medals for swimming when she was twelve!”

Watt Braith shrugged. “Well, a lot of other things could have happened. I hope none of them did. Let me know how you come out.”

A
FTER THE ATTORNEY HAD LEFT
, Neil Shannon stood there in the street, scowling. Braith acted funny; that part about the swimming had seemed to affect him strangely.

He was imagining things. Only three people stood to gain from an accident to Darcy Lane, and they were Amy Bernard, Stukie Tomlin, and Hugh Potifer. There was no use considering Braith, for that highly successful young lawyer stood to profit in no way at all. And, anyway, Darcy Lane had been missing for six months before the death of Jim Buckle brought the matter to a head.

Neil Shannon stood there scowling, some sixth sense irritating him with a feeling of something left undone. It was high time that he started for Kingman, yet walking down the street he debated the whole question again, and then he got on the telephone.

When he hung up, he sat in the booth, turning the matter over in his mind, and then he dialed another number and still another. He placed a call to the Mojave County sheriff ’s office, in Kingman. Another to a real estate agent, and a third to a lawyer that he sometimes worked for. Details began to click together in his mind, and as he worked, he paused from time to time to mop the sweat from his face and curse telephone booths for being so hot.

His last call convinced him, and when he left the booth, he was almost running. He made one stop, and that a quick one at his own apartment. There he picked up the diary of Darcy Lane and hurriedly leafed through it. At a page near the end, he stopped, skimming rapidly over the opening lines of the entry. Then he came to what he was seeking.

…At the Del Mar today, met a tall and very handsome young man whose name was Brule. One of those accidental meetings, but we had a drink together and talked of yachting, boating, and swimming. He noticed my paints and commented on them, expressing an interest. Yet, when I mentioned Turner, he was vague, and he was equally uncertain about Renoir and Winslow Homer. Why do people who know nothing about a subject seem to want to discuss it as an expert with someone who is well educated?

Shannon closed the diary with a snap and locked it away, and then ran for his car. He took Route 66 toward Kingman and drove steadily, holding his speed within reason until he was in the desert and then opening the convertible up.

He glanced at his watch. It was not so late as he had believed. He had got the address from the letter Sam Wachler had mailed at some time around eight in the morning. Potifer had been in his office when he arrived there, which was nearly an hour later. Potifer had been with him awhile, and then he had gone to his own apartment. Having been up much of the night, and at his post so early in the morning, the day had seemed much advanced to him when actually it was quite early. And that meant that Braith had been leaving his office early, too. Or for a late lunch.

The check of the diary had taken a little time, but now he was rolling. He drove faster, turning the problem around in his mind. It was lucky that he knew something of Kingman, and knew a few people there. It would make his search much easier.

As the pavement unwound beneath the wheels, he studied the problem again and was sure that he had arrived at the correct conclusion. Yet, knowing what he did, he realized that every second counted, for Darcy Lane…if alive as he believed, was again in danger.

H
E WAS ALONE
on the road now, and the setting sun was turning the mountains into ridges of pink and gold, shading to deeper red and then to purple. A plane moaned overhead, and suddenly realizing that one of those involved might travel by air, he felt sick to the stomach and speeded up, pushing the convertible even faster.

Hugh Potifer was a mystery. How much did the man know? He seemed to know that Darcy was alive, and even to have some hint as to her whereabouts, yet how could he have found her? It could, of course, have been an accident. Potifer was an assayer and, though based in Las Vegas, was in touch with many miners and prospectors in the Kingman area.

Old Jim Buckle had been a lonely man, without relatives, and interested solely in the finding of gold. Potifer had accommodated him a number of times. Amy Bernard had done some typing for him and had forwarded things to him at various places in Arizona and Nevada. Stukie Tomlin had been a mechanic who kept his jeep in repair, and Darcy Lane had merely been a girl who talked to him over coffee, then took him out to show him the Los Angeles nightlife and had secretly hoped that he might meet a woman and settle down.

Shannon recalled that part of the diary very well. How Darcy had found herself seated beside the old man. He had seemed very lonely, and they had talked. He had shamefacedly confessed it had always been his wish to go to the Mocambo or Ciro’s—places he had read about in the papers. Touched, Darcy had agreed to go with him, so the kindly old man and the girl who had just become a model had made the rounds. From the diary and from Watt Braith, Shannon had a very clear picture of Buckle. He had been a little man, shy and white-haired, happy in the desert, but lost away from it. Darcy’s thoughtfulness had touched him, and none of the four had known of the will—except maybe Potifer. He might have.

Kingman’s lights were coming on when he swung the car into a U-turn and parked against the curb in front of the Beale Hotel. For a moment he sat there thinking. It was well into the evening. The chances were that Darcy would be at home, wherever that might be. He got out of his car and went in, trying the phone book first.

No luck. He called the operator, asking for Alice, whom he had known years before. She was no longer with the phone company, moved east with her husband, and he could get no information about Julie McLean. And then he remembered someone else. Johnny had been a deputy sheriff here in Mojave County. His father had been one of the last stage drivers in the West. Time and again he had regaled Shannon with stories of his father’s days on the Prescott and Ash Fork run. He was the kind of man who knew what was going on around town, even in retirement.

H
UALAPI
J
OHNNY
A
NSON SAT
on his porch watching the last blue fade from the western sky. He greeted Shannon with a wave and offered him a White Rock soda from a dented cooler sitting on a chair beside him.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said.

“Haven’t been here in a while.” Shannon went on to tell Anson what he was up to. In ten minutes he was back in his car and headed back up the road and Hualapi Johnny was dialing the sheriff ’s office in Kingman.

Johnny had reminded him of a box canyon they had once visited many years ago. There was a gravel road that led to it and a bottleneck entrance. It was a cozy corner where people went for picnics when he had last seen it. There was a house there now, and it was rented to a young lady.

Strangely, his mouth felt dry and there were butterflies in his stomach. He knew it was not all due to the fact that he was in a race with a murderer. It was because, finally, he was about to find Darcy Lane.

He slowed down and dimmed his lights, having no idea what he was heading into. And then, almost at the entrance to the small canyon, he glimpsed a car parked off the road in the darkness. It had a California license, and it was empty. He was late—perhaps too late!

He drove the car into the canyon, saw the lights of the house, then swung from the car and ran up the steps. The door stood open and on the floor lay a dark, still figure.

Lunging through, he dropped to his knees, then grunted his surprise. It was a man who lay there, and he lay in a pool of blood.

Shannon turned him over, and the man’s eyes flickered. It was Stukie Tomlin.

“Shannon!” The wounded man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “He’s—he’s after her. Up—up on the cliffs. I tried to—help. Hurry!”

“Listen,” Shannon said sharply, bringing the wounded man back to consciousness. “Help is on the way. Where is she? Did she go up on the cliffs tonight?”

“No”—the head shook feebly—“this—afternoon. To paint. I warned her. I came myself, tried to stop him. He shot me, went up cliffs—sundown.”

Sundown! Hours ago! Feebly, Tomlin gasped out directions and, vaguely, Shannon recalled the path up the cliffs. To go up there at night? With someone waiting with a gun? Shannon felt coldness go all over him, and his stomach was sick and empty.

He left the house, moving fast, stumbled on the end of the path more through luck than design, and then started up.

W
HEN HE WAS HALFWAY UP
, the path narrowed into an eyebrow that hung over the box canyon, with a sheer drop of seventy feet or so even here, and increasing as the path mounted. Probably, he reflected, there was some vantage point from the cliff top where she could paint. Yet by this time, whatever the killer had come to do was probably done, and the man gone, long since.

Cool wind touched his face, and then he heard a voice speaking. He stopped, holding his breath, listening intently. He could make out no words, only that somewhere ahead, someone was talking.

On careful feet, he moved to the top of the cliff, holding himself low to present no silhouette. Before him were many ledges of rock, broken off to present a rugged shoulder some fifteen feet high, all of ten feet back from the promontory. He crouched, for the voices were clearer now.

“You’d better come out, Julie. Just come out and talk to me. It will be all right.”

That voice!

Choking anger mounted within Neil Shannon, and he shifted his feet, listening.

“Go away.” Her voice was low and strained. “I’m not coming out, and when morning comes, people will see us.”

The man laughed. “No, they won’t, Julie. It’s hours until morning, and you can’t hang there that long. Besides, if you don’t come out, I’m going up higher where I can throw rocks down. People will just think you got too near the edge, and fell.”

There was no reply at all. Trying to reconstruct the situation, Shannon decided that Darcy had seen the man before he got to her. She must have got around the cliff on some tiny ledge where he could not follow or reach her.

There had to be an end now. He rose to his feet and took two quick steps, then stopped.

“All right!” His voice rang sharply. “This is the end of the line! Come away from there, your hands up!”

The dark figure whirled, and Shannon saw the stab of flame and heard the gun bellow. But the man fired too fast, missing his shot. Involuntarily, Shannon stepped back. A rock rolled under his foot and he lost balance. Instantly, the gun roared again, and then the man charged toward him. Shannon lunged up, swinging his own gun, but the man leaped at him feet first.