The Cowboy's Shadow Part 19

"Yes." Nothing more. One word, but it contained the agony of his struggle. Their coming together had surpa.s.sed the tree house. She searched for words to comfort him, but found none. Whit must fight the angels and demons alone, Kyla finally decided. Nothing she said would banish the love he bore for the dead woman.

Kyla poured the cold coffee down the sink. "It's too late to head east," Whit said from the office. "We'll go tomorrow. Besides, I'm beat." His first, oblique reference to their dynamite love mating. "I didn't think to check the answering machine. The light's blinking."

A click, a whir as the tape reversed itself. "Mr. Whitaker. Jake here. I couldn't find out the names of everyone involved in that Hole-in-Rock development, but I found one that might help you, since the guy lives in Argentia. Augustus Chase. A doctor, he's been in on the deal since the ground floor. He'd be happy to fill you in on the scheme. As I told you yesterday, the developers haven't actually bought the place, only an option, so if you want to make an offer give me a call." Click. Whir.

"Chase!" Whit yelled, barreling into the kitchen and leaning over her shoulder.

"Why shouldn't he be involved?" Kyla asked, wondering at Whit's excitement.

"They want local investors."

"Chase has been in on the scheme since the beginning. Maybe he's the one who thought the whole thing up. He got the brochure printed, anyway." Whit shuffled the papers until he produced the black and white proof sheet. "How else did Chase got the info to Rod before the brochure was even printed?"

"But that means Dr. Chase knew Rod and Moira...knew they were lovers."

"Yes. Which explains why Moira didn't have to hide the s.e.xy photographs. She and the doctor probably laughed over them. I can see them hoisting their wine gla.s.ses, celebrating her easy victory over the dumb cowboy, whose money would make Hole-in- Rock possible."

"And when Rob died, Moira settled on you as her next victim," Kyla said soberly.

"So what's in the chip?"

"Neligh will tell us soon, I expect."

"But none of this gets us any closer to hantavirus."

"Fellows Canyon Ranch. What the developers call Hole-in-Rock."

"But Rod didn't check Fellows Canyon Ranch. He didn't go -- "

"He did. That's where he took the picture of Moira. At the rock with the hole."

"Hantavirus in a hole in a rock," Kyla mused. "I suppose if its -- "

"Not the hole. I should have thought of this days ago. I'm one of the dumber men you'll meet in your life, Ky, so you have my permission to ignore that proposal of marriage. There's a house on Fellows Canyon Ranch, originally the mine office. The rest of the buildings have collapsed, but one owner after another keeps propping up the house, thinking they'll make a go of the ranch."

"When do we leave?" Kyla asked.

"Right now."

The dog bounded around the house the moment the truck door opened "Hop in," Whit said in amused exasperation "You'll be disappointed, dog. We're only going a few miles."

The dog did not curl up on the blanket, but balanced in the bed of the pickup, head pointed into the wind. Kyla opened the gate, pleased that Whit no longer thought it necessary to ask with an apologetic glance. Past the green fields, to a fork in the road. The heavily traveled right fork led to Argentia. Whit took the left.

"Actually, Fellows Canyon Ranch - its only eighty acres -- abuts my property, and the houses are only two miles apart, but that ridge blocks the way." He nodded toward a sharp, rock-crowned tongue that protruded from the mountain. The road curved up the alluvial fan, toward the mouth of a canyon.

"Who lives on this place?" Kyla asked.

"No one. The present owners gave up two or three years ago." They pa.s.sed a weathered for sale sign. A few well-aimed bullets had erased the phone number.

The road forked again, the broadest track heading for the canyon. Whit swung onto double ruts with spiky plants growing in the middle. "Most people who come out here go up the canyon, but we're interested in the house." He took his foot off the gas, rolled to a stop.

"That's new." A brilliant white sign, wired to a leaning gate post, warned trespa.s.sers they would be prosecuted. What had been the gate lay by the side of the road, a scattering of timbers held together by rusty wire.

"Maybe we should ask the realtor to bring us here," Kyla said.

"We'll drive to the top of the hill and turn around," Whit said. "We can see the house from there."

The house proved to be a weathered box with a sagging hip roof. Kyla slumped, disappointed, but jerked erect when she realized the yellow patches marked areas of new lumber. She hit the b.u.t.ton to open the window, leaned out, and felt a chill climb from her feet, up her legs.

"Boarded up!" Whit exclaimed.

A sheet of plywood blocked the door, and planks had been nailed across the windows, s.p.a.ced so closely no one could climb through without prying off one or two.

Whit set the brake. "Let's see what's up. I can't imagine the present owners laying out money to close the place, and Jake says it's still for sale."

Dr. Chase's pickup truck, loaded with fresh lumber. Dr. Chase in work clothes.

The dog whined. "Come on," Whit said. Kyla clutched at his sleeve to hold him back, but he bounded down the hill, pulling her after him. He stopped so suddenly she spun past him, and would have fallen except that he had his arms around her.

"Whit. Dr. Chase boarded the house up," she gasped.

"Chase?"

"The morning I spoke to him about Carl Goulding, he was impatient to leave. His truck was full of new lumber." Whit did not look at her, but studied the ground in front of the blank door. Wind had cast the sawdust into slanting dunes. Nails glinted in the dust where a nervous worker had dropped them. The dog sniffed at boot prints.

"Come!" Whit snapped. The dog left the sawdust. "Chase's boots," Whit said, tracing a print with his finger. "Not Moira's. Chipped heel. Nail starting in one sole. It was Chase who broke into Rod's apartment and left the fake will."

He circled wide before approaching a window. He bent to peek through a narrow slot. "Can you see anything?" he asked. Kyla found a peephole at eye level, cupped her hands about her face and waited for her vision to adjust to the dim interior. A beam of sunlight slashed across peeling linoleum and cast the shadow of a tottering rocking chair. The sunbeam climbed the opposite wall. Shelves.

Kyla wanted to cry out, but her throat seemed as dry as the dust of Fellows Canyon.

"What do you see?" Whit begged.

"Books. Two shelves full of books."

"Let's get out of here." His fist tightened on the back of her shirt, pulling her away from the window.

He knows what I know. The sequence of events unfolded in two heads simultaneously. A bookish boy, a collector of Nevada history.

By the time they reached the truck Whit was panting, not from exertion, Kyla realized, but from the impact of finally knowing. "Pull a book off the shelf, blow the dust away -- " he choked, coughed, cleared his throat "-- open the cover to read the flyleaf, see who claims it, wonder if anybody'd mind if you carried it away."

"Breath in mouse urine and feces," Kyla said. "Chase knew! He lied, he lied -- "

Whit's hand steadied her and stopped her shouts. The dog's toenails rattled on the metal of the truck bed.

"Let's drive up the canyon," Whit said. "It's shady there. Cooler. We can talk.

Look out that side, warn me if I get too close to that rock." Kyla had not noticed a rock, but when she looked closer she saw a hump of gray beyond a low bush. The stiff branches sc.r.a.pped on the undercarriage as Whit backed.

"Fine," she said. Whit shifted into first gear. "Wait!" She had the door open and sprang out before he asked why. She plunged her hand between the rock and the bush, to the glitter of red, had her fingers on the brightness before it occurred to her she should have checked for snakes. A red reflector, attached to a hemisphere of chrome. A twisted bracket. Kyla climbed into the truck.

"Tail light from a bike," Whit said.

"Yes. Carl's tail light. He and Trace were here, and for some reason Trace won't tell me."

Whit spun the truck's wheels, drove too fast past the no trespa.s.sing sign, skidded on the sharp turn. The road narrowed, until Kyla might have touched the vertical canyon wall with her outstretched hand. Whit parked where the ravine widened a bit, tight against the rock so most of the truck was in the shade.

"There. Hole-in-Rock." She saw nothing that resembled the photo on the brochure, but by following his extended arm spotted a reddish-brown stone, hardly taller than she, the hole a bit off-center. A skim of water made a shining stain on a boulder above the holed one, and damped the sand in front of the rocks. On every side, trash. Beer cans and bottles, potato-chip bags and cracker boxes. A closer search of the rocks, Kyla suspected, would turn up condoms in varying stages of decay. A party place for kids. The girls, for example, who hung over the counter in the coffee shop, who had not, thank heavens, bothered to investigate the house.

"The picture on the brochure shows the rock as tall as the buildings," she said.

"A wide-angle shot overlaid with computer generated graphics."

"It's a fraud, then?"

"The picture's fake. But the eighty acres - privately owned -- exists. Plenty of room to build a resort, if someone can develop a water supply."

"So it's all connected somehow," Kyla mused. "The hantavirus, the resort, Moira's disappearance."

"Maybe not Moira's disappearance. It seems to me that Chase not only knew about Moira's affairs, he directed them. She pulled in investors. First Rod, then me.

That's why Chase came to the house looking for her, and why he nearly collapsed in shock when she wasn't there."

"He couldn't let anyone know where Carl and Rod picked up the infection," Kyla said. "He falsified a death certificate to keep the secret, because a resort property contaminated with hantavirus hardly seems like a good investment."

She scooted across the seat and pressed against Whit. His arm draped over her, negligently pressing her breast. His fingers spread on her stomach, with the casual touch of one who has the right, after a long tradition of loving.

"Satisfied?" she asked.

"I'll talk to Neligh and the state health people. They can handle this place.

We'll put together a pamphlet on hantavirus and distribute it to everyone in the county."

"The Center for Disease Control probably has a pamphlet, so it's just a matter of -- " Whit straightened and his belt buckle sc.r.a.ped her cheek. "What is it?"

"Someone coming." He reached for the ignition key. "There's not room to turn around if two vehicles pull in." Kyla got on her knees to look out the back window. The dog scrambled to its feet and for a moment blocked her view. A white pickup filled the slot of the canyon. A man slid out a narrowly opened door, a dark figure in the shadow of the cliff.

"It's Chase," Whit said. Kyla slid down, out of sight. "Get out and stand tall,"

Whit ordered. "Now that we know, he's got to face the truth. Best for him if he joined us in distributing a warning."

Kyla's numb fingers faltered on the door latch, and Whit reached across to open the door. She stepped away from the truck, so Whit could follow, because he'd parked too close to the wall to open his side. Chase shambled to the front of his truck and stopped, a wreck of a man, in filthy sweat pants and a torn shirt.

His uncombed hair stood upright, stubble darkened his chin and cheeks, and his arms hung in primate laxity.

"Dr. Chase," Kyla said as gently as she could and still have her voice carry to his ears. "The state health department has the lab reports. Rod Harris died of hantavirus. If they ask me, I'll have to tell them that Carl Goulding had exactly the same symptoms. You can't keep the secret much longer."

A long silence. "You're the only ones who know about the house," he finally choked, barely loud enough to be heard. "The health department will believe me, not a s.l.u.t like you." He made an effort to square his shoulders. He glared at Whit. "They'll crawl all over your range cabin. They'll burn the place."

"How did you know Carl Goulding had been in the house?" Whit asked.

"Caught the d.a.m.n little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Chase said. "Told them to stay out of Fellows Canyon Ranch and keep their mouths shut about being here, or I'd have the sheriff on them for trespa.s.s and theft. One of the brats had a book in his basket."

"You knew the house was infected?" Kyla put her foot out to step toward him, but Whit caught her arm.

"Of course I didn'tknow! But the place swarmed with mice, and in this country there's always the chance. I guess the other delinquent blabbed."

"No, we figured it out ourselves," Kyla said. "You scared the boys into being quiet."

"Good, they're afraid of me," Chase said, and for a moment he managed to look relatively normal. "Kids nowadays, don't respect their parents or their teachers. They'd better be afraid of someone. Where's Moira?" Chase asked.

"I haven't the slightest idea," Whit said.

"I think you know," Chase said. His right hand slid behind his back.

Kyla spun under the thrust of Whit's arm, truck, sand, rock flashing in a blur.

"Run, Jenny! He's got a pistol! Run into the rocks!"

Chapter Thirteen.

Kyla sprinted across the sand, keeping to the dark, damp line, solid beneath her feet. The dog streaked past and leaped to the top of Hole-in-Rock. Kyla dropped to hands and knees, crawled into the hole, and out the other side, into the shallow remains of Fellows Creek. A blast, and stone chips stung the backs of her legs. The echoes reverberated overhead. Scramble away from them, deeper into the maze.

"To your left," Whit said, right behind her. She crawled over vile trash, into the shelter of a larger boulder. "The slot goes on. Keep climbing."

Whit knew. Of course he knew. As a boy he had clambered over these rocks, drank his first beer, experimented with a cigarette, made his virgin attempt at s.e.x with a pliant local girl. No, he had told her once, about a brothel in Carson City.

"Stop," Whit whispered. Kyla looked around the rocky notch, up at a flat stone ceiling, too low to stand erect. Not a cave, but a widening in the rockfall.

Litter covered the ground several inches deep. "Stay here. I'll try to talk some nonsense into Chase." Whit worked his way toward a narrow gleam of sunlight.

"Chase," he yelled. The name, echoing and re-echoing, struck Kyla as being as being as dangerous as a bullet. Gravel pattered nearby, and Kyla shrank against the boulder that formed the rear wall of the nook. She held her breath against the stench of decaying trash. The dog slithered through a gap.

"Down, Pooch," Whit whispered.

"You can't stay in there forever!" Forever...forever...forever...repeated the echoing canyon.

"He's still at the bottom," Whit muttered. "He wasn't raised here. He doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?"