CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“GOD WOULDN’T LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO GARY!”
Having slept well during the night—thanks to Monty’s forethought in bringing a sedative—Patricia woke while the sun was just gilding the top of the butte. The cañon and the grove were still in shadow, and a mocking bird was singing in the top of the piñon beside the cabin. Patricia dressed hurriedly, and tidied the blankets in the bunk. She pulled open the door, gazing upon her possessions with none of that pleasurable thrill she had always pictured as accompanying her first fair sight of Johnnywater.
She did not believe that harm had befallen Gary. Things couldn’t happen to Gary Marshall. Not for one moment, she told herself resolutely, had she believed it. Yet the mystery of his absence nagged at her like a gadfly.
Fifty feet or so away, partially hidden by a young juniper, Patricia could discern the white tarp that covered the bed where Monty Girard and Joe were still asleep. She stepped down off the doorsill and made her way quietly to the creek, and knelt on a stone and laved her face and hands in the cool water.
Standing again and gazing up through the fringe of tree tops at the towering, sun-washed butte, Patricia told herself that now she knew what people meant when they spoke of air like wine. She could feel the sparkle, the heady stimulation of this rare atmosphere untainted by the grime, the noise, the million conflicting vibrations created by the world of men. After her sleep she simply could not believe that any misfortune could have befallen her Gary, whose ring she wore on her third finger, whose kisses were the last that had touched her lips, whose face, whose voice, whose thousand endearing little ways she carried deep in her heart.
“The God that made all this wouldn’t let anything happen to Gary!” she whispered fiercely, and drew fresh courage from the utterance.
The mottled cat appeared, coming from the bushes across the tiny stream. It halted and looked at her surprisedly and gave an inquiring meow. Patricia stooped and held out her hands, calling softly. She liked cats.
“Come, kitty, kitty—you pretty thing!”
Faith regarded her measuringly, then hopped across the creek on two stones and rubbed against Patricia’s knees, purring and mewing amiably by turns. Patricia took the cat in her arms and stroked its sleek fur caressingly, and Faith radiated friendliness.
Patricia made her way through the grove, glimpsed the corral and went toward it, her big eyes taking in everything which Gary may have touched or handled. Standing by the corral, she looked out toward the creek, seeking the bushy juniper of which Monty had spoken. Carrying the cat still in her arms she started forward through the tall weeds and bushes, burrs sticking to her skirt and clinging to her silken stockings.
Abruptly Faith gave a wriggle and a jump, landed on all four feet two yards in advance of Patricia, and started off at an angle up the creek, looking back frequently and giving a sharp, insistent meow. Patricia hesitated, watching the cat curiously. She had heard often enough of dogs who led people to a certain spot when some one the dog loved was in trouble. She had never, so far as she could remember, heard of a cat doing the same thing; but Patricia owned a brain that refused to think in grooves fixed by the opinions of others.
“I can’t see any reason why cats can’t lead people the same as dogs,” she told herself after a moment’s consideration, and forthwith turned and followed Faith.
Just at first she was inclined to believe that the cat was walking at random; but later she decided that Monty Girard had been slightly inaccurate in his statement regarding the exact location of the juniper beside the creek. The mottled cat led her straight to the grave and stopped there, sniffing at the dirt and patting it daintily with her paws.
Monty was frying bacon with a great sizzling and sputtering on a hot stove when Patricia entered the cabin. Her cheeks showed more color than had been seen in them for weeks. Her eyes were clear and met Monty’s inquiring look with their old, characteristic directness.
“Have a good sleep?” he asked with that excessive cheerfulness which is seldom genuine. Monty himself had not slept until dawn was breaking.
“Fine, thank you,” Patricia answered more cordially than she had yet spoken to Monty. “Mr. Girard, this may not be a pleasant subject before breakfast, but it’s on my mind.” She paused, looking at Monty inquiringly.
“Shoot,” Monty invited calmly. “My mind’s plumb full of unpleasant things, and talking about them can’t make it any worse, Miss Connolly.”
“Well, then, I’ve been up to that grave. And it wasn’t made by any murderer. I somehow know it wasn’t. A murderer would have been in a hurry, and I should think he’d try to hide it—and he wouldn’t pick the prettiest spot he could find. And I know perfectly well, Mr. Girard, that if I had killed a man, I wouldn’t spat the dirt down over his grave and make it as nice and even as that grave is up there. And somebody picked some flowers and laid them at the head, Mr. Girard. They had wilted—and I don’t suppose you noticed them.
“Besides,” she finished, after an unconscious pause that seemed to sum up her reasoning and lend weight to the argument, “the cat knows all about it. She tried as hard as ever she could to tell me. I—this may sound foolish, but I can’t help believing it—I think the cat was there looking on, and I’m pretty sure it was some one the cat knew and liked.”
Monty poured coffee all over Patricia’s plate, his hand shook so. “Gary kinda made a pal uh that cat,” he blurted, before he realized what meaning Patricia must read into the sentence.
“The cat was here when Gary arrived, I suppose,” Patricia retorted sharply, squaring her chin. “I can’t imagine him bringing a cat with him.”
A look of relief flashed into Monty’s face. “That cat’s been here on the place for about eight years, as close as I can figure. Steve Carson got it from a woman in Vegas when it was a kitten, and packed it out here in a nose bag hung on his burro’s pack. Him and the cat wasn’t ever more than three feet apart. There’s been something queer about that cat, ever since Steve came up missing.”
Monty started for the door, having it in his mind to call the boy to breakfast. But a look in Patricia’s eyes stopped him, and he turned back and sat down opposite her at the table.
“I’d let that boy sleep—all day if he wants to,” Patricia remarked. “He’ll do enough talking about us and our affairs, as it is. I wish you’d tell me about this Steve Carson. I never heard of him before.”
Whereupon Monty related the mysteriously gruesome story to Patricia, who listened so absorbedly that she neglected a very good breakfast. Afterward she announced that she would wash the dishes and keep breakfast warm for Joe, who appeared to be afflicted with a mild form of sleeping sickness, since Monty yelled at him three times at a distance of no more than ten feet, and elicited no response save a grunt and a hitch of the shoulders under the blankets. Monty left him alone, after that, and started off on another exhaustive search of the cañon, tactfully leaving Patricia to herself.
Patricia was grateful for the temporary solitude. Never in her life had she been so full of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Her forced resentment against Gary had suffered a complete collapse; the revulsion of feeling was overwhelming. It seemed to Patricia that her very longing for him should bring him back.
She pulled his suit case from under the bunk, touching lock and clasps and the smooth leather caressingly with her fingers. Its substantial elegance spoke intimately to her of Gary’s unfailing good taste in choosing his personal belongings. The square-blocked initials, “G. E. M.” (Gary Elbert Marshall, at which Patricia had often laughed teasingly), brought a lump into her throat. But Patricia boasted that she was not the weepy type of female. She would not yield now to tears.
She almost believed it was accident that raised the lid. For a moment she hesitated, not liking to pry into the little intimacies of Gary’s possessions. But she saw her picture looking up from under a silk shirt still folded as it had come from the laundry, and the sight of her own pictured eyes and smiling lips gave her a reassuring sense of belonging there.
It was inevitable that she should find the “Dear Pat:” letters; unfolded, the pages stacked like a manuscript, and tucked flat on the bottom under the clothing.
Patricia caught her breath. Here, perhaps, was the key to the whole mystery. She lifted out the pages with trembling eagerness and set her lips upon the bold scribbling she knew so well. She closed the suit case hastily, pushed it out of sight beneath the bunk and hurried out of the cabin, clasping the letters passionately to her breast. She wanted to be alone, to read them slowly, gloatingly, where no human eye could look upon her face.
She went down to the creek, crossed it and climbed a short distance up the bluff, to where a huge bowlder shaded a smaller one beside it. There, with the butte staring down inscrutably upon her, she began to read.