“I know you won’t believe me,” Madec said, standing behind him and looking down at the man. “But I just glanced once and saw that there were no horns and didn’t look any farther. I just assumed I’d shot a ewe.”
“You didn’t.” Ben put the old man’s hat over his face.
“Do you know him?”
“No,” Ben said, standing up.
He didn’t look at Madec as he picked up the Hornet and said, “I’ll go down and bring the Jeep up as high as I can. Then I’ll bring the groundsheet, and we can tie it to the rifles and get him down.”
“Why not leave the rifle,” Madec said, reaching for the Hornet. “You don’t need it.”
Ben handed it to him and went down the short face of the cliff and on down across the shale bed.
He tried not to think of Madec at all as he climbed down the long slope of the mountain, picking out a path for the Jeep as he went. Instead, he made a mental list of what they would need—the groundsheet, some rope, a blanket to wrap the body in. He debated about that, though, wondering for a moment why it was necessary to stain a blanket, but decided it was.
It was going to be past midnight before they got the body down to the Jeep and got out of the desert. Who should he get in touch with first, Ben wondered. The sheriff? The Highway Patrol? The justice of the peace? Maybe Madec knew.
Poor old man, all by himself out there. All alone with the empty desert stretching out for miles. Walking along, crouched over a little, holding the locator out and close to the ground, listening hour after hour for the buzz that gold or silver would make but never hearing it and never, really, expecting to hear it. Just out there to be by himself.
The Jeep was hot and hard to start, but he got it going and headed back toward the slope of the mountain. He could see no sign of Madec, only the white cliff face with the V now casting a dark shadow.
It was a funny thing about these old prospectors. They only had one life—the desert. They never told you where they had come from before they came to the desert. They never told you of their childhood or their children or wives or parents. If they had ever played a game or gone to school or loved someone, you didn’t find it out from them. The only life they had was the last trip they had made into the desert, and the one they were now getting ready to make.
And every one of them had found his gold mine—once. Gold so pure it was lying shining on the ground. They had marked it well, claim-staked it, and then pinpointed it with landmarks of mountains or Bishop pines that had been growing in place for a thousand years. Marked and located their gold so well they could come back and find it in the dark.
Except that when they did come back with a new grubstake and equipment they never could find that place again; no gold lay where they had seen it, only rocks and sand.
One-name old men. Sam, Hardrock, Walt, Zeke. No last name, no known address other than Death Valley or Mohave or Sonora. Any desert. No next of kin.
It took Ben half an hour to wrestle the Jeep up the slope, getting it up as high as he could, not wanting to carry the weight of the man any farther than he had to in the afternoon heat. But when the slope became so steep that there was danger of the Jeep rolling over, he turned it around, heading it down the hill again, and then got the gear and started walking.
He was halfway there with still no sign of Madec when he heard the shot.
Instinctively Ben ducked behind a boulder and then felt embarrassed. There was no telling what Madec was shooting at now, but it wasn’t at him.
The rifle cracked again, and Ben only listened to it as he kept on climbing. It wasn’t the roar of the .358, it was the Hornet with that sharp, snapping sound.
Idiot, Ben thought, one shoulder sweating under the folds of the nylon groundsheet, the other under the coil of rope and the wool blanket.
Madec was sitting on the ground in what shade there was. He had the Hornet across his knees, looking at it as Ben climbed up to the flat and walked over to him.
“What are you shooting at now?”
“Nice little machine,” Madec said, holding up the Hornet. “I’d never shot one before. Good flat trajectory. What’s the muzzle velocity?”
He had moved the dead man so that he was half-sitting against a boulder, his ruined body slumped back against the rock, his head hanging down on his chest.
“Enough,” Ben said, dumping the groundsheet and unfolding it. “We’ll make a stretcher.”
Madec didn’t move. “You wouldn’t believe in this day and age that a man could go around with no identification at all. No driver’s license, no social security card.” He laughed. “Not even any credit cards. There isn’t a thing to identify him. And he hasn’t got a dime.”
Ben folded the two edges of the sheet over so that they met in the middle and then began to lace them together with the rope.
“No name,” Madec said. “No number. Nobody.”
Ben glanced over at him sitting in the shade, the Hornet across his knees, the .358 lying beside his leg. It was going to be awkward carrying the old man with nothing to hold the rifles apart.
“All these old geezers wandering around out here are running away from something,” Madec said. “Their wives, the law, the people they owe money to. Nobody knows who they really are. And a man as old as this has been out here so long nobody cares.”
Ben left the rope long enough at both ends to tie the body between the rifles and then went over to the old man and spread the blanket out on the ground beside him. “Give me a hand, Madec. We’ll roll him in the blanket and then lash him between the rifles.”
Madec didn’t move. “Let’s talk a little, Ben.”
“What about?”
“This thing was a pure accident, you know that, Ben.”
“I don’t know what it was,” Ben said. “Some people don’t shoot at something just because it moves.”
“Oh, come on,” Madec said. “I thought it was a bighorn. You thought it was a bighorn. We’d just seen ‘em standing right here. I thought when they moved that we’d scared ’em. How was I to know that this old man was what had really scared ’em?”
“Okay,” Ben said. “It was an accident. So let’s get him down the mountain.”
“That’s what I want to talk about, Ben. This old man with no name, no nothing, is dead. There’s nothing we can do about that.”
The old man had no socks, and one boot was laced with a piece of wire. Ben lifted him, the desert flies swarming up into his face, and laid him down on the blanket. When he pulled his arm out from under the body it was smeared with dirt and blood.
“Not a thing,” Madec said. “And it really doesn’t matter, does it? I know that sounds pretty cold-blooded, but it’s a fact, Ben. Nobody cared whether this old man lived or died. Nobody is waiting for him to come home because his only home was out here in the desert.”
Ben angrily drove the flies off with a corner of the blanket and then wrapped it around him, covering the staring eyes, the open mouth, the mess. The flies settled down on the blanket.
“Are you going to help me with this?” he asked.
“Let’s think this thing through, Ben,” Madec said. “If we take this old man back to town, it’s going to start a big hassle. A hassle that doesn’t need to get started and doesn’t mean anything in the end anyway. It’s just that the law has to go through all these motions regardless. They’ve got to have their trial with the judge and the lawyers and the total waste of time and money. And after they’ve obeyed all the little rules, what happens? The death is accidental; it’s nobody’s fault, not mine, not yours.…”
“It sure isn’t mine,” Ben said.
“Of course not. So after they spend weeks going through all the motions, where are we? Right back where we started with an old man nobody wanted when he was alive and nobody wants now that he’s dead. Nobody gets punished, there’s nobody I can pay to make their sorrow less, because nobody cares. I ask you, Ben, why put ourselves through all that hassle?”
?
??You mean you just want to leave him lying here?” Ben asked.
“No! No! We’ll give him a decent burial. I’m a religious man and I’ll pray for him.”
Ben looked down at him. “I hope I never meet anyone else like you.”
“That’s not a kind thing to say, Ben. Believe me, if I thought this old man had any sort of family I’d find them, and I’d see to it that they never wanted for anything money could buy. Think for a minute, Ben. You’ve been in this desert all your life, but you’ve never seen this old man before. Right? You don’t know who he is, and I don’t think anybody does. Just an old derelict. So let’s don’t get ourselves all involved in a big legal tangle. You want to go back to school pretty soon, don’t you? Well, if you get tied up in this thing you’ll be lucky to get back to school next year.”
“How did I get into this all of a sudden?” Ben asked. “I didn’t shoot anybody.”
Madec smiled at him. “I can see that you’ve never been involved with the police. As a witness to this thing you’re involved now and, believe me, they can drag it out for weeks, for months!”
“Are you going to help me with this?” Ben asked.
Madec sat there, his back against the rock, and looked at Ben. Finally, his voice low and sad, he said, “I see. You want me to be punished, don’t you? Well, I can understand that, Ben. Even though it was an accident, you think I should be punished for it.”
“I don’t care whether you get punished or not,” Ben said. “I haven’t even thought about it. All I know is that when somebody gets shot you tell the sheriff. That’s the way it is.”
“That’s the way they say it is. I’m trying to get you to see the point of this thing, Ben. The law isn’t going to punish anybody. All the law is going to do is find out whether this was a murder or an accident. Now you know as well as I do that it wasn’t murder. So why bother? I’m going to be perfectly frank with you, Ben. I simply cannot afford to get tied up in a legal hassle. It’s worth a lot to me not to waste all that time. So if it’s worth a lot to me, I’ll see to it that it’s worth a lot to you. How much do you need to go to school until you get your degree?”
“Not much.”
“You name it, it’s yours.”
“Give me the rifles.”
Madec picked up the .358 and got to his feet. He slung the Hornet over his shoulder. “Ben, I’m going to ask you one more time.…”
“You don’t need to,” Ben said. “The way I see it, somebody got shot, so we’re going to the sheriff about it.”
“I said, Ben, that I was going to ask you one more time to see this thing my way. If you do, I’ll make it so you get all the college you need to get your degree and, after you’ve got it, I’ll see to it that you get a job with the oil company you choose. Now that’s a good deal, Ben, so don’t turn it down for some petty law.”
“I don’t want any deals with you,” Ben told him. “And I don’t care if you’re a little inconvenienced because you shot a man. I’m going to the sheriff.”
Madec cradled the .358 in his arm and reached into his pocket. “This is the .358 slug that killed him,” he said, holding out his hand.
The heavy bullet was just a blob of lead and brass.
“So?” Ben asked.
“Unwrap him,” Madec said, putting the slug back in his pocket.
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
Ben unfolded the blanket.
“He was hit in the chest,” Madec said.
“I know that.”
“He was hit in the throat, too.”
Ben saw the small, blackish wound in the leathery skin of the man’s throat.
He couldn’t believe this; he couldn’t begin to think about it.
“There’s a .358 slug in my pocket,” Madec said. “And there are two Hornet slugs around here someplace. And two Hornet empties down the hill a way.”
Ben folded the blanket back over the old man and stood up.
Madec now had the .358 in both hands, the muzzle down, the fingers of his right hand lying relaxed on the trigger guard.
“Whoever shot that old man,” Madec said quietly, “didn’t do it accidentally, Ben. You don’t shoot a man accidentally twice.”
3
“BEN, MY YOUNG FRIEND,” Madec said, resting against the boulder, the rifle still poised in his hands, “we haven’t been thinking this little event all the way through.”
“You have,” Ben said. “What are you trying to do, make it look like the Hornet killed this man?”
“You see,” Madec said patiently, “you’re doing the same thing I’ve been doing—jumping to conclusions without examining the facts. So now I suggest that we both just cool off and start right from the beginning. Go through it, step by step, and see what we come up with.”
“Why don’t we start from right here?” Ben asked. “You pick up his feet, and I’ll pick up his head and we get him out of here. Because nobody is going to believe that a .22 Hornet blew a man’s lungs out of his back.”
Madec’s voice had a chiding, teacherlike quality. “You are not list-en-ing, Ben. You’re not thinking things through. For example, it could be that, long after this man had been shot and killed, he was shot again, with a .358, to, perhaps, create a little confusion. Or to put the blame on someone else. And, don’t forget, coyotes and vultures can do a lot of damage, destroy a lot of evidence.”
“Not if they don’t get to him.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Madec agreed. “But let’s see if I haven’t got one, too. You see, Ben, it just occurred to me that people in a small, isolated community may think differently from people accustomed to the big-city way of doing things.” He suddenly laughed. “There’s another thing, too, which you may have noticed. There’s something about me—I don’t know what it is—that sometimes irritates people.”
“I know what it is,” Ben said quietly. “You give people the idea that if you don’t already own it, you can buy it.”
“That’s probably it,” Madec said. “I guess I do throw my weight around a little. And that’s what I’m worried about, Ben. You see, if we take this old man in to town there’s going to be a trial. And it could just possibly be that the people involved might be a little prejudiced. Even a little envious because I’m better off than they are. A jury chosen from people in a little isolated desert town are naturally going to be biased against a man like me. Don’t you think so, Ben?”
“I think so.”
“So, there’s that. And—there’s this. The trial with a prejudiced jury and perhaps even a biased judge is going to hinge on whether or not the death of this old man was completely an accident. Now you and I know that there was no intent to kill this man. But, in a trial, the question is going to come up whether or not the death could have been avoided. Now, if a jury decides from the evidence that, although I had no intention of killing this man, the accident could have been avoided, then that puts a different light on things. You follow?”
“Madec, you’ve got a lot better chance just being honest about this than trying to make people in my town believe that this man was killed by two shots from a Hornet,” Ben said.
“Ben, I’m surprised. I thought you’d have noticed by now that I don’t take chances. For example, using your rifle is what you could call a contingency, something that may or may not come in handy later. It’s nothing for you to be concerned about now. What I’m talking about is what might happen if we go along with your plan and take the body back to town. I’m talking about the trial they’ll have, the jury. Now that jury could twist things around a little, Ben. They could take what you say at the trial and make it mean more than you wanted. In fact,” Madec said, smiling at him, “you’re a little prejudiced yourself, Ben, and that might show. Your testimony about what happened would be absolutely honest, I know that. But your prejudice might just tinge it enough to make the jury think that, perhaps, this accident could have been avoided.”
Madec shifted his po
sition against the boulder and looked over at Ben. “We did have a little conversation about seeing horns. Now if you repeated that to a group of men who have spent their lives in the desert they might decide that it wasn’t just a casual remark you made, but that you had advised me not to shoot. Even that you had warned me not to shoot. Now, if your testimony made them think that that was the way it was, then they would logically decide that this was not completely an accident.”
“You’re not thinking very straight, either,” Ben told him. “Just because it’s a little town way out in the desert doesn’t make the people meaner or dumber than anywhere else. They’ll believe the truth when they hear it just as fast as anybody else. And if you think they envy you being a dude from the city you’re wrong about that, too. They like it where they live, that’s why they live there.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Madec said. “But, as I told you, I don’t take chances. Your testimony at that trial could get me put in jail, Ben.”
“What do you want? For me to forget you told me you’d seen horns?”
“I am offended,” Madec said. “I resent your thinking I’d ask you to perjure yourself in a court of law. But I’m glad you agree with me that your testimony could result in my being convicted. Convicted and sent to prison, Ben. I have no intention of going to prison. It is not convenient.”
“I wonder if this old man thought it was convenient for him to get shot?”
Madec glanced down at the rolled blanket and then shifted the .358 a little, bringing the muzzle higher. “I don’t think I’m getting through to you, Ben. So, tell me this, is it true that people stranded in the desert sometimes get hysterical and take their clothes off?”
What Ben felt was not exactly fear, or even apprehension. It was more physical; a chill gripping his shoulder blades. He realized now that he had known ever since he’d seen the black wound of the Hornet bullet that this was going to happen.
It made him feel helpless and stupid, for the time had passed when he should have made decisions, taken action, protected himself. Now it was too late.