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CHAPTER 7

      WHEN BRENNAN got back to the ranch house and parked the Hudson, Rand said, "I'm quitting."

      "No, you're fired," Brennan snapped.

      Rand shrugged.

      "Remember, it was you shot the Mexican," Brennan said.

      "You go to the authorities and blab on me, and I'll stick it all on you. You're just a goddamn drifter, and I've lived around here all my life. Whose word do you think they'll take?"

      Petrie stood watching them, his hand on his revolver, a hopeful expression on his face. Rand was sure he was waiting for Brennan to say it was okay to shoot him.

      "I'm not going to do anything," Rand said evenly. "I'm going to get the hell out of town and forget all about this."

      "That's a smart thing to do." Brennan cocked his head and studied Rand. "Actually, I owe you something. Even though it didn't work out so good, you and Vance did find the hay-truck driver for us, and you shot the Mexican." Brennan smiled at Rand. "So, you keep your mouth shut, and I'll make it worth your while."

      "How much worth?"

      "How about a hundred dollars? And I'll give Vance fifty in addition for his share."

      Rand waited a second so Brennan wouldn't think he was leaping at it, then nodded. "All right. It's a deal."

      "You're a smart feller. You just go on out of town without talking to anybody about anything that happened here - like me being robbed . . . or any unfortunate incidents while I tried to get my goods back."

      "Mr. Brennan, you can depend on me," Rand said earnestly.

      "Benedict ought to be sober by now, so tell him to come over here. Then get your stuff put together and come back here, and I'll give you the cash and have Benedict drive you to town."

      Rand nodded his head, feeling like a hypocrite. Then he realized that Brennan was surely going to send Petrie to try to kill him and take the money back.

      Somehow that made it better.

      While Rand walked over to the bunk house, Petrie looked at Brennan with amazement. "One hundred dollars! Why, we ought to just kill him."

      "Oh, I agree. Definitely agree." Brennan said. "But we can't very well do it here at the ranch, can we? My wife's in the house ten feet away; Benedict and Vance are in the bunkhouse. There'd be lots of questions to answer. We should have stopped along the road and done it, but we didn't. But this way, Benedict will take him to town and learn where you can find him, then you can do it and there's no talk about us at all."

      "You're a smart man, Uncle Bill."

      Brennan nodded. "That's right. And you're stupid, Tom. And don't call me Uncle. I told you that, before."

      Benedict was reading a pulp Western when Rand came into the bunkhouse. "Mr. Brennan wants to see you," Rand said. He went into his room and began cramming his clothes in the falling-apart suitcase.

      The old foreman followed him in. "What's the matter? You leaving us already?"

      "That's right," Rand said.

      Benedict nodded his head sympathetically. "Did the old man find his precious box?"

      "No."

      "That's too bad," Benedict said. "He'll be hard to work for, for a while." He ambled off in the direction of the ranch house.

      While Rand was packing, Doak Vance came in. "I heard what you were tellin' Benedict. I'm gonna quit here too, soon's I can find another job. I don't like Petrie."

      Rand said, "There are better places to work, even in times like this." He went into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich and ate it while the young cowboy watched him.

      "What'd they do to the man we found?" Vance asked.

      "He was killed. They killed a Mexican in on the robbery, too."

      Vance looked startled. "Petrie did it, didn't he? He likes killin' things."

      "Yes."

      "Sonofabitch!"

      "I'll go along with that," Rand said. "Look, if something happens to me that you hear about, you'll find the sheriff and tell him what I said. Okay?"

      "Sure," Vance said. "Only don't tell anybody I know about it."

      "I won't. By the way, be sure to ask Brennan for the fifty dollars you get as your share for finding the hay-truck driver."

      Benedict came into the bunkhouse. "Go see the old man and get your pay. When you come back, I'll give you a ride to town and help you find a place for tonight. You're going to move on, aren't you?"

      "Yeah," Rand said. "And I'd appreciate the ride."

      "Go see him, then," Benedict said. "I'll put your gear in the truck."

      Brennan was ready when Rand knocked on the door. He stepped out on the front porch and said, "A deal's a deal." He counted out a hundred dollars in ten dollar bills into Rand's hand. "Now, you're going to keep your mouth shut about what happened, right?"

      "That's right," Rand said. He grinned at Petrie, who had came out on the porch and was scowling at him.

      Benedict was waiting for Rand by the truck. He had put Rand's suitcase in the back. Rand noticed that now an edge of sock showed where the suitcase closed, where it hadn't showed before.

      "Old man mean to you?" Benedict asked.

      "He was okay."

      "You're lucky," Benedict said. He pulled onto the dirt road that led to the highway. They didn't talk until they reached the irrigated portions of the valley and the cotton and cantaloupe fields started.

      "What are you going to do next?" Benedict asked.

      "I don't know. Move on, I guess."

      They rode through Little Oklahoma, where the displaced poor people had settled across the viaduct on West Las Cruces Avenue, then headed south on Main Street past the Budget Shop with ladies' clothes in the window, past the Rio Grande Theater where a double feature was showing, past the J.C. Penney store, across the street from the Popular Dry Goods store. Benedict was a nervous driver who kept the steering wheel in constant motion.

      "I'll help you find a place," Benedict offered.

      "Forget it."

      "Goddamnit, Rand, the old man asked me to find out what you're going to do, and you're not making it easy."

      Rand smiled. "Tell him I plan to hitchhike down to El Paso in the morning and hop a train to Indio, California, where my brother lives."

      "Is that the truth?"

      "What difference does it make?"

      Benedict shrugged. "I don't give a damn either way." He stopped the car and stuck out his hand. "Good luck, drifter."

      Rand shook hands, got out and took his suitcase from the truck bed, and Benedict gunned the car away. It was a little after noon and the sidewalk was so hot he could feel it through the thin soles of his curly-toed boots. He walked down to Water Street, looking to see if Benedict had parked and was watching him. He squatted with his back against the trunk of a big mulberry tree and smoked a cigarette and watched the traffic pass. There was no sign of Benedict. After he finished his smoke, he strolled over to the Las Cruces Courts and went into the office.

      The manager, whose name on the counter plaque said "James Samms," fished Rand's key out of a cubbyhole and gave it to him, saying, "Hot enough for you?"

      Rand said. "Just barely."

      "Well, it's dry heat - that's what we say." He chuckled to let Rand know that he knew it didn't matter if it was dry or wet, it was still plenty hot. He turned back to his Liberty magazine.

      All the cabins were built of white-plastered adobe under red Mexican tile roofs. Rand's car was parked in front of one some distance away from his. He checked it and saw it was undisturbed. Then he went back to his cabin and let himself in. The room was just as he left it. His good clothes hung in a shallow closet untouched. The bed still held a depression when he had sat on it while putting on his old boots. He flipped the switch that turned on the evaporative cooler and outside air began blowing through the damp excelsior. He stood in the tub and took a shower, then he shaved and lay down on the bed. He was tired after waiting up all night for the Mexicans to come back, and to keep Petrie from jumping him.

      By then the cooler had made the room cool and humid. He intended to sleep only an hour or so, but it was already dusk when he awoke. He dressed in a fresh pair of twill slacks from the closet and put on a white shirt and his custom-made lizard boots. He slipped the little snubnosed .32 in his pocket.

      He stopped by the office and used the phone to call Noreen Hood to tell her he was coming. She asked him if he was bringing what she'd wanted and he said he'd explain when he got there.

      He drove up Griggs Street and parked his car next to the vitex tree. Noreen Hood came to the door almost instantly and let him in.

      "Where's the box?" she asked. "Is it in the car?"

      "I don't know where it is. But I think it might be somewhere between here and Radium Springs, and probably on the way to Mexico."

      "You failed!" There was frustration in her voice.

      "It's more complicated than you think."

      "I'll bet." She gave him a long look. "You want something to drink? Beer?"

      "A beer would be good."

      She turned on the light in the kitchen and went to the Frigidaire and got him a bottle of Harry Mitchell's beer, brewed in El Paso, and uncapped it. She poured herself a generous helping of bourbon from a bottle on the kitchen table. She diluted it with a little tap water and raised the glass. "Here's to failure," she said, taking a swallow. "Tell me what happened."

      "I quit Brennan this morning."

      Her eyes lit up. "So you got the goods on him?"

      "I'm pretty sure Brennan, or his hired-hand, Petrie, killed your husband. They certainly wouldn't turn away from doing it."

      "I told you he killed Nick," she said. "I've been sure of it all along."

      He followed her into the living room while she sank down on the sofa with her feet tucked under her. Rand thought her husband must have sat in the big easy chair, so he sat in the rocker.

      "Well?" she asked.

      "Somebody stole the gold from Brennan just a few hours after I signed on."

      "You're kidding!"

      "The night I got the job - yesterday morning before dawn - he woke everybody up to say he'd been robbed. He didn't say what was stolen but from his description of the box, there's no question it was the gold."

      Rand told her the whole story - how they found the hay truck driver, and how he was killed, and how they got the Mexican. The only part he left out was that his finger had squeezed the trigger that brought the Mexican down.

      When he finished, she said, "Two people killed. Nick wouldn't have liked that." She walked into the kitchen and got the bottle of whisky and freshened her glass and set the bottle down on the coffee table. She was getting ready to do some serious drinking.

      "The funeral's tomorrow," she said. "You want to come?"

      "I don't think so. It wouldn't be good to connect me with you, if Brennan or Tom Petrie was interested in who goes to the funeral."

      She got up and pulled the window shade up and opened the window. The desert was giving up the last heat of the day and the night was cooling. When she turned back to Rand her eyes were full. "I'm really gonna miss Nicky," she said. "That little rat was all I had."

      Rand said nothing. And after a moment she finished off her drink and refilled it again. Rand figured each glassful held about three ounces the way she poured them. And he had a feeling she'd had at least one before he came.

      "Maybe you ought to call it a night," he said.

      She shook her head, the tears flowing hard now. "When I told my mother Nicky and I were going to get married she said, 'Why you want to marry a dried out little runt like that?' But you know, Nicky was all right! He knew about stuff. He was a really good lover, Rand."

      Rand made a sympathetic sound, but what he really wanted was to get up and run out of there.

      "When I identified him at the funeral home, he wasn't inside himself any more. He was empty. Len had to hold me up I was cryin' so hard. You got a handkerchief?"

      "Yeah." He handed it to her and she blew her nose in it and gave it back to him.

      She smiled at him through the tears. "Did you see the paper? Nice write-up about him." She dug around in the magazine rack and got the Sun News and handed it to him.

      Hood's murder had crowded Roosevelt out of the upper right hand corner. The headline said, "Hitchhiker Sought in Hood Slaying" and quoted the sheriff, Joe Navarette, as saying that they were exploring several leads, including an unidentified hitchhiker who a witness said was getting into a car like Hood's earlier in the morning. The story recapped Hood's murder, which had been covered the previous day. There were details about Hood's background, and quotes by his fellow professors and a student who described him as a teacher of "rare understanding." The article listed his clubs, which included the New Mexico Geological Society, Masonic Lodge ,and the Lions Club. A box story announced the time of his funeral. It said he was survived by his wife, Noreen. No mention was made of children or other family. He was an Presbyterian.

      There was a picture of Hood. He looked like a 45-year-old farm boy with a wide innocent smile, and smart eyes. Not at all a dried out little runt.

      "I thought we'd get out of this crappy little town," Noreen said. "With the gold we could hit the big time; go to New York and see shows and go to museums. I'd like to move to someplace with real goddamn trees."

      She collapsed on the sofa, showing a lot of leg. "You were supposed to find the gold, dammit!" She sat up suddenly. "Are you married, Rand?"

      "Yes."

      "What's her name?"

      "Hannah."

      "Huh! How long have you been married?"

      "Five years."

      Noreen started crying again. "God, two days ago I had a husband and tomorrow I'm gonna bury him! At 2:30 in the afternoon - I can't believe it. Rand . . . you think I'm pretty?"

      "Yes, you're very attractive," Rand said uneasily.

      "That little fucker didn't take good care of me, Rand!" She looked at him, perhaps expecting him to be shocked at the word.

      Rand wasn't shocked.

      "You think you could take care of me?"

      Rand was sure he could. But he just laughed in a general way, so as not to make her think he was laughing at her, but only at circumstances, which he knew weren't funny at all. "You're okay, Noreen," he said. "You're gonna be just fine, but I think you ought to get some sleep now. You've had a lot of booze, and you'd regret things when you sobered up."

      She smiled moistly up at him. "You wanna put me to bed?"

      He got up and moved to the front door. "You're all worn out, Noreen. Get some sleep, and tomorrow you'll feel better."

      He stepped into the cool night air and gratefully closed the door behind him.

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