The Blessing Way Read online

  McKee put his boot on top of her foot on the accelerator and pressed. The little car jerked forward and she pulled at the wheel to control it.

  “Now get this straight,” McKee said. His voice was angry and he spaced the words for emphasis. “I had a hard day yesterday. I was up all night. I’m tired and my hand hurts. I’m worried about Jeremy. You’re going to behave and do what you’re told. And I’m telling you again that we’re going to climb out of this canyon.”

  “All right, then,” Miss Leon said. “Have it your way.”

  There was a long, strained silence.

  “If I’m wrong about that guy, I’ll apologize,” McKee said. “But really I can’t take a chance on being wrong. Not if he’s as crazy as I think he is.”

  Miss Leon was silent. He glanced at her. She looked away. McKee suddenly realized she was crying and the thought dismayed him. He slumped down in the seat, baffled.

  “Is this where we turn?”

  “Right, up that side canyon.”

  The tributary seemed narrower now than it had when he and Canfield had poked into it earlier. Just day before yesterday. It seemed like a week.

  McKee wondered what he could say. What did you say when you made a woman cry? “Getting pretty narrow,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  The canyon bent abruptly and the stream bed here was too narrow for all four wheels. The Volks tilted sharply as the right wheels rolled over a slab of exposed sandstone. It jolted down, slamming the rear bumper against the stone.

  McKee suddenly noticed tire tracks on the bank ahead of them. A truck had been in here recently, but before yesterday’s rain. Runoff had wiped out the tracks on the sandy bottom but the rain had only softened the imprint where the stream hadn’t reached.

  McKee was suddenly alert and nervous.

  Miss Leon slowed the Volkswagen.

  “Do you want me to try to drive over that?” she asked. Just ahead the canyon walls pinched together and water-worn rocks upthrust through the sand.

  “I’ll take a look,” McKee said. He climbed stiffly from the Volks. The rocks were partly obscured by brush and didn’t look too formidable. A few yards upstream they gave way to another stretch of sand. Beyond, the canyon rose sharply and was crowded with boulders from a rock slide. It was probably impassable for a vehicle.

  “Put it in low and angle to the left,” McKee directed. “We can get it past that brush and leave it there out of sight.”

  The Volks jolted over the rocks more easily than McKee had expected. He showed Miss Leon where to park it out of the water course behind the brush and then collected the canteen and cracker box.

  “We can lock the car,” he said. “You can take anything you think you’ll need, but I’d keep it light.”

  “I have a box of things I was taking to Dr. Hall,” Miss Leon said. “I couldn’t replace those.”

  “We can take it,” McKee said. It was then he noticed she was wearing an engagement ring—a ring with an impressive diamond. Why be surprised? he thought. Why be disappointed? Of course she was engaged. Not that it could possibly matter.

  Walking was easy for the first fifty yards across the hard-packed sand, but then it became a matter of climbing carefully over the rocks. McKee noticed with surprise that the truck had apparently made it across this barrier. Its path was marked by broken brush. He glanced back. Miss Leon was sitting on a rock, holding her ankle. He noticed she hadn’t brought the box.

  “What happened?”

  “I twisted it.” She looked frightened.

  He looked at her wordlessly, feeling for the first time in his life absolutely helpless. He walked back down the rocks toward her.

  “How bad is it?” He squatted beside her, looking at the ankle. It was a very trim ankle, with no sign yet of swelling.

  “I don’t know. It hurts.”

  “Can you put your weight on it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  McKee sat down and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. His head ached.

  “We’ll wait awhile,” he said finally. “When it feels better, we’ll go on.”

  He tried to think. If her ankle was sprained, it would swell soon. And if it was sprained it would be almost impossible for her to make the climb out. The long walk across rough country to Shoemaker’s would be even more impossible. At least twenty-five miles, he calculated. Perhaps farther from here. What if they simply waited here? Would the man in the Land-Rover follow them? And what if he did? McKee tried to retrace all that had happened since yesterday. The rams with their throats slashed. The note from Canfield. The man who came in the darkness. What had that been in his hand there in the moonlight? Had it really been a pistol? The feeling of being hunted down the canyon. That seemed unreal now. Incredible. But the tree being winched across the canyon had been real. He tried to think of an explanation for it. There was none. It must have been intended to close the canyon behind Miss Leon’s Volkswagen. To pen them in. He rubbed his forehead again, and pulled out his cigarettes. Miss Leon was sitting motionless just below him, resting her head on her hand.

  She’s not very big, he thought. Maybe 110 pounds. If it wasn’t for this damned hand he could carry her. Miss Leon’s long hair had fallen around her face. Her neck was very slender and very smooth. He felt a sharp, poignant sadness.

  “Would you like a cigarette?”

  “No thank you,” Miss Leon said. She didn’t look up.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” McKee said slowly. “I know you must think I’m out of my mind. But that man…” He stopped. There was nothing to be gained by going over it again.

  She looked at him then.

  “There’s no reason for you to be sorry,” she said. “I know you’re just trying to protect me.”

  McKee had thought her eyes were black or brown. They were dark blue. He looked away. If he was wrong about this she would forever think of him as the ultimate in idiots. And even if he was right, and she knew he was right, there was her fiancé, the man she was trying so hard to find. And, he realized bleakly, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  “But I think we should go back now. We have to go back.”

  “Maybe so,” he said. If she couldn’t walk there were no happy alternatives. He would simply have to gamble that he had been insanely wrong about it all. It occurred to him then that Miss Leon might be faking the injured ankle. He didn’t think that would be like her. And then he thought about the tire tracks. There had only been one set, which meant the truck had either come out of this canyon before yesterday’s rain, or had driven in and parked. A round trip would have left two sets of tracks. He walked up the canyon a few yards to where the brush closed in over the rocks. The branches had obviously been broken by something tearing its way upward. And unless the canyon bottom widened suddenly, and flattened—which looked impossible from here—it couldn’t have gone much farther. “I’ll be right back,” McKee said. “I’m going to see where that truck went.”

  It proved easy enough to follow. Beyond the barrier of brush, its wheels had straddled the now-narrow stream bed, leaving two deep tracks in the loamy soil—tracks which disappeared behind a brush-covered outcropping of rock a hundred feet upstream. McKee walked slowly toward this screen, feeling a growing tenseness. Behind it he would find some sort of vehicle. It couldn’t possibly be the Land-Rover. It might be, he realized, Canfield’s camper. Or the pickup of some Navajo sheepherder. If it was Canfield’s truck, where was Jeremy?

  Canfield’s camper was parked just behind the outcropping, its front wheels pulled up on a rock slope, tilting it at a sharp angle. McKee stood a moment looking at it. Then he looked up the canyon and stared up at the rimrock above. Nothing was in sight.

  “Jeremy?” He kept his voice low.

  There was no answer.

  The truck was locked. He looked through the side window. No keys in the ignition. But Canfield’s hat was on the floorboards. It was a plaid canvas fishing hat, with an oversized feather. A
ridiculous hat, but why had Canfield left it behind?

  McKee walked to the back of the pickup and peered through the small back window of the camper compartment. Canfield had stripped the interior and used it primarily for weatherproof storage. It was dark inside and McKee could see nothing at first. He pressed his face against the glass and used his left hand as a shield against the reflecting sunlight. He saw, first, a khaki shirt front and then the legs of a man. One was bent sharply at the knee and the other, extended, crossed it at the ankle. The man’s head was out of sight, against the tailgate of the camper and directly below the window, outside McKee’s line of vision.

  He knew instantly that the form was that of Jeremy Canfield and the civilized instincts of his consciousness proclaimed that Canfield was asleep. But some infinitesimal fraction of a second later his reason told him that Jeremy was not asleep. Men did not sleep, head down, on such a steep slope.

  McKee tried the handle on the camper again. It was locked. He looked around him for a rock, wrapped his left hand in his handkerchief, and smashed at the glass. It took five blows to force his way through the laminated safety window. He picked out the shards of glass still in the way and reached through, unsnapped the catchlock on the inside, raised the top panel on its hinges and dropped the tailgate. There was an outflow of warmer air escaping from the camper compartment and what had been Dr. J. R. Canfield slid a few inches toward him.

  McKee took a short step backward and stared. Canfield’s mouth was stretched open in some frozen, soundless shout. McKee swallowed and then sat on the tailgate. With his thumb he gently closed Canfield’s eyes. The eyelids felt sandy under his touch and he noticed then that there was also sand around the mouth and in his friend’s thinning hair. He rubbed his hand absently against his pant leg and stared blindly out across the canyon. He found himself wondering where Canfield had left his guitar. Back in the tent, he thought. Canfield had been working on one of his “ethnics” to celebrate the arrival of Miss Leon. McKee tried to remember the words. They were witty, he recalled, and unusually unprofane for one of Jeremy’s productions. Then he could think only of Miss Leon, a slight, slender, weary figure sitting on the rock with her head resting on her arm.

  McKee got up, pushed Canfield’s body a few inches back up the steep incline of the pickup bed and closed the tailgate. He moved rapidly down the canyon.

  There was no alternative now. No question of turning back. But was there a way to get Miss Leon out of this trap without bringing her past this truck? He looked again at the canyon walls. With two good hands he might be able to make it to the top here, but he was sure she couldn’t. And he didn’t have two good hands. He cursed vehemently as his jogging trot started the throbbing again. If only he hadn’t been so clumsy. He would have to bring her past the truck. There was no other way. But he would keep her from looking in.

  She was still on the rock when he pushed his way through the bushes, and she looked up and smiled at him.

  “We have to go now,” he said. “How’s the ankle?”

  “I don’t think I can do more than hobble on it,” she said. “We’ll have to go back.”

  “We’re not going back. I found Canfield’s truck up there. Someone broke in the back window and he’s gone.”

  “But we can’t possibly…”

  “Get up,” McKee ordered. His voice was hoarse. “Get on your feet. I’ll help you.”

  “I’m not going,” Miss Leon said.

  “You’re going, and right now.” McKee’s voice was grim. He gripped her arm and lifted her to her feet, surprised at how light she seemed. The box of crackers was on the rock where he had left it. How could he have been silly enough to bring crackers?

  She tried to jerk away from his grip, and then faced him. McKee noticed there were tears in her eyes.

  “You’ve got a concussion. We just can’t go stumbling around like this. We’ve got to get you to a doctor. Please,” she said. “Please, Dr. McKee. Please come back to the camp and Dr. Canfield will help you.”

  McKee looked at her. There was dust on her face and a tear had streaked it. He looked away, feeling baffled and helpless. Maybe he would have to tell her about Canfield.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  “You’re hurting my arm.”

  McKee was suddenly conscious of the feel of her arm under his fingers, of the softness under the shirt sleeve. He jerked his hand away.

  Miss Leon ran. She spun away from him and ran lightly down the rocks toward the Volkswagen. McKee stood, too surprised to move, thinking: There’s nothing wrong with her ankle. Then he swore, and ran after her, clumsily because of his injured hand. Before he reached the Volkswagen, she had rolled up the windows and locked herself in. For a wild moment, McKee thought she would start the car and drive off and he had a vision of himself trying to keep himself in front of the Volkswagen—performing an idiotic game of dodgem in reverse. But she simply sat behind the wheel, looking at him.

  He tapped on the window, and tried to keep his voice sounding normal.

  “Really, Miss Leon. I’m not crazy. And we really do have to get out of here.”

  Miss Leon looked at him. He saw no fear in her expression, nor anger. She simply looked worried.

  “Roll down the window.”

  “Not until you give me your word of honor you’ll go back to the camp.”

  Her voice was faint through the glass. My day for breaking windows, McKee thought. He picked up a rock, and wrapped the handkerchief around his left hand again. He saw Miss Leon looked frightened now.

  “Roll it down.”

  “No.”

  McKee hesitated. He thought of Jeremy’s body, and of the sand on his face. Breaking his word would be quicker than the window.

  “I promise,” he said. “Let me in and we’ll go back to camp.”

  “I don’t know now,” Miss Leon said. “I’m not sure I can trust you.”

  Good lord, McKee thought. Women left him utterly baffled.

  He held up the rock.

  “Open up, or I break in.”

  Miss Leon unlocked the door and he pulled it open.

  “Get out now. No more of this horsing around. Get out of there or I’ll have to drag you out.”

  Miss Leon got out. He gripped her arm and walked with her rapidly up the canyon. And then he stopped.

  A tall man wearing a new black hat emerged from the screen of bushes just in front of them. He was the Big Navajo who had been shopping in Shoemaker’s. In his right hand he held a machine pistol, pointed approximately at McKee’s stomach. It was of shiny, gunmetal blue—something which would have reflected in the moonlight.

  “That’s right,” the man said. “Just stand still.”

  He walked across the rocks toward them, keeping his eyes on McKee.

  The pistol, McKee saw, had a wire stock, now folded down, and a long cartridge magazine extending downward from the chamber.

  “You’re Bergen McKee,” the man said. “And the young lady would be Ellen Leon.”

  McKee pulled Miss Leon’s arm, moving her behind him.

  “What do you want?”

  The man smiled at McKee. It was a pleasant smile. And the face was pleasant. A long, raw-boned Navajo face, with heavy eyebrows and a generous mouth. McKee saw he wore short braids, tied with red cord.

  “Just the pleasure of your company for a while,” the big man said. “But right now I want you to take that hand out of your shirt front, very, very slowly.”

  McKee pulled out the hand.

  “Well,” the man said. “I see I’ve been too suspicious.” He smiled again. “That’s quite a finger.”

  McKee said nothing.

  “Now, I’ll have you put your hands against that tree.” He flicked the long barrel of the pistol toward the trunk of a piñon. “Lean against it while I see what you have in those pockets. And, Ellen, you stand over here where I can watch you.”

  The man stood behind McKee and searched him deftly. He pul
led out the cans of meat and dropped them, took the pickup keys and his billfold, ran his hand quickly around McKee’s belt line and patted his shirt. Then the hand was gone, but the voice came from directly behind him.

  “You will hold that position until I finish checking Miss Leon’s possessions. I don’t want any movement at all. I don’t have to tell you that I will use this pistol.”

  “No,” Bergen said glumly. “You don’t.”

  He heard the voice telling Miss Leon to hold her arms out. McKee looked back over his shoulder.

  The blow was so sudden and vicious that he dropped to his knees and huddled against the pain of it. The man had jabbed him, full strength, above the kidney with the muzzle of the pistol.

  “You didn’t pay attention to what I said,” he heard the man saying. “I said not to move. But now you can get up.”

  McKee pulled himself to his feet. He had hurt his finger again and his hand throbbed violently. He saw Miss Leon looking at him, her face very white. The man was looking at him too, still smiling slightly. He wore a black shirt and denims tucked into the tops of his boots.

  “You know, I almost missed you again,” the man said. He stopped smiling. “You’ve been a hell of a lot of trouble. When we have a little time I want you to tell me how you got away from me last night at your camp. That’s been puzzling me.” The man stopped a moment, staring at McKee.

  “I think I know why I didn’t catch you at my tree. You were farther down the canyon than I thought you could be and you heard the winch. Didn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” McKee said.

  “I almost waited there too long,” the man said. “You were smart enough to run, but then you gave away your advantage. I wonder why you waited for me here.” He looked at McKee thoughtfully. “You could have made me hunt you another day,” he said. “Why did you stop? Did you give up?”

  McKee didn’t look at Miss Leon.

  “We didn’t think anyone would know where we were.”

  The Navajo laughed. He seemed genuinely amused. “If you didn’t know this was the only way out, I had some luck with you.”