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  I jogged over to the motor home where Crowell had only cracked the door open. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and they both stopped talking when I arrived.

  I huffed once or twice, catching my breath, and said, “Afternoon, Crowell.”

  Angus Crowell did not have time to acknowledge me. He was staring at his daughter, his face a contorted mask. She stared right back, though it was evident she was frightened to death. The snake and the field mouse. “Father, this is Thomas Black,” Melissa said, her voice cracking. “I believe you’ve already met.”

  Angus nodded and said, “Ayeah,” like some old-time sourdough, all without taking his hard eyes off his daughter. He was almost like one of those absurd boxers trying to psych out his opponent with menacing primate stares. It was an act, and I realized it even if Melissa did not. Angus Crowell infused every day with minor dramas, and sometimes with major theatrics, and he was damn good at it. Obviously, it had been a boon to his business and social life, if not his family life.

  Finally, the old man broke the stalemate and said, “Excuse me. I don’t know where my manners went. I’m out here in the wilds and I don’t know where the hell my mind’s been. The last thing I expected was company.” He looked more fully at me as if it were difficult for him to see without glasses, and then he laughed. “I come up here to get away from people. Last company I had was a pair of drunken deer hunters. You hunt deer, do you, Mr. Black?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah, well, tell you what. If you two could wait outside a minute, rn get things shipshape in here.” He closed the door and I could hear him rustling around inside.

  Walking over to Melissa, who had strolled off a good thirty yards, almost to the woods, I spoke in a low voice.

  “What were you two talking about?”

  The pretty blonde was rigid and formal, as if we were two strangers riding a bus and battling to avoid each other’s eyes. “I told him I came to clear the air.”

  “What did he say?”

  Melissa turned away from me again and looked up at the mountain, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She folded her arms snugly against her small breasts and her shoulders squared themselves up against the mountain.

  “Melissa, what did your father say?”

  “Don’t you understand? This is all for your benefit.”

  She was choking on her own words, strangling on her own life.

  “What is? What’s for my benefit?’

  “This whole charade. He knew you were up here when we first arrived. He was watching us. He waited until you were out of earshot. Damn He said what he said because he knew when I told you about it you’d think I was crazy. Why do you think he’s leaving us alone right now? He wants to be sure I’ll tell you about it.”

  “If you don’t want to say it, don’t. I don’t have to know.”

  Melissa pivoted around sharply and grabbed my belt, inserting her fingers down between the belt and my pants. It was a big move for her. She wasn’t the type of person who touched others easily, especially members of the opposite sex, at least not in a social setting.

  “He said nasty things. Horrible perverted things. They didn’t even make sense. He sounded like someone who just escaped from a mental asylum.”

  “Why would he do that, Melissa?”

  “Don’t you see? So when I told you about it you’d look at me the way you’re looking right now. It worked. He’s outsmarted us both. I just should have kept my big mouth shut. Chalk up number one to dear old Dad.”

  “Don’t get all worked up, now,” I cautioned.

  “Don’t you see? If I keep my nerve and go through with this, you’re going to be the lone witness and it’s going to boil down to my word against his. And Father doesn’t relish losing, not at anything. He wants my word tarnished from the outset. The way it’s been my whole life.” She sniffled. “And it is.”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t believe that.”

  I hugged her. The air rushed out of her lungs like a paper bag underfoot. She was shaky and weak. I hadn’t been holding a lot of Women lately. This week I’d held two of them, Kathy and Melissa. I couldn’t help compar-ing them, their bodies, their smells, the sway of their hips against my legs, the way they laid their heads against my chest, the manner in which their breasts thrust against me.

  I knew he was watching. She was right. The old con artist was crafty. He came barging out of the Winnebago before I released her. ?

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ARMS SWINGING, MASSIVE, ROUNDED SHOULDERS ROLLING, Crowell strode towstrd us like an old grizzly, a smirk on his coarse, weathered face. It was the smirk of a lifelong professional pressure salesman approaching a customer he knew he could gull.

  “Gawd, it’s splendid up here,” he boomed, “Look at this landscape. God’s country. No two ways about it. Just lucky I can afford a slice or two. You own any ground, Black?”

  “Not like this,” I said, watching him lumber closer.

  “It’s cheap now. Hell, it is cheap. You oughts look into it.” He gazed at the weeds around his feet as if they were an audience. He knew I was watching him the way George C. Scott knew I was watching him when he performed. The world was full of consummate actors, only a handful of them holding union cards.

  “I’ll tell you two. I just gave up on Gurty. I can’t clean her up. I’m an old bachelor at heart, I guess.” He looked at me and snickered. Gurty, I took it, was the nickname of his Winnebago. He seemed the sort of man who wanted to be inside a woman as much as possible. A man’s man, so to speak.

  Melissa inhaled and then spoke timorously. “We did not come up here for small talk, Angus. I have something to say to you and I want Mr. Black to witness it.”

  “Nonsense,” Angus Crowell bellowed, his voice an exquisite timbre in stark contrast to his daughter’s rabbit-squeak. “You both hike up with me. Bet you’ve never seen one of these mines, eh, Black?”

  I was struck by the confidence in his voice and by the resolute look in his eyes. It made Melissa seem very much the child. And he very much the father. But then, that was the general idea.

  “I’d rather get this over,” I said, but Crowell had already started marching.

  “We’re not coming,” shouted Melissa, but her father either did not hear or pretended he did not hear, kept stalking away through the sparse trees at the edge’ofthe clearing. In a few moments he would be out of sight. We looked at each other, both realizing at the same instant that he might not return until after he was certain we had left. It would be dark in a few hours.

  “We’d better follow him,” I said. Melissa concurred with a jittery sigh. Her pop wasn’t making it easy and she was beginning to display signs of faltering.

  For an old man, a man in his late sixties, Angus Crowell tramped up the side of that mountain like a sonofabitch. Either he kept himself in extraordinary shape or he was killing his body to prove a point.

  The trees opened up onto a hill and toward a well-defined path leading up the hill.

  Though Melissa wore a sensible pair of shoes and tried her best, there was no way she could keep up. I decided to hang back with her. Two sleepless weeks of drinking, drugging, and tricking had drained her stamina. By the time we got halfway up the mountainside to the clearing in front of the mine entrance, she was bushed.

  Angus hunkered on a dilapidated, overturned cart buried in knee-deep grass. He watched as Melissa plunked down onto a large angular piece of granite. I thought I saw traces of contempt in his eyes, eyes the color of bitter blackberries.

  Scrub pines, rooted into crevices, bearded the face of the mountain. Crushed rock, dirt and other rubble had been strewn down the hillside over a period of years, forming a smooth bib beneath the mine entrance. A thousand feet up, it would look as if ants had meted it out.

  From our vantage point; we could see the clearing, the treetops and the toothy-white roof of the Winnebago. To the south, more mountains rose up, real mountains, the Cascade range, most of them froste
d with snow.

  “We’re going to talk, Father, if we have to march all the way to Yakima with you.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said glibly. “But don’t you want to go inside? You ever been inside a real working mine, Black? You’d be amazed at how far a man can dig into solid rock.” He picked up a handful of loose soil from beside his boot and trickled it through his fingers. “Course this stuff is a little crumbly. Some old gummer owned the mine. Did all the work himself. Called it The Hemorrhoid. He lived on beans and varmints. They tell me he stayed up here almost thirty years. Addlepated old coot. Crowd of hunters finally found him. They guessed he’d been dead maybe six months.” At the word dead, Angus’s eyes met mine.

  Melissa’s father wore an outdated pair of dress trousers, boots and a yellowed dress shirt. Somehow, hunkered on the cart, playing with the dirt, he didn’t fit into the scenery. I looked him over carefully, wondering if he might have a weapon concealed under the shirt.

  Melissa blasted him. “You killed someone, Daddy. I know you did, I was little, but I remember as if it happened two minutes ago. You killed some man inside a mine. It was dark and scary and you fought.”

  She had pretty well caught her breath now and she stood up and walked over beside me. She spat it out again in one big mouthful, as if she were vomiting.

  “You killed some jasper inside a mine and I saw it. That’s why you treated me like a numbskull all these years. You were afraid I’d someday say what I’m saying right now. So here I am. Fm saying it. And rm not afraid of you anymore. You killed someone. I know you did.”

  Angus did not move. He was so motionless he threatened to become a part of the dilapidated cart. I hadn’t seen so much quiet power in a man in years. He had the charisma men exhibited only after attaining great fame and wealth. Crowell would have been devastating in politics. Absolutely devastating.

  He gave his daughter a distinctly paternal look, acting as if he were going to say something, but saying nothing. His mouth twitched. He wiped his face with his great gnarled bear hands, sighed, and worked his lips as if he had a popcorn kernel in his mouth.

  “You know what this is all about?” he asked me, in an unnaturally soft voice.

  “I know what it’s about.”

  “Oh, cut the crap,” said Melissa. “You know damn well what’s going on.”

  “My dear, I did not raise a daughter to curse in the manner of a longshoreman.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Melissa’s mouth grew ugly and she ejaculated the words like bullets. “You raised a daughter who doesn’t know who she is or what she wants or how to do anything. You raised a daughter who’s so nutty she’ll screw anything in pants!”

  Melissa glanced quickly at me as if to ask, shall we run for it now? I gave her a reassuring look. When I wanted, I could exude a great deal of quiet power myself. I knew she would calm down as soon as she saw the look in my eyes. She put my arm into a quasi hammer-lock, wrenched it down against herself and yelped, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Angus spoke patiently, as if calming a horse that wanted to bolt. “It’s not going to be that easy. You’ve made an awfully serious accusation here. Or at least I think you have. I don’t know. Maybe these old ears didn’t hear right.”

  “They heard right,” said Melissa, her grip on my arm tightening.

  Crowell’s voice was deep, mellifluous, almost sleepy. “So what is it you’re saying?”

  “I just told you.” “Put it in plain English.”

  “In plain English?” Melissa darted a querulous look at me. “What’s the matter with you, Father? You’re not fooling anyone. Thomas knows what you did. I know what you did. Everyone here knows exactly what you did. Some father. Big pillar of the community!’

  Crowell wrinkled his nose and screwed up his face for a few seconds. Then he hawked and spat. “You’ve been doing a lot of talking, haven’t you, Missy?”

  “Get off your power trip, Daddy. I’ve got a big strong man here to guard me and I’m not going to back down. Not this time. rm not scared.” Maybe she wasn’t, but she was shutting off the circulation in my forearm.

  “Missy been telling you things, Black?”

  “We’ve talked.”

  “You believe her?” I nodded. I was no judge. And certainly I was no psychologist. I wanted to back her up, but I wasn’t sure about her mental ability, any more than I was sure of his. She was making serious allegations.

  “I hope you’re not foolish enough to repeat anything my little scatterbrain tells you. A man could get into a heap of horse manure repeating things.”

  “Sure. And sometimes a man can get up to his neck in it not repeating things.”

  He looked at his daughter. “You’re mixed up, Missy. I remember once Todd Sperling and I were up here horsing around. You thought we meant business but we were only horsing around. Is that what you’re talking about? You should have brought it up years ago. Todd’s still around. We had dinner with him and his second wife not less than a month ago. If this was troubling you so much, you should have brought it up years ago. Missy, you’re a troubled girl.” Melissa inhaled and it caught in her throat like someone on a crying jag.

  “It was not Todd Sperling. I know who Todd is. It was somebody else. Somebody big with red hair. You’re not going to talk me out of it or convince me Fm crazy. Not this time.”

  His lips curled up and he shook his shoulders as though he were laughing, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere near a laugh. “If Melissa’s been telling you things, Black, did you hear the one about the daughter and the gardener? She tell you that one? It’s a doozy. Or how about the one about the daughter and the paper boy who wasn’t even fourteen years old, for christsakes!”

  “Oh Gawd,” said Melissa, tugging on my arm. “I cannot even believe you would try such an obvious smokescreen. I really cannot.”

  “Let me explain the facts of life, Black. My daughter’s been mentally disturbed since she could walk. She’s been seeing shrinks for years. Hate to say it, but I think this sort of funny business runs in the family. Her aunt had some problems. And her grandfather, who she never knew … he killed himself. I don’t pretend to understand how her mind works, but I think this accusation stems from her own guilt over what she’s done. Over what she’s fantasized.”

  “You still cannot admit it, can you?’ said Melissa.

  “Missy. Calm down.”

  “I don’t understand you. Have you really put it out of your mind? Have you convinced yourself over the years that it never happened? Because if you have, Fin here to tell you it did happen. It happened

  and it ruined me. It’s only been the last twenty-four hours that I’ve held out any hope for myself.”

  “Melissa, you need counseling. She needs counseling, Black.”

  “Sure she does,” I said, “I think you do, too.” He glowered at me. It hit me like a cold wind.

  “I suppose we could all use some counseling from time to time,” he admitted.

  I stared right back at him. Had he been my father in my growing years, there would have been hell to pay. One way or another there would have been hell to pay.

  “You don’t believe her story, do you? Melissa is disturbed. Ask her mother. She spent nine days at La Conquistador a few years back. Know what the doctors caught her doing?”

  “Father…”

  “Peddling it. That’s right. She was peddling it to the attendants. I don’t enjoy telling these things, Missy, but you’re forcing my hand.”

  “You’re not going to shock Black,” said Melissa, her vanity surfacing. She was proud of the fact that I stood staunchly beside her, despite where I had found her, despite what I had found her doing. “He’s seen it all. He knows all about me.”

  Her father’s voice was beginning to fade. The facts of his daughter’s life were defeating him. “I’m sorry to hear that, Melissa. I’m sorry to hear you haven’t reformed.”

  “Are you ever going to admit this?” M
elissa demanded. “Don’t you know? All I want is for you to look at me and say you did it.” She tried to stare the old bear down for thirty long seconds but she didn’t have a prayer.

  “No. I didn’t think so. Well, you can say aloha to your precious daughter. And you can say aloha to Angel, too. You’ll not get your filthy hands on her. I’ll never forgive you, Daddy. And I’ll never forget all those years you tried to rob me of my self-confidence. All those times you tried to convince me and yourself and everybody else that I was a fruitcake, not to be trusted never forget.”

  Melissa pivoted and stormed down the hillside. Stomping down the rocky trail, she was slender and frail and pretty. Her ankles bent awkwardly as she crossed the rugged terrain. I hoped she didn’t sprain something. I proceeded to leave behind her, but Crowell stopped me.

  “Black,” he said, “let me have a few words?”

  Melissa heard him and glanced over her shoulder apprehensively, watching me through a veil of tears. I winked at her and sent her on her way.

  “Shoot,” I said.

  He talked for a long while. He rambled, wheedled, conned and cajoled. I didn’t believe much of it. He was a man trying to swim in quicksand. Lots of flailing, but no real movement. He told me how he had adored his daughter as a baby, as a toddler. He tried to assure me she’d been seeing things for years. He tried to convince me he loved her dearly and wanted to see that she got some real competent medical attention. And he told me stories. How he’d caught a man in her room when she was sixteen, how the man, in trying to escape, had knifed Angus so that he came close to bleeding to death.

  I strolled about while he talked, Melissa had made it to the car by then. Some time to herself wouldn’t hurt. I walked behind him and investigated the opening to the mine. Inside lay a stockpile of modern lamps, a few tools and a bucket filled with rain water. The bucket gave me an idea. A dangerous idea.

  Crowell continued to talk without turning around.