Talmage Powell
All Things to Me
She was blonde and tall and very regal. Her name was Nicki Jensen. Her eyes were a lazy violet in a deeply tanned face. She was icy fire, and after a look at her, I knew what the old proverb about playing with fire meant. Still, I took another look, and decided to hang with the proverb. I wanted to get burned.
The first time she saw me she almost killed me.
I was giving my game leg a work-out, walking down Ransom Cove Road. The late summer afternoon was hot, but here on the road, sheltered by the intertwining branches of elms and maples, with thick, cool green undergrowth stretching away on either side, it was cool. The road is a rutted, dirt affair, twisting back up into the hills, and birds were singing, a few squirrels chattering and a mountain brook gurgling somewhere to my left, when I heard the roar of the motor.
I spun about, kicking up dust, just as the heavy Buick rounded the curve. The curves on Ransom Cove Road make it practically blind driving, and the Buick was coming like a low-flying fighter plane. For a moment it was nip and tuck; then I was bottomside up in a blackberry bramble, where my dive had brought me. The Buick was slewing around, stopping sideways in a thick, billowing cloud of dust.
I heard the car door slam. She came out of the dust cloud as I gingerly extricated myself from the prison of brambles. I forgot my aches as I looked at her. She was breathing shallowly, and her lips, very red, were open just enough to expose her flawless teeth.
She said breathlessly, “Are you all right?”
I looked at her, brushed myself off to keep my suddenly trembling hands from making a fool of me. “I’m okay,” I said. “Just gave me a turn, saving my scalp by a bare three or four inches.” I dusted the knees of my trousers, stood up straight. “I’m Jeff Clarke, Miss...”
“Jensen. Nicki Jensen. I’m glad you’re not hurt, Mr. Clarke.” She turned quickly, started hurriedly toward the car.
“Hey!” I took a couple of steps after her. She stopped, turned, looked at me coolly. I felt silly.
“That is, I... Are you staying near here?” I asked a little lamely. “I haven’t seen you around. I’ve got a cabin back up at the tourist camp. I...”
“I’m sure it’s quite interesting,” she said, “but I really am in a rush. If you’re quite all right, Mr. Clarke, I must be going.” She got in the Buick, which was a convertible with the top down. She hesitated a moment, flashed me a smile. “I’m sorry to seem so abrupt. If I had time I would give you a lift. But I must get to Nordlands.”
I shrugged, “I was just walking.” Anything else I might have wanted to say was drowned in the roar of the motor. She gunned the car away with a wave of her slim hand. I stood watching until she had taken the next curve at juggernaut speed.
The hum of the motor spent itself over the rugged countryside, and she was gone. The scenery wasn’t so beautiful now, the green mountain undergrowth less green. I turned to go, and the rays of the sun, shafting over the ragged hills in the west, reflected from the blob of gold in the road. I bent, picked it up. It was a small gold compact. Turning it over in my palm. I saw the initials A. R. engraved on it. Not her initials, but she had evidently dropped the compact when she had got out of the car.
Where had she said she was going? Nordlands. I studied the compact for a moment. Nordlands. I remembered, was an estate about two miles down Ransom Cove Road. It belonged to a rich old man named Theron Rawlins, who had made a fortune in oil. He had bought the place with the intention of stocking a game reserve, but Nordlands had been unoccupied for the past several years. The hillbilly natives around the tourist camp had tales to tell of the dreary old house at Nordlands.
Slowly my fingers closed over the compact. I remembered the way she had looked. I knew where she was, and I had an excuse to see her again. Two miles would be a long hike for my game leg, but I compensated myself with the thought that it was downhill all the way. I dropped the compact in my pocket and started down the road.
Nordlands presented a high stone wall, overgrown with all sorts of green and decayed creeping vines, to the road, which was paved to this point and beginning to level off as it swept into the verdant valley. Sweat had dried stiffly over my forehead, and my leg was beginning to shoot sharp little pains upward as I neared the high, rusty iron gate. I looked through the ancient iron grilling. A weed-grown drive angled up to the house, which was set halfway up the knoll, a dark, brown, sagging bulk.
I opened the creaking gate. There was a rush and roar a few feet to my right. A huge beast came crashing out of the wildly-growing shrubbery and weeds. I fumbled at the gate, couldn’t get it open, grabbed the first handy vine and scrambled to the top of the wall. My heels were scant inches ahead of snapping jaws.
Panting. I lay on the wall a moment, while below me rose vicious, low-throated growls, the frantic scratchings of great paws against the wall. I ventured a look over, found myself gazing into the red eyes of a Great Dane. The dog was as large as a small pony, sleekly muscled, and evidently thinking it would be a pleasure indeed to tear me limb from limb.
I said, “Shoooo! Get away!” and was looking along the top of the thick wall for a loose stone, just in case, when I heard her cool voice say sharply, “Bimbo!”
The scratchings ceased and Bimbo moved a few feet away, sulkily. I sat up on the wall and watched her as she hurried down the unkempt drive.
“Well, it’s Mr. Clarke,” she said icily. “Did you lose your way?”
“Nope. Will the beast be reasonable now?”
“As long as I tell him.” She stood with arms akimbo as I slid down the wall. Both my legs were hurting now. In my flight to gain the safety of the altitude of the wall, I had torn my trousers and skinned my good, left knee.
She regarded my tousled hair, stained face, torn pants leg. A slow smile crept over her lips, and the walk was suddenly worthwhile.
“Were you lonely in your tourist camp?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, since you’re here, you might as well come to the house and have a drink. But,” she added firmly, “you can forget your persistence, if I may flatter myself by thinking you’re trying to meet me. As soon as you’ve rested a few moments, you’ll have to leave. My uncle is here, ill in bed, from a very great shock.”
I heard the chilling snuffling of the dog again, whirled, but he was several feet away. And not engrossed in me. He was scratching away at twigs and leaves and loose dirt beneath a cluster of ill-kept snowball bushes.
Nicki said sharply, “Bimbo!” But Bimbo paid no heed. Bimbo dug right to the corpse with those great paws of his. Nicki screamed. I grabbed a big stick.
I knocked the dog sprawling five feet away with my first blow. He came back, and I hit him again. His deep growl rose to a howl of pain, and before he could recover, I socked him over the rump and Nicki yelled, “Home, Bimbo! Go to the house!”
Between her orders and my big stick. Bimbo had had enough. He went loping up the drive.
I said, “You’d better not look.” I d already had a quick glimpse of the dead man. I was afraid the sight of his open, frozen eyes, thin face and gaping mouth, all liberally sprinkled with dirt and tiny bits of leaves, would be too much for her. But she looked at him without fainting. I slipped my arm about her shoulders and she shuddered.
“It’s Gaspard,” she whispered. “My uncle’s secretary.”
“You’d better go on up. I’ll be along in a moment; we’ve got to call the police.”
She went stumbling up the drive. I bent and forced my shaking hands to brush aside leaves and twigs.
Breathing heavily, I stood up. Gaspard had been a thin, lean man in faultlessly tailored clothes at the moment someone had slipped a knife in the hack of his neck. I didn’t know much about such matters, but I guessed that he had been killed sometime today. The fact that the dog hadn’t found Gaspard sooner seemed to bear me out.