She didn’t move or seem to breathe. Then she went very slowly to chair and sat down and leaned her face in her hands. She sat there without motion, without sound. The little dog whined and crept under her chair.
The man on the floor started to raise the upper part of his body. He raised it very slowly, stiffly. His eyes were blank. Barron moved over to him and bent down.
«You hit bad, son?»
The man pressed his left hand against his chest. Blood oozed between his fingers. He lifted his right hand slowly, until the arm was rigid and pointing to the corner of the ceiling. His lips quivered, stiffened, spoke.
«Heil Hitler!» he said thickly.
He fell back and lay motionless. His throat rattled a little and then that, too, was still, and everything in the room was still, even the dog.
«This man must be one of them Nazis,» the sheriff said. «You hear what he said?»
«Yeah,» I said.
I turned and walked out of the house, down the steps and down through the trees again to the car. I sat on the running board and lit a cigarette, and sat there smoking and thinking hard.
After a little while they all came down through the trees. Barron was carrying the dog. Andy was carrying his rifle in his left hand. His leathery young face looked shocked.
Mrs. Lacey got into the car and Barron handed the dog in to her. He looked at me and said: «It’s against the law to smoke out here, son, more than fifty feet from a cabin.»
I dropped the cigarette and ground it hard into the powdery gray soil. I got into the car, in front beside Andy.
The car started again and we went back to what they probably called the main road over there. Nobody said anything for a long time, then Mrs. Lacey said in a low voice: «Luders mentioned a name that sounded like Sloat. He said it to the man you shot. They called him Kurt. They spoke German. I understand a little German, but they talked too fast. Sloat didn’t sound like German. Does it mean anything to you?»
«It’s the name of an old gold mine not far from here,» Barron said. «Sloat’s Mine. You know where it is, don’t you, Andy?»
«Yup. I guess I killed that feller, didn’t I?»
«I guess you did, Andy.»
«I never killed nobody before,» Andy said.
«Maybe I got him,» I said. «I fired at him.»
«Nope,» Andy said. «You wasn’t high enough to get him in the chest. I was.»
Barron said: «How many brought you to that cabin, Mrs. Lacey? I hate to be asking you questions at a time like this, ma’am, but I just got to.»
The dead voice said: «Two. Luders and the man you killed. He ran the boat.»
«Did they stop anywhere — on this side of the lake, ma’am?»
«Yes. They stopped at a small cabin near the lake. Luders was driving. The other man, Kurt, got out, and we drove on. After a while Luders stopped and Kurt came up with us in an old car. He drove the car into a gully behind some willows and then came on with us.»
«That’s all we need,» Barron said. «If we get Luders, the job’s all done. Except I can’t figure what it’s all about.»
I didn’t say anything. We drove on to where the T intersection was and the road went back to the lake. We kept on across this for about four miles.
«Better stop here, Andy. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. You stay here.»
«Nope. I ain’t going to,» Andy said.
«You stay here,» Barron said in a voice suddenly harsh. «You got a lady to look after and you done your killin’ for tonight. All I ask is you keep that little dog quiet.»
The car stopped. Barron and I got out. The little dog whined and then was still. We went off the road and started across country through a grove of young pines and manzanita and ironwood. We walked silently, without speaking. The noise our shoes made couldn’t have been heard thirty feet away except by an Indian.
TWELVE
We reached the far edge of the thicket in a few minutes. Beyond that the ground was level and open. There was a spidery something against the sky, a few low piles of waste dirt, a set of sluice boxes built one on top of the other like a miniature cooling tower, an endless belt going towards it from a cut. Barron put his mouth against my ear.
«Ain’t been worked for a couple of years,» he said. «Ain’t worth it. Day’s hard work for two men might get you a pennyweight of gold. This country was worked to death sixty years ago. That low hut over yonder’s a old refrigerator car. She’s thick and damn near bullet-proof. I don’t see no car, but maybe it’s behind. Or hidden. Most like hidden. You ready to go?»
I nodded. We started across the open space. The moon was almost as bright as daylight. I felt swell, like a clay pipe in a shooting gallery. Barron seemed quite at ease. He held the big Colt down at his side, with his thumb over the hammer.
Suddenly light showed in the side of the refrigerator car and we went down on the ground. The light came from a partly opened door, a yellow panel and a yellow spearhead on the ground. There was a movement in the moonlight and the noise of water striking the ground. We waited a little, then got up again and went on.
There wasn’t much use playing Indian. They would come out of the door or they wouldn’t. If they did, they would see us, walking, crawling or lying. The ground was that bare and the moon was that bright. Our shoes scuffed a little, but this was hard dirt, much walked on and tight packed. We reached a pile of sand and stopped beside it. I listened to myself breathing. I wasn’t panting, and Barron wasn’t panting either. But I took a lot of interest in my breathing. It was something I had taken for granted for a long time, but right now I was interested in it. I hoped it would go on for a long time, but I wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t scared. I was a full-sized man and I had a gun in my hand. But the blond man back in the other cabin had been a full-sized man with a gun in his hand, too. And he had a wall to hide behind. I wasn’t scared though. I was just thoughtful about little things. I thought Barron was breathing too loud, but I thought I would make more noise telling him he was breathing too loud than he was making breathing. That’s the way I was, very thoughtful about the little things.
Then the door opened again. This time there was no light behind it. A small man, very small, came out of the doorway carrying what looked like a heavy suitcase. He carried it along the side of the car, grunting hard. Barron held my arm in a vise. His breath hissed faintly.
The small man with the heavy suitcase, or whatever it was, reached the end of the car and went around the corner. Then I thought that although the pile of sand didn’t look very high it was probably high enough so that we didn’t show above it. And if the small man wasn’t expecting visitors, he might not see us. We waited for him to come back. We waited too long.
A clear voice behind us said: «I am holding a machine gun, Mr. Barron. Put your hands up, please. If you move to do anything else, I fire.»
I put my hands up fast. Barron hesitated a little longer. Then he put his hands up. We turned slowly. Frank Luders stood about four feet away from us, with a tommy gun held waist-high. Its muzzle looked as big as the Second Street tunnel in L.A.
Luders said quietly: «I prefer that you face the other way. When Charlie comes back from the car, he will light the lamps inside. Then we shall all go in.»
We faced the long, low car again. Luders whistled sharply. The small man came back around the corner of the car, stopped a moment, then went towards the door. Luders called out: «Light the lamps, Charlie. We have visitors.»