“When you showed me around this morning, he was in that other pen,” I said. “I’m sure of it!”
“I’m glad you said that, Danny.” Something like relief sounded in her voice. “When I took a look this after-
57
noon, I thought I was losing my memory, so I had to be sure I wasn’t.”
“Yeah,” I said absently.
“Danny,” she said softly. “Why?”
“That Pete,” I said admiringly. “He can think on his feet all right.”
“What do you mean?”
“The last thing I said before I took off with Clemmie the other morning was for you to take a look at Sweet William’s pen,” I said. “Remember?”
“Of course I remember—but you never told me what I was looking for. What was in the pen?” she asked breathlessly.
“Someone had buried a body in dirt,” I said soberly. “My guess is it belonged to Philip Hazelton.”
Sylvia drew in her breath sharply and made a whimpering noise.
“Pete must have known the body was there,” I went on. “He knew he could stall you from looking at the pen and seeing it, but he couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t tell the police—as I did. So he had to do something fast. And the easiest thing to do would be shift Sweet William into a new pen—so if anybody came to take a look, they wouldn’t find anything.”
“Danny,” she said in a trembling voice. “That means it’s still there—the body—in the pen where the sow and her new litter are right now?”
“It figures,” I agreed. “Pete would’ve covered it up again, but he wouldn’t know how much time he had, so my guess is he wouldn’t have tried to move the body.” “Danny!” She clutched hold of my arm tightly. “I think I’m going to faint.”
I heard a faint noise and turned around. A shaft of light showed momentarily from the back of the house, then was cut off again.
“Someone just left the house,” I said. “We’d better get out of here.”
“Can you see anyone?” she whispered nervously.
“No.” I strained my eyes.
“How do you know they’re coming this way?” she asked.
“How do I know they’re not?” I said tersely. “We need to get somewhere out of this damned moonlight fast.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “The barn.”
She started to run, and I followed her. It was maybe a hundred yards from the pigpens to the bam and I hadn’t run so fast since that time in Las Vegas when a redhead turned up for a date with a preacher in tow.
We made the bam and went inside. I pushed the door almost shut and then listened carefully. I could hear Sylvia’s quick breathing behind me, and the loud protest of my own outraged lungs, but that was about all.
“Maybe he’s gone back into the house?” Sylvia whispered a minute later.
“Maybe,” I grunted. “But we’ll stay here awhile and make sure.”
Another couple of minutes dragged by, and Sylvia’s teeth chattered slightly.
“I’m cold!” she whispered. “Can’t we leave now?”
“In a little while,” I said, and then I heard a chinking noise as someone’s shoe hit a stone. I pushed the door open another inch and squinted at the brightness outside. There was the silhouette of a man about fifty yards away, walking directly toward the bam.
“He’s heading straight this way,” I said. “Move over to one side out of the way, Sylvia, huh?”
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
“I’ll take him as he comes through the door,” I said.
“Why don’t we just hide?” she said.
“Where? He’s coming straight in here!”
“What about the hayloft—he won’t go up there.”
“All right,” I said. “If I slug him, the other two will come looking for him when he doesn’t show up at the house, and it’s a long way back to the road.”
I followed Sylvia across the floor of the bam, and then 59
up the ladder which led to the hayloft. We lay face down in the hay and watched the door. I eased the Magnum out of the harness, holding it ready in my right hand, just for insurance.
The door creaked as it swung open, and a moment later the beam of a flashlight hit the floor. He came in slowly, playing the flashlight all around, into the corners, over the tractor and harvester. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was Pete. Sylvia’s fingers dug deeper into my arm with every passing second. For maybe three minutes, he kept the flashlight swinging, then he must have been satisfied and went out, pulling the door shut behind him.
We listened until we couldn’t hear his footsteps any longer, then Sylvia sighed deeply.
*T thought any moment I’d sneeze or something!” she said. “Any more of this and I’ll be needing a nurse!”
“We’ll give him ten minutes before we move out of here,” I said. “He must have been looking for something —or someone—pretty hard. He made damn sure there was nothing in the bam that shouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe he was just making a routine check?” she asked. “If they’re worried about anyone else prowling around and finding the body, they could check up regularly through the night, couldn’t they?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I hope you’re right, and they didn’t spot us from the house while we were over at the pigpens.”
“Maybe we should stay here for a good while and make sure?” she said softly.
“O.K. with me,” I said. “I’ve got no place to go in a hurry.”
My eyes had got used to the darkness inside the bam, and the filtered moonlight through the one window was bright enough to show up most of the detail. I rolled over onto one side and was going to light a cigarette when I remembered the hay and went cold on the idea.
“Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s beautifully warm in the hay up here,” she said softly.
“Sure is.”
“You were pretty terrific to come all the way up here just because I asked you,” she went on. “And then take a chance like this to look at the pens when I asked you another favor!”
“I’m one of the original knights of the Roundtable,” I told her modestly. “A damsel in distress is our bread and butter—you know we were the first guys to demonstrate chivalry?”
“How come?” she asked interestedly.
“Whenever we accepted the conventional offer of thanks from the rescued damsel, we’d take off our armor first,” I told her. “You’d be surprised what a difference it made to the whole art of love!”
She laughed softly. “Is that a hint, Danny? About the . conventional offer of thanks from the rescued damsel, I mean?”
“It’s a question of honor,” I said. “Some girls prefer to fight for a while before they surrender—something like a boxer warming up before he gets into the ring.” She came up onto her knees and then to her feet, and brushed the small pieces of straw away that clung to her dress.
“I guess the least I can do is prove a point for you, Danny,” she said. “Just to show my gratitude.”
Where she stood, a shaft of moonlight slanted directly across her body from her shoulders to her knees, leaving her head and feet in shadow. I wondered if she knew and figured for sure she did.
My mouth went suddenly dry as I watched her peel off the gold lam£ and drop it gently onto the hay. Underneath she wore only a pair of white panties, sleek against her skin, and stockings held by fancy black lace garters. The high, full breasts looked like white marble under the moonlight.
Then she dropped quickly to her knees beside me and lifted the Magnum out of my hand and tossed it onto her dress.
“You always take of! the armor first, Danny!” she
said.
Her right hand gripped my shoulder, pushing me onto my back, and then she fell on top of me, her lips pressing hard against mine. I put my hands on her shoulders for a moment, pulling her even closer, then let them slide gently down her back to the waistband of the panties. She shivered violendy and the tip of her tongue began a questing search between my lips. I let my hands continue on their way, sliding the soft silk down over her hips.