Mitch explained that he wanted to see Mrs. Lord and her son, and the grin-it was meaningless, mirthless-widened.
"Winnie ain't here. What'd you want to see his maw about?"
"It's a personal matter."
"Too personal to tell me?"
"I'm afraid so, yes."
The cowhand moved his rifle, scratching it against the side of the car, and pointed with it. "That's the road back to town, mister. The same one you came in on."
Mitch told him about the checks. He told him in complete detail, for the man would be satisfied with nothing less.
Then, he sat back to wait, his heart thumping a little, as the cowhand telephoned from the jeep. The call lasted a long time, or so it seemed to Mitch, and the cowhand seemed to be laughing through most of it. At last he hung up, backed the jeep off the road, and motioned for Mitch to come ahead.
Mitch did so, bumping across the cattle guard. The man signaled to him again and he stopped abreast of the jeep.
White teeth flashed at him. "Straight ahead, mister. Can't miss it."
"Thanks," Mitch said. "Thanks very much."
"Don't turn off nowheres. Start strayin' you'll get shot."
Mitch nodded and drove on. The road peaked a long, almost indiscernible slope, and then he was looking down into the orderly chaos of the ranch buildings.
They were arranged in a series of ragged open-end squares, with the white adobe ranch residence in the center. It was two stories and roofed with heavy red tiles. A tile-roofed veranda or "gallery" extended across its length at the first floor level, shading the homey assortment of lounging chairs beneath it.
A hum of activity arose from the buildings; ambiguous, blending together. The roar of a jeep, the cracking of a radio, the clatter and click of machinery-voices in blurred conversation, an outburst of muted laughter, a loud shout of "What the goddam hell are you-?" ending with the sudden roar of a tractor.
Men moved in and out of the lanes between the buildings. A man carrying a saddle over his shoulder, two men driving a jeep, two others lugging some heavy metal object. A white-aproned old man flung dishwater from a distant window, and a man rose up from beneath the window and shook his fist angrily.
Mitch parked the car in the packed-down gravel of the courtyard. He got out, and started across the patchy grass lawn to the house, then turned as a voice hailed him.
"Corley!"
Off to the left, immediately beyond the inside square of buildings was a stub derrick, the site, apparently, of an abandoned or pumped- out well, since no jack or lines ran to it. Two ranch hands and a girl had emerged from its sheet-iron enclosure, the girl striding in the lead. She raised her hand as Mitch turned, indicating that it was she who had called. He waved back a little diffidently, and started toward her.
She must be a member of the family; no woman employee would be out consorting with cowhands. Yet he had heard of no female Lords, aside from Mrs. Lord, and he would have heard of this girl.
She was so tanned that he couldn't tell what her face looked like. In fact, he hardly gave her face a passing glance. He looked at her body and he could not look away, for the girl seemed naked. Naked, yes, despite the riding pants and the blouse, because that was the way she was built. You could have bundled her up in a dozen overcoats, and she still would have been wearing nothing, and she would have known it and liked it. Because she was built that way, too.
She was a bitch with her tail up. She came toward him bitchily, the svelte hips swaying with promise, the extravagant breasts bobbling and jiggling. And the heat welled out of her from fifty feet away.
He tore his gaze away from her, the thrusting lewdness of her body. He rubbed his eyes, as though rubbing the sun out of them, and then her boot heels clicked on the packed earth, and he at last looked into her face.
Looked and was almost sick.
For what he had thought was a girl was a woman. An old woman. Which meant that she had to be Gidge (Agatha) Lord.
Her hair was not blonde but a dirty gray. The face beneath it was burned to a deep brown; withered and shrunken as though by some savage headhunter's rite. Her eyes were so pale that they seemed colorless, all milky whites. He could hardly see her mouth until she opened it- -only a brown wrinkle in the deeper brownness of her flesh.
She held out her hand. Mitch started to extend his, and she viciously slapped it away.
"The checks, Corley! Let's have them!"
"I'll be glad to," Mitch said. "In exchange for thirty-three thousand dollars."
"Give! "
The cowhands had lounged up to her sides and a little past, forming the ends of a half-circle. They stood with their thumbs looped in their belts, their jaws chewing lazily as they held him in a cold, unwinking stare.
Mitch shrugged lightly, managing a surprisingly cheerful grin. "Well…" He passed over the checks. "As long as you insist…"
Taking out his cigarettes, he made a gesture of passing them around. He beamed confidence and good-nature at the two men, trying to bring them under the sway of his personality, fighting with the only weapons he had. The men remained exactly as they were, thumbs looped in their belts, eyes staring unblinkingly, acknowledging his existence only as something potentially interesting but thoroughly unimportant.
Mrs. Lord examined the checks, one by one.
Then she ripped them to pieces, and hurled the pieces into Mitch's face.
"You filthy prick! You know what we do to pricks around here?"
"I'll bet you're going to tell me," Mitch said.
"I'm going to show you! What do we do with pricks, Al?" There was a low chuckle from behind Mitch. "Put 'em in a hole, ma'am."
Mitch whirled, but he wasn't fast enough. Nothing would have been fast enough. There was no running from a spot like this. The rope sang and dropped over him. It jerked and he flew off his feet. His head banged down hard on the stony dirt, and a million skyrockets went off at once and he passed out.
When he came to, he was being hoisted up on the floor of the stub derrick. His feet were firmly tied now, although his hands and arms were free. He pushed himself up, rubbing the dirt out of his eyes.
A couple of men were prying up a square of planks in the middle of the floor. Two others were stringing a block and cable in the derrick. Another, a very young man, was standing with his arm around Mrs. Lord, his hand patting one of her flaring buttocks.
They saw Mitch looking at them, and laughed. But they moved a little apart.
Mitch massaged his aching head, and glanced up into the rig. As he did so, one of the men there swung out and down, riding a cable. He came down, and Mitch suddenly went up. Shot up feet first into the derrick.
He went up about thirty feet. Then he came gently down, until he hung poised over the gaping hole in the derrick floor.