They don't have mountains in Oklahoma to amount to anything, at least not in that part of Oklahoma. They don't even have anything you'd call a real hill, if you were brought up in a more rugged landscape as I was, but there was a kind of undernourished brushy ridge across the highway from the sheriff's farm-or where my scout informed me the sheriff's farm was located. I still hadn't seen it for myself.
"That little twisted oak or whatever it is," Martha said as she drove. "Up on the ridge right next to that bare-looking knob. I think the house is just opposite that, although it's hard to tell from this side."
We were cruising slowly down a narrow dirt road that left the highway a mile or so outside Fort Adams and kind of wandered behind the ridge in question. I was in the back seat, ready to hit the floor at the sight of another person or car. If anybody remembered the white Texas Chevy, I wanted him to remember it with only one occupant, female.
"If there's any kind of a road leading into that clump of trees to the left, take it," I said. "Right there… What's the matter?"
She had slammed on the brakes an instant after turning into the trees, throwing me off balance. "There's a car hidden in there already! What do I do, Matt?"
"Sit tight. I'll go take a look."
I was dropping out of the sedan on the off side as I spoke. I slipped around the rear with my revolver ready, and made my approach cautiously, working from tree to tree. The vehicle had been backed into a clump of brush to hide it. To call it a car was an exaggeration. It was a Ford panel delivery truck, and not much of a truck at that.
It was well over ten years old, and it had led a hard life. Black paint had been sloshed over it when the original pigment expired. The battered Kentucky license plate was held in place with rusty baling wire. However, the headlights were clean and intact and the tires were new. There was nobody inside.
I made sure of this, and frowned at the interior. The upholstery of the front seat had worn out and the owner had arranged a folded blanket to sit on, driving. There were other blankets, and some pots and pans, in the rear. Apparently he'd been sleeping in the truck and doing his own cooking. The doors were locked and I let them stay that way. I opened the hood instead, and looked at the large and fairly new V8 motor inside. The original mill had probably been a six and considerably less powerful.
I stood there for a moment, considering. Maybe my gamble was paying off. An automotive relic with new tires, good lights, and a muscular replacement power plant in good condition could easily be Carl's idea of camouflage. With that license, the vehicle certainly didn't belong to a local squirrel hunter, even if the Oklahoma squirrel season was open this time of year, which I doubted. I waved to Martha to drive up.
"What is it?" she asked through the open window of the sedan. "I mean, whose is it? Carl's?"
"Maybe," I said. "I certainly hope so. It would save us a lot of time and cleverness-assuming I can sneak up on him up there on the ridge without getting shot. You stay here. If somebody comes, particularly somebody with a uniform, you're sound asleep. When they wake you, you say you got tired of driving and turned off the highway to find a quiet place to take a nap. You don't know anything about the truck. It was here when you got here. You thought it was just an abandoned wreck. While you're resting, you can figure out a plausible story to explain why you rented a car in Texas and drove it into Oklahoma. Good luck."
As I started to turn away, she said, "Matt."
"Yes?" I said over my shoulder.
"No, come back here a minute. This is important."
I turned back. "Shoot. But make it snappy, please."
Her face was very serious, looking up at me from the car window. The heavy, dark eyebrows made a startling, but somehow not unbelievable, contrast with the long shining hair.
"I've helped you," she said. "Haven't I? I put on this masquerade for you, and drove the car for you. Didn't I?"
"You helped," I said.
"Then you've got to tell me something."
"What?"
She licked her lips. "You've got to tell me that you're going to stop it. You're not going to let him kill him. Otherwise… Otherwise I'm going to have to go to him and warn him."
There were some confused pronouns in that, but the meaning was clear enough. I studied her face for a moment longer. "Just what is this thing you have for cops, anyway, Borden?" I asked.
"I don't have a thing for cops! I just have a thing for for human beings!"
"Only sheriff-type human beings. Not Carl-type human beings."
She said sharply, "That's just the point! Your friend Carl is not a human being any longer. He's a machine, a ruthless vengeance-machine. You've got to promise to stop him."
I drew a long breath. "Sure. I'll do my best to stop him. Hell, that's what I'm here for. Keep your fingers crossed."
I turned away, wishing I was leaving behind me a good, reliable agent like Lorna-if I had to have somebody along. At the moment, operating alone, with nobody's temperament to consider but my own, seemed very desirable. Maybe I could talk Mae into giving me an assignment all by myself next time out, if there was a next time out.
It wasn't bad stalking country. The brush was pretty thick, but it wasn't dry and crackly; and the ground was reasonably soft. There was plenty of cover. Moving quietly and staying out of sight was no problem at all. Picking the easiest and most silent route, I kept finding tracks in the ground ahead of me: heavy work shoes, considerably worn. Well, Carl was pretty good about detail. Footgear like that would match the truck below. He'd been brought up on a farm, I remembered, and was pretty good outdoors, unlike some of our city-bred agents who are hell in streets and alleys but tend to get lost in a forty-acre pasture.
The thought made me careful. I remembered the ultimatum Carl was supposed to have delivered, to the effect that anybody Mac sent after him wouldn't come hack. It sounded like Carl. He hadn't actually been speaking to Mac when he said it, of course, but he didn't know that. He did know me, however. If his mood was still the same, he'd undoubtedly jump to the wrong conclusion and try to blow my head off the instant he saw me, unless I arranged to prevent it somehow.
I made the last hundred yards on my belly, an inch at a time, and there he was. At least there was somebody in the brush to my left. I could make out the vague shape of a man. He was holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes; it was the slight movement he'd made to focus that had drawn my attention. Lying beside him was some kind of a rifle I couldn't make out clearly.
Very cautiously, I worked my way up to where I could see the blacktop highway half a mile away, and the ticky-tacky urban blight off to the left, and the farm dead ahead just as Martha had described it except that a blue Volkswagen and a white official sedan with a buggy-whip antenna were standing in the yard along with the Cadillac sedan she'd mentioned. A short, heavy man was just getting out of the radio-equipped car. He wore a big white hat and an ivory-handled revolver-well, at that distance, it could have been white plastic or adhesive tape. A thin, tall woman in jeans and a short-sleeved white blouse was speaking to him as he got out.
I lost the rest of the scene. The man just down the ridge had caught my attention once more, raising his head from the glasses, perhaps to rest his eyes. He wasn't Carl.
XV.
He was, it turned out, a slight and skinny older man, somewhere in his sixties, with a gaunt country face-a mountain face, rather-stubbled with gray beard. His hair was also gray, rather thin and wispy beneath the ancient felt hat that fell off when I jumped him from behind. He was stronger than I'd expected, all wire and whipcord, and it was a good thing I hadn't missed my grip or he'd have given me real trouble despite the difference in our ages. As it was, he managed to get me once on the shin with the heel of his heavy shoe, before I could apply pressure properly and put him out.