I ate her dust until I was looking down into the tops of the tallest sycamores in the canyon below. A daytime moon hung over the bluff, and we went on climbing toward it. When we reached the top I was wet under my clothes.
About a hundred yards back from the edge, a large weathered redwood cabin stood against a grove of trees. Some of the trees had been blackened and maimed where the fire had burned an erratic swath through the grove. The cabin itself was partly red and looked as if it had been splashed with blood.
Beyond the trees was a black hillside where the fire had browsed. The hillside slanted up to a ridge road and continued rising beyond the ridge to where the fire was now. It seemed to be moving laterally across the face of the mountain. The flames that from a distance had looked like artillery flashes were crashing through the thick chaparral like cavalry.
The ridge road was about midway between us and the main body of the fire. Toward the east, where the foothills flattened out into a mesa, the road curved down toward a collection of buildings which looked like a small college. Between them and the fire, bulldozers were crawling back and forth on the face of the mountain, cutting a firebreak in the deep brush.
The road was clogged with tanker trucks and other heavy equipment. Men stood around them in waiting attitudes, as if by behaving modestly and discreetly they could make the fire stay up on the mountain and die there, like an unwanted god.
As Mrs. Broadhurst and I approached the cabin I could see that part of its walls and roof had been splashed from the air with red fire retardant. The rest of the walls and the shutters over the windows were weathered gray.
The door was hanging open, with the key in the Yale lock. Mrs. Broadhurst walked up to it slowly, as if she dreaded what she might find inside. But there was nothing unusual to be seen in the big rustic front room. The ashes in the stone fireplace were cold, and might have been cold for years. Pieces of old-fashioned furniture draped with canvas stood around like formless images of the past.
Mrs. Broadhurst sat down heavily on a canvas-covered armchair. Dust rose around her. She coughed and spoke in a different voice, low and ashamed:
“I came up the trail a little too fast, I’m afraid.”
I went out to the kitchen to get her some water. There were cups in the cupboard, but when I turned on the tap in the tin sink no water came. The butane stove was disconnected, too.
I walked through the other rooms while I was at it: two downstairs bedrooms and a sleeping loft which was reached by steep wooden stairs. The loft was lit by a dormer window, and there were three beds in it, covered with canvas. One of them looked rumpled. I stripped the canvas off it. On the heavy gray blanket underneath there was a Rorschach blot of blood which looked recent but not fresh.
I went down to the big front room. Mrs. Broadhurst had rested her head against the back of the chair. Her closed face was smooth and peaceful, and she was snoring gently.
I heard the rising roar of a plane coming in low over the mountain. I went out the back door in time to see its red spoor falling on the fire. The plane grew smaller, its roar diminuendoed.
Two deer – a doe and a fawn – came down the slope in a dry creek channel, heading for the grove. They saw me and rockinghorsed over a fallen log into the trees.
From the rear of the cabin a washed-out gravel lane overgrown with weeds meandered toward the ridge road. Starting along the lane toward the trees, I noticed wheel tracks in the weeds leading off toward a small stable. The wheel tracks looked new, and I could see only one set of them.
I followed them to the stable and peered in. A black convertible that looked like Stanley’s stood there with the top down. I found the registration in the dash compartment. It was Stanley’s all right.
I slammed the door of the convertible. A noise that sounded like an echo or a response came from the direction of the trees. Perhaps it was the crack of a stick breaking. I went out and headed for the partly burned grove. All I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps and a faint sighing which came from the wind in the trees.
Then I made out a more distant noise which I didn’t recognize. It sounded like the whirring of wings. I felt hot wind on my face, and glanced up the slope.
The wall of smoke that hung above the fire was leaning out from the mountain. At its base the fire was burning more brightly and had changed direction. Outriders of flame were leaping down the slope to the left, and firemen were moving along the ridge road to meet them.
The wind was changing. I could hear it rattling now among the leaves – the same sound that had wakened me in West Los Angeles early that morning. There were human noises, too – sounds of movement among the trees.
“Stanley?” I said.
A man in a blue suit and a red hard hat stepped out from behind the blotched trunk of a sycamore. He was a big man, and he moved with a kind of clumsy lightness.
“Looking for somebody?” He had a quiet cool voice, which gave the effect of holding itself in reserve.
“Several people.”
“I’m the only one around,” he said pleasantly.
His heavy arms and thighs bulged through his business clothes. His face was wet, and there was dirt on his shoes. He took off his hard hat, wiping his face and forehead with a bandana handkerchief. His hair was gray and clipped short, like fur on a cannonball.
I walked toward him, into the skeletal shadow of the sycamore. The smoky moon was lodged in its top, segmented by small black branches. With a quick conjurer’s motion, the big man produced a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and thrust it toward me.
“Smoke?”
“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“Don’t smoke cigarettes, you mean?”
“I gave them up.”
“What about cigars?”
“I never liked them,” I said. “Are you taking a poll?”
“You might call it that.” He smiled broadly, revealing several gold teeth. “How about cigarillos? Some people smoke them instead of cigarettes.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
“These people you say you’re looking for, do any of them smoke cigarillos?”
“I don’t think so.” Then I remembered that Stanley Broadhurst did. “Why?”
“No reason, I’m just curious.” He glanced up the mountainside. “That fire is starting to move. I don’t like the feel of the wind. It has the feel of a Santa Ana.”
“It was blowing down south early this morning.”
“So I’ve heard. Are you from Los Angeles?”
“That’s right.” He seemed to have all the time he needed, but I was tired of fooling around with him. “My name is Archer. I’m a licensed private detective, employed by the Broadhurst family.”
“I was wondering. I saw you come out of the stable.”
“Stanley Broadhurst’s car is in there.”
“I know,” he said. “Is Stanley Broadhurst one of the people you’re looking for?”
“Yes, he is.”
“License?”
I showed him my photostat.
“Well, I may be able to help you.”
He turned abruptly and moved in among the trees along a rutted trail. I followed him. The leaves were so dry under my feet that it was like walking on cornflakes.
We came to an opening in the trees. The big sycamore which partly overarched it had been burned. Smoke was still rising from its charred branches and from the undergrowth behind it.
Near the middle of the open space there was a hole in the ground between three and four feet in diameter. A spade stood upright beside it in a pile of dirt and stones. Off to one side of the pile, a pickax lay on the ground. Its sharp tip seemed to have been dipped in dark red paint. Reluctantly I looked down into the hole.