had given me before I’d left the Northern Development offices, and read up on the citizens of Musket Creek. But pretty soon Kerry’s mood shifted again, and when she got into bed she wanted to make love. So we did, and she was half-wild about it, exhausting both of us, and afterward she clung to me and said the things lovers say to each other and apologized for being so moody and said she’d be much better company for the rest of the trip.
Only then I made the mistake of asking her what it was that was troubling her, and she shut up again and turned away from me and pretended to go to sleep.
I lay there staring up at the dark ceiling, feeling sorry for myself and thinking that Eberhardt was right: I don’t understand women worth a damn.
CHAPTER SIX
The road that led off State Highway 299 to Musket Creek was not only unpaved; it was rutted, narrow, full of dips and hairpin turns, and so dusty in places you felt as though you were driving through a kind of talcum-powder mist. The terrain was mountainous, heavily forested, with small open meadows here and there that were carpeted with wild clover and purple-blue lupine-scenic, yet without any spectacular vistas. Far off to the east you could see the immense snow-capped peak of Mt. Shasta jutting more than 14,000 feet into the cloud-flecked sky. But that was a commonplace sight in this country; on a clear day, that granddaddy of mountains was visible from just about anywhere within a fifty-mile radius.
Beside me, Kerry kept putting her head out of the open passenger window and sniffing the air like a cat. She was in a pretty good mood today, and she seemed to be enjoying herself so far-living up to last night’s promise. She had insisted on coming along; she hadn’t felt like sitting around the motel alone, she’d said, and she was curious about Ragged-Ass Gulch. So I’d given in and let her come, to keep the peace between us, but I wasn’t sure it was such a hot idea. I kept thinking about Jack Coleclaw’s attack on O‘Daniel yesterday, all the things I’d been told about the “loonies” of Musket Creek. There probably wasn’t anything to worry about; hell, you could classify both O’Daniel and Treacle as loonies, if you felt like it. But it still made me a little trepidatious.
The road seemed to go on endlessly. The car’s odometer showed 7.2 miles when the dusty strip slanted between a couple of high, wooded cliffs and the mountains folded back finally to reveal a little valley down below. And there it was-Musket Creek in all its glory.
The valley floor had a rippled look, full of hillocks, like a bright green carpet that had been bunched in at both ends to make a series of wrinkles. The town-such as it was-lay sprawled toward the far end, where the narrow line of the creek meandered through high grass, wildflowers, and stands of fir trees. Some of the buildings had been built on the hummocks; what looked to be the main street of the old mining ghost town was on flat ground paralleling the creek. Most of the buildings were tumbledown-and off to the left I could see the blackened skeletons of the four that had burned ten days ago-but at a distance the sunlight and the majestic surroundings softened the look of them, gave them a kind of nostalgic quaintness.
Kerry said, “Why, it’s beautiful,” in a surprised voice. “No wonder the people who live here don’t want the place developed.”
“Yeah,” I said.
We went on a ways. Then she said, “Why would anybody in his right mind call such an idyllic spot Ragged- Ass Gulch?”
“Somebody’s idea of a joke, maybe. Miners had oddball senses of humor.”
“That’s for sure.”
When we reached the meadow the road deteriorated into little more than a pair of ruts with a grassy hump in the middle. It angled off to the right and eventually forked; one branch became the single main street of the old camp, passing between facing rows of its abandoned buildings, and the other hooked over and disappeared onto the rising ground to the west. According to the information supplied by Shirley Irwin, more people lived back there in the woods.
The first buildings we came to were before the fork, on a long stretch of level ground-a combination single- pump gas station, garage and body shop, and general store. The garage and store were weathered and unpainted, but in a decent state of repair. A couple of hand-lettered signs hung over the screen-doored entrance to the latter; the big one said MUSKET CREEK MERCANTILE and the little one said BAIT TACKLE • AMMUNITION • GUIDE SERVICE. The garage wall was plastered with old metal Coca-Cola and beer signs. Around back, to one side, was a frame cottage with a big native-stone chimney at one end. The folks who lived in the cottage and ran the businesses were the Coleclaws: Jack, his wife, and their son Gary.
I decided I might as well get my talk with Jack Coleclaw out of the way first, so I pulled in off the road and stopped next to the gas pump. A fat brown-and-white dog came around from behind the store, took one look at the car, and began barking its head off. No one else appeared.
“I’d better do this alone,” I said to Kerry. “You wait in the car.”
“All right.”
I got out, keeping my eye on the dog. It continued to bark, but it didn’t make any sudden moves in my direction. I took the fact that its tail was wagging to be a positive sign and started toward the entrance to the store.
Just before I got there, a pudgy young guy in grease-stained overalls appeared in the doorway of the garage. “Be quiet, Sam,” he said to the dog. He didn’t say anything to me, or move out of the doorway. And the dog went right on yapping.
I walked over to where the young guy stood. He was in his middle twenties and he had curly brown hair and pink beardless cheeks and big doe eyes that had a remote look in them. The eyes watched me without curiosity as I came up to him.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re Gary Coleclaw, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’d like to talk to your father, if he’s around.”
“He’s not. He went to Weaverville this morning.”
“When will he be back?”
He shrugged. “This afternoon sometime.”
“How about your mother? Is she here?”
“No. She went to Weaverville too.”
“Well, maybe you can help me. I’m a detective, from San Francisco, and I-”
“Detective?” he said.
“Yes. I’m investigating the death of Munroe Randall in Redding-”
“The Northern guy,” he said. His face closed up; you could see it happening, like watching a poppy fold its petals at sundown. “The fire. I don’t know nothing about that. Except he got what was coming to him.”
“Is that what your father says too?”
“That’s what everybody says. Listen, mister, you working for them? Them Northern guys?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you are. Them damn Northern guys.”
“No, I’m working for the insurance-”
But he had pivoted away from me, was hurrying back inside the garage. I called after him, “Hey, wait,” but he didn’t stop or turn. An old black Chrysler sat on the floor inside, its front end jacked up; there was one of those little wheeled mechanic’s carts alongside, and he dropped down onto it on his back and scooted himself under the Chrysler until only his legs were showing. A moment later I heard the sharp, angry sound of some kind of tool whacking against the undercarriage.
The damned dog was still barking. I sidestepped it and went back to the car. When I slid in under the wheel Kerry asked, “Well?”
“He wouldn’t talk to me. And his folks aren’t here.”
“What now?”
“The fire,” I said.
I drove out along the road again. Just beyond the right fork, two more occupied cottages sat on adjacent
