leave and she doesn't.
It was only two short blocks to the Presto gas station, where I turned in and stopped at the pump. The gauge said half full and the gas in the tank at the ranch cost nine cents less per gallon, but I wanted Lily to have a look at a person named Gilbert Haight who might be there. He was-a lanky loose-limbed kid whose long neck helped to make up his six feet-but he was wiping the windshield of another car, and Lily had to twist around to get focused on him as I told the other attendant to fill it up with Special. But when the other car rolled off, the kid stood looking at us for half a minute and then walked over to my open window and said, 'Nice morning.'
Actually he didn't say, 'Nice morning'; he said, 'Nice mahrnin'.' But I'm not going to try to give you the native lingo, at least not often. I only want to report what happened, and that would complicate it too much and slow me down.
I agreed that it was a nice mahrnin', to be polite, though it was more than an hour past noon, and he said, 'My dad told me not to talk to you.'
I nodded. 'Yeah, he would.' His dad was Morley Haight, the county sheriff. 'He has practically told me not to talk to anybody, but I can't break the habit, and anyway it's how I make a living.'
'Uhuh. Fuzz.'
Television and radio certainly spread words around. 'Not me,' I said. 'Your dad is fuzz, but I'm private. If I asked you how you spent the day Thursday a week ago, you could say it was none of my business. When your father asked me I told him.'
'So I heard.' His eyes went to Lily and came back to me. 'You've been asking around about me. I'd just as soon save you some trouble.'
'I'd appreciate that.'
'I didn't kill that skunk.'
'Good. That's what I wanted to know. That narrows it down.'
'It's a insult. Look at it.' He ignored his colleague, who had filled my order and was there behind his elbow. 'The first shot, from behind, got his shoulder and turned him around. The second shot, from in front, got him in the throat and broke his neck and killed him. Look at that. It's a insult. I have never used more than one cartridge for a deer. Ask anybody. I can take a popgun and slice off the head of a snake at thirty yards. I can do it every time. My dad told me not to talk to you, but I wanted you to know that.'
He turned and went, toward a car that was stopping at the other pump. His colleague took a step and said, 'Two-sixty-three,' and I reached for my wallet.
When we were under way again, heading northeast, I asked Lily, 'Well?'
'I pass,' she said. 'I wanted to have a look at him, that's all right, but you told me once that it's stupid to suppose looking at a man will help you decide if he's a murderer. I don't want to be stupid and I pass. But what he said? That it's an insult?'
'Oh, that.' I bore right at a fork. 'He can shoot all right. Three people have told me so. And any damn fool knows that if you're going to plug a man, not just hurt him, kill him, you don't go for his shoulder. Or his neck either. But he may also be sharp. He might have figured it that everybody knew he was a good shot, so he made it look as if he wasn't. He had had plenty of time to think it over.'
She considered that for a couple of miles and then asked, 'Are you sure he knew that Brodell had- that he was the father of her baby?'
'Hell, everybody in Lame Horse knew it. And beyond. Of course they also knew that Gil Haight was set on her. Last Tuesday-no, Wednesday-he told a man that he still wanted to marry her and was going to.'
'That's love for you. The sharp right is just ahead.'
I said I knew it.
The twenty-four miles from Timberburg to Lame Horse was all blacktop except for two short stretches-one where it dived down into a deep gully and up again, and one where winters pushed so much rock through and around that they had quit trying to keep it surfaced. For the first few miles out of Timberburg there were some trees and bushes, then broken range for the rest of the way.
The population of Lame Horse was 160, give or take a dozen. The blacktop stopped right in front of Vawter's General Store, but the road went on, curving left a little ahead. Having been to Timberburg, we needed nothing at Vawter's, so we didn't stop. From there it was 2.8 miles to the turnoff to Lily's ranch, and another 300 yards to the turnoff to her cabin. In that three miles you climbed nearly 2000 feet. To get to the ranch buildings you crossed a bridge over Berry Creek, but from there the creek took a swing to make a big loop, and the cabin was in the loop, only a few hundred yards inside the ranch boundary. To get to the ranch buildings on foot from the cabin you had to cross the creek, either by the bridge or, much shorter, by fording just outside the cabin. In August there was a spot where it could be done by stone-stepping. A better name for it would be boulder- bouncing.
My favourite spot on earth is only a seven-minute walk from where I live, Nero Wolfe's house on West 35th Street: Herald Square, where you can see more different kinds of people in ten minutes than anywhere else I know of. One day I saw the top cock of the Mafia step back to let a Sunday-school teacher from Iowa go first through the revolving door of the world's largest department store. If you ask how I knew who they were, I didn't, but that's what they looked like. But for anyone who is fed up with people and noise, the favourite spot could be Lily Rowan's cabin clearing. I admit there is a little noise, Berry Creek making a fuss about the rocks that won't move, but after a couple of days you hear it only when you want to. The big firs start farther up, but there are plenty of trees right there, mostly lodgepole pine, and downstream is Beaver Meadow; and just upstream, where the creek swings around again to the north, is a cliff of solid rock you can't see the top of from this side of the creek. If you need exercise and want to throw stones at gophers it's only a three-minute walk down the lane to the road.
The cabin is logs of course, and is all on one level. Crossing a stone-paved terrace with a roof, you enter a room 34 by 52, with a 10-foot fireplace at the rear, and for living that's it. For privacy or sleeping, there are two doors at the right, one to Lily's room and the other to a guest room. A door at the left leads to a long hall, and when you take it, first comes a big kitchen, then Mimi's room, then a big storeroom, and then three guest rooms. There are six baths, complete with tubs and showers. A very nice little cabin. Except for the beds, the furniture you sit on is nearly all wicker. The rugs in all rooms are Red Indian, and on the walls, instead of pictures,
