Lamplight spilled out of two windows on this side of the house. Baraclough ducked under the first one and went right by, toward the front of the house. When Walker came by the first window he had an oblique look inside, saw a refrigerator and overhead cabinets, and ducked his head to hunch below the windowsill going past. The well pump started up with a muffled clatter somewhere off to his left. Up ahead Baraclough had frozen by the front window and as Walker approached a buzzer rang, very loud in his ear-it made him jump and tremble and then he recognized it for a telephone.
Between rings a woman’s voice said, “It may be for you,” and the second ring was cut off in its middle and the woman’s voice, closer to the window now, said, “Monument Rock.”
The window was open an inch. Baraclough was down on his haunches below it, listening patiently. Walker stopped and breathed shallowly through his open mouth.
The woman had one of those husky smoky voices and made him think of those sunwhacked sun-streaked blondes you saw around expensive California swimming pools.
“Hi, Ben, how’s it going?… Oh crap, that means you’ll have to stay over and wait for the garage to open in the morning, is that it?… No, darling, nothing’s happened but I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight all the same. Isn’t this ridiculous? It must have been like this for the old timers when they knew there was a pack of renegade Indians loose in the countryside.” A throaty laugh, and then the voice dropped, became low and intense; Walker could barely hear her now: “Of course he’s still here. What do you want me to do, throw the poor man out in the cold?… Darling, he’s a perfect gentleman and he’s an officer of the law… What? No, he’s one of Constable Cunningham’s deputies from San Miguel.”
Now Walker could hear the crackle of a voice on the telephone earpiece: he couldn’t get words but the effect was angry; the woman’s answer was a hiss. “Ben, don’t be childish. He’s right here in the living room and I really can’t discuss it with you. Now just calm down and be a good fellow and I’ll see you in the morning, chastity intact… My word? You want my word? For God’s sake this is the last straw, Ben Lansford!”
The telephone jangled when she slammed the receiver down and Walker saw the crooked grin on Baraclough’s face; Baraclough shook his head with amusement and slowly uncoiled his legs to stand up beside the window. Baraclough’s left hand took a grip on the lower sash, ready to heave it open.
The woman’s footsteps clicked across the floor and her voice, receding from the window, climbed on a false- gay note that masked the anger underneath: “It looks like our old pickup is really on its last legs. The generator’s all burned out. Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of coffee, Frank?”
And a man’s voice, uncomfortable, edgy: “Why thank you, Miz Lansford, I don’t mind if I do.” Then: “Maybe I really ought to spend the nat out to the barn, ma’am.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s cold and damp and you’d have bats all over you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Maybe better bats than Ben Lansford.”
The woman’s dry nervous laugh was cut off by the crash of the front door slamming open and Major Hargit’s voice, hard and crisp:
“Freeze.”
4
Then Baraclough was sliding the window open and poking the 9-mm. pistol inside, elbow resting on the sill, and Walker stepped out behind him to see into the room over his shoulder. Baraclough said, to draw attention, “Don’t move, you’re whipsawed.”
It was a big comfortable room with exposed rafters and heavy Spanish furniture of dark wood and leather. The deputy was a big man gone soft, belly sagging over his belt, wearing a blue uniform and a black Sam Browne belt His hands were flat against the leather couch cushions as if to propel him to his feet but he was arrested in that strained attitude, fearful glance rolling from the Major to Baraclough.
The woman stood in the middle of the room, one foot on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Her head was turned, she was staring at Hargit. Her nostrils flared but she didn’t speak. She had walnut-brown hair and she wore it proudly, like a lion’s mane; she was encased in a vertically striped shirt with pearl buttons and a pair of bleach-blue Levi’s, long of leg, tight and round at the hips. She had a starkly sensual face-prominent bones, heavy mouth, big eyes surrounded by sun tracks.
You could see what it was that made her husband the jealous type.
The Major’s voice clacked abruptly, breaking the ugly silence: “All right, Steve.” And Baraclough put one foot over the sill and climbed in.
Walker went in after him. Baraclough had walked across the room, going around behind the woman, staying out of the Major’s line of fire; now he went behind the couch and bent over to unsnap the flap of the deputy’s holster and pluck the service revolver out of it. Then he stepped back and tossed the revolver underhand toward Walker. Walker caught it awkwardly in the air and turned it around in both hands, got his grip adjusted and pointed it vaguely in the woman’s direction.
A corded muscle rippled in her cheek. Baraclough was staring at her, frankly and obviously undressing her in his mind. His expressive lips pulled back slowly in a smile.
The woman slid her glance off Baraclough as if he were some kind of zoo animal. “All right. What do you want?”
“Keep your lip buttoned,” the Major said mildly. Hanratty came inside and closed the door behind him. The Major said, “Hanratty, find a bathroom and see if there’s any surgical tape. A few wire coat hangers. Go on, now.”
The woman said, “You’re going to tie us up?” She was controlled and angry but underneath that she was a little relieved: if they were going to tie you up they weren’t going to kill you.
Baraclough put one of his menthol cigarettes in his mouth and got a lighter from his pocket.
The deputy’s hands came together in a prayer clasp. Hanratty left the room and the deputy said, “Look, y’all ain’t got no way to get clean out of this. We got this whole area surrounded and they gon close in on you. Y’all give yosevves up to me and it mat go a whole lot easier.”
The woman said, “You’re wasting your breath, Frank.”
“Very astute.” Baraclough was standing against the wall, shoulder tilted, smiling slightly, the smoke of his cigarette making a vague suspended cloud before his long face.
The woman turned without hurry and settled on the edge of a chair. She seemed incredibly calm; she acted with complete aplomb, perfect attention, absolute control-control so rigid, in fact, it seemed quite possible to Walker that she might begin to scream at any moment.
The Major said conversationally to Baraclough, “I counted eleven horses in the barn,” and then Hanratty came into the room with a handful of coat hangers and a white roll of first-aid bandage tape.
Baraclough handed the second pistol to Walker. “Keep both eyes open.” And went over to bind the deputy’s wrists and ankles with coat-hanger wire.
5
They tied the deputy to the steam radiator in the corner of the living room. Baraclough said, “Come on,” and took Walker outside with him: they left the Major and Hanratty standing guard over the woman and the deputy. Baraclough led the way up the hill.
Before they reached the crest Baraclough sent his call out ahead: “Gentle down, Eddie, it’s Baraclough.”
Burt was waiting with an expression of mild impatience on his brutal broad face. “What took so long?”
“We had to get the jump on a hick cop.” Baraclough made gestures. “All right, everybody load up. Let’s see if we can cart all this stuff down there in one trip.”
The money sacks seemed to have gained weight in the interval. Walker staggered under two of them and they paused every few yards on the way down.
“Dump it here, it’ll be all right.”
