public pairing made her laugh aloud.
'Your laugh hasn't changed.'
'And I'm beginning to understand why you said you hadn't laughed much since the war. But you're avoiding my request. Don't you dance?'
He did, he said, and quickly agreed to squire her. 'Sandy, don't misread me. There's something about this,' he waved his hand to encompass the soddy, ' — this whole place that I like. You don't need much that you don't have except for friendly faces — and you may see more of mine than you'd like.' She shook her head, started to reply. 'Hold on, I'm not finished. Maybe you don't see any problem with me schlepping around here, and a — friendly tyrannosaur just over the hill. Bur if he isn't my friend, sooner or later he'll want me for a hood ornament.' He read her dismay but pressed on. 'Is it crazy to ask you to, uh, introduce us?'
Now her dismay became astonishment. Sandy had never dreamed that anyone might crave that particular introduction. Nor would it be without danger. Ba'al had learned to accept the presence of men at the soddy. It remained to be seen whether he would, in any sense of the word, befriend one. 'I'm not sure he wouldn't charge you. You'd have to face him without a weapon. He can smell gun oil around a corner and he is very, very quick. And smart,' she added in obvious worry. Yet her worry was tempered with relief, for Ted Quantrill was not demanding that she choose between them. Quite the reverse!
'Too bad you can't just ask him,' he smiled.
It was his turn to register astonishment as Sandy said, 'Childe can. They grunt and wag their heads and — all right, don't believe me! But Childe is the key. I'll talk it over with her and let you know.' She arose to clear the table.
Quantrill filched a last hunk of her fluffy golden cornbread and resumed his job as onion-sorter, humming a merry tune despite his aches. Tomorrow he would be well enough to visit the Schreiner spread — but tomorrow was Saturday, and he might be recovered enough to swing a spirited girl on his arm, too.
Relishing his freedom, he elected to escort Sandy into Rocksprings before recalling that the ranch was only an hour away by hovercycle. Why not make a quick business trip before the pleasure of Sandy's company? Surely she would be glad to see him discharge his obligation to the Governor, so that they could enjoy an uncomplicated Saturday night date. He did not want to complicate her life — and had no way to foresee that his trip would do precisely that.
CHAPTER 70
Quantrill found his round-trip longer than he bargained for. He used the excuse of job-hunting to meet the Schreiner safari manager, a grizzled professorial fellow named Jess Marrow whose degrees in veterinary medicine gave him enviable job security.
The unflappable Marrow conducted the interview while repairing a split horn on a sedated Texas longhorn bull of stupendous proportions. Why sure, there were Fed agents around; they stuck out a mile, said Marrow, applying cement to the horn. 'Course, they hadn't found that necklace the fat lady lost. For one thing, Marrow and others had given false directions to places where Eve Simpson had supposedly visited. For another, if she'd worn it the night that monster got into her cabin, the boar could have eaten it.
Did Quantrill know there was good evidence that she had let the boar into her cabin? Quantrill hadn't known and could hardly believe it, let alone understand it. Wouldn't a Russian boar charge the moment he saw a human? Not necessarily, Marrow said; you never knew what the brute might do unless you presented him with an oestrus female or a snake. A boar was very dependable then: all solicitude to a ready sow, pure hell on any snake.
Marrow bound the horn expertly with biodegradable tape, slapped the bull affectionately and eased off the tension from head bindings as he talked. As for the necklace, Marrow and two other Indy employees had gone high and nigh looking for it in the right places. With metal detectors? Sure, and r-f detectors too! A slow drawl, Marrow twinkled, didn't have to mean a slow brain.
Maybe Marrow could describe what the necklace looked like. Indeed he could, if the picture those young Search & Rescue fellas flashed was any guide. Marrow could describe it with a pencil, he said, and proved it with an exquisite sketch, his stubby fingers moving with surgical skill.
Quantrill studied the piece of polypaper, grubbing into his memory for the phrase Marrow had penciled:
'Ember of Venus'. Wasn't that a priceless jewel all by itself? Pretty near, Marrow admitted, but he suspected the decorations on its mounting meant that the thing was also a memory-storage gadget. Why else would the Feds put so much effort into its recovery? The bastards already had all the money in the country. And by the way, if Quantrill intended to go nosing around on the Schreiner spread, he'd best set up a cover activity. Marrow wouldn't mind having him as a helper for a spell; rumor had it that young Quantrill could tell many a fuzznutted yarn if he felt like it.
As Quantrill tucked the drawing away in a shirt pocket, he asked Marrow his estimate of the chances that the Ember of Venus would be found. Poor to middlin', said the older man. If it ever turned up, chances were the finder would try to sell it to a rich Mex. Meanwhile, did Ted Quantrill need that job?
Well, that depended on what the Governor needed. Quantrill was no great shakes on a horse, and said so. Hell, said Marrow, they had enough wranglers in Wild Country already, and Quantrill was built more like a bull-rider anyhow. What the Schreiner spread really needed was someone with special abilities to counter the poachers and other lawless types that made life cheaper than it should be.
Quantrill wondered why they didn't have U. S. Marshals for that.
Jess Marrow wondered, too.
Quantrill took his leave with a handshake from the shrewd Marrow — and with the air of a preoccupied man. It was already midafternoon, and he had a long ride ahead of him.
He arrived at the soddy with most of the kinks shaken — vibrated, actually — from his muscles, and earned himself another long speech from Childe. 'Go wash, Sandy's not ready,' was the full extent of it.
He twitched her braid and called her ‘sis', washing at the gravity-flow spigot from the big plastic tank that nestled in earth near the soddy's roof. Then he noticed the sweat and caliche stains on his clothes, removed shirt and trousers, applied homemade soap to them in hopes of making himself halfway respectable in Rocksprings. One thing about Goretex clothing: it didn't take long to dry.
He was swinging the trousers to dry them, enduring the chill on his bare shanks, when he heard Sandy's call. Custom was a harsh taskmaster, he thought as he pulled the wet trousers on; Sandy had seen him nearly naked, breathed life into his body — yet custom dictated that he wear those goddam trousers no matter how they chilled his arse.
'Well, — you tried,' Sandy giggled as he approached, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. 'Surprise.'
And she drew a flesh-tinted bundle from behind her. Childe burst from behind the door then, shrilling,
'S'prise, s'prise,' like a Comanche, hovering near as he accepted his new shirt.
It was a lovely supple thing of softest deerskin, a pullover with long sleeves that puffed gently near the wrists. Its collar, its breast pocket with scalloped flap, the cut of it across the shoulders, all had the flavor of prairie tailoring but its slender fringes said 'mountain man'. 'Didn't have time for the beadwork,' she said shyly.
He turned it about, speechless, wondering how she could have magicked such a garment on a day's notice. Then he was wrestling into it, clasping the velcrolok wristlets, running his hands along the velvety sleeves. 'And just my size,' he marveled when his tongue came unglued.
'When you rub a man down you more or less take his measurements,' she said airily. 'High time those snooty girls in Rocksprings envied me a little.'
Quantrill hugged her, winked at Childe, then hurried back to retrieve the shirt he had left near the soap.
The folded polypaper lay where he had left it. He brought both articles into the soddy, tossing the sketch onto Sandy's wooden table.
Supper was catch-as-catch-can. Quantrill dipped into his toilet articles to shave and assault his unruly hair, talking with Sandy about his job offer at the Schreiner ranch. As though it were of no importance, Sandy asked if the missing necklace had been found.
'Nope. Probably just as well, too.' Prodded to say what he meant by that, he addressed his cowlick with his comb and replied, 'Too many people would kill for it, Sandy. Rumor.says it's got a memory module with some kind
