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  He said carefully, sensing his opportunity, “Grant evidently doesn’t care for his sister’s choice of a fiancé. If we must gossip,” he added.

  “No, and neither does she,” Myra said with a sharp laugh. “It isn’t any of our damned business, but there is something awfully odd about that match.”

  “No one seemed to care particularly for him,” Mark said. “Except possibly Miss Farman. She was too quiet to tell.”

  “Maybelle has hidden depths,” she said. “I think for all her quietness and unobtrusiveness, she has more solid hatred for James Link than anyone else. And a lot of people hate him.”

  What she had just told him made Mark wonder about Link. After all, someone had shot at his easily recognized sport car. More than that, if Idell were to be believed, they had chased it for seventy miles very deliberately. And he could easily believe Idell.

  After a time he tried again. “No matter what happens at the Manders’ Ranch, I’ll go right on pumping gas.”

  “Plenty will happen,” she said. “Idell is full of reforms. She studied in school just how to go about getting a better yield on the dates. She doesn’t think the Major produced to full capacity.”

  “What will Grant say to that?”

  “Nothing. He wants to sell.”

  “Why, for Lord’s sake?” Mark demanded. “The place is a gold mine.”

  “They both have trust funds to carry them,” she said. “But—” She stopped and lit another cigaret. “Why am I telling you all this?” she demanded half savagely. “I thought I was through running off the face.”

  “Maybe it’s my trusting expression,” he said.

  “Turn right at the next corner. Whoa …” She sat still while he crossed behind the car, leaving the motor running noisily. When she climbed out she did so stiffly, shaking the legs of her white slacks. “Sticky hot,” she said.

  They went up the porch stairs and through the screen door to the heavier front door. There wasn’t even a stray glare from the carbon lamp on the corner showing beneath the galvanized iron porch roof. It was deadly black. She fumbled in her purse for a key, and when she found it he took it from her and unlocked the door. “I’m one of the few who lock their doors here,” she said.

  He handed her back the key, and she said, “You haven’t been here long enough to forget those little things, have you?”

  Mark’s eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and he could see full into her face. The sharpness was gone, smoothed away by an indolent smile. It made him see why so many men—But that was neither here nor there, now.

  “I’m afraid Babe won’t watch the station much longer,” he said.

  She held out her hand. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

  “Okay,” he said casually. “Why does Grant want to sell?”

  She laughed softly, and her hands reached up to his shoulders. He felt her long, unpainted nails dig into his skin tantalizingly. When she had drawn his head level with hers, her lips found his. He knew it was a kiss he would remember for a long time to come. It tasted of whiskey, lemon peel and tobacco smoke. But that made it none the less memorable. It wasn’t what she did or what she had to do it with, he found himself thinking; it was how she did it. He drew away very slowly.

  He wished Babe weren’t such a stubborn wench and so touchy.

  “Your job is pumping gas,” Myra told him. “Forget what I said tonight. I had too many cocktails.”

  “Sure,” he said, “I’ll forget what you said—but not what you did.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to forget that.”

  Chapter IV

  WHEN the door closed behind Mark and Myra Cartwright, Clinton Jeffers rose and went to the bar. He splashed whiskey into his glass and added a slight bit of soda. “Well,” he said with ponderous cheerfulness, “there goes my date. Might as well have a nightcap and hit the hay.”

  He was drunk, Idell thought. Possibly very drunk. It was hard to tell in Clint. In the two years since he and Grant had left college, he had changed a great deal. He was still a blundering sophomore in a lot of ways. But in others he had definitely changed. He had got drunk after football season before, and had always made a messy, botchy job of it. Now, without the restraining ties of athletics to hold him back, it seemed he was seldom sober. But he was no longer messy about it. He was on his way to being a dipsomaniac, she was sure. And there was no point in it. Clint had everything: money; position in his home town; security and freedom from worry. His father was a bit of a tyrant, of course, but then his mother’s estate had been left to him. He didn’t need his father.

  In Grant’s case—without excusing her brother in the slightest—it was somehow quite different. Grant had pressing worries. At first when he had approached her with them, she had thought they scarcely included her. Now she knew differently. She glanced at Grant almost hostilely. They had always got along fine until—well, until Link. She was certainly doing everything for Grant; and still he wanted more.

  Leona’s low throb of a voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned wearily. “It looks like Clint will soon be drunk enough to go to bed.”

  “What do you mean?” Idell’s voice was rather sharp with impatience.

  Leona’s beautifully impassive face smiled a bit. “Really, Idell, you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know why he has to get drunk to go to bed? Certainly not!”

  “They all feel that way,” Leona said. “All but your uncle, I think.” Her voice held the same amusement as it had when she had spoken to Mark.

  Idell’s hand reached out involuntarily and caught Leona’s jacket sleeve. Her fingers closed about the thin silk and dug into Leona’s soft flesh without her realizing it. She said harshly, “Leona, what is this? I felt it when I came in. You know—tell me! What is happening? What is the matter with everyone?”

  “You mean what has been happening in the three days we’ve been here,” Leona said. Her eyes were mocking but pain lay in them too. “And you’re hurting my arm, Idell.”

  Idell drew her fingers away automatically. She tried to read Leona’s violet eyes but could not. “Tell me,” she said more softly.

  Leona took a cigaret from an ornate ivory-topped box on the stand beside her and flicked a table lighter into flame. She blew a cloud of thin smoke before she answered. “Hatred,” she said. “The place is thick with it.” Her voice was low and controlled, and Idell could not decide whether Leona was including herself with the others. “Hatred and fear. Jealousy. It’s a rotten mess. Everybody’s emotions are all mucked up.” She took a bit of cigaret flake from her tongue with delicate fingers. “I have an idea your charming Mr. Link feels it more than the others.

  Leona’s words had brought a chill, as if a draught of refrigerated air, rank with some nameless, not-to-be-mentioned horror, had blown suddenly across the back of Idell’s neck. She stood up. This was leading her nowhere but to madness. She had to do something or scream.

  “Mix me one, Clint,” she said. She walked across the room to her brother and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He raised his head and blinked at her.

  “Go to bed, boy,” she said. “Sleep it off, huh?”

  His quizzical grin broke through the mask of worry on his face. “Wish I could,” he said. He stood up, took two unsteady steps forward and fell flat on his face.

  Link looked over coldly. “Out again,” he sneered.

  Jeffers brought Idell her drink. She was kneeling beside Grant, feeling idiotically helpless. There was really nothing to do for him. She took the glass Jeffers handed her and automatically sipped from it, and set it down on the arm of Grant’s chair.

  “I’ll take him,” Jeffers offered.

  “Thank you,” Idell said.

  He picked up Grant as if he were a straw-stuffed scarecrow and carried him out of the room and up the broad stairs to the second floor. Idell dropped wearily into Grant’s chair and took a long drink from her glass before setting it down again.

  I’ll have to stop to
o, she thought. I’ll be getting like the rest of them. She had lost count of the drinks she had taken and she was beginning to feel numbed.

  “It’s about four o’clock,” Link said suddenly. “What say we break this up before the rest of us get carried upstairs?” His humor, Idell thought, was ponderous and unfunny.

  As if his admission of weariness had broken a restraining bond, the others rose and moved toward the door. Idell finished her drink before she followed. Leona was beside her.

  “It’ll be daylight soon,” she said. “I suppose that makes them feel safer.”

  “It has always made me feel that way,” Idell said without quite understanding. She stopped by the door to her room, just to the left of the head of the stairs and across the hallway from them.

  Next to her along the broad hallway was Grant’s room. Then Leona’s and finally Clint Jeffers’. Opposite Jeffers was an empty room, followed by a bath he would use, since the bath between his room and Leona’s room had been reserved for her. Next to the bath were two rooms, the first occupied by Chunk Farman, the other by Maybelle. Then there was a closet and the stairs, followed by Link’s room, an empty and, on the corner, Frank Manders’. Opposite them, from Idell’s room to the corner of the house, stretched the Major’s suite, now unused. The set-up, Idell thought, watching them all go through their respective doors, was without apparent arrangement. Those who had been there before—and she hazily thought they all had but Leona, at one time or another—had taken the rooms they had used formerly if available.

  Idell opened her door and slipped inside. Something she could not define made her turn the key in her door. The click as the lock settled into place was satisfying. Not that it mattered. No door was different from any other, and a common pass key would open any one in the house but the front. She had never locked her door here before that she could remember. Somehow, in this country, people didn’t.

  She crossed to the closed French doors that opened onto the balcony she shared with Grant and drew aside the curtains. It was quite dark, although a faint grey haze was beginning to show the silhouette of the mountains.

  Her view stretched north, across the patio and the rows of tall, slender date palms to the barren mountains, invisible except as black, crouching masses in the darkness. She could imagine the date palms without having to see them outlined clearly. They were hers now, hers and Grant’s. But really her own; he cared so little for them. And she could make them into something big. She could—if Grant would let her.

  She wondered what the Major’s purpose had been in giving them each half of this place. He had known Grant hated it and she loved it. She supposed he had thought that by saddling Grant with part of the responsibility he might help him settle down. But he had evidently overlooked the trust fund. That was enough to carry Grant—if he used some discretion. And there was the fact Grant could always sell to Idell and get out from under easily enough. She would have bought his share before now had she had the money. But he was not satisfied with her arrangement to pay him monthly from her earnings. He wanted to sell the entire ranch from under her. He had been almost frantically insistent when they had last spoken of it, the week before in New York.

  “I’m going to sleep,” she said aloud. The sound of her voice in the stillness was comforting. “Heaven knows I need it, if I go thinking this way.”

  She dropped her few articles of clothing in a heap on the floor and half ran into the bath. For a brief, breathless instant she stood beneath the cold shower and then dried herself to glowing pinkness on a huge, rough towel. She went back to the bed and threw herself onto it, using only a single sheet for cover. Even with air-conditioning it was hot in the house.

  She lay motionless and tried to sleep, flat on her back, her arms stretched at her sides and her eyes closed very lightly. But there was no sleep; there was no relaxation. Disgustedly she kicked the sheet from her with one foot and lay without covering, letting the subtle currents from the air-conditioning unit flow across her slightly damp body. That felt good. Perhaps she could relax enough to doze.

  She thought she had dozed and was dreaming. She heard footsteps, closing doors, and finally what seemed the rattle of her own doorknob. A stealthy turning of it at first, and then a sudden impatient rattling, annoyingly awakening her. She opened her eyes. Daylight had broken outside, and the dim half-light of early morning poured in through the windows, giving the room a cold clarity of detail.

  Her eyes went to the doorknob. It actually was turning. Someone was trying to get in! She sensed that her dream had actually been caused by the action of the person outside. She knew she was right when she heard Chunk Farman’s voice whipping angrily from across the hall.

  “What in hell are you doing by Idell’s door?”

  And Link’s unmistakable rumbling bass answered, “What’s it to you? I want to talk to her.”

  “Get back to bed,” Farman ordered. “Let her sleep. She’s had a tough enough time without you causing more trouble.”

  “Listen, punk, I’ve had enough out of you. You shoot your yap off too much!”

  Idell gasped. What was Link speaking? He sounded so utterly different in his drunken anger. Like a type of person she had read of but never seen.

  She slipped her legs hurriedly off the bed and stood up. She snatched a negligee from the end of the bed where the Queen had laid it alongside thin pajamas, and slipped into it. She was totally unconscious of herself and the sheerness of the negligee. Her one thought was to stop Link from fighting with Chunk Farman. Even as she opened the door, though, she heard the distinct sound of a fist on flesh, of a head thudding against wood and a body falling to the floor of the hall.

  Idell stared at the scene almost directly across from her. Link stood over Chunk Farman. He was dressed as he had been, in loose slacks, polo shirt and moccasins. Farman was in striped pajamas. He lay motionless, his head cocked against Maybelle’s door, his body sprawled full length along the hall. A trickle of blood ran from the right corner of his sagging mouth. Link was hunched as though he would lift his foot and kick the other on the slightest provocation.

  “Link!” Idell’s voice carried no shock, only a biting command. He jerked around so ponderously his movement seemed slow. She saw that his eyes were bloodshot, his face red. His lips were loose and his breath came heavily through them. He was very drunk; evidently he had sat in his room and drunk still more than he had consumed downstairs.

  She had no inkling of the reason for his strange stare until he started ponderously forward. Then she realized suddenly that the light from the windows behind her shining through her sheer negligee outlined her slim body as though she wore nothing. And as if he had spoken aloud, she knew the trend of Link’s thoughts. She gave a tiny gasp of dismay and threw the door shut. She scrambled backward, one hand reaching for the pajamas that lay at the foot of the bed.

  She heard the doorknob turn again and realized that in her hurry she had not turned the key. “Stay out of here!” she called. “Go back to bed, Link.” Her voice held no quaver of fear; until that door opened it was a bulwark against him. She knew the pajamas were useless, so she dropped them and wrapped the negligee more tightly about her.

  He flung the door open and staggered into the room. He leaned unsteadily against the wall and watched her, his eyes bloodshot, a foolish grin on his thick lips. He was drunker than she had ever seen him; before, he had been almost apologetic even when kissing her.

  For the first time in her life Idell felt real, nauseating fear. It crawled inside her and pushed her backward until she was pressed against the French doors leading to the balcony.

  “Get out of here, Link.” He laughed at her—and shambled forward.

  She pressed more firmly against the doors. One hand, held behind her, touched the knob. She turned it, intending to open the door and step outside. If she moved quickly enough she might get through to Grant’s room. Or she could run down the iron ornamental stairway that went from the balcony alongside the build
ing to the patio.

  But there wasn’t time. Link had his hand outstretched. Her pride crumbled in the face of his approach, and the constriction of fear left her throat. She managed one shrill word.

  “Link!”

  “You bastard,” a hoarse voice sounded from the doorway, “you touch that girl and I’ll kill you.”

  Chapter V

  LINK turned at the sound of the hoarse voice, and Idell felt a rush of relief that threatened to take the stiffness from her knees and throw her to the floor in absolute helplessness. But strength poured into her and her natural coolness returned. Once more she had a grip on herself; she felt completely capable of handling the situation.

  Chunk Farman stood in the doorway. He swayed so he had to hold to the side of the door with one hand. In the other he held a gun. The trickle of blood still ran slowly down his chin from the right corner of his mouth. His lower lip was purple and swollen and his eyes were glazed with pain.

  “Get out,” he said thickly. Idell realized the gun must have come from Maybelle’s room. She recognized it by the pearl handle. Chunk had either got up and gone in there or Maybelle had come out. She didn’t know nor care right now. It was enough that he had come.

  “Get out, Link,” Idell said very quietly. She looked at Link as he hesitated, his eyes swinging from one to the other of them. “Go to your room,” she said.

  Farman stood aside as Link moved slowly and silently from the room. Idell could hear his footsteps receding. “Are you all right?” Farman asked her in the sudden quiet.

  “Thank you,” she said. “He hurt you.” She did not let him see her deep concern or genuine feeling for him. Things just couldn’t be that way. Not now.