Part 16 (1/2)

It was good to know that Jon wouldn't be spending tonight alone, and I wandered back to the house, still whistling now and then for Red. But I could give no more time to the search for him. He couldn't have gone far within the enclosure, and if he didn't show up I would look for him seriously tomorrow.

Right now I had to dress for dinner. My one short blue dress would have to do, since I didn't think a long gown was called for.

While I dressed I tried to suppress the thought about Persis Morgan that I'd been holding at bay. If she had fired that shot, killing my father, and this knowledge had lived with her all these years, it might explain her retreat, her inability to face my mother. I wondered what Caleb would say if I put this question to him.

Hillary arrived early, and as always, he was sensitive to my mood. We walked around outside to escape the forbidding presence of the house. Even the dark mountains closing us in made me less uncomfortable than the interior of the house itself. Hillary held my hand, as he'd so often done when I needed to be quiet-though that wasn't what I wanted from him now. What I needed was an understanding that would help me to wisdom and courage. He could fall into any role that was required of him, and his attention was exactly right. I wanted to cry, ”Where are you? What are you thinking?” Perhaps the unexpected glimpse I'd had of my mother as a woman had turned everything around in my mind, so that now I even looked at Hillary in a different way.

I tried to shrug such thoughts aside so that I could concentrate on telling him everything. About the pictures in the 189.

alb.u.m. About wandering up to the cemetery and finding Belle Durant there among her withered wreaths. He whistled in surprise when I told him for the first time of the wreath hung on my door.

His reaction, however, was only to try to soothe and distract me. ”Don't worry about all this, honey. Just try to stand it for a little while longer. Tomorrow you must come to the Opera House with me. I really want you to see it.”

Being distracted and soothed wasn't enough at the moment, but he sounded so excited, so keyed up about the theater, that I tried to listen. Not until he had old me about his own afternoon did I voice my concern over Red.

”He'll be all right,” Hillary a.s.sured me. ”Tomorrow we'll ride around the fence enclosure and see if we can find him. He's probably enjoying his freedom, and he'll come in when he's hungry enough.”

For the first time I found myself admitting that there might be a certain shallowness about Hillary. Something I'd never been willing to face before.

When we returned to the porch, Gail and Caleb were waiting for us. Gail looked slim in something yellow and s.h.i.+mmery, with gold bangles forming a cuff on one arm. My raw silk dress seemed understated, and that suited me well enough. For me this evening might be more a field of battle than a social occasion.

Caleb drove us over in the jeep, left it in the empty street outside the hotel, and ushered us up the steps.

I had an increasingly unsettled feeling about the prospect of dining with Mark Ingram. Sooner or later he must be made aware of our suspicions concerning the attack upon Jon. And there were questions about Noah Armand that I wanted to ask, since once Ingram and he had been friends. Now this man was more than ever my grandmother's enemy, and he was mine too-the man I had promised her to stay and fight.

190.

In the last half hour that we'd been together Hillary had grown a little restive. He could be marvelously considerate and sympathetic, but not for too long at a time. What worried me was that I still didn't feel concerned enough. Without any volition of my own I seemed to have turned some psychological corner, so that I was walking in a new direction. Where it led I didn't know, but only part of the time was I moving to Hillary's tune. Another part of me was back in the cabin with Jon.

When we entered the hotel lobby, Belle Durant came to greet us. She wore no Gay Nineties costume tonight, but was dressed in a generous creation that floated softly when she moved. Her own red hair was drawn back in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and she had used makeup more adroitly than usual, so that I could see for the first time what a handsome woman she really was. The illusion of being glamorous and poised lasted until she opened her mouth. Then her rather harsh tones grated on the ear and she was the old Belle. Remembering our talk in the cemetery, I felt undecided about her. I wasn't wholly convinced that she had thrown away all loyalty to Persis Morgan because of Mark Ingram.

”Mark had to work late,” she told us. ”But he'll be down soon-and hungry.”

An affair of masked riders that might occupy his attention? I wondered.

At least it was a relief to be away from Morgan House with all its tensions. Whatever happened tonight must be played by ear, and these tensions were different. For the moment I needed only to relax-and wait.

Gail and Hillary were obviously ready to enjoy the evening. Since their time together at the Opera House, they had lapsed into an easy, slightly flirtatious relations.h.i.+p that meant little or nothing. At least to Hillary. I knew it was a manner he adopted with most women. But did she? There were times when I igi glimpsed a certain edginess in Gail, and I continued to wonder what game she might be playing.

Besides me, Caleb was the only one to give any real evidence of uneasiness over this dinner. He had never wanted to come, and he wouldn't be here now if it had not been for Persis Morgan's insistence.

When he finally appeared, Mark Ingram seemed more of a dramatic figure than ever, with his silvery hair and his stylized Bill Cody beard and mustache. The silver-headed cane that helped to disguise his limp took nothing from the impressive effect he made. Again he wore the gray that suited him so well, with a turquoise bola tie, its black strings tipped in silver, and again he was warmly affable-the gracious host. What the affability concealed as he looked us over, there was no telling, and I found myself watching him with new eyes. We had evidence now of his being as dangerous as Belle had warned me, and I knew that I was afraid of him as I hadn't been before. There was in this man a willingness to be ruthless that would make him a formidable enemy. It would be very easy to let a growing fear of him defeat me, and I must not let that happen.

Dinner was served in one of the private dining rooms of the hotel. A small room, once more with crimson draperies, a dark red rug and red leather chairs, brightened with touches of gold and white and crystal. The linen was dazzling, the silver polished till it shone, and there were flowers on the table, as I'd once imagined. Hothouse, undoubtedly, brought up from Boulder, in an a.s.sortment of blue and gold and scarlet. All a little incongruous, all make-believe in this remote and unattended spot, but an indication of the wealth and power Mark Ingram had at his disposal.

One thing in particular I noticed, and that was his surprisingly courtly treatment of Belle Durant. His look seemed to soften and approve when it rested on her, and I wondered if this hard, powerful man was capable after all of some affection.

192.

Certainly Belle seemed comfortable, and of us all the least intimidated by him.

For me, however, all this was a matter of marking time. Sooner or later something had to happen, something must be said. The curtain must go up. I steeled myself by remembering Jon kneeling on the floor of the barn with blood running down his face. That was reality, against all this pretense.

It wasn't difficult for me to observe Mark Ingram, since he was easily the center of our attention. Even Hillary seemed to watch him intently, and I sensed a barely suppressed excitement in him, as though he, too, might be waiting for the explosion that had to come.

In particular I watched Gail in her att.i.tude toward Mark Ingram. She seemed clearly fascinated by him, and he flattered her now and then with some special attention. Perhaps Belle was the old love, of whom he was fond, but he would not be a man to overlook an attractive woman.

Only Caleb paid Ingram little attention, barely concealing his dislike. Nevertheless, he avoided any open offense.

A waiter in short white jacket and black tie-imported from where?-served us skillfully, aware of the critical eye of his employer. After smoked oysters we ate mountain trout, nicely boned, with parsley potatoes and a luscious mixture of herbed green peas and mushrooms. The salad, with its roquefort dressing, might have been just picked from the garden, and there was champagne carefully iced in a bucket. Jasper might be isolated, but Mark Ingram was already bringing in what was known as the civilized touch.

He was a considerate host, not monopolizing the talk, as he might easily have done, but drawing us out, even getting Caleb to discuss, however dryly, his father's days in the Denver law firm. All the while, an inner alarm was sounding for me. What was this pretense about? One of us had to break through into 193.

reality soon, and I knew it would have to be me. Never mind that this man frightened me-I would have to act.

Again the subject of the Forty-niners' Ball Ingram was planning came up. He had, he told us, already informed friends in at least three states, so they could be thinking about cqstumes.

”Those old seats have to come out of the orchestra section of the Opera House anyway, so we'll have a ready-made ballroom. And I'm going to bring in fiddlers for the occasion.”

I listened to all this with a growing sense of anger. Everyone was behaving as though nothing at all had happened today. So what was I waiting for? It was past time to ring up the curtain.

”Have you heard what happened to Jon Haddocks this afternoon?” I spoke into a startled silence. ”Jon was badly beaten and left in the barn by two men who attacked him.”

I sounded much too abrupt, but Ingram gave me his sober interest at once. Belle murmured, ”How awful!” Gail merely stared at her plate, while Caleb regarded me with a barely concealed horror.

I wasn't here to be polite and play this absurd game of host and guest. I was here to open the battle, and I only hoped that I would find the right weapons.

”My grandmother thinks you were responsible for what happened to Jon, Mr. Ingram,” I said.

Hillary put a cautioning hand upon my arm, but Ingram remained calm, regarding me sadly, almost pityingly.

”The more I hear of your grandmother's condition,” he said, ”the more I am coming to feel that she's not much good anymore at managing her own affairs. Why should she make such an attack upon me?”

I kept my eyes fixed upon his face, lest I miss some nuance of expression. ”Perhaps you're the one who can best answer that.”

Ingram sipped champagne and waited for me to go on. No one else said anything.

194.

”This afternoon,” I said, ”I told my grandmother that I would like to stay and help her in any way I can. There are some of us who don't want to see Jasper and Dommo and the whole valley turned into just another cheap resort. Perhaps that will come someday, but not now.”

”Well, good for you!” Belle applauded.

Ingram glanced at her and then back at me. He was still controlled, outwardly unperturbed. He would have long since faced the likelihood of my alliance with Persis Morgan.

Unexpectedly, Hillary came to my support. ”Of course you can't let your grandmother down.” He was watching Ingram with a certain bright anger that I wouldn't have thought he could feel.

Caleb put in his own dry words. ”This is hardly a wise move on your part, Laurie. You will do nothing for your grandmother's state of health if you talk like this. She needs to get away.”

”I'm beginning to think that there's nothing much wrong with her health,” I answered heatedly. ”Nothing but loneliness and discouragement and frustration.”