Part 30 (1/2)

My hand tightened on Jon's. There was something that Persis still didn't know.

”The second deringer!” I cried. ”Someone put that second gun back in the box with the other one. It's there right now.”

Persis gasped, and Caleb scowled at me. But he went to the mahogany box and opened it, displaying both pistols, one more 329.

tarnished than the other, which had stayed in its case all these years.

Caleb spoke in apology. ”When Laurie told me this second gun had turned up, I thought you'd put it there for some reason of your own, Mrs. Morgan.”

”Of course I didn't!”

”I realize that now. But if you didn't put it there, then what does its reappearance mean?”

”I think we all know what it means,” Persis said softly. ”It means that Noah Armand has come back.”

”Maybe,” Jon said. ”Anyway, I'm not going to wait for morning to ride to Domino and talk to old Tully. There's a full moon, and I'll go there tonight. Mrs. Morgan-those pieces of jewelry that you pretended were stolen-are they in the house in Domino?”

”Yes, they are there. Caleb can tell you where the box is hidden, since he placed it there for me. You may as well retrieve the box and bring it back. You want that bullet, don't you?”

Dully Caleb explained where he had hidden the tin box that contained Persis' jewels, and Jon started for the door.

I stood up, making the quickest decision of my life. ”I'll go with you. I want to hear what Tully says.”

Caleb said, ”That's absurd,” and Jon looked at me uncertainly.

”If I were your age, I would go,” Persis said, and I dropped a kiss on her cheek.

”I won't try to argue with two Morgans/' Jon said. ”Go get out of that fancy dress, Laurie. I'll saddle up and wait for you.”

I ran for the stairs, pulling up my long skirts so as not to stumble. In my room I changed quickly to jeans and low boots. My hair was tumbling from its coil on top of my head, and I pulled out the pins and let it hang free. No time to do anything about it now, and I'd cope with tangles later.

Persis had returned to the parlor with Caleb, and she held J.

out a hand to me. ”Be careful, Laurie. You're all I've got now. And that man is dangerous.”

This time I knew she didn't mean Mark Ingram.

”I'll be with Jon,” I told her, and we went outside together.

The ranch seemed quiet, with only the underlying night sounds busy with their whispering. The moon was bright, but it had started to dip down the sky toward the mountains. Over near the Timberline voices still sounded, carrying in the mountain stillness. Lights were ablaze down there, and pain returned as I thought of Belle. Anger as well. Then I turned my back and started for the glow of the barn.

Wind blew cold down the valley, and Old Desolate stood high and black against the sky, with moonlight s.h.i.+ning on its rocky head. I held back my tumbling thoughts. I couldn't wholly accept as yet, or understand. Time enough for all that later. Now I was going to Domino again, and once more I was riding there with Jon.

XX.

The horses stamped and snorted over being disturbed from their sleep, but the cool night made them step out briskly and we rode up the valley at a good pace. My hair blew free in the wind, and it felt good to have it loose from its pins.

Jon wore his revolver this time, and he had thrust a few tools into his jacket pockets. Mostly we rode in silence, with Sundance leading the way. My senses were keed to the night, so that I was aware of the smallest detail, aware most of all of Jon riding ahead of me.

Both valley and r.i.m.m.i.n.g mountains seemed unfamiliar by moonlight, and deep night shadows filled the pine forests and cast patterns that I had never seen before. Down by the stream thickly crowding bushes s.h.i.+mmered like silver in the pale light. Riding with me, as always, was that memory of my terrified gallop up the valley as a child, when I was driven by the mistaken fear that my father had been trapped in the mine and would die there if I didn't reach him.

For the first time that full realization that I had been holding away, not daring to believe, swept through me. Perhaps I had not been responsible for his death, after all. Perhaps I *

332.

it hadn't been my hand that fired the shot that killed him. Perhaps I could remember him more safely now. With the barriers of pain and fright fading, old and loving memories could come through. Sometime I would talk to Jon about him. Jon would remember him.

As we turned up the shoulder of the mountain, the horses slowed, picking their way on the narrow stony trail. Up ahead, Jon reined Sundance and waited for me to ride up beside him.

”When we come into view of the mine and Domino, we'll tether the horses and go down on foot. The dog will probably announce us, but we can at least be close before he knows we're coming. I don't want to give too much warning, in case the old man doesn't want to see us.”

”Will you talk to Tully first or go first to the house?”

”The house first, if we can make it without too much disturbance. I'd like to be sure the box is there before I tackle Tully.”

”What could Belle possibly have known concerning him?”

”He was here at the time of the shooting, and he wasn't always Ingram's man. So who knows?”

As we sat our horses, speaking softly, a sudden crack of sound came from a distance, echoing and cras.h.i.+ng against the peaks.

”That was a rifle shot!” Jon said. ”It came from the direction of Domino. Come along, but quietly.”

Again we rode through the darkness of the pines, pus.h.i.+ng our horses a little. My heart was thumping hard, and I didn't dare think of the implications of that shot, or of who might be waiting for us among Domino's ghosts. Always I had been afraid of Noah, even as a child. I had grown up fearing his name, and I was still afraid.

As we pa.s.sed below the place where Jon and I had crawled out the entrance to the old tunnel, he spoke to me over his shoulder.

333.

”Yesterday I came up here and filled in the opening with cement. Those old mines are a temptation to kids who want to adventure, or for tourists exploring. n.o.body can get in or out of it now.”

Nothing would ever make me go into that place again. I v,as through with mines forever.

We rode out along the moonlit hillside above the shadowy bones of the little town. Patches of ruin gleamed like silver in the pale light. More like silver than the ore that had come out of the mine.

”This is far enough/' Jon said, and dismounted.

He tethered Sundance to a sapling, and then secured Baby Doe. Together we started down the steepening trail into the gulch. Domino lay sleeping in its black and silver world, and the night was utterly still. The dog hadn't heard or scented us yet, and to look at the peaceful scene, no one would guess that a shot had rung out a little while before.

”It's too quiet,” Jon whispered.

We continued down the path, expecting to hear at any moment the barking of the dog, and to have Tully challenge us. Or someone else? But nothing stirred. As Jon said, it was all too quiet.

The trail ran past the way to the Old Desolate mine, and glancing toward it, I saw that the entrance stood dark and open, with the door still removed, as Ingram's men must have left it when they went in to find a bullet my great-grandfather had fired so long ago. And to fake the finding of that silver buckle.

Jon took my arm as we went down the last steep pitch of rocky path and stepped into the street that cut through Domino's silver bones. Almost at once we had the answer to part of the silence that greeted us. Ahead, in the middle of the road, lay a black shadow that was not a shadow.

Jon bent over the sprawled body of the dog. ”This was the I.

'*1 I.