Threepersons Hunt by Brian Garfield Page B

Mr. Rand himself, of course, but the hangers-on.”
    â€œLike Ross Calisher?”
    â€œOf course. She was the one who sweet-talked poor Joe into moving up to the ranch where he’d be closer to Calisher. She wanted him to learn rodeoing from Calisher. I kept telling him he could learn it just as well down here.”
    â€œI knew Calisher was a big-time rodeo cowboy, but was he still doing it?”
    â€œHe’d broken a few too many bones to stay active at it, but you never saw the man but he wasn’t surrounded by an adoring pack of would-be apprentices. Some of them were fairly accomplished, I believe; certainly it was impossible for a boy like Joe to get anywhere near him—there was too much cracker jack competition. The place was rather like a thoroughbred racing stable the way it kept turning out rodeo competitors. I’m sure that’s why Rand hired Calisher in the first place. To him it was like buying a champion stud horse—and I assure you that’s more than a loose analogy.”
    Watchman nodded. “Calisher was fast with the ladies.”
    â€œThe place festered With it,” LaSalle said obscurely. “Affairs all over the place, I understand—clandestine types in the bushes every night. The place had a rancid reputation, you know. I’m not sure if it still does. But I swan, the talk you heard … Naturally it was just the place to attract a woman like Maria Poinsenay.”
    â€œThey tell me she was having an affair with Calisher— that’s why Joe shot him.”
    â€œI warned him not to move there. You could see that sort of thing was in the cards. Loose morals, violence, a brazen crowd … it was inevitable. The atmosphere made it nearly impossible to avoid that sort of thing. They were all having affairs. Rand’s own wife was having an affair with that lawyer, Kendrick.”
    â€œKendrick? I thought he wasn’t on speaking terms with Rand.”
    â€œWhen has that ever prevented such things from happening? She divorced Rand, you know—she’s married to Kendrick now.”
    â€œWhen did that happen?”
    â€œI don’t know, several years ago.”
    â€œBefore or after Calisher died?”
    â€œI’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”
    LaSalle had a vivid imagination fueled by the excitement of forbiden fantasies. He was typical of a good many missionaries Beneath his theatricality was a curious undercurrent of fear—perhaps an unhappy fear that his own failures were too obvious.
    â€œIf he came back here,” Watchman said after a bit, “where would he go?”
    â€œTo hide, you mean. Well I’m sure I couldn’t say. Of course there are a lot of shirttail relations—the clan structures being what they are. He has a sister here, you might try there.”
    â€œI plan to. Did he have any close friends his own age?”
    â€œNot many who are still here. The younger ones tend to drift away. The old women are constantly complaining about it, how the young men have forgotten how to carry baskets for their relatives. It’s only a saying, of course, but it holds a great deal of meaning.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œMore than half the young people move off the reservations nowadays. They work in non-Indian jobs.”
    Watchman was one of those; he didn’t press the point. “His wife’s family is still down on the San Carlos, is that right?”
    â€œI suppose so. I doubt they’d be much help to you. They weren’t on good terms. At any rate an Apache isn’t allowed to talk to his mother-in-law except through an intermediary—he must avoid her, never be in the same house or even be caught looking at her. They still keep these customs, you know, even though we keep trying to enlighten them.”
    Watchman covered a smile. It was becoming more apparent that LaSalle didn’t realize he was an Indian. Perhaps he was so accustomed to looking at