True-Life Adventure

about it.” I spoke with what I hoped was an air of great solemnity. Sardis nodded, equally solemn.
    “Maybe you could help us,” I said to the ranger.
    “Why, sure. I’ll be glad to.” He paused and thought it over. “Uh… help you with what?”
    “Well, you’re probably wondering why we landed a plane in here at dawn— I mean, you probably think it’s a little eccentric, right?”
    “It doesn’t happen every day, exactly.”
    I looked at him for a long time, hoping to give the impression I was sizing him up. “Can we trust you?” I said, after one of the longer pauses in recorded history.
    “Well… sure.”
    “It’s kind of secret.”
    “Hey, anything I can do, you know? Like I said, you can trust me.”
    “I’m Paul Mcdonald,” I said, “and this is Sardis Kincannon.”
    “Bill Carver.”
    “Bill, I work for a private detective. Miss Kincannon’s got a friend in trouble.”
    Sardis looked very sad.
    “You see, Bill, the guy I work for— the detective?”
    Bill nodded.
    “Murdered.”
    “No!”
    “I’m afraid so. And he’s not the only one. Three people have died so far. So you see why we’re so worried about Miss Kincannon’s friend.” I paused for dramatic effect. “And her little girl.”
    “Yeah. I guess I do.”
    “I mean, you might think the plane was a little melodramatic, but there’s just no time to be lost. Because we have to get there first. Do you understand?”
    “I think I do. Because if they get there first…” he drew a finger across his throat.
    “That’s right.”
    “The only thing is…”
    I was ready for him. I interrupted him in mid-sentence. “I know. I know. How do you know we’re not them ? Well, listen, that’s easy. You don’t think we’d try an operation like this without friends, do you? No. The authorities know what we’re doing. We have allies. Have to in this business or you don’t survive, know what I mean?” I caught a glimpse of Sardis and saw her mouth twitching. “So look, here’s what you do. I’m going to give you a phone number. It’s the number of the Chronicle in San Francisco— ever read the Chron? ”
    “Never miss it.”
    “Well, you call this number and you ask for the city editor— guy named Joey Bernstein. He’ll back us up. But listen, here’s the important thing. If they try to give you to somebody else, some assistant deskman or something, don’t talk to him, whatever you do. It’s very, very important to keep this quiet, you understand? I mean I can’t overstress the importance…”
    “You can trust me, Paul.”
    “Good. Because they will try to foist you off on somebody else.” I looked at my watch. “Joey won’t be in for three hours yet. So what you have to do, you have to say it’s an emergency and ask them to get Joey at home. He’ll take the call if you use my name.”
    “Gee, I hate to wake him up.”
    “Hey, Bill, I do too, but this is a matter of life and death, you know? I mean, if anything was ever that, this is. Look, Joey likes to sleep late as much as the next guy, but if he thought he could save a woman’s life…”
    “Paul,” said Sardis, “you’re forgetting Terry.”
    “…the lives of a woman and her child, what choice do you think he’d make? I mean, what kind of a man do you think he is?”
    “Well, I think we can have it both ways.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    “Look, I believe you folks. You folks seem like real sincere people to me. What can I do for you?”
    “Do you think you could give us a lift to Little Valley? I think we could get a taxi or something there.”
    “Hah! You kiddin’? This time of the morning? Now, hop in. Where we goin’?”
    “Lazy C Ranch.”
    So that’s how we got a ride to Rachel’s. Bill made one quick stop at the ranger station and got us to the Lazy C by 6:30.
    Rachel’s ranch house was aSpanish style, badly run-down for a place that took in paying guests, and completely charming, to my mind. Nobody was up but the dog. He went for my left heel.
    “Sit, Ishi,” said Sardis. “Come. Heel. It’s Aunt Sardis, dammit. Down, you sucker. Paul, don’t!”
    She squealed the last just as I raised the backpack to bean him with, and I would have hit him a good one except that Rachel, aroused by the ruckus, appeared and called him off.
    She was a handsome woman, dark with green eyes. Sardis had told me she’d been running a ranch alone for the last two years— ever since she caught her husband with one of the wranglers and tossed