Stacy nodded. "What are ^pn going to do?"
"I'm going to sleep," Rèmo said.
Finally, he and Chiun and Joey were in the log cabin. LaRue had left after burying the A-frame next door. Stacy had gone back to the main camp.
Joey had built a good, roaring fire. Chiun's sleeping mat was unrolled on the floor in a cornet, and he was sleeping. »
Joey and Remo sat in front of the fire.
"Poor Oscar," she said.
"He was trying to save your life."
"So many deaths," she said.
Remo nodded.
"And more to come," he/ said coldly. "More to come." Idly, he pressed the buttons on the tape recorder he had found in the snow.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was afternoon. Remo had spent much of the day wandering through the woods where they had found Oscar Brack, where he had found the buried tape recorder, looking for something, anything, that would indicate who was behind the violence.
But he found nothing.
Who was behind the violence? He didn't know. And if the trees were the target, why not just have burned them down? Why kill? Why kill Danny O'Farrell, Joey's fiancé? Why kill Oscar Brack? Why try to kill Joey Webb?
Maybe the trees could be replaced too easily for burning them down to mean anything. But perhaps the brains at work trying to make the copa-ibas an alternate source of oil for America, perhaps those brains were not easily replaceable. Maybe that was the reason for the murders and the attempts on Joey.
But who? Who had used the tape recorder to lure hún from the A-frame last night before putting it to the torch?
Who had killed Danny O'Farrell and Brack?
Last.night, when the A-frame went ablaze, Pierre LaRue had said instantly that it was the work of the Mountain Highs. After all they had tried to set the for-
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est ablaze earlier in the night. But, Remo felt, somehow killing would not be their style. And who was to say that it wasn't LaRue or Roger Stacy who were behind the killings?
So many questions and so few answers.
Remo walked back to Alpha Camp. He decided he had to start somewhere, and the Mountain Highs were as good a place as anywhere else.
He reached the log cabin just as Joey and Chiun were stepping outside.
"We're going to look at the copa-ibas," she said. "Chiun has an idea."
Remo leaned close and whispered, "He has an idea that this is a Korean tree that you people stole from his country. Be careful."
Joey just nodded and smiled. "There was a phone call for you," she said.
"Who?"
"No message. But it sounded like . . . well, like Dr. Smith."
"Thanks," Remo said. "Do you know where the Mountain Highs camp out?"
Joey pointed to the direction of the main road and told him he could find their camp about three miles from the main office of Tulsa Torrent.
"You going there?" she said.
"Maybe," said Remo. "Have to start looking somewhere."
"Be careful," she said.
"I'm always careful."
It wasn't really a town. It was just a small widening in the road as it passed through the California hills, and there was a gas station and a small grocery store. Be-
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hind these roadside structures a few hundred yards down the road, Remo could see the tents that belonged to the Mountain High Society.
He stopped in at the grocery store and dialed Smith's 800 area-code number.
Smith picked up the telephone in his darkened office at Folcroft Sanitarium.
"You called?" Remo said.
"Have you found out anything?"
"Nothing yet," Remo said.
"I heard of the trouble last night."
"Yeah," Remo said. "We've had nothing but trouble. Joey's all right, though."
"She is no more important than anyone else involved in this matter," Smith said sternly. "Do not let personal considerations ..."
"You're a cold-assed fish," Remo said. "You helped raise the kid."
"I know," Smith said.
There was an awkward pause and Remo said, "Have you found out who those two guys were who tried to burn down the copa-ibas last night?"