I DROPPED into low gear for the last steep grade to the mine. Even that didn't quite do it, and I doubleclutched into compound low, which is an unsynchronized gear and quite a trick to get into smoothly while the wheels are turning. I hit it right for a change, the lever went home without a murmur, and we ground on up the mountainside in the dark with that fine roar of powerful machinery doing the job it was designed for. It always gives me a kick to throw her into that house moving gear and feel her buckle down and go to work, using everything that's under the hood, while the big mud-and-snow tires dig for traction..
Maybe that was my trouble, I reflected. I just hadn't been using everything that was under the hood for a hell of a long time.
I pulled up just below the mine entrance, where enough of a level spot remained-most of the road and other construction had washed out or blown away since the workings were abandoned God knows how long ago-to let me park on a reasonably even keel just short of a small arroyo some rainstorm had cut across the little flat. Beyond this gully, the headlights showed me the barren hillside and the mine opening, a black hole surrounded by weathered, crumbling timbers. It gave me the creepies, as Tina would have said, to think of going in there at night, although why it should be worse at night, I really couldn't tell you. Fifty feet inside the entrance, the time of day-or the time of year, for that matter-would make no difference at all. It was a good place for what we had to leave there.
I cut the lights, got the flash from the glove compartment, and went back to open up the rear end. I heard her move inside; she made her way out onto the tailgate, but when she tried to swing her legs over the edge, something caught and ripped, and she had to pause to disentangle her sharp heel from the hem of her dress. Then I helped her down, and she pulled back and hit me alongside the jaw, with the flat of her gloved hand, just as hard as she was able. She might be fifteen years older than when I'd last known her, but her muscles showed no signs of advanced senility.
"You think it's a joke!" she gasped. "You sit up there on the soft seat with springs and hit all the bumps and laugh and laugh! I will teach you-" She drew back her hand again.
I stepped back out of range and said hastily, "I'm sorry, Tina. If I'd thought, I'd have brought you up front as soon as we were out of town."
She glared at me for a moment. Then she reached up and yanked off her little veiled hat, which had drifted into the neighborhood of her left ear since I'd last seen it, and threw it into the truck.
"You are a liar!" she said. "I know what you think! You say to yourself, this Tina, she is too big in the head after all these years. I will put her in her place, I will show her who is boss, she with her lady-like airs and furs and fine clothes, I will teach her to let her man knock me down, I will teach her to frame me, I will shake her like a cocktail, I will scramble her like an egg!" She drew a long and ragged breath, removed and folded her furs carefully, and laid them inside the truck canopy, out of harm's way. She went through the feminine routine of settling her girdle and tugging down her dress. I heard her laugh softly in the darkness. "Well, I do not blame you. Where are we?"
I rubbed my jaw. It wasn't true that I'd gone out of my way to make the ride rough for her, but I will admit that the thought of her bouncing around in back hadn't brought tears to my eyes, either. With a person like Tina, you take any little advantage you can get.
I said, "If I told you we were in the Ortiz Mountains, or the Cerrillos Hills, would you know any more than you did before? We're back in the boondocks, about twenty-five miles southeast of Santa Fe."
"But what is this place?"
"It's an old mine," I said. "The tunnel goes straight back into the rock, I don't know how far. I came across it doing research for an article a couple of years back. The first gold rush on the North American continent was staged in this part of New Mexico, and people have been prospecting these dry hills ever since. I made a series of pictures of all the old holes I could find. There are hundreds of them. This one's pretty tough to reach; I doubt if anybody gets over here once in five years. I wasn't sure I could make it all the way in without a jeep, but the weather's been dry and I thought it was worth a try."
"Yes," she said. She looked around at the saw-tooth sithouettes of the surrounding mountains against the midnight sky full of stars, and shivered. She pulled up her long gloves to cover her bare arms, hugging herself against the cold. "Well, we had better get to work."
"Yes," I said. "That was one nice thing about the war. You could leave them where they fell."
It took us two trips to get everything out of the truck that did not belong there. Driving away, we did not speak for several miles. Presently she turned the rearview mirror towards her and started combing the dust and cobwebs out of her hair by the glow of the dashboard. I heard a small sound and glanced at her. She was laughing.
"What's funny now?" I asked. -
"Mac said you'd know what to do."
I didn't really think it was very funny. "I appreciate his confidence in me. When did he say this?"
"We hadn't expected to make the touch so easily or so soon. I telephoned him long distance for instructions. That is why I was not waiting for you in the studio when you came. Also, I had to wear her coat and drive her car to her motel to pack her things."
"What else did Mac say?"
She smiled at me. "He said that, having lived here so long, you should know where to dig a nice deep grave."
I said, "Mac should try digging graves in this country some time. That adobe clay is like rock, which is why I settled for a ready-made hole. How deep a grave did he want?"
"Two weeks deep," Tina said. "Maybe three weeks, but certainly two."
"What happens-then?"
"Everything is explained, very quietly, to the satisfaction of the police."
"This I want to see. How do you go about explaining dead bodies in peacetime?"
She laughed. "You think this is peace, my darling? What a beautiful and quiet life you people must lead out here in the West-with gauze over your eyes and cotton in your ears!" She took the purse from her lap, groped inside, brought out a small card, and held it out to me. "We found this among the Herrera's belongings. It only confirmed what we already knew, but I saved it to show to you. Stop the car, chйri. It is time we talked."