HAYDEN'S KINGDOM
                                                IDAHO
                                                

After a cafe pastrami sandwich and a beer, Lennox found the afternoon heat stifling as he headed south along the High Cut Pass. A goods truck with trailer, klaxon blaring, came toward him, dragging smothering dust. Lennox stayed well over to his right, the driver giving him a wave as he went by. After waiting several minutes for the dust to clear, Lennox drove steadily until Hayden's Kingdom showed to his left, its caravans scattered among cedars.

     He turned off the High Cut and drove along a rough trail toward the settlement. As he reached the site, a caravan door opened and a sun-tanned man of around thirty looked out, shotgun in hand. Lennox stopped twenty feet from him, switched off the engine and stayed in the auto.

     Another caravan door opened, and then another. Descriptions of the Kingdom clan were accurate: they looked tough and stubborn. Lennox could see a dozen men, no older than mid-thirties, all tall, lean, and unsmiling. Each was carrying a firearm.

    "What do you want, mister?" This from, the first man Lennox had seen.

    "I'm told you can help me."

    The first man came within feet of the car; eyes brown, mean face a weathered grain, deep furrows running down each side of his mouth. The shotgun safety-catch was off. "We can help you about what?"

     The folks in Allenby say you never miss a trick; that if a flea moves around here you will know of it."

     "So what do you want?"

     "Information about a young couple."

     "Who might they be?"

     "I have their photographs lying on the seat next to me. Care to look at them?"
 

     "No."

     "Why not?"
 

     "We mind our own business here."
 

     "I appreciate that, but the folks also say you help people who pass by - especially if they are on foot."
 

     "You're not on foot."
 

     "Maybe not, but I've traced these youngsters to Allenby. They were on foot."

     Another man came near. "Do you pay for information?"

     "I do if it's good."

     The man came closer, stuck his head through the open window next Lennox and asked to see the photos. Lennox handed them over. The men gathered. One, with an old single-shot rifle, peered curiously at Lennox. "I've seen you before," he said.

     "I doubt it."

     "I'm never wrong about a face."

     "Well, you're wrong with this one."

     Shotgun shook his head. "Skinny is always right with faces, mister. If he says he's seen you before, then you can bet he has."

     "Can I get out? It's awkward speaking to you guys through the window."

     Shotgun said okay.

     Lennox got out and stretched aching limbs. Skinny was nodding to him, telling the others Lennox had worked in Allenby.

     "Wrong," Lennox said. "Yesterday was my first day in town."

     Shotgun snorted contempt. "So what are you doing there?"

     "I've told you: I'm looking for the guy and the girl in those photographs."
     The sun, sinking behind the trees, threw long shadows across the clearing, allowing Lennox to have his opponents facing the rays. Shotgun glanced at his friends, back to Lennox, asked Lennox about the missing couple. Lennox explained briefly.

     "They went missing fifteen years ago?" queried Skinny.

     "That's right."

     Shotgun spoke to the others and came back to Lennox. "Look, mister, most of us were just kids when somebody hit the Allenby bank."

     Lennox wondered why a robbery had cropped up, but said nothing.

     "Wait," said Shotgun, and mumbled to Skinny, "get Pa Hayden, will you?"

     "Pa's asleep."

     "The hell I am."

     An old man, around six feet tall, tucking a crumpled gray shirt into his threadbare pants and pulling bracers over his shoulders, ambled from a caravan at the back of the settlement. He shoved through the group and squinted at Lennox. "I heard most of what you are saying, mister. Maybe I can help."

     "We want paying, Pa," said Skinny. "We say nothing unless we are paid."

     Pa Hayden rubbed sleep from his eyes, shoved thick fingers through gray hair, took the portrait photos from Shotgun and studied them, and then he looked up at Lennox.

     "Are you trying to tie these kids in with the robbery? I can tell you straight - it didn't happen that way. The robber was alone. After the accident, he disappeared."
     Hayden spoke with a voice coarsened from loads of whisky and too many cigarettes. Pa stopped right there and said if Lennox wanted to know more then he should pay for it. He took a closer look at Lennox. "I'll tell you one thing, mister," he said, scratching an armpit, "you're taking a risk coming here alone. There's nobody to watch your back."

     Lennox handed Hayden a ten-dollar bill.

     Hayden nodded appreciation. "Thanks, oh, and there's one more thing we can tell you - those two kids did pass our site, they were travelling toward Allenby with Lester Johnson. That same evening, they came back, still with Lester, although he had swapped his Hudson for a Lincoln. They were heading for the highway. We saw the kids again the following year. Hayden ran a thumb over the note Lennox had given him. "Further information will cost you another ten." Lennox shoved another ten into Hayden's hands, and Hayden said, "Yes, sir, they were travelling on foot this second time, hiking south on the High Cut, and they called in to see us for a few minutes. Then they headed for town, still using the Pass. We don't know if they reached town, but there is one thing for sure - they never came back this way. Maybe they took a boat and headed south on the lake."

     Would those years be 1959 and 1960?

     Pa bridled. What did Lennox think Hayden was - a historian? With that, Pa turned away abruptly.
     Lennox knew it was time to leave. He wanted to ask Hayden if he was sure of the years, wanted to ask about Lester Johnson, but he knew from Shotgun's stance that the meeting was over. He said thanks, collected the photos and drove off. Yet something said puzzled Lennox. He went over the conversation, trying to recall every word Hayden had spoken. Lennox snapped together finger and thumb. There had been an accident. So what was the accident? Lennox decided to ask Webster.

      Pa Hayden looked over his clan. "Remember, if Lennox comes here again, we tell him nothing. What we know of the robbery stays right here with us. If you start shooting off your mouths, then Webster will come puffing again with more wind than a hurricane."

     Skinny, upset at being wrong about Lennox, swore again that he had seen him before. He was sure of it.

     Pa did not see it that way: Skinny was drinking too much.


The temperature was still high eighties when Lennox arrived in Allenby at dusk. Most of the general stores and shop were closing, but the hotels, gaming houses and liquor retailers were competing for business. Having realised he would be staying in Allenby at least one more day, Lennox pulled in at the rear of the Denby Hotel and booked another one night stay at reception.

     Could he have an early morning call - say seven o'clock? Very good, sir, breakfast is from seven-thirty. He was shown a second floor room, tipped the attendant, closed and locked the door, turned on the shower, closed the curtains and washed away a day of grime, dust and sweat.

     He intended spending the later evening exploring the town, asking questions, getting the feel of what  the Allenby folk thought of their town and its times gone by, maybe prodding memories of the Atlas Bank robbery, but instead of refreshing him, the shower soothed his aching joints and he fell asleep on the bed.


                                 WASHINGTON/IDAHO STATE LINE
                                                   
Tommy Wade drove difficult terrain through the night. At five o'clock that morning he started drifting asleep at the wheel. He asked Rickard for a break. Rickard said pull up at the bottom of the trail. Wade slowed and swung the Chevrolet hard against crackling twigs and soft earth that rain had washed onto the track. His nerve was going. He slammed the brakes. They slithered out of control. The sudden swerve almost pitched Rickard against the screen. Wade corrected, stopped the slide and they shuddered to a halt. The engine purred low, waiting for further instructions from Wade's feet.

     Rickard scowled at his partner. "For Christ sake, take it easy." He glanced round the location. "I guess this place will do." He shoved out the auto, snatched up the box, took the 9mm with him, and advanced several feet into the forest.

     Wade jumped as Rickard blew off the lock and came back smirking, without the box, his left hand holding a bundle of dollar notes. He slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door. "There must be a couple of grand here, Tommy. Okay, let's go."

     Wade revved the engine. "To where?"

     "I dunno. Stick to the mountains. We'll be harder to follow."

     "Only fools risk travelling these mountains," Wade offered.

     Rickard stroked the notes and shoved them into the back pocket of his pants.

     "Maybe you're right, Tommy." He pointed ahead. "See that road sign by the rock fall at that junction? Let's go take a look and see where the hell we are."

     Wade stopped at the signs, sweat covering his emaciated body.

     'Julienne, 25 miles,' one sign read, its arrow pointing to their right. Another sign, to their left, read, 'Anacona', apparently a route toward Highway 19, some forty miles distant.
 
     "Stay clear of the Highway, Tommy. Let's go take a look at Julienne."

     "Maybe we should stay away from towns too," Wade moaned. "State Troopers could pick us up. I say we pull off the trail and rest a couple of days."

     Rickard grinned. "You think so? I don't give a damn about State Troopers. I have two guns here and if I have to - I'll use them. I just feel right for bumping off a cop."

     Wade drove past a disused railroad that had served a late 1800s lumber camp. Rampaging grass covered most of the track. The dawn atmosphere was damp, clinging, oppressive. He glanced at Rickard and wondered how things would end.



Sheriff Ethan Jones turned over in bed, having not slept one minute. Dawn was showing through the windows. Olivia was snoozing lightly and Rex lay across the foot of the bed. Jones was looking forward to a quiet day.


    
The sun became stronger, rising about the mountain rim, glittering through the cedar canopy, showing beams of light that dazzled Tommy Wade's tired, sunken eyes. He drove over fallen tree branches with the Chevrolet lurching, the engine whining discontent as the ascent became steeper. Incredibly, Rickard was sleeping through the buffeting. The rear wheels skidded on leaf humus. Gradually, the climb eased, the pine and the cedar were thinning, and he could see a distant mountain range, far higher than the one he was ascending. More blue sky showed ahead. To his left stood a disused log cabin, almost lost to the surrounding undergrowth. He headed through blackberry and huckleberry, with branches lashing at the windscreen, scratching the metalwork, and suddenly he was clear of the forest, the track becoming wider. He saw a small township ahead.

     Rickard was still asleep. Wade switched off the engine, stretched his aching arms and closed his eyes.