Chapter II

6

STRANGE FISH

Paris followed Johnny Toms and her bags out of the station.

Johnny had come for her in his personal car, a mark of honor. It was an awful−looking car. It was painted red, green and yellow, with Indian designs. It looked like a Navajo blanket with wheels.

Johnny heaved her bags carelessly in the back. He got behind the wheel by stepping over the door. He didn't bother to open the car door for Paris. He never did. He treated all females as if they were squaws.

“How things in big, dirty city of New York?” he asked.

“So−so,” Paris said.

She remembered the fat man, and shivered. She hadn't been able to put the fellow fully out of her mind.

Johnny Toms tramped on the starter. The engine gave out a series of explosions reminiscent of a 75−mm.

cannon. There was no muffler.

Looking pleased, showing off, Johnny Toms drove up Main Street, over to Boulder, back to Main, back to Boulder again, deliberately turned around in the middle of the busiest street. Finally he drove, his car sounding like a battlefield, out of town via the most quiet and dignified residential boulevard.

Johnny Toms looked disappointed. “You sick?”

“Why?”

“You no raise hell,” Johnny Toms said. “You must be puny.”

JOHNNY TOMS, his behavior to the contrary, was not dumb. He had a college degree. Harvard, of all places.

He had presented this as part of his references when he applied for his job four or five years ago. He had never referred to it again. Whenever he could, he gave the impression that he had never been to school at all.

But he was sharp, honest and loyal. He had to be sharp to manage the S−slash−S, which was the Stevens ranch. The ranch produced more than livestock. There was oil. The wells were operated under lease by different companies. It was Johnny Toms' job to keep an eye on the oil men and see they didn't get away with anything. It was no job for a baby. Nor for a naive redskin.

But he was certainly an unorthodox fellow.

Paris was eager for the ranch to come in sight. When it did, she got a thrill. It spread over the picturesque Osage country, the red−oak hills, the flat, lush prairie.

The house was low, rambling, of stone. A picture place, but comfortable looking. It looked like a ranch, with corrals, branding chutes, bunk−houses. The oil wells were back in the hills, out of sight.

Johnny Toms stopped his god−awful car in the driveway.

“Big Bird!” he screamed.