Read The Eye of the Hunter for Free Online

I said, why haven’t you reported your husband missing?
    Because I was afraid I might be accused of Rip’s murder. And he takes off like this so often. So you see, Sheriff, I’m not even sure he’s dead ....
    Weren’t you ever going to report him missing, Miz Frances? The grisly death’s-head voice barely comprehensible. She had to hold her breath to make out the words, but the glint of his eyes was always eloquent.
    Well, I thought I’d wait a spell , she would say offhandedly. Richard might still come back ...
    How long a spell were you thinking of, ma’am? (Here he would cough, making the most of his disability.)
    Oh—I suppose a year or so.
    A year, Miz Frances? Leaning toward her like a Tower of Pisa about to bury her in bricks.
    Yes, sir . Mas o menos.
    You’d better get yourself a lawyer, dear lady.
    So she decided to talk to that lawyer Rip’s Uncle Hum had used—Ira Gustetter. He was a disgusting creature, and his wife had cut Frances on the street. But since he was a pariah, too, some common feeling might grow between them.
    She had driven in the previous night and stayed with a Mexican family she knew in the other Nogales. Then she learned this morning that Gustetter was ill—ill, indeed! drunk or hung over—and she would have to stay overnight again. Just as well—she really ought to set down everything before trying to tell anyone. Even the fact that it had rained the day she rode out there might be important—it was why she had arrived at the worst possible time, at sundown, with Rip getting drunk.
    So she put this down.
    I was sure that my husband was camped at Spanish Church, on our ranch, so I left early that morning, August 14, to try to find him. I wanted to be early enough, if possible, that I could get back home the same evening ....
    But a hard summer storm made her late in arriving at the spot. She had to stay out of the canyons and on the hillsides, which were slow going. At last, sunburned and tired, she rode out onto a bench overlooking a wash far back in the maze of canyons and volcanic hills on the western edge of the ranch. The ruins of a small adobe church spread over part of the bench. She could see right through the fabled Spanish Church, its south wall having melted into a berm. The structure was roofless, and its doors had been taken away long since. Weeds and shrubs sprouted from the tops of the broken mud-brick walls.
    Below her in the wash, a shallow creek lapped against a volcanic cliff. Downstream a few hundred feet, the cliff split open and a side canyon joined the main one. In this delta there was a tiny meadow with a little grass and some hackberry trees and oaks, but mostly it had been taken over by brush. A trail continued up this side canyon to end abruptly a half mile south in a box canyon with steep, colorful stone cliffs. A stone fence had been erected across the mouth of the side canyon, making it a perfect holding place when cattle were being worked.
    Against the left-hand wall of this natural pen stood a rock house, out of sight from where she was. Near the cabin was the entrance to the so-called fabulous Padres Mine with its pile of rubble. (“Dig here,” it said on the map!) She could see no one but smelled wood smoke and green chilis. A Mexican was cooking his supper down there—not Rip, for all he could cook was bacon and beans. There was simply no doubt that someone, possibly a cattle thief or smuggler, was going to have green chilis, fried and skinned in an iron skillet and probably served with melted goat cheese, plus badly scorched tortillas; along with, let’s see—refried beans and salsa picante . Her nose, brought up on Mexican smells, read the aromas like items on a restaurant menu.
    Frances dismounted and went toward the church, carrying Rip’s carbine. She did not intend to be taken by surprise by whoever was camped down there. Two imposing but crumbling pilasters of rock and