Read The Eye of the Hunter for Free Online Page A

mud marked the church entrance. Set into one was an illegible sandstone plaque with a cross still visible in it. Looking right and left, she picked her way through the shell to the cemetery at the rear. Here, within a rectangle of stones laid without mortar to form a wall were aisles of graves, most of them slightly sunken, like cheeks where teeth were missing; they were unmarked, or commemorated only by rusty iron crosses. A few lichened stone crosses remained, and there were the rotten shreds of wooden markers. With the gun off-safety, Frances picked her way through the cemetery to a stone wall beyond which a trail led to a wash. There was a small orchard here with a depressing crop of blighted fruit. She stood among the gnarled fruit trees while she studied the canyon below.
    Suddenly a banjo began a nasal twanging. A man’s voice embarked on a song Frances knew well, “Amor y Lágrimas .” She smirked. She had tried to teach the song to Rip, playing along on her mandolin. But he considered Spanish an inferior language, and his banjo playing made her shudder. Smelling the chilis again, she thought, Well, well, Rip Parrish! And when did we learn how to skin green chilis, hmm?
    She went back for her horse and rode down the trail to the wash.
    At the near edge of the stream, where it was less than a foot deep, the horse lowered its head and commenced noisily sucking up water and pawing at the stones in it. At the same time a dog somewhere in the camp began an uproar, and she could see it tearing through the camp now, toward the wash. The camp, forty or fifty feet beyond the sandbars, occupied slightly raised ground. A fire burned in a hole. The rock house was against the cliff, off to the left. A man sat by the fire, on a stump, the banjo on his lap. He was not playing now, merely plucking a random note now and then as he tried to see who was coming. She could not see the color of his roll-brim hat, but it was exactly the shape of her husband’s high-crowned, teal-blue sombrero and had its wide-curled brim.
    Roaring like a whole pack of hounds, the dog came splashing through the shallow stream, and she had to control the horse. But the dog, some kind of Australian sheepdog Rip had picked up, recognized her and the horse and ceased its barking. Sitting her horse, Frances ran a quick score of what she was up against. The camp was no overnight affair. A canvas food-safe hung from the branch of a tree; there was a little wood-pile of manzanita roots and some tools, and a dishpan and washtub hung against the wall of the cabin.
    Frances rode on across the creek to the south bank and the man came to his feet and watched her approach. He wore a miner’s blue chambray shirt, work pants, and heavy shoes, and it was Rip Parrish. Frances dismounted in silence, neither of them uttering a syllable. Without speaking, she loosened the cinches of her saddle, then went up and looked into his face. The firelight revealed that he was tired and out of sorts. He was unshaven, his jawline beard and drooping mustache were shabby, and his long black hair looked ragged.
    â€œHow she goin’, Panchita?” Rip said, picking up a dusty wine bottle.
    â€œNot very well, Rip,” Frances said.
    â€œDon’t call me Reep,” he said, mimicking her. “My name’s Rip.”
    â€œI wouldn’t brag about it. Are you going to let those chilis burn to ash?”
    â€œDon’t you be worrying’ about my dinner, Frances, ” Rip said. “And don’t be figuring to stay. I don’t encourage women henpecking after me.”
    â€œIs this what you call buying cattle in Sonora?” Frances said. She pulled the pin out of her hat, dropped the hat on a boulder, and shook her hair out. And waited, smirking.
    Rip had another pull of wine. “Is that a bit of fire I see in your flashing eyes?” he said.
    â€œMore likely tears. We’ve got some serious talking to do. Would you like to go