Beyond This Point Are Monsters by Margaret Millar

whether papers are forged or not?”
    â€œKindly simmer down, Mr. Estivar.”
    â€œI’m in the hot seat, it’s not so easy to simmer down.”
    â€œSuppose you try,” Ford said. “A couple of weeks ago, when you and I discussed your appearance here as a wit­ness, I told you this proceeding is to establish the fact that a death has occurred, not to hold anyone responsible for the death.”
    â€œYou told me that. But—”
    â€œThen please bear it in mind, will you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen did you first arrive at the Osborne ranch, Mr. Estivar?”
    â€œIn 1943.”
    â€œFrom where?”
    â€œA little village near Empalme.”
    â€œAnd where is Empalme?”
    â€œIn Sonora, Mexico.”
    â€œWere you carrying border-crossing papers?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you have any trouble finding employment with­out such papers?”
    â€œNo. There was a war on. Growers needed help, they couldn’t afford to bother about little things like immigra­tion laws. Hundreds of Mexicans like me walked across that border every week and found jobs.”
    â€œA lot of them are still doing it, are they not?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIn fact, there’s a profitable underground business in Mexico which consists of supplying such men with forged papers and transportation.”
    â€œSo I’ve heard.”
    â€œWe’ll go into this subject more thoroughly a little later in the hearing,” Ford said. “Who hired you to work on the Osborne ranch in 1943?”
    â€œRobert Osborne’s father, John.”
    â€œHave you worked there steadily since then?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œSo your relationship with Robert Osborne goes back a long time.”
    â€œTo the day he was born.”
    â€œWas it a close relationship?”
    â€œFrom the time he could walk he followed me around like a pup. I saw more of him than I did my own kids. He called me Tío—uncle.”
    â€œDid this relationship continue throughout his life?”
    â€œNo. The summer he was fifteen his father was killed in an accident, and things changed after that. For all of us, I guess, but especially for the boy. In the fall he was sent off to a prep school in Arizona. His mother thought he needed the influence of men—she meant white men.” Es­tivar glanced briefly at Agnes Osborne as though he ex­pected her to issue a public denial. But she had turned her head away and was looking out the window at a patch of sky. “He stayed at the school two years. When he returned he wasn’t a kid any more tagging along behind me asking questions or coming over to my house for meals. He was the boss and I was the hired man. And that’s the way it stayed until the day he died.”
    â€œWas there any ill-will between Mr. Osborne and your­self?”
    â€œWe disagreed once in a while, about business, nothing personal. We had nothing personal between us any more, just the ranch. We both wanted to operate the ranch as profitably as we could, which meant that sometimes I had to take orders I didn’t like and Mr. Osborne had to accept advice he didn’t want.”
    â€œWould you say there was mutual respect between you?”
    â€œNo, sir. Mutual interest. Mr. Osborne had no respect for me or any other members of my race. It was that school she sent—he was sent to. That’s what changed him. It taught him prejudice. I was used to prejudice, I’d learned to live with it. But how could I explain to my sons that their friend Robbie didn’t exist any more? I didn’t know the reason. I thought many times of asking her—his mother— but I never did. After he died it bothered me that I didn’t try harder to find out why he’d changed, maybe talked it over with him like in the old days. Deep down I kind of expected that eventually he’d tell me all about it on his own and I