Basque Moon Page 10

  The rushing sound as they had entered the cabin filled it, but when Beans opened the opposite door, the rushing turned into a roar. The river wasn’t two steps away and down about four feet. White water boiled and spray lifted, drawing out any smell from the room. She could easily have decided to step out to see the view and dropped into the water.

  “Hope you don’t sleepwalk,” Beans shouted, and laughed from the belly.

  “Will my bag be safe here while I go back to Stanley?” She had to repeat herself before he understood her question. They stepped back in and he closed the door; the water roar dulled.

  “Sure, long as it don’t hold gold or coins or moonshine. One of them might disappear.”

  This time, Nellie laughed. “Nope. Just a few clothes. All my treasures are in the auto with Moonshine.”

  The clerk stopped laughing and stared at her.

  “My camera. That’s my treasure.”

  “You’re carrying moonshine? Here I thought you was a real lady.”

  “No! My dog is named Moonshine.”

  Nell had turned to leave and saw Ned roll his eyes and shake his head at Beans. “Busy night at the old roadhouse, Beans. What’s the sheriff doing here? Out of his territory, isn’t he?”

  “Seems someone got kilt up Fourth of July Creek. He’s in hot pursuit.” Beans leered at Ned. “You got any evidence to turn over?” He laughed again and didn’t wait for an answer, but scooted out the door.

  Alone in the room with the cowboy, Nell felt uncomfortable. Up close, he exuded maleness along with cigarette smoke and a leathery smell. He stood so much taller and broader than when he was safely distant in a saddle. There was also an air about him, as if he were coiled to spring and it might be at her. She’d felt the same kind of threat when setting up her tent at the sheep camp, that something out there would hurt her, but she didn’t know what. At the time, she had shrugged it off as her too-active imagination. It was probably just a wild animal, one that wouldn’t venture near the camp with its dogs and horses and men. “Well. I’ll take you back to the saloon and to your horse.”

  Ned sat down in the small chair, his knees considerably above his hip line, forcing her to come back. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding in the mountains, Nell. Sometimes my temper gets the better of me.” His grin widened his face and the threatening air disappeared. “After you take more pictures in the morning, how’d you like to go to the Rocking O Ranch and take some of a real western cow ranch?” He held his hat in his hands and circled the brim between his fingers. “The railroad might like that, too. Or Old Man O’Donnell might. He’d pay good.”

  Whatever anger she still felt dissipated. “All right. Yes, I’d like that very much. Thank you for offering.” She didn’t know what else to say. “Shall we go back to the saloon?”

  “Can I buy you dinner tonight?”

  In spite of her softened feeling, she felt pressed by him. “Thank you, no.” She turned and placed her bag on the floor near the bed, just now realizing that she was in a bedroom with a strange man. “I think Gwynn Campbell and the sheriff expect me to dine with them.” She knew no such thing, but hoped that was the case.

  “How about tomorrow night, then, if you’re still here?”

  Again, the feeling of pressure. “Let’s wait and see what tomorrow brings. I may drive back to Ketchum. I have lots of negatives to develop.” She moved toward the door, opening it wider and holding it so Ned would go out before she did. She noticed the sun had slipped considerably toward the mountains and sunset wouldn’t be long. The long evening twilight presented another opportunity for photos, perhaps one across the river and valley.

  Nellie was aware of Ned watching her drive and shift and she became so self-conscious about it, she ground the gears once and almost drove off the side of the road trying to get the shifter into the right slot. To cover up, she asked questions. Where was he from? How long had he been a cowboy? Did he get lonely up in the mountains?

  His answers were short, but they gave her a picture of him she hadn’t expected. He had grown up on a farm in central Oregon where his family raised dairy cows and alfalfa. He’d been too young to go to war, but his older brother had enlisted and then died at Verdun. His father never recovered from that shock and committed suicide by hanging himself in the barn. His mother couldn’t stand staying on the farm, so she sold everything—farm, stock, equipment, and Ned’s horse—and moved to town, a small place by the name of Prineville, buying a house only big enough for her and Ned’s two sisters, both of them younger. He was old enough to leave home by then and headed east to Colorado, and then north to Wyoming, then west again to Idaho. He’d found work at the Rocking O, due in part to his ranch experience while young and his riding experience in rodeos during the course of his travels. The thing he liked best was the camaraderie of other cowboys and the knowledge that he was helping supply meat for the whole country.

  Ned’s story was too intimate in one sense, but glibly presented in another, as if he’d told it often over the years. By then, they had returned to Stanley. Nell looked for several photo scenes facing east across the valley, but the lighting no longer satisfied her. Darkness began to settle in. Ned, who had watched what she was doing and helped carry her camera on its tripod from one location to another, Nell directing where to place it and Moonshine following, repeated his offer of dinner. Because Gwynn and the sheriff still had not shown up, she agreed and they moved inside the saloon. There was a lull in business, as it was almost empty of patrons. The bartender took their order. He didn’t object to Moonshine coming in and lying down at Nell’s feet. Pearl was nowhere in sight.

  “Now it’s your turn, Nell. How did you get here?”

  Fair was fair, so Nell shared some of her background in Chicago as a portrait photographer in a studio, her unexpected loss of that job—she didn’t tell him she was fired—and her decision to travel west herself. “After I lost my job, I decided to venture out on my own, but first I haunted the library, looking at collections by great photographers—Edward Curtis, Steichen, Stieglitz.” Ned didn’t know the names, but he listened. “They each had a specialty. Even Imogen Cunningham, one of the few famous women, specialized. I decided that was what I must do if I ever hoped to make a name for myself.” She didn’t mention that Cunningham worked mostly with portraits, something Nellie did not want to do. Landscape would be her metier. “Photographers traveled the west, in California and the Southwest. I didn’t see or read anything about the inner west, so I picked those as possibilities. I wanted vistas without people, but vistas no one else was working with. When the train traveled through Wyoming, it looked like a total wasteland. One of the conductors told me how stark and strange Utah was and how scenic Idaho could be, especially north of Twin Falls. After a short foray into Salt Lake City, which was not a suitable place for a free-thinker like I am, I came north. And here I am.”

  She realized she had been talking nonstop for quite a while. The saloon was beginning to fill once again. It was past nine o’clock at night and still no Gwynn or Charlie. Time to retreat to her room by the river. Whatever energy had kept her going all day deserted her, and she wanted to lay her head on the table and sleep. Ned was rolling another cigarette, his third or fourth, she decided, wishing she had one.

  It was then Pearl marched through the kitchen door with a platter topped by foaming glasses balanced on one shoulder and one hand. She glanced toward Nellie and Ned, stopped mid-stride, stared at them, placed her second hand on the rim of the platter, and heaved everything right at Ned’s back. He didn’t see it coming. Fortunately for him, Pearl was far enough away that none, or only one, of the glasses hit him, but the wave of beer splashed him from head to shoulders. Part of the onrushing foam splattered on Nellie and she jumped up to avoid any of the flying glass.

  “You damned bitch!” Ned leapt out of his chair, screaming, and headed for Pearl. Beer still foamed down his back. “What’re you doing?” The bar patrons had all turned toward the room and most
of them were cackling like a band of jackals.

  “You two-timing coyote!” Pearl screamed back. She ducked Ned’s rush and scooted back into the kitchen. The swinging door hit Ned, giving the bartender time to intercept. The cowboy practically bounced off his stomach, and the patrons’ laughter redoubled.

  Nell could hardly help a smile herself. She left a dollar on the table to pay for her share of the meal, called Moonshine, and they slipped out the front door. Although muffled voices were still audible behind her, the stillness of the night soon quieted her. The Milky Way was a shining swath of carpet across the whole of the sky. She decided not to wait for the sheriff and the sheepman. The sheriff, at least, knew where she would be, although the odd thought occurred that he had not told her to go to Lower Stanley. It was the cowboy who directed her there. Still, the proprietor said the sheriff had arranged her lodgings.

  Back in her small cabin, Nell made notes about the photos she had taken, then unloaded the exposed film in the dark and secured it in a lightproof box. She reloaded the film carrier into the camera pack along with her camera and placed it and the tripod on the floor on the far side of the bed, out of sight. The light-tight box she buried in her bag and shoved it under the bed. The previous winter she had been forced to hide negatives so they wouldn’t be stolen and she had formed the habit of carrying exposed film separate from the rest of her gear.

  Moonshine had eaten parts of Nell’s dinner that she surreptitiously fed to him under the table and he seemed content to lie near the foot of the bed and watch. She peeked outside her door, saw a tiny structure with a dim light over a door marked “washroom,” and headed for it. It was little more than an outhouse with a sink and running water that spurted rust and air. The whole affair smelled of lye and sewer, so that she readied herself for bed as fast as possible, breathing in shallow, quick breaths through her mouth. On her return to the room, she began to undress, but stopped, thinking there was a different smell in the air, sour but yeasty, one she didn’t remember. She checked her camera—still there—and her bag—still there. Moonshine lay asleep on the floor. Imagining things. Even so, she decided to sleep in her clothes, just in case she had to get up quickly. Yawning broadly, she slipped into bed and turned off the lamp on the table. Deep velvet surrounded her in the same way the river noise did. Far from disturbing her, the sound began to lull her to sleep until she remembered she hadn’t secured the wood piece on the door. She climbed out, lowered the two-by-four slat, and snuggled again into the bed and slept.

  A change in the quality of rushing water awakened her. The night was so dense, she could see nothing, and before she could reach out to pull the chain on the table lamp, Moonshine uttered a low growl.

  “What is it, Moonie?” she whispered.

  She sensed rather than saw Moonshine leap toward the door over the river. At the same time, the door banged open and shattered the window behind it. The river noise roared like an oncoming train. Nellie screamed and saw the barest shadow of her dog, a streak blacker than the black around him, leap through the door, and, she knew, straight into the boiling cauldron. “Moonshine!” Did he bark?

  Nell dashed into arms that waited to catch her and throw a blanket over her head and around her shoulders. She kicked with stocking feet, thrusting elbows and knees in all directions, scoring one hit against a soft face or belly, evidenced by the expelling of a curse word, but the blanket tightened until she could not move. Still, her mouth was free to scream and she tried. “Charlie! Help—” A hand covered her mouth from the outside of the blanket at the same time a blow landed on her head. A brilliant flash ended all sensations except a final image on her eyelids—her dog tumbling like a piece of flotsam in the river, about to drown.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gwynn Campbell’s pickup tore up to the Galena Store porch, scattering dust and gravel. Lulu heard him from inside and came out in time to see the storm settle and the old sheepherder jump out, just as if he were a young man.

  “Lulu! Where’s Nellie?” he called before he reached her.

  “Nellie?” Lulu shrugged her shoulders. “I thought she was meeting you in Stanley. Did you lose her already? You and the sheriff?” She laughed and was ready to turn back into the store, thinking that the young woman probably shook off her older chaperones. New stock had arrived the day before in preparation for high summer tourists and she had work to do. Then she noticed Gwynn’s mouth. He wasn’t laughing and indeed, his color wasn’t very good either. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. We left Nellie at the saloon, taking pictures like she does, and were late gettin’ back. The sheriff had an idea about somethin’ back up Fourth of July Creek and wanted another man with him, not a girl. When we got back, no sign at all.” Gwynn sat down on the chair as if standing took more strength than he had left. “There’d been a dust-up in the bar between Pearl and Ned Tanner—Nell’d been eatin’ with that scurrilous cowpoke—and she slipped out. Nobody seen her since.”

  “What about her auto? She couldn’t just disappear. Besides, she’d wait for you or the sheriff, I’m sure of it.” Lulu grew concerned about Gwynn and said, “Wait here. I’ll get you some water.”

  “Don’t want water,” he yelled. “You got anythin’ stronger? I need a toot. I been drivin’ hell bent for leather.”

  She came back out with a seltzer and a pint-size brown bottle. “Here, take a draught of this seltzer. Then you can have a swallow of my ‘medicine.’ ” Fondness for the old coot filled her. He took care of his sheepherders and his sheep, unlike some of the other ranchers in the area and certainly unlike the cattle ranchers. With his passing, which looked too close if she didn’t settle him down, the sheep trade would change.

  “Calm down. Did you check around the area? Maybe she camped out nearby.” For a city girl, Nellie Burns had more gumption than most women who passed through Galena. Lulu grew weary of their high-pitched giggles and pretended helplessness. They weren’t all like that, but enough to grate on her nerves. She was probably in the wrong business—she’d rather cater to the men who came through, even the cowboys. “What about the roadhouse down on the river?”

  “We checked there. Beans told us she took a cabin in the afternoon and he thought she’d driven in later, but her auto wasn’t there. The room was empty—no bag or camera or anything. Broken window was all.”

  “Where’s Sheriff Azgo?”

  “We both ended up stayin’ at the roadhouse ’cause it was late when we found all this out. Then he went back to the saloon and was headin’ for the Rocking O Ranch.” His hand reached out for the brown bottle and Lulu handed it over. Gwynn took a quick drink and wiped his mouth. “I run into Cabe O’Donnell yesterday. Thought maybe Nellie might have headed to the ranch to take more photos. But soon as I saw her auto wasn’t there, I hightailed it here, thinkin’ she might have come back to do her hocus-pocus on her film.” His breathing had calmed, but he rested his head in his big scarred hand, his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair. “If I’ve lost that little lassie, I’ll—” He lapsed into silence.

  Not certain what to say, Lulu remained quiet. Her mind raced, though, thinking where Nell could have got to. She said she wanted her own auto up in the Basin so she could leave whenever she decided. Maybe she’d driven in the night past the store and on to Ketchum. “I’ll go in and telephone Goldie. Nell might have gone on to town, as you say, to do something with her photos. She must have a slug of them after all this time up in the Basin. Don’t worry, Gwynn. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

  On her way back to the porch to report no news from Goldie, Lulu saw an auto speeding down the road from the Pass. One driver and one dog. “Uh-oh.”

  Gwynn’s head swiveled up to Lulu and then to the road. “That’s Charlie.” He dragged himself up off the chair in a series of crank motions, as if his joints had frozen while he’d been sitting.

  From “that goddamned sheriff” to “Charlie” marked a huge leap in attitude. Lulu wondered if Nellie’s disappeara
nce had caused it, or something else. “That’s her dog, but I don’t see Nell.”

  “She won’t go no place without her dog,” Gwynn said. “Maybe she’s lying down in back, hurt.” He stepped down from the porch, gradually moving more like a person than a rusty hinge, and waited for the sheriff to stop. The dog leaped over the sheriff’s lap and out the window, barked twice, ran up the steps and into the store. When he didn’t find his mistress in there, he came back out and looked up at Lulu, his head angled to the side, his brown eyes asking the question, Where is she?

  “Oh, dear.” Lulu squatted to Moonshine’s level and hugged him. “I don’t know where she is. How did you get separated?” She turned to the sheriff as he trudged up to Gwynn, his eyes as sad as the dog’s and lines etched down either side of his mouth.

  “The dog found me,” Charlie Azgo said. “I went back to the roadhouse and looked through the cabin again. I found a bag under the bed—Nell’s clothes and a box. I want to send it down to Twin to that photographer fellow there. Maybe he can give us photos that will tell us something. It will take a few days. After that, I drove north from there a mile or two. Pulled over to check an automobile parked down among some trees by the Salmon River. Empty. Then this animal came out from behind a big rock, just like he was waiting for someone he knew.” He reached the porch, looking as discouraged as Gwynn.

  “Was it Nellie’s Oldsmobile?” she asked.

  “No. I hung around a while and a man came walking down the road, carrying a fishing rod. Said the auto was his. He had not seen the dog before or anyone else.”

  “He was lying!” Gwynn said. “I woulda arrested him, brought him in for questioning.”

  “No. He was not lying. His creel had four good-sized trout in it, all fresh-caught. The dog stayed by my side, wasn’t even curious about the fellow. Just a fisherman driving up from Twin Falls for a couple days to fish. Showed me his tent, which was down from the road.”