Basque Moon Page 2

  Nellie dug it out of her pants pocket and handed it over. She wanted to caution Lulu not to let a strange man drive it, but decided to say nothing.

  “Gwynn, you better back up over the Pass like the rest of ’em. This here truck don’t look like it’ll make the first switchback,” Lulu said, then took two steps toward the porch.

  A roar was her response. “I’ll be god—. I’ll be a horse’s ass before I look like one of them tourists takin’ the namby-pamby way up that mountain road, Lulu. And you can kiss it if I don’t make it up frontways.”

  Lulu grinned and her laugh came up from her belly. “Knew you’d say that. I’ll charge double if I have to tow you over to the other side.” She winked at Nellie. “You might want to get out and walk when the truck gives up. His language will turn everything in that there cab to a brilliant blue.”

  The other customer came out from the store, scowl still in place. “What’s a maggot wagon doin’ in this country?” His question wasn’t directed to any one person.

  Nellie remembered the Model T. She glanced over and saw the door open and a long, slim leg touch the ground.

  “Dick Goodlight, if you had a ounce of sense in you, I’d say you were worth savin’,” Lulu said. “But you don’t and if Gwynn wants to shoot you right here, he has my permission.” She stepped back into the store.

  “Get back in there, Pearl.” He used the same tone of voice she had used on the dog. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere but home with me.” The leg disappeared back into the auto.

  Gwynn started up his pickup, looked at Nellie, winked, and turned the truck so that its rear faced the store. Then he stomped on the gas and dust and rocks spun out behind, raising a curtain of dust in front of Goodlight that settled on him. Nellie glanced around as they pulled onto the roadway and saw him dancing up and down, swatting his hat against his legs. His mouth worked, but she couldn’t hear a word.

  “Ha, ha, ha! That’ll teach the son of a gun!” Gwynn shifted gears and concentrated on the road.

  Nellie turned to wave to Alphonso in the back of the truck. He held on to each side of the bed, and he laughed, too. His black hair was parted by the wind and blowing almost straight out.

  The pickup coughed and jerked every time Gwynn changed a gear, but it didn’t stop. The old sheepman kept up a stream of low mumbles interspersed with a few words Nellie understood, mostly references to a “gol-blamed, woolly, son of a. . . .” Like an incantation, whatever he said seemed to pull them up the narrow, switch-backed road and over the top. One more turn and she gasped at the open vista far below.

  Jagged blue teeth tore at the sky—the Sawtooth Mountains. Most of the high peaks wore snow patches leading down to rocky chutes that ended in deep green forests, which in turn gave out onto a basin of lush grasses and a river, winding like a silver thread the length of the valley. Sagebrush, dusty green and purple, covered the southern slopes of the foothills facing the pass. “Oh, stop, Mr. Campbell! I must see this!”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to put a little more water in the radiator, I guess.” He pulled to the side of the road and Nellie and Moonshine both jumped down and ran across to the drop-off.

  “What river is that? It is so beautiful and so remote!”

  “Salmon River. River of No Return, it’s called. Begins back there,” he said, pointing to an unseen source at the southern end of the Basin, “and makes its way north. In the fall, it’s filled to overflow with sockeye salmon returning from the ocean. A sight to see.” He returned to the auto, pulled the hood up, and fussed under it. “Alphonso, get me some water and let’s cool this damned thing down.”

  Nellie let the breeze coming up the mountainside blow her hair and sweep around her body. The smell of pine pitch and dust warmed by sun filled her nostrils. She breathed deeply, thinking she could stand and watch this scene forever. White clouds billowed and fluffed around the mountain peaks, casting moving shadows, permitting highlights to change and gather, making her fingers ache for her camera.

  “I want to photograph this panorama. Will you wait while I get set?”

  Her answer was a mumble from under the hood. She took it for assent and eased her pack out of the pickup, set up her tripod, and began assembling the large-format camera that accompanied her everywhere. Her “assignment,” as she had so boldly declared to Lulu, was from the Oregon Short Line Railroad. The railroad wanted scenic pictures to lure tourists to the West, according to the railroad man she had met riding back and forth from Ketchum to Twin Falls. She took portraits of townspeople and visitors in Ketchum. Then she traveled to Twin where she processed the photographs at the studio belonging to Jacob Levine. If the railroad man really bought the photos, she might have enough to establish a small darkroom in Ketchum and wouldn’t have to travel to the larger town so often. She wouldn’t see Jacob as often, either. But, he was engaged to that silly woman, so she really shouldn’t care.

  As she threw her black cloth over her head to get the focus of the scene without interfering light, Gwynn called: “Get back in, Lassie. We’re heading out!”

  “Wait a minute, please.” She gritted her teeth. Gwynn and she were never traveling the same paths, no matter how much she tried to accommodate his gruff needs. Once in a great while, she wondered what it would have been like to have him for a father instead of her drunken one. Not much better, she decided. The old sheepman would have been around more than hers was, but his natural arrogance would have driven her and her mother crazy. Look what he had done to his own daughter! Dragged her away from her intended husband, disowned her for years at a time, and then blamed her death on a Chinese herbal doctor rather than on the cancer that took her. No, Nellie would rather have been what she was—fatherless.

  The composition was good—two aromatic pines framed the series of craggy mountaintops, an array of clouds behind them, brilliant sunlight on two of the snow patches, and a beam of light focused on the tallest. She removed the cloth and the dark slide, picked up the shutter release, and pushed the plunger.

  “Hurry up, gal. I can’t wait all day for you to fuss with that contraption.”

  Nellie removed the film holder and placed it in her film carrier. She folded up the camera and tripod, placed the tripod in the pickup bed, and climbed with the camera back into the cab. “I’m ready to go.” The pickup jerked forward. “Wait! Moonie is still out there!”

  For a second, Nellie thought Gwynn might not stop, and then he stomped on the brake, throwing Alphonso against the back window. Nellie opened the door and called for Moonshine. From a patch of huckleberry bushes on the hillside, he came dashing, his black coat shining in the sunlight. “Were you after a rabbit, you sweetie?” Nellie made room for him, and then slammed the door. “Thank you.” Off they drove down the mountainside.

  “Did you notice the woman in the Model T at Galena Store?” she asked her companion. “She was with that Goodlight man. And a dog, too.”

  “Nope. Only saw you and Lulu. I don’t pay no attention to moonshiners and cowboys. They’re the varmints of this place. Ought to string ’em all up.”

  “I think she was a pretty woman, but not someone I’ve seen in Ketchum.”

  “Probably Pearl, Goodlight’s wife, some say. She runs off regular and he brings her back to the Basin. Can’t say as I blame her, but she’s no prize, either. Hangs around the saloon in Stanley, making eyes at cowboys.”

  For someone who didn’t pay attention, Gwynn knew a lot of gossip. “Which is he—a moonshiner or a cowboy?”

  “Depends on the weather.”

  Nellie didn’t want to ask what that meant. She watched the mountains, letting her spirits soar with them. Would living among such gorgeous scenery jade one to all else?

  At Smiley Creek, Gwynn stopped for news and gasoline. A substantial mining settlement had once occupied the bend in the road, but many structures stood derelict. A broken wagon half blocked a road headed back into the scrub pine. The general store looked well used, but much less inviting than the Galena Store.
A few men lounged around the porch, their cowboy heels run down, their clothes seedy and unwashed. One man even wore a gun stuck into his belt, as if he thought he were a cowboy of Zane Grey fame. Alphonso stayed in the pickup, slumped down almost out of sight. One of the men said something and the others laughed, glancing toward the truck.

  Nellie waited for Gwynn without getting out. She didn’t want to hold him up and she didn’t want to get into an argument, something she might do if she were close enough to hear actual words. She felt sorry for Alphonso. Staying with a sheepherder in the mountains had sounded romantic when she first proposed it to Gwynn. Now she was less certain. Everyone had heard of the fierce range wars in Wyoming and Arizona between cowmen and sheepmen. Was she heading into trouble again? She didn’t know how to use a gun and wondered if that was a skill she should learn. In town, guns hadn’t seemed necessary, but out here, maybe some of the stories about gunfights were true. Good heavens! She was beginning to believe the fables published in the eastern press.

  To prove to herself that those stories were fabrications, she opened the door and stepped down. Moonie jumped from the cab, sniffed and looked around, then trotted toward a mangy mutt scrounging alongside the store’s foundation.

  “Moonshine! Here, boy.”

  Her dog turned his head toward her and the mutt leaped at him, growling low. Moonie yelped, side-stepped, and counterattacked.

  Dust, fur, growls, barks turned the lazy scene into a maelstrom.

  Nellie hurried to the writhing, furry twosome, but couldn’t grab Moonie as they rolled, their teeth clenched into each other’s hides. She was afraid her hand would get bitten. The men stood and watched.

  “Kill the maggot dog, Cowpie!” The cowboys laughed.

  Moonshine shook himself hard and Cowpie loosened his hold long enough for Moonie to grasp the mutt’s neck in large white teeth. They rolled again. This time one of the men brought out a gun. Nellie dove toward the fighting animals, no longer afraid. She knew her dog was the target. Only her pants prevented her legs from being scraped by tooth or claw. Her hands weren’t so lucky as she fell amidst the dogs.

  Gwynn ran out of the store, grabbed a bucket under a sign that read “Fire,” and threw the contents on the dogs. It wasn’t water. It was sand. The spray stung Nellie, but the dogs separated long enough for her to scramble back with the scruff of Moonshine’s neck in her hand. Gwynn jerked her up and they both dragged the dog to the pickup where Gwynn tossed him into the back with Alphonso. “Hold him while we get out of here.” He turned to Nellie. “Get back in. Now.”

  The truck jerked and they left the scene behind. Nellie’s heart beat fast. She perched on her knees and peered through the back window to see if Moonie was hurt. Alphonso had his arms around the dog and talked to him. He calmed down and soon lay on the truck bed, his head on the man’s knee. He shook. His hair was ruffled and he wriggled around to lick his shoulder.

  “If that dog of yours is gonna attack other dogs, we got ourselves a problem, Lassie. Them sheepdogs’ll kill him soon as look at him. I’ll take him back with me when I go. Goldie’ll look after him.” Goldie Bock owned the boarding house where Nellie lived.

  “That was the Model T dog. He tried to attack Moonie at Lulu’s.” Her hands stung, but she held them clasped together so Gwynn wouldn’t notice the scrapes of blood on them. “They must have passed us when we stopped. He’s a mean dog. Moonshine isn’t, and I need him.”

  The sheep man snorted. “If he so much as looks sideways at one of my dogs, back he goes. Same thing if my dogs don’t like his looks. They’re not friendly. They fight off coyotes and keep the sheep in line.” His face settled into stubborn lines, an immovable stone. “I got enough trouble without your blamed dog causin’ more.”

  “Goldie doesn’t like him and she won’t watch out for him.”

  “She likes anythin’ that used to belong to that miner, Rosy. How else did my daughter marry the four-flusher?” The lines on Gwynn’s face settled deeper.

  “Rosy was no four-flusher. He married Lily because they loved each other, and he took care of those boys, even though one of them—” Nellie bit her lip. No sense in bringing up old hurts. “Moonie’s never ever attacked another thing. I don’t understand what happened back there. He won’t do it again,” she said, crossing her fingers.

  Gwynn switched gears to slow down as the pickup neared a turn-off from the main road. He swung right, barely making the sharply angled corner. The side road was hardly more than a trail through grass and sagebrush. Nellie held on to her seat, hoping her teeth wouldn’t shake loose. A cloud of dust spilled out behind them. She looked back again and saw that Alphonso held on to each side of the truck bed rails, jouncing back and forth with a bored expression. Moonie stood, then was shaken back down, where he stayed.

  At first, the road headed straight across the flat Basin, then began to climb and wind through sagebrush hills until it reached a line of trees, both aspen and fir, where the road aimed at the sky. This was much steeper than Galena Pass, but didn’t last as long. When the truck leveled out, Nellie’s hands were cramped from squeezing onto her seat or the armrest in the door. They traveled through a meadow-like area with long grasses and trees, rounded a bend, and came abruptly upon a sheep wagon—what looked like a small Conestoga with a horse hobbled and grazing nearby. When she stepped out of the pickup, Nellie saw the half-cylinder, dirty white top was made of canvas.

  “Domingo! Where are you, damn your hide!” Gwynn shouted and walked up the trail a ways. No sheep were in evidence. No dogs, either. Alphonso joined Gwynn and called out something in a foreign language. He turned to Gwynn and spoke several words, none of which were understandable to Nell.

  “He shoulda been expectin’ us. I told the supply man to tell him we was comin’ up in four days to get him. Where are the goddamned sheep?” Gwynn stepped up the short ladder to the back of the wagon and peered in, then opened the door, hunched over, and entered. Moonie sniffed around the four corners of the wagon, found one to his liking, lifted his leg, and urinated.

  “What the—” A roar came out the door.

  Nellie and Alphonso ran over. Gwynn peered out, covering his face with a handkerchief. “He’s dead. Has been for a day or two.” He stepped down and motioned for Alphonso to go in and bring out the body.

  “You wait by the pickup, Lassie. This ain’t no sight for a woman.”

  Nell stood her ground, even though she was beginning to catch the smell from inside the camp. Nausea filled her mouth with saliva. She swallowed, hoping she wouldn’t throw up or faint. She backed toward the pickup. “Here, Moonshine.” The dog was unaffected by the smell and still wandered around, his nose to the grass, sniffing. He lifted his head when she called and came over reluctantly. She patted his head, then crouched by him and put her arms around his shoulders to hold him.

  The sheep camp. She should photograph it, begin her assignment now. That would keep her hands and mind busy and maybe the sick feeling would go away. From the pickup, she drew out her camera pack and retrieved the tripod, busying herself finding the right perspective. She took one photo of the camp and horse nearby. But she could not ignore the limp body Alphonso carried out and laid on the ground, so she moved closer without the camera. A camp with a body was hardly what the railroad would want. She managed to take two photos of the sheep camp. Maybe the sheriff of this county would want a photograph, too, so she moved her tripod and camera close to Domingo.

  “Can’t see anything wrong so far. Maybe out here in the light,” Gwynn said. “Ain’t much blood in there. I’ll check around the area, Al. We’ll have to find the sheep. Them dogs wouldn’t let ’em get too scattered, unless . . .” His voice stopped and his face calculated. “Goddamnit! Those good for nothin’ cowhands probably drove ’em off. They’re all over hell’s half acre, scared outta their wits. I hope to god my dogs aren’t shot up.”

  Nellie winced. She appreciated Gwynn’s feeling for his dogs, but he seemed more concerned for them t
han for the dead man lying on the ground.

  “All right, Lassie. You got that camera there. If you’re so brave, take a picture of Domingo here. May as well have it for the sheriff, ’cause I gotta bury the poor sod. He stinks to high heaven.”

  It wasn’t as if Nellie had never seen a dead body before. Last winter, she’d had more than her share and photographed two of them. This one seemed more dead and the summer’s early heat didn’t help how he looked. Corpses in winter were like the embalmed bodies in funeral parlors she had once photographed in Chicago as part of the portrait business. This one still held the sense of once being alive. His skin was mottled and sunken around the skull. She didn’t want to touch him, but thought a full face would be better than a profile. His hands curled like claws with long dirty fingernails, and his clothes—they were almost in tatters, so much so that scraped skin showed through at his knees and elbows. Small burrs stuck to the material and they were stained with grass, almost as if he had crawled or been dragged through grasses and rocks. Gingerly, she half-turned the body and his hair, so dark and oily that it looked wet, fell to one side. A hole in his temple looked empty and black.

  Nellie pulled her hand back as if she had been burned. “Gwynn, he’s been shot!”

  CHAPTER 2

  The sheep man hurried back to Nell. He studied the hole without touching it, and then stepped up into the sheep camp. Nell heard him rummaging around but she stayed outside, once again setting up her camera, keeping her hands and mind busy so she wouldn’t think about the smell or the body. Soon enough, Gwynn returned, shaking his head. “Still don’t find no blood. He mighta killed himself. Txomin said last trip back that Domingo was in a bad way. I can’t find a revolver, though, and if he had been shot up close, there would be more of a mess. I think all Domingo had was his Winchester for shootin’ at varmints.”