Moonscape Read online

  “Don’t touch it.” The sheriff would not want the body disturbed.

  “Who is it?”

  “We don’t know. Someone who came through Arco almost a week ago.” Nellie wasn’t sure how much information to give out.

  “Are you that pitcher lady that caused all the trouble in the Basin around the fourth of July?” He stayed by the body.

  “I am a photographer. I didn’t cause any trouble. It was other people who caused the problems. I only took photos.”

  He leaned down. This time, Moonshine jumped across the space between the dead man and Nellie, barking. “Thought I might know him,” he said but stepped back.

  “When did you see the people around here? Today?” She wanted to distract him and gestured back toward where she, the sheriff, and Mayor Tom had found the body.

  “This morning but saw some several days back. I had my hands full with the cattle. There’d been a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and they was nervous. I saw what looked like three or four people up here then but figured they was some of the Indians from nearby or prospectors or somethin’.”

  Nellie said nothing. She wondered how much Mr. O’Donnell had told his son about the summer’s doings—the sheep herding, the moonshiners, the dead Basque. This man made Moonie nervous and therefore made her jumpy. The sheriff had been gone quite a while. She wished he would make his appearance. The ground over which he had retreated was filled with swales and valleys, so she could not see him from a distance, even if he were there. The afternoon shadows lengthened.

  “May I take a photo of your horse? He’s a beauty.” She walked over to where the horse’s reins dropped to the ground and patted the horse’s nose.

  “Want to take a ride?” Ben turned toward Nellie and seemed to lose interest in the body.

  “No, I want a photograph. The scene with the horse and that dead snag would be a nice one. Better without the saddle, of course.” Nellie bit her tongue. She didn’t want to keep him there any longer than necessary. She felt braver alone, even if there were wild animals around.

  “How did he die?” The cowboy gestured toward the dark bundle.

  “That’s something for the sheriff to determine,” she said. To divert him, Nellie lifted her camera and tripod and stepped closer to the horse, working around to get the snag off to one side. It was an old tree, gnarled and crooked, as if it had weathered in place for eons. The remains of what might have been a bird’s nest hung from the joint between two lengths of branches. The gray and textured wood advertised its age. As she moved, so did the horse. Moonie kept pace with Nell. “Whoa, now.” She turned back to Ben. “Could you keep him still, please? I’ll tell you when I’m ready, and you can step out of the scene to one side.”

  The cowboy did as asked and stepped away when Nell motioned. When she was finished, he took the reins in his hands. “I’ll be off,” he said. He raised his Stetson, guided the horse in a turn, and left without another word. The horse stumbled once, and the cowboy turned back to stare at Nell. She was afraid he would come back, but he continued and met up with the other rider. Nellie felt a sense of relief even though he hadn’t actually threatened her. The riders both moved away and soon disappeared behind the lava structures.

  CHAPTER 3

  Voices preceded the appearance of several men. Maybe the cowboy had heard them coming and she had not. Two of the men had a canvas stretcher slung between them. It looked like an awkward burden. She walked forward to greet the sheriff. Moonshine stayed by her side and did not bark or growl. He was the same color as most of the lava and could blend almost to being invisible. She wondered about a photo that would show only his teeth and eyes like a Cheshire cat. Another time.

  Sheriff Azgo carried a pack on his back and a bag that she hoped was food. Two canteens were slung in opposite directions around his chest.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she said after he introduced the other men. Their names immediately slipped her mind. “We’re thirsty!”

  The sheriff deposited his pack and other gear near the wood snag and handed Nell a canteen. She drank from it and poured water out in a lava depression for her dog. The men and the sheriff lifted the dead man onto the stretcher, and one of them circled the body with narrow rope so it wouldn’t fall off on the trip back.

  After the stretcher group left, Nell asked the sheriff: “Was it difficult to find help?”

  “No, Mayor Tom rounded up the men and stretcher and called Hailey to come get the body. He arranged for these fellows to push the automobile to the road and get it to Arco, so it should be safe there. I can look at it later.” He held up a sack. “I have the rest of Goldie’s food here and some additional offerings from Tom. He will return in the morning to help out.” The sheriff sat down on one of the boulders. “How did you get along? Any photos? See anyone or any animals?”

  “I didn’t get many—the light was too harsh. I did have a visitor.” Nell pointed toward where the riders had disappeared. “You won’t believe who it was! Cable O’Donnell’s son, Ben. He said he’s with some cattle over yonder.” She tried to see if she could see the two people on horseback. “Another rider stayed back. He didn’t come close enough to talk to.”

  “Hmm. Did he say why they had come? I think it is strange that cowboys would leave their herd, although the weather is calm, and few animals prey in the daytime.” He frowned. “The cattle must be quite a distance. This lava extends a long way.”

  “He said he saw people here this morning—presumably us. He also said he saw people here a few days ago. He wanted to look at the body, but I cautioned him not to touch it.” She joined the sheriff and sat on a rock nearby. “Moonshine didn’t like him, but maybe he was only protecting me.” She looked around. “Now where did he go? I let him off his leash when he growled as the cowboy rode up.”

  “He will show up when I get the fire started and food begins to smell good.” The sheriff raised himself with effort. His boots were scuffed and dirty, and he looked tired. “One of the men helped us move the auto to the road and then drove it back to Arco to Tom’s station.”

  “I hope the women don’t return and find it gone.” Nellie worried that thought for a moment, then stood up. “I can get wood. Why don’t you work on our shelter?” Nell hoped there were two tents. She wasn’t prepared to share one with this man—not yet, at any rate. And not while they were looking for what might be murderers. “Can we stop with the ‘sheriff’ and ‘Miss Burns’ titles, now that no one else is around?” She left him.

  There were plenty of dried wood and rocks, so it took little time to find a likely fire pit and circle it with stones. She had helped with a number of camps in July and felt practiced enough to do her share as evening drew in. She stowed her camera and tripod under a tree for protection if it rained, which was not likely in the arid, stars-beginning-to-appear late evening.

  A short distance away, Charlie Azgo erected one tent on a patch of dry, dusty ground. Closer to the fire, he spread out a sleeping bag and settled his pack next to it. The tent appeared to be the same one Nellie had used in the Stanley Basin when she stayed at a sheep camp for a couple of weeks. This ground looked much harder, but, if Charlie could sleep outdoors on it, she could make do in the tent. Their surroundings conjured up nightmares of rocky shapes and swirls in the evening shadows. The setting sun turned the red shades to vermilion and yellow lichen to brilliant green. Her film could not show the colors, but the shapes could be outlined against the still-light sky. Nellie retrieved her camera and tripod and set up quickly to see what she could capture. While she moved around to change angles, Moonshine trotted up to her.

  “Where have you been, Moonie?” She placed the black cloth over her head.

  The dog made a strange mewling cry, so she pulled off the cloth to look at him. “Oh dear! What’s in your mouth?” She squatted down and in the light from the campfire could see a multitude of what looked like needles stuck in his nose. Moonie cried again.

  “Charlie, Moonshine’s hu
rt. He got into something.” Nell wrapped her arms around the dog’s chest to keep him close but kept his face clear of her shoulder. He was in such obvious pain, she began to cry, too. “What did you do?”

  Charlie jumped up from where he was squatting by the fire and rushed over. Then he laughed.

  “It’s not funny! He’s in awful pain.”

  “Moonshine tangled with a porcupine. He will have learned a painful lesson. I have pliers I can use to take out the quills. That will hurt, too, but we need to get them, so they will not work their way deeper.” He circled over to his pack, dug into it, and came back with pliers. “Hold him steady.”

  Such a round of grunts from the sheriff and cries from the dog, Nellie wanted to close her ears. She held the dog instead and tried to soothe him. In all, there were at least a dozen white quills in a pile when Charlie finished. “Now,” he said. “I have some jerky for you, Moonshine. That will make you feel better.”

  He fetched a cloth wet down from his canteen and held it over Moonie’s nose and face, rubbed some salve on him, and then handed him the jerky. Moonshine ate it with gusto and then curled by the fire, next to Nellie, who was dishing out beans and biscuits that Charlie had cooked. The two of them had eaten most of Goldie’s sandwiches earlier, and Nellie was hungry. They ate without talking, filling inner needs first.

  After Nell scraped the last bit of beans off the tin plate, she said, “I guess we need to keep him on a leash. I’m sorry I insisted on bringing him. He would have been better off with Goldie—and Rosy and the boys when they arrive.”

  Charlie looked over at her. “Rosy is returning?”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you in the rush of leaving. He, his sister, and Matt and Campbell are due in shortly on the train.” Nellie wanted to bite off her tongue. Mrs. Bock—Goldie—should have told the sheriff first. He had a special interest in the boys, or at least one of them. Blurting it out by accident was stupid, if not hurtful, and probably that, too. “I’m sorry. That is what Mrs. Bock was telling me when you came to the boarding house.”

  Charlie nodded, his face a mask in the firelight. He gathered both their plates, used sand to wipe them clean, and stacked them to one side with the pot he had used to cook. “Once a sheepherder, always a sheepherder,” he said, as much under his breath as aloud. He turned to her. “I will sleep by the fire and keep it going during the night. The tent is for you. The flashlight is by my bag if you wish to use it in the dark.” He walked off into the night. “Take Moonshine into the tent with you,” he called back.

  As tired as she was, Nellie stayed by the fire ring until Charlie returned. Stars sprinkled the darkening sky and soon lit up with shining lights, a field of glitter. No moon stole their thunder; only the dwindling fire competed.

  “Why aren’t you in the tent?”

  “I wanted to talk.” She was silent for a few minutes, trying to think of what to talk about. The murder, obviously. “Do you think this murder is part of a religious ritual?” she asked. Charlie didn’t answer for a long stretch. The flickering flame tongues seemed to mesmerize both of them.

  “I do not know. There was nothing that seemed ritualistic about the man’s death. I would guess he was killed in anger, pounded by a piece of lava or heavy stone. Until I see the report . . .” He shrugged. “And your photos.”

  An ember in the fire dropped, and sparks flew up and then faded.

  “What about Matt?” There. She had waded into deep water where she didn’t belong. Last winter, she had learned Matt, the older boy, was actually the sheriff’s from an almost-elopement with Lily, later Rosy’s wife.

  More silence.

  “He is Rosy’s son.” Both stared into the fire. The last flames disappeared, and red embers like rubies shifted again. “When I left the valley, I left in a rage. I thought I would show Lily’s father, Gwynn Campbell, I was more than a sheepherder. I would make my way and come back for Lily.”

  Nell waited and poked at the fire with a stick. A flame licked up from a half-burned branch. The yellow light lit Charlie’s face, frozen into a mask of tragedy.

  “I cut sagebrush, loaded railroad cars, worked as a clerk, and saved my money. I made enough with odd jobs to attend school and then a police academy out of state. I heard from no one about Lily, and told no one where I was. I came back when I heard Hailey wanted a deputy. By then, Rosy and Lily were married, and Matt was born. Rosy did what I should have done—protected and cared for Lily.” Charlie’s recital contained no emotion. It was as if he had said the facts over and again many times, and it had become a litany to himself if to no other.

  Only the sounds from the fire filled the silence. Nellie didn’t think Charlie would say any more. She wasn’t sure how to respond. “I left, too,” Nellie said. “But I left because I didn’t want to get married—unlike Lily.”

  “You left a . . . a man?”

  “There was no one to leave, except my mother.” She would not mention the man killed in the war. He had been married to another. “I left to find a different future than one tied to a man, any man. I wanted—do want—to lead my own life, make my own way, see what I am capable of doing.” She wanted to say “like you did” but did not and did not add “alone.” Everyone she met in Idaho, including Charlie, thought she should get married, settle down, be a wife and mother. Not for her.

  Charlie added the word: “Alone?”

  She didn’t answer. Charlie stood and added more branches to the fire. “Time for sleep. Tomorrow won’t be any easier than today.”

  Nellie pulled herself up. “I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Good night, Charlie.” She could find her way to the tent by starlight.

  “Thank you, Nellie, for your work today.”

  So tired, she could hardly walk, Nellie was still gratified. The sheriff rarely expressed a word of thanks. At the tent flap, she stopped and looked up. She wished she were sleeping outside so she could watch the sky. It was awash with a universe of milky star clouds and studded constellations. It would be impossible to count them or even to try. The leftover sky was black as a raven’s wing and surrounded her, wrapping her in ink. The significance of their travails today, their dreams, their sorrows, their needs—all faded to naught, even as she herself was caught up and swept away in the beauty of the night.

  Moonshine trying to creep out under the tent flap woke Nellie up. She hadn’t slept well, and her back ached. She also needed to find a private spot. Her clothes were inside her sleeping bag with her, so she pulled them out. At least they weren’t cold. The sun was not quite up, but a pink blush covered the eastern edge of the sky and even tinged some of the rocky cone tops. The sheriff’s bag was rolled up, and there was no sign of him. She gathered up Moonie’s leash and clipped it on his collar. “Come on, Moonie. Let’s find a place that is hidden.”

  Nell found a secluded glen and did her business, then returned to camp and met the sheriff returning from the opposite direction—from the cave. “Did you go down into the cave again?”

  “Yes. No light reaches it, but I looked as carefully as I could with the flashlight. I could see no sign of anyone in there but us and the body. We may have tracked over prints from someone or something else. There were a couple of canine prints near the edge, so it was probably a coyote that ate on the man. A green branch had been leaning against the outside of the cave, one that would not have fallen there naturally.” He pointed. “All the green is here.”

  “So someone tried to hide the entrance?”

  “That is my guess. Or brushed away any tracks. Mayor Tom said he pointed out the caves to the travelers, so trying to hide the entrance does not make sense, unless someone else came along.”

  “Or someone didn’t want anyone to find the . . . the man. That cowboy said he saw people up this way. Maybe we should find him and ask how many he saw.”

  Charlie nodded. His mind seemed to be on something else. He made no move to follow up on Nell’s suggestion.

  “If we are going to search farther out, we shou
ld eat and move along. Speaking of Tom, is he coming back?” Nellie hoped he was. They could get lost forever in the twists and turns of lava and the ups and downs of the landscape. “Do you have a compass in that grab-bag of yours?” She smiled so the sheriff would know she was joking. He was such a serious man.

  “I always have a compass.” At last, he smiled, too. “Biscuits and gravy for breakfast?”

  While they were eating, sounds of someone coming from the direction of the road, not from the fields, reached them. Soon Mayor Tom appeared. He held the reins of a horse with lumpy side saddles. Nell looked to see if it wore shoes, and it did.

  “Hiya spelunkers!” He waved and tied the reins to a branch. “Thought we could use a horse, if for no other reason than to carry one of us out if we got tired bushwhacking or slipping and sliding over the pahoehoe.” Tom rubbed his hands together. “Brought water and rope and a few odds and ends.”

  Nellie laughed. “I might need the horse today! Or Moonshine might. He had a run-in with a porcupine yesterday.” Moonshine lifted his head. He had not been lively that morning, and no wonder—his muzzle was swollen. “What is pahoehoe?” She mimicked Tom’s pronunciation: pahoyhoy.

  “That’s the smooth, ropy looking lava. Hawaiian word. The rough, cinder type rock is a’a. It’s the hardest to travel on, and, with this horse, I need to avoid it.” He leaned down to pet the dog. “More than one dog gets into a porcupine around here. And they don’t never learn. Best to keep him on the leash. How’re his feet?” He picked up one to look. “Not bad. I brought some leather shields in case he needs them.” He pulled these from his pocket and slipped one on Moonshine’s left front paw and tied it tight.

  That endeared Mayor Tom to Nellie Burns forever.

  While Tom tied on three more shields, he talked. “Sheriff, I heard from the morgue in Hailey this morning. Is that at the jail or at a hospital?”