Moonshadows Read online

  “The baby won’t come,” she panted. “I don’t know what to do. He wants out.” She cried “Help me, Rosy,” then shoved the quilt into her mouth to stifle her screams.

  He held her and brought cold cloths to place on her forehead. He’d seen animals born, but what could he do to help Lily? He burned his knife to make it clean and cut where the head pushed against the birthing canal. The baby whooshed out into his hands. Lily screamed and lost consciousness and blood poured out, thick and red. Rosy cut the cord and swaddled the baby and placed him next to Lily. He wadded up an old blanket and pushed it between her legs, tying it around her hips and legs with one of his belts and one of hers. Then he left, walking to Ketchum to seek help, knowing mother and baby might both be dead when he returned.

  Mrs. Bock and the Celestial, who had just finished tending a man in Ketchum who lost his leg in the mine, returned with Rosy in a borrowed automobile. They heard the baby bawling from the road. “Hurry,” Mrs. Bock cried. As if he needed her to make him run across the field, slipping and sliding in an early snow. He hadn’t left a fire in the fireplace or cookstove. Lily might be frozen.

  Rosy dashed upstairs. Mother and child were as he left them in the double bed, swaddled and packed. The babe snuffled and his mouth trembled. Lily was white as death, but she turned her head to Rosy. “It’s a boy.”

  The next summer, the baby boy crawled in the poppies and lavender, spreading in a colored arc from the kitchen garden toward the aspen grove.

  Those were the summers he remembered. The one bad winter, followed by summers steeped in flowers and Lily. Rosy wasn’t a fool. She didn’t love him, but what they had came close to happiness, love or no love. Respect for each other and laughter made up for what wasn’t there. Rosy almost gagged. He was getting to be a sentimental fool, an old man carting around a flibbertigibbet easterner. Time to turn in, but he called for another drink.

  Rosy liked to watch Nell Burns sass the sheriff. She wasn’t much bigger than a bug, but she had spirit. He didn’t believe she really had a photo of the dead man in that camera of hers. Even someone with spirit would have a hard time spending that much time and effort on a dead body. Still, the body had been moved. She must have done something. And she did sleep right there, with it next to her. The dog wasn’t any help. Lily had called it Moonshadow. She wouldn’t care if the girl took him over. Rosy wasn’t doing much of a job taking care of him. He couldn’t stand to lose another living being so he’d like to be shut of the dog. Just like Gladys was shut of her brother. Too much responsibility.

  Just as Rosy was close to his goal—drunk enough to forget but sober enough to walk—the sheriff swung up on the stool next to him.

  “Care if I sit here?”

  “Free country. Don’t matter to me. Long as you pay for your own hooch.”

  “Care to tell me about anything you know?”

  Rosy mulled that one over. “Like what?”

  “About cabins and dead bodies, for one.”

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout that.” Rosy lifted his glass but it was empty. He wondered if the barkeep would give him another splash. He could use one, but he needed gasoline worse than he needed whiskey, if that were possible. Keep his head tied on straight. Maybe he was a fool, but this sheriff wasn’t, at least, not anymore.

  “About Three-Fingered Jack and opium, for another.”

  Rosy scratched his head. “Well, I know the two went together like a horse and carriage.” He giggled to himself. “If you found Three-Fingered Jack, you’d likely find opium, and if you run across opium, you’d likely run across that good-for-nothing on its trail.”

  “That’s what I heard.” Sheriff Azgo had ordered a glass of soda, and he swirled it around like a real drink. He asked for ice, plentiful now that it was winter, so it clinked now and again.

  “Who you hear that from?” Everyone in town knew, but who would talk to the sheriff?

  “Oh, around. Henry, over at the boarding house. Others.”

  “What do you think of that little photographer?” Rosy chuckled. “Quite some girl, don’t you think? ’Course she was probably dreaming up Wild West tales in her sleep. Cute little thing.”

  “How long did Jack stay with you?”

  “Which time?”

  “He stayed more than once?”

  Rosy found one more drop in his glass. “A long time ago. Before me and Lily got hitched.” That was something he could have gone all year and never said to the sheriff.

  “I mean this last week. I dropped the Celestial Ah Kee out there to help a sick man. Jack was gone when you took me to the ranch the other morning. Did he up and recover?”

  While he tried to think what to say, Rosy dug in his pocket for another coin. He needed another jigger. The sheriff tossed two bits on the bar and gestured to the bartender.

  “Thanks, Charlie. I got a powerful thirst. I like my own liquor better, but I run out.” Rosy lifted his glass. “Here’s to Prohibition.” He drank it down in one gulp. “Jack never was one to hold his own with liquor or dope. Or his temper. He got mad and skipped.” He stood up. “Gotta go see a man about a horse.”

  “Rosy, this whole deal is strange. I think you’d be better off if you told me about it. You’ve had a rough few years, what with your eye . . . and all. I’d hate to see you get yourself mixed up in murder and mayhem. Once, you were a solid citizen.”

  Rosy looked back, then away. If he weren’t so drunk, he might take a swing at the sheriff, except the sheriff was a lot younger and stronger. In his haze, Rosy knew the man was just trying to do his job. Everyone thought he’d fail at it anyway.

  “This eye, here,” Rosy said and leaned up close to the sheriff, almost touching his forehead, “it sees things. Like having a leg cut off and feeling it itch and want to run. My eye might look blind, but I can see some things well as a two-eyed bugger.” He steadied himself by gripping the sheriff’s shoulder. “Better maybe, ’cause I can see things in the dark. Things you might not see at all.” He almost fell over.

  The sheriff helped him stay upright. “Go sleep it off, Rosy. But think about it. Right now, I would say you are in a whole ore load of trouble.”

  Rosy swayed, wishing he had something smart to say back. Better to just leave. He carefully placed one foot in front of the other, and returned to the snow.

  The silent snowfall covered the streets and ramshackle buildings. It almost looked like a real town again. The hustle and bustle of ore wagons, miners and townspeople out and about—he missed all that. A couple million sheep might pass through come summer, but it wasn’t the same.

  Rosy wished he could cry, like Gladys. No, she was phony as a three-dollar bill. His bad eye itched sometimes. Maybe he was blind, in both eyes.

  CHAPTER 9

  Franklin and Mabel Olsen were a true Jack Sprat and wife duo. He was also much quieter than she, and said little when Mrs. Olsen hurried her charges through dinner so they wouldn’t be late for the Chautauqua. At first, Nell thought she would not attend, but Mrs. Olsen insisted. “You’ve been stuck in Ketchum for weeks now. You should see some city life here in Twin, and the goings-on at the Chautauqua are just the thing.” She turned to Franklin. “Isn’t that right?” He nodded, probably having learned that edgewise words had to be as skinny as he was.

  “But aren’t Chautauquas summer entertainment? In tents?” Nell did not relish sitting in a tent in mid-winter.

  Frown lines etched Mrs. Olsen’s face. “A real Chautauqua is in the summer. But we’ve got to calling all traveling entertainments and revues by that name. Just seems easier. The high school gymnasium is decorated with bunting and crepe paper, just like the park would be in summer. You’ll feel just like you been to a real Chautauqua, won’t she, Franklin?”

  She didn’t wait for his nod. “And the best thing is the speaker tonight. He’s talking about high moral principles and how the drink tests them and undermines them. Now that we have the demon-rum under control, we need to control how we think about dri
nkers and their sad failings. My land, there’s been more than one man’s life, and woman’s too, ruined by the drink.”

  “All right,” Nell said. “I would like to hear the speaker.” Her mother’s life had been ruined by “the drink.” Nellie’s father’s drinking led directly to his early death and to the debts that her mother tried to pay off by selling everything nice that she had ever owned—a small house, a set of silver goblets, two pieces of jewelry, including her engagement ring and the pearl necklace she’d worn at her wedding. All Nellie could remember of her father were his rages and then his brief charms and finally, his face in the casket, white and not the choleric red when he was angry. Only his watch escaped the creditors because Nellie’s mother had hid it.

  Six of the hotel guests squeezed into Mrs. Olsen’s Ford, which she drove. Franklin hired a car to take himself, Mrs. Ah Kee, and Sammy. One of the other guests explained in a low voice to Nellie how in 1905 the men of Twin Falls had put all the Chinamen out of town and told them never to return. Two finally did and opened a restaurant and then more came. When Nellie inquired of her informant about Mrs. Ah Kee and Sammy, she was told that the woman was fabulously wealthy from the sale of opium at a den in Hailey, and that Sammy was her servant and supplier both. The fire that burned out Chinatown had been set by an opium-eater to destroy a moonshine still. And that wasn’t all, the informant breathlessly continued, Mrs. Ah Kee was said to have four husbands in China and one in Hailey.

  By the time Nellie sat through the magician who made several mistakes but no one seemed to care, the Indian who danced a ceremony called Mating of the Eagle, and the Hawaiian who crooned to the ukulele he played, singing about the beaches of Waikiki and the tropical moon on water—a scene Nell thought might photograph much like the moon on snow—she was ready to sleep. The inspirational speaker announced there were sixteen moonshine operations within one hundred miles of Twin Falls and it was up to his audience to destroy them by refusing to drink the product. If they did not, the evil that might befall the good citizens of Twin Falls, Jerome, Bellevue, Hailey, Ketchum, Carey, Shoshone—he sounded like a train conductor—was their own fault. When he likened the evils of rum and the evils of opium-eating, staring directly at Mrs. Ah Kee, who sat with Sammy in a row in which no one else sat, to the evils of giving women the vote, Nellie stood and walked out. Her action was spontaneous, but several other women followed, including Mrs. Ah Kee.

  “Fool!” The Chinese woman’s voice contained the venom Nellie had seen in her eyes. “A town of fools.”

  Several women congregated by the outside door of the school, chattering and exclaiming about the speaker. Most were matrons dressed in long skirts and button shoes, but they talked like suffragettes. Their expressions were determined, as Nellie and her mother had been when they marched in parades in Chicago, carrying signs and chanting, the one independent action her mother had ever shared with her. Pride filled Nellie again, for her mother, for herself, and for these women. They had gained the vote, and women like Nellie would see that it wasn’t lost.

  “But can you vote?” Nellie asked Mrs. Ah Kee, instantly regretting it.

  Mrs. Ah Kee turned on Nellie with an expression that said, “you stupid toad.” “That man is a fool and will never know it. You are a fool but can learn.” She spoke in unaccented English, but with a cadence that reminded Nellie of the singsong words she had heard in the train. “Whether one can vote or not does not matter. No votes count. The highbrows ignore the will of the people, the lowbrows. Always that has been true. It is no different in this country.”

  “But this is a democracy. We fought a terrible war to remain a democracy. Every single vote does count. And now that women can vote, we will be able to change the direction of the country, to help those in need.”

  Although Mrs. Ah Kee did not say “Fool!” again, Nellie felt it as surely as if she had. She blushed, embarrassed for her childish speech. She had seen politics in Chicago long enough to know that the men in control before the 19th Amendment were still in control.

  Mrs. Ah Kee looked toward the other women before she dropped her voice and asked, “Why do you interfere? You do not know anything of Hailey and Ketchum. Leave. It will not be safe for you if you stay.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I am trying to make a living.” She didn’t owe this Chinese woman any explanations. “I’m a photographer,” she said. “I’m a good photographer. Everyone said the West was the land of opportunity. I plan to open a portrait studio—”

  “Go away. Go to San Francisco.” At that moment, Sammy scurried out of the meeting, and plucked at Mrs. Ah Kee’s sleeve.

  “We go now.” He took her arm and hustled her out the door.

  The crowd began to emerge in twos and threes. “Damn Chinamen. Selling opium to children!”

  “We’ll get up a posse to break them stills apart!”

  “Leave it to the gov’ment. That’s why we pay taxes.”

  “It’s them foreigners’ fault. Think they can steal our minds from us.”

  “And women too with their white slavery.”

  A tide of ill-feeling threatened to bowl Nellie over. She stood her ground, though, as did the other women. In fact, they blocked the door briefly after the Chinese woman and her servant departed.

  “Ladies,” one of the women said. “Stand and sing!” They launched into a suffragette anthem, to the surprise of nearly everyone. Nellie didn’t know the words, but she clapped her hands, and many of the women coming out of the gymnasium began clapping in rhythm too. Soon, the rancor evident at the front of the throng dissipated and turned to weather as people departed the school. Outside, snow fell in flakes the size of goose feathers.

  By the time Nellie joined her group in the motor car, everyone was in high spirits. As they pulled up to the Clarion, Mrs. Olsen said, “Home again, home again, jiggety jig.” Nellie climbed out and entered the house, deciding that women could accomplish more than she had suspected, in out-of-the-way places, in small ways. She didn’t give another thought to Mrs. Ah Kee’s warnings.

  The next morning Nellie arrived at the Levine Portrait Studio eager to use the darkroom. In her pack were her camera, her film holders, print paper in its dark covering, several empty bottles to be filled with developer, and her robe. Inside the studio, another scene was in progress: Sammy confronted Mr. Levine. “My photos ready,” he said, a demand that was obviously untrue. Unlike Mrs. Ah Kee, his accent was quite heavy.

  “No, Sammy. You said they would be ready this morning, but I did not. I have not had time. If you will come by later today, after your noon meal, I will have them.”

  “Need now!” Sammy was not a large man, but the menace in his voice made him seem dangerous. Always before, he had appeared hunched over, but today, he stood tall, on a level with Mr. Levine. The expression on his usually flat face was warlike, a la Genghis Khan.

  The photographer was not intimidated. “They are not ready now. You can have the negatives back, but no one else will be able to develop them before I can.” He shrugged and began to turn to Nellie, who stood with the doorknob still in her hand.

  She motioned with her finger to her lips not to say anything and then quickly backed out of the doorway, hoping Sammy would not see her. What if Mr. Levine handed over the negatives to Sammy and he discovered one was missing! She should return and demand them herself. After all, they were hers. But instinct warned her not to, so she scampered around the corner. Soon, Sammy crossed the street and stormed back toward Mrs. Olsen’s. He carried nothing.

  “What was that all about?” Mr. Levine still held the envelope with the negatives. Relief surged through Nellie, but she would have to tell him something. All night she had thought through the motions of trying to develop a print as fast as possible in his darkroom, assuming she could make him leave on some pretext. It all worked, in theory, until it came time to dry the print. That took time. So did making a second negative from the first.

  “Those negatives are mine,” she sa
id. Honesty was the best policy, although she hoped partial honesty would suffice. If he didn’t know there were three, so much the better. “The ones Sammy brought to you. I don’t know how he got them, but they were stolen from my room in Ketchum.”

  “Yours?” Mr. Levine looked at the envelope in his hand. “But—”

  “One is wheatgrass and aspen in the snow at night, and the second is a full moon and a tumbled-down cabin. I took them.” Nellie stepped toward him. “I’ll show you. They’re not very good, unfortunately.” It was difficult to keep discouragement from her voice, when she knew she needed to exude confidence and expertise. “Maybe you could help me analyze where I made mistakes.”

  Mr. Levine did not put the envelope into Nellie’s outstretched hand, but he did open the flap and bring out the negatives. He held each one to the light. “They are certainly different. Who would have thought to capture moonlight on snow?”

  “The moonshadows intrigued me the most,” Nellie said. “Look at the shadow of the grass.” She moved next to him and used her fingernail to point. He smelled soapy. “That shadow was almost as dark on the white as it would be in daylight, perhaps darker. But I think my exposure time was off. Do you think I could intensify the negative?” So far, he hadn’t said anything about a third negative.

  “Let us go to work and see. I told Sammy I would have contact prints ready for him around noon, not that he knows what a contact print is. We can do the test prints first and see what we can learn.” He led the way from the studio front, past a space already set up for portrait work with electric lights, a chair, and two backdrops—one dark and one light gray—to a door marked DO NOT OPEN—PHOTOGRAPHER AT WORK.

  Inside the darkroom, lit by a central white light in the ceiling with two porcelain holders on each of two walls holding red lights, Nellie saw that it was well-equipped: a sink for rinsing prints and negatives; a counter for trays for developer, stop bath, and fixer; a “dry” counter with enlarger; and, under it, blotters for drying prints. On shelves were bottles with chemicals and packs of dry hypo to make fixer, glass beakers for measuring liquids, a metronome, and a breadbox look-alike that presumably held paper, protecting it from light. At the end of one counter, a metal cabinet with wheels held negatives. She was impressed with Mr. Levine’s cleanliness and organization.