Moonscape Read online

  They were perched at the bottom of a steep slope, black and red and bare. The few trees and shrubs around the base didn’t extend up. “Where’s the Big Sink?” Nellie asked.

  “Take a hike up yonder. You’ll see. Don’t fall in.” Rosy packed their gear on the horse.

  Nellie climbed. And climbed until she reached a steep incline down the other way. Before her lay a giant crater, aptly named. It was hundreds of yards across and dry as a bone. At the inside base, a circular field of flat rock looked as if it could hold an army of tents and men. A movement caught at the corner of her eye. A short way around the arc, two marmots chased each other, their fur golden. One stopped and whistled, then disappeared into an animal tunnel or hole. She turned to watch Charlie and Rosy far below. Camp had almost disappeared, and they were ready to begin the search again. Rosy whistled and gestured to her. “C’mon down!”

  This day, Nell planned to stay close. Photographs be damned. As they marched along, she remembered she had hoped to investigate what she thought she saw the night before. Too late. A skein of wild geese flew over them, honking. Small birds flitted in swoops in front of them, as if leading the way. Nell kept looking around for more animals, hoping to catch sight of another lizard or chipmunk or marmot. The lava fields appeared alive this morning with animal and plant life. They strode alongside a field filled with the lava bombs. Some had cracked tops; others formed into spirals and other bizarre shapes. Crunchy cinders reflected light in prisms, tossing off millions of miniature rainbows. The brief spate of rain the night before made everyone happy, even their trio.

  They continued south and slightly west. As the early morning passed, the heat began to gather. Soon, they were shedding coats. Nell tied a scarf around the top of her head. “Do you know where you’re going, Rosy?” she called to him.

  “Yup, I do. The tree molds should be turnin’ up soon. They look like clay had been wrapped around trees, and then the trees—poof—disappeared. Burned up, I’d say. You might want to take some pitchers.”

  The trio entered an area with evergreens and shrubs, the latter either bare of leaves or with some orange and yellow remnants, soon to be gone, too. Along the ground were several trenches—tree molds. Bark imprinted on the encircling lava looked as Rosy described. Nellie squatted to touch the patterns. They felt like, and were, stone.

  “Are you going to stay around this area? I’ll take a few photos if you are. Otherwise, I’ll stick close to you two.”

  “There’s no caves right here,” Rosy said. “We can scout for footprints, but that rain last night mighta scoured everything clean. I’ll go on up ahead, Charlie. You look around here.”

  The light wasn’t right to get much definition on the tree molds. Nell tried, but eventually lost interest and turned her attention to the surrounding area. There was what looked like an island of trees, shrubs, even grass to the west, but she was reluctant to walk away. Charlie was in sight, but farther along a path, and Rosy was nowhere to be seen. The horse was once again tied to a stout shrub. Moonshine sat in the shade of one of the tree molds, licking at his front paw. The leather cover had dropped off.

  While she was deciding what to do, Moonshine stood up and growled. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. “What’s wrong, Moonie?” Nell glanced around but saw nothing unusual.

  Her dog barked and then ran off in the direction where Rosy had walked away. “Moonie, come back!” Charlie tried to stop him, but the dog turned and ran toward the island, barking and growling. Then she saw what he had seen or heard—a huge cat. A mountain lion. “Oh no! Moonshine! Come here!” She began to run after him. Charlie caught up to her and grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t get in that fight,” he said. He dashed forward himself and scooped up one of the smaller lava bombs. He threw it at the lion, narrowly missing its head. The animal stopped short, swung to look toward Charlie, who threw another, smaller missile, again just missing, but scuffing at its feet. Moonshine stopped, too.

  Nell followed Charlie’s lead and picked up a much smaller stone. Her aim was truer. It smacked the lion on its nose. Outnumbered by man, woman, and dog, the lion turned and ran back to the island, where it disappeared in the brush.

  “Moonshine! You might have been hurt. Were you protecting us?” Nell sank to her knees and pulled the dog to her. “And look at your sore paw. Sit still, and I’ll tie a scarf around it.” She pulled the scarf off her head and wrapped it securely around the front paw. The other leather pouches still held.

  “I am going to that area with trees and brush. You stay here and wait for Rosy. He should be back soon. And then we will return to the road. The rain ruined any prints around here, if there were any at all.” Charlie began to walk away. He turned back toward her. “Your rock did the trick.”

  Nell waited with Moonie until Rosy returned. “Nothin’.” She told him where Charlie had gone and about the skirmish with the mountain lion. She wanted to get back to Ketchum to develop her photographs. There were so many, she might have to travel to Twin Falls to print them, using the dark room belonging to Jacob Levine, the photographer she first met the previous winter. She had not worked for him much during the summer and could use the extra money. Her own facilities were still so limited, although she had been searching for a place to set up a proper dark room with the right equipment. The money she had earned from her photos for the railroad would buy the most expensive piece of equipment, an enlarger. The trays, lights, and chemicals would be cheaper, and maybe Jacob would give her items he had discarded.

  When Charlie returned he said he found a possible campsite, but he could not tell how old it was. There had been a fire round and some broken branches stacked for burning. It could have been there for months or for days. The storm had licked up any better signs of occupation. “Take us to the road, Rosy. We can always come back later, but I think we have found what we are going to find.”

  “There’s one more cave—not too far from this side of the Big Sink—along the slope near the jagged top mountain, close to a smaller cinder mountain with a huge crack in it. Do you wanta check on it? It’s been a long time since I was there. Mighta fallen in by now.”

  Nell thought the sheriff looked tired and discouraged. She knew that was how she felt. Two bodies. No obvious answers. A possible third one somewhere in these wild places, surely one of the women based on Mayor Tom’s description of the people who disappeared.

  “How far out of our way to return to the road?”

  “Not so far. We gotta head kinda that way anyway.”

  The sheriff nodded. He picked up the lead on the horse and followed Rosy. Once again, Nell took up the rear. Moonie stayed with her, limping on his scarfed paw.

  CHAPTER 13

  Goldie didn’t want Esther along at the hot springs but couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her away. She wanted time alone with the boys. As it turned out, she didn’t get time alone anyway. Goldie had forgotten, if she ever knew, that men and women bathed separately in different pools—women with clothes on and men buck-naked. Campbell wanted to stay with the women, and Matt didn’t want to go alone with the men.

  All four stood in a quandary while a clerk waited impatiently to pass out towels and shepherd the boys to the men’s pool. Campbell held Goldie’s hand.

  “Let’s just go back home,” Esther said. “I don’t want Matt going in there all alone. Who knows what goes on?” She huffed at the idea of “all those men” being naked. Goldie doubted there were many men at all. She asked the clerk.

  “Just two or three,” he offered and named two people Goldie knew. The third one was Peter Banks, the man who brought the orphan to her.

  “Can I send in a note with Matt?” Goldie asked. When the clerk nodded, she wrote a short piece asking one of the men, Bert the butcher, to keep an eye on Matt and sent him off. “Campbell can come with us,” she told the clerk in a tone that brooked no argument.

  In the women’s pool, where almost a dozen women enjoyed the heat, all wore
costumes of various vintage: Some wore short dresses; some wore jersey union-type suits; some seemed to be dressed in men’s swim suits with a form-fitting top and tight breeches to the knees. Several women floated lazily or sat on benches around the sides. Campbell wore short pants and played water games in the shallow end. One woman, less covered than anyone, floated close to the wall separating the sexes. She stopped from time to time and tried to peek through what looked like chinks in the wall. Esther stood and pointed her out to Goldie. “I swan. That woman is trying to look at the men!”

  Goldie didn’t care. She watched Campbell and from time to time tossed a ball back to him that he had thrown into the water. When she looked up, the woman, who must have heard Esther, moved away from her peeking with flushed cheeks. Goldie did not know her, which was a little unusual in itself. She had a nodding acquaintance with everyone else. On weekends in the fall, people usually came from Boise to take the waters, but this was a quiet Saturday. More would arrive in the late afternoon.

  After an hour in the mineral baths, Goldie sent Campbell to fetch Matt, while she and Esther changed from their put-together swimming outfits into street clothes. Still no boys when they moved into the lobby area. After another while, Goldie asked the clerk to retrieve the boys. Again, the women waited. At last, Matt and Campbell came running out with Peter Banks. At the same time, the curious woman entered the lobby, dressed in a long, black dress. She walked up to Peter as he was greeting Goldie and latched onto his arm.

  “I hope you haven’t waited long.” Her lips mouthed an air kiss, and she stood as close to him as she could get without devouring him.

  “We had a great time! Mr. Banks played ball with us, and we raced from one end to the other! We chased it, pretending we were black Labs!” They play-acted their activities in the pool.

  Peter smiled at the clinging vine but loosed his arm and stepped away. “Mrs. Bock. Were you able to find assistance?” No mention of the baby.

  “Yes.” If he was going to be cryptic, so would she be.

  “Assistance with what?” asked the vine. “My name is Euphemia. What’s yours?” Her voice was high-pitched and sounded almost like a child’s. Peter turned to look at the woman but said nothing.

  “I’m Mrs. Bock.” Goldie shushed the boys, glared at Esther, and turned to go. So, the man who found the baby was not alone and, even more, apparently had a wife, or maybe a sister. Maybe the child was hers, although her straight figure did not seem to have been enceinte recently. Hard to tell.

  But Esther stayed to talk. “I’m Esther Kipling. Maybe you know my brother, Ross. Some people call him Rosy.” She threw a glower in Goldie’s direction. “We have recently moved from Chicago with my two nephews, Matt and Campbell.” The boys joined her, then romped off to the front lawn of the Guyer Hotel. “Are you from here—you and your husband?”

  “She’s not—”

  “Peter is not my husband, are you, dear. He’s just a good friend. We came up from San Francisco to enjoy the waters. I have an arthritic condition, and the minerals are helping me.”

  “Are you staying here?” Esther wasn’t bashful about her own curiosity. “I’ve never been to California.”

  “And I’ve never been to Chicago. Do you live in town here? It doesn’t seem like much of a place to live. It looks abandoned, almost a ghost town—all except for this lovely lodge.”

  Mrs. Bock admired Esther for her blunt snooping but had work to do. “We’re leaving, Esther. Are you coming with us?” She turned. “Boys. We’re going home.”

  “Can Mr. Banks come too?” Matt called.

  “No, your father should be home tomorrow. He can bring you out here again another day.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Unlike the other caves, this one alongside the cracked mountain opened under a lip in a circle of rock that looked like a small crater. There was an opening on one end that didn’t go anywhere. On the other side, like the other caves, a rock fall impeded their entrance, but the afternoon light coming from the west shone in much further. There was no warning that this one might be the cause of disaster, until, on the way down, the sheriff leaped from one unstable rock to another. As he landed, the stone surface split, and his fall tumbled him down into the tunnel.

  “Charlie!” Nellie scrambled across the rock fall as fast as she dared. Rosy was already in front of her. Moonie was quickest and scooted down on his paws until he could stand next to the sheriff, who didn’t move. Rosy reached the bottom and called back.

  “Stay there! You’ll cause other rocks to fall.” He turned toward the sheriff.

  Nell could see Rosy crouch down, touch the sheriff’s head, then feel along his limbs. Moonie stood still, as if he knew any movement would cause trouble.

  The shadows lengthened. When the sun dipped behind a nearby broken rock wall, a chill seeped across the face of the lava and flowed down to where they were, Nellie on top, the two men and dog in the darkest part.

  “Is he all right?” Nellie’s voice quavered. “What can I do?” She wanted to scramble down, too, but that would only change the position of her helplessness.

  “Got to keep Charlie warm,” Rosy yelled up. “Get my blankets.”

  “All right.” Nellie hurried back out of the cave, slipped herself, and slowed down. Two hurt people could be a catastrophe. At the horse, she untied Rosy’s bedroll, grabbed a canteen, and looked for a flashlight. Her batteries were dead. Not there. Rosy and Charlie carried both. She did find matches in a saddlebag and grabbed a dead branch as she carried her load to the top of the hole.

  “Is he awake yet?”

  “Comin’ ’round. Broken leg.”

  Oh no, Nellie thought. “I’m rolling your bed roll down. I have a canteen, too.” The bedroll slipped a ways and stopped. Nellie prodded it with the branch, and it rolled close enough for Rosy to climb up and retrieve. “I’ll throw the canteen. Watch yourself.” She aimed it just short of Rosy and hit her target. He took a huge swig and held it up to Charlie’s mouth.

  “Do you have a flashlight?”

  Rosy had taken off his pack and laid it aside. “Yup, if it still works.”

  “I can gather wood and build a fire up here—or come down and do it there.”

  “No room. Stay there. Gotta think what to do.”

  Charlie groaned.

  Oh no, oh no. “We have a rope,” she called. “I’ll see if it’s long enough to stretch from the horse.” She picked her way out again. The light was leaving the cave area, and she had to be more careful than before. She untied the horse and brought it as close to the cave entrance as she could. There was a good-sized rock in the circle that might hold a rope. The other piece of luck was the loop still tied at the end of the rope. She placed it over the saddle horn, used the reins to link the horse to the rock, and then unrolled the rope as she stepped over one rock and another on her way back to the hole. There were three loops left, maybe just barely enough to reach Charlie.

  “I’m not sure it’s long enough.” All her exertion brought Nellie to a cold sweat, and the rope length almost drove her to tears. “Wait. I’ll see if I can get the horse in closer.”

  “Don’t break its leg,” Rosy shouted. “Then we’ll really be in a pickle.”

  Back at the cave entrance, Moonie joined Nellie. She cleared a path as best she could so she could lead the horse closer to the hole. The horse did not want to go. Nellie held the horse’s head and talked to it. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay. We need your help.” She couldn’t even remember the horse’s name. Gradually, it took one step and then two. Moonie nudged the horse’s front legs. Nellie pulled gently, wanting instead to jerk it ahead. Back again to Rosy and Charlie. “Is that any better?”

  Rosy grunted and pulled Charlie up several feet inside of the hole, swearing and breathing hard. “All right now. I’m going to tie the rope around his chest. Then get the horse to pull back— slow as can be. Can you do that?”

  I’ll try, Nellie mouthed to herself. At the horse, Nellie kept
a hand on the rope loop on the saddle horn. If the animal spooked, she would have to get it off as quickly as possible, or Charlie would be pulled across the rocks. She couldn’t even imagine what damage that would do. The horse stepped back, stopped, stepped back, and stopped. Nelly hugged its neck lightly. She wanted to call to Rosy but didn’t want to frighten the horse. Another three steps back. Then the horse seemed to stumble. Nellie pressed her face to its neck. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Hold still. I’ve got you. It’s okay.” The animal calmed, but a shudder ran through its head and down its neck. Nellie and the horse reached the crater’s edge. Moonshine sat beside it as Nellie released the loop, tied the horse to another rock, and rushed back to the cave entrance. “Rosy? Are you up yet? I released the rope. Should I put it back?” She waited. “Rosy?”

  “You’ll bust my ears,” he said, almost beside her. She jumped and then grabbed him for a hug. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “I’ve got him above the hole and propped up against a rock. Blankets are all tucked around him. Got to find a splint of some sort, so we can move him onto this flat crater area.”

  “Moonshine, go sit with Charlie.” The dog left his perch beside the horse and trotted over to Charlie above the rocks at the cave entrance. “Keep him warm,” she called. She looked around and so did Rosy. Other than the dead branch Nellie had carried in earlier, neither found a straight stick or tree limb. “I know. My tripod. We can use that.” She hurried back to where she had left her camera and pack and opened the leather case. She pulled out the wood three-legged tripod and released one of the legs, feeling a twinge inside, briefly, and returned to Rosy. “You can tie this to his leg. Where is the break?”

  “Lower leg, thank god. Upper woulda been real bad. This way, I think I can get him on the horse. I need another piece to tie to both sides of his leg. Without a good splint, he’ll be in real trouble.” Rosy’s face sagged with lines of worry all over it.