by Julie Weston
From where they stood, Nellie recognized no one. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated once again. Where were the sheriff, her dog, and Gwynn? “Do you recognize anyone?” she whispered to her companion.
In answer, Pearl doused her light, stuffed it in her bag, and strode forward. “Howdy, everyone,” she called. “Thank goodness, we found you!” The gaiety stopped as two of the men and one of the women stood. “We got thrown from our horse. Scared by a polecat. We heard a gunshot and all the laughing and figured we was gonna make it up here alive!” She tittered, an actress through and through. She turned back to Nellie and motioned her forward. “Better think up a name,” she whispered.
Everyone talked at once, but a tall man in a Stetson came forward. “Wal, glad you found us, little lady.”
Nellie recognized Luke’s voice with the questionable southern drawl. The outfitter she’d met her first day in the sheep camp. Would he remember her? And surely, he must know Pearl. They all lived in or around Stanley in the summertime. If he did, he didn’t let on. “Come sit around the fire. You and your friend shouldn’t have been out in these hills alone. We just shot a bear. Scared the cub off into the woods. Likely he’ll grow up to eat wandering ladies like you.”
Pearl managed not to give him a dirty look, instead gushing, “Oh, thank you. We lost all our gear. We’re so hungry we could eat a bear.”
Two women rose to greet them and made room around the fire, retrieving two camp chairs from a stack near one of the tents. They clucked like hens, found two plates, and dished up beans and mystery meat for the wanderers. Nellie accepted her plate and tried not to gobble, nodding and smiling around.
Pearl was doing enough talking for three people, describing an encounter with a mountain lion, being chased through the woods, losing their lovely horse—a true ’Paloosa that belonged to her uncle and how angry he would be, maybe they could go search for it in the morning—stumbling through the dark, falling into the creek, being frightened half to death by the gunshot. Nellie quit listening and studied the people around her. Luke was the only one she recognized. He listened, and she could not tell from his expression whether he believed the story or not.
“Then you’re not the lost woman the sheriff was here asking about,” Luke said, cutting into the flow. “He didn’t say there was two.”
“Where is he?” Nell asked, realizing too late how abrupt she sounded. “We saw an automobile down the road a ways and wondered if the owner would ever get back.”
Pearl cast daggers with her eyes. “Sure did. But we didn’t know if it had been abandoned or not and we didn’t want to wait all alone in the dark. Why, we heard growls and rustles and banshees, I can tell you.” And she was off on another story. The women at the fire hung on every word, as did one or two of the men. A fairly portly gentleman fetched coffee for Nell and Pearl, asked if they were cold, and rounded up two blankets to put around their shoulders. He took extra time with Pearl, which she played to the hilt, grabbing his hand and thanking him, “Kind sir!”
Nell wandered over toward the man with the pile of fur, but veered off when she realized he was cleaning and skinning the bear. In the firelight, she saw horses rounded up in a makeshift corral off to one side of the meadow, but it was too dark for her to venture there. Mostly, she wanted to lie down and sleep.
Luke joined her at the edge of the group around the fire. “Aren’t you that sheep lady I met a couple weeks ago?”
Not sure just exactly how to respond, Nell said, “Sheep lady? What makes you say that? Do I smell like sheep?” She laughed, feeling as phony as Pearl sounded.
“You sure look familiar.” He wasn’t going to let it go. “I thought I met you at a camp down the canyon. There you were, tending sheep all alone.” He smiled and his eyes reflected the yellow flames.
“Oh, yes, I visited the sheep camp back a while. Were you the one leading tourists through? This night has been so . . . so discombobulating, I can’t remember much of anything. Do you have a spare tent the two of us could use? I’m very tired.” If she could just get some sleep, she could figure out what to do next. The sheriff had not returned to his car. Had he been waiting, hidden in the woods? If so, he now knew where Nellie was and that she was with Pearl.
“Hank,” Luke called, startling Nellie with his loud voice. “Did you bring up a tent with the other gear?”
An affirmative answer came back. Luke turned to Nell. “We had some additional guests come up in an auto this afternoon. They packed in more gear. O’Donnell seems to think we can’t get our fill of greenhorns up here.” He snorted. “We’ll round up something for you two. A couple of the men can get a feel for the ‘real West,’ sleepin’ on the ground.”
So the Model T didn’t hold moonshiners, just more eastern adventurers. O’Donnell. The man in the saloon with Gwynn. He was a cattle rancher. Did he also run “greenhorns,” as Luke called them? A man of many interests.
Before long, another tent joined the line behind the fire, a little off because the ground had swelled next to the last one. Soon, all the campers had left the fire and retreated to their tents, except the two men who agreed to sleep under the stars. They acted gallantly, saying they didn’t mind at all, and after all, wasn’t that the true Western experience, just like cowboys on the open range? Pearl snorted as she rolled herself into the blankets Luke had brought to them.
Nellie never found a way to bring up the sheriff again, although she heard two of the women campers mention how handsome and friendly he had been. Nell would never have called Charlie Azgo friendly, so he must have been acting like Pearl did: adopting a facade to get what he wanted. Where had he gone? And where was her dog? One of the outfitters mentioned another lake farther along the trail, about a mile away. She couldn’t follow it in the night, not even with the aid of moonlight, but in the morning, she vowed to wake herself early enough to explore. She assured herself with one foot that her camera lay near her. Her companion snored slightly, but it didn’t keep Nellie awake.
True to her word, Nell woke up and inched toward the flap. Outside, light barely illuminated the camp—the tents, the dead fire, long lumps near it. Steam rose from the lake or, more likely, fog. As quietly as she could, she eased out the canvas opening and stood up. Across the lake and above it, rock ramparts like medieval castles guarded the cirque in which she stood. What she wouldn’t give to be able to photograph the scene. Her celluloid film was ruined, but she carried several rolls of unexposed film she had hoped to experiment with, using the new roll film back for large-format camera. Her camera—it lay in the tent. If she tried to get it, she might awaken Pearl.
The outlines of the camp were filling in as dawn approached. Nell made her way to the trail on which she and Pearl had entered the camp, passing near the horses. To her dismay, a figure stepped out to meet her.
“You looking for the facilities?” he asked. It was one of the hands, the same one who had been skinning the bear.
“Yes, please.”
The man pointed along the path she was following and told her to veer right. There were outhouses for the accommodation of the campers, one for women and one for men. He spoke quietly and went back toward the horses, to Nellie’s relief.
Horse droppings led the way along a trail she hoped would take her to the other lake. If the sheriff and Moonie weren’t at this camp, they may have tried the upper lake, knowing Nell’s auto sat at the end of the road. Night overtook them and they camped out themselves. The air chilled her and she wished she had brought along one of the blankets to wrap around her shoulders. Brisk walking soon achieved what she needed, warmth. Her footsteps along the rutted dirt and rocky path sounded loud in the morning stillness and startled several deer grazing in another meadow along the way. A rocky cirque in the distance suggested where the upper lake might be, but it did not draw closer as she continued. Maybe it was more than a mile.
A low, dark animal appeared out of the woods in front of her. The darkness of the trees in the fai
nt early light obscured her vision of it. Was it the cub and would it attack? She stopped. Turning and fleeing back to the camp wasn’t a good option. Thanks to Alphonso, she already knew that running away would cause a wild animal to give chase. This one hadn’t seen her yet, she was sure. If she stepped off the trail and hid, it might pass on by. It could smell her humanness, though, reminding her of how dirty she felt. She couldn’t remember the last time she had washed.
A larger shadow loomed up behind the low one. Fright welled up, raising hackles on her neck and gooseflesh on her arms. She took two steps sideways and stumbled over a root. As she fell, the lower shadow leaped toward her. With raised arms, Nellie protected her face and head and hunched over, waiting to be ripped into shreds by curved talons or razor-sharp teeth.
CHAPTER 12
A wet tongue lapped at Nellie’s hands. She moved them and Moonshine licked her face and wiggled with pleasure. “Moonie!” Nell trembled as she wrapped her arms around her dog, overwhelmed with relief and release of fear. When Sheriff Azgo stepped into her line of sight, she almost leaped at him. He held her close, saying nothing, letting her calm down. Moonshine barked once, but at a motion from the man, sat on his haunches and opened his mouth but kept quiet. He might have been smiling.
“You’re all right,” the sheriff said, in a half-question, half-statement.
Nellie nodded. Words flooded her head, but what came out surprised both of them. “I know who killed Domingo.” She stood away from Charlie. “I mean, I don’t know, but Pearl knows. It’s someone from the moonshine group. That’s who took me. Where did you find Moonie? I was sure he drowned in the river. I should never have named him Moonshine, now that I know how evil those people are, and how filthy, and—. My bag! Did you find it under the bed? My exposed film is in there.
“Where were you? How did you know I needed a room? Pearl helped me escape. She’s back at the camp and I have to return. I can’t let those men think she—. Where’s Gwynn? Is he all right? Do you have the ignition key for my auto? Can you start it? I’ve been trying to find Alphonso. Where did we take him that night?”
The sheriff waited until her stream of questions ran down. He walked her along the trail until they reached a downed log and then he sat her down. “First, Gwynn is fine. He stayed with the auto at the beginning of the trail. You must not have seen him, or he you. Next, I found Moonshine down the river from Stanley several miles. He either swam or was carried by the current, but pulled himself out. He was tired, but fine, and he’s been with me ever since. Now, it sounds as if you didn’t drive yourself up here.”
“No. I was taken from the roadhouse in the middle of the night. One of the moonshiners put me in the boot of a motor vehicle and they took me up the road to their camp. It’s somewhere near our first sheep camp.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I don’t know for certain. Someone wrapped a blanket around my head and then struck me. When Pearl opened the boot, she was mad as blazes. The men in the camp were Dick Goodlight, Wolfman Pitts—” she shuddered but continued, “—and two other outlaw-types. There was another man near the sedan that carried me, but I never saw him and I didn’t recognize his voice.” Doubt crept into Nellie. Had she recognized that voice? “They brought my camera because they wanted the photos I took. I gave them my blank film. Did you find my bag?”
The light was bright enough for Nellie to see the sheriff smile. “Yes. It was under the bed. Probably a good thing. I found a box in it—”
“You didn’t open it, did you?”
“And violate all the stern warnings of ‘DO NOT OPEN’? Of course not. I sent it off to Jacob Levine in Twin Falls. I didn’t want to be responsible for it.” He raised his hands in mock horror.
“Laugh, now, Charlie, but when that film gets developed, we will know who murdered Domingo, I’m certain of it. Wolfman Pitts is probably the murderer. He was going to—” No need to go into that yet. “The men at the moonshine camp left to deliver their, their ‘hooch’ and that night Pearl and I escaped. We’ve been traveling this way ever since. I wanted to find either the campout or Alphonso.”
“Didn’t you see or hear me along the road? I saw your sign. That’s how I knew what direction to follow. Otherwise, I would have stopped and turned around.”
“We saw you, but Pearl said she’d shoot Moonie if I made a sound. She thinks if she’s seen with you, the moonshiners will do something terrible to her. They all think you’re out here to find the illegal still and shut it down, that you’re in cahoots with the revenuers.” Nellie shut her mouth. She was beginning to sound like one of them. “They killed the other sheriff already. Domingo must have found their operation, too, and maybe threatened one of them.”
“Domingo would have joined in,” the sheriff said. “He liked his liquor too much. More likely, he didn’t pay for what he drank.”
“And they’d shoot him for that?”
“Maybe. Now,” he said, standing up. “What are we going to do with you and your dog? And Pearl?”
“Our plan was to find the tourist group, stick with them, and return with them. Then, Pearl won’t be in trouble with Dick and the others. She’ll say I escaped and she followed and stuck with me. Once we get back, I can return to Ketchum. She can do what she wants.”
Sheriff Azgo lifted his hand to stop Nell, but she kept going. “In the meantime, I’m fairly certain I can find out who killed Domingo and I can get that information to you. If you do want to shut down the liquor operation, I can tell you where it is. But there’s that other man. Pearl knows him. Maybe I can get that information, too. I’ll be a sleuth for you.”
“I want you to come back with me.”
“No! Then Pearl will be in real trouble. Without her—She rescued me and I can’t desert her now.” She rubbed Moonshine’s neck and ears. “The still lies next to the creek in a bend that dips back a long ways from the road on one end and isn’t too far from the road as it turns toward where Alphonso and I were camped, but it’s lower, not higher. At least I think that’s the case. There are only evergreens and no aspen trees in the immediate vicinity. Maybe they’ve used them all to keep the fire going under the, the pot.”
“And if Goodlight and Pitts and the others catch up with you? What then?” He wouldn’t be deterred from scaring her.
Even the thought of the one man frightened Nellie. Pitts was an animal. “We’ll be with the tourists and the outfitters. That should be safe enough.” She sounded confident, but she didn’t feel that way. Pearl had a gun; Nellie wished she did, too. Asking the sheriff for his didn’t seem like a good idea.
Sheriff Azgo held out his hand and Nellie took it. She’d held his hand before, but she knew he offered it to bring her to her feet. His skin was warm, his fingers rough with calluses, as if he worked physically as well as mentally.
“You should know this about Domingo’s death, Nellie. The bullet to his head came from a rifle, so whoever did it was a distance from him. You saw how roughed up he was. Either before or after he was shot, I believe he was pulled by a rope behind a horse in heavy brush, probably sagebrush. There were rope burns around his wrists. Whoever killed him, tortured him as well. If Pearl knows the murderer, she also knows about the rest, is my guess. Maybe she rescued you. Maybe there was a plan to get rid of you in the forest where you’d never be found.”
Sobering thoughts, but Nellie believed the sheriff was wrong about Pearl. There had been many chances for Pearl to “get rid” of her along the way. The only threat had been to Moonshine. Still, so far they had not been followed. The reason might be to give Pearl time to do her job. Nellie knew she herself was naive about people she met in Idaho.
The morning light had grown stronger while they talked. “If I’m going to get back before the others are up, I’d better go.”
“You’re too late. The hands will have breakfast ready, so you better think of something to explain yourself. I’ll let you return, but not without Moonshine. He can be your guard until you get
back down to the valley. Gwynn or I will be waiting for you, either at the Rocking O or at the saloon in Stanley.”
“The Rocking O? Why there?”
“O’Donnell loans out the horses for the campouts, for a price, and some of his hands work as outfitters—not for him, but to make ends meet. He’s not a generous man when it comes to wages. He brings people in from the East from time to time to pretend like they’re cowboys. I don’t know what his game is there.” They began to walk back toward the camp. “The outfitters will likely take the tourists back to the Rocking O to return the horses.”
“My auto. I forgot about it. How will I get it back to the highway?” She didn’t want to lose her means of transportation.
“Gwynn and I will take care of that.”
“But the ignition key—”
“We’ll take care of it. But if the moonshine gang sees us driving it, that may not be good for you and Pearl. It must have been one of them that drove it up here in the first place.” He placed a hand on Nellie’s shoulder. “Nell, I do not believe this is a good idea.”
“Leave the automobile there, then. We can drive it down to Stanley later.” Later, she meant, when all the mysteries were solved and the bad people were jailed and she was safe and Pearl was safe. “Now, go.” Then she left the secure feeling his hand on her gave her, and ran lightly toward camp, calling Moonie to come.
As soon as she saw a person, she shouted. “Look. I found Moonshine!” She ran a few more steps. “Pearl, I found my dog!”
