by Julie Weston
“What do we do now?” Nellie directed her question at Luke, who was already dragging the body by its arms over toward Hank’s horse, who shied away. “Hold that nag still. We gotta take this madman back to town. May as well be you.” Hank dismounted and helped Luke roll the body over and lift him across the back of the horse. His curled lip showed what he thought of his assigned task. Luke continued. “I’ll get the girls on my horse and walk back with them. Don’t take the damned . . . darned body into camp. No need to scare everybody. Keep an eye out. This son-of-a . . . so-and-so don’t usually travel alone. For one thing, he’s got a half-dog, half-wolf that’ll kill you.”
While the men performed their task, Nellie rounded up her camera pack and stuck the gun into a side pocket, strapping it shut. Her arm hurt and she saw that it oozed blood along the line where the knife cut. She needed to get it wrapped. She exchanged glances with Pearl, who picked up her satchel, hefting it to show how light it was now. “I’ll walk,” she said.
Nellie found the long flashlight, its glass broken and the mechanism probably useless, and handed it to Pearl. Luke’s warning to Hank finally penetrated. She glanced toward the woods from which Wolfman had leaped onto the rock. Were Dick and the others out there? Maybe one of them had shot Pitts, not wanting to create more trouble for themselves than they were in already. All she could see were the trunks of trees and the whitish remnants that littered the forest wherever they traveled. If other men skulked in the woods, they were gone now. “I’ll ride,” Nell announced to Luke. He helped her mount, wanting her to give him her camera pack, which she refused to do, while she stood with one leg on his cupped hands and, when he lifted, swung her other leg over the horse’s back. This horse was taller than any she had ever ridden, but as they began to move down the trail, she discovered it was also the most comfortable, like riding in a rocking-chair.
Hank led the group and moved at a faster pace, soon disappearing around bends in the trail. His burden’s legs and arms flapped and it was a relief to see him go. Luke walked beside Nellie; Pearl strode along the other side. Nellie’s arm throbbed and she wished she could bind it up soon. Although the ride was smooth, she felt blood run, then stop, then run again.
As soon as Hank was out of sight, Luke reached for the horse’s bridle and stopped the procession. “You better tell me what happened. That was Wolfman Pitts. Pearl knows him, so don’t pretend you don’t. That cock-and-bull story last night about falling off a horse and losing your way didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t. What’s going on?”
Nellie avoided looking at Pearl. Each waited for the other to speak. Neither did. “Are you both involved in the moonshine operation? Are they after you because of that?”
“Moonshine?” Nellie said.
“Moonshine!” Pearl said.
The dog barked. He had been following the horse and trotted now to the front of the line. “I don’t know anything about moonshine,” Nellie said quickly, “except for my dog here. That’s his name. What we told you last night was true. We were lost in the woods. But I knew there was a dude campout going on up this road, so we searched for you and we found you!”
“The sheriff was looking for you, Miss Burns. You two don’t fool me.” Luke eyed Nellie for a moment. “You can keep it to yourself for now, but you killed a man back there. You’re gonna have to answer to the law for that one, even if you murdered him in self-defense. There ain’t no witnesses but you. I can tell the sheriff what you looked like—like a wild animal attacked you—but you better be thinking about how this happened. And where you found that gun.” He glanced over at Pearl. “And the two of you better get your stories straight. Right now, I’d say there’s a bunch of holes in them.” He released the bridle and began walking. His horse followed, and the three of them spoke not another word until they reached camp. Then Luke muttered, “Damn! Now you tell these dudes that you fell off a rock into the lake or some such and scraped yourself up good. I don’t want them scared and tellin’ their friends not to come here.”
Nellie suspected that the tourists would be thrilled with a story of what really happened and that would attract even more tourists, hoping for an adventure of their own. But she followed Luke’s orders, as did Pearl. Soon, the women were treating Nellie’s arm with an ointment—Mrs. Pinkham’s Treatment—and binding up her arm, and in truth, it helped. The bleeding stopped, as did the throbbing. Around the campfire, she spun a tale about exploring the shore, standing on a rock, hearing a huge bear behind her, and falling in. Pearl swore there was no bear, that it was only she looking for berries to eat, and the two of them bantered back and forth. One of the hands told a ghost story, and soon enough, everyone had retired to their respective tents, except for the two men who were supposed to sleep on the ground. Nellie wondered if they regretted their gallantry, especially when it began to rain as she settled into her blanket. The candle she had lit and placed just inside the tent flap comforted her; she was reluctant to blow it out. Pearl rolled herself into her blanket and faced away from Nellie, not saying a word.
“We’ve got to talk about this, Pearl. As Luke said, we’d better get our stories straight.”
“What stories? You killed Wolfman Pitts. You said it yourself, or so I understand that’s what you did.” She didn’t turn around.
“That’s your gun. You shot him and then ran around the lake. I said it to protect you.”
“Protect me?” Pearl rolled half over to give Nellie a fish-eye stare. Her face was gaunt and almost menacing in the flickering light. “Don’t make me laugh. All you’ve done is cause trouble for me ever since you first took my picture at the saloon.”
“I’ve caused you trouble? You and those deadbeat bandits you hang around with stole me away, destroyed my film, nearly killed Moonshine, and scared the life half out of me. You’ve got your nerve.” What had started out as a whisper had strengthened into a normal voice and was verging on a shout.
“Dick is not a deadbeat bandit. Besides, now you know who killed Domingo. Wolfman Pitts.” Pearl’s voice was none too quiet, either.
“What? You said you did it.”
In the silence that followed, both women realized their words could carry all through the camp. Maybe the raindrops muffled their argument. Nell hoped so. She listened to see if anyone stirred or talked in the other tents, but all seemed quiet. Her eyes ached and her arm had begun to throb again. So, now she was a self-admitted murderer, and Pearl was going to lie her way out of everything. Perhaps that was what poetic justice meant. Nell had certainly tried to murder the evil man by stabbing him in the back.
Moonshine, who had laid down just outside the tent flap, whined softly and his paws crept under the canvas. Nell lifted the flap and whispered, “Moonie. Come sleep with me.”
“I don’t want that damn dog in here,” Pearl whispered.
“Too bad. He’s in and he’s staying. Just in case your criminal friends come back. With luck, he’ll tear one of their hearts out.” Nellie placed the camera pack against her stomach with her arms around it. Then she remembered. “You said you killed Domingo. Convenient, isn’t it? That Wolfman Pitts is lying there dead and your story changes?”
No response.
In spite of the nightmare afternoon, Nellie fell asleep to the lullaby of the rain thrffting on the canvas and did not dream.
The next morning when Nellie awoke, Pearl was already up and out. Nell patted her camera pack to make sure the gun was still there. It was. Moonshine was also gone. Sunlight spilled through the tent flap and the smell of bacon frying brought her fully awake. She pulled on her boots, wincing when her arm protested against its use, and joined a group around the campfire.
One of the women asked after her injury, insisted on seeing it, and decided to reclean and resalve it, once again binding it, but more loosely this time. She informed Nellie that all the women were going down a day early so the men could go farther into the mountains hunting for elk. No one seemed to mind, least of all the chatty inform
ant who explained they would be visiting Stanley to see a “real” saloon and stay at a roadhouse along the river. Beds sounded more alluring than sleeping on the ground. She assumed Nellie and Pearl would accompany them and Nellie let that assumption stand. She certainly intended to keep with the group from now on. Pearl could go to hell in her own way.
One of the hands brought over two metal plates heaped with food. She sat on one of the stump seats and ate every bit, wiping up leftover egg yolk with cowboy bread. The thick coffee stimulated her, and she felt much better than the night before. Even her arm felt as if it were healing. The slant of early-morning light caught the smoke from the firepit as it drifted up and over the lake, hanging like a small, blue cloud. The castle ramparts glowed gold and impregnable and Nellie almost wished she were going on the hunt, but not quite. Killing animals for food was one thing; killing them for sport quite another. Civilization, even in the form of the saloon in Stanley, and maybe especially the saloon if Charlie Azgo were there, appealed to her. Once again, she wished she had more unexposed film. She would have liked to photograph the camp, the tents, the cowboys working, the landscape of lake behind the “roughing it” foreground.
Nellie did what she could to take down the tent, roll up blankets, stow utensils in packs. One-handed, she wasn’t much help, and finally decided to wait out the breaking-down of camp perched on a rock by the lake. She had not seen Pearl during breakfast and wondered if the saloon girl (a name maybe she did deserve) had left camp already. Being shut of Pearl appealed to Nell too.
As the camp slowly disappeared and the rolling meadow took its place, Luke strode to where Nellie sat. “How are you this morning?” The question was kinder than any he’d posed the day before, both in tone and intent, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “We’re taking the ladies down to see the ‘Wild West’ saloon in Stanley and stay a night at the roadhouse. You’re coming at least as far as Stanley with us. Your friend, too.” He gestured toward the horses where Nell could see Pearl saddling one of them. The girl of many talents. Including, maybe, murder.
A nod seemed sufficient for Luke. “You get around, Miss Burns. From tending sheep to killing a man.”
“Yes, well, a photographer can’t always choose her subjects with an eye toward beauty. Sometimes, life needs to be shown as life. Or death.” Photographing had been the farthest thought from her mind the day before when she was struggling for her life.
“I’m surprised you didn’t take pictures up here. I bet you could sell a bunch.” Luke had swung one leg up to rest on the rock. Sunshine lightened the top of his head and outlined his profile. In his denim shirt and cowhide vest and chaps, he could have posed for every cowboy picture in eastern magazines.
“I’ve been out of film for days,” Nellie said. Her regret swelled at the thought of selling photos of the camp and the tourists to the tourists, maybe even to the outfitters or O’Donnell, if, indeed, he was the boss of the whole organization.
“Poor plannin’ on your part.” Luke grinned, his teeth slightly crooked, but his smile friendly. “Gettin’ lost and all.”
“Wait!” Nellie jumped up. “Don’t take down those last two tents,” she called out, then turned to Luke. “I do have some film. I just remembered. Roll film and a roll back. Can you wait? I could set up and take some photos—” she hoped “—of everyone around one of the tents and around the campfire and with the bearskin.” Hypocrite, she thought to herself. “And the horses.”
“Sure, we’ll wait. Anythin’ that makes the dudes happy makes me happy.” He frowned and thought a minute. “Almost anythin’.” He, too, stood upright and called out, “Hang on there. We’ve got ourselves a picture-taker. Souvenirs for the ladies to take home and the gentlemen to brag about.” Back to Nellie, he said, “But don’t take all mornin’. We’re short of horses and packin’ out is goin’ to take a little longer than comin’ in, even if it is all downhill. Some of you have to take turns walkin’.”
She was already digging into her pack and asked Luke to carry her tripod and one of the hands to round up the tourists for a group photo with the ramparts in the background, “Try that sunny spot over there,” she said, while fastening the roll-film camera back onto her Premo camera. She’d never used it before and kept her fingers crossed that she could figure it out and take enough photographs to satisfy the tourists and earn some money. How she would get the photos to them and the money back, she didn’t know, but that could come later. One of the women had traveled all the way from Pennsylvania with her husband.
The roll film and different camera back were new to Nellie. She was used to setting up the camera, using her black cloth and focus to get the photograph exactly as she wanted, then sliding in a film holder. Once it was in, she could no longer see the scene, but she would know it was right and could release the shutter. With the roll film and camera back, she couldn’t look through the lens at all. The roll back replaced the viewing screen, so to set up the photograph, she could only aim by looking through a small wire viewer on top of the camera. She also had to move the camera farther back than she would for a large-format negative; otherwise, she would only get a few heads of a group photo or a small portion of a landscape. All her efforts would be “by guess and by gosh,” a term her father had used to explain how he would get a new job after being fired from an old job, usually for drinking, a term he used before he generally disappeared from the life of Nellie and her mother.
At first, Pearl refused to join the group as they stood and knelt by the tent, but when everyone sat around the campfire, she, too, sat on a stump seat and pretended to eat from a metal plate, then clanked her coffee cup in a toast to the West and then to the cowboys and then to the horses and then to the bear. The women wanted photos of themselves astride a horse, which Nell accommodated, but took them as a group. By then, Pearl helped Nell carry the camera and tripod to a better location near the makeshift corral. Then she wanted her own picture astride a horse, one she and Nellie were going to have to ride together, a closeness that neither of them was looking forward to, Nell was sure.
By the time Nell finished taking photographs and collecting names and addresses and telling the women how much she planned to charge, and turning down cash thrust at her because she didn’t know if the photos in fact would turn up on the exposed film, everyone was feeling gay. The men were looking forward to their hunt, asking Nell to come along and record their sure-to-be-success. She declined and the women congratulated her for her good sense. Even Pearl laughed at one of the cowboy’s jokes and spent a little time fixing one of the women’s hair in the same fashion as Pearl’s: braids wound around the top of her head. It was as if leaving the camp loosened everyone’s shyness and inhibitions. Nell could understand why tourists liked the campouts, if for no other reason than the camaraderie that developed among them, let alone the stunning landscapes. She felt as if she had been entertaining the women on her “home ground,” even if she was a relative newcomer. Their obvious delight in the Wild West pleased Nellie because she was so delighted with her chosen home, too.
The appearance of two men on the trail from the road reminded her that delight wasn’t the only thing she felt in this new home. The sun didn’t reach the pair, but they wore rough garb and Stetsons shaded their faces. A flash of fear moved her toward Luke, who seemed most capable of protecting her. At the same time, she patted the pack in search of the gun and had almost unstrapped the pocket where it lay when she realized she was looking at the Sheriff and Gwynn Campbell.
Relief surged through her and she would have run to them except for the rough and forbidding mien of their faces. Charlie looked right through Nell as if she didn’t exist. Something wasn’t right. For the first time that morning, Nell glanced toward Pearl to see what she thought, but Pearl didn’t look at Nellie. She looked at her hands on the bridle of a horse.
“Hank Fischer said you’d had a little trouble up here,” Sheriff Azgo said as he approached Luke. “Brought down a—”
“
Sheriff,” Luke interrupted. “Maybe you and I could talk over to the side here? We’re trying to break up camp. Don’t want to stop progress.” His laugh sounded as phony as it was. “No trouble here this morning.” He reached for the sheriff’s arm, which Charlie shook off. Nevertheless, he took several steps away from the group now hanging on his every word and lowered his voice.
“Go on about your business,” he said. “Except you, Miss Burns. Would you step over here with me?”
Nellie wondered if her face was as white as Pearl’s. Maybe whiter. She had rarely seen the sheriff so serious and couldn’t think if he’d ever turned his official lawman’s wrath on her, for that was what he was doing. His job was to uphold the law, and he must have heard that she said she’d broken it in the worst possible way, killing a man. She glanced toward Luke, wanting him to back up her story of self-defense, even if he didn’t know the truth—that Nellie didn’t shoot that gun. Acting in self-defense surely was acceptable in the west. She’d heard of shoot-outs, still but rarely in these modern times, in the streets of western towns where the killer “acted in self-defense” and went scot-free. Trying to save herself from a murderer must qualify. And she could tell the sheriff when they were alone that she had lied about shooting Wolfman Pitts. But could she? Pearl was the other obvious suspect and she had been halfway around the lake. Luke and Hank and Nell were witnesses to that fact. She wouldn’t admit to the shooting, Nell was certain, and there had been no one else around.
Luke accompanied Nellie to the sheriff’s side. Gwynn studied the ground, refusing to look at Nell. “Now look here, Sheriff,” Luke began.
