by Julie Weston
“Did I wake you?” Nell asked back, keeping her own voice quiet. “Mrs. Bock said I could use the bathroom to develop negatives.” It must be the boarder whose name Nell did not know. No answer from the other side. “Do you want me to stop? Do you need to use the facilities?”
“She didn’t tell me.” A whine colored the woman’s voice.
Nell sighed and raised the hammer to pull out the nails. “I’ll open the door. Then you can use the bathroom and I’ll do this later.”
“No. No, I wouldn’t think of bothering you, especially if Mrs. Bock said you could use it. I’ll find her and use her bathroom.” Her footsteps moved down the hall.
Nell returned to her task. As she secured the black cloth at four corners, she wondered about the woman roomer. What did she do all day?
In order to work in absolute darkness with sure hands, Nell readied all of her equipment. The three trays fit across the bureau top, one with developer solution, one with water to stop the development, and one with fixer. Her boss in Chicago would have laughed, but she did a dry run with a blank piece of paper first. With her eyes closed, she placed the paper in the developer tray and tilted it up and down for half a minute, counting out the seconds aloud, then letting it sit quietly with only a few agitations for another half-minute. With film, she would have to repeat this process for eight minutes. From there she picked up the paper—that was the tricky part, picking it up by edges in the dark—and placed it in the plain water in the middle, again with constant tilting, then moving the paper to the fixer tray. After four minutes in that tray, she opened her eyes. Using the real film, she could turn on the light after two minutes, and decide when to move the film back to the water. She was ready.
Developing three negatives took much longer than Nell expected, and by the time she was ready to turn on the light for the last time, she was tired, her mouth was dry from counting, and her back ached. The late hour, around midnight, and the altitude probably contributed to her weariness. And likely her fear that the negatives would not develop properly. Whether she had failed or not, though, she intended to return to Last Chance Ranch.
One by one, she held each negative up to the light. First, the wheatgrass and aspen trees. The picture in the negative was a dark gray, the opposite of what it would be in a print. She could make out the white lines of grass and tree bones. Not quite the definition she wanted, and she would have to work with the snow surface to make it brighter than it appeared.
The second negative showed a black circle for the moon, with too much light on the cabin and meadow. In the print, they would be too dark. Only the river rock on the fireplace would appear whitened by the moonlight in a print. And there were arcing streaks that almost looked like scratches on the film. Failure, or almost failure.
With trepidation, she picked up the third negative. If the man had indeed been a figment of her imagination, the celluloid strip would show only a couch. Then she would know she was out of her mind, as Rosy had implied.
No, the firelight did catch a figure.
The door to the bathroom rattled and a hand pounded. “Who the hell’s in there? I been waiting hours! Let me in!”
Startled, Nell dropped the negative, still wet, on the floor. “Just a minute!”
Afraid it was ruined, she picked it up by the sides and looked once again. How detailed the person was, she could not see, but the strip of celluloid had been dry enough that no harm seemed to have been done. “I’ll open the door as soon as I can.” No chance to print that night.
Working backwards, Nell poured her trays down the toilet and flushed, responding politely to the continued hammering on the door, then pulled out her drawer to store the trays and chemicals. A gun lay on top of linens. She realized she had the wrong one and closed it again. Indeed it was drawer six. She opened her own drawer and finished stowing things away. Odd place for a weapon. Maybe it was a toy gun. She pulled out the nails on the cloth, scooted the rug back into position, and swung the door wide. “Here you are.”
No one stood there. Whoever it was, probably a miner judging by his various blasphemies, had gone. Nell gathered up her cloth and the negatives and headed for her room. A door opened and a shadow fell across the carpeted hallway. From instinct, she hid the negatives behind the cloth, then looked toward the door across from her own. A tall woman with a round face and rosebud mouth, like a kewpie doll at a carnival, stared at her. No words, only the stare. Then the door shut.
Back in her bedroom, Nell studied her moon negatives again. Maybe the photos weren’t as bad as she first thought, but her dreams of fame and fortune would certainly have to wait. Like George Eliot and George Sand, she considered adopting a man’s name. Times were better for Nell than they were for those women writers in the 1800s, but they hadn’t improved all that much. No major newspaper would consider her for a job as a photojournalist. Could she succeed as an artist?
The third negative was the best. It must have had to do with her timing and the ability to wait. She studied what the film had captured. The ice mask had melted more than she supposed; the man’s features were almost discernible. She had more of his body in the negative than she remembered, including most of his torso and his arms and one hand. His hair was a tangled mess, as long as the sheriff’s had been, but not as kempt, and much lighter in color, perhaps a light brown. He might be identifiable from a print.
The next morning, sunlight streamed through the window into her room. Today, she could scout again. At breakfast, she broached the subject with her landlady. “Is there a taxi service? I want to go north again and I don’t want to use Rosy.”
“Now what do you want to do that for? Haven’t you caught enough trouble yet?” She turned from the stove with spatula in hand, a pancake on it.
Moonshine sat by Nell’s chair. Mrs. Bock wouldn’t let Nell keep the dog in at night, so he’d been tied again to the back porch, looking miserable. When he howled again after the household was up, the landlady relented and permitted the dog into the kitchen, but only so long as Nell was there, too.
“I want to take more photos. Rosy gripes so much, I can’t work. Late afternoon or early morning is best, and he’s either drunk or not around.” She left out that she wanted to return to Last Chance Ranch. The memory of the coyotes howling was daunting, but she wanted to prove that she could be as brave and smart as a man. Someone moved that body and she wanted to find out who and why.
“Can you drive?”
“Not well,” Nell said, deciding a half-lie was better than a whole one. Hardly anyone drove in Chicago. Taxis or trolleys were always available.
Mrs. Bock plunked the pancake on Nell’s plate. “Mrs. Smith has a car. She doesn’t use it most days. Maybe she’d let you borrow it if you put gasoline in it.”
“Who is Mrs. Smith?”
“You know, Gladys Smith. Room 6, across from yours.”
Drawer six was the one with the gun in it, the gun Nell had seen lying on top of a black silk something. She had forgotten about it.
“Oh, I didn’t know her name. Did she wake you to use your bathroom last night? I’m sorry I caused inconvenience for the other roomers.”
“Wake me? No one woke me.” Another pancake plunked down. “Now eat up. I’ll ring her and see if you can use it. She usually takes a ride with young Robbie to the mining office and don’t get back ’til long after supper. It’s no wonder she’s such a skinny thing.” Mrs. Bock studied Nell. “Now you, you’re nice and healthy looking.”
Nell immediately dropped her fork. “Fat” and “healthy looking” were probably synonymous in Mrs. Bock’s opinion. Next time, no butter on her pancakes. On the other hand, she would need lots of energy to tromp around again on snowshoes. Maybe she could drive. It didn’t look that hard.
“Tell you what, Miss Burns. I’ll ask Henry to drive you if Mrs. Smith will lend her car.”
What was her choice? “Thank you.” Henry was the old-timer who liked to talk.
Moonshine filled the foot we
ll by Nellie’s legs in the roadster owned by Mrs. Smith, and rested his head on her lap.
“Now, in the old days, these roads was filled with ore trucks and horses from dawn ’til dusk,” Henry said, “traveling to and from the mines, pulling lead and silver out and bringing supplies back up. Men, why there was so many men, you couldn’t count ’em. Not like these days. Puny lot compared to the big hulks back then. ’Course not much work was done then in the winters—too much snow closed the roads.” They passed a Model-T parked alongside the road. “A few die-hards come up, camp out. Go out on boards—skiing, they call it—and hunt or fish.” He shook his head. “Crazy is what I call it.”
Nellie made appropriate noises. Most of Henry’s talk was interesting, but she was trying to concentrate on the scenery. Animal photos were out of the question; it took much too long to set up her field camera. The Eastman Kodak cameras weren’t suitable either. The negatives were too small. If she could only earn enough money to buy modern equipment, she’d make her way so much better.
Mrs. Smith’s automobile was fairly new, so she was obviously making money at whatever she did at the mine offices. “Now take this here Willis-Knight,” Henry said, rolling the name out. “It’s new-fangled and always something wrong with it. Those old Model-Ts were the thing. That’s what I learned to drive on. Lot better than a horse, I swear, but then a horse could go most anywhere and cars can only go on these damn roads. That’s why you need snowshoes and boards these days.” His voice vibrated and jumped as the car jounced around on the many ruts. Nell hung onto the door handle. Moonie lifted his head.
“I’m surprised that no one has claimed this dog,” Nell said, hoping to turn the comparisons to something else. “He’s such a lovely animal. What did you call it?”
“Labrador Retriever. Best hunting dog there is. And loyal? Can’t get no better dog than a black Labrador.” He turned his grizzled face in her direction. “Looks like you been adopted, don’t it?” Envy tinged his words, but his kindly face with its gap-toothed smile and soft blue eyes seemed to approve. “Rosy don’t want it, not since . . .”
“Rosy? It’s Rosy’s dog? Why didn’t he say something?”
“Dog likes wimmen.” Henry almost leered. “Rosy, well, he can’t take care of a dog. Still carts him around some days, though.”
Moonie looked from Henry to Nell and again laid his head on Nell’s knee.
“This is where I want to stop, please, Henry.” The pile of snow on the roof of the old ranch house glistened in the distance. Because the air was cold, nothing had melted. Last night’s additional brushing of snow rested lightly on fir branches and bare aspen limbs alike. Nell was struck by the purity of the winter scenes and the crystal sharpness of the days in central Idaho.
The dog climbed out, then Nell, and she retrieved her equipment and sled from the boot. All the while, Henry hovered. “What’s that?” He pointed to her field camera. “Looks like a box.”
Anxious to begin scouting, Nell briefly explained how the hidden latches worked and then showed him when he persisted. The doors of the “box” opened and revealed her Premo camera, polished wood and bright brass fittings, like a fancy piece of furniture. She didn’t take time to show how the bellows slid on rails or how the shutter opened or how the film holders slid in and out. Fully opened, it was the size of a large breadbox.
“I’ll be back just like we talked,” Henry said. He had openly disapproved of leaving her for the rest of the day and returning at sunset. “You’ll be right here?”
Nell nodded and looked around for a landmark. “Right here by this broken fence post.”
Henry waited while she donned her snowshoes and tied her sled to her waist.
“Bye, Henry. Thank you!”
Nell moved off in her snowshoes, feeling like a maimed baby elephant with her extra clothes on top to keep her warm. The automobile putt-putted in a U-turn, smelly smoke puffing from its exhaust. Beep, beep. He had been looking for an excuse to honk the horn, such a silly high-pitched sound. Nell waved her hand without looking back. Today she had walking sticks with her, which helped with her balance, a Jack Lane contribution.
At Last Chance Ranch, everything looked different. From the outside, the square-cut log house appeared trim, waiting for its family to return and light a fire. The trough she and the others had made with their snowshoes and her sled showed up as an indentation in the new fall. Under the mid-morning sun, a photo of the cabin would look like a stack of pancakes plunked on a white plate. By late afternoon, though, light and shadows might create an artistic photo. She looked at angles and tramped back and forth a bit, then removed her snowshoes. Photos were secondary today anyway. She wanted to solve the mystery first. She stepped through the doorway. The dog hung back until Nell pushed the door forward.
Inside, Nell could hardly believe she had spent a night there with a dead man on the floor. Besides her own neatening of the bed, it appeared the place had been swept out and cleaned up. Who had been there? No additional tracks marked another’s presence. Maybe the night and candlelight had made it feel more sinister and dirty than it had been. Moonshine rediscovered his dish and licked at it, scraping it along the floor, making a racket.
“Stop, Moonie. I’ll open another can for you.” She selected more beans and then noticed the earlier can still sat in the sink. If anyone had cleaned up, surely he would have tidied the can away. The house was the same—abandoned. The raw smell, whatever it had been, was replaced by the burned wood odor in the fireplace. The dog’s water dish was in the corner; Nell filled it.
First, she inspected the floor near the door where she had fallen in on the dead man. There were dark spots, but they could have been anything—oil, spilled jam, dog stains. The scrape in the dust where she’d pulled him around to prop him against the couch remained. She opened the door between the bunks to the stairs leading up. Moonie leaped ahead, barking. This was just an ordinary abandoned house with ordinary doors and stairs. Children had lived here and probably laughed and cried and called and played and dreamed. Nell ceased tiptoeing when she realized that was what she’d been doing. The stairs opened into a large room with a door at one end. The room contained a full bed, empty of bedding, with rusted springs tilted half onto the floor between bedposts. A stuffed chair sat by the window and in front of it; half a dozen cigarettes were crushed out on the floor. She moved one with her toe, saw a dark mark, and let them lay. The sheriff might be back for them.
Nell strode to the other door, clunking in her boots on the wood just as the men had the morning before, and looked through. A bunk bed, with a faded teddy bear–patterned blanket spread across the lower bunk, pressed forlornly against the opposite wall. Curtains printed with the same pattern hung limp at the window. Tears gathered behind her eyes, stinging. Once, this house had been a happy place. Tragedy and death had shoved laughter out. Goosebumps crept up her backbone. “Someone’s walking on your grave,” her mother would have said. She closed the door, sorry to have disturbed the heavy atmosphere in the room.
Back at the upstairs window, she sat and looked out. Several birds flitted from tree to tree, magpies again. Their blue and black feathers, outlined by white, seemed cheery, and her mood lifted. At first, the short snowfield in back appeared empty, dropping gradually down to the Big Wood River. Light shone off the ripples and gleamed on ice at the edges where the water froze in plates. Another scene to photograph when the sun dropped lower. The field was empty, but across it, just as in front, a shallow trough marked a path. She stood and looked in the direction the trough led and could see perhaps a quarter mile up the river.
“Let’s go look, Moonie.” The dog had been sniffing around the edges of the chair, at the springs on the bed, at the bureau against the wall. He pushed at one of the drawers and made a funny sound.
Arp. He waited. Arp, arp.
“All right, let’s see what you’ve found.” The top drawer groaned open when she pulled. Inside were small leather pouches, the kind that were s
upposed to hold gold nuggets, if the moving picture shows could be believed. She picked up one. Empty. All the others were empty, too. She turned one inside out and flecks of dirt dropped out. The bags were soft and well-used as if many hands had rubbed them, and they smelled of leather and—what?—something metallic, like coins.
In a second drawer, Nell found more pouches, all empty.
At the third drawer, a smell drifted out before she had it fully open, as if this were Pandora’s box. Lavender scent flooded into the room. Four or five sachets, delicately embroidered with purple flowers and pine branches, were stuffed with the herb and lined one end. Two more rested on top of a black Chinese silk robe, sewn with rich gold and silver threads into a figure. She lifted it out. “Oh, my!” It was the most elegant piece of clothing she’d ever seen. The robe was large enough for a man and could wrap almost twice around a woman. On the back the stitching revealed a twisted dragon with a long red tongue. Sachets filled each pocket in front.
Moonshine cried. There was no other word for it—a long, mournful sound, followed by a series of small yips, while he nosed the sachets. Yes, this was the drawer he had wanted her to open. The robe looked as if it might have belonged to the master of the house given the size, but more likely the mistress, given all the lavender in and around it. The wife who died.
Once again, silence wrapped around Nell and she felt like a trespasser. This was not her business, either. She should move outside and see what there was to see, so when she gave the photo to the sheriff, she could also tell him what else she knew about the place. Then she could be rid of the mystery and return to why she came to Idaho in the first place. She re-folded the silk and replaced it, shutting the drawer. Moonie arped twice, but stepped away, waiting for Nell to leave.
At the top of the stairs, Nell decided she couldn’t leave the robe. This house was abandoned, and therefore, the robe was abandoned too. She clumped back, opened the drawer, took out the silk and several of the sachets, folded them all together, and carried her prize downstairs. Before she could regret what she was doing—stealing in all probability—she emptied her pack and placed the robe and lavender in the bottom. By now, she was used to the heavy scent, but suspected that it probably filled the downstairs too.
