by Julie Weston
“Good heavens! He’s never done that before.”
“What’s in there?”
“Just a lavender sachet—to make things smell good.” She handed over the sachet from the second pocket. “Moonie didn’t do this when we found a dozen of them in the cabin. I don’t know what’s wrong.” From a squatting position, she reached in to rub Moonie on the ear, and he growled at her, seemed to think better of it, and nosed her hand.
The scent of lavender intensified as Sheriff Azgo opened the packet on his desk and then changed to a bitter smell when the lavender leaves spilled aside to reveal a half-dozen dark chunks the size of wrapped taffy candy. “What is it?” She reached for a piece and brought it to her nose. “Oh, dear.” She dropped it back on the desk. “That smells terrible.”
“It’s opium.”
“That’s opium? How could anyone stand to eat that stuff?” She knelt back to Moonie, and he licked her hand, the one in which she’d held the opium.
For the first time, Sheriff Azgo laughed. It was a full, deep sound, and Nellie found herself smiling with him. “It’s hideous smelling. And here I thought Moonie liked the lavender. This robe and sachets came from the Last Chance. It must not smell as bad to him.”
The laugh ceased abruptly. “You took them?”
“I shouldn’t have,” Nellie said, shame flushing in her cheeks. “But they seemed abandoned. Like the dog.”
The sheriff stared at her. “He belongs to Rosy. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Henry did. Rosy either ignores the dog or swears at him.” She sat down, feeling overwhelmed.
With a shrug, the sheriff rolled up the sachet, scooping the lavender leaves into his wastebasket with the edge of a piece of paper. “I think you and I should take a ride out to Last Chance Ranch. Seems like there’s unfinished business.”
“Now? I’m too tired. You forget I’ve had an unsettling couple of days.” The thought of the rest of the day with this serious, almost grim, man exhausted her. Now there were two dead men. She wanted to untangle herself from the whole mess and return to photography. Unbidden and unwelcome, the thought that someone might have been after her in the darkroom flared in her head. She looked at her lap, not willing for the sheriff to see any sign of fright. He would surely misread it.
“Be prepared to be unsettled again. We’ll load your snowshoes and you may change. We have to make this trip before it snows.” He waited for her to stand. “Do you have any more photographs?”
Nell was tempted to say no. So far, her photography seemed to get her in trouble. This was not what she imagined when she left Chicago. The West had sounded adventurous and romantic. New enterprises demanded new thinking, she had argued to her mother. Staying in Chicago was not an option. She must support herself as she had no man to do it, and she would not be reduced to groveling and simpering for a man in order to marry and be imprisoned in a house, reading the Ladies’ Home Journal and cooking and cleaning and serving lunches and teas to other women. She must find her own path.
“I have two more artistic photographs. I doubt if you’d be interested in them.” Nellie folded the robe and stowed it away in her pack and placed her camera on top. “Are you bringing that photo? And you didn’t say if you knew the person.”
At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he might have been thinking. “I’m not sure, so I won’t say. With this injury,” he said, pointing to the hand, “probably a miner.”
“He must have frozen to death. There wasn’t any blood around.” Surely the spots she saw were something else, not fresh dried blood. Of course, that begged the question of why he had been removed while she was sleeping.
“Maybe. Maybe not. That’s why I want to look again. You can show me exactly where you found him and we can check around the outside. Your exploring there alone was a foolish thing to do, although the Ah Kees should be grateful. Maybe you will remember something else when we are at the ranch.” He waited for her to gather her pack and then looked directly at her. “You are the only person who saw a dead body. This photo is the only proof that you saw what you say you did. Without you and without this photograph, a murder and possibly two murders might never have been detected.” He placed his Stet-son on his dark hair. “Be careful, Miss Burns. I believe you could be in great danger.”
With that sobering thought planted in Nellie’s head, they walked out the door. This time, Nellie noticed his name painted on the cloudy window: Charles Asteguigoiri, Blaine County Sheriff. No wonder people called him Azgo.
Fear disappeared outside on a sunny day. Although the sheriff was on skis and had less trouble than she did with sinking down into the snow, Nell could keep pace with him, pulling her sled and using her walking sticks to balance herself. She felt like an accomplished snowshoer. She had insisted on bringing her camera. The sheriff had insisted the dog not come. Along the way to the cabin, she pointed out where she had taken her photos of the moonshadows. He inspected the scene carefully, and then motioned for her to lead the way to the cabin.
Nell showed him where the body had been, where she moved it, and then wandered to the pump and cranked up enough water to fill her hand for a sip. Then she found a cup, and pumped a little more. It tasted earthy, as it had before.
“After you took the picture, then what did you do?” The sheriff shook his head at her offer of a sip from the cup.
Nellie tried to remember. “I heard Rosy yell and I called out to him that my snowshoe broke and I would stay all night. He went home then, I guess, and brought you back.”
“Did you tell him you’d found a body?”
“N-no, I don’t think so. Maybe. I didn’t think he could hear me very well. And I was exhausted by then. I pumped some water for the dog and for me.” She drank a little more and set the cup on the counter, wrinkling her nose at the aftertaste. “I crawled onto the bed and pulled the blanket around me. I was sure I wouldn’t sleep with . . . the body in the room. The dog climbed up and slept beside me. I lay awake a long time listening to creaks and the wind howl, but I was asleep when you and Rosy arrived.”
“And the body was gone.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I looked over there. You two made me doubt I’d really seen anything and that I did dream the whole thing. Then I remembered my photo. I mentioned it to you and Rosy, but—” She shrugged. She still couldn’t understand why she didn’t hear a body being moved, or why Moonie slept through it.
Just being in the cabin made Nellie feel sleepy. She sat on the broken-down couch, wishing she could take a nap.
“What else?”
The sheriff stood over her. His voice seemed soft and far away. She closed her eyes, resting them, and forced them open again. He had moved behind her. “How about when you returned the next day?” he asked, as if from the other end of a long tunnel.
“I looked for photo possibilities outside, then came in here. I looked upstairs, like you and Rosy did.” She closed her eyes again and wished she could lie down on the bed. “I’m so sleepy, Sheriff. Could we come back another day?”
No answer. She looked around for him. He stood at the sink, pumping water for himself. Afternoon sunbeams filtered in through a dirty window. A bird croaked outside, and Nellie closed her eyes again.
“Wake up, Miss Burns! Wake up!” The sheriff’s voice broke through Nell’s dream of Moonie leaping at her with his jaws open wide and his teeth dripping with saliva. He held her cup out. “Drink this—all of it.”
“N-no, it tastes awful.” She tried to push him away, but he insisted.
“This is snowmelt. It won’t taste awful. Drink.” Then he held it to her lips and began to tip water into her mouth. She had to drink, and even then, some of the water spilled down her front. “We’re going outside again. Stand up.”
“I can’t,” she wailed. “I’m too tired.” He pulled her off the couch and stood her up and circled her back with his arm. It felt like an iron rail that she couldn’t dislodge. He walked her to the door, opened it,
and thrust her onto the porch. She caught at an upright stanchion and held on, feeling sick, but awake. How dare he treat her like this?
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The sheriff brought out her coat and put it around her shoulders. “That’s better.” His wide, white grin made her angry, but when he laughed, her anger dissipated. “What’s so funny?”
“Remember you asked how someone could eat opium? Mostly, people smoke it, but someone stashed opium buttons in the pump. When you drank that water, you got a taste of it yourself.” He handed her the snowshoes and motioned for her to fasten them up.
“No wonder the water tasted strange.” She leaned over to pull the straps into place on her boot. Wooziness hit her and she straightened up. Her mouth still tasted like rust and dirt. “Is that why I got so sleepy?”
“Must be. Opium has different effects on different people, but that’s one of them. And the longer a man takes it, the less he can function in the world. That I’ve seen. Makes him lose all desire—for anything.”
“Both Moonie and I drank the water. We slept so hard, although I dreamed terrible dreams. So the opium was in the pump then. Maybe that’s why we didn’t hear someone take the body.”
Sheriff Azgo nodded. “Are you all right now?”
“Yes.” She forced herself to tighten the snowshoe straps. When she stood up, he motioned toward the trees on the south side of the cabin.
“Let’s look over there. Stay in my track.”
The sun-warmed air still held enough chill to clear Nellie’s head. Without her sled, she moved easily, following the sheriff to the stand of aspens, white and gray-trunked. Their branches tangled like bony hands entwined against the blue sky. The snow was deep enough to cover any undergrowth and she studied the clean lines with an eye to a photograph. In another hour, their shadows would mark the snow where they stood. The sheriff looked down at the snow, then back at the cabin, toward the road, and then beyond to the river. In the afternoon silence, Nellie heard water running and chattering under ice and out into the open. A tiny movement seen from the corner of her eye caused her to turn.
“Oh, look. It’s the ermine!” The creature dashed across the snow with a mouse in its jaws. The mouse wriggled and squirmed. The ermine hid behind a tree, then peeked out to watch the humans. When they didn’t give chase, he dashed to another tree, aiming for a pile of snow and red willows near the water’s edge. His black-tipped tail swung from side to side. Nellie wished she could catch the whimsy of the animal on film.
Sheriff Azgo motioned to Nellie, then put his finger to his lips and pointed down the river. At first, she couldn’t see what he wanted her to see. Then, as she studied the aspen branches, the thick cottonwood trunks, and the willows, she drew in her breath. Gray and white branches moved—a bull elk with as large a rack of horns as she’d ever seen in any picture—no, larger. His massive head and chest posed for her as he studied them. Beyond him, several cows stood and two or three lay in a sun-filled glen.
“Can I set up to take a photo? Will they stay there for a while?” Her whisper seemed loud and she was afraid she would spook the animals.
The sheriff whispered back, his voice a low rumble. “They’re far enough away from us so our presence doesn’t cause worry.”
“Will they attack?”
His low rumble broke into a chuckle. “No. A moose might, but the elk won’t unless you approach too closely.”
Then Nellie realized her camera was still at the cabin. “Damn!”
Sheriff Azgo waved her on. “Maybe later. Let’s go toward the river. I’m following an interesting dip in the snow.”
“What dip?” Nell had nearly forgotten what they were doing—searching for a dead man. Uneasiness filled her as they approached the Big Wood River. She wasn’t certain why she felt fear when she was with a sheriff, while her exploration several days ago with only herself and Moonshine had been much more lighthearted, even though she had touched a dead man under the snow and then fallen into the river.
The sheriff slid forward again and didn’t stop until he reached the willows where the ermine had dodged. When Nellie caught up, she peeked around the branches to see if she could find the small animal, thinking it would take dozens to make a coat. Connecting the beauty of the live creature with the beauty of a white ermine wrap caused her to wince. Something unwillow-like caught her eye.
“There’s a piece of blue in the willows—down there.” She leaned over to see what else she could find.
The sheriff took off his skis, long narrow wood pieces turned up at the front end, and sank to his knees. He waded below the willows, splashing water as he did so. Nellie began undoing her own snowshoes, but the sheriff spoke sharply to her. “Stay there.”
“What is it?” She glanced up from the rawhide thongs to see him pulling at the blue. It was blue denim, wrapped around a leg. She almost tipped over. She didn’t want to help and clambered back toward the trees.
“Don’t go too far,” Sheriff Azgo called. He labored to get the body onto the snowbank. It flopped over and Nellie could hear the squish of water. A bloated monstrous face rolled on a swollen neck toward her. “Go get your sled. I can pull him back to the road with it.”
Nellie felt distinctly queasy with the bread and cheese she had eaten in the automobile sitting heavily in her stomach. Before she could lose lunch, she followed the track back to the trees and then to the cabin, glad to be heading away from their discovery. Her exertions settled her down. At the cabin, she again tied the sled to her waist and pulled it to the trees, where she off-loaded her camera. The elk rested in the snow and the bull still grazed along the stream in the bend away from where the sheriff worked. They ignored the humans.
“Here’s the sled. I don’t think I can help with the . . .” She untied the rope. Setting up for a photo would take her mind off what he was doing. “I’ll be over by the trees.”
As with the night photography, positioning the tripod on a firm footing took some effort. Nellie was aware of the activity at the stream and heard the body plunk onto the sled. “Elk,” she mumbled to herself. “Stay right there.” The play of the sunlight through the branches turned one side of the bull’s rack silvery in color while he nosed the bark of a branch overhanging the river and then tore off a strip. As he munched, she covered her head and camera with the black cloth and focused, hoping the sun would stay bright. She pulled a film holder from her pack, inserted it in the camera, pulled out the slide, and opened the shutter. Perfect. She’d take one more with a red filter to emphasize the rack even more.
“How are you going to get your camera back to the cabin?”
Nellie jumped and almost fell into the pack. “Don’t do that.” She stood and nearly bumped into the sheriff. The sled trailed right behind him. “I’ll carry it.”
“How much longer will you be? I want to get this body to town. You’ll have to identify it, you know, as the one you saw in the cabin, if that’s who it is.”
“Do you know who he is yet?” Her quick glimpse of the face told her it would be difficult for anyone to place a name on the man.
“His arm’s been cut off at the elbow and I couldn’t find the piece.” He pointed to where the shirt had been raggedly cut. Missing was the lower left arm, the one with fingers missing. The axe under the pillow. Someone must have used it to cut off the arm. She would look for the axe back at the cabin. Nellie scanned the area around her after the sheriff moved off. If she could find the arm, maybe she could help solve the crime. It was beginning to be personal to her: her photo, her axe, her mystery.
Flat tracks, like those the sheriff made with his skis, marred the snow near the trees. She hoped they didn’t show up in her photo and at the same time realized he had not tracked in that direction. Who did? And when? She followed the tracks to the edge of the trees facing the cabin, where they stopped, covered by fresh snow.
A somber light filled the aspen grove and, as she watched, the bull elk stepped with stately
grace away from her. Two of the cows scrambled to their feet and clumsily followed him. She struggled to re-pack her camera, heft the pack onto her back with the straps around her shoulders, prop the tripod on her shoulder, and slowly pick her way in snowshoes back to the cabin. The deep trough cut by the sled weighted with a body smoothed her progress.
At the house, Nellie removed her snowshoes and went inside while the sheriff secured the body more tightly on the sled. Her hand slipped under the pillow and came up empty. So, it had been used, if not to kill someone, then to chop off the arm. The sheriff called her to come out.
The man lay face up, his bloated features sheathed in ice. Sheriff Azgo stood beside the sled, watching her.
“It’s the same man. I’m sure of it.” With a deep breath, she wrenched her stare away from the sled and back to the sheriff. “The ice was almost the same. Did you do that?”
“I wanted to see if I could get the same effect. I piled snow, wetted it down, and the freezing temperature turned it into a mask. And it was colder the night you were here.” He gestured to the sky, which had changed from blue to cloudy gray in the space of half an hour. “Clear night then. No clouds to warm.”
A tremble began in Nellie’s breast and crept to her limbs and throat.
“He may have drowned, been carried to the cabin, then away again.” Sheriff Azgo shook his head. “Or he may have been murdered, dropped into the stream, and retrieved. I am puzzled.”
Tears began to stream from Nellie’s eyes and she couldn’t stop them. They froze on her cheek and her shaking grew. A sob threatened to choke her as she fought to stay still. The terrible deeds around this cabin smothered the joy she had felt the night she took the photographs, replacing it with a sorrow so profound, she too could drown in it.
