by Julie Weston
Running into Gladys spoiled some of the fun. He hefted the fancy lamp onto his shoulder and she followed him up the stairs.
“What did you do with it?” She stopped him at the top of the stairs. Her voice was low and harsh.
“What you talking about woman? I got the lamp right here.” He set it down. The fringe swayed. “You can carry it yourself.”
“You know what I’m talking about, you—” Gladys pressed her lips together, looked around and leaned closer, grabbing his arm, her head about even with his. The strength of her grip surprised him. “I told you . . .” She let him go and pressed her hand against her forehead. “If they find it, they’ll know.”
“Hell’s bells. You think no one knows now?” He wanted to strike her for being such a dunderhead.
Gladys cowered. “Don’t you hit me!” She grabbed the lamp and hurried to her room, where she turned at the door. “It’s you they’ll want. Not me. I am just trying to save your skin. You dirty old man.” These words, she yelled, and then closed the door behind her.
Rosy was thirsty, but Henry waited and so did Nell and Goldie. There was more work to be done. He looked back up the stairs, hoping Gladys wouldn’t reappear. How he disliked that woman. He and Henry hefted the davenport, not easily. Goldie held the door open so they could squeeze the heavy piece of furniture through. As they tramped by on their way to the dentist’s waiting room, Charlie Azgo stepped out of his box of an office there in Ketchum.
“Rosy, we need to talk.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” He felt his age at his end of the davenport. “Want me to drop my end and break Henry’s back?” They kept on walking.
The sheriff caught up and hefted the end Rosy held away from him. Rosy would have turned and walked away, but the sheriff took one arm from the couch and plucked at Rosy’s sleeve, gesturing for him to come along.
After the couch was delivered, Henry gave the other two a deadpan look and hightailed it back to Goldie’s, even though Rosy offered to buy him a drink. “Now that you’ve ruined my morning and scared away my fellow worker, what do you want?”
“I’ve got Doc Kee on ice in Hailey. He was killed with a blow to the head.”
Rosy nodded.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
They stood in the slush on the boardwalk. Along with the damp, Rosy could feel his thirst rising and his stomach hurting, like he was crawling in the desert with his insides turned out. It happened more and more lately and gave him a better understanding of his friend Jack. Rosy closed his eyes, wishing the Basque away, but when he opened them, there the sheriff stood, solid as a pillar.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you want to know.”
Once, Rosy was like the sheriff, tall and broad and not so bad-looking himself. Wasn’t I, Lily? Once, he didn’t shake with palsy in the morning and he had a clear head and clear eyes. He worked hard, he looked forward to his time at Last Chance Ranch, even to looking for gold in the mountains. The world showed him what for anyway.
“I’ve got Three-Fingered Jack there too, or what’s left of him. Part of his arm is gone and he’s been in water for a while.” The sheriff waited for a response. Rosy didn’t give him any. A wagon drawn by two horses splashed by in the street, followed by two motorcars.
“He didn’t drown,” the sheriff said. “So far, I haven’t figured out how he died.”
Rosy looked down so as not to give away his knowledge. Finally, talking to the ground, he said, “He got what he deserved.”
“What?”
“Maybe they killed each other,” Rosy said. He lifted his head to look the sheriff in the eye. “The ghost saved him. Maybe she—it changed its mind.” He stepped back. “I got work to do, Charlie.” He almost slipped, caught himself before the other man could, and headed back to Goldie’s. No one stopped him.
The bottle in his auto looked better than usual. He sat in the front seat, sipping slowly, trying to empty his mind of scenes and words and recriminations. He was so tired. Maybe if he took a short nap, he’d feel better.
Jack had showed up at Last Chance Ranch late at night when Rosy was sitting quietly, hoping her ghost would come back while he was sober. The dog slept by the fire, sometimes making sounds and moving his legs, as if he were dreaming, too.
“You gotta help me, Rosy. Look at my hands. They’re crawling with worms.” Jack held them out, gone soft after years of hard work, the usual shiny place where two fingers were missing wrinkled like prunes. They trembled so hard, he wouldn’t even be able to hold a drink, all Rosy would offer. His face suffered a tic—one eye, half-closing, opening, half-closing, then closed. It was as if he had the bad eye. “I need some stuff.”
“I ain’t got any. What you need is to get off it. It’s killin’ you.” Rosy resented the interruption and was sorry Jack knew the back road into the cabin.
“Help me, Rosy. I hurt all over. I need some stuff. I can’t play my horn. I can’t work. I’m good for nothin’. I know you got some dope here. You gave it to Lily.” Tears smeared on his face and his eyes were red as hot coals. “Food won’t stay down.” He gagged and a thin string of what might have been gruel dropped from his mouth.
Rosy, disgusted and angry that Jack would even bring up Lily’s name, pulled Jack inside. “I’ll help you, but only if you promise to quit takin’ dope. I’ll get a doctor out here.”
“Get that Chink.” Jack tumbled in and fell on the floor.
Feeling as if he had no choice, Rosy pushed and pulled Jack to the couch and settled him in front of the cheerful fire. Rosy left him to heat up the coffee. His erstwhile friend stank of vomit, whiskey, and opium. No cheer in that man. His face was so gaunt and gray, he might have been a ghost himself. Still, Jack had listened to Rosy many a night when Lily was ill, and he stood by when Rosy buried his wife in the grove across the river.
Holding Jack’s head, Rosy coaxed coffee into him, then some warmed pork and beans. The man’s skin livened up some and he slept, covered with Rosy’s coat and groaning from time to time. Rosy had to feed the fire all night to keep the place warm enough for Jack, who shuddered and shook. The dog kept Rosy warm.
In the morning, Rosy headed out, his auto bucking and belching smoke. He wouldn’t get to Hailey, so he stopped at Goldie’s. “Call the sheriff,” she said. “He’ll pick up the doc or take him out. Lord knows Doc can find his own way, but I don’t know if he has a vehicle.”
“Why would Azgo help me, or Jack? He ain’t got no use for either one of us.”
Goldie poured Rosy more coffee. “It’s his job. I’ll call if’n you want. A man deserves a chance, even if he’s a good-for-nothin’. Remember, Jack wasn’t always like that. The way he played that horn.” She shook her head. “ ‘Ballin’ the Jack,’ ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ You couldn’t not dance. And ending every evening with ‘Melancholy Baby.’ Like to broke your heart.” Then she put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Here comes Gladys.”
With a snort, Rosy drained his cup and went to the telephone in the hall. He roused the operator to find the sheriff for him. Before long, he was explaining the circumstances, sounding like someone groveling for a favor and getting mad at himself all over again. He stepped back into the kitchen, nodded at Goldie and Gladys, grabbed his hat, and left to see about fixing up his own auto. Probably just needed some oil.
When someone tapped on the window of his automobile, Rosy raised himself from his slump, ready to blister the sheriff with swear words. It wasn’t the sheriff. It was Sammy. God, what now? Maybe the Chinaman had come to slit his throat. His mother’s leash didn’t seem to be around. Rosy motioned for him to come around and get in. Sammy opened the door, looked in first, then climbed in. A whoosh of cold air entered with him. He kept his hand on the door handle and sat as far from Rosy as he could on the bench seat. No knife was evident.
“You want a ride somewhere?”
“No. Need help.”
“You and every other miscreant i
n town.” Rosy offered up his bottle. Sammy looked at it, but finally shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
“What doin’?”
“Honored father lies in Hailey. My mother wants him.” Sammy’s lower lip stuck out. In the afternoon light, his face tinged into gray.
I want Lily, too, Rosy thought. “He’s dead.”
Sammy flinched, then bowed his head.
“All right. I owe you that much, anyway.”
After a moment, Sammy opened the door and climbed out. “Tomorrow night, after dark. I borrow truck. Please to come to our abode.”
Rosy sighed. He must look like a sucker to the whole damned town. “One condition, Sam.”
The Chinese man hesitated and waited.
“Don’t nobody, not you, not your honored mother, not nobody, touch a hair of that girl’s head.”
Sammy’s face was inscrutable. Finally, he nodded. Rosy reached for the door and slammed it shut. He finished his bottle. The work ought to be done by now. He already told Nellie he wanted his picture taken. Guess he would go and get it now. He might send the picture to his sister. No, given his current state, she’d think he was close to death. Well, maybe he was. He’d figure out later who might want the photo. Or maybe he just wanted it for himself.
CHAPTER 17
“Get into the back seat.” Mrs. Ah Kee spoke in a low but firm voice, as though Nellie were merely a servant. There was no peace offering either in her words or demeanor. Sammy placed the lights across Nellie’s feet while she held the camera pack in her lap. It was colder in the auto than outside. After Sammy returned with the tripod, he started the automobile, pulled out into the snow, and began the drive toward Hailey. Neither he nor his mother spoke.
“Do you have Sheriff Azgo’s permission for me to take this photo?” Her voice shook.
Neither answered. Worry sprouted. She did not want more trouble with the sheriff. If these people really believed she was a murderess, they might take their revenge on her, maybe torture her for information she didn’t have. Maybe they were taking her to appear before the Tong. She hugged herself, remembering the sheriff’s words about butchery. The axe was missing. John Doe’s arm—Three-Fingered Jack’s arm—had been chopped off. Maybe Sammy did it for the Tong.
The seats squeaked and the motor rumbled. Through the small back window, Nellie could see two narrow tire tracks behind. Through the front windshield, although she had to lean forward to see, there was nothing to give any indication where the road was. All was dark inside the car and only two headlights lit their world as they moved through it. She was beginning to feel as if this were one of her nightmares. To ground herself, she decided to talk. Even if the two Oriental people did not answer her, she would know that she was awake.
“I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Ah Kee.” Her funeral words escaped her. What would her mother say? “This must be terrible for you both.” Still no response. “Do you have relatives here?” Did Chinese people have funerals? “Will there be a funeral?”
Nellie sat back. The black “horseless” carriage reminded her of a real nightmare and prompted her to continue. “My father died in Chicago. He was killed in a street fight. It was terrible to see him in the morgue. My mother could not bring herself to view his body so I identified him. His attacker broke his nose and jaw with a baseball bat and huge dark bruises turned his skin almost purple. He should not have been beaten that way, although he often insulted people when he was drunk.” As the cold wormed its way to Nellie’s center, she realized she was being tasteless and probably offensive, but it felt as if she were alone in the auto and speaking only to herself.
“I had seen him only occasionally on his visits to my mother, when he asked her for money. Always, I was sent to my room, even as an adult. His smell preceded him, hanging like a distiller’s advertisement in a bubble around his head and his clothes.” Nellie felt queasy with the memories. “My mother aired out the house when he left. And then we lost the house and moved to my grandparents’ home and still later to apartment after apartment. He still found her.” Even Nellie could hear the bitterness in her voice. Stop this, she told herself. “I can’t say I was sorry he was dead, but seeing him like that, I was sorry he had been beaten. And I was relieved he wouldn’t hound my mother anymore for money to drink.”
The auto traveled along the road. “I didn’t take his photograph.” She concentrated on the snow reflected in the headlights. For a long stretch, it was driven by the wind directly toward the windshield, hypnotic and dizzying. Then it slowed and stopped. No other autos drove toward them, and they met none going their way.
“Who would kill Mr. Ah Kee?” Nellie didn’t know she was going to ask the question until it came out of her mouth.
“My husband was a good man.” Mrs. Ah Kee’s voice had almost no inflection. “He smoked opium, it is true, but he pressed no opium on anyone else. His talents lay in treating maladies and always he took special care of women. He boiled and dried herbs to ease women in their particular troubles. They came to him. Their men did not like this. Someone struck him down like a dog. He did not deserve this. Now, their women will moan and suffer. They will have babies they do not want. Their insides will torment them.” Mrs. Ah Kee’s voice had lost its indifference, and her slide into singsong carried a tone of pleasure. “Their men will be sorriest of all. The women will be witches and grow warts like toads, ugly growths. They will die.”
The interior of the auto felt warm compared to the cold menace of Mrs. Ah Kee’s voice, disembodied and humming. When the lights of Hailey began to glow in the night, Nellie was relieved. However would she ride back to Ketchum with this strange couple, if, indeed, they intended taking her home again? At the courthouse, she decided she would get help, telephone the sheriff if he wasn’t there.
Instead of turning the auto toward the county building where the body must lie, Sammy turned toward the river and followed a winding road that took them into even darker territory.
“Where are we going? The courthouse is the other way.” Nellie hoped she managed to keep her rising panic out of her voice.
The town lights disappeared, but a small lantern lit the front of a shanty-like dwelling over which loomed several evergreen trees and a black mountain. Sammy stopped the auto, jumped out, and opened the door opposite Nellie, retrieving the lights. He motioned to her: “Come. Come.”
Little snow had penetrated to the ground. Clumps of dead leaves and tree branches littered the area along with empty broken bottles and smashed tin cans. Blackened fence posts and the burned edge of the door stoop were mute evidence of an old fire. At the front door, Mrs. Ah Kee wielded a large key, turning the lock with a clunk. The door opened to a dark room that again seemed colder than outside. She lit a candle. “He is in here.” She opened another door and led the way.
Mrs. Ah Kee lit two candles on a table at the foot of a four-poster bed, and Nellie found herself in another world. She felt the stare of both mother and son as she absorbed her surroundings. Elaborate silk hangings draped the walls and served as a canopy over the bed; incense, thick and spice-laden, almost choked her. On the bed in the center of the room, a body dressed as elaborately as the room’s decor lay in state. His head had been shaved or he was bald already, and its moon color was like a large egg lying on purple pillows. A wispy beard, gray and white and limp, lay on a black Chinese tunic with dragons embroidered in silver and gold, each with a long red tongue. His bloodless hands rested one on top of the other at his waist. On the floor, rich and intricately patterned Oriental carpets covered every square inch, muting any footsteps and cushioning Nellie’s feet. The candles flickered and shadows danced on the ceiling. The light cast a long cylindrical shadow behind Ah Kee’s head. Another moonshadow, Nellie thought, trying desperately to remain calm. Bodies in caskets, even the strange body at Last Chance Ranch, had never bothered her. This one frightened her to her bones.
“You see my husband at Last Chance Ranch.” Mrs. Ah Kee’s dark eyes, her sallo
w skin, her narrow face, stitched mouth, and cruel voice accused Nellie.
Maybe she had seen him, thought Nellie. Maybe under that ice was this man. But it couldn’t be so. “I did not.” She stepped close to this Ah Kee’s head. “I’ve never seen him before.” Except in bad dreams. Nellie stared back at the woman, hoping her fear did not reach her eyes.
Mother and son, who waited in the doorway, glanced at each other.
“Missee take click-click.” Sammy lugged in the lights and Nellie’s tripod. She still held a death grip on her camera pack.
“I can’t.” She turned to leave. Mrs. Ah Kee barred her way. The strong incense threatened to bring Nellie to her knees. She was dizzy and felt as if she floated near the ceiling watching this scene, while her brain absorbed words and smells slowly. “I’m too cold. My hands are frozen.” She held them out as proof and perhaps for Mrs. Ah Kee to touch, but when the Chinese woman moved toward her, Nellie stepped back.
Mrs. Ah Kee grabbed her arm with fingers like talons and pulled her into the outer room, closing the death bed away. “I’ll make you tea. The auto was cold. The house is cold. The incense . . . is . . . difficult.” Mrs. Ah Kee’s voice sounded normal. She lit two lamps. “We must keep the house cold,” she said, and motioned toward the closed door. “The snow preserved my husband for many days, but now, he must be buried soon. When my son said you offered to take his photograph, I knew we could keep him only a little longer. Then he must return to his ancestors, and his bones will be sent back to China.”
While she talked, she placed a tea kettle on an electric plate. Nellie welcomed its everydayness. A cord ran to an outlet near the front door. No other electrical appliances were in evidence. A large black pot rested on a wood stove, but no fire warmed the room. Yet it smelled medicinal, away from the incense. She lost her fright, and when the woman handed her a small cup with green liquid, Nellie sneezed, took the hot cup, and sipped, feeling strength return to her hands as well as her heart.
