by Julie Weston
As Nellie neared the ranch, she slowed, searching for tracks in the snow. There was no trough or dip that Rosy might have followed. He must have taken a side cut through the woods to show up where he did. Perhaps there had been too much snow since then.
Nothing moved in the snowfield. No ermine. No elk. No magpies flitted from tree to bush and back again. When she went too slowly, the auto jerked to a stop and she had to restart it to get going again. After the second time, she figured she must push in the clutch if she slowed down. Rather than stopping where she had previously begun her trek across the field, she continued north a short way and around a bend. Rosy’s vehicle was parked beside the road, its right front wheel buried up to the fender. Nellie drove up behind it, turned off the motor, and climbed out. Frost etched the windows. Snow was frozen hard around the right wheel.
“Rosy,” she called. A faint echo called back. Wind ruffled her hair and the branches of the cottonwood trees rattled like bones. In the distance, she heard the rush of water, but otherwise, there was a hush, as if she’d walked into a room and everyone had quit talking.
Near the stuck auto, footprints led toward the river, so she followed them directly to a half-trampled path branching to the south into trees. Whoever last walked on it did not wear snowshoes, nor were they needed. It was as if half a dozen people had already forged a trail. A hard edge crusted the old snow. She stepped up to test it and didn’t break through.
“Rosy!” Rosy, Rosy, Rosy, dwindled into nothing.
CHAPTER 24
Rosy tramped beside the Big Wood River. He ruminated on what his life had come down to: a derelict taxi driver comforted only by his jars of moonshine, sought out by dope addicts and misfits, spurned by gentle folk and roughnecks alike. Not that he cared, he told himself. He stepped around the jumbled snow. He didn’t want to tread on blood. Unwanted, the images returned: Ah Kee, bleeding in the snow. His skin, stiff as parchment, not yet cold as the air. Ooze from the back of his head turning into thick muck. Dry blossoms and stems had littered the area. Crouched against a frozen white tree trunk was Jack, shivering and trembling. In three giant steps, Rosy had reached and grasped the pile of bones and slobber, jerking it up and over his head. He wanted to shake the man until his brain rattled and died. Instead, Rosy heaved, throwing the man into the river.
That pale image, like Lily’s face, had shimmered on an ice floe. Don’t do this. It faded into the silver and gray water.
Rosy once again saw himself sliding down the cut bank, splashing into the river, ignoring the soul-crushing cold, wading up to his knees to the slowly sinking mess of wet clothes. He had pulled Jack to shore, leaking water and snot, and dragged him to the ranch. Rosy wished then and wished now that he’d left the killer in the water. Instead, Rosy left him in the cabin with the dog, who napped in front of the fire. “Aagh, help me,” Jack said, weeping and spitting. Rosy left him there and went to bury Ah Kee.
When the dog stopped to nose around, Rosy shook the nightmare out of his head. He called and clicked his tongue. At Last Chance Ranch, Rosy took the key from his pocket and unlocked the back door. Inside, he re-locked it. No more ghosts would come through that door. And again, he saw Jack on the floor, dead beside an overturned table. The eyes stared. Rosy had taken care of that with snow from the porch.
Which reminded him. The back door needed oiling. He puttered around, fixing it. No Jack. His place was silent, clean, empty.
His delaying tactics only worked for a while. Then he steeled himself to do what he had come out to do. Walking up the stairs to the second story brought too many memories to mind, but especially the sounds of small boys playing. They were growing up and he would never see them again. Why not? He had failed Lily and the boys. He was a useless drunk. It was time, he thought. He knew where the rest of the opium was, the stuff that Jack hadn’t found.
The robe, carefully folded with the dragon’s tongue on top, fit in the drawer, where it looked like a jewel in a box. He grabbed a dozen pouches hidden behind a board under the chest, emptied the buttons of dope into his hand, and sat back on the rug. A mistake. He recognized pieces of material from a boy’s shorts, a man’s shirt, a skirt that swayed.
Lily had lain in bed, her head turned toward the field, its fragrance lofting high and into the room. Her eyes, glazed like water, turned to their youngest son. The opium kept her alive in a world unrelated to anything else, but also one without pain.
“Picanick,” the boy said. He jumped up and down but did not touch the bed. He was learning. He dropped to his knees and ran a Tin Lizzie around the rag circles, catching a wheel in a white loop, satin.
“Tomorrow,” she said. Only her voice sounded the same.
“Not tomorrow,” Rosy said. “It’s going to rain.” He wanted the rain. He wanted buckets and torrents and downpours and cats and dogs of rain.
On the floor, the boy jerked the wheel from the loop and turned to Rosy. “Hate you.” There was no anger in the words. They were plain, ordinary words, with no more inflection than words on a blackboard. But as his small fist rose and flung the toy at his father’s face, the son’s eyes were chips of blue ice, as full of loathing as his mother’s were empty. The scrap of metal hit the door frame and broke into three pieces—two sets of wheels and the body. Each made its own particular sound as it landed on the floor.
Time.
Rosy dissolved buttons in the last of his whiskey. He always kept a jar back. In case he needed it. He hummed and fixed dishes of food and water for the dog. Someone would come. Maybe even that girl, the one he was supposed to protect. From what, he couldn’t remember. Maybe she’d go back to the East, run into his boys there in Chicago. Funny about life’s coincidences.
He made up little stories in his mind, about her taking photographs of his boys, not knowing who they were. About his boys showing her the photo she took of Rosy. He watched the opium dissolve. He drank and hummed a little. The taste was acrid, like drinking dirt.
When he could hardly function, he let himself out the front door and stumbled back along the path. No dog where he was going. He remembered the dead Ah Kee and cried. Soon, his legs gave out and he crawled, across the snow bridge, along the trail. He pulled himself to the aspen grove and leaned against a tree. There he would see Lily again. He was so tired. And Ah Kee. No, he was gone.
Snow fell and he slumped over. He shivered and forced himself to sit up straight against the tree. He wouldn’t die like that misbegotten fool, Jack. Instead, he dreamed warm days at the ranch, riding home from the mines in the Stanley Basin, hearing bees in the field. Two boys running out and jumping into his arms when he climbed off the freight wagon. Waving to the figure in the doorway, slender and lovely. And his.
Now the story would be all true: A family lived at Last Chance Ranch—wife, husband, and two boys. Wife died, boys went back East, man drank himself to death.
CHAPTER 25
Pulling her sled with the camera and tripod was easier on a trampled pathway without snowshoes, but she brought them, just in case. Little by little, the landscape came alive again: a bird song, a chickadee fluttering through the branches of an aspen, a flicker of movement near the river in a bush. Nellie looked around to see what she could see—a scene to photograph, an animal to watch. It was then she saw paw prints in windblown snow alongside the trail, prancing in and out, off to a bush, back to the path, sometimes deepening into thrashes and other times right on top.
“Moonie!” Her voice carried up against the hill again and back. She stopped and listened. “Moonshine!”
The trail aimed first for the river, then pointed south toward the Last Chance Ranch. Halfway to the cabin, she reached a section with dips and piles and spaces where the snow level was much lower than surrounding areas. Dog tracks circled each mound, but returned to one more than the others. Several patches of yellow snow reflected his mark. Nellie stopped and poked with her walking stick. Nothing there.
Then she heard a sound so eerie in its repetition that
gooseflesh crawled up her back. Tap, tap, tap. She swung toward the cabin and this time could see Moonie scratching at the window. To rescue him as fast as possible, she untied the sled from around her waist and hurried along the path. It led to the back door. Inside, Moonie yipped and dashed from the door to the window. “Hang on, Moonie.” She pushed and it opened easily. Moonie leaped up and licked her face.
“Moonshine! I’m so happy to see you.” She knelt with him half in her arms and hugged and patted his bristly short hair. “What are you doing here?”
Two dishes held food and water, so he was cared for. She let him out the front door and he leaped off the porch to squat in the snow. “Oh, poor dog.” He left a small pile, then sniffed around and marked a corner of the cabin. He came back, wagging his tail. He seemed as happy as she felt. “Where’s Rosy?”
Moonie ran inside and to the stairway, taking two steps up, then waited for her. “Is he upstairs?” She had heard nothing, but remembered the cigarette butts. Was someone watching again? “Pooh.” She was scaring herself. She had the dog to protect her, so she climbed the stairs and entered the room with the double bed. It was still abandoned, still empty. Even the butts were gone. Her footsteps to the bunkroom sounded hollow, but there too, nothing had changed, not even the melancholy. As bright as it was outdoors, these two rooms felt dank and gloomy. She opened the dresser drawer. And there was the robe, where it belonged. The empty leather pouches still half-filled each drawer, seeming more numerous than the first time she looked. A hint of lavender remained, but that was all. No more sachets. She touched the one in her pocket. That, at least, she would keep.
While she looked around, Moonie rolled on top of the braided rag rug, back and forth, making his strange arping sound. “Let’s go. There’s nothing more up here.” The rug drew her attention. It was composed of many different materials and colors—pink crepe from a dress, dark silk with a pattern like a man’s tie, flannel from pajamas or a shirt, white satin, red corduroy that reminded her of a child’s playsuit. It was someone’s life pieced together for comfort and memory, and gave her an idea of what might be done with photography. The rug lumped on one end. When she stooped to straighten it, she found a sock under it, one like she carried in her pack. Moonie yipped and she tucked the sock in her pocket and tromped down the stairs.
“Where did Rosy go?” The dog tilted his head sideways, then straight, as if he understood and would answer if only he could. “Did he leave this morning? Is he hunting?”
Moonie dashed off toward the south, floundering from time to time. He nosed around the trees where Nellie had stood to photograph the elk. The dog barked, picked something out of the snow, and headed her way. A magpie flew over him and he dropped what he was carrying to give chase. “Moonie, come here!” He chased in circles, apparently delighted to be out of doors.
Nellie sat on her sled, waiting, then retrieved the belt she had hidden in the pack. In the daylight, the instrument on the buckle was clearly a trumpet. The band was the Kellogg Brass Band and the year 1908 rather than 1918. On the back side, the I.K. or I.H. became I.B. “To J.B. with love forever from I.B.” Nellie licked spit on her thumb and rubbed the initials. This time she read G.B. To Jack Bradley from Gladys Bradley. Fourteen or so years ago, a sister gave a memento to a brother. That brother was Three-Fingered Jack, now dead.
Moonshine jumped on Nellie. When she patted him, he nuzzled her, then dashed toward the river. He barked again. Perhaps the miner was hunting and didn’t take the dog for fear he’d scare away an elk or a deer.
“Not that snow bridge again. Let’s find a better place to cross.” While Nellie had been studying the belt, a high white haze had crept across the northern sky, diminishing the usual dazzling reflection of sun on snow to a dull matte, but the day still carried a winter brightness.
The dog finally gave up on his more direct route and joined her. The trampled snow near her sled, for that’s what it was underneath at least one layer of new snow, was more apparent because of afternoon shadows. It reminded her of how she had thrashed around at night, taking photos. Someone, or several someones, must have trod back and forth on this spot.
When the dog began pawing at a mound, she helped him. Her scoops were more effective than his scratching and she uncovered small stems and old buds or blossoms. The snow was tinged with pink, and in some places, a brownish red. Working much more carefully, she pushed snow aside to see how large an area the color covered, and, in one corner, how deep it was. Neither effort was successful. She was certain it was blood. This was something Sheriff Azgo should see. She marked it with a small snowman patted together, then decided she was hungry. She had taken a sandwich from Mrs. Bock along with a canteen of water in a canvas sling. Before embarking on a trek with Moonie, she decided to eat and drink a little and share with the dog.
At the sled, she noticed something flung off to one side and wondered if she had done it while digging. Only a corner showed, but when she pulled it out of the snow, she discovered it was a square of silk. “I know what this is,” she said to Moonie. “It’s a sachet bag. Here, smell.” He sniffed and arped. “Those crumbled things were old lavender. What is this doing out here?” The dog was getting impatient. He ran off toward the river and barked.
“Opium. I’ll bet that’s what was in here. And this could be where Ah Kee was killed. That blood must have been his. Moonie, I should go get the sheriff right now.” Instead, she planted the silk piece half in and half out of the snow next to her snowman, and then called to the dog. “Wait! I’m coming.”
She left behind her snowshoes and took only the bag with part of the sandwich, the canteen, her newly purchased flashlight, and her walking sticks. The sling went easily around her neck and shoulder so the canteen hung at her side. By stepping lightly, she could stay on top of the snow and move faster. There wasn’t all that much left of the afternoon, but enough.
A pathway, not as well marked, led toward the river. The going was easier on it than around the house, but Nellie still sank in from time to time, once up to her knee. They came to what looked like another bridge—a high heap of snow blocks—with tracks across. She knelt down and saw wide lines in the snow, as if someone crawled to the other side.
“What do you think? Is it safe?” Talking to Moonshine relieved her sense that she was so alone. He jumped on the blocks and sniffed his way across the snowy bridge, not breaking through. She took one step and then another, testing as she went. Even her stick wouldn’t penetrate the icy top layer. On the other side of the Big Wood, the less defined trail continued. The cottonwoods were beginning to rattle again and the wind loosened the snow into miniature whirling dervishes.
The dog ran around, slipping here, sinking there, and barking. Their progress was uneven and the day was sliding toward dusk faster than Nellie had anticipated, especially with the sun obscured by a thicker haze. Where could Rosy be? She wasn’t cold, but she also wasn’t prepared to spend a lot of time outside at night and debated whether she should return to the cabin if not to the auto. The possible ire of Gladys Smith didn’t concern her. Rosy was more important.
Nellie tried on the facts she did know. The sheriff had brought Ah Kee out to Last Chance Ranch because Rosy needed help with Three-Fingered Jack. Because there were no dips and tracks at the front of the ranch where she herself had hiked the first night she came out to photograph, she believed Ah Kee approached from the north. Had the sheriff been with him?
The two dead men were such disparate characters. What linked their deaths? The doctor was well-known to those she had mentioned his name to, and with few exceptions, was admired as a person with medical knowledge. The patients she knew about were Lily and Mrs. Smith and now, obliquely, herself. As Nellie plodded along, trying to follow the track in the increasing gloom, she wondered what about him had led to his death.
Jack Smith. He was Gladys’s brother, a former miner, someone who drank and took opium, who played a trumpet in a band, who was injured in an avalanche. Nellie h
ad not seen Gladys grieve, but then she didn’t know when Gladys found out about his death. There were miners in town who could have visited Last Chance Ranch, maybe to collect on a debt, maybe to find cocaine. Everyone in town apparently knew each other’s business. It didn’t have to be someone she knew.
The only link she knew of between Jack and Ah Kee was opium.
The snow where her sled waited had been roiled and there was surely blood there, along with a broken sachet bag. Someone had been hurt, if not killed, on that spot. The sheriff and Rosy both appeared uninjured, so it probably was either Three-Fingered Jack or Ah Kee. Because Jack eventually ended up at the ranch, she could guess it was Ah Kee. Jack might have attacked Ah Kee. With the dog sock? The sheriff said it had hair on it, and Ah Kee was bald, or maybe his head had been shaved as she first supposed. The axe made a better, sharper weapon.
If Ah Kee and Jack had a fight over opium, Ah Kee ended up dead. But so did Jack. Ah Kee was buried. Jack wasn’t. He disappeared. If she hadn’t stumbled on to his body, maybe no one would ever have discovered he was dead. She couldn’t shrug off the idea that Rosy killed Jack, then took him away, cut off his arm and stole the belt so he wouldn’t be identified.
And the arm. Was the arm in the box Rosy took to Gladys? She could have stuffed the box into one of those ore cars and no one would ever see it again by the time the ore went through the mill. Her suspicions were much too gothic.
If not Rosy, then who? The sheriff? The sheriff had brought her out here alone. He could have murdered her. No, the whole town knew she was with him. Her feet crunched the snow. The path had taken her close to the grove of trees where she had stumbled upon the snow mound containing Ah Kee. Not too far distant and across the river was the ranch. She sipped some of her water. This grove of aspen from the perspective she now saw it assumed shape and form, as if someone had planted the trees in a double circle with an empty center. On her last trip, she had not seen what was clearly a rounded mound in the middle.
