by Julie Weston
Nellie thought for a moment. “I think I know. He shows up in one of my photos where your sister was killed. Maybe he did it.”
“No! That was . . .” Effie clamped her mouth shut. Then, as if to herself, she said, “I mustn’t tell. I promised. Besides, he didn’t . . . She was already dead, by that fiend.” She shook her head. “The baby killed her!” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “I don’t know what to do. Hattie was the one who planned, who always knew how to get out of a fix. That was what she was trying to do, you know, when Elder found her.” Her shoulders shook. “Only he was a worse fix. That’s what I told—”
The auto door jerked open. “C’mon. I have the horse.” He turned to Nellie where she sat in the back seat, and he tossed away a cigarette butt. “Now, miss crime photographer, you tell us. Where is the money?”
Nellie stared at him, visible, as the dark had lightened up. “It is safe and beyond you.”
The man’s beseeching manner changed. “Tell me, or I will make you pay.”
“Whatever you do, the sheriff will find out, and you’ll pay.” Her words were braver than her thoughts. This man may have killed all three—Elder, Hattie, and Cable.
Peter Banks brought the horse closer. “Help me get her on it,” he said to Effie.
“No! You can’t do this. You promised to help me. This isn’t helping me!”
“You want that money or not, you cry baby? What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I promise. I’m crying for my sister, Hattie.”
“She’s dead. Nothing you can do about that.” Peter handed a piece of cloth to Effie. “Here. Put a blindfold on her. Now. We don’t have all night.”
“She said she has a photo of you in the cave with Hattie.”
He exclaimed and then said, “Nothing to do about that either. By the time someone finds out, we’ll be long gone, and so will she.”
Effie climbed in and whispered to Nellie, “I gotta put this on you. Hold still.”
Nellie shook her head and lifted her arms, tied as they were. She shoved at Effie, who fell backwards out of the door.
“You wildcat. I should take you and leave Effie here. I like ’em feisty.” The man practically sat on Nellie and tied the scarf around her eyes. “Now shut up, or I’ll fill your mouth too.” He pulled at her elbow and legs until she stood outside the auto. While she couldn’t see straight ahead, she could see out the bottom of the blindfold. She knew where they were—the side strip near the narrow trail that led to the tree molds.
Coins. Nellie remembered how they found O’Donnell. Did she have any in her pants? As stealthily as she could, she pulled her arms to one side and reached a hand into a pocket. Nothing. Around to the other side—nothing there either. She tried to reach her jacket pocket and couldn’t. Peter called to Effie again to help get Nellie onto the horse. She hoped he would let her ride, but her bound feet told her he had other plans. She hopped to the other side of the auto while they argued and tried to scrape a word in the gravel of the roadside. She could loosen her boot, but that was it, when Peter grabbed her and slung her over the saddle of the horse. She couldn’t tell if it was the same horse she, Charlie, and Rosy had been using. Where did it come from? Was Tom in on this, too? Peter took a rope and wrapped it around her and then the saddle horn. There was no way she could slide off and attempt to escape. She felt like a bag of bones.
“I’m not coming!” Effie shouted. “You can’t do this!”
“Good. You’ll only slow me down. You better be here when I get back, or you’ll get the same treatment, and I’ll get the money.” Peter paused and muttered under his breath, “Maybe I should tie her up, too.” He stepped away from the horse. “Nah. She’s too scared to drive off alone.” He began to lead the horse down the path, still muttering. “Why do I need her anyway?” He stopped. “Effie, come with me. You can keep me company. I want your help.” His voice once more adopted a wheedling tone.
“Promise you won’t hurt her?”
“I’ll leave her tied up out there by the tree molds. Someone’ll come along and let her loose. By then, you and I will be on our way to California, like we talked about. That money will keep us a long time.” He sounded again like he did at the Guyer Hot Springs when talking to the boys or wooing the woman behind the changing wall.
That money would keep him a long time, Nellie thought. Effie, too? She doubted it. She decided to say something. “Effie, he’ll just leave you there, too! Run away! Get help!”
Peter knocked Nellie’s head. “Guess I’ll have to shut you up, won’t I?” He pulled another kerchief from his pocket and stuffed it in Nellie’s mouth. She choked and gagged and tried to lift her head, without being able to. She used her tongue to push the gag to the front of her mouth as much as possible. She found a position where she could breathe through her nose. The horse began moving again. She couldn’t tell if Effie were with them or not.
The horse was being led from the front. Nellie could stretch her neck and see the cinders immediately below the horse. They changed from black to shiny to gray to crystal prisms and back to black. She worked on her feet and loosened one of her boots enough to kick it off. If Peter heard it, he would stop and throw it from the path. If she made a noise, he would turn around and see the boot drop. What to do? She could feel her heart thumping in her chest.
The horse stumbled. Peter stumbled. She didn’t hear Effie, so she hoped the woman had stayed behind. If she were smart, which was in great doubt, she would drive off and get help.
Their travel smoothed a little, and Nellie decided she had to leave the only clue that was possible—her boot. She slipped it off with her other foot and felt it drop. She tried to cough to cover up any sound, but the gag didn’t help. Peter didn’t stop. Then Nellie realized he would see it on his way back from wherever they ended up. Despair seeped around her heart.
An hour, more, passed. Nellie ached from her head to her toes. Being slung across a saddle with her head hanging low on one side, her middle on the hard seat, and her legs swinging with the horse’s movement was the most uncomfortable position she had ever been in. Peter whistled from time to time but didn’t talk. The ground beneath her began to change, from piles of clinkers to a path with pine needles. They were near the tree molds. Then Peter and the horse changed direction, and the path once again was lava rock, smooth for a while, and then filled with the lava detritus. Occasionally, she could see a lava bomb. Dread filled her. They were nearing the area where Charlie and she had found Cable O’Donnell. Oh, please, she thought. Not one of those spatter cones.
Peter stopped. His boots neared her, and he pulled the gag from her mouth. “I should have given you another dose of chloroform. I could feel you calculating all the way here,” he said. “No one will save you now, picture lady. I don’t care what your camera shows.” He untied the rope from around the saddle horn and her hands and feet and pulled her off the saddle. She could hardly stand, especially with one boot gone. The man shoved her to the ground, where she landed on the cinders. Her arms were free now, so she pulled off the bandanna around her eyes. Effie wasn’t with them.
“You were so nice to the boys. When did you become such a monster?” Nellie’s mouth was dry as dirt, and she could hardly get the words out.
Peter jeered. “Best way to get to a woman—be nice to the kids.”
“Is that baby yours?”
Peter had turned away but swung around to stare down at Nellie. “What do you mean?”
“Hattie’s baby. The one she died delivering. Is it yours?”
“I never—” Peter stepped away. “None of your business.”
“Are you and Effie going to kidnap that baby? Why did you put her on the church steps if she was your child?”
“It’s one of those O’Donnells’ baby. Why else would that old man be willing to pay so much to get Hattie back from those religious nuts?”
“She, not it.” Nellie dug with her hands behind her back. Peter still had not noticed
one of her boots was gone. That was good. She was trying to find a cinder or rock large enough to cold-cock Peter if he leaned down close enough. She remembered O’Donnell’s head and Elder’s head—how they had both been smashed with a rock. Did Peter do that? Would he do it to her? She could at least try to defend herself. “She has a name now, too. Eleanor. Isn’t that pretty?” Nellie made up the name. Maybe a real child would elicit sympathy from Peter, even if it wasn’t his, but Nellie suspected it was, although some complete stranger in Twin Falls or Pocatello could be the father. Her long ride had given her time to cogitate on all of these people. One way or another, they seemed to be related or connected, a coincidence she had found often to be true in the small towns of Ketchum and Hailey and Stanley.
Two steps and Peter grabbed Nellie’s arm and pulled her up. She didn’t have time to react. “Time to tie those hands again. We’re going on a short walk.” Only then did he notice her stocking foot. “Where’s your boot? I’m not going to carry you. You’ll just have to scrape up that foot of yours.” He jerked her around and once again tied her hands together in front. He shoved, and all she could do was hobble like a crippled goose being led to oblivion. Peter pulled a circled rope from the horse’s saddle and hefted it onto his shoulder. In exasperation, he half carried her to one of the spatter cones—the same one where Charlie and Nellie had pulled Cable O’Donnell out.
“You’ll find some company down there,” Peter growled and then laughed.
Nellie was afraid he’d hit her first, apparently the same way he had bashed Cable. She remembered tossing a stone down the hole and not hearing it land. How deep was it? She lifted her arms and tried to push Peter toward the hole, hoping he would fall in. Although he staggered sideways, he jumped up and knocked her over. Her face scraped the globs of lava on one edge.
Tears sprang to Nellie’s eyes. She could feel blood seeping down one side of her face. She tried to kick out at Peter with her foot. Peter took the rope and circled Nellie’s chest with it. He lifted her bodily and used the rope to lower her several feet into the hole. The edges of the hole scraped her legs, and she worried her head would bang against a sharp outcropping. She had difficulty breathing with the rope around her.
“Where’s the money? Tell me, and I’ll pull you back up.”
A stray thought about swimming making him strong crowded out Nellie’s fear for a brief moment.
“The sheriff has it—in his office in Hailey—locked in a safe.” Nellie panted, trying to sound calm. “You will never get it.” She tried to laugh.
The man’s face looking down at her suffused with red. His eyes widened, and he pulled her up a foot or two. “What’s so funny, you harlot.” He looked like an evil clown.
“All your and Effie’s machinations about the money. And O’Donnell’s, too. Except he knew it was counterfeit.” Her laugh sounded less forced. “He was a moonshiner and a counterfeiter, as well as a cattleman. Did you know that about him? The sheriff does.” Nell tried to keep her voice light. Maybe it was true. Otherwise, why did Charlie let it stay at the boarding house so long? Of course, he could hardly get around. “After the revenuer raid this last summer, his house was searched. Apparently, he hid a lot of the counterfeit money, but the revenuers took away the machinery. When we opened those boxes of bills, Sheriff Azgo knew right away where they had come from. O’Donnell wasn’t really giving anything up to Elder for Hattie. Just phony bills.”
“You’re lying.”
Nellie tried to shrug her shoulders.
“I’ve seen some of those bills. They were flat out real.”
That meant he took the bills O’Donnell had swiped from the cave where Nellie stashed them. He must be the person who killed O’Donnell. That would be proof.
“How would you know?”
“Maybe I don’t know, but I can find out. In the meantime, you get to find out how to get out of that hole.” Peter slowly lowered her again, maybe to torture her with fear. It was working. Before Nellie could try to do anything to save herself, he let the rope go.
CHAPTER 27
Goldie fussed in the kitchen getting a picnic basket ready to go. A picnic in October struck her as faintly ridiculous, but she had promised the boys she would take them to Guyer Hot Springs and then a picnic on the lawn. Rosy had promised to bring them back in the morning for this treat. She hoped he remembered their swimming suits. She did not approve of those boys swimming in the men’s side with no clothes on. There was no school, but she had already rung up the resort to see if the springs were open.
Rosy arrived, and the boys ran upstairs to their room. “Shhhh!” Goldie called. “Nellie still isn’t up yet, and I don’t want you pestering her!” She turned to Rosy. “She has never slept this late. Do you suppose she’s sick?”
“The last few days were pretty hard, Goldie. Leave her be. She probably needs the sleep. Plus, she has to go to Twin Falls to get some film developed. We ran into a strange deal out there.” He helped himself to coffee from the pot on the stove.
“What strange deal? No one tells me nothin’.”
“Can’t talk about it. I’m a deputy now, so gotta keep things quiet until Charlie tells me it’s okay.”
“What’s okay?” The sheriff stood in the doorway. Only one crutch helped him stand.
“Keepin’ secrets from Goldie.” Rosy swallowed some coffee and then rushed to the sink to get some cold water. “That’s damn hot!”
“Charlie, Nellie is still asleep, and Rosy said you all had a strange time out on the lava fields. Is she all right?”
“Far as I know. I think she crept up and down the stairway last night, so she might be extra tired.” He turned to Rosy. “I have been thinking. I want to call the photographer in Twin Falls and have him come here. The sooner we get those photos developed, the better. He could help Nellie—ah, Miss Burns— and we may have some answers. Also, I think he has some photos he took as a portrait photographer that might be of interest to us.”
“I know who you mean, Jacob Levine,” Goldie said. “I can call the Olsens and get his telephone number. But maybe we should ask Nell first?” She knew how Nellie felt about her own work—her photos, her negatives—but she made the telephone call anyway.
The boys came tumbling down the stairs. If that didn’t wake Nell, nothing would, Goldie thought. “All right. Let’s go. Got your swimming gear?”
“Hi Sheriff,” Matt said. “Want to go swimming with us?”
The sheriff lifted his casted leg. “I cannot. Another time.”
Rosy herded everyone out the door. He glanced back at Charlie. “I’ll meet you here in a couple shakes. We can take the money to the bank.”
“Don’t hurry. We took care of the cash yesterday afternoon.”
Matt pleaded with Goldie to let Campbell come with him to the men’s pool. Goldie gave in, after she had the steward check and see if it was crowded, which it wasn’t. Only a few men were in there, and they all seemed to be guests at the hotel, he said. Goldie sank into the heat of the pool on the women’s side. It was like being in a hot bath, but without the worry about using too much hot water. Plus, the minerals and salt made it easy to float around. Aspen leaves surrounding the pools quaked, their yellow color beginning to fade. The cottonwoods had already dropped most of theirs. Two other women lounged in the pool with her, but no one seemed inclined to talk, so she didn’t either. After half an hour, her skin had wrinkled like a raisin, so she climbed out and changed. She asked the steward to get the boys so they could go out to the front picnic tables and have lunch.
“They ain’t in the pool,” he said when he returned.
“What do you mean? Didn’t you check on them like you said?”
“I got busy, lady. Wasn’t my job to check on them.”
“Well, I could hardly do it, could I? I’m going around now. Better tell those men to sink down.” Goldie strode around the dividing wall and stepped toward the men’s side. She could see several men, but no boys. She walked in farther. �
��Where are my boys?” she called.
“They went out a while ago with a man. They all seemed to know each other,” called one of the men who was cowering along one side of the pool. “You can’t come in here!”
“What man? Who was it?”
Another answered. “That Banks guy. He was staying here.”
Uh-oh. Peter Banks. What in the world had he been doing there again? Goldie spun on her heel and went out to the steward. “Peter Banks. Is he still here?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Oh, yes, you can, or I’ll report you to the police. Running a lewd place of business. Letting one of those men run off with little boys.”
The steward pulled out a register and ran his finger along it. “Yes, he’s been staying here. His room number is eight.” He closed the book. “Now go away.”
Goldie hurried around to the front door of the lodge. She asked a woman cleaning the lobby area where Room 7 was and was pointed down a hallway. Goldie banged on the door of Room 8 until her fist hurt. No answer. She hurried back to the dressing room where the boys had changed. Their clothes were gone. Back to the lobby, where she found a telephone and called the boarding house. The phone rang and rang. Would no one pick it up? They all knew she was gone. “Keep ringing,” she told the operator. “Someone is bound to get tired of the noise.”
Finally, Rosy picked up. “Hello. Bock’s Boarding House,” he said.
“Rosy, it’s me. The boys were taken away from here by Peter Banks. I’m stranded, and I don’t know what to do.”
Rosy blew his breath out. “That ain’t all. Nellie’s room has been torn to pieces, and she’s gone, too. I’ll get the sheriff and come get you now.”
“Oh, no!” Two kidnappings in one morning? They must be connected. Goldie grabbed up her picnic and satchel and began to walk along Warm Springs Road toward town. When Rosy’s car motored down the road, she waved, and he stopped. She climbed into the back and found herself sitting with Moonshine. She flung her arms around the dog and sobbed.
