by Cindy Brown
“But I do want to bring somebody.” Uncle Bob’s voice stopped my mind from wandering too close to that particular edge. “Your dad.”
“Hey, Cody.”
“Olive-y!” The joy in my brother’s voice made me smile. I’d called him once I got out of the worst of the Valley traffic. Now there was just desert on either side, wide-open blue sky in front of me.
“You free Monday night?” I asked.
“Sure…But Mondays are dark.”
“They are indeed.”
I’d taken Cody to the theater these past couple of years, and he’d become a real fan. He saw every show I was in, accompanied me to previews, and learned that most theaters didn’t perform on Monday. Their lights were off, so they were “dark.”
“But we’ll get to see stars in the desert,” I said.
“Stars like Brad Pitt?” Brad Pitt was Cody’s favorite actor, probably because people compared the two of them all the time. My brother was one handsome man.
“No Brad Pitt. Just yours truly, Uncle Bob, a few tourists, and a bunch of cowboys. And Dad.”
“Olive-y…” A whine crept into Cody’s voice.
I mentally kicked myself. Some people might find my beating around the bush a fun tease, a little puzzle, but to Cody it was like nails on a chalkboard. He needed me to be concrete so he could process things in a linear fashion. “I’m inviting you to a cookout in the desert—a cowboy-style party—at Gold Bug Gulch, that new western town. I’m working there right now.”
“Cool. Did you say Dad was coming?”
“Uncle Bob wants to invite him. I don’t know if he’ll come.” Until a few months ago, our dad saw Cody and me once a year at Christmas, even though he and my mom lived in Prescott—just an hour and a half from Phoenix. Recently though, Dad had begun tiptoeing around the edges of our lives—calling, mailing articles he’d cut out of the paper, and even coming to town and taking us out to dinner a couple of times.
“He’ll come,” Cody said. “He loves cowboys. Hey, do we get to ride horses?”
“Not sure. Wait, Dad loves cowboys?”
“Duh. Why do you think he named me Cody?”
Chapter 26
Something was in the wind when I pulled into Gold Bug Gulch. And it didn’t smell pretty.
I followed my nose. Just downhill of the saloon was a puddle of brown sludge. I didn’t need to ask what it was. The smell gave it away. That and the Pretty Good Plumbers truck parked in the dirt street outside of the saloon. A stout woman in a ball cap came out of the saloon, wiping her hands on her coveralls. “Yeah, we’re going to have to pump this sucker, that’s for sure.”
“Just do it.” Nathan stalked out of the building after her. “Do it now. We got people coming tomorrow. A couple of busloads of tourists, even.”
“I’ll do what I can, but…” The plumber waved away the stinky air. “This place isn’t gonna smell like gardenias. Not by tomorrow.”
“Nathan!” Josh strode up the road, yelling as he walked, his blacksmith’s glasses pushed up on his head. “This is a riparian area. We can’t have sewage flowing into the stream.”
“Like that was my plan.” Nathan ran his hands through his overly gelled hair. It didn’t move.
“We’ve never had a problem with the septic tank in all these years,” said Josh. “What in the hell happened? You install the new lines wrong?”
The plumber’s face grew red. “We did everything by the book. The system flooded somehow. Too much water and whoosh—it all overflows into the drainfield before it’s processed.”
“Fancy way of saying it’s still crap,” said Nathan.
“Flooded?” Josh stood with his hands at his sides, like a cowboy about to draw. “And how exactly did that happen?”
“Got me.” The plumber tugged on her cap. “Usually see this sort of thing when there’s a flash flood, but…”
It hadn’t rained in a month. Wait…“Could someone flood it with a hose?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Josh said.
“Billie said there was a garden hose in the opera house toilet.”
“That could do it,” said the plumber.
“So somebody flooded the system on purpose?” Josh asked.
“Could have,” the plumber said. “Did a real nice job of it too.”
Nathan walked back into the saloon. I followed at what I thought was a respectful distance, but I must have been a little too close because I nearly ran into him when he whirled on me. “What? What now?” He had a little sweat moustache.
“Can I help? There’s got to be something we can do. We don’t want the tourists, or, omigod, the investors to get wind of this problem.” I meant it literally. Pee-u.
“Yeah, sure, the plumber can’t help, but you can, right? Make it smell like gardenias?”
“Gardenias…Omigod.” I was so excited by my brainwave that I nearly did a little happy dance, but it seemed inappropriate given the raw sewage issue. “Maybe I can help. If I had a thousand bucks…”
“I’d pay double that to clean up this business.”
“Are you serious?”
Nathan did something with his head that could have been a nod. “Now, I got work to do.” He turned around and walked toward his office.
I followed him inside. “Wait. About the chuckwagon cookout on Monday: what time should I be there?” I snuck a look in his wastebasket for anything gross (i.e., anything that might have his DNA on it). Spotless. Must have just been emptied. “Do you want me to greet the investors? Maybe make name tags?” Lame, I know, but maybe, just maybe Nathan would tell me their names.
“Greet ’em, sure. God, that mess better be cleaned up by then. Gotta show these guys a good time. Hey”—he seemed to see me for the first time that day—“you can wear your saloon girl costume.”
“No.” I was not going to show anyone a good time in that costume. Not even if it involved tap dancing (I loved tap dancing).
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. He did not seem like the kind of guy you said “no” to.
I thought fast. “This is a family-friendly event, right? Isn’t that why I was supposed to invite my family?”
“Whosaidyoushouinvi—”
“Arnie wanted them to come.”
“Oh. Well. Whatever.” Nathan’s expression softened at Arnie’s name. He almost looked like a halfway decent guy. Almost. Then he went back into his office and slammed the door shut.
I pulled out my cell and called Arnie. He picked up without singing—a good sign, since I needed him to be clear-headed. I told him about the plumbing problem, then said, “I told Nathan I could fix it for a thousand dollars, and he said he’d pay twice that. Do you think he meant it?”
“Sure,” said Arnie. “And if I’m wrong about that, I’ll cover the costs.”
I was hoping he’d say that. “Great. Maybe you can help me coordinate this.” I told him my plan and we got everything mapped out.
Chapter 27
As I walked down to the creek to meet Frank, I thought about my response to the saloon girl costume. I was an actress in my twenties. I’d certainly worn revealing costumes before. Sometimes they’d even been helpful in my investigations, since getting information from men was often easier when they weren’t looking at my face. So what was my issue? Authenticity? Maybe. My other costumes had suited whatever character I was playing. But there was more to my reaction, I knew. Just wasn’t sure what it was.
But the whispering cottonwoods and the green grass and the musical stream worked their magic on me, so by the time I saw Frank perched on a log by the creek, I was positively chipper. He waved at me. “Want to eat here or at my house?”
“I only have an hour before rehearsal, and I’d really like to see your place, so let’s eat there.”
Frank clambered off the log. “Follow me.” We crossed the c
reek and headed east. Within a few minutes, I had to look back over my shoulder to make sure the green riparian area wasn’t a mirage. Brown desert and rocky mountains stretched to the horizon, broken only by cactus, scrub brush, and the occasional mesquite tree. We trudged about five minutes, the sun hot on our heads even in November.
“Home sweet home.” Frank pointed up a hill toward something that looked like one of the un-renovated buildings in the ghost town. The shack had been cobbled together of mismatched lumber, the spaces between the wood sealed with tar and…maybe mud?
“Built it myself. Started construction, oh, back in ’79, when I was fresh out of college. Wanted to live off the land, you know. And I did—have—ever since.”
“I thought all this was BLM land.”
“It is. But the Bureau o’ Land Management, they don’t bother me too much. It’s not like it’s good land. Anything nice about it is ’cause of me. Like these trees.” Frank stopped underneath one of two mesquite trees. Its lacy leaves gave almost no shade. “Planted these babies too.” He thwacked the mesquite tree fondly and pointed toward another one that struggled to provide shade to Frank’s shack. “Plus the BLM was scared of me.”
“Why?’
“I’m an environmental activist. You know The Monkey Wrench Gang?”
“Edward Abbey, right? Something about protecting the land through…eco-terrorism?” Like the wolf traps he had supposedly vandalized?
“Not terrorism. Just…mischief.” He grinned. He did look mischievous, like a leprechaun who’d been left out in the sun too long. “Anyway, I figured out a really good way to keep the BLM away whenever they came poking around. I’d just stroll out to meet them buck naked, except for my shotgun.”
That would work. Especially the naked part. Frank was the kind of scrawny where you could see every joint sticking through his skin, and that skin was tanned so dark you couldn’t tell where his shins stopped and his boots started. Put that all together with a bit of man-chicken dangling between his legs—couldn’t be a pretty picture.
“Want a tour?” Frank said as we reached the shack.
“You bet.” My enthusiasm was not feigned. How often would I get to see how a true desert rat lived?
He opened the door for me, and I stepped inside. The interior was dark, only a few bars of sunlight coming through the windows, which were shuttered from the outside.
“Got to keep it shut up during the day to keep it cool, you know.”
Cool was a stretch.
“I open the window and the shutters at night, or when there’s a nice breeze. About twice a year.” He laughed. “That’s a joke. It’s really not too bad for about half the year.”
I wondered which half he was talking about. It was November—already into Arizona’s cool season—and the interior of the place felt like it was ninety. If it hadn’t been for the dust in the air (the cabin had a dirt floor), I could have sworn we were in a sauna.
Frank pushed a button on a battery-operated lantern that swung from a beam. “Nice, these long-lasting LEDs. Used to have to use a Coleman lantern or kerosene. Always felt bad about that. Not exactly environmentally friendly, you know. Tried to make my own candles for a while, but they never gave off enough light. Plus I was using tallow. You ever smelled it?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s just say there’s a reason they use soy for candles now.” He pointed at an old iron woodstove that took up a large portion of the shack. “I cooked on that stove. In the winter, that is. Too hot in the summer. Then I cooked outside over a fire. At night.”
“Did you say ‘cooked’?” Did Frank mean to use past tense?
“Yeah, I’m a good cook. As long as it’s beans.”
Another bean aficionado. I knew I liked the guy.
“But that stove also kept me warm in the winter. It can get down to freezing every so often.” Frank motioned to a twin bed shoved up against the wall. “I thought about building a sleeping loft,” he said. “One of my buddies in Northern California had a sweet set-up like that; more space below and more privacy. But this is Arizona. Heat rises.”
“Yeah.” I wiped a trickle of sweat from my face.
“Oh, sorry. I forget that everyone’s not as acclimatized as me.” He opened the door and we stepped outside.
“Where’s your garden?” The only green things around were the mesquite trees.
“It’s up at my new house. Next stop on the tour.”
A new house. That was why he’d used the past tense.
“Do we have time?”
“It’s just on the other side of this hill.”
Frank was quicker than me, so by the time I reached the top of the hill, he was surveying his kingdom proudly, hands on his skinny hips. “Built this one myself too. Well, I designed it and helped finish some of the inside. It’s a beauty, huh?”
Wow. The view stole whatever breath I had left after my climb. The house at the bottom of the small hill was built in concentric squares. The largest one was the house. Its whitewashed walls surrounded the second square—an interior courtyard full of plants—and a small square pond in the center reflected blue sky.
“It’s a straw bale house,” Frank said as we walked toward it. “Wait’ll you feel the difference in temperature.”
When we got to the house, Frank held open the front door, a massive wooden one carved in a Spanish style. He patted it fondly. “Reclaimed this beauty from a tear-down in Ajo.”
I stepped inside. The interior was dark, but in a pleasant dusky way, unlike the claustrophobic gloom of Frank’s cabin. There was Saltillo tile underfoot and wooden beams overhead. A beehive fireplace graced one corner of the room, and candles filled niches carved out of the two-foot-thick walls. The wall facing the courtyard was all windows and sliding glass doors, visually enlarging the room and showcasing the greenery-filled courtyard.
Frank slid open one of the glass doors. “Let’s eat out here. It’s pretty cool right now, and you can see my garden.”
We ate lunch on a stone bench. “I’ve got my fall garden going now. Planting season is different in the desert, you know. Right there are the three sisters.” He pointed at a raised bed, where the tasseled heads of corn rose above a mass of green vines. “When you plant those three—corn, beans and squash—together, they all help each other. See how the beans are using the cornstalks for support? And those big squash leaves keep the ground cool, while beans put nitrogen back into the soil. And over there,” he smiled slyly, “is my cactus garden, which may just have a few rescued Acuna cactus in it.”
Frank talked about the garden and the house nonstop during lunch, which was good because I was speechless. I’d thought I was doing some poor old guy a favor by bringing him lunch, but from the looks of this house, he could afford a lot better than cheese sandwiches and cheap beer. Still, he scarfed those down, talking all the while. “People come from miles around to look at the house. It’s even going to be on some green home tour in a couple weeks.” Frank brushed the crumbs from his lap and stood up. “Well, missie, about time for you to get to rehearsal. Can I offer you a ride?”
I must have looked surprised, because Frank laughed. “Yeah, I got a car. What’d you think, I walked everywhere?”
Yeah, I kind of had. I’d been thinking of Frank as some modern-day version of those crazy miners you used to see in old Westerns. I followed him back into the house and out a different door, where a Toyota Prius waited on the gravel drive. It beeped as Frank unlocked it.
“Nice car,” I said as I slid onto the leather seat.
“First one I’ve had in years.” So I wasn’t that far off. “Came into a little money a couple years ago.” He pulled out onto the dirt road that led to the Gulch.
“A pretty big change for you.”
Frank laughed happily. “Yes, indeed. And no one appreciates it more than me.” His expression abr
uptly changed. “Dammit.” He scowled at something through the windshield. “I’ll have to get back here later and pick up all this crap.” We drove past the object of Frank’s ire, the remains of a bonfire ringed with beer cans and plastic bags. “People,” he groused. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”
Chapter 28
Frank stopped in front of the opera house and let me out. I waved at him as he drove off and turned to go to rehearsal. Then the wind shifted.
Gluhhh. The plumbing truck was gone, but the odor was not. The sludgy brown pool had been covered with something that looked like kitty litter, but it didn’t mask the sewage smell. Maybe we needed one more piece of ammunition. Hmm. I pulled out my phone, did a Google search, and found exactly what I needed.
I nearly skipped on my way into dress rehearsal. I loved making things right.
My mood darkened as I walked into the windowless theater. Weird. I loved theaters. Just being in the space usually made me think of exotic costumes and happy chattering audiences and the beautiful, beautiful sound of applause. Today, this theater felt oppressive, like a gloved hand too near my throat. I shook off the feeling and headed toward what was probably the root cause of the unease. Billie and Chance stood onstage. Their backs were to me, but it didn’t take a detective to read their body language.
“Kaput,” I heard Billie say as I got closer. “You’ve got to understand that.” She turned, saw me, and gave me an actress’s smile. “Ivy, go on back to the dressing room and get into costume.” Chance was already dressed in a vest, neckerchief, and gun belt, his typical cowboy hat on his head. “Remember to wear both, the white dress over the green costume. You’ll also find two wigs. Put on Rose’s one—you’ll be able to tell which is which—and bring Fannie’s out with you.”
Wigs were a good thing. I had a little hair dye accident this past summer and had to get most of my hair cut off. It had grown out some, but the longest layer barely reached my chin. Plus my mouse-brown roots showed through the blonde right now. It wasn’t too bad—Matt said it gave me an edgy rocker look—but it certainly wouldn’t have flown in the 1890s.