Moonshadows

by Julie Weston

  “Sammy watched you at the cabin. He searched for his father, who disappeared two days before. You went there to meet Ah Kee, like other women.”

  “I went to take photographs of the moon and shadows on snow. You’ve seen them. They’re on your table.” The two faces, malevolent in the shadows, frightened her.

  “Why did you photograph the cabin and the dead man if not to document your evil work? We have heard of people from Chicago. They shoot and kill and maim and steal. You steal my honored husband’s soul. You photograph him.” The pair stood like statues, their hands folded at their waists, their heads held stiffly upright, Sammy in his coolie clothes and Mrs. Ah Kee in her modern dress.

  “You brought me here to take his photo!” Nellie’s hackles rose. “He was dead then. How could I have stolen his soul? You almost forced me to photograph him.”

  “You take picture at cabin,” Sammy said. “Where you hide it?”

  Nellie gripped the side of the tray, thinking she would throw it at them and then run. But she had no clothes. “Where are my things? I am leaving. I’ve told you several times that I did not photograph Ah Kee at the house. He was not there. Only Three-Fingered Jack.” Curse her desire for money. If only she hadn’t gone to the Last Chance Ranch.

  Again, the two studied her. She stared at them. If they took one step, she’d throw the dish and tray. If she hit one, maybe she could run from the other. She could not look away. It would be a sign of weakness. Her eyes burned.

  Then, although neither moved, Nellie sensed communication between the two. Sammy bowed. Mrs. Ah Kee said, “We believe you.” The lines of her face deepened and hardened, aging her by many years, as if a great mourning had descended on her. She left the room and returned with a hanger carrying Nellie’s clothes. “Here are your dress and underclothes. You cannot leave tonight, but in the morning Sammy will take you to Mrs. Bock. You will not be harmed while you are in our care.” She laid the clothes over the end of the bed, motioned for Sammy to take the tray, and left.

  This Idaho and its people were, in many ways, more complex than the city and its denizens, or at least the part of Chicago in which Nellie had lived and worked. There, stations in life were assigned and rarely deviated from. Here, there seemed room for different roles, different sensibilities. She would have thought that the opposite was true. Now, she wasn’t so certain. The journey she was on became more hazardous the further she ventured.

  She handed the tray to Sammy. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  He nodded, but did not look at her.

  “What else did you see out there when you were spying on me through the trees?” Nellie asked, on a hunch.

  This time, he glanced at her face and the keen intelligence was back in his.

  “We could work on this together, Sammy. Find out what really happened.” She spoke in a low voice, not wanting his mother to hear, perhaps because Mrs. Ah Kee was all sharp edges and steel shields. To his silence, she said, “I’m going back out there as soon as I feel better, perhaps day after tomorrow. I know the snow covered up most everything, but there might be something the sheriff missed, something I didn’t see when I was there, something you saw but didn’t understand.”

  A slight hesitation on Sammy’s part in moving around the bed with the tray suggested what she said resonated with him. “I know more than I did before. I think you know more than you’ve told, even to your mother.” She remembered Franklin talking about Goldie and all of her knowledge. “Many people seem to know more than you or I do. We’re the strangers here, so maybe we can see more clearly than the others. But I’m not sharing unless you do.”

  At the door, he studied Nellie. She was certain she saw a nod, or maybe it was just a blink of his eyes, before he left.

  Another night of rest and medicine and Nellie felt almost good as new. The Ah Kees helped her into the auto that Sammy had driven the night they brought her from Ketchum to Hailey. He carried her camera and photo case and placed them in the back seat. Mrs. Ah Kee gave Nellie a steadying hand. Although she felt all right, her legs quivered.

  “Thank you for taking care of me.” Nellie wanted to explain how her initial fright had turned to respect, how sorry she was about the death of Ah Kee even if she had never known him, how she realized his death meant the end of a good doctor to the community, but she didn’t know how to express herself, and whatever she said might be unwelcome and misunderstood. She was too new, too young, and too white to understand the difficulties the Ah Kees had faced and would continue to face daily for the rest of their lives.

  A silvery cold etched the snow along the road to Ketchum with frozen crystals. Long wheatgrass, tall dead weeds, and bare Aspen branches all shone a dazzling white, like an iced-over fairy land. Even the air was spun with shimmering threads. In this radiant world, Nellie wanted to think only of the light, not of death and darkness, blood and lost love. On such a day, surely redemption could be found.

  “Sammy,” Nellie said, “teach me to drive.”

  Surprise widened Sammy’s eyes. He glanced at her and back at the road.

  “I need to know how to drive. If you won’t take me out to Last Chance Ranch, I will go by myself. Even if you will take me, I need to know.”

  After glancing behind him, Sammy pulled over, out of the ruts heading north. He shut off the motor and sat a few minutes, then patted the steering wheel. “Steering wheel.” He moved it to the right and to the left. He pointed to a button near the steering column. “Starter,” and to the right pedal on the floor. “Go gasoline.” To the middle pedal. “Stop brake.” To the left pedal. “Shift—no, clutch.” To the stick coming from the floor to his right. “Shift.” To his right leg. “Right foot gas and brake.” Then he demonstrated moving his foot from the right pedal to the middle. “Left foot clutch.” He pressed the left pedal.

  Nellie leaned over to see what each foot was doing and mumbled after him, gas, brake, no clutch, brake. Shift. “But what are the no clutch and shift for?” Again, Sammy sat, chewing on his lip, then going through several motions. “Gas push, go. Brake push, stop. Yes?”

  “Yes. If I push on the gas pedal, the car goes. If I push on the brake pedal, the car stops.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Clutch.” He pushed it down again with his left foot. “Shift. Same time.” With his right hand, he moved the shift knob forward and back. Then he took his foot off the clutch and said. “No clutch, no shift.” He waited for her to say something.

  “All right. No clutch, no shift.” What did it mean? They didn’t sound like Chinese words.

  Beeeeeep. “Horn.” He grinned. “You do.”

  Beep.

  Sammy frowned and pushed the hub in the middle of the steering wheel again. Beeeeeeeeep. Nellie pushed a second time. Bee-beeeeeeeeeeeep! They both laughed out loud.

  “You drive,” Sammy said. “Remember, no clutch, no shift.” He climbed out his side of the car and came around to her door.

  Nellie saw she could not easily slide past the stick—the shift—and swung out her door and walked around, climbing in behind the wheel. She took a deep breath, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, and pressed her right foot to the gas pedal. Nothing happened.

  “Start motor,” Sammy said, pointing to the key and then to the button. “Push starter.” Then he leaned back with an expectantly fearful expression on his face.

  Nellie turned the key and pushed the button. The motor turned over, and the auto jerked ahead and quit. “Oops.”

  “No no no! Push clutch, then turn on motor.” He jabbed his left foot at the floor and touched the button at the same time, and Nellie followed his directions. This time, the engine rumbled and the auto rocked slightly. So, it was going. Now for the gas pedal. She lifted her left foot off the clutch and pressed the gas pedal with her right. The auto jerked and stopped.

  Sammy snorted and climbed out his side of the auto, walked around to Nellie, and motioned for her to slide over. This time, she lifted her legs and skirt and awkwa
rdly scooted to the passenger side. “Watch.” He pressed the clutch, saying “Clutch,” pushed the button, saying “starter,” moved the stick toward him, saying “shift.” She watched what he did. “Press gas slow. Let go clutch.” The auto eased forward and he steered onto the main ruts, then pulled over again. “You do.”

  This required far too much concentration for Nellie, but she needed to learn. They traded places again. “All right. Clutch in.” She pressed her left foot. “Push starter.” Rumble, rumble. Maybe they could just sit there for a while.

  “Go. Go. Right foot on gas, let go clutch.”

  Again, Nellie did as Sammy said and the car leaped forward in a big jerk, but then kept going.

  “Steer! Steer!” Panic raised his voice an octave.

  The auto bumped over lumps of snow and she finally steered it into the track of the road. The ruts pulled at the steering wheel, so she grasped it tightly. When the road began to curve, she moved the wheel to the right and almost ran off the road into the snowbank. Clearly, the wheel only needed a slight move to the right. But the motor sounded like it was groaning.

  “Shift,” Sammy said. Nellie reached for the stick but didn’t know which direction to push it in. “Clutch clutch! Push down clutch.” She did, and Sammy moved the stick forward. “Let go clutch. Eeeeasy.” The motor labored less.

  Sammy leaned back, visibly becoming more easy himself. “I go find father. You see me. Honored mother and I think you . . . ,” he said and paused. Nell couldn’t take her eyes off the road. She nodded her head. “We think you kill. Tong sent you. Mr. Kipling says no. You see? You know? Yes, we decide.” Again, he stopped and watched her drive. “Woman called Mrs. Smith—she bring pictures to me.”

  Nellie looked at Sammy. “Gladys Smith?” The auto headed for the ditch.

  “Lookee!” Panic raised Sammy’s voice again.

  Nellie concentrated on steering the auto in line again. “How do you know her? She brought you the negatives?”

  “She my father’s patient. She say father in photo. Get pictures. Give to her.”

  “Then you struck Mr. Levine!”

  Sammy reached over and straightened the wheel. “Watch road.”

  “I told the policeman it was you.”

  “Not me.” An emphatic denial. “Door I blow up. Me.” He slapped his chest. “Not hurt anyone. Honored mother shake ladder. Photo man fall. Accident. We run. Sheepman know.”

  It would be so much easier to talk if she stopped the automobile. She slowed.

  “Go. Go.”

  “If your mother shook the ladder and Jacob fell, why did Mr. Campbell say you didn’t do it?”

  “Sheepman come to inn. He said father dead. He want to know who killed. I promise him pictures.”

  The sheepman knew a lot more than Nellie had guessed. His denial of murder weakened considerably. And Gladys Smith! She said Rosy stole the negatives. If so, he must have given them to Gladys. Nell felt as if everyone in Ketchum watched her, signaling what they knew to each other. Maybe the anonymity of the city was more desirable than she thought. The auto slipped and she tightened her grip on the wheel, feeling as if she were on a carnival ride.

  By the time Nellie pulled up to the boarding house and pressed her foot to the brake, jerking them to a stop once more, she felt like a driver. Sammy’s face was covered with perspiration and he had long since unbuttoned his jacket.

  Mrs. Bock came out the front door and down the steps. “What took so long? You have trouble with the motor?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Why are you driving, Miss Burns? This man too lazy to do the work?”

  “Sammy taught me how to drive, Mrs. Bock. He’s been ever so patient.”

  Her landlady looked from one to the other, then laughed. “No wonder you looked like you been rode hard and put away wet,” she said to Sammy. “You better come in and rest afore you head back to Hailey. Your auto may need a little rest, too.” Mrs. Bock grabbed Nellie’s camera pack and the small bag she had taken to Nellie at the Ah Kee house. “Get on in the both of you.” As Nellie climbed the stairs, the older woman whispered to her. “You learned to drive just in time. Rosy’s gone missing.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Nellie persuaded Mrs. Bock not to stuff her into bed by promising to stay seated by the fire in the dining room with her feet up while her landlady brought in tea, coffee, and cherry pie for her and Sammy. “And I need Moonshine here. I miss him.”

  The look Mrs. Bock gave her was indecipherable. “Moonshine is gone. I think Rosy must have taken him. He was outside on the back porch and under foot in my kitchen until a day-and-a-half ago. I was feeding him regular, so he wasn’t looking for food.”

  “Oh no!” Nellie pushed herself up and ran up the stairs to her room, unlocking it with the key she had kept with her the whole time. For a second time, drawers were pulled out and her things knocked around. She went straight for the mattress and lifted it up. The Chinese robe was gone. Then she hurried down the stairs and out to the back porch. “Moonie! Moonie!” Mrs. Bock and Sammy converged at the back door.

  “You get in here right now, young lady. You wasn’t saved from pneumonia just to catch it up again.” Mrs. Bock rested hands on hips and glared at her.

  Nellie’s knees buckled and she sat down in the snow, too desolate to cry. She deserved being abandoned by the dog. “I have to find Moonshine, Mrs. Bock. It’s my fault he’s gone. If I’d been here and taken care of him properly—”

  “Feathers. Get yourself back in here. You’re not going nowhere today. I’ll tie you in your bed if necessary. Tomorrow is soon enough to gallivant around, if you don’t het yourself up so much you get a fever tonight.”

  Even Sammy’s expression had turned dark, he who was usually expressionless. And, in truth, Nellie did feel tired. “All right. In the morning, then.” She followed her landlady into the dining room. “I’ll eat the pie and go to bed. I’ll be strong enough in the morning.” After several bites, she asked Sammy, “Will you take me out to Last Chance Ranch? I know that’s where Rosy went.”

  “Missee, auto not mine. I . . . borrow.” Such a look of sadness had never crossed his face before. “Maybe come. Maybe not.”

  “If you are not here by noon, I’ll borrow Mrs. Smith’s.” She walked to the doorway and stopped. “Thank you for bringing me home. And thank you for teaching me how to drive.” There was something else. She studied his face for clues. “And most of all, thank you for saving my life.” Before she left the room, she turned to Mrs. Bock. “Someone searched my room again and took my robe. Please tell the sheriff. If he can’t find a murderer, maybe he can find a thief, although his record to date is not good.”

  An afternoon nap strengthened Nellie. The house was quiet. She had awakened with the belt on her mind, having forgotten it since she stashed it in the triple chair. As quietly as possible, she dressed and scurried downstairs. There was no one around. In the studio, she felt behind the cushions in the chair and her fingers touched metal. Relieved, she pulled out the belt, hurried back upstairs, and hid it in her pack at the bottom. The initials, indeed the whole buckle, cried for inspection in broad daylight. Then she crossed the hall to enter Gladys Smith’s room; she had been lying all along. Nellie wanted to find out why.

  A crepe material served as drapes on the windows, darkening the room with its canopy bed. A dozen photos stood on the dresser and the bedside stand, along with a pot of face cream, one of powder, two lipsticks, a sewing kit, a jewelry box, and a full pin cushion. A hat hung off the top of the fringed lamp, which Nell turned on. A pink glow lit up the photos. Most of them were of a girl and a boy. Nellie picked up one to study. The girl was a young Gladys. The boy a handsome youth with a solemn expression. They held hands. Another photo of the two had been ripped in half and then repaired. On a third one with an older man and woman and the two young people were written the words “The Bradleys.” Three others showed the boy as he grew older, playing baseball, playing the trumpet, in a suit.

  Nellie
scanned the room, which was larger than her own. Bed, dresser, armoire—all looked normal and she couldn’t bring herself to search drawers. There, behind the door was a pair of long narrow skis. This was a surprise. Mrs. Smith looked like a hothouse flower. Nell lifted one ski and found it was fairly heavy. A sock roll fell to the floor. Beside the boards were two poles with baskets on one end and leather straps on the other. A scarf draped from one strap. Nell pulled it loose and held it out. Two holes marred the material. She could picture a woman in black hat, black coat, and long skirt, her eyes shielded with a black scarf, scooting across a snowfield like a wingless raven. The scarf didn’t hold the promise of much protection from the glare of sun on snow. The whole outfit didn’t fit the Gladys she knew. But there was a photo on the dresser—she went back to check—a young girl on skis.

  Nellie remembered the night Gladys had been in her room, dressed in black, like an assassin. Sounds of movement below indicated the house occupants were returning. Then she saw a piece of paper stuck in the frame at the mirror’s edge: “Gwynn Campbell” was written on it along with a telephone number. Below it, hidden by one of the taller photo frames, was a weathered piece of cardboard with Chinese characters and Ah Kee’s name. She reached for it and found that attached to the card with a long sturdy hatpin was an ancient ad for Palmer’s Patent Medicine, a medicine for “women’s problems.” The back door slammed, and Nellie’s heart flipped. She tried to stick the paper things back into the edge of the mirror, but they wouldn’t stay. Steps on the stairs. Another jab at the frame and the card stayed. She slipped out the door and entered the bathroom. Behind her, light footsteps entered Room Six. Then Nellie remembered she had left on the fringed light.

  Just as Nellie slipped into bed, Mrs. Bock brought up a tray with a steaming bowl of split pea soup with ham and hot corn-bread with butter and honey. Nothing could have suited Nellie better and she ate with relish. While she ate, Mrs. Bock rattled on.

  “I never would have expected to find you in the woods with the Ah Kees. Do you think they slipped you something to make you pass out like that? No, I don’t suppose they did. You can’t give a body pneumonia. Now isn’t it a coincidence that you and Gwynn Campbell both got it at the same time. Nasty weather in Twin Falls. I’d not live there for all the tea in China.”