A Crossworder's Gift

by Nero Blanc

  “Libations at seven-thirty,” Mawme interjected. “Dinner promptly at eight-fifteen—with my special yearly offering dessert.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Belle smiled again, although she was beginning to wish she hadn’t accepted the group’s invitation. As tempting as three days at the Grand Canyon had seemed, misgivings about the gathering were starting to stir in her brain. Something unpleasant was afoot, and it seemed to be pointing to a fight between one frail but power-obsessed man and another confined to a wheelchair.

  DINNER was indeed festive, the dining room’s massive stone fireplaces ablaze, flowers and greenery bedecking each table, a rolling simmer of conversation spicing the air along with the dense perfumes of rich winter foods: mulled wines, savory soups, roasts heaped with potatoes, and glazed root vegetables. The conversation at the puzzlers’ special table was no less heady. Homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, and anagrams flew about with the alacrity of lexical light. Everyone seemed determined to trump a dinner partner. Double entendres and puns rocketed across the white linen and laden plates. The only person immune to the verbal one-upsmanship was Rosco, who sat beside Belle with an amused expression tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered.

  “Too cheap, by far.”

  “I gather you’re not daydreaming about words.”

  “Depends which ones you’ve got in mind.”

  Then Belle’s attention was commandeered by Will Mawme, who announced that his much-anticipated crossword would be distributed after coffee and dessert. But he added a new caveat to the procedure: This year the puzzle was in a sealed envelope and to be completed not in each other’s company, but in the privacy of the attendees’ bedrooms—after the stroke of midnight.

  Belle gave Rosco’s foot a conspiratorial nudge. They’d have the first few moments of the new year to themselves, after all.

  WITH “Auld Lang Syne” sung, and “Good night’s” and “Happy New Year’s” exchanged, Rosco and Belle crossed the porch leading toward the hotel’s lawn and the canyon’s south rim. The couple was silent in the vastness of the night, the daubs of snow dotting the craggy rocks that stood sentinel over the great black chasm that had been scoured and rent by eons of river water attacking its rocky walls. Here and there in the building’s long shadow, deer stood nuzzling the ice and snow in search of hidden grass, but they were also quiet; and if they glanced at Belle and Rosco at all, it was with an untroubled stare. Not one of them took flight. Instead they moved soundlessly among the junipers and piñon pines that stood ink-dark against the sky.

  “Beautiful,” Belle murmured as she huddled close to Rosco. They wrapped their arms around each other and stared into a frosty night that dropped away into the lethal and jagged depths below.

  “All those miners working the canyon cliffs,” she whispered. “How did they do it? Living halfway up and halfway down … What did they eat?”

  “Probably not ‘double whammy butterscotch pie.’”

  “I’m serious, Rosco.”

  “So am I … sort of. The miners, the prospectors like that Louis Boucher fellow who lived out a solo hermit existence … explorers who charted the Colorado … I was also reading about John Wesley Powell, a guy who lost an arm during the Civil War, continued to fight for the Union, then decided to navigate the Colorado in 1869—only to have nearly half his crew of nine desert him. I’ll bet his three months down there fighting the rapids didn’t allow for much variety in the cuisine line.”

  Belle hunched her shoulders in thought. “I’m glad I’m not an explorer—or a prospector or trapper.”

  “I’m glad you’re not, too—not with your sense of direction. I’d never see you again.”

  Belle chuckled. “At least, I know what to do when confronted with a map. You don’t even know how to unfold one.”

  “Hey, they make great beer coasters if you don’t unfold them … Look, people who go out to tame the wilderness don’t even have maps. That’s what make them explorers. They navigate by the sun and moon and stars.”

  She slipped her arm down to squeeze his waist. “And they never order up second helpings of cappuccino mousse.”

  “It takes a he-man to kill off a couple of moose.”

  “Don’t start, Rosco. I’ve had enough word play for one night.”

  “How about a smooch, then? Something else those miners didn’t get a whole lot of.”

  She turned her face to his, but in the midst of their embrace a cloud of mist began advancing from the canyon’s edge. At first it was wispy, like steam blowing off a pot of creamed soup; then the mist became fog, which grew in density: a white miasma billowing upward to obscure both the ravine and the path wavering along its treacherous border.

  “Time to find higher ground,” Rosco said.

  “But not necessarily loftier intentions.”

  WHILE ROSCO and Belle retreated to the cozy comfort of their room, another guest in another wing of the hotel was engaged in an anxious and whispered conversation. The mode was via cell phone as the speaker had opted to avoid the El Tovar switchboard. The room was dark, another precaution intended to prevent late revelers in the corridor outside or on the porch below from realizing the inhabitant was still awake.

  “But I’m telling you he knows! … Yes, I’m sure! … He spelled it out in that damn crossword puzzle he landed on us tonight!” The voice cracked with fear and anger.

  “What do you mean you’ve ‘got it under control’?” A sharp sigh, a nervous and shallow breath. The tone lowered, but the level of emergency did not.

  “No, I’m sure the others don’t have a clue … They wouldn’t. Especially if they didn’t know what they’re looking for. Unless you—Wait! I hear someone outside the door!” The speaker stood stock still until the laughter weaved off down the hall. Another sigh, this one more panicky than before.

  “What should I do? What should we do? You tell me … I don’t want to risk being caught going to his room, but … What do you mean, you’ll ‘take care of it’? … That’s not possible! You aren’t—”

  But the connection had been severed.

  There’s a Hitch!

  ACROSS

  1. Boston campus; abbr.

  4. Pig-poke connector

  7. Black bird

  10. Likely

  13. Fracas

  14. Ariz, neighbor

  15. Mr. Kingsley

  16. Classic car

  17. Ladies who go way back; abbr.

  18. Hitch hair-raiser

  21. Hockey org.

  23. Mr. Fassbinder

  24. ___Riban

  26. Georgia, once; abbr.

  27. Windbag?; var.

  31. College board member?

  33. Airport info

  34. Mr. Hunter

  35. “Out of___”

  36. Wind dir.

  37. “I’m all___”

  38. Nashville campus; abbr.

  39. Lou’s partner

  40. Arena in 51-Down

  41. Den___

  43. Randolph Scott film

  44. Kindest

  47. New Zealand fish

  48. Egyptian king

  49. Shines again

  50. Actress Dyan

  52. Meadowlands’ athlete

  53. Let go

  54. Hi-ho’s in the Alps

  56. Me in Metz

  57. Hitch hair-raiser, with “To”

  61. It lit Ingrid’s light

  64. VCR reading

  65. Poetically above

  66. FBI & ATF cousin

  67. Presidential monogram

  68. Day-___

  69. “The Sacred Wood” poet’s monogram

  70. Chicago trains

  71. Call upon

  DOWN

  1. Steamed

  2. Ms. Lupino

  3. Hitch hair-raiser

  4. Like JFK Airport

  5. Gov. arts support

  6. Loath

  7. Hillside shelter

/>   8. Newborn

  9. “A friend___is …”

  10. Weapon

  11. ___brained.

  12. 2000 lbs.

  19. “The___of the Worlds”

  20. Annoyed Asta utterance

  22. Watering

  24. Sch. grp.

  25. Sandy sound?

  26. “Lifeboat” locale

  28. Hitch hair-raiser

  29. Rhine feeder

  30. TV ltrs.

  32. Fort Worth campus; abbr.

  33. The last word

  36. Cloud in Cluny

  37. 100 Centavos

  39. Preservative; abbr.

  40. Smith & Jones film; abbr.

  41. Cartoon sot’s word

  42. “Gotcha!”

  43. Counter treats

  44. Meadowlands athlete

  45. California airport letters

  46. Recipe meas.

  48. Like Hades

  49. Live

  51. Ditty from “Annie”

  52. “Weary Blues” poet’s monogram

  55. To be in Brest

  56. Arts degs.

  57. Gear tooth

  58. Internet co.

  59. “The Man Who Knew___Much”

  60. Slippery one

  62. Film speed letters

  63. Engine additive

  To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords

  MORNING found the hotel still swathed in fog so thick and cumbrous that all views of the canyon’s distant north rim had vanished; and even the south rim trail immediately fronting El Tovar was completely obscured. Only the few piñons beside the entry portico were visible, but they looked like ghosts, looming eerily out of clouds of suffocating vapor while the ravens perched in the trees’ branches squawked and fluttered their wings as if to rid themselves of the air’s unaccustomed weight.

  Rosco, Belle, and several of the puzzlers who had gathered for breakfast regarded the scene with heavy hearts.

  “I guess there won’t be any hiking out to Maricopa or Powell Point today,” D.C. observed.

  “Not unless you want to wind up dead,” Hunter Evans answered. “I’d stepped outside when this fog blew in last night … You know, there’s not much in the way of a guard rail in some spots on the trail.”

  “We were outside, too,” Belle began, “near the—”

  “Guess we must have missed spotting each other in that pea soup.” Hunter poured himself another cup of coffee. “Where’s Will this morning? I’d like to strangle the old buzzard. His crossword kept me up half the night.”

  “It was a doozie,” Jean agreed. “One of his best. Maybe the best … And for such a Hitchcockian evening; it couldn’t have been more perfect. I kept thinking of North by Northwest and Cary Grant on Mount Rushmore hanging from some presidential proboscis, with nothing but thin air between him and the rocks below.”

  The twins appeared with Joe Conrad and Gwen Beckstein. Only Joe seemed unperturbed at the inclement weather. “Saves me from making a fool of myself doing wheelies around that pueblo watchtower out at Desert View.” He smiled at Jean. “Sleep well?”

  “Like a log.”

  Joe glanced up at one of the massive, hand-hewn logs crisscrossing the ceiling, “Sure hope those beams don’t fall ‘asleep’ on the job.”

  “Well, who’s for a little friendly puzzle competition?” Tommy Wolfe asked the group in general.

  “Will’s not here yet—” his sister began, but her words were curtailed by a sudden commotion in the lobby below. Park rangers and a rescue squad crowded into the reception area, and then hurried out while the guests watched in growing apprehension.

  “Someone fell over the edge …” The murmur passed from person to person as it reached the second-floor sitting room and flowed down the halls of the old hotel and into every room.

  “No body to be seen … just dislodged rocks …”

  “Then how do they know …?”

  “Boot marks in the snow … broken tree branches … traces of blood …”

  Two park rangers returned in an attempt to allay the guests’ fears, but their news caused only greater consternation. A person was “presumed” to have lost his or her footing on the canyon trail. Evidence indicated a last-minute “effort at survival,” but “attempts to verbally raise the victim had proven futile,” and “the fog was inhibiting rescue efforts.”

  And then came the most worrisome disclosure: Did anyone know of a guest who was missing?

  Tommy Wolfe looked at his sister. “I’ll call Will’s room,” she said. “I’m sure he simply overslept.”

  GWEN Beckstein was weeping so copiously, the hotel’s other residents cast sheepish, uneasy glances at the huddled group of puzzlers. Gwen didn’t mind what they or anyone else thought of her behavior. “He must be dead,” she kept repeating between her sobs. “It’s so cold out there, and he’s so … so delicate. He couldn’t survive even if—”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Gwen.” It was Joe whose soothing voice sought to comfort her.

  “What do you care! You never liked him anyway!”

  Joe Conrad regarded her, his face somber and sad. “You’re not being reasonable, Gwen.”

  Her tone, husky with tears, turned snappish. “Why should I be? Why should anyone be ‘reasonable’ when an old friend dies? I was the one who always aided Will with this yearly shindig. Chose a charity to benefit from our largesse. Helped picked a fun and interesting locale so the twins could—” Sobs overwhelmed her again.

  Ginger Wolfe took Gwen’s hand. “We don’t know Will’s dead.”

  Gwen’s eyes hardened in irritation. “You’ve seen the signs posted all over this hideous place … DANGER … BE WARE OF FALLING ROCKS. And DANGEROUS OVERLOOK DO NOT ENTER right where he went off? Why would he go near there? The park rangers told us that hikers regularly—” The words broke off. “Oh, I wish we’d never come! Will was so excited about spending New Year’s at the Grand Canyon … I wish I’d never listened to him, though. I wish none of us had!”

  Ginger looked at her brother, who then turned to Hunter Evans, taking him aside to murmur a sotto voce: “Should we try to contact John, do you think? Gwen’s taking this awfully hard. Business deal or no, maybe he should be here with her?”

  “With this weather, the only way he could get here would be to drive; even in the best of conditions, Tucson is …” The statement went unfinished.

  With Will Mawme’s friends understandably preoccupied, Belle and Rosco remained at the periphery, neither part of the prevailing fear and sorrow, but also not wholly removed from the situation. “I’m wondering if we should just pack up and head home?” Rosco said when they’d sufficiently distanced themselves from the group. “I get the sense we’re intruding on some very personal space.”

  Belle shook her head. “I would feel as if I were deserting everyone.”

  “But what can you do, Belle?”

  “Hang tight, I guess. Wait and see?”

  LUNCH came and went; the afternoon wore on, and the fog became an increasingly menacing presence. Every window was shrouded in evil grayish white; no one ventured out of doors, not even onto the normally welcoming porches. The puzzlers drifted together and apart; few spoke; the reality of death was becoming unavoidable.

  In the midst of this gloom, Belle sat in a chair in the first-floor reception area. A fire was crackling in the large stone hearth; the hotel guests unacquainted with Will Mawme and his party were wandering in and out of the lobby gift shop, chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Rosco was in the TV lounge with six other guests, glued to the tube, watching some beefy men in football pads throw themselves at a group of equally sizable specimens, and Belle was—working a crossword in front of one of the roaring fireplaces. It was the puzzle Mawme had constructed for the previous evening—the one everyone had been instructed to save until after midnight.

  Her favorite red pen had just marked the final solution when the nib caught
the paper and sent it spinning to the floor, where it landed face up and turned outward into the rest of the room. Belle bent to retrieve it, and suddenly noticed letters that seemed to contain a very recognizable word. The letters were on the diagonal running from lower left to upper right, not far from the puzzle’s center.

  Belle put the crossword in her lap, and looked across the room. Her eyes were bright and fixed. “HUNTER,” she murmured and stood. It never occurred to her to find Rosco and explain this strange discovery. Instead, she went in search of Mr. Evans himself.

  “BUT your name is right here.” Belle pushed the crossword in Evans’s direction. He stood in the doorway to his room, the oak frame dark against the corridor’s floral paper, the transom above his head open. Steam and something that smelled like herbal bath salts scented the air. Belle pointed again. “And the message seems to indicate that you—”

  “What? That I dragged Will Mawme out of bed, then spirited him through the hotel, took him a quarter of a mile down the trail, and tossed him into the ravine? All without raising a speck of suspicion from the other guests?”

  “That’s not what I’m suggesting, no.”

  “Then what are you insinuating, Ms. Graham?” Evans’s tone had turned more than frosty.

  Belle should have been prepared for the query. She should have been better prepared for the interview on every front, but she’d never been a person fond of precautions or prior planning. “I’m simply stating what’s obvious on this piece of paper: GOT YOU HUNTER—”

  “And? I would have to have been a fool not to have noticed my own name on the diagonal, Miss Graham. But it means nothing; and I would suggest that it’s only some sort of bizarre coincidence.”

  “I have a hunch that Will Mawme was far too sophisticated a crossword constructor to have had your name appear in his puzzle by accident.”

  “You want to play detective, do it somewhere else.” Evans moved to close the door, then reconsidered. “Will may have been a guy people loved to hate—or hated to love—but he was my friend.” The door shut with a firm bang, and Belle turned to find Jean O’Neal standing surprisingly near. Her room key was in her hand.