Death Pans Out

by Ashna Graves

  Late light bathed the upper reaches of the canyon’s east side and overhead the sky deepened to evening blue and rose. The day’s heat softened. Her bare arms and legs moved through the warm air as though through invisible balm, and she slowed to a dreamy pace, devouring the twilight with her eyes, nose and skin.

  The road rounded a broad bend and widened slightly, and in the wide spot at the base of the canyon wall stood a water trough. A pipe that once connected it to the hillside, and presumably to a spring, had rusted through, and instead of brimming with clear water the trough now offered a foot-deep mat of yellow-green algae. The wide spot faced south, down the canyon. She stopped to watch the colors on the distant hills across the Dry River harden like an image developing on photo paper, the high spots gleaming with sunset polish while the hollows blackened with shadow.

  The light was dazzling, and when she started down the road once more she dropped her gaze to the ground for relief. Directly in front of her was a bright blue patch in the sandy gravel. Kneeling, she dug out a baseball cap with Wallowa Tractor and Irrigation emblazoned in white letters on the front. She shook the cap free of sand and raised it to her nose. Diesel, sweat, tobacco…a man’s smell, fresh from someone’s head. Wide tire tracks and boot prints had churned up the area around the hat, and in the bottom of a boot print a sliver of shiny metal gleamed. It was a clasp knife, and like the cap, it could not have been here long, certainly not through wet weather. It easily wiped clean, though the blades grated with sand. She opened an awl, tweezers, a serrated blade, and delicate pliers.

  Solid and warm on her palm, it was an attractive tool, too nice to leave behind. She rolled it in the cap and pushed the roll into her shorts pocket, but it bumped against her thigh at every step and she soon turned back to the water trough. The rim was wide enough to hold both hat and knife in easy view of the road. If they were still here in a week or two, she would take the knife for Ethan.

  ***

  Though the sun was well down when she arrived back at the mine, there was still enough light to see the piece of paper sticking out from under a rock on the back step, and to read the message written in blue ink.

  Dear Ms. Leopold,

  I meant to stop in earlier but unexpectedly I had to spend the day in town. This is an urgent message—you must vacate the cabin. This is national forest land and the cabin can be used only for active mining purposes. I don’t know who gave you the idea that you could just live here. Believe me this is no laughing matter. The mining claim will be terminated if you don’t move out immediately. Call me if you have questions about this matter. I am out of the office most of the day but I will return your call as soon as I can.

  Very Sincerely,

  Andy Sylvester

  U.S. Forest Service Mining Technician

  Neva was more puzzled than shocked. How could they “terminate” a claim when there was no active mining going on? Orson was the sole remaining owner now. He would never come back, and if she wanted to take up placer mining she’d have to file a claim in her own name because mineral rights aren’t hereditary. True, it was Forest Service land, but the cabin had been in her family for nearly half a century. She didn’t need anyone’s permission to stay in it, and she certainly wasn’t causing any problems. And how was she to call Andy Sylvester? He must know there wasn’t a telephone for miles, and even cell phones didn’t work out here. Clearly, there was some colossal error or misunderstanding.

  Leaving her binoculars and water bottle on the porch, she hurried down to Skipper’s camp. “Hey, Walkie-Talkie, you missed Smoky again,” he called out from his seat under a pine tree. “No great loss, if you ask me.”

  Neva handed him the note without a word. Squinting, he said, “An owl couldn’t read out here. Come on inside.”

  A glance was all he needed before his hand slammed onto the table and he exploded into cursing. When he paused for breath, Neva said, “They probably don’t understand that I’m here just for the summer.”

  “Of course they do. I told him so today. I didn’t know why he was asking or I wouldn’t have told him a damn thing. I said you’d had some health problems and needed some rest and quiet and general rammycackin’ around the hills. They’ve got no good reason to do this. What kind of people would kick a sick lady out of her cabin? It’s true you don’t look sick, but he didn’t even see you. What’s such a big deal about people living in old shacks on public land?”

  “They can’t let people live in the national forest, I understand that,” Neva said more reasonably than she felt. “But I’m not really living here. And that’s odd about terminating the claim if I don’t move out.”

  “It’s just dumb, that’s all, the dumbest thing I ever heard. Don’t go, W.T. Make them carry you out. You’re not hurting anything, you’re even cleaning it up. And who cares about the claim. As you said, Orson’ll never be back and you aren’t going into the mining business.”

  “I’ll go to the ranger station in Elkhorn tomorrow and get it straightened out. They obviously don’t understand what I’m doing.”

  “Don’t be so goddamned reasonable. If I was you I’d be waiting on the porch when they got there in the morning, and I’d let them have it with such a tornado of two-fisted words they wouldn’t know what hit. Don’t you want to stay?”

  “Of course I want to stay. But if I can’t stay in the cabin I’ll camp somewhere. You can camp in the national forest. That I do know.”

  “Only for two weeks, then you have to get a permit. That’s why I move around all the time, to keep them off my back. Now, I’m due to shove off here soon, you could have this camp, but still I’d fight it if I was you. Hell, your uncle Burtie is local history. Don’t they respect anything but the letter of the goddamn law?”

  Suddenly Skipper threw his head back and laughed. “What a joke, though. You look at that outfit downstream there at the Barlow Mine, bulldozers chewing up the ground and messing up the creek. But they’ve got a permit. You, where’s your permit to sit on the porch and read? Maybe if you paid them twenty bucks and filled in some forms in triplicate you could get a permit for R&R on government property!” Musing and shaking his head, he was briefly silent, then said, “I was down there today talking to Reese Cotter. He runs the Barlow Mine. He said his brother, Lance, got pissed off about something and took off yesterday, and didn’t even take his truck. He asked if I’d seen a dumb-looking kid anywhere around. Meanwhile, there’s just him and one other guy trying to run that whole operation.”

  Skipper shook his head in wonder. “What a joke. Maybe you better just get yourself a gold pan and go for it. Hell, W.T., you might strike it rich.”

  Chapter Eight

  That night, Neva lay wide-eyed and worried, even though the eviction notice must be a mistake. She was so obviously harmless in every way that no sane official could seriously insist that she leave. When she explained the situation, Sylvester would most likely be embarrassed. Skipper had said he was young. He was probably new on the job and had never heard of her uncle. To leave Billie Creek Mine now, when she was still gaining strength every day, was unthinkable. She could not—would not—leave until she was ready. Despite what she’d said to Skipper about camping, she was too happy and healthy in the cabin to move out, and it was never comfortable to read or write outdoors without a good chair and table, and screens to keep off flies in the hot afternoons.

  Having seen the cabin only once before moving in for the summer, Neva hadn’t remembered much about it. She had expected it to be a mess after standing empty for fifteen years, and had planned to camp nearby on the first night, and to spend at least a day cleaning and making the place habitable again. What she had found, instead, was attractive order that had made her wonder in those first puzzled minutes whether someone had been living here recently.

  The setup was not at all what anyone would expect to find in a sixty-year-old cabin inhabited for thirty years by a pair of bachelor miners and then locked up and left. Not only was there order, but th
e furniture was almost elegant, from the bent-arm rocker to the Victorian loveseat upholstered in leather, now finely cracked. The table by the bed turned out to be a treadle sewing machine with the top closed. There was a small writing desk under the window where she set out her books and journals, and a wicker settee on the porch where she sat with her morning coffee to watch the sun rise over the opposite ridge. Who had chosen this unlikely furniture, her uncle or Orson? And which one had been the gardener, for it was still easy to see that the hillside around the house had been terraced into flowerbeds marked out with chunks of quartz. A few jonquils and iris survived, along with a spindly lilac shrub.

  The two faded Korean art prints above the bed had puzzled her at first, but then a long-forgotten memory surfaced; her uncle had fought in the Korean war. It was one of the few facts she had been told about him. Next to one of the prints hung a black and white photograph of a young Asian woman wearing a sundress and holding a parasol above her head. Her uncle’s Korean girl friend? Why else would he keep the picture for thirty years? Although, Orson might also have served in Korea. Maybe this is how the two men had met, and the woman had been Orson’s sweetheart.

  The only thing that had needed serious attention in the cabin was the handsome St. Louis Majestic woodstove in the kitchen. After emptying the ash drawer and scrubbing rust and ancient grease off the wide cooking surface, she had opened the dampers and lit a lone twist of paper in the firebox, watching for backed-up smoke. The flame flickered and smoke drew up the flue just as it should, unhindered by ancient birds’ nests and other debris that she had feared might have accumulated over the years. The slender sticks of kindling crackled with cheerful heat, transforming the old stove into the warm heart of the cabin.

  By the second night she had felt completely at home, so at home that she also found herself feeling suddenly close to her uncle. This was just the sort of hideaway she had created many times in her fantasies, and therefore, surely, she would have got along with the man who had made it and lived in it for decades.

  ***

  In the morning, instead of driving down to the Dry River Valley and then over the mountains to the Forest Service office in Elkhorn, Neva decided to avoid Sylvester for as long as possible. Until they met face-to-face she could not be expected to move. Sometimes, no action is the best action when dealing with bureaucracy, and this situation couldn’t be high on the Forest Service’s list of important business.

  Without taking time for her morning dip, she hurried into the woods above the mine right after breakfast and chores. She didn’t return to the cabin until late afternoon, and was relieved to find Skipper waiting for her rather than another note or even Sylvester himself. They settled on the porch with mugs of miso, Neva on the wicker settee and Skipper in the rocking chair she had dragged out to accommodate his long legs. Last night, upset by the note, she had forgotten to tell him about finding the hat and knife at the water trough, and now began relating the tale as he sniffed suspiciously at his cup.

  “It’s like drinking straight salt,” he exclaimed after the first sip. “You don’t realize how much you sweat out here until you taste something like this. Now, I don’t know why you didn’t keep the knife. It sounds like a Leatherman, a real spendy item, but I’d bet the owner isn’t likely to reclaim it, now or any time soon. He was probably some old dude like me dinking around looking for interesting stuff, or more likely, hoping to trip over a boulder of pure gold. You have to remember that any old Tom, Dick, or Harry can go anywhere they want to out here. They read a book about mining and they still think they can get rich in a weekend. And of course, they don’t want anybody to know they’re here because it’s not their claim, and if they find something, they sure as hell don’t want anybody to know where they got it. They wouldn’t come asking for something they left behind, that’s for sure.”

  “If the knife is still there in a week or so, I’ll take it. I’m sure my son would love it.” Neva let a brief silence pass before saying, “Skipper, I just have to ask—did you put that gold nugget in the tobacco can?”

  “Gold nugget in a tobacco can? Well, aren’t you just the luckiest greenhorn going. I never found any fancy knife out here, and I never found a gold nugget in a tobacco can in my life. If I had a gold nugget worth the name I’d have me a gold tooth made. Let’s have a look.”

  “I left it in the can,” she said, continuing to look at him with suspicion. “I thought you were playing a joke.”

  “You left it! Well, damn. You leave a nugget, you leave a classy knife. I told you that I don’t take much of what I find, but you’re worse than me. Not that a little piece of gold is worth anything, except as a souvenir. Now, if you don’t mind switching gears, I’m planning to pull out of here soon. I was thinking you could move down to the creek if Smoky runs you out of the cabin. You have a tent and all that? Well, then. It’s a great spot to camp, and it’s closer to your bathtub.”

  Never having mentioned her dips in the mining pond, Neva looked at him over the top of her mug but he was gazing with an air of thoughtful preoccupation at the distant ridgeline.

  Chapter Nine

  He had taken to watching for her whenever he worked out in the open. Twice he was fooled by calves far up on the ridge. Then he thought of turning the glasses down the canyon, scanning what little could be seen of the creek bottom. He started low and worked up, past the mine near the mouth, the Barlow Mine pit, the Billie Creek Mine pond—he stiffened, spun the focus knob, and bent forward as though to bring the image closer.

  Something was in the pond, something was swimming around by the dam. There weren’t beaver out here, or muskrat—it was a dog, it must be a dog. The fur glinted red against the dark water, and now there were pale lines on both sides…He let out a breath. Shoulders. Bare shoulders. It was the woman. She was in the pond, she was getting out of the pond, she was naked this time, naked all the way, naked but alive.

  Holding the glasses steady, he felt with his foot for a rock and sat down slowly, watching her bend for the towel and rub all over, including her hair. She was a pale little form, without detail, stretching now with her arms toward the sky, the towel dropped around her feet. She was alive but still her skin would be cool from the water…He blew through his lips, lowered the glasses, and raised them again instantly. She shouldn’t be out here, no place for a lone woman, not for anyone with sense, and soon he’d never have to come back here himself, thank God.

  He frowned, became aware of pain and realized he was pressing the eyepieces hard against his face. Easing his grip, he propped his elbows on his knees. She was dressing now, one leg and then the other into shorts, the shirt pulled on over her head, bending over, shaking her hair, toweling it again.

  She folded the towel, put it in a basket, pushed her feet into slippers or sandals, he couldn’t tell which.

  Motionless, holding his breath, he watched her stand for a long time looking at something. The water? Something in the water? She squatted, got onto her hands and knees, then sat up and threw her head back. She was laughing! What was this crazy woman up to? He would have to go down there and find out. The next time he saw her on the ridge, out of the way, he would go to Billie Creek Mine and—no, no, he couldn’t do that, he could never do that.

  With the basket on her arm she walked along the dam, reached the bank, and was gone, leaving him alone with rocks, heat, distance, silence. Such heavy, heavy silence.

  Chapter Ten

  In the morning Neva woke up knowing she couldn’t leave the cabin question up in the air. Directly after breakfast, she left the mine, drove down Billie Creek Road, and at the bottom she turned left for the first time rather than right. It was another ten miles to the east end of the Dry River Valley. Here the road split, the left hand fork heading over the mountains to Elkhorn while the right continued into the Dry River Canyon. She turned left, and soon was into a long section of switchbacks which cut through high banks of cream-colored rock that appeared freshly scrubbed in the morning ligh
t. The turns took on a hypnotic rhythm. Swing left, swing right, swing left, swing right. Cruising at an easy speed, she fell into a dream and after a while even stopped rehearsing her arguments for staying in the cabin.

  The road crossed a high ridge east of Billie Mountain, and dropped down the north side toward the Elkhorn Valley. Wetter over here than the south side, the slopes were more heavily forested, but when she reached the flat and pulled over at a picnic shelter to look back, Billie Mountain stood up against the sky in familiar outline. It appeared higher and steeper from this side, but she was viewing it from a considerably lower elevation than the mine. It would be a good challenge to walk from the cabin right over the top sometime and at least partway down the north side. It would be a long day, but not impossible.

  Skipper had told her to watch for a three-story modern glass and concrete building on the edge of town as she approached Elkhorn, but she didn’t notice it until too late to turn into the parking lot. Traffic was so light she made a quick U-turn and pulled in next to a line of Forest Service vans and trucks. The ground floor was the Elkhorn Post Office. She stopped to buy stamps before taking the stairs to the second floor, bypassing the elevators as she always did when there was a choice.

  The Forest Service offices took up the entire second floor but a single receptionist at a desk in the main foyer served as the checkpoint for anyone coming or going. The cheerful young woman said that Andy Sylvester had gone out, and as far as she knew he would not be back that day, but she would be happy to give him a message.

  “Thank you but I need to see him in person,” Neva said, not attempting to hide her disappointment. He was probably at the mine right now looking for her, though she could not recall passing a Forest Service vehicle on the way into town.

  Back outside in the clear light of midmorning, she stood near the double glass front doors and considered what to do next. Her day at the mine was already ruined, regardless of whether she rushed straight back. She should take a look at Elkhorn, buy gas, and pick up supplies while she was here, and certainly fill the water bottles she had loaded into the trunk. Maybe there was a handy outdoor spigot on this building. She went around to the parking lot on the north side and followed a sprinkler hose past a line of shrubbery to its source at a complex faucet that she was unable to turn on.