Death Pans Out

by Ashna Graves

  “So you have seen it. And just when and where might that have been?”

  “A few days ago, after Reese was arrested. I got to thinking about it, and it occurred to me that once word got out about the arrest somebody might decide to search for the gold.” She described finding the box and hiding it in the woodshed. “It was probably silly. It can’t be worth much. Reese just seems to like the so-called jewelry nuggets.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Skipper said with dignity. “I guess I’ll be getting home. Good night.”

  “It didn’t seem important,” she began but was cut off by the revving of the engine. Skipper sped away, his back straight, with Cayuse dashing along behind rather than riding.

  Even after the camper door banged shut, Neva didn’t go inside right away, but sat as Skipper had left her, feeling deeply unhappy. He had managed to get inside her heart, and he clearly felt some real regard for her—or had before tonight. He had rearranged his summer plans out of concern for her, and had put time and energy into getting information about the mine and her uncle, and had even defended her against local gossip. Now she had clumsily let him see that he was not fully in her confidence.

  What would he say if he knew that she was keeping other secrets? She had not told him about taking food to Lance at the line shack or about being followed by the sheriff’s minion in Elkhorn. She hadn’t meant to be secretive but had simply not thought of telling Skipper. Even accidental secrets nearly always cause more trouble than they’re worth, and now clearly it was time to tell all.

  First, however, she must prepare a peace offering. For the next hour she worked fast. The pantry yielded a dented cake pan. In a drawer she found a vintage rotary eggbeater with the lovely name Dazey on it, which nicely whipped the whites of her last two eggs. Lacking powdered sugar she puzzled over what to do for icing, but then remembered caramel glazing and put plain white sugar in a saucepan to melt. Now and again she went to the porch to listen for activity at Skipper’s camp and was reassured when she heard Cayuse bark, followed by the usual, “Shut up out there!”

  The oven failed to get truly hot despite the kindling she fed into the firebox, and she was not surprised that the cake rose only about half as high as it should have done. Still, it was enough. The sugar syrup was bubbling but hadn’t thickened so she let it simmer while the cake cooled, then she poured the dark, melted sugar over it in a thin stream. When she had seen this done the syrup had formed a delicious, chewy coating, but her syrup hardened instantly into something more like fiberglass than food. She tapped it with a spoon, whacked harder, and giggled. It was the gesture that mattered, and the inside should be edible enough.

  Relieved to see a square of dim light through the trees as she approached the camp, she tried to think of something funny to say when Skipper opened the door, but seeing the cake, he said instantly, “Well, shit, you didn’t have to do that. It’s not my birthday.”

  “Lucky thing or I’d have had to drive into Elkhorn for candles. If you break a tooth on the caramel you can sue me. Am I forgiven?”

  Skipper’s face was flushed and on the table behind him she could see the glass and bottle. “Only if you tell me the rest.”

  “Could I come in and put the cake down first?”

  “No way. You’re too damn tricksy for Ol’ Skipper. Just spill the beans.”

  “Number one. When I visited Reese in jail he asked me to take food to Lance and told me where to find him over on the other side of Billie Mountain. I found him there yesterday morning.”

  “That’s only number one?” Skipper’s bloodshot eyes regarded her coldly. “I know I’m an ignorant, dumbshit longshoreman but I had the funny idea we were paddling the same boat. Looks like I was fooled. I never did like cake anyway.”

  Standing motionless in front of the closed door, Neva could not quite believe what had happened. Had she completely lost her diplomatic touch, or was Skipper being ridiculously unreasonable? The light went out in the camper. Turning, she rushed up the road still carrying the cake like a trophy before her. Naturally she stumbled, and naturally the cake went flying, and naturally she said, “The hell with it.”

  In the dim kitchen where the smell of cake lingered deliciously, she stood with her back to the stove even though the evening was not cold. Should she put a note on Skipper’s door to be found in the morning, or simply forget about him? Her gaze, moving randomly around the room, fixed on the corner by the built-in shelves where she had leaned her uncle’s rifle. It was gone and so was the box of bullets. Lance, it appeared, had taken more than his hat and knife.

  “Damn him,” she raged aloud. “Damn Skipper. Damn them all.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  First thing in the morning, before making coffee, Neva went down to the camp and looked at the empty spot where Skipper’s camper had been. Nothing remained apart from the stacked eight-by-eight timbers he used as supports for the camper when it was not on the pickup. The ground was clean of everything but twigs and pinecones. Even the cake had left no trace.

  Her anger had given way entirely to regret. That she had failed to hear him pull out deepened the sense of loss, which stayed with her through breakfast and chores. She had enjoyed Skipper’s company despite their great differences in age, education, interests, life experience—everything—and that she very likely would not see him again and would never have the chance to explain or apologize filled her with sadness and self-blame. It did no good to tell herself that he was just a cranky old artifact hunter with no importance in her life. Something that had felt like real friendship had developed between them with remarkable speed and she had destroyed it. She had no permanent address or phone number for him, not even the name of a hometown where she could check directories.

  Exercise would have to be her salvation yet again, exercise and the high desert air. Striding up the trail with forced energy, swinging her arms like a soldier, she headed first for the collapsed cabin. In her pocket she carried a new note for Lance, one that demanded the rifle back immediately. She rolled it up, pushed it into the tobacco can along with paper and a pen, and walked briskly on, cutting through the woods to reach the next creek over. Here she turned left, aiming for the upper bowl and the steepest route she knew to the top. She would not stop for a breather or a drink until she arrived at the highest point on Billie Mountain.

  Pushing hard, she reached a massive, sloping limestone outcrop near the top of the ridge in record time. Her entire body throbbed with heat and the force of pounding blood, and a rest now seemed like a pleasant choice after all. Contouring along the base of the pale limestone, she found a hollow sheltered from the wind that always blew up here. Her back fit into the hollow, and her outstretched legs rested comfortably on the coarse white sand at the base of the rock.

  Yellow flowers grew close by and on the flowers bees worked as though the world would end by nightfall. Those eternal turkey vultures floated above the canyon in lazy, hypnotic circles. Her blood slowed, her face cooled, the sweat dried. Cradled by the warm rock, soothed by the low hum of insect life, she fell into a doze that lasted until she was tickled by a line of ants running over her ankle.

  Refreshed and calm again, she gazed out over the creek canyon and thought about the last few days. There was no ignoring the fact that her quiet retreat at Billie Creek had become complicated in ways she didn’t understand—and did not want to understand, she realized with satisfaction. What mattered was the richness of natural form and color spread out at her feet, the vast panorama of shifting light, the smell of sagebrush, pine and hot rocks, the silence, the views that reached all the way to Idaho in the east and the Wallowa Mountains to the north. What she cared about was this monumental landscape where no sign of human activity showed except for a distant, narrow strip of cultivated green in the Dry River Valley…Her gaze fixed on a tiny figure far down the slope on the west side of the canyon.

  Keeping her eyes on the spot, she felt for the binoculars, focused, and let out a disappoint
ed, “Damn.” She had hoped to see Skipper returned to patch things up, but instead this man appeared to be a stranger, though a billed cap hid his face so she couldn’t be sure. The lanky build was right, but it could also be Andy Sylvester or Gene Holland. He wore long pants and a long-sleeve shirt, with a knapsack over one shoulder. As she watched, he seated himself on a rock, felt for something in the pack, and lifted it to his face.

  Neva almost laughed. He was looking through binoculars. He was scanning the territory just as she was doing, but looking up rather than down. Imagining the cartoon moment when they would aim the binoculars at each other in mutual scrutiny, her amusement turned to discomfort. She had always felt gloriously solitary on the ridge, invisible to the human world as she strode along with the sun on her bare back and chest. Had she been watched from afar without knowing it?

  She stuffed the glasses back into their case, scrambled to her feet, and half-ran along the base of the outcropping to where she could duck out of sight. Keeping the limestone between her and the canyon, she continued to climb. Soon on top of the ridge, she stood behind a twisted juniper and studied the lower slope through the glasses. The man was gone from the rock and she found no sign of him on nearby slopes, where sagebrush would have provided no real cover. Next she studied the Sufferin’ Smith Mine far down toward the valley. As usual, there was no sign of life, only scattered mining debris and the small winking eye of the pond, but she hadn’t really expected to find activity with Gene away in Idaho.

  Again she searched the area where the stranger had been, then checked the slopes above the spot until she felt satisfied that he had gone down rather than up. Certain that she was alone on the ridge, she walked on, but did not take off her shirt.

  ***

  It was late afternoon when Neva returned to the cabin. Father Bernard was seated on the large quartz boulder near the door with a book in his hand. He waited until she was close before saying, “The fifteenth-century Benedictine writer John Trithemius said that, in the midst of the multiple activities of the day, you should stay free of multiplicity and preserve oneness of spirit within yourself. This strikes me as a mighty fine spot for preserving oneness of spirit.”

  Delighted, Neva laughed and extended her hand. “Have you been here preserving your spirit for long?”

  He shook his large head. “Not even long enough to shed the multiplicities of Angus gossip.”

  “You mean the story that I ransacked Reese’s house? Sensible people aren’t believing that are they?”

  “There are no sensible people when it comes to good gossip.” Father Bernard pushed himself to his feet and strode to his car as though setting off for an all-day walk up the ridge. Despite his age and size, he moved with the vigor of a young, active man. From the backseat he pulled a flat package tied up in brown paper. Following Neva inside, he placed the package on the table and looked around the cabin with interest. “Very unusual furnishings for a mine. I haven’t been here before, you know. The few times I saw Orson and your uncle it was in church.”

  “Church? No one in my family went to church.”

  “Nonetheless, church is where I met Burtie. It’s possible he came for Orson’s sake.”

  Neva heard paper crackle as Father Bernard unwrapped the package but she waited until he was done before turning from her coffee preparations to look, knowing what it was but not how she would react. She went closer, studying the man in the photograph. Slim and young, he stood with his hand on a weathered fence post and one foot resting on a low rock, gazing into the distance with a half smile and a listening look. Rather than mining clothes, as she had expected, he wore a suit complete with waistcoat, tie, and looped watch chain, with a fedora held gracefully in the hand that hung at his side. He reminded her powerfully of her son, not only in features but in his thoughtful expression, as though he’d just been asked an interesting question.

  “According to the date on the back it must have been taken when he first moved out here, in 1951,” the priest said. “I don’t know how it came to be on my wall. I offered it to him but he said no, he’d rather look at a picture of a turnip than himself every day.”

  The words, like the image, struck Neva as intensely, even painfully, familiar. It was just the sort of quirky, self-deprecating comment her mother would have made. She said, “I’d be happy to look at him every day.”

  “Good. He’s all yours. I’ve enjoyed his company but he obviously belongs with you. I’m glad I had him for an excuse to come up. I always find it hard to settle into work the first few days out here, where there’s beauty in every direction. I just like to be here with my eyes open. But I believe you understand about that.”

  Father Bernard’s talk as they sat on the porch with coffee was as witty and well-informed as before, and Neva was particularly interested in the description of his current writing project, but still she found herself wishing to be alone with her uncle’s portrait. She didn’t speak during a long silence that ended when he said, “I see you’re deeply affected. I hope that’s a good thing and not painful. To be honest, I’ll miss the picture. It’s been sweet company to me off and on for fifteen years. I hope you’ll forgive the fancy, but I’ve always had the feeling that he wanted to tell me something. Maybe he’ll tell you.”

  As the priest was leaving his eye fell on the box containing her mother’s ashes. His quick glance at her was so clearly questioning that she nodded. “My mother. I’m thinking of leaving her at the mine, as I said. How did you know what it was?”

  “Perhaps you forget that my work deals with death as much as life. I’ve blessed such packages before.” And so saying he made a quick sign with his right hand in the direction of the box as he murmured something unintelligible.

  Startled but unable to disapprove of anything this extraordinary man did, Neva said, “That’s the first time she’s ever been blessed, as far as I know.”

  “It’s about time then.”

  She almost confessed that, had anyone but him made this gesture, she would have found it intrusive. Instead, she said, “I talked to one of the funeral home owners in Elkhorn the other day when I was walking in the cemetery. He told me that graveside services are too depressing for most people so they’ve begun making videos about the life of the dead person. I don’t see anything wrong with the video, but what’s the point of a ritualized burial if there’s no one there? You might think it’s strange for an atheist to be bothered about this, but I’ve been giving a lot of thought to human remains because of Mom’s ashes. I hope this doesn’t strike you as a foolish concern. I’m kind of surprised myself, that I care, that is.”

  The priest thought for a moment before saying in a reflecting tone, as though feeling his way as he spoke, “Very little that truly concerns people is foolish, especially when it has to do with those we love. As for the funeral business, it’s bound to change with the culture, and it has generally been aimed at the living rather than the dead. Personally, I think a good graveside service helps people let go.”

  “Does the cemetery at St. Mary’s go back very far? I enjoy the old sections of graveyards.”

  “The oldest grave is 1899, a Steadman as it happens, Darla’s great-great something or other. There aren’t many of those, but there are a few very original headstones if you’d like to take a look sometime. Be sure to stop by the house if you’re over that way.”

  When the priest had gone Neva stood the photograph on the sewing machine next to the ashes, turned the white platform rocker so it faced the picture, and sat into the twilight looking at this precious image from the irretrievable past.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Neva was on the trail early again in the morning, and reached the collapsed cabin as the direct rays of the sun reached the canyon bottom. Her hope of finding the rifle by the ponderosa was disappointed, and though her note to Lance was gone, he had left no reply. She put the pen and paper in her pocket and walked briskly on. When Reese got out of jail, he would see to it that she got her uncle’
s rifle back, and until then, she would waste no regret on it.

  Today she had no walking plan beyond checking for the rifle, and headed up the canyon out of habit. As she was crossing Billie Creek Road, she heard a vehicle and thought instantly of the night truck, which she had now heard for certain three times, but this was no diesel approaching. She waited by the side of the road. Soon a yellow pickup came into sight with dogs peering out from behind the cab on both sides.

  “You weren’t home,” Darla said through the open window as she pulled up, her face shadowed by a billed cap rather than the usual cowboy hat. “I’m going over to Jump Creek to check salt blocks and thought you might be interested in coming along.” Not waiting for an answer she leaned to open the passenger’s side door.

  “Why don’t I see salt blocks on Billie Creek?” Neva asked as she settled on the worn fleece that covered the seat. Her feet found a place among the machine parts, gloves, rags, and tools on the floor.

  “I don’t put out many salt blocks on this side.” Darla drove slowly in second gear, easing across deep ruts and around large rocks without appearing to notice the obstacles, including the trench that had stopped Reese’s mad dash. “They don’t need a whole lot of supplement out in this country with all the natural minerals. It’s more of a backup.”

  After a silence, she said, “How’s life at the mine?”

  “Just fine, as long as I don’t think too much about Roy. Father Bernard brought me the photograph of Uncle Matthew. He’s dressed up in a suit with a watch chain and everything.”

  “If I remember correctly, he always wore a watch with a chain, even with his coveralls.”

  They topped the low pass that divided the two drainages and dropped steeply toward Jump Creek, the truck roaring in first gear down a track that Neva would not have called a road but that at least was not as steep as what they’d ridden down on horseback. Once in the creek bottom they followed the road downstream, stopping now and again to check salt blocks. Most needed replacing, a simple matter of lifting a block from the pickup bed and setting it on the ground within sight of the road.