Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  Like a child entering the enchanted forest in a fairy tale, I began wandering through the tufa. When I touched a squat, gnomelike formation, its calcified surface rasped against my skin. I pulled my hand back quickly, as if I’d been burned, then laughed at my extreme reaction. The sound bounced back at me from all sides—high-pitched, hollow, and much too loud in the great silence.

  Soon I reached the shore. The sun had sunk quickly behind the western ridge of hills, and the water was deep indigo now, faintly streaked with pink. Waterfowl bobbed on its rippling surface, mere silhouettes in the gathering dusk. The offshore islands rose like dark turreted castles.

  I knelt down and dipped my fingers into the lake; it was cold as ice. When I raised them and touched them to my tongue, they tasted very salty and bitter. I stood and looked around, trying to imagine the landscape as it had been before man, with typical lack of foresight, began diverting the water of the feeder streams. Where I was standing would have been lake bottom; all the pinnacles would have been submerged, the shoreline somewhere around the outer rim of the alkali—

  In my peripheral vision I caught a quick motion some fifty feet away, beside a hunchbacked giant. I peered over there, saw nothing in the rapidly fading daylight. At first I heard only the sigh and whine of the wind; then there came another sound—the scuff of feet running away over the soft powdery ground.

  I rushed around the pinnacle. Saw no one, nothing but a more massive formation that completely blocked my view. The scuffing noise had stopped. Only the thistles and sagebrush moved, bending to the wind.

  Frowning, I told myself I was being too imaginative. Then the scuffing noise came again, farther to the west in the petrified maze.

  I listened as the sound died out. When I’d heard nothing but stillness for a full minute I shrugged and started back toward where I’d left my car. Probably a hiker, I thought, who came out here to enjoy the solitude and was surprised to find another person cluttering up the landscape. Perhaps one of those whom Mrs. Wittington had referred to as “folks who just want to be left the hell alone.” In an area like this—

  The roar of an engine ripped through the silence.

  At first I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Then I realized it was to the west, the way the footsteps had gone. A squarish shape—some off-road vehicle or a van?—shot from behind an outcropping and sped across the plain toward the junction of the unpaved road and the highway. Driving blind, without even its parking lights.

  I ran toward my car, but by the time I got there, the other vehicle had turned north on the highway and pursuit would have been futile. Besides, I thought, what good would it have done? Whoever had been watching me from behind the tufa tower had done nothing threatening or illegal. And whatever made him or her flee probably had nothing to do with me.

  Or was this business Anne-Marie had asked me here to look into more serious than I’d assumed?

  Zelda’s was a combination tavern and restaurant, housed in an enormous and architecturally undistinguished knotty pine structure on the very tip of the point. Now that darkness had fallen, the flashing red-and-gold neon sign atop its roof had been turned on and the parking area was rapidly filling with cars and jeeps and pickup trucks. I’d noticed no other restaurant in town, so I assumed this had to be Vernon’s official hangout.

  Inside, the building was cavernous and noisy, with exposed rafters, plate glass overlooking the lake, and illuminated beer-sign decor. To the left was a dining room with a dance floor and covered instruments on the bandstand; to the right was a lounge where people stood three deep around the bar. I found Anne-Marie there, defending the second chair at her table from would-be takers. Her willowy body was clad in jeans and a denim jacket; her long legs were propped on the ledge below the wide window. She’d already gotten me a glass of white wine.

  “Hey,” she called as I approached, “I’d about given up on you.”

  “Sorry.” I slipped into the empty chair. “I was playing tourist and got carried away.”

  “I figured as much. How are you?”

  “Not bad. You?”

  “Tired, but otherwise I feel great. I’m on a crusade, and you know what that does for me.”

  Anne-Marie is a veteran of both the fledgling women’s movement and the poverty law wars of the seventies; she’s happiest when plotting to overthrow the status quo. In recent years, however, she’d languished as All Souls’ tax attorney—an area of specialization she undertook more because of the co-op’s needs than her own desire. This leave of absence had visibly done her good: tonight her pert blond hair was windblown; her elegant, finely sculpted face was flushed with good health; her blue eyes shone. In the past year or so she’d grown gaunt and hollow-eyed; now she’d fleshed out some, and the extra poundage became her. Seeing her this way made me realize that Anne-Marie had been a very depressed woman before taking her leave. Of course, there had been problems early on in her marriage with Hank, but they’d ironed them out, and after he’d been shot and almost died the previous summer, they’d developed a closeness that was rare even among happily married couples.

  I said, “So tell me about the crusade. I stopped by the Coalition trailer and met one of the people this afternoon; he made it sound quite mysterious.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Heino Ripinsky.”

  “Ah, Hy. He would.” I was about to ask more about Ripinsky, but she added, “We’ll talk about all that over dinner. Right now I want to hear how you’ve been, what’s going on at home.” Prior to coming to Tufa Lake, Anne-Marie had spent a month at the Coalition’s Sacramento headquarters and had only gotten to The City, as we San Franciscans egocentrically call it, for one weekend.

  “Well, there’s not a great deal to tell,” I said. “Hank, of course, has been a grouch with you out of town. We all humor him. Rae—”

  “I know what’s going on at All Souls; I speak with Hank every other night. What I want to know is what’s going on with you.”

  “You mean with George and me.”

  She nodded, smiling conspiratorially.

  I had been seeing George Kostakos, professor of psychology at Stanford and very possibly love-of-my-life, since July, when he’d returned to me after six months of coping with his estranged—now former—wife’s mental breakdown and recovery. The half year before that had been a very bad one: not only had I begun to doubt George’s stated intention to come back to me after he put his life in order, but I’d also begun to doubt my willingness to allow him back into mine. But with the resumption of our relationship, my reservations had vanished; I was happier now than I’d been in years. Not that a few dark clouds didn’t remain on the horizon….

  “Well?” Anne-Marie said.

  “Well … he wants me to move in with him.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “Shar, why not? George is a wonderful man.”

  “I don’t know…. I guess I need my own space.”

  “I’m sure there’s plenty of space for both of you in that enormous condo of his.”

  “But there’s my house—I’ve finally got it fixed up the way I want it. And Ralph and Alice—”

  “Cats? You’d sacrifice George for a couple of cats?”

  I glared at her. One of the few things she and I don’t agree on is the merits of the feline species. She’s allergic to them and seems to take the wheezing and sneezing they produce in her as a personal affront. “Ralphie and Allie are family,” I said firmly.

  “So take them along. George is a cat person, isn’t he?”

  “Yes—unlike some people I know. But we’re talking outdoor cats here. George’s flat is on the second floor, and there’s no place for them to roam but a courtyard where they’d dig up the flower beds. They’d go crazy cooped up inside, and they’d drive us crazy.”

  Anne-Marie raised her eyebrows and sighed. “Why do I feel I’m not getting the whole story?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”


  She merely stared at me, waiting.

  “All right.” I looked down and began fiddling with my cocktail napkin. “He’s also started talking about marriage.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, really. I’m not against marriage.”

  “For other people.”

  “No, even for myself, if conditions were right. But … here’s the real problem: I’m pretty sure he would want to have a child, sort of to make up for the daughter he lost.”

  “Uh-oh.” Anne-Marie leaned back heavily in her chair. Her dislike of children is second only to her dislike of cats, and she assumes all other childless adults share in it.

  “You see?” I said. “I’ve grown too old and selfish to have a child. I enjoy my freedom and my work too much. What would I do with a baby? Drag it to All Souls and plunk it down in a corner of my office? Take it along in the car on stakeouts?”

  “There’s always day care. Or George.”

  “Don’t tell me he could take the primary responsibility; his career is going into high gear now that his book is being published.”

  “Day care,” she repeated.

  “Oh, all right, so I’m making excuses! Dammit, it’s not as if I don’t like children. I’ve got eleven nieces and nephews, and I love them all, even though they make that extremely difficult at times. Every year I write twenty-two checks for birthdays and Christmas. Periodically they show up and eat me out of house and home and make me take them to Marine World. They call—collect—for advice on problems with their parents, their teachers, their boyfriends and girlfriends. I’m already doing my duty to the next generation!”

  Anne-Marie smiled tolerantly. “I’m with you a hundred percent on this. You don’t have to justify your feelings to me.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I know exactly who I am trying to justify them to.”

  Over dinner—panfried golden trout—Anne-Marie explained the situation that had brought her, and now me, to Tufa Lake. The California Coalition for Environmental Preservation, as I knew, was a troubleshooting organization funded by some twenty-five advocacy groups. One of their goals was to present a unified front to legislators by formulating a statewide policy on the environment. Anne-Marie had been engaged in research for the proposed policy up until the previous week, when a call requesting assistance had come from the Friends of Tufa Lake. Since it looked as if a legal problem might be involved, she had been sent to Vernon along with Ned Sanderman, one of the Coalition’s crack troubleshooters.

  “I take it the problem concerns the foreign gold-mining company that’s got hold of the mineral rights in Stone Valley,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “That’s very good, for someone who’s been in town only a few hours.”

  I smiled modestly, unwilling to admit that I’d found out about the mining by pure accident.

  “Well,” she went on, “that is the problem. The mesa above Promiseville hasn’t been mined since the twenties, but modern methods of extracting gold have made mining profitable again. And it’s not only the mineral rights that Transpacific Corporation controls; they own the land itself.”

  “I thought most of the land around here was federal,” I said, recalling signs I’d spotted for the Toiyabe National Forest.

  “Most is. But Transpacific—they’re a U.S. corporation, but backed by big-money interests in Hong Kong—bought up some three thousand privately held acres from a descendant of the family who owned the original Promiseville mine. The other seven hundred acres were also under private ownership, but they were bought from the federal government only a year ago.”

  “How can someone buy federal land?”

  “It’s a complicated process, having to do with patenting mining claims with the Bureau of Land Management. I won’t bore you with the details now; there’s a file on the technicalities back at the cabin. Suffice it to say it’s completely legal.”

  “Then what can you do to stop them?”

  “My job is to go over the land deal with a fine-tooth comb to see if there’s any legal loophole. Or any unethical transaction that might cast a long enough shadow to make Mono County refuse to issue the final mine permits.”

  “From the way Mrs. Wittington at the lodge spoke, I guess people in the area are pretty much opposed to the mining operation.”

  “Oh, there’re plenty who see it as a boost to the economy, but they’re being shortsighted. It would only be a temporary boost and cause more problems than it would solve. Most of the intelligent people here simply don’t want large-scale open-pit mining in Stone Valley.” Anne-Marie set down her fork, her face flushed, eyes bright; she was on a crusade, all right.

  “Not only is open-pit mining noisy and disfiguring to the landscape,” she went on, “but the cyanide leaching process they use poisons the air and ground water. In addition, there’re a number of historic buildings where Promiseville once was that the Friends of Tufa Lake are trying to get approved for landmark status. The blasting from the mine would weaken and eventually destroy them.”

  I nodded, pushing a sprig of parsley around on my plate. “Okay,” I said, “but you didn’t get me up here to help you research legal issues. What else is going on?”

  Anne-Marie glanced around as if she were afraid we would be overheard, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “In the week I’ve been here, I’ve found out some things that just don’t compute. Other things have happened that seem downright suspicious. I need someone with a good investigative head to make sense of them.”

  “All right, fill me in.”

  She proceeded to tick items off on her fingers.

  Item one: When queried by the Coalition, the Bureau of Land Management in Sacramento reported that the 700-acre tract had been purchased from them by a man named Franklin Tarbeaux. Tarbeaux had staked a claim to the mineral rights, then filed the appropriate mineral-survey documents and completed the patenting requirements—paying a mere $10 an acre.

  Item two: Mono County records showed that Tarbeaux almost immediately sold the land to Transpacific Corporation for $700,000—or $1,000 an acre. Although his profit margin was significant, the per-acre price was less than a tenth of what similar tracts were currently going for.

  Item three: The additional 3,000 acres, which encompassed the original Promiseville mine, had been purchased from Earl Hopwood, a descendant of the family who once owned it. Transpacific had paid Hopwood only $10 an acre—what the BLM charged for federal land and much less than it should have brought on the open market.

  Item four: When Anne-Marie and Ned Sanderman queried people in the area about Franklin Tarbeaux, no one admitted to knowing him. The desert rats who lived in Stone Valley claimed they weren’t aware that anyone had been mining the 700 acres on the eastern side of the mesa above Promiseville, where the old mine was located.

  Item five: Earl Hopwood was something of a hermit; he lived in a cabin at the far end of Stone Valley and prospected up and down the stream that ran through it. When Hy Ripinsky, who had known Hopwood since childhood, went looking for him, he found the old man hadn’t been seen for two weeks or more.

  “That was after Transpacific moved in with their survey crew, fenced the land, and began taking core samples,” Anne-Marie added.

  “And that’s it?”

  “No. This is the really strange stuff: a couple of days after Ned and I arrived, both Hy’s home and the Friends of Tufa Lake trailer—it’s next to the one we’re using—were broken into. And the next day Ned and I noticed signs of forced entry at our cabins at the lodge.”

  “What was taken?”

  “Nothing, as far as we could tell.”

  “Lots of crime in this area?”

  “Very little—mostly drunk driving or fishing without a license, or so they tell me.”

  I set down my fork and waited while the waitress cleared our plates. As she bustled around serving coffee, I thought of the person who had been watching me in the tufa forest. More “really st
range stuff” ?

  After the waitress had gone I said, “I suppose in a place like this everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

  “You got it.”

  I sipped coffee, thought a bit more. “What, if anything, does Lily Nickles have to do with this?”

  Anne-Marie looked surprised. “The Tiger Lily? So far as I know, nothing, except that she prospects out in Stone Valley. Where did you run into her?”

  “She was having an argument with Hy when I went to the trailer. He didn’t seem angry or upset; she did.”

  “Hy’s slow to anger. But when he does, watch out.”

  “Tell me about him. He kept injecting quasi-military terms into our conversation. And where for God’s sake did he get that dreadful name?”

  She smiled faintly. “From his parents, as is customary. His mother was German, hence the ‘Heino.’ His father was a descendant of Russians who emigrated to Alaska via the Aleutians generations ago. Hy was born in the Central Valley but raised here in Vernon after his mother divorced and remarried. He left for a number of years in the seventies. Some claim he was CIA, and from the way he speaks and thinks, I believe it.”

  “No one asks him?”

  “He’s not a man you question about the past.”

  “From CIA operative to environmentalist is a long step. How did that happen?”

  “What little I know comes from Rose Wittington. When Hy returned here he was reclusive at first, stayed out on the little sheep ranch on the road to Stone Valley that he inherited from his stepfather. He seemed to have plenty of money: added on to the house, drove an expensive car, owned an airplane. But he didn’t socialize, even with old friends, and was rarely seen in town.”

  “What changed that?”

  “He met Julie Spaulding, an environmentalist who’d moved here a few years earlier and founded the Friends. She gradually coaxed him out of his isolation and involved him in the cause. After a year or so they married. Julie died of multiple sclerosis about three years ago. In her will—she’d inherited from her father, a big Kern County grower—she set up a foundation to fund environmental organizations, particularly the Friends, and she named Hy director of it.” Anne-Marie paused, looking thoughtful. “Rose Wittington said what you did: that it was quite a transformation from CIA—if that’s what he was—to environmentalist. But she hasn’t observed Hy the way I have. Underneath that laid-back exterior, he’s still dangerous.”