The Widow Nash: A Novel

by Jamie Harrison

  “Humans are fond of warm water,” said Rex. “Tell me if you disagree.”

  Dulcy wondered if a subtler intelligence might hide beneath the dewy locks, the checked tie, the relentlessly self-absorbed wall of slang. She pulled out a novel but took in a fragment of the spiel: instead of staying at the hotel in Mammoth, they would camp in the luxurious tents Rex had purchased from the W. A. Chadfield: platform floors with Turkish carpets and soft cots and quilts, fine comestibles and a talented cook. They would pass the spa site tonight, picnic there tomorrow, then dine and swim at Eve’s Spring, an older resort that was another investment possibility, on the way back.

  Dulcy wondered if the staff at Eve’s Spring had changed. Not that she was memorable.

  Frances Woolley’s plumed hat turned slowly in her son’s direction, and Dulcy thought of the kind of bad cathedral tours she’d taken in Europe while Walton was in a clinic. Grover and Rex talked too much; everyone talked too much. Samuel began to lecture Lewis about the shoddy wisdom of visiting his family when he was so ill. Lewis planned to leave the following week, and what was the point in wearing himself down for people who didn’t care?

  “They care,” said Lewis. “In their way.”

  The pasties were gone within fifteen minutes. Mrs. Woolley’s cook had made lobster sandwiches for the swells up front and the people who ricocheted between worlds like Grover, who had a blob of mayonnaise on his resolute chin. He grabbed at Samuel’s slice of pasty, trying to have it both ways while he told them he intended to film everything that moved in the park-wildlife, water features, soldiers, all of them frolicking in Rex’s new fine springs. Two pretty spinster teachers named Audrey and Beryl bounced from seat to seat; Grover threatened to film them, too. “You won’t film me,” said Margaret.

  Grover gave her a half smile, as if to say: I hadn’t planned to bother.

  Down the valley, ranches and the first mining towns; people talked about whether the mines were played out, the likelihood of dredging bringing in any meaningful profit. Near the front of the car, Rex said a new medium in town was popular with many miners’ families, who begged for séances: one could imagine the miners’ ghosts tap - tapping , looking for a way out.

  Dulcy thought of the sound of real hammers, the weird roar of a mine, the idea of dying in the dark. Beryl and Audrey started telling knock-knock jokes. After Emigrant, they passed a quarry and a sawmill. The valley tapered into another canyon, then a steaming hillside with an ungainly lodge that was Rex’s third-best option as a spa investment. This landscape had ridges of red rocks instead of yellow, pure desert: Dulcy looked down on tiny cactus when they slowed for Electric, then lifted her eyes to see a dozen miners waiting for the northbound train with a coffin. They were wide-cheekboned men with thick hair—half of Rusalka’s relatives mined coal down here—all permanently grubby, permanently heartbroken. The coffin was expensive, black and brass.

  “There’s your tap - tap ,” said Lewis.

  •••

  In Gardiner, they met their guide: Hubert Fenoways waited on the siding. He held a hand out to Rex, who took it sheepishly, and shook it weakly. “I don’t understand,” said Margaret.

  “He had no choice,” said Samuel. “I can’t explain beyond that.”

  Dulcy watched Lewis and Durr wake up to the situation. Hubie’s right jaw, pierced by Durr’s cane, was still bandaged, and he didn’t meet many eyes, but he looked sober. He explained the current problem: he’d arrived to learn that Chadfield, their original guide, had left town an hour after Rex had wired money. The horses and harness had been sold, and the only wagons left were broken. The tents remained, but none of the other mechanics of adventure: no cots or lamps, stoves or chamber pots or hatchets. They’d all been sold to Wylie, the main competitor, whose massive storehouse dominated what passed for a skyline in Gardiner.

  Rex stood blinking on the siding, and the women broke for the toilet in the log depot. “We’ll go back,” said Samuel. “It’s been a pretty ride down, a lovely day trip.”

  “No,” said Rex. “We’ll carry on. I cannot bear the failure.”

  “Well,” said Samuel. He was angry with Rex, but didn’t want to see him humiliated. “We need a big Portland coach and a hotel, then. I’ll wire ahead. Mammoth? Canyon?”

  “Canyon,” said Rex, trying to recover.

  Hubie Fenoways headed off and returned with two smaller coaches and ragtag drivers. They seemed amused: where on earth did Rex think they could go, so early in the year? Canyon wasn’t open yet. The road wasn’t even open yet, and the staff wouldn’t show up for another fortnight. How could Rex have been so misinformed? Had he just moved to their fair state?

  W. A. Chadfield had claimed that the roads were in fine shape, said Rex. “Well, he lied,” said one of the drivers. “Though they might be, under all the snow.”

  “I’ll hunt him down,” said Hubie.

  Maybe he’d be the right employee, after all. They climbed in for the ride to Mammoth, where some rooms were kept open to serve the army base and explorer types. The road climbed steadily, and Dulcy, who helped Durr balance his camera and had a rear view, imagined the runty horses sliding and allowing the overloaded coaches to roll backward over the edge.

  When the driver stopped with a bellow—“ Boiling River!”—it took a moment to take in the moonscape, the funnels of hot wind, the dun-colored rock. To the west, a long gravel-covered rise; to the east, a gray ridge and the river. No trees, no grass, no graceful building site: a tiny thread of steaming water emptied into what looked like a mud puddle in the Gardner River proper. A bighorn sheep watched from the ridge, and a buzzard loomed above the facing cliff.

  They climbed out. “Darling, what did Cousin Percy tell you about this place?” asked Rex’s mother.

  “A golden opportunity. He would talk to people.” Rex burst into tears.

  “Should we just go back to town?” asked Samuel.

  “No!” Rex yelled.

  People retreated to the coaches. Dulcy stayed on her feet, less out of compassion than misogyny. “Well, then, would you like to explore now, or come back tomorrow?” Samuel’s voice was gentle. Rex’s whole face quivered, and she heard his mother, Frances, weeping in the coach.

  Grover put on blue-lensed eyeglasses, oblivious. “I’d love to find something to film in Mammoth before the light dies. Something a little more dramatic.”

  “All right,” said Rex. He rubbed his eyes. “We’ll wait until tomorrow to study this situation.”

  “I’m sure you could perch some sort of log structure down there,” said Grover. “Run a pipe. Perhaps a small, round pool...”

  “No!” Rex hissed. “No logs, nothing small. I don’t want to be small.”

  At Mammoth, they looked at the pin—neat army buildings with longing. The hotel manager, amused, said he had a few other ignorant, optimistic tourists on his hands, and he’d open up a few rooms and scrounge together some food. The Dewberrys walked away, presumably to suss out just what Cousin Percy had in mind with the spa location beyond a better share of family funds. The rest of them wandered around the steaming terraces in small groups. The hissing sulfur made the air seem even hotter, and Dulcy and Margaret scrabbled down a still-icy path to the river, where they splashed their necks and wrists and flinched at every cracking branch. The pine smelled sweet, and the whole world seemed to buzz. When Margaret left to find out when their rooms would be ready, Dulcy found a covered gazebo near one of the showier terraces. Fumaroles: it looked like Italy, without the ruins and good food. It was mesmerizing, watching fizzing white froth in the heat, but it was not a varied experience, and she began to doze.

  The bench shifted as someone settled next to her. She opened a stony eye and edged away while the leg next to her bobbed. Twenty feet away, three men in tweed suits circled a formation with a measuring tape, a long glass rod, and a sketchbook. One was older and
tiny, one was round and middle-aged, and the youngest was slight and pale.

  The rude knee on the bench next to her made contact with her own, and she jerked around. “Sanborns,” said Lewis. He held a flask. “Insurance men, mapmakers. They’ll be working in Livingston this summer.”

  “And this?” She nodded toward the flask.

  “I took it from Hubie,” said Lewis. “He promised to stay dry, when Rex allowed himself to be blackmailed.”

  “Really blackmailed?” The oldest surveyor slid the rod into the formation. “Do you know what they have on him?”

  “Yes.” Lewis’s leg bounced again, and he tapped the flask in time. “There’s a photograph involved, but it’s not such a horrible thing. Or it wouldn’t be to some people.”

  The men in tweed bent in unison to stare at the tip of the rod. She thought of pinching Lewis to make him tell, as she would have pinched her brothers, but pinching Lewis wouldn’t feel brotherly.

  “I’ll think of a price to put on the information,” he said.

  “More blackmail.”

  “Affectionate blackmail.”

  •••

  The manager found lamps, and they ate on trestle tables in front of the hotel. Rex had pulled out the treats he’d meant for a camping trip—cheese and Utah strawberries and cases of champagne, so explosive after the jouncing trip that Dulcy slid a bowl underneath to catch the overflow of each bottle—but these treats were gone quickly, and they were left using the manager’s frozen beer to sluice down a dried gray roast and undercooked half-fried potatoes, slubby with old grease. They ate with a wary English family and the Sanborn engineers, and Samuel and Lewis set up bocce on the lawn in front of the hotel—it was a big game in Livingston, an import from the Italian grocery families—as well as a freeform version of croquet. Rex brought out a Victrola, but only two disks had survived the trip unbroken. This brought on another snit, but Dulcy was relieved to have the session cut short after twirling badly to one song with Samuel: she was no better at dancing than she was at swimming, because Martha hadn’t danced well, either, and if Martha didn’t know how to do something, Dulcy hadn’t learned it. She tried to keep her balance by looking down, watching her shoes move through last year’s live things, wild strawberries and remnants of sticky geraniums.

  Audrey and Beryl, the young teachers, danced on with the soldiers, but Dulcy retreated to the embankment of widows and wives. When they went inside, some of the men, subtle as a pack of monkeys, scratched the hotel windows and made ghost sounds. It was all silly and happy, even for Mrs. Tate, a genuinely sad widow. Dulcy lay in a corner bunk, giggling woozily with the others while Mrs. Whittlesby, who’d insisted she hadn’t had champagne in years , snored like a troll.

  A whisper through the screen: “Is that the sound of the Widow Nash?”

  “No, Lewis,” said Dulcy. “It isn’t.”

  “Mind your health,” said Margaret.

  “Mind your business,” whispered Lewis.

  •••

  In the morning, as the temperature rocketed from frost to sizzle, the Sanborn surveyors had already returned from an abortive bicycle ride to the Obsidian Cliff by the time Rex’s group reached the lobby. Every one of their tires had popped, and the manager told them the wrong gravel had been spread the year before—he brought out obsidian specimens to prove his point, and Stromberg, the oldest of the Sanborns, saw Margaret pick up a piece. “Watch how you squeeze that,” he said.

  She opened her hand and they saw a trickle of blood, a thin slit in her forefinger.

  Rex’s river still looked terrible, like a Biblical parable or a sarcastic mirage, but when they finally climbed down the slope they found that the oval puddle was large enough for several people to soak, if not swim. Rex slipped skinny white toes into the water; Grover dipped a hand and said the temperature was perfect, lovely. Mr. Denison, the architect, found a safely distant rock and began to make sketches. They all talked about the way that rocks could be moved and a better pool achieved, travertine patios and fans and propellers. The Sanborns weighed in with information on similar resorts in other cities, and the Englishman on tour with his family, a lung patient on his way to the clinic at Eve’s Spring after a winter in Tucson, made the case for having a solarium roof. The park could use one true year-round hotel.

  Hubie had brought fishing rods, and unloaded a folding table, the bocce set they couldn’t possibly use on this slope, towels for the swimmers. Dulcy saw him swing Rex’s remaining case of champagne down onto a rock while Macalester stalked off to fish, and Samuel and Lewis wandered after him, arguing about flies. Dulcy and Mrs. Tate read guides about everything they weren’t going to see in Yellowstone until at least June. Audrey and Beryl fluttered down to the men at the shore. Audrey had her eye on Denison, and Beryl had her eye on Grover, or Rex, or Samuel.

  “Good luck with that,” muttered Margaret. “Look at them argue,” she added, watching Lewis and Samuel. “Is that really how you fish?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dulcy. “Probably not.”

  Frances Woolley, whose lobster salad and sablés were long gone, had elected to ride on directly to the train and Livingston. She’d wired ahead from the hotel and waited apart in the cleanest carriage, parked in the lone smidgen of shade near a tall rock. Mrs. Whittlesby’s snores and Rex’s miserable judgment had taken a toll. Dulcy was fairly sure the Macalesters would try to bolt with her, and within an hour, when a new carriage arrived, James Macalester put Hubie’s rod down quietly and slid inside. Vinca, who had looked forward to leaving her house and her young children, did not protest.

  A moment of reckoning had come at the pool, precipitated by the fact that the English family had found a rock to change behind, and waded in like a line of ducks. Grover fiddled with his camera, but Dulcy didn’t think he found this subject interesting. Rex had brought down men’s suits, and they took turns behind the rock, coming out in black-and-white costumes, all but Hubie looking sheepish. He had the smallest, tightest costume, and the marks from Lennart Falk’s attack were bright red on his sturdy white thighs, glowing from a distance. Dulcy could hear Samuel snicker while Hubie proclaimed temperatures, giving updates as the water reached his ankles, shins, knees; a hot pot, a cold plume.

  Rex marched in, bubbly again. “Come in!”

  “Piss off,” said Samuel. He was still laughing, wiping at his eyes. “Where’re you going to put the hotel gardens? How will you block the wind?”

  “Come on, Samuel. Let’s see you wet,” said Grover, who’d been filming Hubie getting in and out of the water. “I’ll film you jumping.”

  “Not deep enough.”

  “Well, the rock isn’t high. I want the splash, and you’re well built.”

  Dulcy didn’t want to look directly at Samuel, to see his reaction.

  “Please come in.” Rex tried Lewis, now. “I’m so relieved by how wonderful this feels. You can’t imagine.”

  “It’s not hot enough to show my lily-white ass,” said Lewis. “But I’m happy for you.”

  Dulcy left to help spread the food out. When she walked back, Grover floated on his back, yelling commands to Durr, who filmed from above. Hubie still checked depth, bellowing estimates at the architect, who didn’t seem to be listening. The Sanborns kept their own counsel at the far end, and the English family was drying quietly on a rock. Samuel and Lewis and Rex were waist-deep toward the front of the pool, tossing rocks over the side of the barricade. “You reconsidered,” said Dulcy.

  “I crumpled under pressure,” said Lewis. “Come in.”

  “I’m dressed,” she said. Stupidly.

  “Undress, then,” said Lewis.

  “I’ll swim tonight, at Eve’s Spring,” said Dulcy. “I’m supposed to tell you that it’s lunchtime.”

  “All right. Wait.”

  She dipped a soggy slipper while he dried off. They scra
bbled up the path. “Was it nice?”

  “It lacks regulation. Move a toe and you’re either freezing or poached.” They stepped around the tethered horses, too many of them chewing through too little hay. Two of the English children rocketed by them on the path.

  “Are you fast?” asked Lewis. He was walking ahead of her now, with the towel around his shoulders. Little ribbons of water ran down his calves.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never raced anyone since school.”

  “Even your sister?”

  “I was always faster than my sister,” said Dulcy.

  The sister she would never have mentioned, since Mrs. Nash didn’t have one. A flush and a surge of anger before her next step landed: he was enjoying this, and she was too easily caught in his game. She tried to focus on the path rather than the way the water ran over his skin. Then it all moved, pebbles bouncing, air buzzing. The world rumbled, gave a small scream—it was nothing like Salonica, but it was truly happening. Dulcy turned to watch the cliffs on the far side of the river. Lewis moved his feet wide apart like a drunk or a sailor, but he kept his back straight, military-style, as did the Sanborns and Durr. The other men thrashed out of the water and crouched with their mouths agape like gargoyles while Audrey and Beryl screamed.

  Acts of god, Dulcy thought. A scattering of rocks growled down the face, and the hum faded. The horses had pulled their pegs and ran in loose circles from one end of the flat to the other, heads up and neighing. Dulcy only realized that she was smiling when she met Lewis’s eyes. “I gather you’ve been through one of these before,” he said.

  “Such a strange feeling.” But when they looked at each other it was still about what he’d said before, about the sister.

  The champagne bottles spilled onto the dusty gravel. Margaret scrambled around trying to salvage a few cups. Rex and the English children hopped up and down in sheer anxiety, and Grover railed at Durr: one camera had tipped on the rocks. Dulcy enjoyed the fact that Durr ignored the rant for the sake of filming the slowing horses.