Smith's Monthly #4

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  It had been an easy four-hour drive from Boise in their big Cadillac SUV and got them to the lodge just in time for lunch.

  The Forest Service had taken over the lodge back in the 1960s and maintained it in its original condition, as were the instructions of the trust funding the lodge’s upkeep.

  Duster and Bonnie had taken a tour and were surprised that where possible, all the original 1901 furnishings and decorations had been kept. The lodge and everything around it was now designated a historical monument, sitting as it did on the edge of the largest primitive area in the lower forty-eight states.

  Duster looked around and just shook his head as a waiter took another table’s lunch order.

  “This can’t be here,” he said.

  Bonnie knocked on the top of the wood table. “But it is here and is very real. It seems we have some calculations to run before we dare go any farther.”

  “Yeah, it does,” he said, shaking his head. “Somewhere, we have an assumption wrong.”

  “Very wrong,” Bonnie said, nodding.

  They ordered lunch and ate mostly in silence.

  After lunch, they took a drive down the one-lane paved road into the Monumental Valley to where one of the now famous Idaho ghost towns existed.

  The town had been submerged by a landslide and flood in the spring of 1910, just nine years after the lodge had been built, killing most of the traffic to the lodge.

  But the original owners of the lodge and their children had kept the lodge in shape and accepting guests until the Forest Service took over, running it with the money from a trust. Now it was considered one of the great destination resorts of the summer.

  Down in the valley, Duster and Bonnie drove along until the main road left the valley and headed up a side valley. There they parked in a large paved lot with a dozen other cars. Signs pointed down the valley to Roosevelt Lake. Through those waters you could still see the foundations of the old mining town.

  But Duster and Bonnie had no desire to see it again. They had seen the lake and the ruins once. That was enough.

  Instead, they took lawn chairs out of the back of their car and walked over to the bridge over Monumental Creek and sat the chairs in the middle of the bridge.

  Then, facing back the way they had came, they both sat and looked up the valley.

  There, dominating the top of the summit at the end of the valley was the big Monumental Summit Lodge.

  “That’s just not possible,” Duster said, staring at the lodge.

  Bonnie put her hand on her husband’s arm.

  There was not a thing she could say because as Duster had said, what she was seeing wasn’t possible.

  But yet there it sat, the fantastic Monumental Lodge that she had come to love so much.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two Months Earlier…

  May 19, 2015

  APRIL BUCKLEY STOOD behind the big dark-mahogany captain’s desk in the back corner of the ornate parlor room and stared at the two couples as they entered the Sandford House Museum, ambling into the living room from the entrance. They were clearly not from San Francisco.

  In fact, she couldn’t begin to even venture a guess as to where they were from exactly, and that bothered her a lot. She could usually tell at once the background of a person.

  Not these four.

  One man, the tallest, wore a cowboy hat and what looked like a light duster made of some sort of oilcloth. He had on cowboy boots and jeans and was nodding to things the tall woman with him was saying as she pointed to various areas of the house.

  The woman had long brown hair running down her back and was dressed perfectly for any modern city in a light silk jacket over a tan blouse tucked into jeans, yet it was clear she was with the man in the duster. She was tall, maybe three inches taller than April’s five-eight.

  April never let her hair down like the woman wore hers except when at home. She liked hers pulled back and sometimes on top of her head. Today, since she was dressed up for the museum opening week, she had her hair up and styled, with an 1890’s whalebone comb holding it into place.

  The other two arrivals were clearly a couple as well. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up in such a fashion that it looked normal for him. He was clean-shaven and his hair stylishly cut short.

  The woman with him also had on jeans and a long-sleeved silk blouse and had her long hair also loose down her back. Both she and the guy she was with wore comfortable and expensive tennis shoes.

  And both of them looked completely at ease and were nodding at what the woman with the long brown hair was saying as she pointed to varied aspects of the museum as if giving a tour of the place.

  All four of them seemed to be about April’s age—in their mid-thirties—and they carried themselves with an air of confidence that April rarely saw except among the super rich. Yet these four did not strike her as super rich. Yet they were here, in the Sandford House Museum together, on a Monday, in the middle of the afternoon.

  Middle class didn’t do that sort of thing. They didn’t seem to be working class either. Not by a long ways.

  It really bothered her that she couldn’t get a read on these four. It was her job to observe details in both people and environments. She had a master’s degree in interior design and before that had finished a doctorate in psychology. She seldom used the psychology training except when working to find out what a client really wanted. Her passion had become historical design and she had written two books on the subject and became one of the top authorities in the country on historical interior renovation and construction.

  Finally, as the group got a little closer, on the edge of the parlor, April pretended to study a museum brochure on the desk in front of her as she tried to listen. The big old house held the city sounds of San Francisco away.

  What she heard startled her.

  The woman said, “The lighting fixture in the front area is very different from the one I had. Mine was a six-post white-china glass with flowers hand-painted on the china. It was designed by Fillan Glass, a small glass shop out of Italy. The room doesn’t feel right without it, to be honest.”

  The man with her and the other two nodded.

  April looked up and caught the eye of the woman talking, who smiled at her, knowing full-well she had been overheard.

  “How do you know about the old light fixture?” April asked, smiling and moving out from behind the big old desk. “It hasn’t existed since 1937. It was taken down and supposedly stored and no one knows exactly where. There are no real pictures of it.”

  The woman laughed and said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  That got nods from the other three.

  “You’ve done a fantastic job with this place, Doctor Buckley,” the woman said, stepping forward and extending her hand. “I’m Bonnie Kendal.”

  April was too stunned to say anything except “Nice to meet you.” No one knew her name or background in here. She didn’t even have on a nametag since she didn’t officially work as a guide for the museum. She just wanted to see how her hard work in detailing out the museum to 1880’s furnishings went over with visitors, so she had decided to hang out for a week or so before heading home to Denver.

  The interior design firm she worked for in Denver could go on just fine without her. The three other historical renovation projects they had taken on, one in Denver, two in Kansas City, didn’t interest her. It was this project that had really held and challenged her and she was sorry to see it end. She really had no desire to go back into the grind just yet.

  Bonnie Kendal turned and indicated the big guy in the cowboy hat. “This is my husband, Duster.”

  Duster had moved off a few steps to look at the edging on a mirror and just nodded, smiled, and tipped his hat to April as a gentleman would have done a hundred years before.

  Bonnie went on, indicating the couple that stood beside her. “These are my two close friends, Profess
or Dawn Edwards and Professor Madison Rogers.”

  Now April was really stunned. Two of the greatest western historical writers and researchers of the time had just walked into her museum. They were normally in Idaho. Not down here in San Francisco.

  “Wonderful meeting you both,” she said, trying to calm her stomach as she shook their hands. “I’ve read all of your books.”

  April turned to Professor Edwards and smiled at her. “Your book, Thunder Mountain: The Brutal Magic of America’s Last Gold Rush is my all-time favorite historical book. Just stunning work.”

  Professor Edwards smiled in return and seemed actually embarrassed. “Thank you. That’s high praise coming from you, Doctor Buckley. I’ve read and loved your books on interior design as well.”

  Now it was her turn to be slightly embarrassed. “April. Just call me April.”

  “I go by Dawn,” Professor Edwards said. Then she turned to Professor Rogers. “Is this going to be the kind of comfort and elegance we are looking for?”

  “It’s wonderful,” he said, nodding and looking around the museum.

  “It is wonderful,” Bonnie Kendal said, nodding. “I honestly am stunned.”

  Her husband, Duster, came over as she said that and put his arm around her and hugged her. “Miss it?”

  She nodded. “I do. After seeing this, I really do.”

  April had no idea what Bonnie was talking about. This home had almost been torn down and for decades had been used as a halfway house and before that it had been divided into apartments. She had been the one to restore it to this look now, as close as she could come to how it looked in 1880.

  “Would you be interested in a very large job?” Dawn asked before April could ask what Bonnie was talking about.

  “Depends on the job, of course,” April said.

  “A large resort lodge,” Dawn said, her dark-brown eyes almost twinkling as she smiled at April. “Built on a high ridge on the edge of the Idaho Wilderness. And furnished completely to the year 1900 standards.”

  April stared at Dawn for a moment, then glanced at the other three. All seemed to be waiting for her answer.

  “How big?” April asked.

  “At least twenty guest rooms, a number of them suites, large dining, living, card room, and other areas,” Dawn said. “But you will have to spend some time in the Idaho Central Mountains on the project.”

  “I love hiking,” April said, smiling.

  And she did. With a passion that few others could understand. In the six months she had been out here, almost every spare moment had been up around Lake Tahoe. And when home in Denver, she spent a lot of time up on the trails along the Front Range.

  In fact, her love of hiking always seemed to get between her and any man she met. They all pretended to like it for a short time, then they would try to get her to stay in the city when all she wanted to do was escape to the beautiful trails and primitive nature of the mountains.

  She had no doubt she had been born just about a hundred years too late for what she really loved.

  “We had heard that you loved the mountains,” Duster said.

  Again April felt surprised. These four clearly knew a lot about her when the walked in the door.

  “You like the idea of this monster-sized project?” Dawn asked. “We could really, really use your help.”

  “It would all be authentic?” April asked, working to keep her business side in control.

  “Every detail,” Dawn said.

  The other three nodded.

  “A project of that size will cost a fortune,” April said, now worried about these four having the money.

  “Not an issue,” Duster said with a shrug.

  April took a deep breath to try to calm the excitement building inside her. “A large resort to historical 1900 standards in the Idaho Mountains?”

  Dawn nodded.

  “It sounds like my dream job,” April said, doing her best to not get too excited at the idea.

  “It will seem like a dream at times,” Dawn said. “I can promise you that.”

  “And you’ll have time to write as well,” Professor Rogers said, smiling and hitting her in one detail she always worried about.

  Dawn nodded.

  “I’ll need to clear it with my boss,” she said. “But it sounds like a perfect challenge for me.”

  “No need to clear it with your boss,” Duster said and Bonnie laughed.

  “I don’t understand?” April said, suddenly very worried that this was all some sort of stupid joke.

  Duster stepped forward and shook her hand. “You just got a very large raise, Doctor Buckley. I bought the design firm that you work for two days ago. I figured we’d need all hands in your firm for this project. Glad you want to be on board because you’re the reason I bought it.”

  April shook Duster’s hand, her mouth opening and closing.

  She had no idea what to say.

  CHAPTER TWO

  May 21, 2015

  RYAN KNOTT SAT in the passenger seat of the big, white Cadillac SUV as Duster Kendal took it through a small streambed that cut the hairpin turn down the middle. Ryan liked the car because it was more than big enough for his six-foot frame and long legs. And even on rough roads, it seemed to have a really smooth ride.

  The entire back of the car was full of gear. Ryan had been told to only bring a backpack with his clothes and personal items. Duster would furnish the rest.

  They were headed up to a place called Monumental Summit on a road that didn’t seem much more than a wagon track. So far Duster had been forced to back the big SUV up twice to make a corner as they worked their way up the hillside in the deep forest. This corner might turn out to be another one from what Ryan could tell.

  It was the middle of May and snow still remained in piles along the road and under the trees. And the small streams running over the road were still running pretty good with snow melt. There was little doubt the season up here was very short.

  They had left Boise, Idaho, five hours ago, stopping in Cascade for a late breakfast after just over an hour, then stopping in a small town in a remote mountain valley called Yellow Pine for lunch in an old bar that looked like it had been in existence since the gold rush days in the region.

  As they left the old bar, Ryan had asked Duster about that and Duster had said the bar had been there from the time of the Roosevelt gold rush in 1902.

  “Doesn’t look much different at all, actually,” Duster said.

  Ryan just assumed that Duster had seen old pictures of the place. He had learned quickly how good at research and preparation Duster and Bonnie and the two professors were.

  From Yellow Pine, the roads had turned just flat ugly and had remained that way as they wound their way through an old mining ghost town called Stibnite and then up the hill. Even the Cadillac’s smooth ride couldn’t smooth most of the road bumps out.

  Their destination, Monumental Summit, was on the border of the Idaho Primitive Area that contained The River of No Return.

  Duster again had to back up the big SUV to make it around the sharp turn, then managed to get up to almost twenty miles per hour before coming up on another turn.

  Ryan desperately wanted to ask how much farther they had to go, but he didn’t want to sound like he wasn’t enjoying the trip. Actually, he was.

  He loved this area of his home state and had read all the books studying the area’s history and geological formations. He had taken raft trips down both the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Main Salmon River, called The River of No Return.

  And twice, with two different girlfriends, he had tried to hike into parts of this area. Both times his girlfriend of the moment had freaked out at the isolation and left him a short time after returning to civilization.

  So now, being paid to take a trip to the edge of the big primitive area was a joy for him. If he didn’t have to make a living, he would be up here in these mountains all summer.

  But since he was an architect, his m
ain building season was in the summer in Idaho. So that limited his trips in here.

  But now Duster, who had been a friend back in college down at Stanford, had come to him to design a huge lodge out of natural materials on the top of an 8,000 foot ridgeline on the edge of the Idaho Primitive Area.

  It sounded like a challenge and Ryan loved challenges.

  Duster now seemed different than he was back in college. Older, sure, but more than the ten years that had passed. And he seemed calmer and far more mature than the math geek that Ryan had known. Duster had always been the smartest person Ryan had ever met, but now Duster seemed to also be the calmest.

  And the richest.

  Ryan had no idea where Duster got all his money and hadn’t asked.

  Duster had offered Ryan more money than Ryan could ever imagine to design the lodge. And to spend the summer with Duster and the rest working on the lodge to get it started.

  Ryan had done some research on the site Duster was talking about and he knew, without a doubt, that this entire project was a fool’s errand. The government owned the land and no amount of money or influence was going to get it into private hands.

  Or allow any kind of construction on it.

  But Duster had assured him that the project was very real.

  And Duster’s money had been real. So that was enough for Ryan for take on the fun project, even if it never got beyond the planning stages. That wasn’t unusual in his business.

  He had also gotten to meet Duster’s wonderful wife, Bonnie, and the two professor friends who would be working on the project as well. He knew both of the professors by reputation and from their many books on the history of the west.

  He had been honored to meet them both and they seemed very nice and were happy to meet him as well.

  They would be coming up tomorrow with an interior designer from Denver they had hired. An April Buckley. He also knew her by reputation as one of the top historical designers in the country. He knew nothing else besides that about her and until now hadn’t had the privilege to work on a project with her.