Unexpected Errand

The “Old Boy Network” looks bad to outsiders, but to those who benefit from it, it’s one of the wonders of the world. Tim’s uncle’s friend, the car rental manager, knew Ned was reliable enough—and had enough money—that letting Tim borrow a car wasn’t a financial risk. What he didn’t mention—and Tim’s uncle didn’t reveal this, either, until several years later—was that no company rules were broken, since the pricey ($2,368 FOB Detroit, but at that time it was a lot of money) little red Ford Mustang convertible “rented” to Tim actually belonged to the agent himself. Tim might have guessed, since he wasn’t asked to sign anything, but of course, with no experience in such matters, he didn’t. He set off happily toward Dotney, the only town on the road between Billings and Motherlode itself.

He drove the whole trip with the Mustang’s top down. Chilly, but he loved it, and as the day gradually warmed, he zipped along, as happy as a clam-and-a-half, gradually reddening from the sun and the wind.

To Midwesterners the scenery along that road appears to be desert. To a Westerner, it just looks like a piece of—oh, maybe central Wyoming. White, sandy soil, if you can call it soil, in which nothing grows but sagebrush. The distant hills show occasional spots of dark scrub juniper. Beyond the hills, one imagines a lot more of the same.

The road he was driving crossed a number of enormous culverts. Tim couldn’t recall ever seeing a rainstorm in Motherlode, nor even any clear indication that rain ever happened there. As he realized the significance of the culverts, he remembered, too, that Motherlode, like most parts of Montana, rarely gets as much as 20 inches of rain in a year—even though “unusual” weather may occasionally produce spring floods.

Flattened fauna—mostly jackrabbits—spattered the wide-shouldered road all the way to Dotney. Since Tim neither met nor passed—nor was passed by—even one car that fine Monday morning, he wondered how the body count of small animals could be so high. He attributed a substantial decrease in the number of rabbit corpses as the road narrowed after Dotney to traffic’s having to slow almost to the legal maximum as the road entered the foothills and began to twist and turn. Not that Montanans have ever been much concerned with speed limits.

As he drew alongside the familiar streambed of Dry Flats Creek, Tim noticed a trickle of water. Did water flow there at the end of every May, he wondered, or had this year started out strangely wet? Only decades later did he learn that it was neither the usual thing, nor particularly unusual. It just happens sometimes. Spring moisture varies tremendously, all over the state.

He drove past an ancient barn, its roof swaybacked, its yard clogged with many years’ worth of thistles. Ruined sheds; an uninviting, gaping old house. “Somebody must have tried to ranch here,” he muttered. The ruins made clear that the attempt had failed.

The road swung to the right, to the left again, and crossed a little rise. Suddenly the narrow basin that holds the town of Motherlode came into view. Tim had always loved being in the town, but until then had never thought of it as beautiful to look at. Today it seemed just as picturesque as his mother had always claimed. He felt he was finally seeing it through her eyes.

Tim had been instructed to call Uncle Ned as soon as he reached town. However, he was carrying very little money. (“Uncle Ned will provide. You don’t need to take chances on having your pocket picked.”) Thus, the only food he’d had up to then had been what the motel called “Free Continental Breakfast,” something of an innovation back then. In order not to take unfair advantage of the management, he’d eaten very lightly—in his own estimation. Four Danish, a couple of doughnuts, a single cup of coffee, and three glasses of orange juice. Now his stomach mentioned that it was nearly eleven, that he did have a little money, that he might or might not get fed if he headed immediately into the canyon toward Oak Grove, and that his uncle wouldn’t know what time he got into town anyway. Therefore, it would be okay to get a meal.

His conscience maintained a discreet silence, even when he stopped near the entrance to the Elkhorn Hotel.

Exactly four vehicles had been parked in that block of Main Street, all directly in front of the hotel. Characteristically, Tim didn’t notice what make they were. He pulled the Mustang into one of the seven remaining empty slots, put the top up, and locked its doors. Unnecessary, in Motherlode, he thought, but the agent had warned him not to take chances.

The hotel restaurant calls itself “The Miners’ Lunch,” and its open doors showed it was ready for business—though Tim had clearly arrived before the crowd. He asked whether he could still get breakfast, and found he could.

“Lucky me,” he said.

He ordered a light and inexpensive but legitimate meal, which he felt would do for the moment: two eggs sunny side up, ham, sausage, toast, hash browns, and coffee, all for $1.85. No sales tax in Montana. It was just as well that he restrained himself, because the bill, even just for that little bit, would cut a swath into his money supply. Until he got together with his uncle, he had only $9. Plus a loose dime.

It amused Tim to realize that, up to then, every meal he’d ever eaten in Motherlode, except picnics, had been served in a relative’s house.

The conversation in the next booth sounded interesting; Tim tried to eavesdrop. At first he could make out too little for his scanty idea of what topics would be of interest to local ranchers and business people, but gradually he filled enough gaps for some meaning to come through. By that time, they were rehashing a meeting of some kind, in which the question had apparently been whether Motherlode should set up its own police force. Evidently, they all thought so.

When the subject turned to taxes, however, there was rapid backpedaling. Tim saw nothing strange in that. He’d read enough newspapers to know that people want what taxes pay for, but nobody wants to be taxed. The reason, Tim felt, is that sometimes the revenue is wasted—spent to benefit people who aren’t pretty much like oneself.

Moaning about taxes being always the same old stock of grumbles and whines, people soon go on to something else. This conversation moved back to law enforcement. Somebody groaned about the county sheriff, who, the speaker said, had no law enforcement experience. Somebody else observed that at least he was head and shoulders better than his predecessor. That brought emphatic agreement, and led them to talking about the Quoimish murder. This was, of course, the first Tim had heard of it. The conversationalists seemed to care more about the murderer than about the victim, Boris something. It sounded as if the county was about to retry the killer, and that possibility immediately became the hottest topic yet. The volume waxed so loud Tim could make out whole sentences.

One of the men said, “Personally I’m glad to see it coming up again. There ain’t any new evidence good enough to get him out of it. Old Boris was a Hell of a nice guy.”

“Boris was weird, but okay.” A woman’s voice. “But I figure so is Hubie Schimmel.”

Tim understood “Hubie Schimmel” to have been the murderer.

She continued, “He’s okay, know what I mean? And he didn’t look guilty to me. I hope he gets off altogether this time.”

All three men announced that the lady was wrong, but, with everybody talking at once, Tim lost the thread. Something about tricky lawyers and a lot about the previous, apparently very incompetent, sheriff. Clear unanimity about the sheriff.

The woman again: “Well, owning a necklace means nothing at all, especially nowadays with all those beatniks and hippies wearing them. He’s just not that kind of person.” Tim couldn’t tell whether she meant that “he” wasn’t a beatnik or a hippie, or that “he” wasn’t a killer. Whoever “he” was. Boris? Perhaps “Hubie”?

Three men at once again, but this time they all said practically the same thing: “Oh yes he is.” One of them added, “For one thing, look at his horse.” (Beads, horses, what next?) “I took time to go to the trial. Sat through all three days. Schimmel just sat, like a lump. He looked to me like he did it and would do it again. No doubt in my mind.”

Another of the men said, “Stupid jury settled for manslaughter, but that’s the women on it. I call it murder, first degree and premeditated. In cold blood. I hope he gets a rope necklace this time.”

Tim interpreted the words “rope necklace” to refer to death by hanging. Tim turned the word “horse” over in his mind, but it didn’t make sense. Unless the man had really said “whores.” That didn’t make much sense, either, but more than if “horse” was right. Could he have been talking about drugs? Tim remembered that some powerful drug was sometimes called “horse.” Heroin, he thought. Not big in the sixties, but protecting Tim from real knowledge of that sort of thing had the consequence that his ideas about illegal activities came from reading fiction. But, how could drugs make any sense?

When they all left, still talking, the woman was still defending “Hubie Schimmel,” and the men were still disagreeing with her. It had been hard to follow, but Tim felt none of it could ever matter to him.

He asked for another cup of coffee. The waitress—a lovely blonde who would make any male of Tim’s tender age pant with excitement—laid his check beside the refilled cup and sashayed back into the kitchen. Tim had lived too protected a life to participate in the “sexual revolution” supposedly going on all around him, but his hormones were normal, so he dawdled until his coffee was too cold to drink, expecting her to come back out. She didn’t.

Still stalling, Tim picked up the out-of-town newspaper the people he’d been eavesdropping on had left behind. He learned that in California police had arrested a man who survived the crash of a commercial turboprop. Apparently, the suspect owned a gun found in the wreck of  the plane, and it was likely that he’d killed the pilot. However, the reporter worded the article cautiously, just in case.

The Pathet Lao—Tim didn’t know, yet, who they were—were holding onto the eastern half of Laos, wherever that is. Meantime, a group called the Viet Cong (Tim had heard of them, but knew nothing about them) seemed to be holding onto the western half of Viet Nam. Sounded to Tim as if the two countries were near each other. The editor seemed to think the US was heading for trouble—maybe for all out war. Being almost eighteen, which Tim thought could become “draft age,” he hoped not.

Back in the USA, there was finally a chance that a Civil Rights Bill would make it through Congress. The President was behind it and was predicting that it would pass. Tim pontificated under his breath that, “If Johnson pulls that one off, he’ll be the most honored president of all time, no matter what mistakes he might make on other subjects.”

A group called “The Beatles” was taking the nation by storm after maybe four months’ exposure. Tim thought maybe he’d heard them once—in Ohio, of course—but he had no way to know that it would, eventually, become a social gaffe to admit that one hadn’t memorized pretty much everything about them, so he went back to the front page.

There he found predictions about what the Warren Commission would decide as to who killed President John F. Kennedy. Timothy was quite impatient with that sort of nonsense, since there was no reason to believe the columnist had access to information not already available to the public. Years ago, or so he’d heard, newspapers, radio and perhaps even television reported the news, instead of trying to anticipate it. By 1964, one already had to try to deduce what had already happened from the predictions of what would happen next.

Bored at last, he left. Despite his shortage of money, he left a dollar tip, hoping his new heartthrob, the blonde waitress, would realize where it came from. He hoped—at least—that she’d get the money.

He used the phone in front of Bortlin’s Seed and Feed, at the western edge of Motherlode, to admit he’d arrived in Motherlode, and try to learn what sort of restrictions Uncle Ned would be imposing on his summer vacation.

“Hi, Uncle Ned? This is Tim.”

“What took you so long? Get a late start?”

Perhaps Tim was oversensitive. Perhaps his uncle wasn’t really criticizing. He replied, “Kind of. Besides I was hungry and picked up a meal here in town. Shall I come on out for a talk?”

In his uncle’s usual terse style: “No need, yet. Couple of other things to do first. Better go see the sheriff, and get started.”

“The sheriff? What’s that about?”

“Get you started. Made housing arrangements. I’m just paying for ’em. Got a place for you to stay.”

“The sheriff has? Not in the jail, I hope!” Timothy had an unreasoning horror of jails.

“Not likely. Bill would be on the taxpayers. Have to tell ’em all about it, and, frankly, they’d refuse to pay. Keeping it under wraps. Wherever he’s got you staying, they’ll charge it to me. Keep things quiet a little longer. Don’t want to have to cover any damage, though, Timmy.”

“I’m not rough on stuff, Uncle Ned. I’m eighteen years old, remember.” Actually, Tim wouldn’t be eighteen for another two months, but that’s closer to eighteen than to seventeen. He wondered what were the “things” his uncle wanted kept quiet?

“Your mother does say you’re responsible. Hope you’re old enough to do a little snooping around. She says you can think for yourself, but still do what you’re told. That true?”

Tim didn’t like the “do what you’re told” part very well, because, still psychologically a teen, he felt it was all he’d ever heard. The part about being “old enough to do a little snooping around” sounded exciting. He responded that, even though he was in town for a vacation, he would gladly include any reasonable project his uncle had in mind.

“Can’t promise it’ll be reasonable. Can’t promise much of anything, in fact. Be pretty conspicuous in a place as small as Motherlode. Ferd has some sort of cover for you—student at the college, most likely.”

Cover? That sounded like spying. “Well,” Tim said, “I am a student, all right. I wouldn’t have to pretend that; and I imagine people can believe I’m a beginning freshman at Ironsmith College. But the college isn’t very big. Do they run in the summer?”

“Must do, from the kind of thing Ferd was talking about. Go see Ferd. That’s your first stop. Come out here in the evening. Call again if you can—maybe from Ferd’s office.”

“Uncle Ned, I’m assuming that when you say ‘Ferd’ you mean the sheriff. Am I right?”

“Oh, yep. Forgot you don’t know him. Ferdinand R. Coleridge. You’ll recognize him, from when he used to run the Texaco station. He’s sheriff now. Well, since a couple of years ago. Claims running for the job is my fault. Office in the courthouse. Know where that is?”

“Sure.” The courthouse is the only really sizeable building in town. It’s impossible to miss.

“Yep. If you can’t find it, it’s at 301 Main Street. Got that? Better write it down; wouldn’t want you to get lost. Lot bigger town than it used to be.”

To himself, Tim thought, Get lost? In Motherlode? Fat chance. Aloud, he said, “Oh, no fear of that. Anyway, I’ve got it. Three-oh-one you said. Three zero one. On Main Street. I’m on my way.” Tim felt his uncle was beating a dead horse, because practically everything in Motherlode is on Main Street—even a good many of the residences.

“Let me know tonight if you find out anything.”

“If I find out anything?”

“Yep. Tell me this evening, when you come to the camp. Bye now.”

Find out anything about what? It sounded so exciting that, because opening up and starting the convertible might take an extra minute or two, Tim elected to walk the block and a half.

Sure enough, three zero one. Tim had never noticed that. Had the number always been there?

Main Street runs east west, and 301 is on the north side of the street. A sign indicated that one could find the sheriff’s office at the west side of the building—around to his left. So, off he went to meet the law.

Chapter Three

First Steps

“Can I help you?” The speaker, attired in a brown uniform, wore a metal star and a leather belt with an old-fashioned snap-shut holster. Cops’ holsters don’t have a flap that covers up their gun, nowadays, but this was years ago, and Motherlode doesn’t try to be in the forefront of fashion. The man wearing it didn’t look very athletic. Still, he was, at least, rather tall, useful if a criminal had to be slam-dunked.

A much younger, shorter, and leaner officer, similarly clothed, though with neither a star nor, so far as Tim could see, a gun, sat off to the right, typing away as though trying to finish an unbelievable workload before the work day ended. Tim took the younger person to be only a few years older than himself, and probably too light to win a fight with a lawbreaker. Perhaps that explained why he was doing office work.

Clearly, the first man was senior to the second, so Tim stayed with him. “You must be Sheriff Coleridge.”

“Nope, I’m just a deputy. The sheriff may be back some time this afternoon. Most likely not ’til six or seven. I’ll bet you’re Ned Nackero’s boy.”

“His nephew, actually.”

“Oh yes—I knew that. Blame Ferd: he keeps calling you ‘Ned Nackero’s boy.’ He told us you’d be dropping by today. Left you a message in fact. Gimme a second, here, to find it.” He pawed through a pile of papers on his desk, then transferred his attention to a basket marked “IN.” Nothing. Finally, he drew a letter from his “OUT” basket and handed it over.

Pretty mysterious stuff,” he remarked.

The envelope bore strange wrinkles, especially along the flap, which was held down by a strip of tape. Somebody had stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” on it, several times.

“Did any instructions come with this?”

“Not a word. The sheriff just said when you showed up I should hand it to you and not look over your shoulder while you read it. What’s it all about?”

“I don’t really know,” was the truthful reply. Tim opened the envelope and shook out the penciled note.

To Ned’s Boy:

   Sorry I can’t be here to say hello. You have a room with Mrs. London at 651 Sluicebox. Two streets north of Main. Don’t tell her about the case. After you check in there, please drive up canyon to the college and see the registrar. On the way or afterward, get your fortune told at the place downtown, across from the Elkhorn. Don’t believe everything she says, but be friendly. Don’t tell her about the case either, though. That’s very important. In the evening, call Ned. I’ll be in touch with him by then.

 Yours Truly,

     Ferd (Sheriff).

Tim puzzled over the expression “the case,” but the deputy interrupted his reverie. “Sit down a minute; have a cup of coffee.”

A teakettle was already boiling gently on the table behind the desk, and Tim spotted a jar of instant on the shelf beneath. Again the man asked, “What’s it all about?”

“No coffee, thanks. As for what it’s all about, I still don’t have any idea. When the sheriff comes back, you could ask him; and then maybe you can tell me. It looks like he wants me to run some errands, though.”

Ignoring the deputy’s disappointment, Tim thanked him for the message and left.

* * *

The red convertible still sat in front of the Elkhorn Hotel, and the fortune-teller assignment was supposed to be across the street from there, so why not try her now? It seemed a strange suggestion for the sheriff to make. Uncle Ned, Tim knew, loathed all forms of supernatural hocus-pocus, so it couldn’t be his idea.

The building across Main from the hotel held a drug store and a clothing store—Mountain Drug, and Winnie’s Western Wear, respectively. On the cross street, which bore no identifying sign, half a dozen automobiles, three of which sported home made “for sale” signs, seemed lost in what was now a dusty—and unnecessary—parking lot. Five years ago, Tim recalled, it had been the Texaco station. On the southeast corner stood the Jewel Theater, not merely closed in the summer, but completely boarded up. In that area, in 1964, cable television had yet to arrive. Therefore, the closure of the movie house wasn’t as inevitable as it is in most small towns today. Tim realized this, vaguely, but imagined it must indicate that Motherlode could now receive broadcast television—from someplace—and the theater owner had read the handwriting on the wall. Alternatively, possibly, it was that the roof leaked and repair money was in short supply.

Pondering what relationship might exist between roofs that leak and walls on which mysterious handwriting appears, Timothy looked around for an indication, in any of the four directions, of something that could be called a “fortune-teller.” He decided to try the two stores first, since they at least had signs of life.

As he crossed Main, which still had absolutely no traffic, he happened to glance upward, where the second story windows sported old-fashioned gilt writing. The first two both said the same thing,

SAMUEL SPLITT

ATTORNEY AT LAW

The next two,

BILL SEASTORY

INVESTMENTS

Two blank ones followed, and finally the indication he was seeking,

RHEE STEARNS

PSYCHIC READINGS

The stairway to the second floor rose from a doorway between the two stores. At the top, Tim turned right, passing an unoccupied office. Next to the corner room, square, black lettering on a glass door told him to enter Rhee Stearns’s office.

A young man in a blue shirt and a yellow tie sat behind the desk. Tim thought, gosh, he looks to be only about my age.

The youth put down his copy of Guns and Ammunition. “How can I help you?”

 For lack of a better opening line, Tim asked, “Do you tell fortunes?”

“Some call it that. We only say we perform psychic readings. Cast horoscopes; read palms, that sort of things. Including Tarot. Just for entertainment, of course. Although, people are always surprised at how accurate we are. Did you wish a reading?”

Tim had no idea what he “wished.” He was tempted to say, “The sheriff wants my fortune told,” but he’d seen hints that he was now the most important spy in the combined CIA, OSS, KGB, NKVD, and FBI, plus MI-5, -6, -7 and -8; how could he know what secrets might be revealed if he attributed his presence to the sheriff? Therefore, he only nodded.

“Madame Stearns will return soon,” the receptionist said. “If you have time to wait, please sit down.” Tim glanced at his watch. Quarter to one—why not? He sat on an expensive-looking, but hard, oak chair by a cheap-looking table with a pile of magazines that more or less duplicated those found in any waiting room in the West.

He could learn things about me from what I read, Tim thought, and then he could pass the information on to his employer. That’s how these people work.

He wondered whether it would be best to cooperate by choosing a magazine akin to his actual interests, or whether he should throw them off by selecting one he didn’t care about at all. It turned out that nothing on the table bore any relationship to any of Tim’s possibly overintellectual interests. The selection divided evenly between magazines about how to shoot everything that moves (or holds still), presumably meant for very outdoorsy men, and magazines about how to spend a fortune on looking and cooking better for less, obviously meant for very indoorsy women. The only further alternative lay in a few children’s magazines. Tim selected an issue of Jack and Jill and began reading with an intensity he felt should have earned an academy award.

Actually, he quickly became absorbed. When the kid at the desk said, “Madame Stearns is in now; please follow me,” Tim hated to drop the story. He rose and followed along into a tiny cubicle where the decor was obviously meant to appear occult. The walls were painted flat black. Pale yellow metallic astrological symbols were hung here and there. Most of them Tim couldn’t identify, but he knew Mars and Venus, and was fairly sure of what he thought might be Mercury. And, of course, the sun and the moon. A neat chart with the twelve signs of the zodiac illustrated in the style of a science-fiction magazine cover hung directly behind Madame Stearns. On the desk in front of her sat a “crystal ball,” the first time Tim had ever seen one. Not particularly impressive—four inches in diameter at most. In cartoons, a crystal ball is always as big as a person’s head.

Madame Stearns herself, a woman of medium height, was quite attractive despite what Tim saw as her “age.” She wore an oriental-looking silk dress that Tim tried, mentally, to describe, but found he didn’t know the correct terminology. Modest, but not too modest, he decided, tight fitting, and fairly low cut, but narrowly so, so that bare flesh was suggested, though very little of it actually showed. Tim couldn’t see below her waist, but, in his imagination, she wore a very short slit skirt that exposed lots of thigh. Because she stayed behind the desk the whole time he was present, he couldn’t check on the fantasy.

“So, you want to learn about the future?” Husky voice, but feminine.

“Well, yes. It’d be nice to learn a little about what to expect.” Tim wondered if she could tell him why he’d been told to consult her in the first place—or, better, what he was supposed to be doing for Uncle Ned and the sheriff. She struck him as phony, but he realized he was biased, and tried to postpone judgment.

“There is a fee, as I’m sure you know. What kind of reading do you wish?”

“What kinds are there?” Tim hadn’t thought about a fee. He hoped it wouldn’t be much.

“Oh, there are many kinds. Many kinds.” The needless repetition reinforced the impression of fakery. Tim waited.

“A palm reading costs next to nothing. A horoscope is more expensive. A complete reading is, ah, actually somewhat costly.” She paused, then apparently noticed her client’s confusion, and said, “It might be wise to begin simply. Do you have $10?”

 Tim didn’t. He had the change left from breakfast, $5.25. “I only have a little, I’m afraid. Maybe I should come back when I have more?”

“Yes, you’ll have quite a bit of money soon. For now, just give me $5. Place it in your right palm, and lay your hand exactly there.” Tim did so, wondering how she knew he had $5.

The lady’s removal of the greenback was impressively quick—she simply moved her hand gently over Tim’s, and the money seemed to disappear. She seized the hand it came from, bent over it, and studied it for a few minutes. Then she leaned back and thought for a minute or two. To Tim’s astonishment, she returned the five.

“I can’t give you a reading right now. Too many contradictions. When you return, bring money for a complete reading. Fifty dollars for you. A special rate, because I want very much to read you. Don’t spread it around, or the other students will be jealous. Next week, come back—not too soon. You need time to settle in.”

Puzzled, Tim departed, descended the stairs, crossed the street, and unlocked the Mustang. Obviously, Madame Stearns had taken him for a student, presumably at Ironsmith College, and she also seemed to sense that he was newly arrived. The license number on his borrowed convertible began with a 3, showing that it had been registered in Yellowstone County, so maybe she jumped to conclusions from that—but only if she’d noticed it and somehow knew it was Tim’s. On the other hand, the part about his soon having lots more money sounded nice. But why did she suggest he come back later?

Tim concluded that she wanted to “scout him out.” Fifty dollars would seem a pretty small reward, though, if she intended to try to follow him around. On the other hand, he didn’t have $50, and, if she really had psychic abilities, perhaps she had used them. Maybe she just wanted to get rid of him.

“Shucks,” Tim muttered, “I don’t know why I need my fortune told, anyhow.”

He started the car, backed into the street, and headed for the 600 block of Sluicebox Street—his new home.

Chapter Four

 Work

In summer, Mrs. London ran a tiny ice cream shop on Main Street a couple of blocks from the courthouse. Therefore, Tim recognized her at once. She hadn’t changed a bit. Same tightly curled gray hair, same gaunt figure, same long, graceful fingers; even the same many-years-out-of-style black shoes. She gave no sign of recognizing Tim, but seemed glad enough to furnish him a room.

“I try to persuade my young men to do some work for me as part of the rent,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll catch on to what I need. I’m nearly always ready if you’re in before midnight—or even if you’re not. I’m sure you’ll sometimes have to be out late, though, and nowadays I lock up at night, so you’ll need this key.”

She shook her curls. “Nobody ever used to lock a door in Motherlode, but times have changed. Is it true you’ll only be here for a month?”

Tim could only say, “I’m not entirely sure.” He would have to look at the date on his return ticket. If, as he now hoped, he really had a mystery mission, that might be rearranged, and his vacation in Motherlode might stretch out until just before college started in Ohio. Otherwise, he’d expect to stay two or three weeks at the most.

Mrs. London said, “Ferd seemed to think that was possible. He said you’d pretend to be attending the college, but the truth will be that you’re gathering information for him. Is that right?”

“Goodness,” Tim said, “it sounds like you know at least as much about what I’m doing here as I do.”  

“Nothing at all, really,” Mrs. London replied. “But I can see it’s hush-hush. Ferd said not to gossip about you unless somebody pushes me, and if that happens, all I can admit I know is that you’re a student. He doesn’t even want me to ask you questions. He didn’t say I shouldn’t listen, though, whenever you feel like talking.”

Tim didn’t know anything to talk about, and found it easy to excuse himself. He took the little convertible for a drive up the canyon toward Ironsmith College. The road passes through a water gap in the first ridge into a broader area filled with brush. After less than half a mile it forks: North Canyon Road leads to the right, directly into quite a wide valley. Tim had heard that “Old Count Eisenschmidt” was the college’s founder, though he knew nothing about the man except that he must have been wealthy.

Tim had seen the campus before. Today it glowed as lovely and green as ever. Gardeners, working in the middle of the wide front area known as “The Meadow,” appeared to be installing rose bushes.

Tim pulled the Mustang up to a large wooden map of the campus. The map was something of an affectation, because there were then only six buildings, but it revealed that the registrar’s office could be found in “Administration Hall,” the farthest along of the three buildings that face The Meadow. He moved the convertible to a parking space right in front of Administration Hall, joining a line of five cars he assumed belonged to administrators. This time he left the top down, since he doubted that anything bad could happen to a car on a college campus.

Inside on his right, four Dutch doors lined the hall—the kind of doors whose tops can be opened inward, resulting in “teller-windows” such as many banks and post offices used to feature. Opposite an oversized wall clock that showed twenty minutes to two, one of the windows was clearly marked “Registrar.” Beneath that permanent sign, a plain 8½ by 11 sheet of paper, elegantly calligraphed, revealed that he had arrived too late: “Summer Hours 9:00 AM to 12:00 M.”

However, a very plain door just to its left also appeared to be part of the registrar’s complex, and Timothy rapped gently on it. No response, at first. As he reached out to give the door a more vigorous thump, it opened and a well tanned, short, plump, middle-aged man came out. He wore a tie with a short-sleeved shirt, had practically no hair on his head, and gave Tim a thick-lipped smile. Because of the deep tan, Tim expected a southern accent.

“Yes?”

Not southern. The intonation was pure Mountain West.

“This is the registrar’s office?”

“It is. With the summer schedule, we’re—officially—only open from nine to noon. However, as you can see, I am here. So, is there something I can help you with that won’t require one of my assistants? They’re the only ones who can handle registration materials, ordinarily.”

“Sheriff Coleridge told me to drop by,” Tim began. “I’m Ned Nackero’s nephew. My name…”

“Oh, yes. Ned’s boy. Welcome to Ironsmith College. Come right on in. I’m the registrar. Name’s Crevan O’Brinty. Glad to meet you.” He pressed Tim’s hand as though they were old friends. Lowering his voice, he said, “Come inside, where we can discuss all this.”

Locking the door behind him, he showed Timothy an upholstered visitors’ chair and put himself on the wooden one across from it. “Ned’s told me a lot about you,” he said. “We’ve picked out some classes for you. Well, just one class, actually. I’m not sure what this is all about.”

“Neither am I,” Tim said. He decided not to add, “if anything.”

“Ah, but I can make a good guess.” Crevan O’Brinty lowered his voice again. “Based on how it got started, I suspect it’s connected with Hubie Schimmel’s retrial. I hope so, because I don’t believe that man ever committed a crime in his life. He even obeys the speed limit. Well, when he was free to drive, anyhow. Tell me I’m right!”

Tim told him the truth, which was that he didn’t know. “They have some job or other in mind for me; that much I can see. But all they’ve told me is, they want me to act like a student.”

The name Hubie Schimmel seemed faintly familiar, but Tim couldn’t yet recall where he had heard it.

Mr. O’Brinty winked. “That’s the way—play it cool. But you don’t have to worry about me. In this job, I know how to keep a secret. You can confide in me with no fear of its spreading beyond this room.”

“That’s good, but the trouble is, I really don’t have anything to confide. I’m here for a vacation, first of all, and it does look like my uncle and the sheriff have some project in mind, but nobody’s explained it to me, yet.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I’d hoped to learn the details of the great cause I’m about to perjure myself for. But if that’s the way it is, I guess that’s just the way it is.”

He pulled an oversize manila envelope out of his middle drawer. “Here are your registration materials. In a sense, they’re forged—but you’d know that. You might call it an ideal forgery, though. Perfect, in fact. Every document is the real thing, and I signed my own signature—didn’t even use the rubber stamp. Not every forgery is that good.”

He paused, pursed his lips, and handed over the envelope. “I said we picked just one class. That’s because there isn’t enough going on in summer to give us any flexibility. But I think you’ll find it’s a lulu. A math class. ‘Topics in Advanced Analysis,’ is the name of it. If you were doing your own homework, you’d be up until midnight every night. The course is famous for all the work it takes.”

“Uh—you say if I were doing my own homework?”

“Yes. Oh, maybe you don’t know yet. That’s why we picked this class. We didn’t think just anything would look good, so it came down to the analysis course or else Physical Chemistry. The prof who has this one lectures, but she doesn’t take roll. She grades entirely on homework and the final. Even the final is a take-home exam. The department is giving her static about that and also about the workload, but for now she’s exactly what we need for this little jaunt.”

Tim, beginning to see faint indications of a pattern, said, “If I don’t actually do the work, who does?”

“Your uncle, I think.”

“My uncle? What did you say the subject is, again?”

“Advanced analysis. Runs every summer, for the benefit of math teachers who come to the college. They hate the hard work, but they love drawing on the extra depth when they get back to the classroom.”

“What kind of ‘analysis’ is that? I don’t know much chemistry.”

“Math, not chemistry. We picked it because your mother told Ned how good your senior year grades were in mathematics. We figure you can talk like a number cruncher. Like a math major, I should be saying. Ought to fool most people. Except, possibly, a real number cruncher. Sorry. They hate it when I call them that, so I always do. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

He interrupted, possibly hoping for a smile, but Tim could only look puzzled. Crevan O’Brinty shifted into helpful hint mode. “Just don’t offer to help anybody in the class with homework. At the end of the summer, the professor will turn in a grade card, and I’ll tear it up and burn it. Well, actually, it goes through a shredder: I’ll put all your stuff through—every official-looking trace of you. Nobody gets sued for fraud, because there’s no fraud. Nothing there to be fraudulent about. Meantime, you have a perfect cover while you, ah, do whatever it is they’ve got you doing. Which is what, by the way?”

“Really, I don’t know. I’m not holding out on you. Something does seem be going on, but until I see my uncle, I can’t even guess. Once I find out, I’ll come back and reveal everything, if you’d like me to.”

Tim made that promise with no idea whether he would be able to keep it. Meantime, he wondered whether he could really “play student,” since he wasn’t sure he could even appear to be passing in an advanced class, especially mathematics. He wished they’d picked a history course—but not an advanced one. But then maybe History doesn’t run any classes in summer? Or maybe it was crucial that the math teacher doesn’t take roll.

Mine, he thought, not to reason why; mine but to—how does that go?

He accepted the registration packet, strolled outdoors, and decided it was now late enough to phone Uncle Ned again.

He only knew of the one public telephone. It took extra time to reach it, because when he reached the fork in the road, he had an irresistible impulse to take South Canyon Road past the nudist colony, just to see what he could see. The place looked much as it always had: that is, no nudity could be seen from the road. In fact, Tim could see nobody at all from the road. The entrance itself was unobtrusive. A rustic sign above the entry said the minimum:

OAK GROVE

Trespassing Prohibited

There was nothing to indicate that life inside the fence differed in any way from life outside.

Chapter Five

Uncle Ned

Not sure how to find his uncle’s side road—and figuring he was sure to get into trouble if he just drove into the nudist camp and looked around for it, Tim ignored the entrance to Oak Grove; he drove past it and on up the canyon. Most of the trees and shrubs along the creek were putting out new leaves; a number of the smaller ones were in bloom—white, pink or yellow. As usual under such circumstances, Tim resolved to buy a book that would teach him their names and how to tell them apart. Here also he could see—and hear—water in the stream. Very unlike his idea of the town of Motherlode. He stopped several times to listen to the rush of water over the stones.

On the way over the pass toward The Core, just beyond where gravel turns into dirt, Tim found a spot wide enough to turn around and head back, toward the phone booth in front of Bortlin’s.

When he dug in his pocket for the dime he’d had earlier, he couldn’t find it. The five dollar bill was there, and a nickel, which would have worked a few years earlier. Those were already dime times, but a dime was still enough for a phone call. Except for Bortlin’s, which had already closed, the nearest store was Sanakken’s grocery.

Sanakken’s was just down the street, so Tim walked. About halfway there he discovered the dime, still in the same pocket. That pocket contained some clutter, and he’d missed it. So, back again, wondering why he hadn’t driven. By the time he got through to his uncle it was probably about five thirty—he didn’t look at his watch.

“Hi, Uncle Ned, it’s me, Tim.”

“Figured it would be. How’d you spend the day? See Ferd?”

“The sheriff? No, he was out for the afternoon, but I talked to a deputy. He gave me a note the sheriff left, and it said to go get my fortune told, move into a room at Mrs. London’s place on Sluicebox Street and check with the registrar at the college. I did all that, and then drove around a little bit. What do you want me to do now?”

“Had any dinner?”

“Nothing yet. I don’t have much money.”

Actually, at that time, $5 and a nickel would have bought a very acceptable dinner. However, Tim was reluctant to find himself completely broke.

“Better come out here, then, so I can furnish you with some.”

“Some money? Oh, you mean some dinner.”

“Sounds like you need both. Know where Oak Grove is?”

Tim almost revealed that he’d just been driving around the outside of it, but managed to hold his tongue. He said, “I think I can find it. It’s on South Canyon Road, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Come to the main gate. Can’t miss it. Big old sign says ‘Oak Grove.’”

Tim wouldn’t call that dinky little sign big, but maybe his uncle would.

His uncle continued, “Turn onto the paved lane there, and after maybe two tenths of a mile you come to a wire gate with an little tiny sign that says something like, ‘Service Road.’ Open the gate, and follow the gravel until just after you cross a log bridge across the ditch. Then turn onto the dirt road to the right. It’s just after that bridge. No sign there, but you can’t miss it. Building on your left is the women’s staff dorm. Right on past for about 300 yards and I’ll be out there to show you the rest. Still remember what I look like?”

“Yeah. I mean yes, Uncle Ned. At least, I can recognize you with clothes on. I suppose you’ll look pretty much the same without.” Tim cringed, slightly, thinking that the response to his comment might be called “sassy,” but his uncle took it as seriously as Tim had meant it. “Tell you what. I can put on something. Avoid the confusion. Remind me again, what are you driving?” Tim told him the model, and was delighted that his uncle didn’t complain about his choice.

The final dirt road was nothing but a pair of tracks in the grass, so Tim was a bit concerned at its not matching what he’d visualized, but he was depending on his uncle’s words rather than his own mental picture, and drove slowly but confidently. He found himself shifting down, in order not to zip too fast past the women’s staff dorm. Nobody in sight. Too bad.

A little beyond the next turn he found his uncle Ned, fully dressed, except for shoes and socks. He stopped and his uncle pointed to a strip of gravel alongside a small white cabin just ahead. Leaving the car unlocked, he strolled over to shake his uncle’s hand. (A hug might have been appropriate, but, in Tim’s limited experience, men never hugged men.) Inside the cabin, a table had been set for four. Pleasant, garlicky fragrances floated out from the kitchen.

“Come on in. Just fixing dinner. Ready pretty quick. Let me get out of this straitjacket and into an apron, and I’ll finish. Carola Szegy is coming over.” It took Tim a second or two to realize his uncle was talking about a person. What Tim thought his uncle had said was “Caroler’s Edge,” which didn’t make sense.

“So, Timmy, do you have anything to report.”

“I dropped in at the sheriff’s office,” Tim said, “but he must have been out investigating something. I met two of the deputies, and they seemed like nice people. The tall one gave me a note from the sheriff, and it had a list of things to do. The things I mentioned on the phone: drop in at the college, check in at the room I’m going to live in, and so on.”

“Ferd just called me, by the way,” his uncle said. “Be late. Probably getting a burger and fries. Hates foreign food—which is pretty much all I cook. This meal will be Korean, and he hasn’t been back from there long enough to forget how uncomfortable he, personally, got in the recent ‘police action.’ Think he sometimes forgets, more than half the Koreans were allies. You and Carola and I can have dinner while I try to enlist you in our little project.”

Tim said, “That’ll be nice. Everybody I’ve had any contact with asks me what I’m doing for you and the sheriff, and I don’t know anything to tell. The registrar thinks it’s about the Schimmel case.”

Uncle Ned turned his head and gave Tim a quizzical look. He moved to the closet by the front door, and removed his shirt, hanging it on a peg. “Why the Schimmel case?” he asked. He pulled a big apron from a drawer on the other side of the door, and put it on before removing his trousers and hanging them, too, in the same closet. So he was still conscious of modesty, nudist or not.

“I don’t know. It seems to be on a lot of minds, though. Some people were talking about it at the Miners’ Lunch. I tried to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It sounded to me like somebody named Schimmel got convicted of murder, but it also sounded like they’re going to hold another trial. Have I got it right?”

“Well, you’ve picked up part of it, all right. Hang on a minute, while I finish this stuff. Should be cooking already.” His apron covered him so thoroughly that Tim quickly forgot it was now his uncle’s only garment. He did notice though, that the man was as skinny as ever. Lean might be a better word—lean but wiry. Like a  mink with no fur.

A cutting board covered with colorful, fresh vegetables lay on the counter next to the stove. Onions and carrots, round, red radishes, and a small head of Chinese cabbage. Uncle Ned set to work slicing them all. A knock came at the front door. He said, “Get that will you?”

Tim opened the door, and suddenly he was very glad that he’d come to Motherlode without his mother. She would have boxed his ears, he imagined, just for looking at the new arrival. But he couldn’t help looking, because the lady was stark naked. No clothing at all, unless one counted the towel folded neatly over one arm. She seemed just as lovely as Tim had always assumed naked women are. Plumper than the ones in Playboy, but on her it looked very good. Perhaps it was just that he’d never seen a live nude before, but she seemed so beautiful that Tim caught himself holding his breath.

Chapter Six

 Carola Szegy

“Hello. You must be Ned’s nephew. I’m Carola Szegy.”

Tim liked her voice—musical and beautiful, with just a smidgen of an accent. Very interesting. He tried to say, “Come in and sit down,” but found he couldn’t speak. The best he could do was get out of the way. She entered and crossed to the kitchen door.

“I am here,” she told Uncle Ned. Tim concluded from the way she said it that she was European. (In fact, she’d been born in Hungary, as Tim soon learned. Her family hadn’t done at all well under Nazi occupation, but one at a time they’d managed to sneak out of Hungary, through Austria into Switzerland.)

European or not, there she stood in front of him, dressed just like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Tim was certain he was turning every known shade of red, and maybe some that hadn’t been known previously. He sat down. Then he stood up again. She came back, smiled graciously, sat in the recliner opposite him, and crossed her legs.

“Sit down,” she said.

As Tim still stood, immobile, trying—without success—not to stare, she said, “It appears that you are unaccustomed to nudity. One acclimatizes quickly, you will be happy to learn. It would be possible for me to go home for a few minutes and dress for dinner, if that would make you more comfortable.”

Tim sat, at last, and tried to keep his eyes aimed into the kitchen, at his uncle. Ned, who had listened in, called out, “Carola, you can put on my bathrobe if you can find it. I guess I forgot what a shock it’d be for young Timmy to see how we all look.”

“No,” Tim said quickly. “That’s quite all right. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

His uncle laughed and Carola Szegy smiled. “We are slightly miscast as ‘Romans,’ but in any case all we can expect is that you accept that the Romans themselves do as the Romans do.”

Uncle Ned cackled again. Tim didn’t see anything funny. He wondered if some interpretation of the quotation had sneaked past him. Luckily, his uncle chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen, carrying food. He apologized for not making introductions, accepted assurances that they weren’t necessary, and made them anyway. Then he told his guests where to sit, took off his apron, placed it on his chair and sat on it. Carola placed her towel neatly on a chair and sat on that. Tim, fully clothed, assumed he had no need to pad his chair. He tried to avoid staring at Carola Szegy.

“Here at Oak Grove,” his uncle said, “we do not follow the rule you often see. The one that says, ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service.’”

To remove his gaze from Carola Szegy’s breasts, Tim transferred it to the food. Obviously Gertrude Nackero Rinnissen and her brother have similar tastes, he thought, because the menu came straight out of the Far East. He had no trouble believing it was Korean. They ate—with long metal chopsticks—generous portions of steamed rice, a vegetable stir-fry, and a main course of barbecued beef, identified by Ned as a variation of bulgogi. Tim couldn’t recall his mother’s ever making that.