Midnight Cowboy Read online

  Cursing the man’s effect on her, she entered the photography studio. It smelled of musty clothing and vanilla incense. Virgil “Coop” Cooper was busy posing a family of four dressed in costumes from the last century.

  Behind them was the backdrop of a jail cell. It hung from the ceiling on some kind of retractable device, much like a projection screen. There were five such retractable devices, each, she assumed, depicting a different background.

  The whir of the camera dragged her attention to the photographer. His white shirtsleeves were shoved to the elbows, held in place by wine red garters, and a thin black tie circled his neck, bringing to mind Hollywood versions of Brett Maverick. But Coop, with his permed, faded brown, seventies hair and John Lennon glasses, looked more like a bookworm than anyone’s leading man.

  He cocked his head and called out, “Be right with you.”

  “Sure.” It struck Andy that her time might be better spent at the museum. She turned for the door and noticed three wooden barrels near the display window; each held different-sized prints like oversized postcards depicting various sites around town.

  She browsed through them, paying little attention to the people in the photos; it was the backgrounds that interested her. However, by the time the family had departed, she’d gone through two of the three barrels and selected a few prints for future reference in conjunction with her book, without finding anything close to the assay office in her sepia.

  “Well, now.” Coop startled her. His black eyes looked as round as cue balls behind his funky glasses, but if he recognized her from the night before, he didn’t show it. “What can I do for you?”

  Andy gestured at the backdrops. “What else be sides the jail cell do you have?”

  “Looking for anything in particular?” Coop stepped around the camera and caught hold of the bottom of the jail-cell scene. With a snap it retracted into the ceiling mechanism.

  “I don’t suppose you have an assay office?”

  He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Actually, I do.”

  Andy held her breath.

  “Not much call for it lately. Most people choose the sheriff’s office or the hotel or the bar.” He hooked a finger in the metal loop of the retractable backdrop nearest the wall. As the screen settled into place, he stepped away. “How’s that?”

  It was not the same as the one in her photo. Not even close. She ought to just show him her photograph and see if he could help. She reached into her purse, but as her fingers grazed the sepia, she had the oddest sense that she shouldn’t show it to this man.

  Frowning, Andy let out the breath paining her chest, withdrew her hand from her purse and shook her head at Coop, gesturing with her wrists outward. “Interesting, but not quite what I had in mind.”

  Coop’s gaze settled on her scarred wrist. Had his pale face grown paler, or had she imagined it? As he opened his mouth to ask her what she was sure were the hated but inevitable questions, she thrust at him the prints she’d selected. “How much do I owe you for these?”

  After her encounter with Minna and the cat, she didn’t want to think about the ugly scar, much less talk about it. Why hadn’t she worn her bracelet? Coop was handing her change when the door behind her opened. Heavy-heeled boots clumped into the shop and Andy felt eyes on her.

  “Ain’t this our lucky day? Afternoon, Ms. Hart.”

  Cliffie.

  Andy spun around, ready to put him in his place. Jack was right behind Cliff, shutting the door. Her heart hitched and the wisecrack died on her tongue. Of its own volition, her gaze slipped over Cliff to Jack.

  A smile flickered at the corners of his wonderful mouth, but his brows gave every indication of being permanently dipped in a scowl. Gram, why am I so attracted to this man?

  Jack yanked his hat off his head, held it in front of him like a bashful little boy and nodded at her. “Andy.”

  Her pulse skittered and an annoying heat grazed her cheeks. “Jack. Cliff. How’s it going?”

  Coop interrupted. “Sorry about this. I got hold of a bad batch of film and wouldn’t you know it would be the one I used to shoot the individual photos of the players.”

  “You’ll probably be all week redoing ‘em,” Cliff laughed.

  Coop blinked at him, but let the insult go unanswered. “Let’s start with you, Black Jack. Just make yourself comfortable.”

  Jack brushed dust from his hat with the sleeve of his black shirt, ran his long fingers through his hair, then with an ease and confidence of practice years old, angled the hat on his head. The scowl tugging his brows over his sage green eyes added a dimension of sexiness Andy would swear he had no idea he exuded.

  No longer anxious to leave, she busied herself inspecting the third barrel of prints, but her attention was focused on the photo shoot behind her. Absently she thumbed the prints—nearly identical to those she’d already purchased—hardly noticing what she was seeing. Something registered a microsecond after she’d passed it. Her hand stayed. Had she seen what she thought she’d seen?

  Shakily she pushed the prints backward, then stopped. An odd thrumming in her ears wiped out the sounds of the men behind her. The print was of a couple standing in front of an assay office.

  Her assay office.

  Excitement swept Andy like a prairie fire. She snatched the print from the barrel. “Coop, where was this taken?”

  She felt the men’s eyes on her, especially Jack’s. He seemed to be straining to see what she held. Coop’s black eyes narrowed behind his round glasses. “Should say on the back. I buy those prints from a wholesaler. For all I know he gets them from Taiwan.”

  Andy’s exhilaration lost its edge. Was that all her sepia photograph was—something someone in Taiwan had created? She turned the print over. Stamped on the back was the name and address of the photographer, a Montana company in a town only sixty miles away. At last, a clue. New hope sprang up in her. “Coop, I’m exchanging this print with one of the same price that I’ve already bought.”

  “Be my guest.” Coop lowered his head to his camera. “Jack, look at me, not her.”

  Finally she had a name to call, someone who could tell her when this scene was photographed. And more important, where. Bubbling with purpose, she waved goodbye to Jack and left him scowling at Coop.

  Andy hurried along the boardwalk, oblivious to the tourists she crowded past. Coming to twin, ovalwindowed doors, the entrance to the lobby of the Golden Broom Hotel, she grew thoughtful, her pace slowing until she came to the swinging bar door, where she stopped altogether. Recalling Jack’s story, she realized he’d said the “original bar.” Did that mean the hotel hadn’t always looked as it did now? She pivoted and glanced the length of the building.

  The bar doors swung open, almost slamming into her.

  Andy jumped back.

  Red Yager, looking alarmed at the near collision, exclaimed, “Whoa. Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Just thinking.”

  “About your book—something I can help you with?” His generous rust-colored mustache twitched as he spoke.

  She tilted her head. “You’ve probably got some old photographs of Alder Gulch.”

  “You betcha.” Red squinted at her. “Got some fine ones of the gold rush days. Should be dandy for your book.”

  “Well, I was thinking about something a little more recent, say twenty or thirty years back.”

  “Twenty or thirty—” He squinted at her. “Can’t be for your book. Why are you interested in that pe riod?”

  Reflexively, Andy reached inside her purse for the sepia, but as her fingers grazed it, she noticed Red staring at her scarred wrist with the strangest look in his eyes. She withdrew her hand, turning it palm down. His gaze lifted slowly to her face and there was a troubled expression in his eyes. She said, “Just call me curious.”

  “You know what they say about curiosity.” Red laughed, but it was not a warm sound. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

  Couldn’t or wouldn’
t help? Andy wondered. “Well, thanks, anyway.”

  What did it matter? she decided, moving along the boardwalk at a brisk pace. If she couldn’t find what she wanted at the museum, she’d call the photographer whose name and studio were printed on the back of the glossy she’d bought.

  The museum was two stories, constructed of cut sandstone, a drab beige the same color as the dusty street. Its narrow windows sorely needed washing.

  Inside the light was murky, and myriad glass display cases sported fingerprints, many of them childsized and smeary. She signed the guest register, then spun toward Duke Plummer, who sat at an antique table near one of the windows, clipping something from a newspaper.

  His silvery black hair was banded at the nape with a leather thong. Laying his scissors aside, he glanced up as she approached. A smile slid across his rugged face. “Well, now, Ms. Hart. Ready for some history research?”

  “Yes, actually. And I was hoping you could help.”

  “Be glad to try. Inherited my knowledge of this town and my job from my folks.” He showed yellowed teeth as he spoke. “If it happened here, I can probably tell you about it.”

  “I’m interested in seeing what Alder Gulch looked like twenty or so years ago.”

  Duke’s scruffy eyebrows lifted. “I thought your book was set in the 1860s?”

  Andy’s stomach tensed. “It is. But I was also interested in some of the newer history.”

  He let out a noisy breath, eyed her curiously, then grew thoughtful. “I’ve got a few photo albums of the last century and the early years of this century on display upstairs, but twenty years back…hmm.”

  As Andy waited she noticed that the something Duke Plummer was clipping from the newspaper was an article about the City Players. He probably had more memorabilia stashed around here than he could remember. She ought to just show him her photograph and see if he knew anything about it. Her hand delved into her purse.

  “Wait a minute.” Plummer lumbered to his feet. “My sister keeps the family album around here somewhere. Maybe that’ll help.” He went into the back room. Several minutes passed before he returned carrying an album as dusty as the outside of the building. He shoved his clippings and newspaper to one side, pulled up a seat for Andy, then plopped himself back into his chair. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  An anxious feathering, like so many frantic butterflies fluttered inside Andy’s stomach as Duke opened the album. Poorly focused snapshots in brilliant Ko dak color were plunked helter-skelter on the pages. Beneath each someone had scrawled names—pre sumably Plummer family friends or relatives—and dates.

  “The town has had several face-lifts over the years.” Duke’s breath smelled of chewing tobacco, and Andy realized such a habit would explain his yellowed teeth. He pointed at the pictures. “Here’s Boot Hill. And this is Main Street, right near the hotel.”

  “Oh, my God!” Andy reached out and stopped him from turning the next page. The anxious feathering in her stomach became a frenzied beating as what she was seeing registered. Several snapshots exhibited the same view. Her assay office was once part of the Golden Broom Hotel.

  “What is it, Ms. Hart? Are you ill?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Confused, dumbfounded, but fine. This was getting more curious at each turn. Had Gram known someone in Alder Gulch? Had her hatred of Montana been based on personal experience? This time she did dig the sepia print from her purse. “Would you perhaps know this man?”

  Plummer held the photograph at arm’s length, peering down his nose at it for several seconds. Suddenly he tensed. His gaze—wide-eyed and leery, all friendliness gone—jerked to Andy and he shoved the sepia into her hand as if it had burned him. “Never saw the guy. Never.”

  Shaking his head, he snapped the photo album shut.

  “But—”

  “I have work to do.” He cut her off. “You’re welcome to look around the museum.”

  Slowly Andy rose and tucked her sepia print back into her purse. Duke Plummer knew something—if not the man in her photograph, then something about him. Andy stifled her frustration. Prying anything out of him now would be impossible.

  She left him clipping newspaper articles, wandered into the next room and inspected items in the glass cases and those hanging on the walls. In a corner she came upon four ancient-looking books.

  Andy scanned them, but her heart wasn’t on her task. She couldn’t get the sepia photograph off her mind, couldn’t stop wondering who the man was or why Gram had kept it hidden. As though just thinking about someone could conjure up their image, Andy realized she was staring at a likeness of her grandmother.

  Shock rocked through her. The photograph was of three women standing outside a tent. No! It was impossible. At the time this photograph was taken Gram would have been a baby. Andy’s hands trembled. The book wavered unsteadily.

  She read the names listed below the picture, finding the one for the woman who looked like her grandmother. Enid Leach. Andy’s heart lurched and her mouth dried. Gram’s mother’s name was Enid Leach.

  Reeling as if the very core of her existence were slipping from beneath her, Andy somehow managed to set the book back on the table. Had this been her great-grandmother, Gram’s mother? Her insides trembled. She needed confirmation, and the man who’d learned everything there was to know about this town and its citizens from his folks was seated in the next room.

  But Duke Plummer was gone, his newspaper and scissors abandoned as if he’d heard her coming and run. Frustration piled atop the bewilderment and shock gripping Andy. She slumped out of the gloomy building and into the bright day.

  The sun was hot, beating relentlessly down, warming her skin but not relieving the chill inside her. Gram had told her the last four generations of her family hailed from eastern Washington. Was it a lie, Gram?Andy didn’t want to believe that, didn’t want to face what it would mean—that Gram might have lied to her about so much more.

  But at the moment, everything pointed in that direction.

  She shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare with her hand and looked up and down Main Street. If Gram’s family had once lived here, there had to be someone who knew, some record of it.

  The spiral on Alder Gulch Community Church glinted white and silver against the deep blue sky like a fishing lure flashing in a mountain lake. Andy clicked her fingers. Churches had records of births and deaths.

  JACK STRODE UP THE RAMP that led to the church’s entrance. The double doors were ajar and voices filtered out from inside. Duke Plummer’s booming tones were easily recognized, but the other voice was softer and he wasn’t sure who was arguing with the museum curator. Jack yanked open the door and stepped into the dark interior.

  Sudden silence fell heavily against his ears. Precious seconds elapsed while his eyes adjusted to the change of light. Then he saw it wasn’t Andy that Plummer had been arguing with as he’d suspected, but Gene Mott. Where had she gone? He’d seen her heading this way, but he’d been too far behind to call out, so he’d settled for following her.

  “Don’t let me stop your discussion.” Jack moved toward the two men.

  Gene closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as if trying to massage away a headache. “It can wait.”

  Plummer meshed his long fingers together over the cover of the book he was holding. Jack couldn’t read the title, but he’d swear it was neither a Bible nor a hymnal. One of Mott’s novels? Something from the museum? A photo album? Had they been arguing about something in the book? Or something else?

  “If you’re looking for Reverend Bissel,” Plummer said, “he’s not here.”

  “Actually, I was looking for Ms. Hart. I thought I saw her entering the church a few minutes ago.”

  Plummer stiffened at this news and exchanged a glance with Gene that Jack could not read and didn’t like.

  “She’s out back,” Gene said, gesturing toward the back door. “In the cemetery.”

  Glad to be away from the two men, Jack stepped out int
o bright daylight again. An ancient-looking cemetery surrounded by a rusting, wrought-iron fence occupied a patch of land twenty feet back from the church. He spotted Andy immediately.

  For five whole seconds, as though his boots were mired in mud, he stood there, watching her move from headstone to headstone.

  There was something about her as pure and unaffected as the countryside behind her, and yet she stood out like a wildflower amongst the tumbleweeds. He could see something was troubling her, and he forced himself down the stairs and through the wrought-iron gate that made a mournful squeak as it swung inward.

  Andy let out a startled yelp and spun around. Her long dark hair fell softly about her face, emphasizing the startling blue of her eyes. Jack’s heart raced like a yearling colt in an open field. “More research?”

  “Research?”

  Jack frowned. “For your book.”

  “Sure. The book.” But she said it with no conviction.

  What had her so upset? Something here? Jack’s gaze raked the headstones, but he could pick out nothing to account for Andy’s agitation. “I suppose old cemeteries are good sources for historical names?”

  Andy’s fingers grazed the crown of a headstone honoring Josiah R. Leach, beloved husband of Enid, devoted father of Abigail Sue and Eloise Ann. Gram’s name had been Eloise Ann. Andy had been named after her.

  She’d wanted confirmation. Now she had it. She felt as if she’d been blindsided, as weak as a kitten in a windstorm. She gestured toward the church. “Did you know the original church burned to the ground forty years ago?”

  “No.” Jack shrugged. “But I’m not surprised. Fires are a real hazard in towns like this where water’s scarce.”

  “All their records went up in smoke,” she continued in a singsong voice. “But I found what I wanted, anyway.”

  Jack glanced at the headstone she continued stroking like a pet rabbit, and read the names for enlightenment, but found none.

  Andy’s eyes met his. They were accusing. “Why do people lie?”