We went out past Frenchman, gliding through the scent of hot alkali. The temperature was a hundred and two. Over dry mountain passes, past twenty thousand square miles of dun-colored grass and silvery-blue sage, between hot bare mountains ten thousand feet high. The air cooled as we gained altitude, but the sun’s ultraviolet became harsher, seeming to burn on my skin. We passed the Reese River and finally pulled within sight of Austin, snugged into Pony Canyon in the Toiyabe Mountains, just this side of Austin Summit.
Kayla slowed the VW as we passed buildings at the west end of town. A sign, Stokes Castle, whipped by, pointing to a winding dirt road that led up a gentle slope and around a low nub of hill.
“Ever been here before?” I asked her.
“No. You?”
“There’s a first time for everything. Until Sunday, I’d never found a stray blonde in my bed before. Not one.”
“Then all hell broke loose. Poor you.”
Austin lay on the old Pony Express run, which came down through the canyon before silver was discovered in 1862. That year, a retired rider found a greenish ore, which proved to be silver sulfide, and the “Rush to the Reese” was on. At one time Austin was the second biggest city in Nevada—Virginia City being first—back when Vegas was a ghost town, having once been nothing but a camping spot on the Mormon Trail, then a fort, a mission, and finally, in 1858, an abandoned mission in the soul-grinding dust and heat of the minor Mojave Desert. So much for Vegas, which had exploded into what was arguably the most artificial city in the history of the world. Nevada’s real history lies farther north, in places like Austin.
Kayla drove through town at twenty-five miles an hour, which took the better part of sixty seconds. Past the Lander County courthouse where a guy had once been hanged from a second-story balcony, up to the Gridley store, built of weathered stone, and the house next door, formerly the town brothel. The tailings of old mining operations littered the surrounding hills. The desert changes slowly. The arid land is relatively unaffected by water. The tailing piles would still be visible a thousand years from now. Austin’s history lurked all around in the form of its red brick buildings, churches, abandoned mines, and, Kayla and I discovered, the size of its motel rooms, which could be described as either quaint or Leavenworthian, circa 1890.
Without exchanging a word, we decided to stay the night. Our room at the Lincoln Motel was marginally bigger than your average walk-in closet, about eight by ten, much of it taken by a queen-sized bed. One of us had to sit on the bed if the other wanted to walk around it. The bed sagged in the middle, which was likely to prove interesting later on.
Kayla bounced on the bed. “It squeaks, how fun,” she said, then we went outside and looked around.
“Shall we eat now, or find Emmaline Dorman?” she asked. She’d untied her shirt so as not to draw attention or cause a riot. I had my wig on in case satellite dishes we’d seen in town were operational. If they could get the Sjorgen-Milliken Spectacle in Rangoon, odds were they could get it here too, a hundred seventy miles from ground zero.
I was hungry, but said, “Mrs. Dorman.”
“Work before pleasure?”
“With the IRS, the two are indistinguishable.”
“Mmm, nasty.”
Emmaline Dorman lived in a house on the northern slope of a hill overlooking the town, three blocks off Main Street, otherwise known as Highway 50. Kayla and I walked over through the kind of small-town quiet you have to hunt for these days, a quiet that reminded me of a time when gas stations had soda machines with heavy lids and bottles in rows that you slid out through a gate-latch mechanism—a time before my time, when small-town grocery stores had wooden floors and paddle fans circulating stale air. I had the impression that Austin was standing still in a world that was moving fast somewhere out beyond the horizon…except for those satellite dishes, and bottled water with a per-gallon cost five times that of gasoline, sold at the convenience store at the Chevron station at the west end of town.
Emmaline’s yard was hot and dry. The earth was dusty yellow-gray rock. Wiry blue-green sage and cheat grass filled the yard. The roof of the house was frayed composition shingles, lifted by the heat and wind into a reddish shag.
I knocked. Moments later a woman answered, tall but stooped, wearing a loose-fitting housedress over a thin frame. Bony arms, no chest, a gaunt face dominated by watery blue-gray eyes still alive with intelligence. Cool moist air blew out past Kayla and me. I heard the airy rumble of a swamp cooler somewhere inside the house.
“Mrs. Dorman?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“I wonder if we could have a word with you, ma’am?”
Her eyes took in Kayla, then returned to me. “And who might you be?” There was no suspicion in her voice, only interest. Her life wasn’t a parade of visitors, at least not by people she didn’t know.
I didn’t want to tell her my name. I turned to Kayla, who stepped closer and said, “My name is Rosalyn Sjorgen, Mrs. Dorman. Or was, years ago. Now it’s Williams.”
Emmaline’s eyes brightened. “Jonnie’s daughter?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But of course. And look at how you’ve grown. We met, years ago, dear, when you were no more than ten or twelve.” A cloud passed over her features, which finally took on a look of resignation. “Ever since this awful business with Jonnie and David…I wondered if anyone would drop by one day.” Her gaze took in both of us. “But the two of you aren’t here about that, are you? I mean, not directly. You’re here because of Edna.”
“Yes,” Kayla said.
Emmaline stood to one side. “Please, come in.”
We went into the coolness.
