The old man rocked, scratched himself, drank, and said vaguely that his boy would be right along, I could bet on it. I looked up and down the hot empty street. There were other shapes rocking gently in the shade of the porches, half invisible because many had the insect screens round the outside rails. From behind them they watched the world go by: only thing was, the world rolled past in automobiles and didn’t stop to talk.
Two beers later, while old man Hagstrom was telling me how he personally would have dealt with the Saigon situation in ’67, his boy rolled up in a pockmarked Chrysler. His boy was literally a boy, not more than eighteen: old man Hagstrom’s grandson. He rubbed his hands down his grease-marked T-shirt and jeans, and held one out to me with as easy going a welcome as his grandfather’s. I explained what I wanted.
‘Sure you can look at the trailer,’ he said, amiably. ‘Now?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘You’re welcome.’
He waved me into his baking car and whirled it casually round a few corners, drawing up with a jerk outside a rickety looking gate set in a head-high wall. Through the gate, in a dusty area, stood four Snail Express trailers, all different sizes.
‘That one,’ I said, pointing to the largest.
‘Came in last Saturday. I think. I’ll look it up.’ He unlocked a small brick-built office on one side, and I followed him in. Hot enough in there to please Satan.
‘That’s right, Saturday,’ he said, consulting the ledger. ‘Came from New York State, renting charge paid in advance for one week. The week wasn’t up until Monday.’
‘Do you remember who brought it here?’
‘Uh, let’s see. Oh yes. An old guy. Can’t remember much about him. He had white hair, I guess.’
‘What sort of car did he have, to pull the trailer?’
‘I helped him unhitch... a station wagon, I think. Grey, mebbe.’
‘It wasn’t these two?’ I showed him the photograph.
‘Nope.’ He was definite. As far as he knew, he’d never seen them. Had I asked his grandfather? I had.
He said he’d swept out the trailer, but I could look inside if I wanted to.
‘Why did you sweep it?’ I asked.
‘Usually do. It was pretty clean already, though.’
I looked anyway. There were no bay hairs. Nothing at all to suggest that Chrysalis had ever been squeezed into it. The only suggestive thing about it was the way it was built: the roof opened outwards right along the centre line, to make the loading of tall objects easier. It had been worrying me that Chrysalis would not have walked into a tiny dark trailer: but one open to the sky was a different matter.
Old man Hagstrom’s boy obligingly dug out the Hertz agent, who rented me an air-conditioned black Chevrolet with only five thousand on the clock. Overnight I added three hundred and thirty-four more, and drove into Gardiner for breakfast.
The road there had led through Yellowstone Park itself where the dawn had crept in mistily between the pine trees, and glimpses of lakes had looked like flat puddles of quick-silver. I had seen an ugly great moose, but no bears. Yogi was asleep.
I spent all morning walking round the town. None of the shops were selling the handkerchief, or had ever stocked any like it. The photograph produced no reactions at all. After a toasted bacon, tomato, and lettuce sandwich at a lunch counter I left Gardiner and went fifty-four miles to West Yellowstone.
The afternoon’s trudge produced exactly the same absence of results. Hot, tired, and frustrated, I sat in the Chevrolet and wondered what to do next. No trace of Chrysalis in the trailer, even though it seemed likely it was the one the drivers had seen. No matching handkerchiefs at Yellowstone Park. Walt had been right. The trip was one pointless waste of time.
I thought of the long forest drive back through the park, the canyon gradients at midway, and the final hundred miles of desert to Rock Springs, and decided to put it off until the next day. Sighing, I found the best-looking motel and booked the best room they had, stood under the shower until the day’s aches had run down the drain with the dust, and stretched out for a couple of hours on the kingsized Slumberland.
The waitress who brought my steak at dinner was large, loosely upholstered, kind natured, and with an obvious conviction that a man alone liked a bit of gossip. I wanted her to go away and let me eat in peace, but custom was slack and I learnt more than I cared about her complicated home life. In the end, simply to stop the flow, I pulled out the crumpled handkerchief and asked if she knew where I could get a new one like it.
She thought ‘the girls’ might know, and went off to ask them. Relieved, I finished my steak. Then she came back and doubtfully put the white square down beside me on the tablecloth.
‘They say you might get one in Jackson. They do have bears on ashtrays and things down there. Down in the Tetons. A hundred, hundred-fifty miles. It’s a holiday town, Jackson.’
I’d driven straight through Jackson the night before on the way up from Rock Springs, and seen only a small western town fast asleep. When I went back on the Tuesday morning it was buzzing with holidaymakers and local inhabitants, dressed all alike in cowboy clothes. Dude ranch country, I learnt. The main street was lined with souvenir shops, and the first one I went into had a whole pile of small white handkerchiefs with bears on.
Chapter Eight
The girl in the punt opened the ranch house door, walked halfway to meet me from the car, and greeted me with professional instant welcome.
‘Mr Hochner? How nice to have you with us.’
‘I’m glad you could take me at such short notice, with the Fourth coming up next weekend.’ I shook her hand, putting a slight touch of German accent into my voice because it was easier for me than American if I had to keep it up for any length of time. It didn’t seem altogether wise to be English.
‘We’re seldom full this early in the season.’ She smiled as far up her face as her cheek bones while her eyes skimmed my clothes, car, and luggage. Only a hotel keeper’s check up: it hadn’t occurred to her that she’d seen me before.
‘I’ll show you straight to your cabin, if you like? Then you can freshen up and come along here to the ranch house for dinner later on. There will be a bell, to let you know when.’
I parked the car, and carrying my two suitcases, the old one and the new one from Jackson, followed her along a grassy woodland track towards one of several small log cabins scattered among the trees.
She was tall and strong, and older than she had seemed on the river: twenty-six or twenty-seven, I guessed. The fair hair no longer hung childishly loose, but was combed up into a round topknot, leaving her neck cool and uncluttered. She wore dark blue Levis instead of the white trousers, but the pink shirt on top looked identical. One of the storekeepers in Jackson, the fifth I tried, had known her immediately when I had artistically let the photograph drop face up in front of him as I took money for a local map out of my wallet.
‘Yola Clive,’ he said casually, picking it up. ‘And Matt. Friends of yours?’
‘I’d thought of looking them up,’ I agreed, sorting out bills. ‘How do I get there, do you know? I haven’t been to their place before.’
He obligingly gave me clear directions for a fifteen-mile drive, finishing, ‘and the High Zee Ranch is the only place along there, so you can’t miss it. But if you’re planning on staying, I’d give them a call and make a reservation. It’s a mighty popular place they run.’
I sure will,’ I said: and I did. I also bought some Levis and shirts and a pair of riding boots, and the suitcase to put them in. In cowboy country guns passed without comment: I added a heavy black tooled leather belt with a silver buckle, and the clerk didn’t show any surprise at my wanting to make sure that the small-of-the-back holster I sometimes used would slot on to it.