Mary remembered that Mr. Milton had mentioned him. “What about any of the Japanese or German internees?”
“They didn’t mix, from what I understand.”
Mary had read as much. “What about anyone else from the camp staff? Mr. Milton can’t be the only one alive. Is there a listing of the staff, a directory I can use to track them down?”
“Hold on.” The cashier cocked her head, her steely hair catching the overhead light. “There was someone, the camp adjutant actually, who lives in Butte. He worked closely with the men, I understand. Maybe he would know.”
“What’s his name?”
“Aaron Nyquist.”
“Is Butte far?”
“Just down the road,” the cashier said, and Mary translated. In Montanaspeak, that meant two hours.
But the evening was young.
Nineteen
The Montana sky deepened from cobalt blue to a rich, grapey purple, until blackness fell like a bolt of felt in a photographer’s darkroom. Mary drove a very flat two hours into the pitch dark, leaving behind all the colors. A moonless nightfall obliterated the horizon and obscured even the peaks of Bitterroots. The only illumination on the empty highway was two jittery cones of light from her headlights, faint owing to the underpowered rental, and she flicked on the high beams for company. She thought she saw a herd of bighorn sheep running alongside the highway, but it could just as easily have been a group of Hell’s Angels in weird helmets. She hit the accelerator.
The Nyquist home was a small farmhouse of white clapboard with sharply peaked gables, typical of the Victorian houses Mary had seen out here. She pulled up in front and cut the ignition, looking over. Adrenaline had powered her drive, but it was ebbing away at the sight of the dark house. All the windows on the front floor were black, and the only light shone through the curtains on a second-floor window. The FOR SALE sign on the lawn told her she was just in time, but the lights upstairs told her that it was past Mr. Nyquist’s bedtime. She sat in the car, wrestling with her conscience. Was she really going to wake up the whole family, just to get the answers she wanted?
Go, girl. If it was Amadeo talking, he was cranky from the drive. And his English was better than everybody thought.
Mary got out of the car into the darkness, but the lamp from the second-floor window cast almost enough light to illuminate the front walk. She headed up the walk, her gaze on the window, and the crunching underfoot told her it was made of pebbles, an oddly suburban touch. The house was silent, and she slowed her step. Maybe she should come back in the morning. She was about to turn around when she spotted it. A light, around the back of the house, shining down the gravel driveway. She walked toward the light and saw the outline of a small barn behind the house, on the right. It had a three-peaked roof, like the cut-off top of a star, which was barely visible against the night sky. Its bay doors hung open, and light poured from within. There were no animals inside; it was a barn converted to a garage, and under a bright panel of fluorescent lights sat a vintage pickup truck.
Mary walked toward it and got a closer look. The bed of the truck had shiny sides of varnished wood, and its green back door read HARVESTER in gleaming yellow paint. A large blue machine sat next to the truck, which looked like a compressor or something equally foreign, and the walls of the tiny garage were blanketed with white Peg-Board, displaying tools hung in graduated order. Mary reached the doorway and stood there a minute, not seeing anyone around the truck.
“Hello? Mr. Nyquist?” she called out, but there was no answer. She stepped inside the garage, which smelled of grease but was cleaner than her apartment. Plywood workbenches built into both walls on either side of the garage looked like they’d been wiped down, and even the cloth rags hanging on the handles of the homemade base cabinets underneath were white and fluffy. “Mr. Nyquist?” she said, louder.
“Wha?” came a voice from underneath the truck, and Mary peered around the front. A pair of wrinkled jeans stuck out from under the chassis, ending in a scuffed pair of Nikes. The Nikes walked themselves out on their thick rubbery heels, and the bottom half of a man in jeans was lying on his back on a dolly. The face hadn’t emerged, but a voice from underneath said, “Grandma?”
Mr. Nyquist’s grandson. He’d be about the right age. “No, I’m Mary DiNunzio,” she called back, leaning over.
“Who?” The man rolled himself out from under the truck, and from the bottom up appeared a gray T-shirt too faded to read, a handsome, if grease-streaked face, brown eyes that wore a puzzled expression, topped by a green baseball cap that read AGRO. The young man did a sit-up with ease, boosted himself off the dolly, and rose, wiping his hand on his jeans before he extended it. “I’m Will Nyquist. What did you say your name was?”
Mary reintroduced herself. “Nice to meet you, and sorry to bother you so late. I was looking for Aaron Nyquist. I was told he lives here.”
“That would be my grandfather.”
“Great! I was hoping it wasn’t too late at night to see him.”
“I’m sorry, he passed away about six months ago,” the young man answered, without evident emotion, and Mary’s heart sank. She was too late.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, but it was a blessing, for him. For my grandma, too. He’d been sick a long time. Why’d you want to see him?”
“I had some questions, about Fort Missoula. He was on the officers’ staff there, wasn’t he, during the war?”
“World War II?” Will flashed Mary a familiar ancient-history look. “I don’t know, he worked for the government during the war, I think. He didn’t like to talk about it a lot.” Will glanced toward the house. “Grandma would know. I’ll take you in, and you can ask her. She reads upstairs until late. Says she’s more comfy, readin’ in bed.”
Mary felt a guilty twinge. “But I don’t need to bother her. It was him, really, who would know.”
“She’d enjoy the company. She’s been so bummed since Gramps died.” Will took off his baseball cap, revealing a thick mess of brown hair and a severe case of hat head. He slapped the cap against his jeans and dust flew out. “I’ll take you in to meet her. It’ll make her night to have a guest. And she’s got some wicked pie, made fresh tonight.”
“Pie?” Mary asked, hiding her interest.
Mary had barely introduced herself when she was shown to a cushioned seat at a kitchen table of knotty pine. Mrs. Nyquist was about five four, still trim, and she wore a gray sweatsuit outfit and bifocals in no-nonsense plastic frames. Her pale blonde hair had been clipped into a practical, short cut, gone gray at the temples, and deep wrinkles creased the corners of her blue eyes and her mouth. Her nose was tiny and her smile sweet. She was probably in her early eighties, and her manner was warm, friendly, and fragile with fresh grief. Mary wanted to grab and cuddle her, but Mrs. Nyquist was fortunately oblivious to her secret love attack.
“You’ve never had huckleberry pie?” Mrs. Nyquist asked, incredulous. She set in front of Mary a large wedge of pie, its golden crust dusted with grainy sugar. Thick purple goop oozed from the side, encroaching on the plate like lava. If lava contained fructose.
“No, I’ve never even seen a huckleberry. What’s a huckleberry? I thought it was a book by Mark Twain.”
Mrs. Nyquist smiled, which made Mary happy. She was enjoying going around Montana, making old people happy. She was a roving ambassador of codependency.
Mrs. Nyquist said, “Huckleberry, especially wild huckleberry, tastes a lot like gooseberry.”
“I never tasted a gooseberry, either. I’ve tasted gnocchi, and that’s all that grows in Philadelphia.”