Dave landed the Huey on a ranch half a mile beyond Lonerock. There was a short grassy field, a tattered windsock hanging limp from the cupola of an old barn, and an ancient Stearman two-seater tied down between the barn and the ranch house. 'Welcome to Lonerock International Airport,' said Dave as he switched off the last of the circuit breakers. 'Please remain seated until the aircraft comes to a complete stop at the terminal.' The rotors turned more slowly and then stopped.
'Does every ghost town have an airport?' asked Baedecker. He took off his earphones and cap, ran his fingers through his thinning hair, and shook his head. He could still hear the roar of the turbine in his ears.
'Only where the ghosts are fliers,' said Dave.
A man walked slowly from the barn to meet them. He was younger than either Muldorff or Baedecker, but his face had been darkened and textured by years of working in the sun. He wore western boots, faded jeans, a black cap, and an Indian-turquoise belt buckle. The left sleeve of his plaid shirt was pinned at the shoulder. 'Hullo, Dave,' he called. 'Wondered if you was comin' over this weekend.'
'Evening, Kink,' said Dave. 'Kink, meet Richard Baedecker, friend from the old days.'
'Kink,' said Baedecker as they shook hands. He liked the restrained strength in the man's handshake and the creased laugh lines around his blue eyes.
'Kink Weltner here served three tours as a helicopter crew chief in ‘Nam,' said Dave. 'He lets me park the bird here now and then. Somehow he came into the possession of a big, underground tank of aviation-grade kerosene.'
The rancher walked over and ran his hand lovingly along the cowling of the Huey. 'I can't believe this rusted pile of shit's still flying. Did Chico replace that omni gauge?'
'Yeah,' said Dave, 'but you might want to take a look inside.'
'I'll pull the hell-hole cover when I refuel it,' said Kink.
'See you later,' said Dave and led the way toward the barn. It was cool here in the valley. Baedecker carried his goosedown coat in one hand and his black flight bag in the other. He looked up to watch the hills to the east catch the last bands of evening sunlight. Brittle cottonwood leaves stood out against the fragile blue sky. There was a jeep parked near the barn, keys in the ignition, and Dave threw his stuff in the back and hopped in. Baedecker joined him, grabbing the roll bar as Dave pulled out onto the gravel road at high speed.
'Nice to have your own crew chief way out here,' said Baedecker. 'Did you know him in Vietnam?'
'Nope. Met him after Di and I bought the house here in ‘76.'
'Did he lose his arm in the war?' Dave shook his head. 'Never got touched over there. Three months after he was discharged, he got drunk and rolled a pickup outside of the Dalles.'
They drove into Lonerock past the jagged tooth of a boulder and the closed-up church. Far across the valley, the road they had followed from Condon was a white line on the shadowed wall of the cliff. Baedecker noticed several abandoned houses set back in weeds along the street, caught a glimpse of the old school to the right through the trees, and then Dave pulled to a stop in front of a white house with a tin roof and a low picket fence out front. The lawn was well tended, there was a flagstone patio to one side, and a hummingbird feeder hung from a young lilac tree out front. 'Casa Muldorff,' announced Dave and lifted Baedecker's bag out of the jeep.
The guest room was on the second floor, tucked under the eaves. Baedecker could imagine the sound of rain on the tin roof above. He respected the amount of work that had gone into the old structure. Dave and Diane had ripped out walls, reinforced the floors, added a fireplace in the living room and a stove in the kitchen, repaired the foundation, added electrical wiring and indoor plumbing, remodeled the kitchen, and turned a low attic into a small but comfortable second floor. 'Other than that,' Dave had said, 'the house is pretty much the way we found it.' Back in the days when the Oregon Trail was a recent memory, the house had served as a post office, then sheriff's office, and even a morgue for a while before sagging into disrepair with the rest of the little town. Now the guest bedroom had clean white walls, crisp white curtains, a high brass bed, and an antique dresser with a white bowl and pitcher on it. Baedecker looked out the window through baring branches at the small front yard and dirt street beyond. He could imagine buggies passing by but little other traffic. The remnants of a low, board sidewalk lay rotting in the grass outside the picket fence.
'Come on,' called Dave from downstairs. 'I'll show you the town before it gets too dark.' It did not take long to see the entire town, even on foot. A hundred feet beyond Dave's house, the dirt road doglegged to the north and became Main Street for one block. The county road hooked left from it, crossing a low bridge and continuing off through wheat and alfalfa fields to the cliff two miles west. The stream Baedecker had seen from the air curved around through Dave's property past the weathered shed he called a garage.
The silence was deep enough that Baedecker heard their footsteps on the gravel of Main Street as intrusive. A few houses in town looked occupied, and there was an old mobile home parked behind one boarded-up structure, but most of the buildings were weedchoked and weathered, rafters open to the elements. Three stores sat closed and idle on the west side of Main Street, two with rusted light fixtures sans bulbs over their doorways. A gas pump outside the abandoned store offered high-test at thirty-one cents a gallon. The fly-specked sign hanging diagonally in the window read COKE CLOSED THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES.
'Is it officially a ghost town?' asked Baedecker.
'Sure is,' said Dave. 'The official census is four hundred eighty-nine ghosts and eighteen people at the height of the summer season.'
'What about the people who stay here year ‘round? What do they do?' Dave shrugged. 'There are a couple of retired farmers and ranchers. Solly in the trailer back there won the Washington lottery a few years ago and settled out here with his two million.'
'You're kidding,' said Baedecker.
'Never kid,' said Dave. 'Come on, I want you to meet someone.'
They walked a block and a half east to the edge of town and then up a sharp grade to where the brick school sat. It was an imposing structure, two stories tall and then some with an oversized, glass-enclosed belfry atop it. As they came closer, Baedecker could see that much care had gone into the old building's rehabilitation. A well-tended garden filled part of what had been the schoolyard, the bricks had been sandblasted clean some years ago, the front door was nicely carved, and white curtains were tied back in the tall windows.
Baedecker was puffing slightly when they reached the front door. Dave grinned. 'Need to jog more, Dickie.' He tapped loudly with a brass knocker. Baedecker jumped slightly as a voice came from a metal tube set into the doorframe near his ear.
'It's Dave Muldorff, Miz Callahan,' shouted Dave into the tube. 'Brought a friend with me.' Baedecker recognized the antiquated mouthpiece as part of an old speaking-tube system such as he had seen only in movies and once in a tour of Mark Twain's home in Hartford.
There was a muffled reply that Baedecker translated as 'come up' and then a buzz as the door opened. Baedecker was reminded of the entrance foyer to his family's apartment building on Kildare Street in Chicago before the war. As he entered, he half expected to smell the mixture of moldy carpet, varnished wood, and boiled cabbage that had meant homecoming to him for the years of his early childhood. He did not. The interior of the school smelled of furniture polish and the evening breeze coming through open windows.
Baedecker was fascinated by the glimpses of rooms as they ascended the two flights of stairs. A large classroom on the first floor had been transformed into an oversized living room. Part of the long blackboard remained but was now bracketed by built-in bookcases holding hundreds of volumes. A few pieces of quality antique furniture sat here and there on a polished wood floor, and a small area had been set off by a Persian carpet and comfortably overstuffed sofa and chairs.