An Old Faithful Murder Read online

  She looked around the bar, its paneled walls, the people in outdoor clothing looking happy and relaxed, healthy people who braved the cold and skied or hiked to find their fun in this beautiful place. She looked at Phyllis and Jed poring over a map of beginner ski trails that Jed had bought at the gift shop in the lobby.

  What, she asked herself, was wrong with this picture?

  SIX

  “I’ve never seen anything so funny. Mom was just standing there. There weren’t any hills around, no moguls, she wasn’t even moving, and then she fell flat on her face!” Chad laughed.

  “Chad …”

  “It’s okay, Jed. And Chad did ski over to help me up.”

  “He had to.” Her daughter spoke up. “You were right in the middle of the path. He doesn’t ski well enough to break a new trail around you.”

  “If you ski, you’re going to fall,” their instructor announced from the head of the trail. “I still fall myself, and I’ve been doing this for five winters now. But you don’t have to worry. The skis you rented are very sturdy—almost unbreakable. Unless you hit a large rock going fifty miles an hour, they’ll hold up.”

  “What about us?” Susan gasped, trying to keep up with the rest of the group.

  “You …” began Darcy Ericksen, skiing up beside her and stabbing his poles firmly in the snow for balance. “You,” he repeated, “are not rented. You are not their problem.”

  “Actually,” their instructor said, overhearing him, “taking care of your skis is taking care of yourself—in an area with temperatures below zero, with twenty feet of snow on the ground, if you lose your skis, you could endanger your own life.”

  “Jed!” Susan looked at her husband, fright in her eyes.

  “You mean no one checks the trails at the end of each day?” he asked the long-haired youth who was teaching them to ski.

  “Only a few of them. Too many trails and not enough rangers. But it is a good idea to let someone know where you’re going to be skiing and when you’re going to be back.”

  “Did you hear that?” Susan checked with her two children. “You are not to go off again unless I know what trail you are going to be on and exactly when you plan to return. Understand?”

  “Mother—” Chad began his protest.

  “Your mother’s right.” Their teacher stopped the boy’s protest. “We employees do it. The rangers do it. It’s just good sense. You have to have a healthy respect for the environment around here—that’s how you survive.”

  “We better tell your mother if we go anywhere. Your father wouldn’t send help if we were missing. He’d have a party,” Susan heard Randy say to Darcy. She thought he sounded sad.

  “My mother won’t do anything unless my father lets her,” came the angry response.

  “Look, come over here where we can talk without being overheard,” Randy urged his friend, tugging on his sleeve.

  “No, we can talk later. Let’s get this lesson over with. Whoever invented skiing—”

  “Hey, it’s going to be fun,” Randy insisted.

  “I don’t like being cold, I don’t like sports, I don’t like falling down. Believe me, I’m not going to like skiing.”

  “But you do want to see the geysers in the winter, remember? Last night you were even talking about painting the trees covered with frost. And skiing is the best way to get around here.…”

  “Okay. Okay. Don’t nag. I’m trying, aren’t I? Even my father would be pleased to see me taking this damn class. I’m finally joining in the family’s motto: Work hard, play hard, don’t leave time to think about a damn thing.”

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Randy asked Darcy.

  “Nothing as stupid as you are planning, that’s for sure.”

  “Look …” Randy began as their teacher called for the group’s attention.

  Her children and their friends followed the instructor down the trail, and Susan was obliged to do the same. Jed trailed behind her, and Randy and Darcy brought up the rear, still arguing. The next stage of instruction was snowplowing, or what Susan thought of as going down hills without killing yourself. After the first few attempts, she decided it was impossible to get to the bottom without falling. For the first time in her life, she was thankful for the extra cushioning of fat on her hips. The class herringboned up a small incline and skied back down, forgetting to bend their knees, leaning back instead of forward, flinging poles about in the air over their heads. They stopped only to watch a bison amble out of the woods and across the trail. After an hour of this, their instructor gathered them together and gave them his blessing.

  “You’re all doing real well. Any questions you have can be answered by anyone at the ski shack between eight a.m. and five p.m.,” he announced before leaving them.

  “That’s it? We graduated?” Susan asked, watching as Darcy and Randy hurried after their instructor.

  “I think Chrissy will be visiting the ski shack a lot. I saw the way she was watching our teacher. She thinks he’s cute,” Chad kidded, stretching out his legs and flying down the slope.

  “Where did he learn to do that?” Susan asked.

  “In the same lesson you just took, hon. That’s the difference between being fourteen and over forty.”

  “No need to remind me of my age. Every muscle is telling me exactly how old I am—and that I should be in bed.”

  “Did you notice Heather’s uncle Jon? Wasn’t he wonderful?” Chrissy breathed, leaving her mother wondering exactly who her new crush was on. Jon and Beth had skied through the group at the beginning of the lesson. Both of them carried large packs on their backs, with small shovels hanging below, and topped with rolled down sleeping bags and ground cloths. “They’re practicing carrying their camping equipment,” Chrissy continued. “They’re going to be sleeping near a geyser basin out in the wilderness later this week. Isn’t that exciting? I’d love to do that!”

  “Where would you plug in your curlers and blow dryer?” Chad asked sarcastically. He skied off before his sister could reply.

  “We could ask to go with them,” Heather suggested. “Jon and Beth are really sweet. If we can get all the equipment, I’m sure they would take us.”

  “Can we ask? Could we go, Mother?” Chrissy asked both questions in the same breath.

  “Let’s see how well your skiing progresses,” Susan temporized. “Jon and Beth appear to be very strong skiers. You’d better practice a lot if you’re even thinking of keeping up with them.”

  “Good idea. Let’s go around that practice circle near the lodge,” Chrissy urged Heather. “I think your uncle and his friend have been there for a while.”

  “Beat you there!” C.J. took off, with Chad behind him.

  “Be back at the restaurant by one o’clock for lunch,” Jed called out to the kids.

  “Don’t worry! That’s when my parents are meeting us, too!” Heather called, legs and poles moving in synchronization.

  “I assume one of them is wearing a watch,” Jed said to his wife.

  She shrugged. “They’re resourceful. They’ll figure out the time.”

  “How are you doing? Want to go back to the room and rest before lunch?”

  “If I take these skis off, I may never get them on again. Why don’t we ski over to the Visitor’s Center and see what’s on the schedule for tonight?”

  “Are we going to be able to move by tonight?” Jed asked, pushing off.

  “Good question.” Susan followed his lead, moving more rhythmically than she would have thought possible two hours ago. They skied back toward the complex of buildings surrounding Old Faithful, each of them privately impressed with his or her own progress. The midday sun sparkled off the snow, and Susan had to squint to watch the trail ahead. Rounding the corner of a summer cabin, she overshot the path and, propelled by her own momentum, skied through the deep snow and into a lumpy mound directly underneath a sign directing people, presumably only in the summer, toward ice cream cones and cold
soda. She felt her right ski strike something under the snow, and fell.

  “Damn!” She lifted her head up and noticed that Jed, unaware of her plight, was continuing on. “Damn,” she repeated, trying to maneuver her legs so that both skis were on the same side of the invisible impediment. After a few minutes of struggle, she had only succeeded in sinking deeper into the snowbank, her legs still spanning the lump. She plopped her head back into the drift, exhausted.

  “It’s almost always easier if you take your skis off.” The voice came from behind her. “Or are you really hurt? I can get a ranger—they have gurneys if you think you’ve broken anything.” Susan looked up into the face of George Ericksen. Ice covered his beard and one of his eyebrows. He reached down and used his ski pole to unhitch the bindings keeping her skis on her feet. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “No, just stuck. That is, I was stuck. There’s something here—some fabric or clothing under the snow. I don’t seem able to get my skis out from under …” She scrambled to her knees and then stood up, sinking down in the snow as she did so. “Damn.”

  “Look, you’re only digging yourself in deeper. You shouldn’t be moving around like that. Move back and let me do this.” He was beginning to sound angry, and he pulled her skis from the lumpy snow. “This is so disgusting. They’re under some sort of garbage some stupid tourist left. Just stay away.” George Ericksen scowled again, but Susan couldn’t tell whether it was at her for falling or if he took her for a representative of messy tourists everywhere. He turned and held up her equipment. “Now, I’ll put your skis on the snow in front of you, and you step up into them one at a time. Slowly … very slowly. You’re going to have to get that caked snow off the latch if you want it to close properly.…” He guided her, step by step, through getting to her feet. Susan felt grateful, foolish, and more than a little childlike.

  “Now, where were you going, my dear?”

  “The Visitor’s Center. I was on my way to—”

  “If you were planning to watch Old Faithful, I’m afraid you’re going to be late.” He took a large gold watch from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’d calculate that it should almost be finished erupting by this time.”

  “Well, I just wanted to get some information—although it would be nice to see an eruption.…” Susan adjusted the straps around her wrists.

  “You are doing that all wrong. Let me help you. You haven’t been skiing very long, have you?” He twisted the poles and the straps into the proper position.

  “I just had my first lesson,” Susan admitted, her previous feeling of accomplishment vanishing.

  “Well, some people take longer to learn than others do. Just keep working at it and stay on the trail at all times!” And leaving those orders behind, he slid effortlessly on his way, leaving Susan feeling almost as bad as she would have if she had broken a leg.

  SEVEN

  “You’re doing fine now. Do you want to join the ranger-led trip this afternoon?” Jed was sitting next to his wife on a bench in front of the wood stove that heated the main room of the Visitor’s Center. “It says on the bulletin board that it leaves in fifteen minutes and lasts three hours. Is that too long for you?”

  “Of course not!” Susan was indignant at her husband’s lack of faith in her skiing abilities, and more than a little chagrined since she knew she was lying about her own endurance. She didn’t know if she could ski one more hour, but she was sure that three was impossible. She tried to put a confident smile on her face. “It sounds like fun,” she lied.

  “Chrissy’s going to take the tour, too. Heather is busy with her mother this afternoon. At least that’s what she said during lunch.”

  “What about Chad?”

  “He and C.J. are together on a trail to Fern Cascade. It begins right behind the lodge, and they’ll meet us at six for dinner. They did just what you told them to, hon. Hey, there’s Chrissy!” He waved to their daughter, who was coming in the door.

  “Hi. Is this where we meet the ranger? Are you coming, too, Mom? You looked pretty worn-out at lunch.” She threw her new gloves onto the bench and bent down to retie her boots. “Isn’t this place fabulous? I’m thinking about becoming a park ranger when I grow up. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in the wilderness, to ski all day, and be one with nature?”

  Susan resisted an urge to repeat Chad’s question about where her born-again environmentalist was going to plug in her electric appliances, and settled for a noncommittal “It does sound like an interesting career.”

  “Which ranger is guiding our group?”

  “I don’t have any idea, Chrissy. You could ask the man at the desk over there.”

  “That’s okay. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Three hours is a long time,” Susan commented. “I’m going to visit the ladies’ room before we leave.” She stood up.

  “We won’t leave without you,” Jed assured her.

  Susan smiled and limped over to the rest room. How was she ever going to convince her legs to put on those skis again and then to actually move? … She entered a booth and sat down on the cold seat gratefully. Privacy at last. Here she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t in pain. She figured she had five minutes to rest. She leaned her head against the pine wall and closed her eyes. Only to open them almost immediately as voices drifted from the booths on either side of her.

  “We have to stop him, you know. He’s going to drive poor Darcy crazy.”

  “How Mother could ever have let Darcy bring his lover on this trip is beyond me. She must have known Father would react this way. He can hardly stand to eat in restaurants in the city when they come to visit; he claims all the waiters are gay and says it ‘puts him off his food.’ ”

  “He didn’t actually say that.” The voice Susan had tentatively identified as Charlotte’s sounded incredulous.

  “Of course.” Jane’s voice had changed location and was muffled by running water. “Why do you think they never visit you in San Francisco?”

  “Because of the homosexual population? Oh, Jane, that’s just sick.”

  “That, my dear, is our father. You don’t think he’s completely normal, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I’m just so tired of it all.”

  The slamming of the door indicated to Susan that it was safe to leave her booth. She washed her hands thoughtfully. The Ericksen family appeared to be ready to explode. Were Chad and Chrissy too close to the chaos that might result? She looked at Chrissy carefully when she rejoined her family. The child looked very happy, standing up when her mother arrived.

  “I’m just going to check with the ranger at the desk … about where the ski tour is leaving from and all,” she explained.

  “I think our daughter has a new crush,” Jed commented. He nodded to the blond ranger manning the information desk.

  Susan followed his glance and smiled. “That explains her sudden interest in nature.” She looked at her watch. “It’s time for the tour to begin. Jed, I was thinking about something I overheard in the ladies’ room.…”

  Chrissy rushed back to them. “We’re in the wrong place. The group is meeting outside.… See?” She pointed. “We have to hurry if we don’t want to miss them.”

  “Why don’t you run out and tell whoever is in charge that we would appreciate it if they would wait for a minute or two,” her father suggested.

  “I will. Right away!” She ran out the door.

  Jed stood up slowly. “This is going to be a long three hours.” He followed his daughter.

  Susan tripped behind, her pace and enthusiasm for the afternoon’s trip enhanced by a glimpse of the group waiting for the tour’s start. Charlotte and Jane were there; maybe she could maneuver close to them.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was standing in front of a beautiful tiny hot spring, admiring the color of the water bubbling there. She was sore, tired, and having a wonderful time. Much to Chrissy’s disappointment, Marnie Mackay was leading the tour. To Susan�
��s delight, Jane and Charlotte were novice skiers also, and through pace alone, the three of them were going to be spending much of the trip together. She smiled happily and listened to their guide.

  “… Actually, the demarcation between a geyser and a hot spring is very simple. A geyser erupts. Some erupt regularly, predictably, like Old Faithful, and some aren’t quite so regular. Hot springs tend to just bubble away. Although there is the case of Solitary Geyser, which we won’t see on this trip. Solitary was a hot spring until 1915, when someone decided to make money by draining off the hot water, funneling it into a bathhouse, and offering hot baths for tourists. When the pipe was placed in the spring and the water drained away, the integrity of that particular thermal feature was upset in such a way that it began to erupt—thus becoming a geyser.

  “Now, we’re going to be crossing some spots of dry pavement along the trail today—the thermal heat keeps some areas snow-cleared for the entire winter. I usually take off my skis and walk—you can do what you please. It probably depends upon whether you own or rent your equipment.”

  “Not me. I own these things, and I don’t give a damn if they get wrecked,” Jane said to Charlotte, digging her poles into the ground for emphasis. “I don’t care what Father says—I don’t care how terribly Mother feels. I am not going to do this ever again after I leave here. In fact, I am going to leave them in the ski rack outside the hotel when I go.”

  Susan skied up to where Jed and Chrissy stood. She’d decided to end all eavesdropping. These weren’t happy people. Getting more involved wouldn’t improve her vacation. She concentrated on Marnie Mackay, who was still bubbling forth interesting information.

  If surface tension could be called interesting.

  “To destroy the surface tension of a hot spring can destroy the integrity of the feature,” Marnie explained.