The dusty old thing we found was vintage Queen, a ten-year-old oil landscape done in swirling winter colors, aspens and rocks and hills with a sky only she could produce, the kind of sky that made you feel like flying. She slapped it with a dustcloth while I bit my tongue and hurried it away to be cleaned properly at the gallery. She insisted I take a few winter apples in exchange for the sack of groceries I'd brought up, a winter ration of peanut butter and sardines and cheese. Going to Queen's cabin was like stepping back to a friendly village where you shared your wealth, and it was shared with you. I always left feeling lucky.
Jackson was quiet when I got back to town. October is a waiting month, when shop owners take vacations, when employee dormitories are hosed down and disinfected, when locals have a chance to reacquaint themselves. The air was crisp, the sky a humming blue. I made a note to wash the front plate glass as I went through the door with the canvases.
The Second Sun Gallery normally got its share of walk-in traffic, located smack on the town square with its kitschy antler arches and grassy shade. But in October the leaves were almost all gone, scattering in gutters, brown and brittle. The walk-in trade was just as lively.
The door chime echoed as I stepped into the silent spaces of the gallery. No employees this time of year either. A good time for the Auction for Wildlife put together to support the Teton Land Trust, a loose organization of hunters, ranchers, and conservationists. I'd been working on their auction for three years now, finding artists and art, cementing relationships that kept Second Sun afloat in the dicey gallery universe. Good for business, and a welcome break at a slow time of year.
I propped the two canvases up on the desk in the gallery and switched on the lights. This week I'd actually sold a piece by a local artist, Martin Ditolla, that I'd had up for two years. The excitement in his voice was almost worth the wait. On my list today was to rehang the main gallery and ship the Ditolla.
But first to clean the landscape. On the way to the storeroom the phone rang. It was Carl Mendez. "You going to the hearing?" he asked.
"I'd have to shut down the gallery." Even as I said it I felt ridiculous. There was little business. "Don't you fly today?"
"It's hit-and-miss. There's talk of doing some wolf-tracking now, since the climbing is slowing down."
"Is the mountain covered now?"
"You can't see it from your window, can you? Come out and see it yourself. Covered in white since Saturday. Dazzling."
"So dazzling it'll probably attract more crazy climbers wanting to conquer the Grand Teat. Did you have any rescues yesterday?"
"Not a one."
"I'll try to get some nimrods to climb up without ropes. How's that?"
"Anything to fly the chopper."
Carl Mendez sounded happier than he had in a long time. He'd moved to Jackson in August after leaving the Missoula Police Department, and gotten a temporary gig as a helicopter rescue pilot for the mountain rangers. How long it would last, no one knew.
"You and that chopper. You're inseparable."
"Yeah, listen. I can't make dinner tonight."
"You're not doing night flying, are you?" The protective tone in my own voice made me cringe. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I wasn't thrilled about Carl's obsession with helicopters. He ignored my prying.
"Let me bring you over some lunch. On my way to the hearing."
The morning was long and quiet. I cleaned, pondered frames, wrote descriptions for the brochure, rehung, repainted. Carl showed up about twelve-thirty with cream of mushroom soup in Styrofoam cups. I washed a couple of spoons, and we settled in around the gallery desk.
"Kevin's going to testify, I heard," he said.
"So that's why you're going." Kevin Stoddard was a Fish and Wildlife biologist who lived in the other side of Carl's Park Service cabin.
"I haven't talked to him about it. I've been curious, though." Carl smiled. He'd cut his hair again. Now it was air force buzz, very butch. Black hair hugged his skull, showing off his square face, black eyes, warm skin. I reached over and plucked a drop of soup from his chin.
"Have you seen any wolves out there?"
"No. Kevin told me they're around, though, making their way toward the Elk Refuge."
"I'll bet. Dinner served up, nice and neat."
"Yeah, some refuge." He looked up at the canvases. "Hey, you got a wolf."
"Do you like it?"
He stepped up to Queen's painting and cocked his head. I liked to hear his responses to paintings, since they were completely unstudied, without any veneer of cultural bias. If he said a painting reminded him of a childhood nightmare or the color of puke, I knew it would take a certain type of collector to buy it. And probably take a long time selling.
"The eyes are really good," he said. "And this color here in the ruff. Looks like moonlight shining on him." He looked over his shoulder at me. "How much is it?"
"It's part of the wildlife auction. I suppose it'll go for two, three thousand."
"Out of my league."
"Did you want to buy it? Since when do you collect art?"
He folded his arms and examined the painting some more. "Will you frame it?"
"In this green wood." I lay the piece of framing wood next to the canvas on the side table in the gallery anteroom. "You really like it, don't you?"
"If I had the money."
"You can like it without the money."
"Yeah, but then you begin to envy, then hate the person who can afford it. Then your whole attitude toward the piece gets twisted."
"I see. Better not to like it at all then."
He frowned at me. "You don't get it. Either you've got money, or you don't. If you don't, you wish you did. You wish you had the money to buy things you really love. Like this wolf. What's its name?"
I'd been around art and moneyed folk all my working life, and I still had a hard time with this attitude. A person couldn't really own a painting, in my mind. He could pay a certain amount of money to enjoy it privately, but it belonged to anyone who viewed and enjoyed it. You couldn't stop that just by owning a painting. Ask any heiress who loans out her paintings to museums. Art, like all beauty, belongs to the beholder. Once the artist sets the beauty free, it is there for the taking, for everyone. Why be bitter about the size of your wallet when right now you are enjoying the painting as much as you ever will? Why does buying a painting affect your enjoyment of it? Viewing a painting of a wolf is the same as seeing a real wolf: a priceless memory that no one can buy, borrow, or steal.
"The name? Imminent Domain."
"Weird name. That's a legal term, isn't it?"
"That's spelled differently. Eminent, with an e. This is imminent, like threatening. And domain, like where you live. I guess it means their territory is threatened."
"I like it. Just wish I could afford it. Oh, well." He looked suddenly at his watch. "So have you got next week figured out? Pencil me in for some hikes?"
I glanced at him, then back at the wolf. "I always take the week off to paint. It's pretty intense. I told you."