CHAPTER 29

Isobel Farris pulled the muddy, dripping sandbags away from the museum door.  For the last nine months, ever since she arrived, she had wondered why there were sandbags stacked up under the museum’s front window; now she understood.  The water had risen so quickly there had barely been time to drag out half of the bags before she had to run for the higher ground at the front of Town Hall. 

Isobel sighed as she unlocked the door and went in.  The water had obviously gone over the tops of her barrier, parts of the wooden floor were already buckling and there was a new, musty smell.  She walked into the small workroom behind the exhibit room and let out a relieved breath.  Just before the flood, the first half of the pictures from that little bar had come from the framer’s, and she had mustered the cognizance to set them on a high shelf.

She pulled down the box and gave them a quick look-over just in case.  The highlight of them all was an old tintype of a bunch of scruffy men and women, standing in front of a ramshackled building with a sign declaring it to be the Crawlback Bar & Bath.  Isobel sniggered thinking about when Rudolph Crawlback had taken her outside his bar and pointed out how the tree-line in the picture exactly matched the tree-line behind what was now the Jerkwater Community Bible Church. 

Isobel was delighted to finally discover the under-belly of a frontier town, and the stories of land-grabs, cheating wives, betrayed agreements, and the feud between the Hoolahan men and everyone else in town.  Somehow it fit her secret impression of Jerkwater’s inhabitants. 

And then there was Rudolph Crawlback himself.  Isobel flipped through the pictures until she was staring at a picture of a younger and amazingly handsome man leaning against a Studebaker Champion.  Rude Crawlback with his hands in his pockets and a jaunty fedora.  Isobel gave a little sigh.  Hum she thought.

She left the box on the table and began checking the lower shelves.  Rudolph had called this morning: he was bringing over more pictures and had offered his help.