A Stranger Here Below

by Charles Fergus

  He looked over at his host. “And you, Mr. Foote? What did you do after the ironmaster left the church and I followed him?”

  “As planned, I removed myself from the sanctuary. I limped out through the same door I came in. I never raised my head or spoke to anyone, and no one followed me. The Reverend Braefield said the congregation sat frozen in place. He continued with his sermon, taking another half hour. By the time church let out, I was long gone.” The headmaster stroked his white beard. “Tell me, how did the state’s attorney react to the ironmaster’s death?”

  “He was very displeased. Both with me and over what he is calling the ironmaster’s ‘unfortunate accident.’ Mr. Fish doesn’t believe what people are saying—that a ghost showed up at the church in Panther. I told him I was there that day to thank the Reverend Braefield for conducting the funeral for my son. I said that for some reason, Mr. Thompson got up and left during the service. He didn’t look well, so I thought I should follow him.”

  “Many people believe Nat Thompson really did come back,” Foote said.

  “Yes. They say the ironmaster paid the boy from Chinclaclamoose to murder his brother in the shanty up Egypt Hollow, and it was Nat’s restless spirit that came to the church to haunt him. They now believe that Thomas McEwan did not kill the ironmaster’s brother in 1805, and that he was hanged for a crime he did not commit. There’s even a rumor that a trickle of blood ran down the preacher’s gravestone when Nat Thompson was knifed to death.”

  Foote harumphed. “Superstition. I suppose people will never rid themselves of it.”

  “They’re under a great deal of strain. They worry about what will become of the ironworks, whether they’ll lose their jobs.”

  “And …?”

  “The ironmaster left a will. He had it drawn up only a few days before his death. Maybe he knew something was about to happen. He has given the ironworks to a great-nephew of his, a recent graduate of some scientific institute in Troy, New York. He’s on his way to Panther now.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Foote said. “I must say I was surprised not to see you at the burying today. Myself, I couldn’t stay away. Curiosity; it will kill me some day, I expect.”

  “I’ve been to more than enough funerals lately.”

  “A brief ceremony, with but few in attendance.”

  “Don’t you find it odd, that the ironmaster did not choose to be buried at Panther?”

  “That would be too common for Adonijah Thompson,” Foote said. “He has long owned a grand lot on Burying Hill with a commanding view of the town. I’ve heard that a large monument will be erected there. Granite, carved in the shape of an anvil, and brought here, at great expense, all the way from Vermont. Granite is an exceedingly hard stone. No doubt it will outlast every other marker in the boneyard.”

  Gideon was only half-listening. He rose and told the headmaster that he must be going. He didn’t want to leave True alone for too long. Besides, she’d smell the whiskey on his breath.

  He realized he had not heard rain on the roof for some time. He crossed to a window. As he approached, he saw his face mirrored in the glass.

  He drew nearer. His image dimmed and darkened and then vanished. He cupped his hands, pressed them to the glass, and looked out.

  While they had been talking, the rain had turned to snow. Adamant lay white in its valley. Through the falling flakes Gideon could make out Burying Hill. The twin to Academy Hill, it loomed up pale and ghostly. The snow fell steadily there, on the graves of the preacher, the ironmaster, and the judge.

  Acknowledgments

  For many novels, I suspect, there’s a story behind the story. The one behind A Stranger Here Below began years ago when my wife bought a beautiful little book at a used book sale: From the Danish Peninsula by Steen Steensen Blicher. A minister in northern Denmark, Blicher lived from 1782 to 1848. The book, published in 1957 by the Tourist Association of Jutland, included a tale “The Parson at Veilby.” That narrative inspired the interior story of A Stranger Here Below: the plot within the plot, related in the journal of Judge Hiram Biddle.

  I thank my wife, the writer Nancy Marie Brown, for her steadfast encouragement and support, and for her astute editorial advice while I wrote and revised. Deep thanks and appreciation go to Natalia Aponte, my agent, who suggested a new and better beginning to the novel, and who worked long and hard to find a publisher. At Skyhorse, I thank my editor, Lilly Golden, whose excellent edits and suggestions have made this a better story.

  Thanks, too, go to Harlan Berger, Denise Brown, Richard Fortmann, Alfred Gallifent, Carl Graybill, Betty Grindrod, Joe Healy, Randy Hudson, Cynthia Nixon-Hudson, Doug McNeal, Doug Madenford, Jackie Melander, Bill Jordan, Peter Jurs, Elaine Jurs, Garet Nelson, Mark Podvia, Sheila Post, Suzanne Rhodes, Stephen Roxburgh, Leonard Rubinstein, Alice Ryan, Ralph Seeley, Earl Shreckengast, Pamela Smith, Sandy Steltz, Jeff Swabb, Linda Wooster, and the staff at Cobleigh Public Library in Lyndonville, Vermont. I especially thank Paul Fagley, cultural educator at Greenwood Furnace State Park in Huntington County, Pennsylvania. Paul is a fount of knowledge about charcoal-making, ironmaking, and life in central Pennsylvania during the 1800s; he very generously read the manuscript and pointed out ways in which it could be improved.

  Claire Van Vliet created the beautiful map depicting Adamant and Colerain County.

  Both Colerain County and the town of Adamant are fictional places modeled loosely on the part of central Pennsylvania where I grew up.

  I relied on many sources for historical and cultural information. These books were especially helpful:

  Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Death in Early America: The History and Folklore of Customs and Superstitions of Early Medicine, Funerals, Burials, and Mourning, Margaret M. Coffin, Thomas Nelson, 1976.

  Foreigners in Their Own Land: Pennsylvania Germans in the New Republic, Steven M. Nolt, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.

  Making Iron on the Bald Eagle: Roland Curtin’s Ironworks and Workers’ Community, Gerald C. Eggert, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

  Shape-note song lyrics that appear in different parts of this book, the short verses introducing each chapter, and the title A Stranger Here Below are all drawn from shape-note hymns published in tunebooks and widely sung in rural America in the early 1800s.

  www.charlesfergus.com