Moon Dance

by Mariah Stewart

  The phone rang.

  "Yes, Mrs. Dobson? Oh, he did, did he?" Matt turned a stern face to the dog, who chose that moment to casually turn his back. "I'm so sorry. I'll be right over to dean it up. No, it won't happen again. I'll see you in a minute."

  Matt hung up the phone and stood with his hands on his hips.

  "So, Mrs. Dobson tells me you stopped by for a late-night snack."

  The dog licked at his front paws, as if pretending not to hear.

  "And that you raided her trash can to get it. Leftover lasagna, was it?" Matt pulled several sheets of paper towels from the roll on the counter, wet them from the faucet, and knelt down to wash the dog's face and paws. "Artie, you've got to stop knocking over people's trash cans and helping yourself. It's 'no, no, bad dog' stuff, understand?"

  Matt looked down into the big, warm brown eyes of the rottweiler. The dog looked up. A large pink tongue—now devoid of tomato sauce—slurped across Matt's face contritely.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. We've had this discussion before." Matt stood up and tossed the paper towels into the trash. "And don't even think about going after them; I'm taking the trash bag out with me. You can just wait right here till I get back. Stay, Artie…"

  Artie sat, his tail thumping tentatively on the kitchen floor.

  "You just sit right there and think about what you've done," Matt muttered as he closed the door behind him and set off to dean up the scattered remains of Mrs. Dobson's garbage, three doors down.

  Later, the apologies made once again and the cleanup completed, Matt settled into his favorite chair with a favorite book, The Sign of Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As he opened to the first page, he recalled the phone calls he had not returned that night. He would call his fraternity brother over the weekend. The woman—Betti, from someplace around Havre de Grace, he recalled—he probably would not call at all. Between taking care of Doc Espey's clinic and worrying about both the good doctor and his own mother, Matt had little energy left for anything else.

  He leaned over to switch on the lamp and in doing so, knocked a photograph from the small table onto the floor. He picked it up, and as he replaced it his eyes dropped to the picture within the brass frame. Laura and their mother stood on the back porch of the Bishop's Inn amid hanging waves of wisteria, smiling generously for Matt, who had taken the picture with a camera he'd received for his seventeenth birthday.

  Their faces were both so dear to him. Charity Bishop had been a beautiful woman, right up until the time her illness had started to drain the life from her eyes. Matt could barely stand it that, more often than not, she did not know him when he visited. Every week he made the trip from Shawsburg to the convalescent home, midway between Bishop's Cove and Pumpkin Hill, hoping that that day would be a good day; that she would remember who he was, maybe even greet him with a smile and a cheery "Hi, Matty." Those days were coming less and less frequently now as her disease progressed, and it broke his heart. He knew that the day would soon come that he would have to accept that there would be no more recognition of anyone who had once been so dear to her.

  Anger welled up in him once again as he studied the features of the woman who had been mother and savior to him, then those of his sister. Laura had been his champion and his best friend. She had allowed him to sleep on the end of her bed when, as a four-year-old frightened by the newness of the Bishop home and all the mysterious things it held, he would awaken in the night and cry out all the fears he lacked the verbal skills to express. It had been Laura who had patiently taken him by the hand and taught him the words he did not know. She had read to him, played with him, taught him songs and stories, and walked with him on the beach. While the social workers had held little hope that the neglected toddler rescued from a drug house would ever develop normally, Matt had astounded all of them when he started school a mere one year later, his verbal skills almost on grade level. Charity had been determined that her boy would learn and excel, and he had. Much of his success, Matt knew, he owed to Laura's diligence.

  And I need to be as diligent for her sake as she has been for mine, he told himself.

  "No one is going to hurt Laura," he whispered, and Artie looked up at the sound. Matt dropped a hand down and scratched behind the dog's ears. Satisfied that he had identified the reason behind his Enright-phobia, he reopened his book and began to read the careful exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson regarding the great detective's use of cocaine, his defense of his habit, and the good doctor's earnest protests thereof.

  five

  "Is this it?" Georgia eased her right foot onto the brake and tilted her head to look out the front window, asking, "Is this where I turn?"

  "Yes," Laura pointed ahead to the gravel driveway that ran past an old farmhouse the color of faded sunshine. "Turn in here and just pull straight on back."

  Straight on back led past the house to a wide expanse of farmyard, with an old weathered barn on the left, a somewhat smaller barn—the clapboard of which had lost much of its white paint to the elements—almost straight ahead, and another structure, smaller still and surrounded by a wire fence, stood off to her right.

  "Welcome to Pumpkin Hill." Laura smiled and jumped out of the passenger door and began to look through her pocketbook for the thick ring that held all the keys she would need here.

  Georgia leaned across the steering wheel and briefly surveyed her surroundings. The old farmhouse stood on the right side of the drive opposite the barn. Behind the house was a fenced-in area. Some gnarled apple trees in desperate need of pruning ran between the back of the fence and the smallest of the three outbuildings, and, behind all, deep fields stretched back to a wooded area far behind. Georgia turned off the ignition and hopped out.

  "Ah, I love the smell of this place, even in the throes of winter." Laura inhaled deeply.

  Georgia thought to remind her sister that March was hardly the throes of winter, but decided to let it go. The air did smell wonderful; pine mixed with something else that was earthy and elemental.

  "We used to spend a lot of time here in the summer when we were kids," Laura told her. "Mom and Dad were always so busy at the inn during the summer months that we never got to go away on vacations as a family, so they used to send us out here for a few weeks at a time. We always had such fun, Georgia. Aunt Hope was such a character." Laura shook her head, remembering. "Funny and tough. She was the farmer in the family. She kept up the house and plowed the fields and planted crops and gardened and canned and preserved. Poor Jody can't bear the thought that she'll have to rely on other sources for her tomatoes and zucchini and herbs this year. Aunt Hope supplied us—and several other local restaurants—with all of our fresh produce in the summer."

  "I'm impressed."

  "You should be. She kept up with all this until she died last September at the ripe old age of seventy-seven. Still worked the fields, though she had cut back on the number of acres she planted over the past few years. But she still cared for the property by herself. Oh, once in a while one of the neighbors would stop by to check on her, and Matt came back every few weeks and would stay for a few days." Laura turned and pointed to the big red barn. "For years, Matt has kept an apartment there, in half of the second floor of the barn—he still comes back on a pretty regular basis. But for the most part, Aunt Hope was on her own. She always said she liked it that way."

  "She never married?"

  "Oh, yes. She married her high school sweetheart, but he left for World War Two about three months after they were married. He died on the beach at Normandy."

  "So she never had children?"

  "Just Matt and me." Laura grinned. "She always said we were all the kids she'd ever needed." Laura's voice softened. "I miss her very much."

  "It must have been hard for you, losing your father a few years ago, then your aunt last year, and, in a way, your mother, all in so short a time."

  'It has been. I think maybe I don't always appreciate just how difficult it's been, but if I stop and giv
e it too much thought, it all but overwhelms me. On the other hand, while I've lost a lot over the past few years. I've gained a lot, too. I'm only sorry that Matt—" she stopped, reflecting back to one of the wishes she had made the night before. "—well, that Matt still seems to have so many empty places in his heart."

  An ill-tempered crow dropped to the ground in front of the Jeep and began to scold them for trespassing. Soon several others joined in.

  "Ah, they didn't happen to film a movie out here, I did they?" Georgia frowned. "One with lots of birds…"

  Laura laughed and searched through the keys on the brass ring. "They're just being ornery and territorial. Come on, let me show you around. We'll start with the big barn."

  With practiced efficiency, Laura quickly worked off the padlock and swung aside the barn door, flooding the open space beyond with light. Something scurried noisily off to their left, and Georgia jumped back.

  "Probably just a wild cat," Laura shrugged, unconcerned.

  The air was cold and dusty and heavy with a sweet lingering trace of hay.

  "Aunt Hope used to keep goats." Laura pointed to a row of empty stalls. "We had to send them off to a neighbor after she died. Matt and I couldn't take care of them, but we couldn't bring ourselves to sell them, either. Mrs. McCoy down the road is tending to them for a while, until… well, until there's someone here who can look after them."

  Laura's boots scuffed along the concrete floor in the direction of a row of old farm equipment that stood along one wall. She walked from one machine to the next, her fingers tracing lines in the dust that covered old fenders and massive black rubber tires, the treads of which were deep and noticeably free of mud and dirt. With one hand Laura swung herself up into the seat of a small tractor the color of new spring grass.

  "Nineteen thirty-nine John Deere Model L," she said softly. "Two cylinder engine. Nine horsepower. Your basic all-purpose tractor."

  Georgia watched as Laura touched this knob and that before hopping down and walking around the next piece of equipment.

  "Now, this one"—she patted one of the back tires—"this is a nineteen fifty-six Model sixty—another Deere machine, of course; my grandfather never bought anything but. You might notice that this one boasts a number of modem features for the modem farmer." She climbed up into the seat and pointed to what Georgia assumed was the engine. "This baby has a two-barrel carburetor, a hot and cold intake manifold for faster warm-ups, and a water pump in the cooling system."

  Georgia wandered over and pretended to know what she was looking at.

  "Did your aunt use this?"

  "Damn near every working day of her life." Laura nodded.

  "It has directions on it?" Georgia leaned forward to peer closely at the decal on the body of the tractor.

  "Sure does." Laura laughed. "Remember that these tractors were intended to replace farm animals. Now, men who had relied on the use of horses or mules to plow their fields knew how to care for their animals. You cooled them down, you gave them food and water and rest when they came in from the fields at night, and the next morning you just hitched them back up and headed on back to the fields again. Machines need a little more maintenance. John Deere placed these little decals everywhere to remind the farmers when and how to do just about everything, from changing the oil in the crank case and tightening the clutch to how much air pressure to maintain in the tires."

  Laura turned the steering wheel almost unconsciously as if lost in thought somewhere.

  "Wonder if it still has gas?" Laura asked idly as she pushed a button on the side of the engine. The resultant roar almost threw Georgia backward.

  "Wow!" Georgia yelled up to Laura, who sat grinning atop the old plow seat. "You could have warned me!"

  "Sorry," Laura mouthed the word, then turned the engine off. "Sorry," she repeated. "I forgot how loud she is."

  For a moment Laura stroked the side of the tractor much as one might stroke the flanks of a well-loved horse.

  "Want to see upstairs?" she asked suddenly as she climbed back down off the old tractor.

  "Sure."

  Georgia followed Laura to one end of the room, where a wide wooden stairway led to a second floor.

  "They used to store hay here." Laura paused to push open a window at the top of the steps. "Let's bring a little fresh air in. All the dust from the hay is going to give me a headache."

  Georgia walked the length of the barn to gaze out the big windows at one end. With a tissue she rubbed the dirt from the glass, and peered through the clean spot to the fields beyond.

  "I want to take just a quick check into Matt's apartment." Laura studied her keys. "I think this is the one."

  She walked back to the stairwell and slipped the key into a door that was set into the wall on the right side of the landing. With a twist of the knob and a gentle push, the door swung open.

  "Come on," Laura called over her shoulder as she passed through the door.

  Georgia followed tentatively, overwhelmed by the feeling that she was trespassing into a very private place. The door in the barn wall led into a galley-style kitchen that had a very fifties look, from the speckled linoleum—red and white—to the white wooden cabinets that hung above the short counters on either side of the enamel sink. The narrow refrigerator and stove were white, as were the walls and the curtains that hung over the one small window. The counters were bare except for the ceramic canisters in the shape of apples, all painted shiny red with stems for handles, that lined up close to the wall in descending size. Georgia had half expected to see a few dishes stacked in the sink of this bachelor apartment, but there was not so much as a cup or spoon to be seen. There was nothing to identify who might live in this place other than a large white dish that sat on the floor near the sink and bore the name Artie in red block letters.

  Laura's footsteps moved away somewhere beyond the kitchen. Georgia followed, stealing an inquisitive peek through the doors that led to a study, its walls lined with books, on the left off the hall, and a large square living room, furnished in nondescript fashion, to the right. Three steps at the end of the hall led down to the bedroom that was, she discovered, as neat as the rest of the apartment. A worn quilt of faded green-and-white squares covered the old maple double bed, and the bedside table held a brass lamp, a small alarm clock, and a small stack of books. Several framed photographs stood atop the wooden dresser, and the closet door was snugly closed. A mirror covered the wall behind the dresser, and the other walls held framed black-and-white photos and several ink prints. An old movie poster—John Barrymore as Sherlock Holmes—hung nearby a newer one—Basil Rathbone, dressed in the close-fitting ear-flapped cap known as the deerslayer, and a long gray traveling cape, a magnifying glass held up before his face. Georgia stepped closer to study the series of small pen-and-ink drawings, and stopped before the first. Two men forcibly led a woman in a Victorian-era gown. Precise letters across the bottom of the print identified the scene as "The abduction of Miss Nurnet in Wisteria Lodge." The second print—a tall, gaunt man with deep-set eyes, wearing a dark overcoat, his hands holding a top hat behind his back—bore the legend "The Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty, from The Final Problem."

  Laura watched from the doorway as Georgia went from one print to the next.

  "Matt's a sucker for Sherlock Holmes," Laura told her.

  "So I see." Georgia pointed to another of the prints and read the neat print across the bottom aloud: " 'The body of John Openshaw is fished out of the Thames in The Five Orange Pips; by an unknown French artist, circa nineteen twenty.' "

  "My brother has tons of Holmesian collectibles. He even named his dog after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

  "Ah." Georgia nodded. "The 'Artie' of the water dish."

  "Exactly." Laura nodded and walked to the windows, where she straightened the shades that really had not appeared to Georgia to be in need of adjustment. "Let's go on out and I'll show you the rest of the farm."

  They left the apartment not as they ha
d come in, but through a door that opened off the tidy living room onto an outside landing and steps that led down the side of the barn. Once at the bottom, Georgia tried to shake off the feeling that she'd just taken far too close a look into the life of a man she had met only briefly, but who had found his way into her subconscious and refused to leave.

  "This used to be an old workshop," Laura said as they walked past a clapboard outbuilding that seemed to grow like an appendage from the old barn. "And that over there"—she pointed to a smaller building to their right—"was the chicken coop. That fenced-in area behind the house was Aunt Hope's kitchen garden."

  "Sounds like Aunt Hope was a busy lady," Georgia noted.

  "That she was. Idle hands, and all that…" Laura paused in the driveway, then said, "Let me just check the mailbox before we go inside."

  Georgia followed Laura down the drive toward the mailbox.

  "Matt sometimes gets mail here, and sometimes people stuff circulars in and such." Laura opened the old metal mailbox from the front and stuck her hand inside. She pulled out a mass of paper. "See what I mean? Advertisements for everything from water beds to pizza."

  She folded the small stack of papers and placed it under her arm.

  "Let's go inside and check to see that all is well." She pointed to the walkway of wide, flat gray stones that led to the front door. "And don't let me forget to bring back some of Aunt Hope's preserves. Jody will hang me if I don't. She swears that those homemade jams are one of the reasons that people come back to the inn."

  Georgia followed her up the walk and waited on the narrow porch while Laura unlocked the front door, then pushed it gently aside.

  They were greeted by the faint smell of must and camphor and old dust. The door opened directly into a squared-off living room with long, wide windows running from floor to ceiling along the front and one side. A fireplace with a simply carved oak mantel stood in the wall nearest the door. Straight ahead, steps led unceremoniously to the second floor. To the right, one passed through a darkened dining room into a large square kitchen that overlooked the fields beyond the house.