Nellie smiled. “All right. In the morning.” She picked up Carly’s empty plate and took it to the sink. “You run along to bed now.”
Carly hobbled to the door. Then she stopped and said, “I’m sorry I worried you, Nellie. Was Mama worried too? Did she ask where I was?”
Nellie put down the milk pan she was drying and looked at it for a moment before she came over to Carly and put an arm around her shoulders.
“No,” she said. “She didn’t ask. And I didn’t mention it to her. She’s had such bad dizzy spells lately, and if she worries, it always brings one on.” She smiled and gave Carly’s shoulders a little squeeze. “I suppose she thought you were staying over at Aunt M.’s.”
Carly squeezed back. “I suppose so,” she said.
Chapter 7
IT WAS A little before noon when Carly burst through the back door at a dead run and leapt the three steps to the ground without breaking her stride. She was racing down the well-worn path at breakneck speed when suddenly she grabbed at her waist and came to a skidding, stumbling stop. Her trousers were falling off. Hitching up her skirt, she pulled up the tweed knickers she was wearing under her dress and, clutching them tightly, was back at top speed in an instant. A practiced skid around the honeysuckle trellis that hid the outhouse from public view, and she had reached her destination.
It wasn’t until the emergency was over that it occurred to her to wonder if anyone had been watching. If Father had seen her, or anyone who might tattle to Father, she was in trouble. And it would be her own fault. She’d been told often enough that it was not only unladylike, but also positively indecent, to wait so long that you had to run. But she wasn’t the only one to blame.
Peering around the trellis, Carly rehearsed all the reasons it wasn’t entirely her fault, just in case Father was in the back-yard and had seen her making an indecent spectacle of herself. First of all it was Father himself who insisted that the outhouse had to be so far away from everything and so well hidden. Nobody else, she was sure, had so far to walk—or run, in extreme emergencies—through a maze of concealing hedges and trellises.
But most of all, of course, it was Alfred Quigley’s fault. It was his fault because if he hadn’t cost Aunt M. and Father so much money, they would have been able to afford a modern toilet at the ranch house a long time ago—a lovely indoor toilet with a pull-chain flush just like the one at Greenwood, instead of an unsanitary old two-seater clear across the backyard.
Carly heaved an indignant sigh and ventured out from behind the honeysuckles. The backyard appeared to be deserted. Relieved, she started up the path at a fast skip, when a sudden sound brought her to a stop. Someone had giggled.
The sound was familiar. “Matt?” Carly called softly. “Where are you? Come on out. I know it’s you.”
Something stirred behind the branches of the thick hedge next to the toolshed, and a moment later the long droopy ears and the shaggy gray-brown head of an old donkey appeared. The donkey regarded Carly sadly and then reached down to nibble at a handy spear of grass. There followed the thud of bare heels on well-padded ribs, but the donkey only dropped his head lower as he stretched his neck toward a larger patch of dry weeds. The thuds turned into a rapid tattoo, the donkey grunted loudly and shuffled forward, and his rider came into view—a small boy with dark, curly hair and lively gray-green eyes. It was Matt, all right.
Ever since Carly had come to live at the ranch house she and Matt had played and fought, and rode donkeys and explored for gold and built treehouses together. Back when they’d been first and second graders they’d even played together sometimes at school. They didn’t do that anymore because boys and girls their age never did at Santa Luisa Grammar School. But at home, in Hamilton Valley, they still had fun together—when they weren’t fighting.
“Did you make it?” Matt said, grinning wickedly.
Carly glared. “Think you’re funny, don’t you?” She grabbed a switch off the peach tree and waved it threateningly.
“Hey, gee up. Gee up, Barney,” Matt yelled, jerking up on the hackamore reins and pounding the donkey’s ribs with his heels.
Barney snatched a last nibble of grass and shuffled forward, but Carly was faster. The switch was about to fall when Matt leapt off Barney’s back and took shelter behind him. For a moment they faced each other over the shaggy back, Carly swishing her switch and Matt poised to leap back and away. Suddenly his gaze focused on Carly’s legs. “Hey,” he said. “What the Sam Hill you wearing?”
Carly looked down—and forgot about whacking the sass out of Matt Kelly. Dropping her switch, she leaned forward with her chin on Barney’s back and motioned for him to come closer. “They’re trousers,” she whispered. “I’ve been playing Sherlock Holmes. You want to play?”
Matt eyed her suspiciously. “What kinda homes?” he said.
“Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes,” Carly frowned impatiently. “The great detective. Don’t you know about Sherlock Holmes? I borrowed a book about him from Aunt M., and it’s the most exciting thing I ever read. I’ve been up in the attic making Sherlock Holmes costumes all morning and next I’m going to start detecting mysteries and crimes and things like that. Do you want to too? You can be Doctor Watson.”
“I don’t want to play. I’m no doctor,” Matt said. “I want to go exploring. I thought we could go exploring on the ridge today. I brought some apples and venison jerky, and Rosemary too.”
“Rosemary? Where?”
“Back there. Tied to the bushes.”
Standing on tiptoes, Carly peered over Barney’s back in the direction of Matt’s point and caught a glimpse of another donkey, a smaller, trimmer, and much livelier donkey whose name was Rosemary. She’d almost forgotten that Matt had promised that she’d get to ride Rosemary the next time they went exploring. It was a hard decision to make—Rosemary or Sherlock Holmes. For two days now she’d had been preparing herself for a career as a detective, and she was almost ready to begin work on her first mystery. But, on the other hand, an exploration on donkeyback was hard to resist, particularly when it was her turn to ride Rosemary. Suddenly she had the solution.
“All right. We’ll go exploring. And on the way we’ll be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.”
“Well,” Matt began, frowning uncertainly, but Carly didn’t wait to hear any more. “Wait a minute. I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she started for the house at a run. On the back porch she slipped out of the trousers, an outgrown pair of Arthur’s which she had been trying on when it became necessary to leave the attic in a hurry. Stashing them behind a box of oranges, she opened the back door and stopped to listen. The kitchen was empty and the house seemed unusually silent. Where had everyone gone?
That morning at breakfast Carly’s mind had been so full of Sherlock Holmes that she’d neglected to listen to everyone else’s plans, but she knew that Mama, at least, would be at home. Mama, and one other person, since Mama was never left alone. Everything depended on who that other person might be, because while Mama almost never said no, she almost never said yes either. And there were some members of the family who were apt to say no to an exploring trip on the Kellys’ donkeys.
Carly tiptoed through the dining room, and in the parlor she found Mama asleep on the sofa, and Charles sitting in the rocking chair reading a newspaper. Carly couldn’t help smiling with relief. If Charles was taking care of Mama, it meant that no one else was at home.
Charles Emerson Hartwick, Carly’s oldest brother, was twenty-one years old and a full-grown man, at least in size and appearance. But in many ways he seemed younger than Arthur. Carly supposed that was because Arthur was quick and daring and handsome, while Charles was slow and uncertain and stammered when he talked. Some people, particularly Father, said that Charles would try the patience of a saint, but Carly didn’t think that was fair. If you didn’t rush him, Charles did all right with words, and he did even better with his hands. Carly’s play house and Tiger’s beautiful doghouse had
been built by Charles.
Sometimes strangers said Charles was exactly like Father, and they did look something alike, tall and pale with gray eyes and stiff heavy hair the color of summer grass. But in nearly every other way Charles and Father couldn’t have been more different. For instance, when it came to getting permission to do almost anything, Father was probably the worst person in the world to have to ask, and Charles was pretty nearly the best. Carly tiptoed across the room and whispered in Charles’s ear.
“Where’s Father?”
“Apricot orchard,” Charles said without taking his eyes off the paper.
“Where’s Nellie?”
“Sh-sh-shopping.” Perhaps because of his stammer, Charles never said more than was absolutely necessary.
“And Lila?“
Charles nodded. “W-w-went too.”
Carly grinned. “May I go donkey riding with Matt?” she asked.
Charles had gone back to his paper. Carly poked him and whispered her request a little bit louder.
“Hmm. B-b-better ask Mama.”
“But she’s asleep. I don’t think we should wake her. Do you?”
Charles raised his head enough to peer over the top of his newspaper. He stared at Mama for several seconds and then for several more seconds he nodded his head. “G-g-guess not,” he said at last, and went back to his paper.
Carly decided that was as close to a yes as was necessary, and tiptoed discreetly out of the room. A quick trip to the attic and then a detour into the pantry and she had collected everything she needed and stashed it all in a deep pouch formed by the bunched-up skirt of her pinafore. Then she flew out the back door for the second time within ten minutes.
No one was in the backyard, but a lot of excited barking was coming from behind the toolshed. Matt waited there because, like most people, he was scared of Father, and ordinarily it was a good hiding place. But not if Tiger was around, because he knew donkeys meant that somebody was going somewhere, and of course he wanted to go too. Tiger loved going places. Arthur said it was a good thing dogs didn’t have souls, because Tiger would have traded his in for a good walk any day of the year.
“All right, Tiger, you can go,” Carly told him, and he immediately began to celebrate by running around and around the donkeys at top speed with his tail tucked between his legs. Tiger always ran in circles when he was excited, going so fast that his whole body sloped in toward the center of the circle, like a flying bird tilting into a turn. Rosemary watched him nervously as he circled past, her head flipping from side to side, but Barney only blinked sleepily every time the four-legged comet orbited past his nose. Dodging to avoid being run down, Carly yelled, “Stop it! Stop that this minute, you crazy dog.” Tiger went on running.
Safely inside Tiger’s racetrack, she fished around in her pinafore pouch and brought out two bags. “Cookies,” she said, dropping them into the saddlebags that hung across Barney’s shaggy back. “And oranges.”
Matt peered into the still bulging pouch formed by Carly’s pinafore. “What else you got in there?” he asked.
“Costumes,” Carly said. “This one’s for you.” She pulled out a black felt hat and handed it to Matt. It had been a ladies’ hat once, but with its veil and flowers removed it looked quite a bit like a gentleman’s derby. As Matt examined it doubtfully, she produced a boy’s school-cap that she had reupholstered with a plaid material. “And this one is a deerstalker’s cap, like Sherlock wears. I’ve got other stuff too—trousers and coats and vests—but the donkeys would get it all dirty. So we’ll just wear the hats today. Okay?”
Matt argued, protesting that he didn’t want to wear no ladies’ hat, but after Carly assured him that it looked just like the one Dr. Watson was wearing in the illustration in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” he finally gave in.
“Well, all right, but I’m giving you fair warning—if we meet anybody, I’m going to sit on it,” he muttered as he tried to tug Barney’s head up out of the grass patch. Then he noticed what Carly was doing. “Lordy, Carly,” he said in a screeching whisper. “What are you doing now?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Carly said. “I’m taking off my shoes and stockings.”
“Why?” Matt wailed. “We got to get going.”
Like a lot of Matt’s “whys,” that was one Carly didn’t intend to answer. It ought to be obvious. Riding bareback on a donkey was a hairy, sweaty business, and legs were a lot easier to wash than white stockings. But to explain that, one would have to use the word legs, which, of course, was not a proper thing to say in mixed company.
“Why not?” she said as she tucked the stockings into her shoes and hid them in the hedge. “You’re barefoot.”
“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”
That was a sore point. Carly had been through dozens of arguments about why boys got to go barefoot all summer and girls, at least girls in the Hartwick family, never did. Giving Matt her version of the glare that Arthur called “Father’s bone-chiller,” she jumped up on her stomach across Rosemary’s back, swung her leg over, and set off at a sharp trot.
“I’m not a girl,” she called as she whizzed past, leaving Barney and Matt in a cloud of dust. “I’m Sherlock Holmes.” She was nearly to where the Ridge Trail turned off from the Hamilton Valley Road before she slowed Rosemary down and let Barney catch up.
Chapter 8
AT FIRST THE trail wound up through low, rolling foothills and Carly and Matt were able to ride side by side—if Carly held Rosemary in and Matt kept up a steady tattoo on Barney’s ribs. As the donkeys made their way slowly across dry creek beds and between clumps of oaks and madrones, Tiger scouted around them in a frenzy of excited sniffing, and Carly tried to explain about Sherlock Holmes and the art of being a detective.
“Like in ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,’” she said, “—there’s an old hat that a friend of Sherlock’s found with a goose—”
“The goose was wearing a hat?” Matt interrupted in a sarcastic tone of voice.
“No, ninny! Just be still and let me finish. The goose was dead. Somebody had dropped it, along with the old hat, on the sidewalk, and this friend brought them both to Sherlock Holmes. And it turned out the goose had a precious jewel in its craw, so Sherlock examined the hat to find out whose it was. And just by examining the hat with a magnifying glass he found out all kinds of things about the man who dropped it.”
“Like what?”
“Well, guess. What do you think he found out?”
“Okay, I’ll guess. Wait a minute. Lemme think.”
Lost in thought, Matt forgot about kicking, and by the time he came up with an answer Barney had fallen several yards behind. Carly watched him over her shoulder.
“Okay. I got it,” he yelled finally. “Pull up a minute.”
Carly stopped Rosemary, and Matt thumped Barney’s ribs so soundly that he broke into a bone-jarring trot. “Okay,” Matt said proudly as he reined in, clutching his derby to keep it from flying off. “He knew how big the man’s head was, and how rich he was, and if he had cooties. How’s that?”
Carly smiled indulgently. “And,” she said, “that he had been rich but now he was poor, and that he was a drunkard, and that he was pretty old, and what kind of hair tonic he used, and that he didn’t have gaslight in his house even though most people in London did by then, and that his wife didn’t love him anymore.”
“Shucks,” Matt said, “I don’t believe that. Do you?”
“Sure I do. That was easy for Sherlock Holmes. All he had to do was observe, and that’s what I’m going to learn how to do.”
“Yeah?” Matt said. “Why?”
“Well,” Carly said, “it’s just that…” and then she stopped. She knew why. It was just hard to put into words. It was hard to explain why the idea of being able to look at things—simple, ordinary, everyday things—and be able to learn all kinds of secrets from them, was so terribly exciting. Exciting in some ways like being invisible would b
e exciting. Except that with being invisible you’d be able to see and hear everything because no one would know you were there. And with observing you could be right there, and people would be trying to hide all the most interesting secrets from you, just like always, and you’d be able to read all the answers from simple ordinary objects—like from a dirty fingernail, or a bit of blotting paper, or an old felt hat.
“Look,” Matt said suddenly, “there’s my house. Did you know you could see our place from here?”
They were on the ridge trail by now, high up on the side of the mountain, and below them was Grizzly Flats. Dan Kelly, Mart’s grandfather, had always dry-farmed wheat and barley in the high valley, when he wasn’t off tramping around in the wilderness prospecting for gold. According to Aunt M., who’d been a friend of the Kellys’ for years, he’d never found any gold and he’d not had much more luck with his farming. But he’d gone right on trying and he and his wife, Maggie, had raised their big family right there in the little house on the Flats. After their own children grew up and went away, Dan and Maggie were alone for a while, but then one of their daughters died and left a little motherless boy. So Matt had come to live with the Kellys, just about the time that Carly came to live with her own family at the ranch house.
Looking out over the Flats, Matt and Carly rested the donkeys and watched while far down below Maggie came out of the back door carrying a bucket and crossed the yard to the pigsty. After she went back into the house they went on up the steep, winding path toward the ridge.
By the time they finally reached the top, the donkeys were sweaty and winded again from the long climb. Matt and Barney had fallen behind, so Carly dismounted while she waited for them to catch up. Her legs felt a little bit stiff and achy, and very sticky. Reaching under her dress, she tugged at her underthings where they were stuck to her legs by donkey sweat. Then she shook first one leg and then the other and swished her skirt around to create a cooling breeze. Rosemary watched with a thoughtful expression on her pretty donkey face, and then she lowered her head and shook herself violently.
And Condors Danced Page 4
