by Van Reid
“That’s not a problem, Maven. And call me Sundry, please.”
“I can’t understand how they got off at the wrong station,” said Maven. He shook his head solemnly, and it was clear that he felt bad about losing them. “I’d hate to tell the Sparks if they can’t be found.”
Sundry wondered whether they should wait for the next southbound train or if it would be quicker to hire a carriage and ride back to Vassalboro. He turned to look up the tracks, after the departing line of cars, and was startled to see Robin Oig standing at the very end of the caboose with his oversized oar stuck out from under the canopy.
Sundry raised a hand and waved to the sailor, who looked amazed to see the man he was following left behind. Robin Oig had been leaning against the back wall of the caboose, and he now stood and craned his neck to be sure of what he did see. Sundry watched as the man studied the tracks and the ground whizzing beneath and past the train; then the caboose disappeared around the next bend.
“Do you know people up to Brownville?” asked Maven.
34. Lillie in the Fields
They went straight through the station house when the next southbound train dropped them off at Vassalboro. Sundry stood on the wooden sidewalk, looking up and down the main street as if the Rings and Jeffrey Normell would be waiting for him.
“My goodness’ sakes!” said Maven.
“What is it?” said Sundry.
“I don’t see them.”
It had taken Sundry and Maven a little more than an hour to return to this depot, getting off at Hayden Corner and waiting for the next southbound train. Sundry went back inside the station, and there the ticket man remembered the trio that had arrived earlier. “They might’ve hired a rig,” he said when Sundry asked where they had gone.
The livery down the street seemed deserted. Sundry called two or three times at the barn before a head peeked in through a back door. The man had just returned from the necessary, and he looked in a contemplative mood while Sundry described the “two men and a kid.”
“They took a rig,” said the liveryman. “Heading for Winslow, they said. The big fellow did most of the talking. He said the other was ailing and they were heading for a doctor. I told them Doc Domus was just a nick up the road, and they allowed how they’d stop by and see what he could do. I think a stiff charge of rum was about all that fellow needed, if you ask me.”
Sundry hadn’t, but he resisted saying so. While Maven peered about at things, sneezing at the hay dust, Sundry explained to the liveryman that he was looking for a horse and saddle and wanted to buy them. The liveryman thought the two men had come in together, and he asked Sundry about his friend.
Sundry let out a sigh and stood with his hands on his hips. “Maven,” he said, which startled the fellow. “It sounds as if the Rings went north from here. I’m going to buy a horse and saddle and try to catch them.”
“You have to catch them first?” wondered Maven. It was a moment before Sundry realized that Maven thought he was speaking of the horse and saddle. “I am amazed!” said Maven when this misapprehension had been corrected.
“Yes, but are you ready to head back to Portland?”
“No, no. I’ll go with you. I wouldn’t like to go back till we find them. Horace was quite sure I could do it.”
Sundry nodded, took another breath, and said, “Can you ride a horse?”
Maven thought about this and nodded, but not with great energy or conviction.
“Do you have any money?” asked Sundry.
As it happened, he did. The Sparks had taken up a collection for his trip from concerned patrons of the Faithful Mermaid. (Horace himself had ponied up two two-dollar bills.) Still, it was not quite enough to get Maven on a horse. Sundry made up the difference.
“I thought they had food on trains,” said Maven.
“We got off the train, Maven.”
“My, but you’re right!” He thought that Mr. Moss’s perceptiveness almost rivaled Horace McQuinn’s.
The liveryman squinted at them. He led Sundry over to the stables and talked up one or two of the horses before Sundry made a quick decision on a dark mare. Maven got talking with a dappled gelding that appeared gentle.
“And a couple of saddles?” asked Sundry.
“I haven’t much for sale,” said the liveryman, but he dragged one old piece of gear out from a corner and a second saddle from an outbuilding behind the barn. Sundry harnessed the mare while the liveryman helped Maven with Topper.
“What do you call her?” asked Sundry about the mare.
“Name of Lillie.”
Sundry stopped in the midst of tightening the cinch and looked over the horse’s withers at the liveryman. “That’ll be odd,” he said.
“Is that your sweetheart’s name?”
“No. My mother’s.”
“There’s that bay we passed by,” suggested the man.
“What’s her name?”
“P they call her.”
“Oh?”
“Stands for Priscilla.”
Sundry threw his arms over the saddle and considered the liveryman as if he hadn’t seen him before. “Do I know you?” he asked with an odd expression.
“I don’t think so,” said the liveryman.
Sundry led the dark mare out of the shadow of the barn. Topper was disobligingly walking in circles with Maven’s foot in his stirrup, requiring the fellow to hop on his free foot to keep up. Once he had his fill of this, the liveryman caught the gelding’s head, and Maven was able to make a pretty good show of mounting the animal.
Sundry climbed into the saddle and stroked the mare’s neck. He didn’t know which was the larger responsibility—finding the Rings or not losing Maven. The liveryman squinted some more. Sundry rode the mare around the yard a couple of times, then leaned down to pat her neck again.
“She handles pretty nicely,” said the liveryman.
Sundry agreed. “How are you making out there, Maven?” Topper had taken to walking circles again.
“He’ll follow her, I’m guessing,” said the liveryman, pointing first to the gelding and then to the mare.
Sundry nodded.
“Were those people trouble?” asked the liveryman.
“No,” said Sundry. “I owe them money.” He counted out the required bills for the horses and gear, thanked the man, and spoke, not to Maven but to Topper. Then he rode out of the yard, and the gelding seemed willing to follow. On the road and heading north, he looked back to be sure that Maven was keeping up and saw the liveryman still standing outside the big barn doors of the livery. Maven’s feet were out ahead of the saddle, his knees unbent, so that he looked like a man trying to brake himself down a steep hill.
It was not long before they reached the house described by the liveryman as belonging to Dr. Domus, but Mrs. Domus said her husband was out on a call and she hadn’t seen anyone since early this morning when Clay Stale came by with a rip in his shoulder from tousling with a bull. Not half a mile on, they came to a part in the road, the inner angle of which cradled a small cape. An old woman sat in front, sewing in the afternoon sun. They took the better-worn road that pointed north, but just as the little house was about to disappear behind him, Sundry wheeled the mare around and led the way back.
“Nice afternoon,” he said to the old woman.
“That’s why I’m out in it,” she said without looking up from her work.
“We were trying to catch some friends—” he began.
“Then you’re going about it wrong,” she said.
“Are we?”
“The only people you could be catching up with came through here—oh, an hour and a half, almost two hours ago, headed east there.” She did not look up but gave a nod in that direction.
“East?”
“Well, near east. It’ll take you more or less east. That’s where they went. Kind of in a hurry, I thought. They raised a power of dust. I went back inside till it cleared.”
Sundry tipped his hat
and thanked the old woman. Maven didn’t have a hat, but he made a stalwart salute, temporarily lost control of his mount, then trotted off with a joggly sounding “Thank you, ma’am.”
The old woman looked up and called out, “Take care, young man.”
The road dipped, and it rose again, heading northeast for half a mile and toward a tall hill that Sundry imagined commanded the sort of view he was in need of. He hoped that the road would take them there; the land hereabouts was without any great amount of forest, and he might be able to spot a carriage or its dust from some distance away. But the road veered almost directly east, and they followed their shadows past an ancient cellar hole, down into a wet hollow where a marsh was taking hold, a smooth shelf of rock glowed in the sunlight, and willows grew in a tangle over a small stream. The sight of running water made Sundry realize that he was thirsty, and this made him remember that he was hungry.
What am I doing? he wondered. He had ridden off without a thought to food, and here it was well past noon; the Rings and Mr. Normell had taken the box of sandwiches that Mrs. Spark had given Sundry, and neither Maven nor Sundry had eaten a bite since leaving the Faithful Mermaid that morning. Sundry stepped down from the saddle, eased the horse up to the stream, and stretched out by the water, upstream of the animal.
A moment later Topper came splashing into the stream, and Maven dithered back and forth on the saddle, trying to decide how to dismount and also how to dismount without getting wet. While the gelding’s broad stomach was straddling the stream, this last problem was not to be solved, and Maven didn’t. Sundry was a beat too late trying to catch the man as he pitched out of the saddle and into the water.
“I am amazed!” said Maven when he had righted himself. He was soaked to the skin, water spewed from his face when he spoke, and even his cowlick drooped. Topper jumped away from the floundering man, and Sundry only just caught hold of the animal’s reins before the gelding had the chance to bolt. Sundry almost imagined he could hear laughter.
Maven made an effort to walk out of the stream but went upstream instead of to either side. Sundry caught hold of Maven’s collar and somehow managed to get them all—mare, gelding, and Maven—onto dry turf.
“That was a near thing,” said Sundry.
“I am dolorous,” said Maven.
“Are you still thirsty?” asked Sundry.
“I think I’ve had enough, thank you,” said Maven. He looked like a man who has lost his hat, then like a man who remembers that he doesn’t wear one.
When Sundry had slaked his own thirst, and a little more conventionally, he stood and surveyed the road and the land thereabout. There was a farm house off to the south and stone walls and wooden fences enclosing a large acreage to the east. It was June, and the grasses hadn’t yet reached a person’s calves. The countryside was sparse of trees, and he could see past a crease in the land toward the east that he suspected banked more running water, to a hill beyond. There was a deeper shade of green to the south of the hill—a grove, perhaps—but he could see no movement or sign of life except a dark wedge of wings circling over that fold in the land.
Maven sat on the grass, holding Topper’s reins, and the gelding almost knocked his rider over, nudging him. Sundry thought he heard a tickle of laughter behind him—a light, airy sound that carried on the breeze so that he could not be sure of it. He watched the slope to the west where dandelions and king devil bobbed untidily around the old cellar hole.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Maven.
“What was that?” asked Maven.
“Someone laughing.”
Maven looked around.
“Who was it?”
Sundry shook his head. Then he heard it again and was sure a woman was laughing. He had the uneasy notion that someone was observing them from the little knoll beyond the ancient stonework. Another day, perhaps, he would have gone back and looked.
They returned to the road, Maven dripping, and Sundry tried to read the marks he found there. He was not a trained tracker and could only hope that the newest-looking ruts were made an hour or so ago by those he followed. More like two hours, the old woman said, and they haven’t been stopping to ask directions, presumably, but know where they’re going. Or Mr. Normell does.
Sundry had been subject to a hundred speculations. Who was Mr. Normell? And did he and Burne Ring have some history together? What were their motives for leaving the train without him? And were their motives alike? Burne was perhaps only wanting a drink, and Mr. Normell had taken advantage of that for his own purposes. Sundry wondered where the nearest law was, then wondered what the law could do about a man taking off with his own child. A small shudder ran through Sundry, and Lillie sensed this, for she shied away from him when he tried to mount her again.
“Come on, girl,” he said, patting her side. “Good girl.” He stroked her face and said, “Lillie.” He didn’t know if he could accustom himself to that name; but the mare’s ears went up, and she seemed calmer. Sundry stepped into the saddle, and they trotted a few yards before he thought to pull up and inquire after Maven.
Maven Flyce was more or less in the saddle, and Topper was more or less progressing up the road. Sundry waited for Maven to catch up. Facing the hill that they had just left behind, he half expected to see someone step out from the old cellar hole—a bonneted head, a flash of brightly colored skirt. There was nothing, not even laughter, and they recommenced their progress north and east.
“I don’t know how that happened,” Maven was saying. He was still dripping. “I was so surprised.”
35. Proof the Day Would End
The ramble-down shack at the side of the road looked to Melanie like an ancient man whose face had fallen into his jowls and his jowls into his neck. Two bleary windows reflected the shadows of the surrounding grove of hardwood, and weeds grew like stubble round the front stoop. There was even a gone-wild stand of bamboo (brought years ago by some sailor fresh from the Orient) lifting its leafy stalks from behind the hut like unkempt hair. That dark hollow through which an unseen stream rippled beneath the sound of birds was Melanie’s first hint that the startling day would end. The sun had barely entered this place, and her eyes, dazzled by the brilliant fields and bright and cloudless skies, could not discern beyond the hut or between the trees on the other side of the road.
Her father had passed through a terrible fit of the shakes, and with the movement of the carriage she could not be sure if he was still breathing. Since she could remember, she had known a quiet fear of finding him lifeless in the shack by the railroad tracks below Munjoy Hill or, in more recent days, on his rough pallet in the old coal room beneath Pearce Eddy’s flophouse. Many a time she had come back to one of these places and stood over his racked and intoxicated form to listen for the rale of his breathing or to peer after the shiver of a muscle.
To begin with, she had gone with her father and Mr. Normell without argument. Mr. Normell had leaned across the aisle to Burne Ring, who heard in the portly man’s whisper something that roused him from his terrible withdrawal and onto his feet. “Come,” her father had said, mumbling one name or another, and she had followed them quietly enough.
“Where’s Mr. Moss?” was all she asked, and—almost musically—Mr. Normell replied, “Mr. Moss knows where he can find us. Come along.” When she realized that Mr. Normell was hurrying them—that he was in a sudden and highly nervous state—she stopped on the platform at Vassal-boro and said, “We should wait for Mr. Moss.”
Burne Ring may have resented Mr. Moss and, in fact, he may have resented the Sparks and Dr. Hermann and everyone else who had offered help, for an unfamiliar anger lit his face, and he growled as he caught hold of her elbow and tugged her almost from her feet. She had let out a shout or two, hoping that Mr. Moss would hear her or that she could delay them long enough till he found them missing from their seats and came looking.
But Mr. Normell had said, “Nothing to be frightened of. Your father is very ill. Don’t be pulling
on him.” Then he swept her up beneath a pudgy arm and marched with her through the station house and into the main street.
The conductor came down onto the platform and frowned at her.
The carriage Mr. Normell hired was an open chaise with two seats, and the horse a lean white mare with a frisk in her step. The day itself was the picture of driving weather, and the open fields, golden with dandelions and yellow hawkweed, might have elicited admiration even from a six-year-old under other circumstances. Once they were off the main road, Mr. Normell glanced back only a time or two.
“Is Mr. Moss coming?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “He knows where to find us.”
“Will he come then?”
“Oh, yes. Certainly. I couldn’t miss. Dowsing is not just for water, you know.” He looked over his shoulder.
“Do you dowse?”
“Oh, yes, my boy. There isn’t a member of my family who can pick up an apple stick near water without having it snap in his hands.”
Melanie took this in, casting back through recent happenstance and conversation, but she could not make very much from this information. “Why did you want Mr. Moss?” she asked.
“Why, indeed!” he said, and what she could see of his face grew a little hard. “Why, indeed. You are a very astute young man.” A sharp thought occurred to him, and he glanced back at her, then faced the road and shook his head.
Melanie pressed against her father’s frail body, hoping to cushion him against the movement of the carriage. His head lolled back and forth when they came to a corner, and she cradled it in her small arm.
“Are you taking us to a doctor?” she had asked flatly. She was afraid her father would fall out.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Normell. “We will find someone to take care of your dear father. Don’t you worry.”
“I think he’s dying,” she said, and she thought the portly man would stop the horse again.
Instead he sat motionless, except for the rocking of the carriage, and stared at her openmouthed. “Oh, no,” said Mr. Normell. “Not at all. Don’t you worry.” It was an hour or so later that he took the carriage off the main road and brought them to the decrepit house at the edge of a dim copse.
