by Van Reid
There were sounds coming from the next room and voices from outside.
She didn’t think this very different from sitting up with her father when they were living below the Portland wharves, except that it was in choicer surroundings and there would be no answering rale from him when she keened her ear against the silence. She imagined what the Sparks would have done if her father had died in their bed and tried not to think how very much better off she would have been if he had. It puzzled her that he looked so much better; often when he was asleep, she feared he was dead, and now he looked as if he were sleeping, and peacefully.
She put her hand in her father’s open palm, and the rough fingers gave two or three sudden jerks. For a moment the little girl held her breath, holding his hand in hers. “Daddy,” she whispered.
Burne himself felt only surprise. “Well, not yet,” he said loud enough for his daughter to hear.
“Daddy,” said Melanie.
“Not yet,” he said again.
“They said you were dead,” she told him, so that the two statements seemed to have come out of order.
Burne lay quiet, trying to recall a dream about a crowd of people who all had been gifted with extraordinary hearing. Somehow they had been deafened to the level of common men, and they did not know when he told them, “Not yet.” He could hear himself, and any other person might have heard him; but these people, who had known such unusual perception, now mistook a whisper for silence.
“Mr. Moss will be coming,” said Melanie. “Mr. Normell says he will.”
“I’m awfully tired,” he said.
“I won’t tell them,” said Melanie to her father. She had not let go of his hand. “They won’t bother you if I don’t tell them. And then Mr. Moss will come.”
“I will wait for him,” said Burne. He looked at her from the corner of his eye, scarcely having moved from his deathly stillness. He was shocked to see that his daughter was only six years old.
41. Meeting Horace
“They call all of it Dutten,” said the boy whom Sundry and Maven caught up with about half a mile east of China Village. “They mean the pond and the woods, and the Normells and the Droones who live there. ‘Over to Dutten,’ they say.”
It was the right time of day to view that pond and those woods from a knoll south of the road and about a quarter of a mile southwest from the pond’s closest shore. A consummate June day was taking its long golden time to close shop, and the shadows of the people and horses atop the slope seemed fit to stretch forever across the yellowed fields. The faint hint of night sounds tested the air on the eastern slopes. A breeze from over by China Lake ruffled the grassy hilltop. Sundry took note of a carriage, though not the open chaise he was looking for, heading north and raising dust past the western perimeter of the pond.
“Mail stage,” said Henry Schmidt. About ten or eleven, he was the picture of bucolic youth with brown boots and overalls and an old white shirt, a hat that had once belonged to his father, perhaps, and a stem of June grass in his mouth. Sundry thought he knew the fellow well. “What’s your business over there?” asked the boy.
“I’m not entirely sure,” admitted Sundry. “A friend of mine is there.”
“With the Normells or the Droones?”
“Does it matter?”
Maven was gazing with such apparent awe at the pond that the boy reasonably thought the man must see something to warrant the expression. “I don’t know if it does,” said Henry, who stood beside Maven and squinted against the afternoon light.
“They have an odd character hereabouts, I’m told,” said Sundry. He was rubbing Lillie down with handfuls of wadded grass.
“They’re talked about, for sure.” Henry couldn’t see what Maven seemed to be looking at, so he pulled another stem of grass and fiddled with it. “People say they’re witches.”
“Oh, my!” said Maven.
Sundry did not evidence any skepticism or even any very strong opinion about this. To say that someone was a witch was not necessarily to say that they truly had any supernatural powers, though the implication was perhaps not far behind. Witch folk were not uncommon in the old hamlets, even in that recent generation, but they were often identified under other callings—herb doctors, people with second sight and evil eyes; even certain established churches had members with gifts that were not so far off from strange practices otherwise frowned upon. Earlier in the day, he had guessed at just such a reputation for the Droones and Normells while hearing about the two clans from the farmers at the stone wall.
“They call themselves dowsers,” said Henry. “They do have a talent for finding water, I guess. And other things.”
“Dowsers?” said Sundry. “Really?” Mr. Normell had said that he was looking for a dowser.
“Their old folks sleep all winter, like squirrels.”
“That might be convenient.”
“They call it hand sleep”
Sundry had heard similar tales of families in Edgecomb, but from years ago in his grandfather’s day. The elderly members of a household were put into a state of winter sleep by a means some called ‘the laying on of hands.’ Then the old people were wrapped in quilts and put in the cellar like cord wood or a sack of potatoes. It meant fewer mouths to feed through the lean months and in the spring old Aunt Mabel or Granny Skyler would be revived and refreshed for having slept through the winter doldrums. Sundry had never put much stock in such stories, but that didn’t mean he cherished walking among people they were told about.
“You don’t seem too worried,” said the boy with a grin.
“Is there anything else I should know?” asked Sundry.
The boy shook his head and Sundry liked him. There were some folk who would have made a hair-raising tale of it, but Henry Schmidt only chuckled. “Dad says it’s just a pond and a wood and people living in it.”
Sundry nodded. It was difficult to reconcile any sense of threat or danger with the scene before him. And yet, he wondered why Mr. Normell would take the trouble to run off with the Rings but first make certain that Sundry knew where they were going. And why had Mr. Normell asked after a dowser if his entire clan were famous for the gift?
“They’ve been out on the pond a lot the past few days,” said the boy.
“Is that unusual?”
“People noticed it.”
Sundry nodded. “Whoever owns this hill,” he said, “I trust he won’t mind if Maven and I sit down on it and take a meal.”
“Old Wilbur Post,” said the boy, “and he won’t much care.”
The travelers had stopped in China long enough for Sundry to pick up some sustenance at the local grocer’s, and the sacks hanging from Lillie’s saddle were proof enough of the dangers inherent in shopping on an empty stomach. “Crackers and canned herring?” he asked the boy.
Henry Schmidt laughed. “They’ll be looking for me at the dinner table,” he said, presumably, the intimation being, with something more to his taste.
“Pickles?” said Sundry. “Moxie? Canned biscuits and jam? I even thought to buy a can opener.”
“Did you?” said Maven.
Henry Schmidt waved as he descended the low hill to the road, then said “Good luck finding your friend,” and waved again as he crossed an angle of field and took the north road in the direction the mail stage had gone. While Lillie and Topper contentedly pulled grass, Sundry opened the sacks and picked through his purchases. He tossed Maven his can opener and a can of sardines.
The noisy confluence of afternoon and evening rose up around them—the birds and creatures of day saying good night and their nocturnal counterparts rousing themselves with the frog boom, the nighthawk’s squeaky gate cry, and what Sundry thought was the bark of a fox. The blackflies had retired, and the breeze was enough to ward off mosquitoes, though a vigorous fly, buzzing in the lee of the horse’s broad sides, did its best to annoy.
While he ate, Sundry wondered what lay beyond the pond and within the woods. Young Henry Schm
idt said that they had been out on the pond lately, without being specific between Droones and Normells, and deemed this unusual enough to have noticed it. He imagined Jeffrey Normell driving Melanie and her father in among those woods to the shore of that pond, and a wave of uneasiness washed over him.
It was such an odd business, to roam off with an ailing drunk and his six-year-old kid, that he could hardly imagine a suitable motive for it. If there had been a single added degree of menace to the affair, he might have looked up the local authorities, but however badly the man was ailing, Burne Ring would be deemed sufficient to his own choices, and of course, Melanie would come under her father’s heading.
But there was a degree of menace to it, if only the sort that is lured by negligence. If Burne Ring up and died, which seemed not unlikely, what would become of the little girl among strangers and under the aegis of a man who would steal her and her father away in the first place?
Sundry had decided to approach Dutten (as Henry deemed it) after sunset. He was unsure about steering through unfamiliar woods at night, but the moon’s attenuated disk was already pale in the east and would not be setting till well after midnight. The sky was clear, and he expected he would have some light to go by. He was more uncertain still of bringing Maven Flyce with him.
“Do you think you should stay up here, Maven?” asked Sundry, “or back down in the village while I go looking for the Rings?”
“I’d better go with you,” said Maven, looking wide-eyed and serious. “I promised the Sparks I’d look after them, and I’m awful sorry I fell asleep. Horace promised them I could do it, too.”
Sundry nodded. “I guess if Horace promised,” he said with some irony.
“Oh, yes,” said Maven. “He did.” Maven seemed to be gaping at a cloud that hung over the darkening east, but Sundry wondered if he was just thinking hard, or remembering, or wondering about something not plain before them.
It was too simple to say that Maven Flyce was simple, unless it was meant as praise. He was not complex by the common gauge of the world, but Sundry had watched him handle Topper with kindness and even deference, and the man with the remarkable cowlick was determined to fulfill his duty, though it was not self-imposed or even entirely comprehended.
“Have you known Horace a long time?” asked Sundry.
“My goodness!” said Maven. Sundry waited for more, but the fellow only continued to gape at the horizon and just when Sundry had grown accustomed to the lack of reply, Maven added, “I was having a terrible day. Poppa died, and they drove me out where we lived and never told me where they buried him. I slept some under a bridge and found a thing to eat here and there, till someone thought I might find something to do in Portland.” Maven thought about this for a while, or perhaps he needed to recoup his thoughts and his breath. Sundry had never heard him say so much in one draw.
“I hadn’t a notion those fellows were stealing chickens,” said Maven apologetically. “Goodness’ sakes!” He shook his head. “Goodness’ sakes! And I would have returned that milk bucket, once I got my foot unstuck, and I would have helped put the fence back together, too! But that farmer was some angry! Goodness, didn’t Horace laugh!”
“Horace was there?” said Sundry.
“‘You just leave old bucket-foot be,’ he said to the fellow. I was so astonished! He was talking about me,” Maven helpfully explained. “Then he gave the farmer an extra jar of rum and told him to call it good if he ever wanted to see any more. ‘Don’t worry about that bucket,’ he told me. ‘I paid for that, too.’ Then he told a poem about me and the bucket, but I can’t remember it.”
It was a picture. Sundry wondered how long ago this event had transpired. He guessed that Maven was thirty years old or more, but the incident with the chicken thieves and the milk bucket might have happened two decades or two years ago.
“And off we went,” said Maven. “I couldn’t have imagined!”
“I guess none of us could have imagined Horace McQuinn,” said Sundry. Horace of course would have denied the whole tale with a dismissive wave of the hand and a rude face.
“I didn’t!” said Maven. “I was so amazed!” He shook his head in awe.
He gaped at the horizon, and again Sundry wondered what the fellow might be thinking about.
“Look at that cloud!” said Maven.
42. Dutten Lane
Lillie had let out an unladylike snort, which may have wakened Sundry, or it may have been the mosquitoes that roused him. His back itched in several places that were complex to reach, and he stood up and rubbed his shoulder blades against Lillie’s saddle till he felt a little relief. The air had cooled considerably, and by the light of the moon’s portion he could see mist rise out of the hollows and skate the waters of Dutten Pond. Beyond Lillie, Topper stood at his tether, staring off in the direction of the pond, and further on lay Maven, huddled in sleep.
Shaking off an errant shiver, Sundry stroked the mare’s neck, then gathered up their small bit of gear. Maven sat up and gaped about confusedly till he remembered where he was, and then he only looked a little startled.
Sundry was tying the remains of their provisions on Lillie’s saddle, and looking at Maven over the mare’s back, he said, “It might be best if one of us stays here while the other one goes down to find out what the story is with this Mr. Normell.”
Maven’s mouth hung open, and his eyebrows came together in a frown of concentration. “OK,” he said. “I’ll go down. Where did they go?”
This of course was not what Sundry had in mind. “On second thought,” he said. He could hardly imagine leaving Maven here alone, so once he had finished packing, they led the horses down to the road. The animals had been standing in the cooling air while the men dozed, and Sundry thought they might be a little stiff; but they came willingly enough. He spoke quietly to Lillie when they reached the bottom of the hill, gently rubbing her shoulder. She nudged him, and he was glad to have her steady company.
Sundry Moss was no more than ordinarily superstitious, and by day he wasn’t even that. He was as familiar with tales of herb folk and witches as any country fellow would be. There had been people up Mount Hunger way, in Edgecomb, in his grandfather’s day (or so people said) who had practiced something like this laying on of hands that Henry Schmidt had talked about—putting the elder folk to sleep and rolling them in carpets on cellar shelves to wait out the winter. And there was also a stand of lilacs, up near Edgecomb Heights, that bloomed almost blood red every June, and the story was that a great herb man had been killed there by outlaws back in the days when old Parson Leach was still roaming the countryside.
Sundry was not unfamiliar with such tales, and if he took them “with a grain of salt,” like any good Yankee, he still didn’t discard them; it was hard to know when you might find use for the oddest item. Those stories lived inside him, dormant for the most part and on most days like something inherited rather than learned. A fascination, a predilection, and an apprehension of the mystic walk with the race of man, and our most practical associates can experience something dark and primitive when they are alone in the early mists of night, walking the vicinity of purported haunts and spellmakers.
Then again, Sundry had been known to say, “Just because you can swallow it, that doesn’t mean it’s good for you,” and he reminded himself of this as he neared the edge of the meadow between the road and the pond.
Farther along his present track, there was a road entering Dutten Wood, but he wondered if they would be wise to split some of that distance and ride the diagonal through the meadows and past the water. He thought the horses would mind their feet getting damp a lot less than he and Maven would their boots, so he swung atop Lillie and waited for Maven to mount before taking them into the field.
Lillie was a surefooted creature and not without her own foresight, so Sundry gave the mare a general direction and allowed her the specifics. Her broad chest broke the rising mists, and he had the illusion of riding above a thin cloud.
A loon laughed out on the pond and something moved past them, shushing the grasses beneath the fog. The pond gleamed dully in the moonlight, and the trees, as they approached, had the appearance of a solid battlement. He thought he had outsmarted himself when he came to a stone wall ranked with bushes on either side; but close to the pond, mounting over a stand of granite, he found a break among the rocks, and it was not long before they stepped onto the path that would take them into Normell territory.
Sundry peered up this lane and toward the main road. It was not thickly wooded here, and the moon leaked through a latticework of limbs and leaves to dapple the ground, and beyond the silhouettes of Maven and Topper, the end of the path glowed like a dimly lighted room. There was a gate by the main road that they had avoided, but he thought he caught the brief movement of a shadow there. In the other direction, further down the lane, which did in fact descend, the way appeared murky and dense.
Sundry wasn’t very sure what he planned to accomplish; probably he would simply get a sense of who and what was down here before he finally did the only thing he could think of, and that was to knock on the first likely door. He encouraged Lillie into the greater darkness.
It was a beautiful night, cool after a warm day, the damp, mist-haunted air rich with smells from tree and pond. It was sound that warned him first, but with the clop of eight hooves to account for, he had to pull up and wait for Maven to do the same before he could be sure of several deep thumps separate from Topper’s shuffling feet. A human cough from among the trees touched at the back of his neck like a cold hand.
Maven did not ask why they had stopped but leaned down as if he might hide behind his horse’s head. Another mount was moving from the direction of the main road. Sundry resisted the urge to look over his shoulder and was estimating the distance between themselves and this other rider when another set of hoofbeats sounded hollowly ahead of them. He didn’t notice that the immediate woods were quiet of any natural sounds till he heard, from a relative distance, the call of a whippoorwill.
