The Rejected Writers' Book Club (Southlea Bay)

by Suzanne Kelman

  Then, as if this were the funniest thing anyone had ever said, he rocked back, slapping his leg and laughing hysterically, baring all four of his blackened teeth in the process. His breath left something to be desired.

  I placed my hand strategically across my nose. “Do you come from around here?”

  He looked at me as if he’d never made small talk in his life, then, scratching at something in his hair, he said, “Do I come from around here? Course I come from around here! It’s not like I got a Lamborghini parked out front, you know, so I can shoot off to Vegas on a whim. I live as far as these two walkers will take me. Normally up into town and back.”

  Fed up with listening to me beating about the bush, Doris went straight for the jugular. “What are you really doing here?”

  “I told you, this is my house. I live here once or twice a year when the season changes and the snow comes, to shelter from it for a couple of days. There are usually a couple of cans knocking around in the cupboard to keep me entertained.” He picked at his teeth again. “I leave the place as clean as a whistle when I go. It’s kind of a game with me. I think of myself as the cat burglar of Siskiyou Pass. ’Cept I don’t steal anything, save a couple of old cans or so. I just like to live it up for a couple of days and let my bones catch up and then be on my way.”

  He narrowed his eyes then as if we were the intruders.

  “Usually we don’t see city folk up here till a couple of days after the snow comes. Then they all come up here in their fancy German cars with their little white snow suits and pink booties, cars all full of kids and skiing gear.” He tutted heavily, like skiing was way up there with washing.

  “We got trapped behind a rockslide,” said Flora, smiling at him as she sat next to him on the bench.

  Doris still wasn’t having any of it. “I don’t care who you are and where you came from. You need to leave once you finish your drink.”

  Ronald looked thunderstruck. “What! You would throw an old bag of bones like me out into the snow just like that?”

  “Snow! What snow?!”

  He looked at Doris as if she were stupid. “The snow. It’s snowing outside! That’s what snow.”

  “It isn’t snowing outside,” said Doris, gruffly. “It’s raining.”

  Ronald rocked back in his seat and laughed again. “I’m a lot of things, but I am not stupid, and unless that is the fattest, fluffiest rain I have ever seen—and I wouldn’t put it past my old eyes to trick me, but my bones will tell me every single time—it’s been snowing out there for hours!”

  Flora went to the hallway and pulled the door open. Doris and I joined her. Sure enough, it was bucketing down outside. There had to be at least a foot already, and it appeared to show no sign of stopping in the near future.

  “No!” I exclaimed, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

  “We’ll never get out today,” groaned Flora, reading my thoughts.

  “Never is about right,” said Doris. “And what are we going to do about that piece of work in the kitchen?”

  “We can’t turn him out into this snow,” said Flora. “He came in here to get away from it.”

  “We should keep our eyes on him,” said Doris suspiciously. “One of us should watch him at all times.”

  Ronald joined us, standing in the hallway. We smelled him before we saw him.

  “I hope none of you ladies are wanted by the law and need to make a fast getaway or anything,” he said, looking up at the sky as he linked his arm in Annie’s and mine. He gave us all a broad, gummy smile before adding, “’Cause we could be trapped up here together for weeks!”

  Ethel looked as if she were going to pass out on the spot as Doris muttered, “Nonsense,” under her breath and moved away from the door. Then over her shoulder, she shouted back, “We have places to go, and as soon as it stops, we’ll be out of here and on our way.”

  She sounded severe, but not certain.

  “In the meantime”—she marched toward the bedroom—“I am going back to bed till it’s a decent time to get up!” Then, as an afterthought, she looked at Ronald and added, “I’m locking my bedroom door, just in case you were wondering.”

  She disappeared down the corridor, Ethel following as they slammed the bedroom door shut.

  Ronald didn’t skip a beat. He shouted after her, “No need to get your panties in a bunch, there, Frosty the Snow Queen. You’re not exactly my type.”

  “I’m going back to bed,” I yawned, starting to feel tired again.

  “I’m happy to stay out here and keep Ronald company,” said Annie cheerfully. “Would you like some stew, Ronald?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  Lying in bed, I alternated between looking at the sheeted moose head and out the bedroom window, where fluffy cotton snow fell silently. What was I doing here in the back of beyond when I should be at home with my husband? I looked down at my phone again. Still no signal. I was now well and truly homesick, and my fear about not being in touch with Stacy was escalating.

  The next morning, there was a soft rap on my door. It was Flora.

  “Am I disturbing you?” she inquired.

  “No,” I said, lifting myself up onto one arm and patting the edge of the bed, inviting her in. She perched like a wayward sparrow.

  “I’m just a little blue,” she said after a long pause.

  “You’re missing Dan,” I responded with a knowing smile.

  “We’ve only known each other for a couple of days, but . . .” She appeared to be searching for the right words. “But now I feel lost without him.”

  “Like the other half of you is missing,” I filled in the blanks.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry; that’s normal.”

  “Can I share something?” she asked gently. “I’m entertaining the thought of moving off the island.”

  “Maybe to Portland?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m not making any major decisions yet, but for the first time in my life, I want something more than what the island can offer me. What do you think?” she asked, like a little girl.

  “I think it’s a little bit early to be thinking too seriously. But if in five or six months’ time, things have progressed and you and Dan are getting further along in the relationship, I wouldn’t think anything will be able to keep you on the island.” I slid to the end of the bed. “Let’s get a cup of tea.” I patted her hand. She nodded.

  We made our way to the kitchen, passing Annie and Ronald, who were sitting at the small table in the front room. We were just in time to see Ronald slam down a playing card, then jump to his feet excitedly, shouting, “Snap again!” He threw back his head and laughed a hearty belly laugh, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

  I put the kettle on, and Flora climbed up onto one of the little black stools at the island just as Doris came in to make herself a drink.

  “I saw Ronald Tramp is still here,” she said as she stomped around the kitchen. “I suppose I’ll be expected to feed him too.” She sniffed hard. “I only hope we aren’t here till spring. I only have enough food for a week or so. And he looks like the hungry type.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A GHOST THAT EATS PIE

  We moped around the next day, drinking tea and playing endless games of cards. As the afternoon wore on, Flora shared her favorite poems with me.

  “I love to write them,” she informed me quietly as she opened the smooth leather cover of her journal, and handed it to me. “They help me say the things that are in my heart that I’m scared to say.”

  Annie passed around photos of her dogs. All fifty of them.

  “They are all adorable,” I admitted as I looked at their eager faces, shiny brown-button eyes, and lolloping tongues.

  “And so much fun.” Annie beamed, her face alive. “That’s why I have to write about them; their little funny ways bring me so much joy each da
y.”

  We also ate Doris’s creations. Cooking kept her busy, and that, in the process, also seemed to stop her worrying about her momma. Then at around four o’clock, without any warning, the lights went out and the fridge shuddered to a stop.

  “Oh great,” snapped Doris. “As if things couldn’t get any worse, now the power’s out!”

  We lit all the candles we could find and placed them around. As the evening drew in, we gravitated like moths to the fireside.

  I was standing in the kitchen when Flora came back in. She’d been walking in the snow. Her cheeks were reddened from the cold. “It’s stopped snowing. I think we can leave tomorrow,” she announced.

  Doris balked. “I doubt it. Good thing I managed to cook an apple pie earlier today, but as I haven’t learned how to cook over a candle yet, there’s only bread and a bunch of cold cuts for our dinner.”

  Flora tried to rally us. “Let’s eat around the fire,” she suggested excitedly, like a child wanting to play a game. She ran to get a large woolen blanket from her room, laid it on the carpet, and then clustered candles together on the side tables.

  “It’s just like a little winter picnic,” remarked Annie with delight as she settled down on the floor close to the fire to work on her latest project, a pair of thick woolen socks for Ronald.

  His Highness at that particular moment was splayed out across the ugly gargoyle sofa, snoring loudly. Doris and Ethel brought in the supper and, as if on cue, like an old dog, Ronald stirred. “Is that food I smell?”

  Doris placed meat, cheese, bread, and the apple pie on the table and fixed him with an icy stare. “Yes. Less than I thought, as I’m feeding more people.”

  Ronald yawned. “I sense the ice maiden is unhappy with me. How ’bout I pay you for my supper?”

  “Pay me,” Doris scoffed. “What a good idea.”

  “That would be fine,” he said, scratching at something in his layers, then thrusting his hands into his pant pockets and pulling them inside out. “Unfortunately, I didn’t bring any copper with me. But I could entertain ya if ya like.”

  “Oh, dear God. Tell me you’re not going to sing,” retorted Doris, horrified, as she handed out napkins. She made sure to give double the amount to Ronald, who just looked at them in bewilderment, then shrugged and stuffed them into his empty pockets.

  “No,” he said indignantly. “I sing as bad as a pig in a noose. But I do tell a mean ghost story.”

  “Oh, good!” said Annie, clapping her hands together. “I love ghost stories.”

  “Do we have to?” implored Flora. “I would rather play cards.”

  “Cards?” snapped Ronald, with disgust. “This ’ere story could save ya life, and you wanna play cards?” Then he added in an eerie voice, “You, my girl, would be the first to go . . . when he comes.”

  Flora’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, he comes?”

  “You’d ’ave to hear the story to know, won’t ya?” said Ronald, reverting to his normal voice and playfully popping a piece of cheese into his mouth.

  “Come on,” I encouraged. “It’s going to be a long night as it is. We may as well enjoy a good yarn.”

  Doris huffed again as she handed out the pie and sat down to listen. Ronald leaned forward to take a slice, and Doris slapped his hand. “Story first, pie after. If I think it’s worth anything,” she said sternly, her lips set in a tight line.

  Ronald screwed up his nose and snatched up a candle from the table. Then, ceremoniously, in true storytelling fashion, he took his place in front of the odious fireplace, in which Annie had managed to coax a roaring fire into life. Throwing back his potato-sack cape and pushing away matted dreadlocks from his grimy face, he stood still, and his voice became quiet and intentional as he began.

  “This terrible tale I’m gonna tell y’all were told to me by me granddaddy, his granddaddy, and his granddaddy before him. It’s told to every young’un along this side of the creek to warn ’em, so it never, ever happens again.”

  Nervously, he started to pace back and forth, and his voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

  “This house you are sitting in is part of this very story. If these walls ’ere could speak, they’d say . . .” He paused, stopped pacing, and darted his eyes about the room, then he raised his arms and splayed out his sticklike fingers, his voice building to fever pitch as he said, “Travelers beware! Beware! Beware!”

  He paused for effect. All that could be heard was the quiet scraping of forks on plates. We were riveted.

  As the fire danced and crackled behind him, he resembled an odd woodland sprite, his silhouette casting a mischievous shadow across the walls as he stood there. He took a deep breath and began.

  “It happened all the way back in 1845, during the gold rush. It were a mighty crazy time back then, and the mountains out here were full t’ the brim with heaps of gold. So people came from all over, in droves like flies to shh—poop. They came to pan. One family that came up ’ere . . . were the Grants.”

  Ronald stopped, and his wild eyes danced around us as if he were hoping that name would mean something to us. As no one responded, he tutted, and continued.

  “Well, Thaddeus Grant built wheels for carriages, and he had’ta leave his home in Kansas because there were no water there, nothing, zip. It t’all gone and dried up.”

  “I remember reading about that in school,” mused Annie, taking a mouthful of pie.

  Ronald picked up his story. “If there be no farmers, then there be no wagons for ’im to fix. So one day, he just made up his mind, he did. He decided to follow ’em. Thaddeus packed up everything he owned and took his wife, Beth, and their two biddy children, Theo and Ruth, on that terrible, long journey to Oregon. He had to watch ov’r his shoulder for Indians as he went.”

  Ronald started to pantomime a man packing and riding in a wagon, flashing his eyes from side to side as if he were keeping a look out. Flora clapped her hands together, obviously enchanted by the fun of it. Ethel just blew her nose, and Doris shook her head.

  He brushed back a stray dreadlock. “He had planned to set up shop in Medford, but he never got there.”

  Ronald stopped to take a deep breath for effect; then he pulled the candle close to his face so it illuminated his dirty, ragged, sandy-colored beard. His tone became measured.

  “Oh, if only he’d kept going.” He looked across the room, above our heads, lost in that thought, and then ever so slowly he nodded his head.

  This was quite a performance.

  He snapped back into storytelling mode. “On his journey to Medford, Thaddeus was making his way over the top of the pass. It was an awful stormy night, and he and his family were badly in need of warming their bones in front of a roaring fire. Anyhow, as he rounded the mountain, suddenly outta nowhere a mudslide were upon ’em. His family were all a-yelling and a-hollering somethin’ awful as the wagon was battered and buffeted by all the mud and rocks, like.”

  Ronald fought to control his imaginary horse as he continued.

  “He rode the horse hard, pulling his carriage this way and more, ’n’ once he nearly wenna fell clear off of the side of the mountain.”

  Ronald acted out pulling the horses hard left and then hard right before finally bringing them to an imaginary stop.

  I let go of a breath. Ethel was perched on the edge of her seat like a squirrel about to pounce for nuts. Flora had pulled her blanket tightly around her shoulders, and she gripped a pillow to her chest. Even Doris seemed to be listening.

  Ronald started again. “But Thaddeus were a-best of-a carriage drivers, and he saved all their lives. The only thing were-a broke was ’is wheel. They made camp for the night. In the morning, he set about fixing it. As he were-a working, another wagon came over the pass, struck a boulder, and cracked a wheel just like he had-a done. The driver was mighty happy to see a man that could fix ’em right up, right there on the pass, and Thaddeus saw it as a sign.”

  Ronald became animated again and started to
pace.

  “He made up his-a mind that he was a-gonna work right here on the mountain. He set up ’is shop just a ways down here, and he did alright. There was plenty-a work for him, with folks hobbling up over the pass every five minutes. So much work, he had a pot of money, enough money, to build his wife a nice cabin up here on the ledge to raise their two young’uns in.

  “Then it happened. November 1848, the night of the season’s first snow . . .” Suddenly, he leapt toward us, clapped his hands, and shook his bony fingers at us, shouting, “Just like tonight!”

  We all jumped.

  “Less of the dramatics,” warned Doris. “Or there will be no more pie!”

  “Calm down there, starchy breeches. A story gotta have a little flare, ain’t it?”

  He wrinkled up his nose and treated us all to another gummy grin. “Anyhow, that-a night, a family had been struggling on the last leg of their journey. They were good folks named Barnes—Thomas; his wife, Sophie; their young’uns.”

  Ronald started to ride another imaginary horse. “The Barneses were just a-comin’ over the mountain, which was slick with ice, when their horse, it a-lost its footing and reared up, and the carriage cracked an axle. Thaddeus was in his shop and heard all the commotion, surprised anyone was fool enough to come over the pass that late in the season. Fortunately, as Thomas thought t’ hisself at the time, Thaddeus were there to help. It were mightily cold that day, so they moved Sophie and her young’uns up to this house with Beth and her children. Thaddeus looked at the wheel, but he got ’imself a-worrying ’coz he were running low on repair supplies. He hadn’a expected folks this late in the season. Thomas begged him to help, so Thaddeus did the best he could with what he had and patched it right up. But this is when this tale takes a darker turn.”

  Ronald stopped, slowly taking a long drink of milk. All that could be heard was the crackle of the fire and the clicking of Annie’s knitting needles. I was flooded with feelings of nostalgia. There was something magical about a storyteller, even this ragged, foul-smelling one. It took me straight back to my childhood and a thousand fireside stories on the shores of Lake Tahoe, where my family spent every summer as I grew up.