by Farris, John
She heard someone trying to open the door behind her, and she turned her head, saying, "Mother?"
Craig braked his Chevelle halfway down the ridge and Helen pointed out the place where—as well as she could remember—she had seen the figure in the woods. Craig flashed his light among the trees, but the light revealed nothing.
"Whoever he is," Helen said, "I hope he has a home to go to. He seemed so lonely standing there, as if . . . he'd been waiting forever."
Craig said sourly, "I thought you didn't get a good look."
"It wasn't what I saw, it was what I felt—Craig!"
They both heard Peggy's voice at the same time, a faint echo to it, as if she were crying from the depths of a well.
"Mother! Mother . . ."
Craig put the car in gear and gunned down the hill, headlights illuminating the tall trees on both sides of the road, pooling suddenly on the blacktop road below.
"There she is!" Helen said. "Stop, Craig, let me out!"
Peggy scrambled toward them, and Helen threw open the door and ran to meet her.
"I saw him, Mother! Michael was here! He came right up to the car!"
Helen hugged her daughter tightly, but Peggy tried to pull away.
"Let's find him, Mother! He was right here!"
"Baby . . ."
Craig came loping toward them. "What's the matter, was she having a nightmare?"
"Uncle Craig, I saw Michael! He looked in the window at me, and then he disappeared!"
"He ran away?" said Craig, looking stunned.
"No, he disappeared! Like a ghost."
"Peggy . . . Peg," Helen said urgently. "Calm down now. Tell me exactly what happened."
Peggy was not about to calm down, but she said more precisely, "I woke up and you weren't there, and then I heard him trying to open the door and I turned around and it was Michael. When I looked at him he disappeared. So I got out of the car, but by then he was gone."
Craig trotted over to the ranch wagon with his flashlight in his hand, studied the gravel below the right-side door, then went on more deliberately along the shoulder of the blacktop, aiming his flashlight here and there. Helen lifted Peggy and carried her toward the wagon.
"He was here, Mother!" the wide-eyed Peggy insisted.
"Yes, yes, I believe you. But he's gone now. Peggy, he's gone and he's not coming back. So we might as well go home, don't you think?"
"Can we come back in the morning? I want to see him."
Helen felt as if she were going to cry. "I don't know . . . maybe he doesn't want us to see him. We'll t-talk about it in the morning."
"Are you all right, Mother? Where was Uncle Craig?"
"The car stalled. I went to find help and fortunately for us he came along."
"I told Michael to wait. I told him I wasn't going to hurt him. I told him! Why did he disappear?"
Craig had come back; Helen glanced at him hopefully but he just shrugged and looked doubtfully at Peggy.
"No footprints . . . except a couple that must be yours, Helen."
"Uncle Craig, what's the matter with Michael? Is he mad at us?"
Craig ignored the question. "Could I have your keys, Helen? I'll see if I can get this thing started."
He unlocked the driver's door and slid in under the wheel of the ranch wagon. Nothing happened when he turned the key in the ignition. Then he got out, lifted the hood, studied the alternator for a few seconds, made an adjustment, slammed the hood, reached inside the wagon and switched on the lights, which then worked perfectly.
"Did I do something wrong?" Helen asked timidly.
"Just a loose connection," Craig muttered. "Take it easy driving home and you'll get there all right. Better have all the wiring checked first thing in the morning."
"In the car, baby," Helen said, depositing Peggy on the front seat. Peg scrambled to the far window and stared intently out at the dark. She seemed disappointed when Michael didn't appear, somewhat like a firefly, to justify her close attention.
"Better speak to her," Craig said in a low voice. "Or everyone in The Shades is going to get the impression that we have a family ghost on our hands."
"Don't we?" Helen replied.
Craig hung his head, looking tired and disgusted.
"If there's another explanation, I hope we won't be long in hearing it. But until then, I saw him tonight, and Peggy saw . . . Michael, and we weren't having the same nightmare. He did just disappear both times like a—like an apparition. Can you tell me what a little boy would be doing way out in the woods this time of the night, Craig?"
Craig started to speak, shook his head in resignation, then said, "I'll let him tell me. He's hiding, whoever he is. Maybe I can flush him out of the woods—"
Helen put a hand on his arm. "Don't stay around, Craig," she pleaded. "Please don't! Go home, or go to Amy's, but get away from here."
"Helen, you're—"
"I'm scared silly," Helen finished for him, and she didn't care at all that Peggy was listening.
Chapter 8
The last busload of boys from the Greenleaf School left the campus at five-fifteen on the Saturday afternoon of the Old Settlers' Reunion, and Amy gratefully returned to her office to change into more casual clothes and lock up for the weekend.
Once she had dressed in hip-huggers, a cashmere sweater and a red babushka, she took a small gift-wrapped package from a desk drawer, walked down the first-floor corridor of the school's administration building and knocked lightly at Craig's door. When he didn't respond right away, Amy opened the door herself and looked in.
He was asprawl in a leather armchair in one corner of the office, reading glasses halfway down his nose, and he was making rapid notes on a pad of paper. The only light in the office came from the Tensor lamp on a shelf above his head: he had drawn the blinds of the windows that overlooked the quadrangle of the Greenleaf School.
"You're on overtime," Amy admonished, and Craig looked up quickly.
"Oh, Amy. What time is it getting to be?" He took off the black-rimmed glasses and set them on the pad in his lap.
"Time for us to go, or we'll miss the fun."
"Some fun," Craig said with a yawn. "The eighteenth annual Old Settlers' Reunion. So far it's been exactly like the previous seventeen. Always rains, and we end up jammed indoors at the school auditorium, damp and uncomfortable, telling each other what a great reunion we'll have next year."
Amy crossed the office and opened the blinds, letting in the rays of the setting sun. "Nothing but broken clouds," she said triumphantly. "The gods of the reunion have been kind." When Craig didn't respond or move from his chair, Amy looked at him with a hint of suspicion and said, "You're not exactly ecstatic. I have a hunch I'm going to be enjoying the sights by myself tonight."
"Uh . . . if you wouldn't mind, Amy, I'd like to get these session notes in order while I'm in a working mood. Probably won't take me but another hour."
"We're supposed to meet Helen at five-thirty, remember?"
Craig blinked. "Now I do. I promise, I'll catch up to you on the midway." He noticed the birthday-wrapped package in her hand and said, "For Peg? What's the occasion?"
"No, it's something I picked up for Peter; one of those tricky interlocking wooden puzzles. I gave up trying to solve it after three days. Peter will solve it before bedtime; I'm sure"
"I thought he was getting out of the infirmary this afternoon."
"Mrs. Cagle says he's still running a temperature, and the doctor won't OK his release. I feel so sorry for him, he'll miss the fun, and he desperately needs a little fun in his life." Amy opened her purse and took out a card. "Will you sign this? The gift will mean a whole lot more if it's from both of us."
"Sure." Craig put his signature on the card, then grinned sorrowfully. "This might mean he won't bother to open the present. Pete and I haven't been on the best of terms the past couple of weeks. In fact he's been pretty damned hostile. On the other hand, I've been too demanding, I think. But I expect a li
ttle more communication from a boy with his intelligence."
"You'll get it," Amy said. "Don't be discouraged."
"After almost a year I'm not even sure we're friends." Craig stared at the golden windows.
"If Dr. Tomlinson is satisfied with the progress you've made, then I think you should be. And I think you ought to put those notes away and come along. You could use a little fun yourself."
"I promise, Amy—another hour at the most."
Amy stood over Craig for a few moments; he looked sheepish and conciliatory so she bent to kiss him.
"I'm on my way," she said briskly. "But if I miss the fireworks on your account I'm going to be as uncommunicative as Peter Mathis for the next couple of weeks, bank on that."
After leaving Craig, Amy hurried upstairs to the second-floor infirmary, where Mrs. Cagle, the nurse on duty, greeted her.
"Is Peter asleep? I wanted to leave this with him; it's sort of a get-well-quick present."
"No, no, come in, Amy." They went through a screened doorway into the shadowy ward, which Peter Mathis had to himself that afternoon. He was sitting propped up in bed with a thermometer in his mouth, a small-boned nine-year-old with large brown eyes and an overgrowth of dark brown hair. He had flawless skin which was unusually white except for smudges under the eyes. Those eyes could hurt you, Amy had discovered upon first meeting Peter Mathis. Of all the boys at the school he was her favorite, but he was also the hardest to befriend, as Craig had observed.
"I hear you're feeling better," Amy said. Peter's expression didn't change. He watched Amy as narrowly as he had watched when she entered the ward. He undoubtedly had seen the gift in her hand, but it was not his style to demonstrate interest.
Amy put the little package on the bed near his hand. "Craig picked this out," she lied. "He thought you'd enjoy, working with it if you got tired of reading."
Peter stared at her with an intensity that some people took for rudeness, but Amy was used to that; she returned an unperturbed smile. "It might not be any fun," she suggested. "It's a puzzle, and it's awfully difficult; I couldn't work it myself."
She had said enough to interest him; his eyes flickered, taking in the beribboned package. Then Peter blinked, deliberately, thanking her.
"Your dinner's here," Mrs. Cagle said, as the buzzer sounded outside, and she went to receive the tray from the cafeteria.
"It's okra and swiss steak," Amy said sympathetically, wrinkling her nose. "I'll come by tomorrow and bring you something good from the midway. Do you like fried pies? So do I, and the Eastern Star ladies are selling the best fried pies I ever ate." Amy pointed to the present. "Let me know how you make out with that," she said jauntily. "I'll have to run now." She was not in quite the hurry that she pretended, she would have liked to spend a few more minutes with Peter, but his physical isolation in the lonely infirmary grieved her, and she knew of no way to cheer him up.
Outside it was windy but not particularly cold, and the sky was rapidly clearing; already the stars had begun to come out in the dimming blue. Amy walked with her hands in the pockets of her parka, depressed because she had literally run out on Peter Mathis, depressed because Craig was not with her. When she reached the drive where she'd left the black Mustang, she turned for a lingering look at his office windows, saw nothing, not even the reading light, and with a sigh got into her car.
It had been a bad week for Craig, with all the talk of a ghost, of a "haunt" in the valley of The Shades. The story of the Youngs had been revived and was one of the favored topics of conversation, supplanting even a recent and spectacular bus-truck collision on U.S. 43. A couple of earnest citizens had reported seeing the ghost of Michael Young to the sheriff, who had reluctantly but painstakingly checked the stories, finding them to be cases of mistaken identity. And Craig had received a couple of telephone calls from a youth who thought he was being enormously funny.
Despite the foolishness, Amy thought, there were a good many people who took the ghost story, with all its ramifications, seriously. She was no longer sure that she was among them, because Craig's cumulative reaction to the episodes disturbed her, forced her to side with him. He had nearly come to blows with a well-meaning farmer after the official opening of the reunion the night before, because the man had offered the services of a relative who was "in touch" with the other side, and willing to try to contact the spirit of Michael Young.
Amy shuddered as she drove through a swirl of red leaves to the gates of the school, but she managed a smile for Mr. Allison, one of the night watchmen, who was on duty there. She couldn't blame Craig for wanting to avoid the reunion, and the inevitable stares; she had the melancholy feeling that his "hour of work" would stretch into several hours, and that he would show up only after the crowds had thinned, with an abject apology, eager to take her someplace where they could be alone, where he could be at peace for a while.
"Yes," she said, half aloud, and smiled again, feeling her cheeks growing hot. But she felt much better all of a sudden.
Despite the excitement over Michael Young, at least a week had passed with no further word from the boy who had started the whole thing—from "Michael" himself. He had not been seen, or heard from. Amy was thankful for that, and she thought seriously, looking at the milky porcelain sky, Maybe it's all over now . . .
Maybe the spirit of Michael Young had been among them, and moved on, having satisfied his purpose. Could he have found what Craig needed so badly, peace of mind?
Amy felt sorry that she would never know for sure.
The main street of the village of The Shades had been closed and transformed into a three-block-long midway, at the east end of which the two dozen clanking rides and assorted thrill attractions of the Brinkley Brothers Carnival were twined in popping, eye-watering, blister-bright neon. Because the reunion was the traditional climax to the fall tourist season and because the night had turned fair and mild, both the midway and the carnival grounds were packed. Hap Washbrook had all his boys in harness and the Highway Patrol had sent over a couple of cars to keep traffic moving through the various detours, but Hap himself was not working too hard.
Earlier in the evening he had joined the foursome of Helen, Amy, Peg and Doremus, treated them to dinner at the fried-chicken booth run by the Women's Auxiliary of the VFW, then escorted them to the rides. There the two men left Amy and Helen behind and took the delighted Peggy for a whirl on the carousel.
"What are you in the mood for now, Peggy?" Hap asked, helping her down at the end of the ride; Peg looked around deliberately and then pointed at the rickety-looking Ferris wheel. Helen blanched, but Doremus took her hand and off they went.
The two pounds of steel badge on Hap's shirt got them preferential treatment at the Ferris wheel. Doremus and Peggy took the first available seat and were swung aloft.
"Oh, Lord," Helen muttered.
"Looks like a piece of junk," Hap conceded, "but I checked it out myself bolt for bolt. Amy, let's you and me grab the next seat."
One of his deputies, a tall youth with a slouch and a massive pearl-handled pistol on his hip, came up behind Hap and said in his ear, "Sheriff, Enoch says can you come down to the jail for a few minutes."
Hap scowled. "What for?"
"You got a phone call."
"Good Christ," Hap said. "I'm busy. Take a message."
"Enoch done that already."
Hap gave the deputy a suffering look and said patiently, "What was it?"
"He didn't tell me. Said to find you and ask can you come down to the jail . . ."
Hap looked with genuine longing at the Ferris wheel, and then glanced regretfully at Amy. He said, loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of shrieks and wheeler-dealer carnival music, "Something I have to attend to, girls. I'll find you all in about ten minutes or so," and went striding off, with the deputy at his side.
Twenty-five minutes later he hadn't returned.
"No telling what's keeping him," Doremus said, when they got together following Peg
gy's third ride on the carousel. "But it could be something that'll have Hap tied up the rest of the evening."
Peg was flushed and big-eyed from excitement. "Could I ride on the Ferris wheel again, Mother?"
"It's a quarter to eight now and you have to be at the park, in costume, by eight-twenty; I think we'd better go."
"Oh, one more time," Peggy said, hanging like a rag doll from her mother's hand.
"Straighten up and act your age, please. Amy, do you want to stay in case Craig—"
"I'd never find him if he did show up; there's just too much of a crowd." She smiled at Doremus, a smile of apology which he failed to understand. "If you don't mind, I'll ride along with the three of you. I wouldn't want to miss Peggy's dramatic debut."
Peggy, happy to oblige, struck a pose and chanted, "'Indians surrounded the little log cabin, but Mary Gatewood was not afraid.'"
"I seem to have heard that somewhere before," Helen remarked, with an expression that brought a rare grin to Doremus's normally impassive face. "Well, here's hoping Hap doesn't feel we ran out on him."
"Sooner or later Hap'll be at the park," Amy said. "We'll see him again."
He had been sitting in the unmarked patrol car for over an hour now, with the lights turned off and the radio turned off, and his eyes were stinging from the effort of focusing through powerful binoculars in an attempt to distinguish movement on either side of the brimming and turbulent Competition River, which gave the state park its name.
He was parked about a hundred yards from the designated meeting place and he had managed to drive into the park quietly, showing no lights, and find a well-concealed observation point, maneuvering his car by memory and the moon. He had felt confident that this was a good ploy and that sooner or later the one he had come to meet would become rattled or discouraged and give himself away. But just the opposite had occurred: Hap found himself restless and bored, and the feeling was growing on him that he'd been had.
His back ached and he craved a cigarette. There had been no sign of anyone at the shuttered trail house or on the high footbridge that crossed the free-flowing river and the leaning balks of stone which defined the river's course. As far as he knew he was utterly alone, while not so far away and below him, two or three thousand people had gathered on the picnic green in front of the river falls to witness the reunion pageant—or rather tolerate the pageant, which depicted the history of Shades County. There would be fireworks later, and Hap hated the idea of missing the fireworks, especially since he'd already wasted a good part of the evening. . . . He raised the binoculars again for a quick look near the footbridge and this time saw something among the piled stones, a pulse of white like moonlight quick on a dull mirror: something pale and nebulous, a face perhaps. But it was only a flash and there was no repetition.
