Daniel Plainway - Or The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  At the very last bit of ledge before the top, Mister Walton caught Sundry frowning and asked what was the matter. Sundry only shook his head and turned his face to the last length of their climb, but he had lost sight of Moxie and thought she had left her post.

  The head of the tor was surrounded by boulders and lengths of granite unfixed from their natural strata by the work of ancient glaciers.

  “Or perhaps the labor of ancient men,” proposed Frederick when they were gathered there. The peak of the tor was almost level for a diameter of thirty feet or so, and the battlementlike rocks at its perimeter did have the look of human motive the more they considered them.

  “This is Council Hill,” said Capital.

  They looked out over the woods to the west, where long hills, faded behind a veil of snow, seemed to hover like shadows against the sky. The wind blew harder at this elevation, and they squinted into the teeth of it. The flutter of something black interpolated between white branches; snow flew as a limb danced with sudden weight and their friend the crow peered at them.

  Sundry was moving with Frederick and Isabelle through the center of the little plateau toward a great head of rock overhanging the northeastern corner of the tor. Frederick let out a long breath, something between a sigh and a gasp of discovery. His sharp and educated eyes had caught sight of something that Sundry missed till he drew closer to the boulder. Isabelle stepped up with her husband, and the two made an affecting picture, handsome and handsomely dressed, she with both hands upon his arm and the snow all about them and falling upon their collars and hats.

  Standing behind the Covingtons, as Frederick brushed at the granite, the others could see upon the face of the rock a column of odd striations that rose to the level of about seven feet and dropped below the mantle of snow. It was the artifact of Mr. Thole’s photographs, though a good deal more impressive in the live rock. The markings were regular and regularly distanced from one another, each about nine or ten inches long with three or four in each row.

  “It mu be a human hand has made this,” said Mister Walton. Indeed, the entire place had the aura of human refinement, and they could believe that this had long (and long ago) been a place of messages and meetings, of tribal decisions and intertribal conclaves.

  “Is it Indian?” wondered Sundry.

  “A far as I can tell, it isn’t,” said Frederick. “The aboriginal people had no writing as such, though there is some evidence of pictographs. This bears resemblance to none of it.”

  “And here is your ox, over to the side,” remarked Sundry. He leaned nearer to the boulder and touched the design that had been scratched into the rock face a foot or so away from the other figures.

  “I can’t help wondering if it isn’t something separate from the runes,” said Frederick, “if they are runes.”

  Mister Walton adjusted his spectacles and peered at the form in question. The figure was very simple, merely two rays of an angle, both intersected by a single line about a third of the way from their joining. He turned his gaze back to the runes, as he had already begun to think of them. “Are they Viking?” he asked.

  “If I could make them say something, they might be,” said Frederick. “Let’s clear the snow away, so I can examine the entire stone. Mr. Thole might have missed something.” Covington was in his element now, serving out instructions like an officer. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind scouring the other rocks along the perimeter for more of these figures.” He rummaged through his instrument bag for a magnifying glass, unaware that his companions had frozen in their tracks. The crow took off with a sudden startling cry.

  Sundry reached down and gripped Frederick’s arm meaningfully, and the clergyman looked up and beyond the others to see a stranger standing on one of the boulders at the southwestern corner of the tor. The man held a rifle, relaxed but ready and pointed in their general direction. He was well dressed for the weather and the snow formed a frosting upon his great blond beard.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Capital as if they had met on a city street.

  “Stay together, where you are,” said the man, his voice deep, but sounding distant through the snow and the current of wind upon the tor. He was sizing them up, frowning as if something were amiss. He threw the quickest glance behind him, then pointed his rifle into the air and fired a single shot.

  Those gathered below the inclined boulder started with the report, and the echoes had hardly returned from the western hills when a flash of black and white leaped up behind the man and dragged him backward over the boulder. There was the sound of a human cry and the angry snarl of a dog even as Sundry charged across the tor. Then another shot split the air beyond the rock wall, and Sundry was scrambling over the point where the stranger had disappeared.

  On the ledge below, possibly a ten-foot drop, the blond-bearded man was curled into a protective ball as Moxie struggled and snarled with his rifle arm. Sundry vaulted down to the ledge, missing the man but driving himself into the snow up to his knees.

  The man with the rifle was attempting to get his free hand back beneath the trigger guard, but he had lost his glove and feared to put his unprotected flesh within reach of the dog’s teeth. Sundry had seldom seen such terror, and once he had struggled out of the deep snow, he very benevolently put the blond man’s fears to a temporary rest with a single sharp blow to the side of the head.

  Moxie left off the limp arm, then let out another angry growl. The snow beside her erupted on the heel of a third gunshot, and Sundry saw over his shoulder a second figure on a slightly higher ledge some twenty feet away on the western side of the tor. The dog would have charged, leaping over the gulf between, but Sundry threw himself at the animal and shoved her some yards down the steep slope. He could hear another round being levered into the rifle and was using his momentum to follow Moxie down the hill when a fourth explosion came from above.

  There was a shout of pain and anger, and Sundry looked up from his stomach. The men on the ledges were blocked from his view, but the head and shoulders of Capital Gaines were plain to be seen at the top of the slope.

  “That was not a miss, hitting your rifle,” Capital was saying in a very clear and steady voice.

  Sundry lifted himself up from the snow and could see that the old man was gripping a long-barreled pistol. Other heads, most noticeably that of Mister Walton, appeared behind Capital, looking for signs of Sundry and the dog. Get down! Sundry wanted to say, but his voice seemed unable to respond. There might be more of them!

  Frederick was following Sundry’s path over the boulder, and Capital waved the others back.

  “Sundry!” called Mister Walton. “Sundry!”

  “I’m healthy, Mister Walton!” called the young man, finding his voice. Moxie had righted herself and was scrambling back up the slope, but Sundry reached out and got an arm around her middle. “Easy, girl, easy,” he repeated, along with “Good girl! Good girl!” He found terrific comfort in burying his face in the fur behind her ears.

  Capital was half climbing, half sliding down the path they had asended, hardly taking his eyes or the intention of his pistol from the second man. When Sundry had clambered back up the slope, with Moxie calong side him, he could see the second stranger leaning against the rock wall above the other ledge. There was blood on his face and on his hands, and his rifle lay at his feet, its stock in splinters.

  Frederick had reached the man, and it was clear that some rather unclergy like tension occupied the husband. He matter-of-factly inquired of the stranger’s injuries, however, and inspected the wounds on his face and his hands (wrought by the splinters from the rifle) with a degree of gentleness that Sundry admired, even if he knew he would not have been able to summon the same. The clergyman took the opportunity, also, of assuring himself that the man carried no other weapons.

  Isabelle in the meantime had retrieved the first man’s rifle and expertly levered another round into the chamber before informing the fellow, who was then rousing himself from Sundry’s
blow, that she was not a member of the clergy and thereby not beholden to that brotherhood’s charitable tenets. She emphasized this thought by prodding the man in the back with the business end of the rifle and seemed to be thinking of other means to impress the point upon him. In brief, she was livid.

  “We mustn’t sit on our hands,” said Capital. “These gentlemen can climb down or tumble down. I don’t care which.” Moxie growled at the second gunman as Frederick helped him across the gap to the first ledge. “Good girl!” Capital declared. Then he grabbed the man’s collar and put the pistol to his head, shouting, “I would back away if l were you!” When the others looked up, they saw the flash of someone disappear from behind the rocky battlements. “Come, come,” said Capital quietly.

  Isabelle escorted the first man down the hill, followed by Mister Walton and Frederick and finally by the second man in the grip of Sundry and the sights of Capital’s pistol.

  It was an awkward and nervous descent, and no less a wait while Mister Walton demonstrated a hitherto undisclosed talent with knots as the two blond men were bound and placed at the bottom of the sleigh. It was a crowded place when they all climbed in; Moxie jumped onto the backs of the prostrate men, where the others’ feet were also resting.

  Several figures, apparently armed, appeared at the top of the tor, but Sundry and Isabelle had the rifle and pistol nudging the backs of their prisoners’ necks. Capital pulled his own rifle from its place at his feet and passed it to Mister Walton. “I’m not so sure,” said Capital, “that they wouldn’t rather lose these two than let us get very far, so don’t hesitate to make them duck up there.” He cracked the reins, and the horses, snorting steam, limbered their legs a little with some preliminary shuffles before pulling the sleigh around.

  “I am heartily sorry for bringing you into such a dangerous situation,” said Frederick. “Isabelle.”

  She flashed a look at him that was sharp and forgiving all at once. “I should guess, my love,” she said, “that a man of the cloth without a trusting nature would be of little use to anyone.”

  “They’ve left the tor,” said Mister Walton.

  “They’ll be following,” said Capital.

  The wind was rising, drifting snow into the tracks they had left.

  25. Others Lost Their Hats as Well

  When they arrived at Hallowell, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump escorted Mr. Burnbrake to the Worster House. Even the Dash-It-All Boys came along, and there was some discussion among Durwood, Waverley, and Brink whether someone they knew might discover them if they took rooms there.

  “It isn’t cheating, I think,” suggested Waverley, “unless you’re caught.”

  “What did you bet?” wondered Durwood. “Perhaps it would be worth our splitting it three ways so that we can sleep in a bed tonight.”

  The members of the Moosepath League and Mr. Burnbrake were not privy to this discussion and were rather more concerned with the disappearance of Roger Noble. It was a relief therefore when a telegram from Pacif a Means arrived saying that Miss Burnbrake would be joining them by the next available train. Mr. Burnbrake had been on the verge of making the return trip himself, and his great concern only deepened the suspicions in which the Moosepathians held the “troublesome cousin.”

  The Dash-It-All Boys were never very near to the discussion regarding Mr. Noble, but the suspense surrounding his disappearance must have been too much for them, for they wandered off-out of doors! “Distracting themselves,” said Thump, “with the tangible challenge of the blizzard.”

  “They were that distressed!” said Eagleton, shaking his head.

  “It’s rather grand of them,” said Ephram.

  A for Mr. Burnbrake, he decided to rest after his journey and retired to his room. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump found themselves in need of diversion while lunch digested and dinner drew apace, and since the Dashian example was much admired, they decided to emulate their new acquaintances by following their footsteps-in a metaphorical sense.

  Thus, with the temper of the snow and the determination of men, the die was cast. Further deeds were in the offing.

  There is only the one word for it in the English language, and that is snow: not sleet or hail or freezing rain, but snow-white, light, and cumulative, thrall to the vagaries of sun and wind, impermanent blanket, poor man’s fertilizer.

  There is only the one word, in English, but snow is a phenomenon of many dispositions: There is light snow and wet snow and crusted snow and snow that is fine for skiing and snow that is fine for snowshoeing and snow that encourages one to stay indoors, but only seldom does that singular snow, that snow of perfection, fall, for under certain conditions, snow will form easily into a ball that fits in the human hand and cries to be flung.

  There has been infinite discussion on the street comers of the world’s wintry belt regarding the elements that best facilitate a good snowball (though less dialogue than one would expect in the responsible journals), but suffice it to say that a mysterious blend of granularity and temperature is necessary to bring about the proper factors and that it is a gift from on high (at several natural and theological levels) when it deigns to visit us with its superior presence.

  There is no guarantee, of course, that even contiguous communities will be equally blessed in this capacity, for on a single day, during a single storm, the atmosphere of Newcastle might be deadly with white missiles, while in Damariscotta, just across the river, young men are puzzledly discussing the snow’s propensity to fall apart in their hands.

  It is a riddle.

  Strangely (and despite one of their number’s great fascination for all things weathery), this is a subject that, until December 1896, had never been discussed among the members of the Moosepath League.

  All that was discussed when they stepped out of the Worster House that afternoon was the determination of the blizzard, which was deemed sufficient. Thump was the first out, and he turned the top of his top hat directly into the wind while Ephram and Eagleton joined him.

  They stood with their haberdashery crammed over their ears and gesticulated in several directions before making the stouthearted decision to face the teeth of the storm and climb Winthrop Street. There were no gale-force winds onshore that day, but the charter members were accustomed to sitting blizzards out, and it is no wonder that they were thrilled by the challenge of the elements as they trudged the steep slope.

  “Good heavens!” called Eagleton over the storm, “it reminds me of Arabella’s Winter Home by Mrs Alvina Plesock Dentin.”

  “Exactly!” agreed Ephram. They all had read the book avidly. “It does remind one, don’t you think, Thump?” Ephram and Eagleton stopped when they realized that their friend was not alongside them.

  He was in fact standing a few paces below on the slope, holding his hat to his head and looking very stern as the wind coated his magnificent beard with snow. “‘I have turned the corner of an eye to the white wind!’” he quoted.” ‘I have felt the bite of the winter storm upon the moor and known the heart-bruising twinkle of uncertainty when all about and ever landmark is hidden behind a curtain of snow; when direction means nothing and even something so simple as up and down comes to question; when there is not a blade of grass with which to compare your perceptions!’” This he boomed out above the sift of precipitation and the wail of the wind in the nearby trees.

  “Good heavens!” cried Eagleton, for he recalled this passage.

  “Marvelous!” pronounced Ephram.

  “It is very like,” said Thump, squinting into the storm. The hill was indeed steep, and the wind blew against them so that they had the impression of walking almost parallel to the sidewalk. “I do hope the Dash-It-All Boys have not lost themselves,” said Thump, and they peered through the storm for some glimpse of Durwood, Waverley, and Brink.

  As it happened, Durwood, Waverley, and Brink were not far away. They had left some twenty minutes before and had traveled partway up the slope before turning down a street, the sign of
which was covered in wet snow and so not recorded in the pertinent annals. This sticking capacity of the present precipitation gave rise among the Dash-It-All Boys to fond memories of snowball fights long ago, and they reminisced in melancholy tones upon the various methods with which they had knocked other folk down and the wistful pleasures of stuffing snow under people’s collars.

  “There is very little like it,” said Waverley. He remembered, in particular, the many gallons of snow he had, throughout the days of his youth, crammed down the neck of his sister, who unfortunately rarely talked to him anymore. Durwood was actually weighing a snowball in his hands and saying, “You know, there is never enough of the right stuff when you’re young. I don’t know when I have seen such perfect snow!”

  “Wouldn’t it be the thing to stumble upon a good battle just now?” thought Brink. “Or perhaps start one?” Just then the storm hesitated for the briefest moment, and as the curtain of white lifted, they were witness to a line of boys hunkered behind a snowbank. Missiles were being lobbed from some unseen source and with expert precision, for the boys were being pelted with remarkable accuracy.

  Brink couldn’t imagine that his desire for a battle had been so readily answered. “I’ve never had that happen before!” he said, taken aback. The storm reasserted itself, and the scene before them disappeared. “You don’t suppose I’ve used up a wish or something, do you?”

  “If you have,” said Waverley, “you’ve spent it magnificently.”

  It did not take long for the three men to race through the sheets of snow and join the boys behind the bank, where they inquired after the fortunes of war.