by Paul Boor
The constable had seemed like an intelligent man when Nicolas met with him earlier in the day. He’d be glad to have the information.
66
An Unpleasant End to Indian Summer
In long, white, perfectly starched coats, the learned doctors of Albany surrounded the bedside with equally long and pale puzzled faces. “A most interesting case,” one of the more senior faculty commented.
Ruth Van Horne, the final patient on their ward rounds, lay flat in the bed in a fresh-smelling hospital gown, her belly laid bare. A circle of students in shorter white coats tightened around the medical scholars and craned their necks to see the patient and hear the pronouncements of their elders.
“The tests are conclusive,” the long-faced academics agreed.
“The findings are unequivocal.”
Students pulled notepads from their short white coats to record the startling effects of Professor Smythe’s latest therapeutic regimen. Where before the tumorous abdominal masses had been expanding, now they were shrinking. The patient’s outward health appeared greatly improved, despite an alarming loss of weight. Her pain had dissipated, but surely it would return.
Standing at the edge of the circle of physicians and students, Nicolas shook his head in disbelief. Ruth was better. Dared he hope?
Ruth, the medical miracle, began to fidget under the many male stares. One of the physicians snapped a sheet over her abdomen. Another set a larger tin of pills ground from Dr. Smythe’s Oriental root on her bedside table. Extracts of thistle were added to her regimen “to improve the patient’s mental state.”
Dr. Smythe joined Nicolas at the outer edge of the circle. He spoke quietly. “To answer your question,” Smythe said, “no, it is definitely not a cure. A brief period like this often precedes the worst.” Smythe leaned in close. “My new pharmaceutics should help tremendously. Her vigor will return, though briefly. But I remind you,” he continued gravely, “no nostrums or potions whatsoever, except what’s been prescribed. No morphine. You must save the morphine for later, when her pain becomes too great.”
“I understand.”
“And what about you, sir? You seem to be looking in the pink.”
“I’m over all that, thank you. It was hell, as you predicted.”
“Commendable indeed, Mr. Van Horne. I’ve seen few men who could quit it.”
Upon their return to Forestport, Ruth stepped down from the train without so much as reaching for her husband’s arm. Soon, her appetite returned and she began taking breakfasts of cheddar and eggs, with only a rare twinge of nausea.
“That’s some wondrous medicine,” she said with a sigh after a week back in town. “But before the snow flies, I’ve set my mind on fishing one more time.”
“This Indian summer won’t last, Ruth.”
“Surely there’s a few days more. I’ve so neglected the skiff, and I’m quite strong enough to row.”
Nicolas at first tried to persuade Ruth to stay snug in Forestport. His head was still spinning from his confrontation with Zhivakov. Knox had been dispatched to Adam’s hideout on Indian Lake, and Nicolas planned another trip to Buffalo to consolidate alliances against Zhivakov and the slave traders. He’d steer clear of that woebegone neighborhood, for his own safety, of course. He trusted that the Russian would hardly expect him to prowl around Buffalo again.
In the end, Nicolas relented to Ruth. “Do take care on the water,” he told her as he headed off to the station to board the train to Buffalo. “I’ll be at the lake house in about three days, if business goes well.”
Abigail hitched two good bay horses to a wagon and gently urged the team out of Forestport. Ruth, cushioned among their provisions in the wagon’s bed, watched the afternoon roll by, and they made Upper Spy in time for her to settle into a big wooden chair on the lakefront and watch the sunset. The next morning, after two of Dr. Smythe’s pills and one of the thistle, she felt a surge of strength. She and Abigail lifted the light, thin-hulled skiff from its rack in the boathouse and scrubbed off the grime left by years of neglect, and Ruth lovingly oiled its cedar planking. She tossed her cane pole in the bottom of the boat and rowed off to fish, the clean lines of the skiff’s hull skimming low and quick over the misty surface of Upper Spy Lake.
Ruth fished for two days, spending most of the daylight hours drifting along the shoreline. The Indian summer held for her, but the nausea had begun to creep back. And the pain. No matter how skimpy her breakfast, the rock in her belly pushed up hard enough to take her breath away.
On Ruth’s third morning at the lake house, Nicolas appeared, his business complete. Abigail cooked her mother’s morning catch of brookies, their sides bright with fall color. Ruth stared at the fish untouched on her plate.
“The lake’s been good for you,” Nicolas said, forking the delicate pale flesh from his plate. “You’re looking fit.”
“Nicolas—I’m afraid I’ve had time to think, and it’s still there. The growth. And it’s getting bigger.”
“No, you’re over this thing. I can see it in your eyes. They’re clear and bright now.”
“The pills do that, but it won’t last, and I’m taking more and more now.”
Nicolas had cleaned his plate. He pushed his chair back from the table.“Listen, I’m heading to the village this morning; you and Abby can follow tomorrow. It’ll be getting colder, so I’ll put your skiff up before I leave.”
“I’m telling you, dear, I’ll not make it through another winter. You’ve a long, lonely winter in store.”
“Oh, come now. It’s always a long winter here.”
Ruth followed Nicolas to the boathouse and watched in silence as he lifted the skiff onto its rack. His back was to her.
“Nicolas, you must tell me something.” Nicolas turned, his hands still on the boat. “I need to know. Speak truthfully,” she said, a sudden intensity in her eyes. “Have you ever strayed? Have you ever broken our wedding vows?”
“What?”
His mind flashed to that visit to a New Orleans bordello with Adam. Then, like lightning cracking the sky, he saw Renée Keiller as he’d last seen her, clinging to him at the Saratoga station, the rain pouring down around them. Yes, my heart was untrue, but only my heart.
“No,” he said softly, and he gave the skiff a final shove.
“I wish to clear my mind of this,” Ruth went on, her voice lowered to a whisper. “I did. I once strayed.”
He turned. His mouth hung open. “You?”
“Once, yes, with only the one, but it went on for some little while, dear heart.”
Nicolas stepped out of the boathouse onto the dock and fixed his eyes on the lake’s cold, flat surface as if waiting for a returning boat. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “I never dreamt . . . I never . . .”
“I’ve lived with this for our whole marriage, Nicolas. Back then—so long ago—you were always away with the ice, with business. All I had was little Ethan. The bouts of pneumonia. The worry. I was lonely.”
“I cannot believe it of you,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
“It was so very long ago, Nicolas.”
“You were the schoolmarm!” he said, throwing it over his shoulder at her, his eyes still on the lake.
“Schoolmarms can stray. And schoolmarms get lonely.”
“Who was it, Ruth?”
“I won’t say. No, never. I was so young and it would only do more harm.”
“Someone I know?”
“It would be too cruel.”
“Cruel, you say,” his back still to her.
“Oh, you must forgive me, Nicolas. You must. Come embrace me one last time before you go off,” she said. “Please.”
“I can’t bring myself . . . no.”
Who was it? he asked himself. Who? He would ask her again. Later. In the village. He couldn’t live with this mystery. He would keep asking until she told.
Ruth laid her hands on his back but he pulled away and strode to the end of th
e dock. Betrayed by his childhood love, his wife, the mother to his children. No, he’d not take her in his arms. Not now, not until she told. Perhaps never.
A chill was in the air. He lingered, already worrying about the danger he knew waited somewhere for him. He must make it to Forestport by noon, before the train arrived from Buffalo. Adam kept the lookout; he’d know if Wilson’s murderous henchmen were about.
When Nicolas finally turned around, Ruth was climbing the path to the lake house.
The mercury dropped like a stone near the lake that night. In the blank sky, cascades of northern lights rose and fell. Abigail built a fire in the fireplace and set her mother’s willow rocker on the warm fieldstone. Ruth settled in and rocked, a thin, stoic smile set hard on her face.
“We’ll leave early tomorrow,” Abigail told her. “Perhaps we’ll catch Father still at the house. Lately, he doesn’t stick around Forestport more than a day or two.”
Ruth rocked silently, a distant look on her face.
“Don’t pout, Mums. Summer’s over, I’m afraid.”
The next day dawned cold and dry. The ground froze hard and the bright, still Canadian air smelled of snow. Ruth insisted Abigail build up the fire before setting off to the barn to ready the horses and wagon for their return to Forestport. She filled a cup at the kitchen pump and took four of the tablets of thistle. Nicolas was right; the thistle brightened her eyes with nervous energy. But its effect was short-lived. She’d not bother with Smythe’s wondrous root. The pill no longer held sway with that rock inside her, she was sure of it.
She stood on the hearth to warm herself by the fire but she couldn’t stay still. The pain in her stomach would not be ignored. It promised worse.
At the kitchen window, Ruth studied the lake. The water was flat. A skim of ice shone at its edges. A solitary wood-and-canvas canoe drifted along the nearby shore. Ruth recognized the boat, Canadian made, owned by two men who portaged from Brandywine Lake, braving this morning chill to fish. She watched the two gentlemen land a nice walleye. Surely they’d have a passel of plump fall perch in the bucket. But summer was over, Ruth admitted to herself. She’d not fish again. The rock inside her told her this. Abigail was busy in the stable with the wagon and the team; the time was right. She sat at the desk for some moments, then stepped into the muted wintry sunshine and took the boathouse path.
Summoning her meager strength, Ruth slid the skiff down from its rack. She hefted an anchor, laid it with its coil of rope in the bottom of the boat, and set off rowing, her breath coming in short quick puffs, her stick-thin arms sure at the oars.
The fishermen in the lone boat from Brandywine Lake watched her pull away from the boathouse dock. She saw them raise a hand as the sleek Rushton skiff passed near and traced along the reedy shoreline, but she kept her eyes averted. The cold soon cut to the bone. Her hands stiffened, the warmth of the hearth now far behind.
She rowed methodically, her will strong. She mustn’t allow herself to slow until she reached her goal, the far northwestern shore of Upper Spy, where the steeper mountains met the lake. It was a place known as Pulpit Rock—she’d seen it from the kitchen window—a fifty-foot-high face of sheer granite dropping straight into the dark water. The rocky, unscalable cliff, capped by stilted, scraggly pines, shone bright pink in the oblique morning sun. It was the deepest part of the lake, and a spot as beautiful as any cathedral.
With each stroke of the oars memories welled up. Ruth was never one to think about good and evil, even with all the horrible things her cadre of village lady-friends had said about the ice . . . The village always knew about those who thought their deeds were secret. People like her husband and Thomas Chubb. And her. The village knew the misdeeds of everyone.
Were the two fishermen watching? Not likely. Their view was clear across the lake, but they were busy catching fish along that far shoal. She stowed the oars and drifted to a stop within yards of Pulpit Rock.
She stood straight in the skiff, stretched, and steadied herself with one foot on the gunwale. The coil of rope lay neatly at her feet. She gauged the length she needed, bent to take up its free end, wrapped the rope tight about her waist . . . again . . . again . . . knotted it and turned toward the sheer face of Pulpit Rock. Cold, so cold. She trembled. How fast will the light go? With a smooth, well-practiced motion, she hoisted the anchor overboard and quickly now . . . quickly . . . stepped over the gunwale into the bottomless black water.
The fishermen from Brandywine Lake threw their rods in the bottom of the boat with a clatter and raced toward Pulpit Rock. The skiff they’d been watching, now empty, bobbed on the water’s surface, cutting a slow arc. No sign of the woman. They paddled around the skiff, peering down, aghast, but there was nothing to see under a surface as smooth and dark as smoked glass. And nothing to be done. They dropped their anchor and let it out full, pulled it around the skiff, but the lake had no bottom here; everyone knew that. Their anchor never touched.
Eventually, they tied the freshly oiled Rushton skiff to their canoe and towed it to the Van Horne boathouse, eager to tell the tale of the extraordinary thing they’d seen at Pulpit Rock.
Late that night, after she’d ridden hard to retrieve her father, Abigail helped Nicolas search the boathouse. Ruth’s cane rod lay in its rack. An anchor, the heaviest, was missing. The only sure indication of the meaning of what had occurred was the note on the kitchen table, a note scripted in the fine, looping hand of a schoolmarm, sealed, and addressed to her husband of many years.
My dearest Nicolas,
Forgive me for what I do, but I cannot go on. The pain has returned to my belly. A greater pain, albeit a much older one, is the secret I’ve kept from you for far too many years. You must believe that that secret is the only regret of my life. Foolishly, I toyed with fire, with evil, never dreaming of the repercussions. Only time taught me the truth, a truth I take with me into the darkness.
I love you & the children with all my heart & soul. Do not blame yourself & do not grieve for me. Get on with your lives, for I do this willingly & I swear on all that’s holy, I go to my Maker without fear or trepidation.
Your loving wife,
Ruth
67
The Last Body in the Ice
It was not yet winter but the cold of winter had settled in and the earth seemed poised, as if waiting for the real winter to arrive. In the days after Ruth Van Horne’s suicide, rotted leaves lay frozen hard as stone on the roadside. Each morning a dusting of snow swirled like ashes on the streets and drifted into the crevices of the village. The naked maples on Walnut Street scratched dryly against the clapboards of the Van Horne home. Inside, the fire in the kitchen stove was going cold. Nicolas and Abigail sat at the kitchen table. Adam paced the floor. Abigail began to sob, a telegram in her brief:
Cannot bear the news about Mother STOP
Will return Xmas STOP Love to Abi STOP
Schuyler
Adam went to her and gently took her by the shoulder. “Abby. Come now, girl.”
Nicolas stood from the table and pounded a fist into his hand. “The grappling hooks,” he said. “I tell you, we’ve got to try the grappling hooks again.”
“They tried the damn hooks,” Adam replied. “For two days. Come on, boss—you know Upper Spy better than anyone. At Pulpit Rock, the hooks ain’t gonna do a damn—”
“Stop!” Abigail cried. “Stop about the grappling hooks!”
Nicolas sank back into his chair, his head in his hands, seesawing from anger to tears from minute to minute.
“Besides,” Adam said, seeing the tears, his voice lowered, “it’s too late. The lakes are freezing over. There’s nothing to be done.” Adam pulled a chunk of oak from the wood basket to stoke the kitchen stove.
Nicolas reached across the kitchen table with tears welling over and took his daughter’s hand. “Abby, dearest Abby . . . I must live through the pain. I must. But I’m so sorry for you, sweetheart. To be so young, and no mother.”
In November Nicolas took to long afternoon walks on the path along the north bank of Town Lake, far from Main Street and out of earshot of anyone. There, he sat on the same rocks where he and Ruth had watched the bats on that warm summer night long ago when he proposed marriage. It was comforting to sit in the open and speak aloud, his voice going out over the frail sheet of ice as it thickened in the winter stillness.
“Ruth . . . I forgive you, of course I do. I do . . .”
Nicolas came to this spot because here, he was alone. Here, with no wind on the river and no hope in his heart, his tears fell unseen onto the frozen ground.
By the time the snow flew and the woods began to fill, Nicolas was on the run. They were after him, Zhivakov’s men, the Russians from Buffalo. Strange men—men named Wilson or Smith—were asking questions about him across the North Country. At first, Nicolas hid in the nearby towns, in and out of hotels, never at home for more than a day. He no longer found time to grieve. He was always moving. In Forestport, the Van Horne house was deserted. Adam and Abby hired men and prepared for the first harvest on Upper Spy.
Nicolas began hiding at the lake, alone. At Upper Spy, he spent the shortened daylight hours in the shed working on an invention he hadn’t touched in months, an ice shaver he’d designed in his head before traveling with the ice to Galveston. Turning and fitting metal parts occupied his mind, but during the long, dark evenings, he was gripped by the thought that Zhivakov and his men might find him in his sleep.
In early December Nicolas made a quick overnight to Forestport, just long enough to retrieve a certain die needed to shape the ice shaver’s blade. There’d been none of Zhivakov’s men in Forestport for the past week. Nicolas sat at the kitchen table oiling and polishing the die. A light snow was falling when Adam came through the kitchen door, brushing big wet flakes from his shoulders.
