“There are seven men in the cave,” Mittenwool said.
“There are only seven men in the cave!” I said.
“Now, how the devil would you know that?” Deputy Beautyman snapped.
“Marshal Farmer told me,” I lied.
“This kid’s off, Desi. I’m telling you!” the deputy insisted.
“I swear I can take you to the cave!” I proclaimed.
We were both looking at Sheriff Chalfont, waiting for him to speak, but he wasn’t going to do that until he was good and ready. That much was clear. He was the kind of man who listened carefully and moved quietly. Not unlike Pa.
“Listen, Desi—” the deputy started saying.
“Hold on, Jack,” the sheriff interrupted, palm in the air. “I think Silas is telling the truth. But whether he is or isn’t, we’re in this now, one way or the other. We’re here. That’s the long and short of it.” He pulled one of his rifles out from its scabbard and laid it across the pommel of his saddle. “So let’s just go take a look for ourselves, all right? I’d like to see what we’re up against before we’re actually up against it.” He mounted his horse.
“But what if what we’re up against is twelve sharpshooters in a cave?” the deputy asked skeptically.
“We’ll just have to do what we’ve always done, Jack!” the sheriff answered cheerfully. “Either shoot real straight, or run real fast. Worked for us in the Rio Grande, didn’t it?”
“Landed us in jail, if I recall,” the deputy muttered, heaving himself onto his dun.
“But it kept us alive, partner!” laughed the sheriff. “That’s all that matters in the end, right?” Then he turned to me, still laughing, and said jubilantly, “Now let’s get going, Silas! Lead us to this hidden cave on your magical pony!”
SEVEN
From there we came outside and saw the stars.
—Dante Alighieri Inferno
1
THE STORY GOES THAT PA MET MAMA at an engraver’s office somewhere in Philadelphia. She was there to see to the design of her wedding invitation. He worked there as a typesetter and was tasked with printing the invitation. Mama recited to Pa the words that were to appear on the invitation, including her name, which was Elsa. But Pa noted the sad expression of her eyes as she said the name of her intended, and it touched him. Since she was there with her mother, however, he could not engage her in polite conversation or make artful inquiries. After she left the shop, as Pa relates the story, he could not stop thinking about the beautiful young woman named Elsa or the melancholy in her eyes.
It took him three days to design the plates and set the type, but since she had chosen silver ink for the printing, which was a luxury even for the wealthy, he took a carriage to her estate to get her approval of the mechanicals. This was just a pretense to see her again, to be sure, but it was a good one, and as he knocked on the large wooden door of her home, he smoothed his hair with his hands and straightened his tie. Pa was in his early thirties by then, and had lived a life of work and privation and little love, so his feelings surprised him, for he had believed himself impervious to the call of his heart. He was let in by the butler and told to wait in a room decorated with full-length portraits in ornate gold frames. He sat down on a red velvet sofa. On a small table with lions’ heads carved into the wooden legs was a tiny book, which he picked up, that instantly flipped open to a page set crudely in Garamond type.
As I’ve mentioned, Pa has a prodigious memory, and can but glance at a page and recall its contents in detail. So when my mother walked into the room, Pa rose to his feet, the book closed in his hands, and recited the following:
O Joy! O wonder, and delight! O sacred mystery!
My Soul a Spirit infinite! An image of the Deity!
My mother was, of course, delighted.
“Are you familiar with the work of Anonymous of Ledbury?” she asked.
Pa smiled and shook his head. “Not at all,” he responded, opening the book in his hands. “Though his typesetter leaves much to be desired.”
(When he tells this story, this is the point at which Pa raises his hand and makes it tremble to describe how his bones were quivering. He says he had never, in his whole life, seen such kindness shine in a person as it did in Mama, like she was a glass vessel filled with glowing light.)
Mama sat down on the dark green chaise with embroidered yellow orchids opposite the red sofa on which Pa sat. She was smiling. One dimple in the left cheek, Pa would always note, which she gave to me.
“Last year my family spent the summer with friends in Herefordshire,” she answered, “and while we were there, the workers making renovations to the cellar found a trove of forgotten manuscripts, including the works of an unknown poet. I felt a deep connection to this particular poem. It’s called ‘My Spirit.’ My host, quite graciously, had a copy set and bound, just for me.”
“It’s lovely,” Pa acknowledged.
“The poem speaks to me,” she said. “I’ve been reading a lot about the spirit since the passing of my younger brother last spring. From scarlet fever.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. Do you like poetry, Mr. Bird?”
Pa said he’d felt keenly aware of his worker’s clothes just then, so gray and drab against the colorful furniture. He’d also felt, in her question, a measure of detection. Not judgment, just curiosity.
“I’m not inclined to religious poetry, no,” he replied truthfully.
“You think spiritualism is a religion?” she countered playfully.
“I only mean, I don’t put much stock in any philosophy that gives credence to notions of an afterlife, or spirits, or things of that nature. I am the kind of man who only believes in what I can see and touch and smell. Maybe that is a folly. I mean no disrespect.”
She seemed wistful. “Not at all. Who’s to say what is folly? All I know is that I’ve been reading a great deal about it, and I do believe there’s something to it all. All things are but altered, nothing dies; And here and there the unbody’d spirit flies, as Dryden has said.”
“I believe that was Ovid,” Pa answered gently.
“No, sir!”
“It’s a translation. I will wager on it.”
She laughed. “Oh my goodness, you are probably right!”
“Do you know this one? Overcoming me with the light of her smile, she said to me, ‘Turn now, and listen, for not only in my eyes is Paradise.’ ”
“I don’t.”
“Dante.”
“I am outmatched.”
“By no means, no.”
“Where are you from, if I may ask? I hear a trace of an accent.”
“From Leith, originally. Near Edinburgh.”
“Scotland! We were there last summer, too!” Mama answered, delighted. “I loved it very much. Such a magical place. You must miss it.”
“I know very little of it, to be truthful.” He did not say because I grew up inside a poorhouse. This, and much more, he would tell her later. “When I was twelve, I stole away on a ship, and here I am.”
She looked at him intently. “Here you are.”
Pa, who was a quiet man by nature, but not shy, found himself at a loss for words because of the light in her eyes.
“I’ve brought the mechanicals for your wedding invitation,” he said clumsily.
“Oh yes, of course. My mother is coming downstairs to look at them with me,” Mama answered, and suddenly her voice took on the detachment of the other day. “It was his family we went to visit in Herefordshire,” she added, sighing. “The man I am going to marry.”
“Oh,” answered Pa, “but you won’t be marrying him. I am certain of that.”
Pa says the words just came out of him, without hesitation. And it was done.
They were married three month
s later. It was quite a scandal for Mama’s family. Her father set his deerhounds on Pa the first time they attempted to come back to visit her parents after their quiet nuptials. Pa says he only had to whistle for the deerhounds to stand down and lick him, which set Mama’s father into even more of a fit. Mama was so deeply hurt by their treatment of Pa that she resolved never again to enter the house. She took with her only one thing from her home: her Bavarian violin.
Mama’s father, determined to end their marriage, then used his connections in Philadelphia to deprive Pa of his employment at the engraver’s shop. What’s more, he began making inquiries about Pa with the local police, pushing them to concoct all kinds of fabrications. So Pa and Mama decided to head west and start their lives fresh in California. Pa was going to open a daguerreotype studio. Mama was going to plant an orchid garden near the sea.
They got as far as Columbus before they realized that a baby would soon be joining them on their adventures, and so they bought a little parcel of land outside of Boneville, in a location as removed as it could be from the intrusion of people. It was here that Pa built the house for Mama.
To me, that is the best story in the history of stories, and I have made Pa tell it to me a hundred times, at least, for I like to picture it all in my mind. The red velvet sofa. Pa fidgeting nervously. Mama’s tender eyes.
There are stories we hold near in times of darkness, and this is mine.
2
MITTENWOOL WALKED IN FRONT of me as I led Pony to the far side of the rock, where it sloped downward toward the Falls. Sheriff Chalfont was behind me, and Deputy Beautyman behind him. As we got nearer to the chute of water, the roar became so deafening that we could hear neither the clip-clop of the horses nor our own voices. Even my very thoughts felt muffled.
By the time we reached the Falls, the air had gone from damp and misty to a constant spray of water, a kind of sideways rain. The cascade sounded like thunder now. This must be what the ocean sounds like, I thought, and then found myself wondering where all the water came from. Probably some itty-bitty spring somewhere miles away, winding its way down the mountain. You would not think that so small a trickle could become so large, though I’m sure Pa would say that this is how everything in the world begins: with a trickle. A trickle of an idea. A trickle of rain on an acorn. Only love and lightning come all at once. (I remember him saying this, though I don’t remember the details of when or why he said it.)
Mittenwool stopped and turned around. “It’s all downhill from here,” he said, pointing to a path between the shrubs. “You should leave the horses, Silas. It gets pretty steep.”
“We should leave the horses here,” I advised, and then repeated it louder when Sheriff Chalfont cupped his ear. I got off Pony and tethered him to a young maple tree, and watched as both lawmen did the same. The deputy gave his horse a quick kiss on the muzzle before turning to me, a scowl on his face.
“Lead the way, Runt,” he ordered.
I spun around and followed Mittenwool downward on the path. They, in turn, followed me.
It touched and pleased me that these two men were putting so much trust in me right now, and I wondered how they would feel if they knew that it was really a ghost who was leading the way. Actually, I did not have to imagine it. I knew how they would feel.
3
THE PATH TO THE CREEK was hidden on one side by a tangle of trees teetering on the edge of the cliff, and on the other side by a wall of rock covered in shrubs and roots. Thick brown vines crisscrossed between the trees and the wall like a spider’s web, and we had to weave our way in and out until we reached the edge.
I followed Mittenwool as he, barefoot as always, biting his lip as he concentrated, led us down the side of the mountain. I stepped cautiously into his footsteps, reminding myself not to look over the edge, to focus only on the path ahead of me. It was just a few feet wide, enough for a sure-footed horse, and it had me wishing I was riding Pony instead of sloshing in the mud. About twenty feet down, the path corkscrewed sharply around, and then again another twenty feet below that, until we came to a large opening in the mountainside. It looked like some ancient monster had taken a bite out of the rock. This was the innards of the Falls, a place from which we could see the cascade falling in front of us like a river tumbling down from the sky. We were soaked and unable to hear a thing.
Mittenwool motioned for me to follow him down the last stretch of the path on the other side of the cavern, but when I looked back, I could tell that Deputy Beautyman was winded. He was pale, and I thought it best to let him catch his breath. Sheriff Chalfont made note of my gesture, subtly signaling his approval, like we shared a confidence. He then came closer and asked me something, which I couldn’t hear at all, so he pantomimed his question by walking two fingers on the palm of his hand and raising his shoulders.
“It’s just another twenty minutes and we’ll be there,” answered Mittenwool.
I held up both my hands to the sheriff, splayed my fingers out wide, twice.
The sheriff signaled that he understood and then motioned that we should move on. The deputy, still panting, sucked in his stomach and nodded briskly, like he was ready. We headed down the last part of the path.
I realized at just this moment that it wasn’t heights I was afraid of so much as ledges. The feeling of being at the edge of a precipice, that was what was terrifying. Because even though we were only forty or fifty feet above the ravine at this point, the rest of the path was barely a lip on the rock, bordered by a sheer drop to the bottom. The mere thought of that edge made me feel like I would sway and fall, and I could not help but hug the wall as I stepped sideways down the path. The sheriff was right behind me, I noticed, agile and fearless.
Deputy Beautyman, on the other hand, was as afraid of heights, or ledges, as I was. I didn’t see this until I reached the bottom and looked back, of course. The poor man had his cheek pressed to the wall, his arms stretched out like he was trying to embrace the entire side of the mountain, his fingers clawing at the rock face. It was both painful and comical to watch him, feet shuffling, inch by inch down the path, and at that moment I took pity on him, for I knew how scared I myself felt on that same rocky ledge.
Once we were, all three of us, down at the base of the Falls, we wound our way upstream along the bank to where a promontory jutted out into the creek, like the prow of a ship. This is where, maybe a hundred feet above, I had made the jump across the chasm. I couldn’t see from up there, but now I understood why this was called Hollow Falls. There was a large open space at the bottom of the promontory, forking the creek, enclosed by an overhang that sparkled with tiny flecks of iron ore. The underpass was an almost ethereal little meadow, covered in short blue grasses and yellow reeds, in the middle of which six horses were peacefully cropping. I recognized Rufe Jones’s spotted horse immediately. And next to it was the large black charger that had taken Pa away.
4
I REALIZED, AS SOON AS I SAW how Sheriff Chalfont took command of the situation, that I had been too hasty in my assessment of him before. I had mistaken his baby-faced good nature as a sign that he was too docile for the task at hand. I had wanted Marshal Farmer to lead the charge against Roscoe Ollerenshaw, truth be told. A spark of pure fire. The sheriff had not seemed as capable, to my eyes. How wrong I was!
The moment we saw the horses, Sheriff Chalfont brought his rifle up to eye level. He motioned for me to stay back, then crooked his finger at the deputy, who had likewise pulled out his rifle, and they cautiously stepped out from the bushes toward the horses. They circled the area until they were sure there was no one else there. Just the six horses, bridled but untethered, their saddles in a heap on the ground. A makeshift gate of sticks and twine had been placed along the bank, so there was nowhere for the horses to go unless they swam across the creeks on either side.
“How far is it to the cave?” Sheriff Chalfont as
ked me, putting his rifle down.
“About a half mile up the creek,” I answered.
“More like a whole mile,” Mittenwool corrected.
“Or maybe a whole mile,” I quickly added. “We were on the other side of the ravine, so it’s hard to gauge from down here. The creek bends around so steeply you don’t actually see the cave until you’re directly in front of it.”
Sheriff Chalfont nodded.
“Is Marshal Farmer’s horse one of these?” he asked.
I shook my head. I had already checked for his broody brown mare, but she was not there.
“That paint is the one Rufe Jones rode,” I said. “And this big black one here is the one my pa rode off on.” I patted this horse’s neck, thinking of that night, which now seemed like moons ago.
“Why’d they take your pa, again?” Deputy Beautyman asked grumpily, putting a fresh wad of tobacco in his mouth. He had heard the whole long story when I related it earlier, so this question annoyed me.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Like I told you before, they thought he was somebody else.”
“Who’d they think he was?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Sure, it does.”
“Someone named Mac Boat.”
At this, Sheriff Chalfont turned to look at me.
“Mac Boat?” he exclaimed. “You didn’t tell us that before.”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” I lied. “Why? You heard of him?”
“Everyone’s heard of Mac Boat.”
“I never heard of him.”
“What’s your pa’s name again?” he asked.
“Martin Bird. He’s a boot-maker,” I answered.
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