by Lynn Austin
I sat down on a spindly chair beside Lillie’s bed and ate. The worst was over, I decided, so why not make peace? There would be no more need for potions or secrets or lies. I could concentrate on my work in the library while I waited for my aunt and uncle to return. Maybe I could invite a few more children from town to come to our story time with Faye’s boys.
We had finished eating and I was collecting the dishes when Lillie said, “There’s just one more tiny little thing we’re gonna need your help with, honey.”
My shoulders sagged. A sound escaped from my throat, something closer to a whimper or a groan than a sigh. “Now what?”
“I could use some help getting ready to leave,” Mack said.
“Leave? Where are you going?”
“To a cabin I know of up behind the town. I need to leave tonight, after dark.”
“How are you getting there? You can barely stand up, let alone walk. You want me to borrow the postmaster’s goat cart?” It irritated me that they would dare to ask another favor, and I made no attempt to hide it.
“I plan to ride Belle. I might need a little help getting her ready.”
“This is the twentieth century! Don’t you know anyone with a car?”
“The manager of the coal mine has a big, shiny black car, Miss Ripley. So does the sheriff. But I doubt they’d be willing to give me a lift, seeing as they think I’m dead. Besides, there’s no road up to the cabin. So will you help me? . . . Please?”
“It depends. What do I have to do?”
Mack stood and moved toward the door. “Can you help me get packed?”
“I suppose so.”
I followed him into his room, which now looked as though Ali Baba and his forty thieves had ransacked it. A pair of saddlebags lay on his bed, and I helped him stuff various belongings and toiletries into the leather bags, then rolled up a couple of quilts and tied them into a bedroll. Mack’s arm was in a sling and he had to do everything one-handed. I could see that his shoulder still gave him a lot of pain and that the slightest activity left him exhausted. He already had packed a bulging burlap sack, but I didn’t want to know what that might contain, and he didn’t seem inclined to tell me.
“I guess I’ll have to leave my typewriter here for another trip,” he said, glancing around when we finished.
“What typewriter? What do you need a typewriter for?”
“Don’t ask questions, Miss Ripley. You won’t like the answers.”
I made two trips up and down the stairs, piling everything by the back door. Then I helped Mack hobble down to the kitchen. He directed me as I filled an empty feed sack with food supplies.
The night turned out to be dark and cloudy with no moon or stars. “Perfect,” Mack decided. Creepy, I thought. Sparse spring branches creaked and rasped as they blew in the wind. A hint of rain still fogged the damp air. Mack leaned on me as he limped down to the shed, where I was supposed to help him saddle the horse. The saddle was so heavy I had to stand on a crate in order to lift it onto the animal’s back. And the beast kept moving around, refusing to stand still for me. By the time I managed to heft the saddle into place, I was panting. Mack pointed to a strap dangling under the horse’s belly.
“Make sure you cinch that up real tight.”
“Wait. You can’t possibly expect me to crawl underneath that animal and fasten that buckle.”
“If you don’t, I’ll be on my rear end in the creek before Belle takes a dozen steps.”
“Lead me not into temptation . . .” I mumbled, imagining the scene.
“Pardon?”
“The horse is enormous! Can’t you buckle the strap yourself?”
“Not with one hand.”
“What if she lies down on top of me while I’m under there?”
“She won’t. Horses seldom lie down. Come on, I’ll make sure Belle won’t kick you.”
Kick me? I worked fast, glancing at Mack and at the horse’s hind legs.
“Now the bridle,” Mack said. “Just slip it over her head and get her to open her mouth so you can put the bit in place.” I stared at him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You expect me to put my fingers into the horse’s mouth?”
“Belle won’t mind. She’s used to it.”
“Well, I’m not used to it! I’ve never been this . . . intimate . . . with an animal before—under its belly, in its mouth—especially a beast that’s three times my size.”
I heard him mumble something about melodrama, but I chose to ignore him. Between the two of us, we finally got the bridle on and the horse was ready to go. As we led it from the shed to the back door where we’d piled Mack’s saddlebags and bedroll, I could tell the horse wasn’t too happy about going out for a midnight ride. It stomped its feet and snorted, acting as sulky as I felt.
The last thing Mack had me do after tying on all his belongings was drag a wooden bench over from beside the back door and help him climb up, since he was too weak to swing up into the saddle the regular way—especially with only one arm. As it was, he half crawled onto Belle’s back, stomach first. He was sweating and wincing by the time he was astride, even though the night air was cool. I was about to wish him well—and good riddance—when he extended his good hand to me. “Grab on, Miss Ripley, and I’ll pull you up behind me.”
“What?”
“You have to come along.”
“Oh, no I don’t!” I backed away from him.
“How else will Belle get home again?”
“I don’t care. That’s not my problem.”
He beckoned to me again. “Come on, hurry up before someone sees us.”
I crossed my arms. “No. This is the limit. I . . . I refuse.”
“I thought you agreed to help me.”
“I’ve done all sorts of things to help you, including crouching beneath a horse, hauling sacks of dirt, telling a pack of lies, and committing fraud. But now I’m done. Finished. No more. You and Lillie got along fine before I arrived, and from now on you’ll just have to spin your web of deceit without me.”
“Listen, this will only take a few minutes. You’ll be back home and tucked up in bed within the hour.”
“No! I’ve never been on a horse in my life, and I’m not going to get on one tonight.”
“Come on . . . it’s easy. Little children do it. Climb on the bench and give me your hand.” He reached his good arm out to me again. I backed even farther away from him.
“No, I can’t . . . and I won’t!”
I heard a clicking-sliding noise behind me, metal on metal. I turned and saw Lillie standing in the doorway in her nightgown, holding Mack’s rifle.
“Go ahead and get on the horse, honey,” she said sweetly. “I come to think of you as my own daughter, so I sure would hate to shoot you.”
Shoot me?
“Come on, Miss Ripley,” Mack coaxed, smiling, extending his hand.
Did I have a choice? Lillie was holding a gun. A gun! She probably wouldn’t really shoot me, but then again maybe she would. Mack was living proof that people around here didn’t think twice about shooting each other.
“Climb on, honey,” Lillie urged.
My knees trembled with a mixture of anger and terror as I climbed onto the tottering bench. Mack grabbed my hand and hauled me up onto the horse. I had to wrap my arms around his waist to keep from falling off, and that made me angrier still. He shook the reins and Belle began to move, clomping and swaying over the lumpy ground. I remembered the saddle strap I had cinched and prayed that I had pulled it tight enough so we both wouldn’t land in the creek.
I had begun to feel a mild fondness for Mack as I’d helped Lillie save his life, but those feelings were gone now. Tonight I hated him. Even so, I clung to him against my will, terrified of falling off the horse. The ground was such a long way down! We ambled across the yard and down to the creek in the dark, then Mack turned the horse to the right and we followed the narrow bank of the creek like a trail up into the hills.
“Do you care at all that I’ve just been coerced at gunpoint? Against my will? And don’t you dare tell me I’m being melodramatic.”
“You’ve really never been on a horse before?”
“Never! Horses belong in novels about the Wild West. We drive cars where I come from. Cars!”
“Well, you’re not home now, are you?”
I felt his ribs quivering and I had the infuriating feeling that he was laughing at me. “Are you laughing, Mr. MacDougal?”
“No, ma’am. I’m trying real hard not to laugh.” But he couldn’t hold it in, and before long he was sputtering and chuckling. I even saw him wipe his eyes.
“This isn’t funny!”
“No, ma’am. It truly isn’t. But just think how exciting it will sound when you tell all your friends back home that you went on a midnight horseback ride with a dead man. Kind of spooky . . . like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, don’t you think?”
“I have no idea who shot you, Mr. MacDougal, but he now has my complete support and encouragement.”
He laughed even harder.
We rode for several minutes as the horse plodded uphill. I gripped Mack’s waist, swaying atop the horse’s hips, ducking beneath low-hanging branches that dripped icy water down my back. Then I had another thought. “How am I supposed to find my way home all alone in the dark? Do you care at all that I might get lost?”
“Belle knows the way. It isn’t far. Just follow the creek.”
“If the horse knows the way back, then why did I have to come?”
“So you’d know where the cabin is. I’ll have to depend on you to bring me food and things for a while.”
“Wait. You said this was the very last thing I would have to do for you.”
“Actually, I believe Miss Lillie told you that. And you know how she likes to exaggerate.”
“Is she going to point a gun at me again?”
“I guess that’s up to you, Miss Ripley. Lillie does whatever she needs to do to get the job done.”
I had the same stomach-sinking feeling that all hostages must feel when they realize there is no way out. Then I thought of one. “What are you going to do next week after my aunt and uncle come back for me?”
“Shhh . . . Stop talking, Miss Ripley. You’re going to have every dog in the hollow barking.”
We rode for twenty minutes more, the forest growing darker and thicker as we climbed higher and higher. Every sound spooked me, and I was certain I could hear creatures scurrying around, rustling through the underbrush below us and in the tree branches above. The horse huffed and snorted as it climbed, its hooves skidding on the mud at times. Then it pulled up short and stopped walking altogether, for no reason that I could see. It danced in place as if standing on a bed of hot coals.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. “Why is the horse acting so jittery?” I was afraid it had decided we were too heavy and was about to rear back and throw us off.
“Shhh!”
“Why is he stopping? What’s wrong with him?”
“It’s not a him, Miss Ripley. Belle’s a mare.” We stood still for a long moment, and I could hear Mack sniffing the air. “Smell that?” he asked. “There’s a cat around here somewhere. Belle smells it, too.”
“A cat? Doesn’t she like cats?”
“We’re not talking about your grandma’s tabby cat. We have big cats in these woods. Lynx. Wildcats.”
This news was too much for me. I leaned my forehead against Mack’s back and cried like a little girl. My nerves were so jumbled from everything I had endured that I would need a month at Aunt Lydia’s spa to straighten them out.
“Hey, hey,” he soothed. “Don’t cry.” He made a clicking sound and urged the horse forward again. “We’ll be fine. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No? What did you mean to do? You’ve already forced me to get on this stupid horse at gunpoint, and now you’re telling me there are wildcats stalking us? That’s my choice? Get shot or get eaten by wildcats? Who wouldn’t be scared?”
“Don’t worry, cats usually go for smaller game. They’d have to be plenty hungry to go after Belle.”
“Wonderful. What about going after me?”
He laughed, and it made me so angry I wanted to push him off the horse and let the wildcat eat him. “Stop laughing! It’s not funny!”
“I’m sorry. But if you ever got into a tussle with a wildcat, Miss Ripley, I’d put my money on you.”
I decided not to say another word to this horrible man and seethed in silence the rest of the way. Ten minutes later—although it seemed like ten years—Mack veered away from the creek and urged the horse straight up a steep incline on our right. “Hang on tight,” he said.
“Wait! I’m going to slide off the back!”
“You’ll be fine. Lift your bottom a little and lean forward.”
The nerve of the man, telling me what to do with my bottom! But I closed my eyes and hung on to Mack for dear life. I didn’t open them again until we halted. In the gloom among the trees, I could barely make out the bones of a tiny cabin, perched on an impossibly small square of flat land. A jumbled tangle of vines and tree branches engulfed it as if the cabin were having a wrestling match with Mother Nature. The cabin was clearly losing. The tumbledown structure not only looked uninhabited, it looked uninhabitable. I didn’t care. I was so furious that all I wanted to do was climb down off this horse and go home. I would take my chances with the wildcats just to be rid of Mack.
He steered Belle as close to the cabin as he could get without going inside and slid off with a grunt onto the tiny porch. I extended my hand to him. “Help me down, please.” I would have jumped off, but the horse had legs like a giraffe’s and the ground looked very far away.
“Hand me the saddlebags first,” Mack said. I complied. “Thanks. Can you untie the bedroll . . . and that burlap sack? Good. Now slide forward into the saddle.”
I did what he said, sliding onto the hard leather seat. “Will you please help me down now?” I asked politely.
Mack shook his head. “The trip will go faster on the way back. It’s downhill most of the way. Belle will be eager to get home. Don’t let her gallop, though, or you might fall off.”
“How am I supposed to stop her?”
“Hang on with your legs. Keep the reins tight. But don’t pull too hard or she’ll buck and throw you off.”
“Throw me off! Wait—!”
“Just keep following Wonderland Creek down the hill.”
“Wonderland? Is that the name of this creek?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s what it’s called. Why?”
“Never mind. Please, Mack. Help me down. I want to walk home.”
“You can’t walk. It’s too dark. How will you see where you’re going? Listen, Belle knows the way home and she’s very sure-footed. She’ll have you there in twenty minutes. She moves faster downhill.”
“No, wait! That’s what I’m afraid of! I don’t want her to run!”
“Lean back on the way down. Hang on with your legs. And don’t forget to take her saddle and bridle off when you get home.”
“Please don’t leave me out here in these woods all alone!”
“You’re not alone. You have Belle. Good night, Miss Ripley. Thanks for your help.” Mack gave the horse a gentle slap on her rear end and off we went.
I would have screamed, but fear had driven all of the air from my lungs. I closed my eyes, then remembered I needed to watch for low-hanging branches. The slope was so steep that I felt like I was going to tumble right over the horse’s head. She was grunting and snorting as she negotiated the rocky slope. Maybe she was as scared as I was. What if she really didn’t know the way home and we wandered around in these creepy woods all night? But Belle quickly reached the stream and turned downhill, following the creek bed. Wonderland Creek indeed.
It might have taken only twenty minutes to get home, but it seemed like an
eternity as Belle and I bounced and jostled downhill through the ink-black forest. I clung to the reins and the little horn on the front of the saddle, whimpering like an abandoned kitten. I didn’t stop whimpering until I felt the ground start to level off and I knew we were almost there. My vision blurred with tears of joy and relief when I saw the dark outline of the library in the distance. Lillie had left a lantern glowing in the kitchen window.
The horse went straight into the shed, and if I hadn’t remembered to duck in time, I would have been knocked to the ground. I gratefully slid off her back when she stopped. My legs were so weak from fear and exhaustion that they crumpled beneath me and I landed in a heap in the hay and manure. I figured as long as I was down there, I may as well reach beneath her belly to unbuckle the saddle.
“Nice horsey, good horsey . . .” I murmured as my fingers fumbled in the dark. “Please don’t kick me.”
I scrambled to my feet when she started stomping hers and I quickly slid the saddle off her back. Then I pulled the bridle off her head and hung it on a hook. I was done. Finished. I latched the shed door behind me and staggered up to the house.
Everything was quiet. There was no sign of Lillie or her rifle. I took the lantern from the kitchen window and carried it upstairs to Mack’s bedroom. At least I had a bed to sleep in again. I looked in the mirror above the dresser and saw a crazed woman with straw sticking out of her hair and eyes as wide and glassy as Aunt Lydia’s stuffed moose. It’s okay, I told the girl in the mirror. You’re home now where it’s safe. Everything’s going to be okay.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the bat whizzed past my head. This was too much. It was all too much!
I dove into Mack’s bed and pulled the covers over my head, crying myself to sleep as the bat swooped around the room, diving and darting as if having the time of its life.
An odd sound outside below my bedroom window awakened me the next morning. Whack, thwap! Whack, thwap! I parted the curtains and looked down to see Ike Arnett, the fiddle player, splitting wood with an axe and stacking it in our woodpile. I had been growing worried as I’d watched the pile diminishing day after day, fearing that I soon would have to chop wood, too. Mack had stacked a large pile of logs down by Belle’s shed, but they needed to be split before they’d fit into the cookstove.