A Winter Haunting

by Dan Simmons

  Clare shrugged. “The Blackfeet are as terrified by ghosts as the Navajo. At least the ghosts in European tradition—say, the ghost of Hamlet’s father or Scrooge’s partner Marley—have personalities. They can reason, talk, defend their actions, warn the living of the folly of their ways. To the Plains Indians—to almost all Indians—the spirit of a dead person has no more personality than a fart.”

  “Pardon?” said Jean-Pierre, blinking. “A . . . faret?”

  “Un pet,” said Clare. “Just a noxious gas left behind. Ghosts in Indian traditions are always evil, always unpleasant, absolutely one-dimensional—less interesting in their way than the powerless shades in Hades that Orpheus and Eurydice visited.”

  She was obviously speaking too quickly for Jean-Pierre. Dale guessed that his editor had understood no words after “un pet.” “If mademoiselle refers to the indigenous people of the United States as ‘Indians,’ “ said Jean-Pierre, his voice dripping Gallic sarcasm, “then mademoiselle has no understanding of indigenous people.”

  Dale started to speak then, but Clare encircled his wrist with her thumb and forefinger and squeezed. She smiled sweetly at Jean-Pierre. “Monsieur Pee-wee must certainly be correct.”

  The editor had frowned again, paused, started to speak, and then changed the subject, moving his monologue along to the current political folly in the United States, explaining the vast conspiracy of moneyed interests—probably Jews, Dale interpreted—who controlled all reins of power in that benighted country.

  Later, at Gestapo headquarters, in their bed, with the moonlight flowing over the rooftops of Paris and falling on their naked bodies, Dale had whispered, “Is this real? Are we real? Is this going to last, Clare?”

  She had smiled at him from inches away. Dale was not sure, but he did not think that it was the same smile that she had showed Jean-Pee-wee in the Alsatian brasserie. “I can only think of Napoleon’s mother’s favorite quote,” she whispered back.

  “Which was?”

  “Ça va bien pourvu que ça dure—”

  “Which means?”

  “It goes well as long as it lasts.”

  Dale awoke in the basement of The Jolly Corner. It was late morning. His restarted and reset watch said 10:45, and a weak, sluggish light filtered through the slits of the grimy basement windows. Padding in his slippers, still in the old sweatsuit he wore for pajamas, he went up to the kitchen. The farmhouse was cold and drafty, and the sunlight outside looked as weak and hung over as he felt. The rain from the night before had frozen into long icicles that hung outside the windows and door like prison bars. The refrigerator and cupboards were almost empty. He was starved and hungry for something other than the cereal and milk he always ate for breakfast, hungry for something like rich, black coffee and warmed croissants with melted butter dripping on them. He wondered if he had dreamt about food.

  He walked into the study and stopped. The computer was on. The stupid quote from Milton was still on the screen, as was his ultimatum from the previous night:

  >Tell me who you are or I’ll shut this fucking computer down forever.

  Beneath that, this:

  >I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow, grafted onto daylight. Maudlin evasions, theopathies—every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything dies, unwanted and neglected—everything.

  Irritated by the double-talk on the screen and by a half memory of disturbing dreams and by the real memory of his conversation with Mab and his failure to wait for Anne’s call, Dale hurriedly blocked the passage and reached for the DELETE key.

  He paused.

  Rereading the paragraph of nonsense brought words, almost a phrase, to mind. Icicles. Sisters. Sybil.

  He shook his head. He had a headache and he was out of food. Even the fucking bread was moldy. He’d go shopping and worry about this later.

  An hour later, Dale came out of the KWIK’N’EZ carrying his three plastic bags of groceries and froze in place. Derek and his four skinhead friends were standing at the pumps between Dale and his Land Cruiser. Their two old Ford and Chevy pickups were the only other vehicles on the rainy tarmac.

  Dale paused just outside the gas station/convenience store’s doors. He felt a surge of adrenaline and panic and instantly hated himself for being afraid.

  Go inside and call the cops . . . the state police, if not the sheriff’s office. He glanced over his shoulder at the fat and acned teenage girl behind the counter. She met his stare with a bovine gaze and then deliberately looked away. Dale guessed that she was probably a girlfriend of Derek’s or one of the other skinheads . . . or perhaps she served all of them.

  Hefting the plastic bags and wishing they were heavier—filled with heavy cans of vegetables, perhaps—Dale stepped off the curb and began walking toward the clustered skinheads.

  The leader—the man in his mid-twenties with a swastika tattooed on the back of his right hand—showed small, irregular teeth in a wide grin as Dale approached. He was holding something in his hand, hiding it.

  Dale felt his legs go weak, and again he was furious at himself. In an instant he played out the fantasy of the boys parting for him just long enough for him to get his loaded Savage over-and-under out of the backseat, of blasting away into the asphalt to frighten them, of knocking the lead skinhead down, of kneeling on his chest and banging his fucking skull into the wet pavement until blood ran out of the motherfucker’s ears . . .

  The Savage was not in the backseat. In any fight, Dale knew, the skinhead would have all the advantages—experience, meanness, willingness to hurt another person. His heart pounding uselessly, Dale abandoned his fantasies and tried to focus on the unpleasant reality of now.

  “Hey, Professor Jewboy motherfucker,” said the skinhead leader, reminding Dale that this crew had heard of him through the series of anti-militia articles he’d stupidly written. The anti-Semitism of these so-called patriotic groups had been one of his major themes.

  Now losing your teeth and getting cut up will be your major themes, he thought as he stopped in front of the five young men. He wanted to tell them to get the fuck out of his way, but he didn’t trust his voice to be steady. Wonderful. I’m fifty-two years old and I just discovered that I’m a coward.

  A blue Buick drove into the gas station lot and pulled up to the closest pumps, right where Dale and the five losers were standing. The old couple in the front seat stared bleary-eyed and uncomprehending at the boys as the sullen gathering moved aside.

  The interruption gave Dale the chance to hurry to his SUV and clamber inside. The leader leaned close to the driver’s-side window just as Dale clicked the locks shut. The boy standing closest to Derek dragged a key along the left rear quarter panel of the Land Cruiser.

  If I were a real man, thought Dale, I’d get out and beat the shit out of that kid.

  Dale drove off, hoping that would be the end of it. No such luck. The five skinheads scrambled to their pickup trucks—Derek and the next-youngest hopping into the white Chevy, the leader and two of his older friends crawling into the scabrous green Ford with the oversized tires. Both trucks roared to follow Dale out of the KWIK’N’EZ lot.

  Dale paused at the entrance to the county road. Should he head south a couple of hundred yards to the entrance to I-74? Once on the interstate, he could drive straight to Peoria. If the punks followed him he would flag down a police car or go to the police center he dimly remembered on War Memorial Drive. Or should he turn north toward the Hard Road and Highway 150A, then back west to Oak Hill Road and north to the sheriff’s station in Oak Hill? That wouldn’t make much sense. Not with Sheriff C.J. Congden there. One of these punks was probably C.J.’s kid. They probably all attended skinhead gatherings together and lent each other white robes for their cross burnings.

  Dale turned north toward the Hard Road. He’d be damned if he’d flee to Peoria whenever some assholes made threatening noises.

  Why not? he thought. Why not just drive straight
to Montana?

  The two pickups followed him to the Hard Road, the green Ford leading Derek’s white Chevy.

  Dale paused again at the Hard Road. The trees and water tower of Elm Haven were visible just a mile or so to the west. Straight ahead stretched the narrow, asphalted lane—too narrow and roughly paved to be called a road—that cut between fields for two miles before connecting to County 6. Dale had come that way on his drive to the KWIK’N’EZ, staring out at the muddy fields and remembering again how the lane used to be two tractor tracks across the field, heavily used by locals but absolutely impassable in the mud season. Uncle Henry and Aunt Lena had told stories of the local farmers waiting with their teams of draft horses to pull out the unlucky Model Ts and fancy new Ford coupes—a lucrative business during a muddy spring.

  Dale drove straight ahead down the lane, the truck’s tires hissing on the soft asphalt and melting slush.

  If the skinheads had any idea of pulling alongside him and causing trouble, there was no opportunity for them to do so on this skinny stretch of potholes. The road was wide enough for just one vehicle, and there were deep drainage ditches on each side.

  Dale glanced in his rearview mirror. The two pickups were following closely. Dale could make out the pale oval face and black eyes of their leader behind the wheel of the Ford.

  Dale tried to estimate the age of the pickups and whether they had four-wheel drive. He thought possibly no on the Chevy, but the Ford probably did. At least, the expensive, oversized off-road tires suggested four-wheel capability.

  What the fuck do I think I’m doing here?

  The lane ended at County 6 just south of the Black Tree Tavern. A mile or so north and he’d be at The Jolly Corner. The Elm Haven water tower was just visible to the west.

  Dale turned east onto Jubilee College Road.

  You’re nuts. This county road ran east about seven miles to Jubilee College State Park, but there was nothing this way—hills, narrow bridges over creeks, a few farmhouses. But the road’s wide enough for them to pull alongside—force me off the road.

  Dale floored it. The big straight-six Toyota engine growled and got the two and a half tons of vehicle moving smartly.

  The two pickups behind him were honking—either in exultation at Dale’s stupidity or in anticipation of what came next.

  Dale drove seventy-five miles per hour down the poorly maintained county road, the Land Cruiser lifting high on its springs at the tops of hills, hunkering in the steep little valleys. The skinhead leader pulled his green Ford alongside as they roared up the next hill.

  A car coming the other way and someone dies, thought Dale.

  They crested the hill together. There was no car coming the other way. The white Chevy pickup loomed in Dale’s mirror—actually contacting his rear bumper. The pickups honked their horns; the skinheads waved from the open windows.

  The punk in the passenger seat next to the lead skinhead lifted a hunting knife and gestured with it, only two feet away from Dale. The punk’s window was down and he was shouting and cursing above the roar of the wind and engines and tire hiss on wet asphalt.

  Dale ignored him and accelerated down the hill. Jubilee College Road was wide enough for two vehicles here, but the bridge over the creek at the bottom of the hill was wide enough for just one.

  The green Ford lurched ahead, but Dale had vehicle mass, engine displacement, and desperation on his side. He reached the bottom first and swung in ahead of the Ford. The three vehicles roared across the narrow bridge and accelerated up the next hill.

  That was the bridge where Duane’s uncle Art was killed in that same summer of 1960, thought Dale. Someone forced Uncle Art’s old Cadillac off the road and into the bridge railing there.

  Then Dale had no more time to think as the green Ford pulled alongside again and the white Chevy surged close behind him.

  Dale tapped the brakes. The white truck behind him slammed on its brakes and fell back rather than rear-end the Land Cruiser. The Ford swerved in front of Dale’s vehicle and pulled ahead. Dale braked again, braked harder, the Chevy pickup actually skidding behind him now, and then Dale locked the steering wheel hard left. The Land Cruiser turned, almost tipped, skipped across asphalt, and literally slid into a gravel side road running north toward a line of trees. The shotgun-pelleted yellow sign in the frozen weeds at the side of the road read dead end.

  Why did I turn there? Dale thought wildly. The two pickups had already backed up on Jubilee College Road and pulled onto the gravel road a hundred yards behind him. What the hell was I thinking of?

  The answer came to him in a mental voice not quite his own: Gypsy Lane.

  NINETEEN

  * * *

  I KNEW what Dale had been thinking the instant he turned east on Jubilee College Road. I knew why he had done this seemingly senseless thing even before he did.

  Gypsy Lane had been one of the magical places for us boys in the late 1950s and the first year of the decade of the 1960s—my last year of life. Of all our places to play, Gypsy Lane had been the most mysterious. Kid legend had it that the old wagon road had been used more than a century earlier by caravans of Gypsies who plied their trade across the Midwest, keeping to little-used back roads rather than the main thoroughfares. Kid legend also had it that the Gypsies had been driven out of Elm Haven, Oak Hill, and other nearby towns after children had gone missing—kidnapped for their blood, was the opinion of the townspeople—and the Gypsies, still needed by farm folk for their elixir cures and fortunetelling and knife-sharpening tools, had discovered this old lane through the thickest forest, a path broadened to wagon width by the Quakers and other builders of the Underground Railroad running slaves north a day’s walk at a time in the years before the Civil War, and then the Gypsies had taken the lane as their own, moving from Oak Hill to Princeville, Princeville to Peoria, Peoria north toward Chicago on this secret highway in the moonlight, their horse carts and caravans creaking through the darkness and leaf shadow.

  To get to Gypsy Lane, Dale and the other town kids hiked up Jubilee College Road to County 6 past the Black Tree Tavern, where I would meet them outside the Calvary Cemetery. We’d all cross through the cemetery—brave in the daylight, more than a little nervous if we returned at dusk or after dark—climbing the back fence, crossing the pastures and meadows there, crossing a wooded valley, then reaching Billy Goat Mountains—an abandoned strip mine and gravel quarry—and finally entering the old woods, the original and uncut forest, where Gypsy Lane remained only as a sunken roadway, carpeted by moss and deep grass, overhung by brambled branches. The expedition usually included Dale and his kid brother, Lawrence, Mike O’Rourke, Kevin Grumbacher, weird Jim Harlen, and sometimes some of the other town boys—only very rarely a girl, although Donna Lou Perry, the pitcher in their all-day baseball games, occasionally came along.

  I always brought up the rear. I was fat. Even on the hottest summer days, I wore heavy flannel shirts and thick corduroy pants. I set my own pace. The guys didn’t mind. They’d take a break every once in a while and let me catch up. We rarely followed the sunken path more than two or three miles, usually ending our hike on this very county gravel road on which Dale had just turned, then retracing our steps to the cemetery, then heading back to town, me waddling north alone to The Jolly Corner. On those spring, summer, fall, and occasional winter days, I walked along Gypsy Lane with the guys, not believing in any of the legends or myths about it, assuming that it was an old unpaved farm road that had been bypassed by the county and state roads fifty or sixty years earlier, but enjoying the walk and the dappled shadow and thinking my own thoughts.

  The reason that Dale’s subconscious had come up with Gypsy Lane as a possible way to throw off his pursuers is that he remembered that the sunken lane ran most of the two and a half miles between this dead-end road and County 6 at the cemetery. It had been a rough and sunken path then, but passable. Billy Goat Mountains, where we boys had often played, was an obstacle course of ponds and slag heaps and
huge hills of dirt and gravel. Dale’s subconscious, if not his frightened conscious mind this day, had realized that the odds were good that his Toyota Land Cruiser, with its high clearance, exceptional four-wheel low gear, and locking front and center differentials, had a better chance of making it up Gypsy Lane and across Billy Goat Mountains than did the rusted and clapped-out pickups chasing him.

  But he had forgotten something. We had hiked Gypsy Lane more than forty years ago. Things change.

  Before he saw the gray wreck of the abandoned farmhouse ahead on his left, Dale had remembered Gypsy Lane and smiled to himself. He’d wanted some difficult terrain in which to lose these skinhead punks. This should be perfect.

  The green Ford was roaring closer now, throwing gravel and ice thirty feet in the air. Dale could see the pale faces behind the reflective windshield, even make out the black tattooed swastika on the back of the leader’s hand as he drove. For a second, Dale’s burst of confidence abandoned him. What if these kids wanted to hurt him seriously . . . to kill him? He’d led them to a perfect place: abandoned, isolated, empty. It could be spring before someone found his body.

  Too late to worry about that now, thought Dale, and swung the Toyota off the dead-end road into the snowy and brambled yard of the abandoned farmhouse. It was just as he remembered it from the end of their long hikes down Gypsy Lane. Behind the farmhouse and to the left began the . . .

  “Shit,” whispered Dale.

  Where Gypsy Lane had come out into open pasture when he and his brother Lawrence and Duane and their friends had hiked it four decades ago, a mature forest now grew.

  “Shit,” Dale said again and concentrated on weaving between the trees. He was doing only thirty miles an hour now, but even that was too fast. Mud and snow flew from the rear wheels. He dodged a bare oak, but slammed over a sapling. Suddenly the Land Cruiser was sliding on a steep hill made ski-slope slick by a thick carpet of leaves. Dale had no idea where he was. There was no sign of Gypsy Lane.