by Rodney Jones
Hugh was a year older than I was and, for some reason that I could never quite figure, had it out for me, as if he just decided the first day he saw me that he plain didn’t care for me. He’d always find little ways to show it, too. Like the time he ratted on me for cheating on my English test in Miss Stevenson’s school. I knew it was him because as I was receiving my whippin’, I gave the classroom a once-over. Hugh might as well have been bragging about it, what with the satisfied smile he wore. And I know full dang well he’d more than once cheated himself, but I’d never tell. It was none of my business.
I watched the two of them, Zella and Hugh, slip off into the dancing, then went and found myself another partner—Annie McKinney, a quiet, freckled, dark-haired gal from Londonderry who, like myself, had lost her pa in the war and was living with relatives—in her case, her grandparents. Her lack of words hardly mattered, being there was such a ruckus to compete with anyhow, but I felt more as if we were sadly stepping around, than joyfully prancing about, as it seemed Zella and Hugh were doing.
“Are you enjoying living in Londonderry?” I hollered over the rapid seesawing of the fiddle and the shuffling, stomping, and clapping of dancers and onlookers.
Our eyes met as she glanced up, but hers then quickly shifted away. She shrugged and said something; I had no idea what. I noticed my aunt dancing with Mr. McNeil. From the sour look on her face, I suspected something wasn’t right. Mr. McNeil had come all the way from Woodstock, probably in town on business, whatever that might be. He got around, though, being the sheriff of Windsor County. But from what I’d heard, he wouldn’t be the sheriff come November’s election. The man apparently wasn’t well liked. Rumor was, he beat his wife pretty bad and once even broke his young daughter’s arm. He, of course, had his own cockamamie account of things, which folks had a variety of reasons to doubt, but with him being the sheriff and all, nothing happened.
Aunt Lil twisted around and pulled away from him. He grabbed hold of her arm, but then quickly let go as several people stopped dancing, myself included, and turned their attention on him. The fiddler paused, and then the other musicians quieted, sending a hush through the crowd like a stone quiets a frog pond. My aunt pushed her way through the onlookers and toward the door.
“They ain’t nothin’ to gawk at,” the sheriff announced. “A little misunderstanding is all!”
“What kind of misunderstanding might that be?” someone shouted from the crowd.
The sheriff grinned. “Now if I knew, it wouldn’t be a misunderstanding, would it?” He turned toward the group of musicians. “Play us another one of them fine jigs, fellows.” He started whistling Lilly Dale and stomping his foot. Jim Young began thumping his washtub-bass. “A stupid misunderstanding. Where women are involved, that’s about all you can expect,” he said as he stepped through the crowd on his way out.
“A stupid misunderstanding,” Aunt Lil said on our way home. “I swear there was liquor on that man’s breath. And he was being a mite bit overbearing, were you to ask me.”
“Well, if I’d been within eye or ear of his tomfooleries, he wouldn’t have been walking out of there on his own like he did.”
“My Lord, Ed. And just how would I show my face in church come Sunday, once you’ve made a perfect fool of yourself?”
“There ain’t all that many around here that’d blame me.”
I believe my aunt was in agreement on that point, as she didn’t say anything more. Uncle Edwin wasn’t quite done with it, though.
“How does such a man get elected to a respected position? He’s supposed to be an example, ain’t he?”
“He’s an example, all right,” my aunt said.
We turned from County Road onto Greendale, me in the back of the wagon, leaning against the backboards, staring up at a first-quarter moon. Uncle Edwin sat on the left of the bench, holding the slack reins, with Aunt Lil to his right—all three of us busy in our thoughts.
Then, my aunt added, “That poor woman.”
“What poor woman is that?” my uncle said.
“He’s a married man, and he shouldn’t be attending dancings without her being along, too.”
The next day, my uncle took the three horses into Weston to have them reshod and to attend to some other business. I had a few chores to do around the mill, cleanin’ up and greasin’ bearings and such, but mostly I spent the day helping my aunt weed the garden.
Aunt Lil was plucking the freshly sprouted weeds along a bushy row of beets. “I couldn’t help but notice the attention you were paying that Shaw gal,” she said.
I was hoeing around the corn, just a few yards away. “What?”
“At the dancing.”
“Which Shaw gal, ma’am?”
“Was there more than one?”
“Oh… Zella, you mean.”
“And it looked to me the interest was mutual.”
“It may have looked that way, but I suspect it ain’t. I think she’s got her eye on Hugh.” I didn’t know why, but my thinking of him a-courting her brought the taste of sour milk to my mind.
“Hugh?”
I nodded, though I knew she wasn’t looking.
“Pshaw!”
“Pshaw, ma’am?”
“You need to be a little more assertive, John. Gals like that.”
I straightened and looked at my aunt. “Never mind he’s bigger, older, better-lookin’, and the preacher’s son to boot.”
She shrugged. “You’re smarter, with a good measure more of integrity, and you’re the miller’s nephew. And were you to ask me, I’d tell you that looks aren’t everything. I’m talking about Zella Shaw now, not you. But I think you’re clever enough to figure that out on your own.”
chapter three
NEARLY TWO WEEKS AFTER THE barn dance, I found myself again at the place where that orange ribbon marked the beginning of a most unlikely tale.
I was hauling another load into Rutland, not paying much attention to anything, as there wasn’t really a need to, and was hardly aware of where I was when I heard thunder. I spotted a cloud or two among the patches of sky between the tree branches, though they didn’t look like they’d have any thunder in them. You never know in the mountains; it could be sunny on one side and pouring Noah’s rain on the other.
Glancing to my left, I realized exactly where I was. I brought the horses to a halt and sat in the wagon, listening and puzzling. Greendale River was to the right of the road, about forty feet away. But that clearly wasn’t the river I was hearing; there wasn’t enough water in that stream to account for such a noise. I again peered up through the limbs of the trees and then at the woods to my left. It seemed to be coming more from there, a distant, long-winded thunder, growling on and on, crawling up the far side of the mountain to the near.
Once again, I went traipsing off, one hesitant step before another, toward some phantom noise with which I had no business. I was no more than a hundred paces from the wagon when I tripped over a sneaky tree branch. I got back to my feet, glanced ahead, then to my left, and quickly right.
“What the…?” I spun around, no idea where I was, same as before. My heart was a-gallop as I searched the trees, trying to make sense of something that could never make sense. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. When I opened them, I was none the better for it. I turned this way and that, looking for something, anything familiar. Where? There had to be something, I assured myself. I blinked and then stared.
“Go away!” I waved my hands about as though trying to run off a pesky coon. Nothing happened, nothing moved, no change.
“Just get out of here,” I told myself. “Which way?”
I heard a snap and spun around, panting. My eyes darted from tree to fern to stump, everywhere, searching like a cat in a corner, a fox in a snare. I thought maybe I knew the big, moss-covered boulder ahead and to my left. I looked to my right. Other things looked familiar—subtle things like a slight rise to the right of the rock and, behind me, the downward slope of th
e land. The more I looked, the more familiar it all seemed. And then it hit me: it was the same place, same rocks, same mountain it’d always been—just different trees.
I stumbled toward that boulder, taking only a few steps before having to stop and catch my breath. I looked off to my right, and there it was, the same sapling I’d used to support myself that other time, ribbon and all. The ribbon was fixed to a branch about six feet from the ground, same as before, same bright orange. I stepped over to the tree for a closer look. Someone must have come in and replaced the one I’d taken with another just like it. I studied the ribbon—same tight, square knot. An odd feeling came to me, as if I’d already experienced that moment. But I didn’t touch the ribbon. I turned to the boulder instead, so it couldn’t be the same moment.
Crazy as it sounded, I figured I’d be fine if I could just ignore the trees. There were so many, though, wrong trees in the wrong places.
“Just go. Go.” I stumbled to my right. “Where?” I glanced up and then twisted to my left. “North.” I twisted right. “That way… north.” I turned. “Yeah… yeah…”
I began at a cautious pace, easing my way back toward the wagon, giving my attention to every step. It wasn’t long, though, before I was running. I was dang-sure-certain I knew where the wagon was, but it wasn’t there. I couldn’t say Greendale Road was, either. I ran right over it, not realizing until I came to the stream. And I knew full well, as I always had, where that stream lay relative to the road. There was just no way I could have missed the road as I did.
I could feel my heart in my chest, my belly, and my head, a steady drumbeat in my ears. I searched up the river and down, making certain it was the one I believed it to be, then scrambled the short distance back, retracing my footsteps. But instead of a road, I found a foot path.
“It can’t be right. No.” It was just a trace, nothing more than a deer path. I peered down it the one way, then the other.
“It’s crazy.”
That other time—the ribbon—I recalled how things had just suddenly returned to normal. So I closed my eyes and took several long, deep breaths, pleading and hoping. When I opened them, nothing had changed. I waited moments, then minutes, until my impatience gave me a kick.
Do something! I took a quick look around, the palms of my hands pressed to the sides of my head. Do what?
Up ahead a ways and off to the right was another rock. The boulder was about eight feet high. I was absolutely certain I’d seen it before. A split down the middle had always made me think of a man’s head cracked open. But the trees around it, like all the others, were wrong. I stared up that path again. In my mind, I took out the trees, leaving the road I knew so well in their stead. I squinted up my imaginary road, refining it, giving it time to settle in.
The wagon.
I could only assume the horses were spooked and had run off. But hadn’t I set the brake? I thought I had. I looked, but I didn’t see wheel ruts, trampled grass, or any evidence a wagon had ever been there, but then, I didn’t see a path clear enough for one to have passed anyway. I followed that vague trail north, holding to the hope I’d soon come upon my uncle’s team. The lay of the land offered a few clues as to where I was, though I couldn’t be positive I was anywhere I’d ever been before.
I was coming down the other side of the mountain, maybe two miles from Wallingford, when I began noticing soft rumblings. Something very strange was going on in the distance ahead. Next, I heard voices. I peered up the path, expecting to see horses, but instead saw a man and a gal perhaps a few years older than myself, approaching on foot. It puzzled me, those two being this far from town, walking to nowhere, just woods from there to Greendale. Then it came to me that they were likely lost, as confused by the trees as I was. But that wasn’t the least of it. The gal had her hair chopped off nearly as short as mine, and she appeared to be wearing her bloomers, though they weren’t anything like the ones I’d seen hanging from clotheslines in Greendale. For one thing, they were blue rather than white. The fellow was wearing short breeches such as a child might wear, though his were hemmed above his bare knees. As they drew near, I turned my head to the side and made as if I were searching the woods.
“You folks lose your horses?” I figured they must’ve somehow lost their clothes, too, but I didn’t want to draw attention to such particulars.
They stopped a cautious distance from me and replied in unison, “What?”
I did my best not to look at her. My eyes were on the fellow, but she was right there next to him, tugging at my gaze. “Horses,” I said. “You ain’t maybe seen a couple, have you?”
“No.” The fellow’s reply trailed off into an uncertain chuckle.
“You come up this way on foot?”
He looked at his feet. “Uh, yeah.”
“What do you make of all these trees?”
“The trees?” He turned and looked off into the woods.
“It’s the same all the way up the mountain,” I said.
Both he and the gal glanced off to either side of the path. “Uh, I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The fact that I had a half-naked gal standing before me, and the conversation being just to this side of useless, didn’t lessen my apprehension any.
Before I had a chance to say anything more, the fellow grabbed the gal’s hand and began dragging her on by me, saying, “I hope you get it worked out.”
“Pardon?”
They both kept their eyes straight ahead as they stepped past, as if I were a tree stump or a rock. I pointed and said, “The town down yonder?”
Without looking back, the fellow mumbled, “Uh huh,” and kept on going.
As my journey progressed, I became more certain of my whereabouts. Though the road was grossly overgrown—an impossibility which I had no choice but to ignore—I stuck to the belief that I was on Greendale Road and getting ever closer to Wallingford. An occasional view of the surrounding mountains favored my assessment.
A mile or so later, a shiny object lying near the edge of the path caught my eye. I lifted a small canister weighing close to nothing and painted up in the finest—as well as some of the tiniest—calligraphy I’d ever seen.
Budweiser, King of Beers, it read in fancy red letters.
The King of England, I’d heard tell of… but a king of beers? I turned the can over in my hand, trying to make sense of something so finely crafted left lying there in the woods. It didn’t strike me as something a person might misplace, and for the life of me, I couldn’t guess what it was made of beyond some sort of tin. I gave it a light squeeze. “Oh, no.” I’d dented the side. But then, it was just about the flimsiest thing ever. Feeling foolish and a mite bit regretful, I gently set the canister down in the same spot I’d found it, thinking that whoever had left it there would likely come back looking for it.
The path came to a sudden end at a small level clearing with a proper road opening at the far end—an unusually well-kept stretch with barely a hint of ruts. About a quarter-mile down the road, bolted to a slim steel post, was a sign. I read it out loud, just two meticulously painted words.
“Dead end?”
That was it: Dead End. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble with this business; I could see that. I couldn’t for the life of me decipher what they might’ve had in mind, however. Dead End.
I didn’t puzzle so much over that sign as I did over the fact that there seemed to be a steady stream of things to puzzle over, such as the rock fences bordering the empty pastures. It appeared as though something, or someone, had gone along their entire length and wreaked havoc with them. And I noticed cables running alongside the road, high up on poles. And the house up ahead, through the trees and to the right—I knew exactly where I was and could say with full certainty that that house, built in a style unfamiliar to these parts, shouldn’t have been there.
Rutland Road was less than a mile away, and that low hum I’d been hearing had become as steady as a river
. More houses appeared to either side of the road, houses where there should be no houses, all of them linked to those tall poles by drooping cables.
That thunder I’d heard in the woods earlier, I was again hearing. I had a clear view of some sky, but same as before, found no storm clouds. What I saw, however, was a perfect, straight, fine white line running southwest to northeast and growing longer by the second—a curious glint of light at its head.
I was standing in the middle of the road, transfixed by that incredible mark in the sky when all at once, I heard two quick blasts behind me. I spun around, and a chill shot up my spine. A thing, near as big as a wagon, was tearing down the road toward me. My feet stayed put as though I’d lost command of them. Two gawk-eyed faces glared at me through glass, pivoting as whatever-the-dickens-it-was flew by. I turned, following it, my jaw hanging as the thing disappeared up the road.
A machine? It was too simple to be described as such, too plain, like a blob of molten lead. And drawn how? Clearly not by steam, as I heard no chug of an engine. Could it have just been coasting? No, it was headed uphill, awash in sparkle and shine. Gold? Copper? It was the color of polished bronze, slick as a river rock, and shaped like… a bird? A fish? A bug? It had bright, jeweled eyes—two gleaming clusters in front, a ruby-red pair behind full of glitter and fire. Its squat wheels were a blur of silver and black coal, plump as millstones grinding gravel into dust. Where had it come from? And how had something as big as that caught me unaware?
I gaped long after it was gone. It seemed like something I’d imagined, though I couldn’t have come up with anything comparable in my wildest dreams.