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There was no longer any problem, really, in getting out. Over the years her explorations of the countryside, with or without Paddington or one or more of the dogs, and sometimes with Ralgrub and her offspring, had shown her several possibilities for escape. She had been as far south as the great waterfall which fell into the magical glen Adam had told her so much about, in which he had explored and found Indian relics. She had seen the treacherous place where he had fallen trying to get down, and she knew that even if she had a rope she wouldn’t want to try to get off the mountain that way. But her wanderings had also led her to the place where she found the crumpled, blackened remains of a vehicle, and she guessed it had been Sugrue’s truck, and climbing the bluff side above it, with Hreapha and Hrolf, who seemed to know where they were going, she had discovered the end of what little remained of the trail on which she had been brought to Madewell Mountain so long ago. She knew that if she followed that trail she could find her way down off the mountain. So momentous was the discovery that she was tempted to try it right then and there, but she was naked, as usual, and decided that if she ever encountered another human being, she would have to be clothed.
Thus, when she finally embarked upon her journey to the other world, it was only after substantial thought and preparation. She even considered cutting her hair, which now reached nearly to her knees, but instead she simply gave it a thorough washing and braided it into two long pigtails which she wrapped around the top of her head into a kind of crown or turban, held in place with small wooden pegs. She trimmed her fingernails with the scissors and used a knife to clean carefully under the remaining nails, then she did the same for her toenails, which had practically become claws. She considered using Sugrue’s razor to remove the hair from her legs and under her armpits but she decided that would be hypocritical if she allowed the bush of golden hair to remain around her poody, and besides, her clothing would cover her legs and armpits (and of course her poody). She donned Sugrue’s best shirt and his overalls, also freshly washed, and scarcely needed to roll up the trouser cuffs, since his clothes now fit her well. His shoes were too large, but she didn’t mind going barefoot; in fact, she preferred it. She remembered how once long ago she and Beverly had gone into her mother’s bedroom and put on her mother’s make-up, what fun it had been to pretend to be grown-up, and now that she actually was grown-up, she wished she had something to use in place of lipstick. She took the juice of pokeberries and stained her lips with that, although it wasn’t very neat, and rather purply.
Then she called for Adam and attempted to keep the condescension out of her voice, which was hard, because he was such a child, just an awkward, ignorant, backwoods kid. “Well? What do you think?” And she held her arms wide.
Holy moses, he said. You shore are dolled up fit to kill. Are you a-fixin to git married?
“No, I’m ‘a-fixin’ to see if I can’t find Stay More.”
You don’t mean to tell me. What for?
“Just to see what it looks like.”
Last time I looked, they wasn’t hardly nothing there to speak of.
“But I need to see whatever’s left of it. I won’t be gone long.”
We’uns will all miss ye. I’d admire to go with ye, but of course that’s right far out of my haunt.
“I’m taking Hreapha with me. I need you to explain to the others, particularly Paddington, that I haven’t abandoned them, I’ve just gone away for a day or so, however long it takes to get there and look around and get back.”
You might have to tie a rope and collar on Paddington to keep him from a-follerin ye.
“I’ll just sneak away. But I need you to tell me how long I can leave Bess without milking her.”
Well golly gee, I caint rightly say. I never heared tell of no cow that was left alone and unmilked unless she was dry anyhow.
“Think about it, Adam. Use your head. And let me know, soon. I’m in a hurry to get started.”
Adam needed a while to think about it. Or at least he took a while. She wondered if maybe his feelings were hurt, the way she’d spoken to him. Or possibly he simply didn’t know what to tell her but couldn’t admit it. From the time, three years before, on or around her thirteenth birthday, when Hreapha and the others had appeared herding the cow across the meadow and to the barn, Adam had told her all he knew about the care and keeping and milking of cows. He hadn’t been able to show her how to squeeze the teats but he had verbally described it so well that after several attempts she learned to do it, and ever since had enjoyed plenty of milk and cream and butter, with a surplus that kept the animals, especially Robert, happy. She had milked Bess for ten months of each year, nearly every day. It had never crossed her mind that there might ever be an occasion when she’d go away and not be able to milk her. Adam—or his voice—finally returned to tell her that he didn’t honestly believe it would hurt Bess any to leave her unmilked for a couple of days, or even three days at the most, although it wouldn’t be such a bad idea (Adam always pronounced that “i-dee”) to just tie Bess to her stall in the barn so that she couldn’t get out into the pasture and eat grass. That way, she wouldn’t store up too much milk. But Robin was sure she could return after a night or two away.
“Goodbye, Adam,” she said. “That’s a word that I haven’t used in a long time.”
Was he sniffling? Promise me ye’ll come back. Don’t let nobody take ye away and keep ye.
“Don’t worry about that.”
And you be keerful on that trail. It’s bound to be the hardest hike you ever made.
Robin had fashioned herself a sort of backpack, in which she had some provisions—sandwiches, a couple of tomatoes, a couple of apples, a couple of boiled ears of corn. The backpack also contained, just in case, one hundred bills in the denomination of one hundred dollars each.
She turned to Hreapha and beckoned for her to follow, and the two of them started out. It was not easy. Adam was right that it was the hardest hike she’d ever made. It took almost an hour simply to reach the end—or the beginning—of the trail that led down the mountain, the place where Sugrue had burned his truck. To reach it, there were places where she had to boost Hreapha to get her up the sides of bluffs and out of ravines and gorges. She herself slipped and fell more than once. And even after they reached the remains of the trail, the trail itself was washed out in places and in other places extremely rocky and rough, and it wound back and forth, back and forth, as it crept down the mountain.
When at long last the trail reached the foot of the mountain and met the dirt road at a T, and the dirt road actually had the imprint of car tires in it, Robin started singing, a swelling chant of exultation at having escaped the mountain. She blinked back tears of joy. At the same time she was fearful of actually meeting somebody for the first time, of a car coming along, of her being exposed and spotted and approached and caught. Also she wasn’t sure which direction on the dirt road she should take. Her inclination was to turn left but Hreapha said “Hreapha!” and nudged Robin’s leg in the direction of turning right. From the turning Robin could see a pasture in which grazed several cows of the same color and coat as Bess, and she asked, “Is that where you got Bess?” and Hreapha wagged her tail. The owner of the cows must live nearby, she realized, but it wasn’t Stay More, not the place she wanted to go. So she heeded Hreapha’s guidance and took the road to the right, to the southeast.
Along the road that flanked the east feet of Madewell and Ledbetter Mountains, a one-lane dirt road that climbed and dipped and twisted and turned, Robin noticed a few, a very few, houses or other buildings, not one of them in use. And she encountered no traffic, no people, and the only creature she saw was a skunk crossing the road. Still, she felt a constant sense of excitement in anticipation of soon seeing an actual person.
It was late afternoon when Hreapha said “HREAPHA!” and bounded on ahead out of sight, but she soon came back, in the company of several other dogs, one of them the big shaggy fellow that Robin recognized as Yowrfro
wr, and another dog that Robin also recognized but hadn’t seen for many a year: Hruschka, as well as an assortment of dogs that appeared to be Hruschka’s offspring. They were all announcing their names and busily chatting with Hreapha in dogtalk. Robin patted them one by one, and then she followed them as they led her to their home.
Robin had never seen that particular kind of log cabin before, consisting of two separate log cabins joined in between by a kind of breezeway where the people (and the dogs?) could lounge around in the open air out of the sun or rain. At the moment the only loungers were cats, and they were all over the place, in the breezeway and around the yard. Robin loved cats and wished she could go closer and admire them, but she was very nervous because obviously somebody lived here and she might soon be meeting one or more live people, and she hadn’t even given any thought to what she would say. She was scared, really.
The dogs were barking and even the cats were meowing, and soon the door leading onto the breezeway from one of the cabins opened, and an old woman stepped out. Robin’s eyesight couldn’t clearly perceive her, but she must have been eighty at least, with snow-white hair.
“Xenophon, what in tarnation is all this commotion?” the woman said, and Robin realized she was addressing Yowrfrowr. The dog continued repeating his name. Robin savored the moment of having heard a human voice for the first time in years, and although the woman was speaking sternly to her dog it was a very kind voice. Then the woman caught sight of her, and spent a long moment just studying her. Finally she said, “Why, howdy, there.”
“Hello, ma’am,” Robin said.
“You’re a gal,” the woman said. “For a minute I thought you were a man, dressed like that. Come on up here where I can get a good look at you.”
Robin approached the breezeway, and up close could see the woman clearly. Despite being very old she still seemed to Robin to be one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen although of course Robin hadn’t seen any women at all for nine years. “Is this Stay More?” Robin asked.
The woman laughed a young laugh. “Not this,” she said, sweeping her hand over her home. “The village is on down the road a ways. You must’ve just passed it and not noticed it, there’s so little left of it.”
“I didn’t come that way,” Robin said. “I came from that way.”
“On foot?” said the woman, and looked down at Robin’s bare feet. “You must’ve got lost at Parthenon and took the wrong turn. I can’t imagine anybody coming to Stay More from that way, which used to be called Right Prong. But here now, I’m being chatty and rude. Pull you up a chair and rest your feet and I’ll get you a tall glass of lemonade.”
Robin couldn’t believe it, but soon she was holding in her hand a glass with ice in it and filled with lemonade, which she hadn’t tasted in so long she’d forgotten there was such a thing. The old woman had a glass too and raised it and said, “To your health,” then added, “You sure look pretty healthy, I’d say. How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she said. “And I feel very healthy.”
“And tan,” the woman said. “Do you spend all your time out hiking the back roads?”
“No ma’am, today’s the first time I’ve ever been on a back road on foot.”
“Really? Where are you from?”
Robin started to say “Harrison” but realized that was totally false. “Madewell Mountain,” she said.
The woman looked at her. “That’s just up yonder a ways, not too awfully far at all. But here I’m being chatty and rude again and haven’t even told you my name. I’m Latha Dill.”
“Oh. You used to be the postmaster of Stay More.”
“Long ago, before you were born, when there was still a post office.”
“And you used to run the general store, where Adam got his flour and stuff.”
“Adam?”
“Adam Madewell.”
The woman was looking at Robin very intensely. “The Madewells went to California, oh, maybe thirty year or more ago. It’s still called Madewell Mountain, and you say that’s where you’re from, but how did you happen to know Ad Madewell? Are you some kin to the Madewells?”
“No, I’m just a good friend of Adam’s.”
“Oh, so you’re really from California, then?”
Robin realized that she was going to have some trouble explaining it all to this nice old lady. She doubted the woman had ever heard of an in-habit, or would even believe her if she tried to explain what an in-habit was. So she decided not to try. “No,” she said, “actually I’ve never really met Adam. Could you tell me what he looked like?”
“I think you’ve been out in the sun too long, young lady, and you need more ice than what’s in that lemonade.” She went into the cabin and returned shortly with a dishtowel in which she had wrapped a bunch of ice cubes. “Here. Hold this to your forehead.”
Robin obligingly held the bundle of ice to her head. It felt wonderful, although she had nothing wrong with her head that needed cooling off. “Where do you get ice cubes?” she asked.
“From the fridge, of course,” the woman said.
“Oh. You have electricity?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“No. I haven’t seen an ice cube for about nine years.”
The woman was smiling. “Whereabouts on Madewell Mountain do you live?”
“The top.”
“Oh, then you live in the Madewell place, I reckon.”
“That’s right. Have you been there?”
“Not since I was about your age. I was born and grew up on the east side of Ledbetter Mountain, out Left Prong yonder, at the old Bourne place, where Brax Madewell’s trail comes down off the mountain. That was the way your Ad used to get to school. Did you know that?”
“Yes, the trail goes up through a glen with a high waterfall.”
“That’s right. Have you been in that holler?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Well, Brax Madewell built his house up there about the time I was born. Him and my daddy were friends, and Daddy took me with him once to visit up there. It sure is shut off and out of the world, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Robin agreed. “But I’ve got many friends, including my dog Hreapha, who’s sitting there with your dog Yowrfrowr.”
“Yowrfrowr? Is that what you call Funny? His name is Xenophon, or Fun for short. Yowrfrowr! The woman laughed, and the dog jumped up at the sound of his real name and came to her. She scratched him behind the ears. “Yowrfrowr, huh? Is that your real name, boy? It’s certainly what you say all the time.”
“And ‘Hreapha’ is what my dog says.”
As if to confirm it, Yowrfrowr said “YOWRFROWR” and Hreapha said “HREAPHA.” Not to be left out, Hruschka said “HRUSCHKA” and each of her offspring announced their names too.
The woman went on laughing, and eventually she stopped laughing and asked, “What are the names of your other friends?”
“Oh, there are so many of them, but their names aren’t always the sounds they make. There’s Robert the bobcat, and another one of Hreapha’s pups named Hroberta, who is Robert’s girlfriend, believe it or not.” The woman started laughing again, and Robin laughed with her, realizing that she had almost forgotten how to laugh. She went on, “Then there’s Hroberta’s brother, Hrolf, who thinks he’s the lord of the place, and Ralgrub the raccoon and her three children, and Sheba the king snake, or queen snake, and Dewey the buck deer, and Paddington the bear, and Bess the cow, and Sparkle the pet rock, and a pair of mourning doves named Sigh and Sue, and most recently we were honored with the presence of a clever opossum named Pogo.”
The woman was really laughing now, and could barely stop to say, “I remember Pogo in the funny papers.”
“He’s not still in the funny papers?” Robin asked.
“No, the artist who drew him, Walt Kelly, died seven or eight years ago.”
“That’s too bad. Well, my Pogo is just like the Pogo that used to be in the funny papers.”
Robin’s skin prickled, and she thought she might be shivering, not from the bundle of ice cubes. “Do you mean Sugrue Alan?” she said. “Did you know him?”
“I knew him quite well. Too well. Until he disappeared, he was one of my few remaining neighbors. Not a near neighbor. He lived on the other side of Stay More. But I knew him all his misbegotten life, until he disappeared. How’s he doing these days?”
“He’s dead,” Robin said.
“Oh. I wish I could say that’s too bad, but I can’t. Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Good for you. Good for you, Robin Kerr. Did this happen recently?”
Robin was almost certain she hadn’t mentioned her name to the woman. “No, I shot him when I was eight. But he asked me to. He was pretty bad sick.”
“Sick in the head primarily,” Latha said. “You must stay all night with me and tell me the whole story. But the first thing I want to know is: how badly did he hurt you?”
Robin thought about that. “Physically he never hurt me. Not much. He slapped me once, that’s all.”
Latha waited, then asked, “How often did he…did he molest you?”
Robin took time wording her reply. “I know that’s what he probably wanted me for, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Something was wrong with his, his, his dick is all I know to call it. It wouldn’t get hard.”
Latha’s laugh was gentle, not mocking. “My,” she said, “you’ll really have a story to tell me. But let’s go start supper. Is there anything in particular you’d like to eat?”
Robin needed just a moment. “Could you make spaghetti?”
“Sure. With meat sauce?”
And for dessert they had real ice cream. And they talked and talked and talked, late into the night, Robin telling the whole story of the kidnapping, captivity and the killing of Sugrue, as well as life on Madewell Mountain (although she still couldn’t bring herself to include the in-habit). The inside of Latha’s cabin was very neat, and the woman had a telephone and a television and a bookcase, and the kitchen was really up-to-date, with appliances she had never seen before, including something called a microwave. Robin slept on a wonderful bed and in the morning Latha gave her some real woman’s clothes to put on, after her bath in a real shower: blue jeans that fit and a knit cotton top, and even a new pair of sneakers. After a breakfast with a real banana and some blueberries to put on her cereal (and Robin was almost sorry to discover how much she liked coffee), during which they talked and talked through the third cup of coffee, Robin asked, “How did you know it was Sugrue who did it?”