by Thomas Cater
“Be careful, son.” She whispered. “I don’t think wickedness has a lasting chance in this world, but there are a few people who attract it, especially republicans. They are usually strong enough to handle it themselves, but sometimes the people around them get hurt. If you’re one of that kind, please, be careful. I don’t want any of my family scarred or living the rest of their lives in fear of dreadful things that could happen.”
I could see she was genuinely concerned. I tried to put her mind at ease, though I harbored doubts. “I promise you that if it is my turn to draw fire, I won’t let anyone get hurt on my account.”
She shook my hand and pulled my cheek close to her face. In the pretense of kissing me, she whispered another message in my ear.
“Thank you, and don’t be afraid; I’ll be praying for you every step of the way.”
I never thought I actually had anything terrible to face until that moment. I thanked her, backed out the door and caught up with the Stamper’s, who were waiting on the sidewalk. I smiled at Violet.
“She’s a fine lady, but I think she takes things too seriously.”
Anger was still smoldering in Violet’s eyes, which I took to mean agreement, but I sensed it was nothing extraordinary. Everyone in the family, I suspected, came with short, highly combustible fuses. Violet sat in the back seat with the kids and I crawled up front.
“The house that burned down, the one the mason lived in, is any part of it still standing?” I asked.
Virgil shrugged a shoulder. “That house burned down a long time ago,” he said. “There may be a few foundation stones still standing, but nothing else.”
“Do you know where it stood?” I continued.
He thought for a moment. “I know where several ruins are located. It’s bound to be one of them, why?”
“I want to take a look,” I said. “You can’t tell; we might be able to learn something just by looking. Didn’t you ever get a feeling about a place just by being there?”
Virgil frowned. “Yeah, I have, but I don’t have time to go poking around in ashes that have been cold for more than half a century. I got a mortgage payment this month, several in fact.”
I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that I might have to make the journey alone. I could picture myself cutting grass, caulking windows, repairing shingles and painting eaves, but instructions on how to track down illusive ghosts were not included in most homeowner’s manuals.
Chapter Eight
I was up early Saturday waiting in the parking lot when the Grover Gibson Library opened. A gray-haired librarian led me to the local history section on the second floor and removed a copy of Henry Morgan’s book from a locked glass cabinet. It was exactly as Violet had described it, 600 typewritten pages, including corrections, deletions and typos bound in leather. The cover, I suspected, would far outlast the text.
The book included a table of contents, an index and several genealogical studies, including the Ryders. It was a well-organized labor of love. I didn’t need to read the entire 600-page tome to find what was available on the family. A cross reference with a list of family names and page numbers accompanied the book. The author had been assiduously careful with his facts and footnotes. He quoted local newspaper articles and gave the dates and page numbers in every case. He knew as much or as little about the Ryders as anyone did.
Samuel came to Upshyre County in the 1880s with a considerable fortune acquired from mining claims in the West; he re-invested in the community. He spent his newly acquired fortune exploring for minerals and timber property and bought everything that appealed to him. The land on Scary Creek was one of the purchases and originally consisted of several thousand acres of tall timber and low-grade coal. All that remained was the house and 26 acres.
Nameless artisans and laborers imported from Germany and other eastern European countries -- though no one knew for sure which ones -- built the house. The blue sandstone, which constitutes the house’s foundation and walls, came from a nearby stone quarry, while the bricks were made on sight. The window glass came from Clarksburg, while artists traveled from ‘far distant countries’ to paint murals.
There were reminiscences about fabulous balls attended by everyone of importance, rumors of great extravagances on the part of Samuel, trips to exotic lands, big game hunting in African jungles, pilgrimages to far-off secret and sacred India, and clandestine voyages to remote and forgotten islands in the East and West Indies.
I had to concede that Samuel was an intriguing and enigmatic man of diverse interests. In another entry, a famed writer of mysteries and a guest of Mr. Ryder was rumored to have been banished from the house for making improper advances to Elinore. The few references to her indicated she was a lovely fragile figure with large dark eyes, which she covered with shaded or ‘rose colored’ glasses on most occasions. She was usually observed clinging to her father’s arm, uncertain of being left alone. There was no mention of a Mrs. Ryder.
“Mr. Case?” The voice whispered.
The book slipped from my hand and fell with a resounding crash to the floor. In my mind’s eye, I had been imagining the Ryders, standing together in the house’s foyer greeting guests.
“You gave me a start,” I said, retrieving the book.
“I noticed you were alone, so I thought I’d join you.”
It was the stonemason, whose accident at Scary Creek brought us together. He pulled a chair from the table and sat down.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Our conversation made me think of a few things I’d forgotten,” he said. “I don’t have much in the way of formal training, but I do like to read. Medieval builders believed that blood and bones of men, mixed with the mortar of castle walls, could strengthen them. The walls would also be safe against invasion by men and spirits. If a wall was continuous, or unbroken, they believed that spirits buried behind them could not escape and were not even free to journey to the other world.”
“I hope you’re not taking those claims too seriously,” I replied.
“We’re talking about an unusual wall,” he replied. “Once I tried to knock a section of it down. I didn't mention it before, I was too embarrassed. I used a sledgehammer. I couldn’t dislodge a single stone. It was as if the materials in the wall were made of steel.”
His sincerity was disarming. He seemed to have a burning obsession with the wall or with something about its construction, or something was struggling to reveal itself through him.
“And you think the wall at Scary Creek is indestructible because…?”
“… Because I believe the blood and bones of men, women and children were ground up and mixed with the mortar.”
It was a gruesome thought. I was well acquainted with human aberrations and customs, and I could respect the possibilities. The belief that a wall constructed with blood and bone is impregnable is as plausible as the belief that a sword tempered in blood is stronger than a sword tempered in water.
“Why would anyone go to that much trouble?” I asked, concerned that he might -- if given enough incentive -- adopt similar primitive building codes for his own structures.
“I have heard that Mr. Ryder was a superstitious man,” he said. “He trusted no man and lived in fear of losing his fortune.”
I could see the compulsion in his eyes. “It’s hard to believe that someone would encourage that kind of workmanship?”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’ve come here to see if I could find the book.”
I also wanted to see it. The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that walls were something more than barriers to define geographical limitations. The Great Wall of China is supposed to be the only structure on Earth visible from the moon, though I can’t imagine what it looks like. I wondered what kind of message it conveyed to our astral neighbors.
“If you find the book, Mr. Kepler, I’d like to see it. If I knew for a fact that Ryder was superstitious, it might explain some of hi
s decisions.”
He turned to the shelves of books. “There are so many; I don’t know where to begin.”
“Try the card catalog,” I suggested.
He nodded and left as abruptly as he had arrived. I returned to Henry Morgan’s “Memoirs of Upshyre County,” Kepler had given me something different to think over. Could blood and bone mixed with mortar create a structure that could survive damage from a sledgehammer? Could a man, wealthy and powerful, actually hide behind a structure that even spirits could not invade? No, it was just another one of those incredible fantasies. There had to be a more logical explanation.
I returned to Morgan’s book, browsing through the pages, stopping to read an occasional sentence. ‘In 1863, Major Farnsworth stood on the courthouse steps and inveighed against a company of Confederate soldiers who tried to strike Old Glory and fly the Stars and Bars. His courage won him a seat in the new state legislature. ‘In 1880, the publisher of the Republican Record, Colonel Merriweather, dropped dead of a heart attack on Main Street. Nude swimming in the river was a growing concern in 1890, and women walking in the vicinity of the opera house were being offended and asSamuelted with unsavory language by youthful scalawags idling away their time on street corners. There were recollections about nickelodeons, opera houses and an Orient Buckboard, the first motor-driven vehicle to reach Upshyre County.
On page 397, I discovered a section devoted entirely to a curious event that occurred in the 1920s and affected half the county and most of Elanville. Buds blossomed early that spring and everyone anticipated a good harvest. Pears and apples were hanging from the trees in such glorious profusion that the local basket factory prepared extra berry baskets to handle the excess. Before the first fruit harvest, however, something went wrong.
There were no significant changes in the weather, but a foul bitterness crept into the air and into every growing thing to the point that the smallest bite of some fruits induced sickness. Water wells became stagnant, streams filled with moldy lichen and the very limbs of trees grew gnarled, as if infected by some virulent palsy. Efforts to locate the source of the problem were unsuccessful. It did however appear as if Elanville suffered tragically from the unfortunate event.
Hunters scouring the woods for game near Elanville reported bagging strange and peculiar looking “critters.” Rabbits changed in a way that frightened and disgusted hunters and they discarded their flesh. Squirrels took on enormous proportions from eating and drinking the poisoned food and water, but they also developed a form of mange that ruined the quality of their fur.
Deer displayed gnarled racks that looked more like the roots of trees, and the county’s foxes grew more villainous and bold. Chickens stopped laying eggs and killed each other in battles for tainted seeds. Pigs were born deformed and the snouts on swine grew skewered and infected, eventually resulting in the animals’ deaths.
I found it difficult to believe what I was reading. Cattle also suffered that year. Dairy cows went dry, beef cattle grew so morbidly thin they couldn’t stand up, horses went mad and ran into trees and barns killing themselves. No one, veterinarians, doctors or professors from the university’s department of agriculture could explain the strange occurrences. Mad cow disease, I suspected.
Portions of the county, however, were spared from the blight, while neighboring counties were not the least bit affected. Few human lives were lost, though no one knew how many eventually died from lingering after-effects.
I turned the page, but that was all Morgan had to say about that fateful event. I wanted to read more and decided that I would everntually track down old back issues of the newspaper later.
I knew I wasn’t going to find news of a stone mason “grinding bones to mix with mortar” as interesting as I’d already read. My values were becoming corrupt.
Mrs. Holmes did say she saw the stonemason poking around the local cemeteries. Grave robbing might have made the papers back then, but it did not seem likely. The Kirkwood fire might have made headlines, especially since the bodies were set on fire and their bones and ashes scattered or buried in a makeshift grave.
My thoughts turned once more to the house, and I experienced a sudden conviction. I felt compelled to enter the house. I decided to take a sledgehammer along to test Kepler’s theory. I wanted to find out if the wall could stand up to the swing of a 190-pound weakling. Kepler, I decided, had strong hands, but looked a little frail.
Chapter Nine
Virgil was showing property, but said he could finish in time to drive me to the house. An hour later, I borrowed a sledgehammer, mattock and flashlight from his tool shed and we headed for Scary Creek. I felt more confident and capable during the bright daylight drive to the house. I thought I knew a little about the wall and the man who built it and possibly why, and that gave me courage, even though it was all no more substantial than a hunch. I told Virgil about my conversation with Kepler.
“Is that why you want the hammer and mattock?” he asked.
“I’m curious to see how deep the footer goes beneath ground level,” I said. “I want to know why, after 80 or 90 years, it hasn’t slipped an inch and not a stone is out of place.”
“Something there is that doesn’t like a wall,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A line from a poem by Robert Frost,” he said, and continued. “He moves in darkness so it seems to me, not of woods only, or the shade of trees.”
He drove faster today, easier and more relaxed. He wore a pressed shirt and tie, and didn’t talk much. He was enjoying himself, preoccupied with some pleasant thought he did not want to share. A potential sale, I suspected. What else could make a realtor grin? A nerve ticked at the corner of his smile.
He stopped within an inch of the gate. I got out and examined the lock and chain again, made a half-hearted attempt to shake them loose from the iron pickets, but they would not give an inch.
“Tradesmen earned their keep in those days,” Virgil said, smiling.
I removed the tools from the car and carried them to the wall.
“I hope Kepler knows what he’s talking about,” I said. “I’d hate to be responsible for destroying this fine old wall.”
I dropped my tan windbreaker in the tall grass, rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and took the hammer in hand. Planting my feet firmly on the ground, I lifted the sledgehammer over my head and brought it down solidly against the top of the wall. It glanced off nearly snapping my wrists, but not a single stone cracked. The second time I put more effort into the swing and brought the hammer down against the wall’s side. It glanced again as if it had struck a sheet of steel.
“I don’t believe it,” I said. I tried again, but each time the hammer simply ricocheted off the wall without leaving a scratch.
“Let me try,” Virgil said, annoyed by my lack of deliberate and determined aggression.
He swung the hammer rapidly overhead and brought it down solidly atop the wall. The handle splintered and sent him sprawling head over heels onto the ground. The steel head of the hammer disappeared in the tall grass.
“Kepler’s right,” he said. “We couldn’t knock this wall down with dynamite.”
I picked up the mattock and began swinging at the ground beside the wall. I scooped buckets of dirt out of the hole. The wall continued down into the earth. At nearly two feet, I stopped. The wall kept going, deeper and deeper into the ground.
“I don’t get it. The frost line is about eighteen inches; why would anyone dig a hole deeper, unless they were building a Holiday Inn.”
Virgil took a few swings with the mattock and I shoveled the dirt out of the hole. Ten minutes later, we were still looking for the bottom. “It goes on and on,” I said. “I’m ready to quit. I’ve got to save my energy for the house.”
He glanced at his watch. “And I’ve got an appointment.”
I decided to leave the hole exposed. “If it rains, maybe something might wash out.”
I leaned the shovel nea
r the wall, checked and re-checked the flashlight.
“You’ll still have plenty of light inside … if you make it,” he said. “There are nearly one hundred windows in that house.”
I wanted to ask how he knew, but it didn’t seem important at the moment. He glanced at his watch again.
“Do you want me to wait?” he asked.
“I promised your mother-in-law I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Besides, I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.” He didn’t need a lot of convincing.
“I’ll pick you up in about three hours,” he said. “Be careful.”
I selected my route up the overgrown drive and swung over the wall. Once I started moving, I didn’t look back. Virgil shouted cheerfully, but I was moving too fast to turn around. A swiftly moving target, I believed, had to be more difficult to asSamuelt than one standing still.
The key to the front door was in my pocket and I was formulating a ground plan, when the air filled with gnats. It was the stuff of a childhood nightmare. The tiny insects invaded my eyes, nose and mouth. I closed my eyes, kept running and swatting and crashing into trees and vines. I could barely move my arms or legs as I struggled to push through the dense and formless cloud of insects.
I felt panic and anxiety rising inside me and heard Virgil shouting as if from a great distance. I turned with the intention of crying out for help, but the swarm vanished as quickly as it appeared. I could feel the welcome relief of air in my lungs. A tangle of vines dropped away from my arms and legs and I was free once more
The steps looked higher than before, but not as wide. The porch seemed narrow and long, distorted. The house was larger than I remembered and seemed to loom over the land. I ran up the steps, two at a time, trying at the same time to be swift and silent on my feet.
The porch showed few signs of weathering. Chestnut and poplar boards peered through the scaling paint. Two huge oak doors barred the way into the house. I say barred because of their formidable appearance. I could not believe the slim brass key I held in my hand would open those heavy portals.