by Richard Peck
“How intriguing.”
We entered the barn, and Mrs. Van Deeter gathered her skirts to climb the stairs. Grand though she is, she’s quite game. “That’s our Mercer,” I mentioned in passing.
“I’m afraid I don’t know one auto from another. I take it this is quite a good one?”
I told her it was.
Upstairs, she pronounced the whole loft “eerie in the extreme.” She examined everything and stooped to touch the wet footprint. She remarked upon the swampy smell, and I said that Inez had evidently died in water. Mrs. Van Deeter thought that was sad and looked it.
On our way back to the house, she gave my arm a squeeze and said she had been quite frightened the whole time, though she had not shown it. “I think,” she said as we came back into the parlor, “that as you are so brave, I will call you Alexander the Great.”
Lucille pulled an ugly face when she heard that, but broke into a winning smile when Mrs. Van Deeter glanced at her. Cousin Elvera and Mother were sitting close and looking like outlaws awaiting a verdict. But Dad said, “Well, Mrs. Van Deeter, what do you make of it all? Are you a believer?”
“I am now. I think it quite remarkable and quite mysterious —and my guide was charming.” She was persuaded to take another cup of coffee and engaged Dad in a discussion about autos. She said her husband found the Cadillac a bit confusing, and she thought he might prefer a Mercer for his own use. Triumph was beginning to spread across Mother’s face. She beamed at me particularly. Cousin Elvera smiled and nodded as if Mercers and ghosts were a couple of things she was especially partial to.
Then the front door banged back, and Uncle Miles stalked into the parlor in his overalls. “WHAT IN THE DAMMIT TO HELL IS THERE A COP IN THE LANE FOR?” he roared.
“Lost,” Mother murmured behind her handkerchief. “All is lost.”
Chapter Sixteen
Since he’d caught us with our guard down, Uncle Miles raved on at some length: “I was up at Whitehall a couple of days to the steam engine rally. And what do I find when I get back? The whole damn town runnin’ wild! The trestle down and a trolley with it. Amory Timmons dead! The Pantagraph full of Alexander here. Your lane blocked off by the law, Joe! And—WELL DAMN ME TO HELL, HOW’D THEY GET YOU HERE, MRS. VAN DEETER?” Uncle Miles blinked behind his spectacles at her sitting there in the best chair.
“Oh, I came of my own accord, Miles. I had to see for myself the source of all the excitement—just like you.”
“Well, Luella,” he said, turning to Mother, “This is a great day for you, ain’t it? It’d take unearthly forces to get Van Deeters through your doors!”
“Now, Miles,” said Mrs. Van Deeter mildly, “don’t tease.”
“Ah—Uncle Miles,” Dad began.
“I know, Joe, I know. I am the bull in the china shop and always was. But if somebody will just tell me what all the fuss is about, I’ll be gone. You know I never rest till I know everything. It keeps me modern.”
In a far-off voice, Mother said to Mrs: Van Deeter, “You know my husband’s uncle?”
“To be sure. He does all my cabinet-making. I would be lost without him.”
“That’s the truth,” Uncle Miles agreed, “but let’s us get back to this present business. Alexander, the way I hear it, everything stems from you.”
There is nothing to be done with Uncle Miles but to give things to him straight, so I did. I told him everything except about seeing Inez again the night before. He heard me out with his hands on his hips, glaring somewhat.
“So that’s it, is it?” he said, not showing any astonishment. “Things will out.”
“I just want it over and done with,” Mother sighed.
“Enjoy it while you may, Luella. You’re not liable to get this much attention again. However, if you do want it all put behind you, you’re goin’ about it all the wrong way as usual.”
Mrs. Van Deeter smiled and asked what the right way might be.
“Easy,” said Uncle Miles. “Drawin’ out a mystery only inflames people’s imaginations. Let everybody in to have their look, same as Mrs. Van Deeter here. People like a satisfactory conclusion all tied up neat. And then we got to lay the ghost of Inez Dumaine. Nobody told me she was stalkin’ abroad! Nobody tells me nothin’ but rumor and nonsense!”
“Hold on a minute, Uncle Miles,” said Dad. “Do you mean that you believe—”
“Hold on to yourself, Joe. I’m not finished. If this whole business is allowed to drag out, people will flock to Alexander, expectin’ him to tell their fortunes and read their palms and find missin’ articles and I don’t know what. It could go on for years. How’d you like that, Luella?”
Mother wouldn’t like that at all, as was evident from her face.
Then Uncle Miles turned to Dad and said, “I have knowed about Inez Dumaine for better than fifty years. I didn’t know she was not restin’ easy, but I should have figured she wouldn’t since it stands to reason. And yes, Joe, there is such a thing as restless spirits, and whether mortals believe in them or not hasn’t got any bearin’ on the situation. Any fool knows that, even this boy here.”
“I believe you have a story to tell us, Miles,” said Mrs. Van Deeter. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable if you took a chair.
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Uncle Miles, “but I chew when I talk.” He pulled a plug out of his overalls and gnawed it down to size. “And it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have somebody from the Pantagraph to come over and take notes on the history of this affair. Go ahead and have somebody sent for. I’m in no hurry.”
It was a quarter of an hour before Lowell, who was sent for, arrived. Mrs. Van Deeter stayed rooted to her chair, calming Mother considerably by mentioning that now they were acquainted she looked forward to entertaining us Armsworths at her house one day, invitation to include Cousin Elvera. Though mollified by this, Mother was still a bundle of nerves. She went out to the kitchen once and cleared her head by screaming at Gladys.
Lowell walked in, took one look at Uncle Miles, and flipped his notebook open. He gave Lucille several glances before things got started, and she returned them all.
Uncle Miles gargled his throat clear, “It was either eighteen-hundred and sixty-one or sixty-two. I don’t recall which, and it don’t matter. At any rate it was just before the war got goin’ good. I was not more than thirty-five, but too old for soldierin’. Otherwise I would very likely not be here today.
“There was considerable new money here in town then as now.” He shot a look at Mother. “So I was busy with carpentry. I had my own shed for storin’ lumber, which I worked out of.
“One day a fellow I had never laid eyes on come into the shed and said he’d heard I was the man to see if you wanted to get a gang of workmen together to put up a house. I told him he was not mistaken.
“He was a fellow in his middle years and said his name was Captain Campbell. He had a military bearin’, and I would have took him for a cavalry officer if he had not been so stout.
“He said he had ready money and wanted the best house it would build. He had bought an acre out in the country, which is right where we sit now, of course, as I’m tellin’ you this.
“Well, sir, he engaged me to do his contractin‘, and we laid out the terms. ‘Are you a family man?’ I says to him. ‘No,’ says he, ‘why do you ask?’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘if a woman is to live in the house, she’ll have notions as to how it is to be fitted out.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘I am alone, but it has always been my dream to have a grand big house on dry land.’ I thought that was a peculiar way of puttin’ it, but I did not say anythin’.
“I showed him several styles of houses from my book of plans. But nothin’ suited. The next day he came back with a drawin’ he had made hisself. When I seen it, I said, ‘Them porches you have sketched in are very like the covered decks on a steamboat.’
“He was silent for a minute and then said, ‘Well, it is not to be wondered at, for I have spent my life over on the Mississ
ippi River at the wheel of various boats.’ He didn’t call the boats by name, and I didn’t ask. Then he said, ‘I would take it as a favor if these particulars of my life are not known in these parts.’ I told him no one would hear anything from me, and have not broke my word till now.
“This fellow who called hisself Captain Campbell and I struck up a friendship, in so far as he was friendly with anybody. We moved right along with the construction work because with the war breakin’, we didn’t know but what materials might be hard to come by.
“The marble for that mantel there come from Vermont, and all the other stonework come over from Indiana. The brick was locally fired, but he would have nothin’ but the best despite his haste.
“The house was pretty near topped off when one time him and me was out here. It was evening, and he was showin’ me just where he wanted the brick barn to be. He was inclined to be talkative and presently drew out a jar of blended whiskey. We passed it back and forth till near dark and began to talk of several things.
“I didn’t think he had drunk to excess, but his voice took on a new sound, and he says, ‘Miles, now that I see my house standin’ up against the sky, I wonder what was in my mind to raise it. There is no end to man’s folly, Miles, as I expect you know.’
“Of course I did know that, but I didn’t say anythin’.
“‘A man can want somethin’ to the point of indecency,’ he said, ‘and when he attains his goal, it is ashes in his mouth and a bad conscience.’
“I told him that if he had things to reproach hisself with, he was no different from any other man. ‘You do not know whereof you speak in my case, Miles,’ he says, ‘but I am too heavy-laden to carry my guilt unspoken any longer. I want your ear, Miles, and I want your silence.’
“I told him he had both, and he said, ‘I have seen my life plain, and it is a fearsome spectacle.’ Then he got to his story.
“He said his real name was Captain Thibodaux and that he had worked out of the port of New Orleans all his river days. With the war between the states pendin’, New Orleans was in a state of panic. People of quality and substance was streamin’ out of it and would pay any money for passage north. He had a boat comin’ up to Keokuk, and once he’d booked the cabins, he booked the deck space too. Still, people come to him in herds.
“Well, it seemed he knowed a Creole family of New Orleans —the Dumaines. They was French speakers but wealthy and highly thought of. Mr. Dumaine come to him and said that though business was keeping hisself and wife in New Orleans, he wanted his daughter took north. He had grave doubts about the fate of the South and wanted his girl, Inez, safe with a family he knowed up at Galena.
“Captain Thibodaux couldn’t deny a friend the safety of his daughter, and so he made room for her on the boat, takin’ her aboard from the river side after dark to avoid the crowds. She was high-spirited and demanded they take her dog with her.
“Then this Captain Thibodaux told me the name of his boat. It was the Plaquemine Belle.”
Uncle Miles halted his story and looked around at us. Lowell glanced up from his notebook. “Well, I can see I have outlived my time if nobody here remembers the Plaquemine Belle. It was famous enough in its day. On that last run I’m tellin’ you about, one of its boilers sprang a leak off Grand Tower, and another one did the same when the boat was off St. Genevieve.
“Still, Captain Thibodaux pressed on, thinkin’ if war was declared, all the Southern boats would be commandeered. And he wanted to be as far north as possible in hopes of escapin’ notice. He knowed it was a long shot and that he was playin’ with the lives of all concerned. But he ordered the boat on as fast as she would go under the circumstances.
“Well, both boilers went finally, just twelve miles west of here in midstream. Captain Thibodaux was blowed clear, bein’ on deck. So he didn’t have the option of goin’ down with his ship. The river was full of bodies and burnin’ debris. He thrashed around in the water, not knowin’ how to strike for land as it was night.
“Presently, Inez Dumaine floated up, clingin’ to a scrap of the deck. She was heavy as lead, to hear him tell it. But he got her up on the lumber where her little dog was challengin’ all comers. Somehow the captain got himself across the raft too, and they was but barely afloat for some hours.
“They come to shore just before daybreak, and with that, Captain Thibodaux recovered his senses and seen his act of folly had cost him the lives of any number of passengers, his good name, and the Plaquemine Belle.
“He helped Inez Dumaine onto a sandbar. She took one step on land and then fell down exhausted. The only solace to the captain’s conscience was that he’d saved her who was in his special care. Then he turned Inez over and seen she was dead. He wept when he told me.”
Mrs. Van Deeter gripped the arms of her chair and leaned forward. Uncle Miles paused and ran his hand over his brow. He used a brass bowl for a spittoon and went on. “Such passengers as had escaped fire and water had fetched up on the far shore, in Missouri. Captain Thibodaux figured they would count him among the dead. And he thought it was just as well.
“He was half-crazed when he looked on Inez’s dead face. His first notion was that he didn’t want to bury her on a sandbar. She was a carefully reared girl who had been educated by French nuns. So, he picked her up and began to walk inland with her. It was in his mind to find her a Christian graveyard.
“The dog followed as best it could over the rough ground. It was a lap dog, of course, half-drowned, and had broke its leg. The captain was in a bad state hisself and had to put down Inez’s body periodically to rest. The sun dried her skirts, but still she was a heavy burden. Once when the captain stopped to rest, he seen that around the hoops in her skirts there were weighty bundles sewed in. He tore open the hem of her skirt, and a diamond bracelet spilled out.
“He ripped at the rest of her hoops, and bit by bit out dropped the Dumaine family fortune in the form of jewels sewed into Inez’s skirts for safe passage north.
“Well,” Uncle Miles said, “there set a man in a field with his reputation and his livelihood lost to him and a fortune in his hands. He was overcome by temptation, and who’s spotless enough to condemn him?
“The thought of givin’ Inez a Christian burial gave way in his mind to hidin’ her body and startin’ anew with her wealth. It was wrong, but that’s the way it was. He carried her on across the country, which was thinly settled in those days. And when he could go no farther, he was at the edge of Bluff City, and it was night. He left her body in a pasture and went to steal a spade from a farm nearby. When he came back, her dog that had followed her to the last was dead on her breast.
“He buried the girl and her dog and concealed the grave with brush. Then he stole away in the night. But when he’d converted the jewelry to cash somewheres and had disguised hisself with chin whiskers, he come back to Bluff City.
“He went to the farmer who owned the pasture where Inez was and bought an acre of it for spot cash. And that was where he raised his house. ‘After all,’ he said to me, ‘it was her money and if I couldn’t let her lay in a Christian’s grave, I could at least have her by me. And then I didn’t want anybody unearthin’ her by chance.’
“He told me again just exactly where to have the bricklayers build his barn. Then he took me by the arm and led me to a spot nearby. There was a smooth stone sunk in the weeds there. ‘Miles,’ he said, ‘that’s where she lays. I don’t dare to raise a proper headstone for her. But I want you to contract for a fine hitchin’ post. And I want you to have her initials carved in it. That is as much as I can do for her. ”’
The parlor was dead silent as Uncle Miles sat back in his chair. When no one spoke, he said, “Well, you know where the story went from there. Captain Campbell, as he called hisself, never spoke to me again on the matter. The barn went up and the hitchin’ post beside it, which I had a gravestone cutter make. And in a month, they found the captain hangin’ from the ceilin’ in his house with a stepladder kicked
out from under him. It was in this parlor.”
Lucille whimpered.
Chapter Seventeen
Lowell’s article on the true history of Inez Dumaine and Captain Thibodaux ran in the Pantagraph next morning. Mother was half-reconciled to all the publicity and had the sheriff call off the guard on our lane. She still did not like Uncle Miles’s story and could not forgive me for stirring it up. But then she had to admit it was Inez Dumaine who had brought Mrs. Van Deeter to our door.
The town turned out for Amory Timmons’s funeral. Dad was a pallbearer, and I sat with Bub and his ma on mourners’ row. There was a procession out to the cemetery, swelled by curious strangers who read the Pantagraph.
Dad took the Mercer, and once Amory was buried, we were ready to leave in haste since people were pointing me out. Dad was just putting his foot out on the runningboard to ease the accelerator down when Mother said, “Step on it, Joe. Here comes Uncle Miles.”
He was striding between the headstones in his rusty blue suit and a celluloid collar but no tie. Dad called out, “Want a ride back to town, Uncle Miles?”
“Hell no, Joe. I don’t ride in them things. They ain’t dignified. But say listen, now we got Amory settled, it’s time to see to Inez Dumaine. It won’t do to put that off.”
“Oh, Uncle Miles, I don’t know what you mean,” Mother said through her veil. “Talk like that isn’t right on poor Amory’s funeral day.”
“Luella, I will be underground myself directly,” he replied, “so let’s us have less of your lecturing on the subject.”
“Well, just what is it you have in mind, Uncle Miles?” Dad asked.
“I wonder you cannot figure it for yourself, Joe. We have to dig up Inez from under the hitchin’ post and get her buried with her own people.”
“She said her people were above the ground but resting,” I sang out before I thought.
“You haven’t told this before, Alexander.” Mother turned to give me a hard look where I was shrinking on the back seat. “Are you adding to your story to keep yourself in the center of attention?”