Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “I certainly do,” replied Mister Walton foggily. He was picturing the lovely young woman, red hair gleaming in the sun, snatching him from a fall into Portland Harbor, lending a discreet shoulder when he had injured his ankle. He remembered how she had laughed and how prettily she had danced at the Freeport Ball. “Dear me,” he said, barely above a whisper. “What could have happened?” His heart fell at the thought of her parents.

  Sundry was at his elbow, his face dark with concern. “Is there anything I can do, Mister Walton?”

  “No, Sundry, thank you . . .” Mister Walton removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Yes,” he said, as if only now understanding Sundry’s question. “Yes, Sundry.” He replaced his glasses and straightened with sudden resolve. “You can do me the favor of accompanying me to Millinocket.”

  “I’ll get our things,” said the young man. He touched the portly fellow’s shoulder, as if to shore him up. Then he was out the door.

  “Forgive me, gentlemen,” said Mister Walton to Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump. “I had hoped to continue our acquaintance—may I say friendship—and perhaps take our league on a scenic tour on the way home to Portland. But you will understand when I tell you that though I have not known the Underwoods long, they have been very kind to me; especially Miss Under-wood. I don’t know what help I can be in this terrible situation but I must offer anything I can.”

  “Of course, of course!” said Thump manfully.

  “Couldn’t be clearer!” said Eagleton, looking as if he had suddenly joined the military service.

  “We would expect nothing less, sir!” declared Ephram, and he began a round of shaking hands.

  “You’re very good,” said Mister Walton. “I will look you up then, when I return home.”

  The club members gaped at one another as if there had been some gross misunderstanding. “Mister Walton, we will accompany you!” said Ephram with great force.

  “But I couldn’t impose upon your . . .”

  “Nonsense!” said Eagleton, who felt there was no other choice but to disagree with the chairman.

  “A friend of yours, Mister Walton . . . !” said Thump.

  Mister Walton was at a loss. “Thank you,” he said. “I am sure they will be glad for every able-bodied man.”

  The members had never thought of themselves as able-bodied (or not in so many words), and they looked at one another with a sudden and renewed respect. Thump was so moved that he attempted to leave the telegraph office without first opening the door.

  “Good luck!” shouted the operator as they helped Thump outside.

  The bystanders looked out the window as the travelers followed Mister Walton up the street. “Who were those men?” asked someone.

  “Don’t you know?” said another, who had held conversation with Eagle-ton the night before. “That’s the Moosepath League.”

  Heading up the street, Eagleton had something in particular on his mind. “The young man,” he said to Mister Walton.

  “Sundry?”

  “His name . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Exactly.”

  61 Moose Manor

  MORE THAN FORTY RIDERS WERE CHECKING THEIR GEAR AND MOUNTING UP on the dusty Main Street of Millinocket when John Benning galloped into town. He was hatless, his expression grim and weary. James Underwood separated himself from the crowd of horses and men and took the bridle of Benning’s mount as the young man pulled up. “Did you find her?” asked the father.

  “I didn’t, sir,” gasped Benning. “I’m sorry. The trail went in two, and so Scott and I split up as well.”

  “Then he’ll have found her,” said James, more definite than he felt.

  “I have to confess, Mr. Underwood,” said Benning as he dismounted. “I didn’t trust him. When he insisted that Cordelia was taken in the one direction, I left him and took the other. I was wrong.”

  “That’s all right, John,” said James. “It was your concern for my daughter that made you do so. I thank you. Now turn that poor horse in and find a room at Mrs. Cuthbert’s and get some rest.”

  “I couldn’t. I’ll get a fresh mount and come with you. Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”

  “I won’t have it, John.” James handed Benning’s reins back to him and walked to his own mount. “You’ve done all anyone could expect of you. You won’t be any good to Cordelia if you’re worn down to nothing.”

  “You’ve had no rest, I warrant.”

  “I’m her father.” James swung up into the saddle and scanned the riders about him. “Sheriff?” he said to a heavyset man on the next horse.

  “Gentlemen,” said the sheriff. “We will ride to the sight of the abducttion, then take the several roads to the interior. Let us pace ourselves. This could be a long search.”

  The sheriff led the mass of horsemen down the street. Mercia appeared, reaching up to touch her husband’s hand before he was gone. “Rest up, as well as you can,” he was saying to John Benning. “Then go down to the telegraph office and see if any answer to our inquiries has come back. Anything we can find about these people might help in catching them. We’ll leave plenty of sign, with this crowd, to follow if you learn something.” James leaned down to kiss his wife, then was gone. On Mrs. Cuthbert’s porch, Priscilla and Ethan watched him go.

  “Come inside, John,” said Mercia as the thunder of hooves died and the street became still, the dust of the pack drifting northeast with the wind. “Mrs. Cuthbert has dinner ready. You looked famished. We just have to trust that Mr. Scott has found her.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said John Benning. “I trust he has.”

  Cordelia realized that she was dozing (despite her aching jaw), and she shook herself, the unexpected movement translating to the man behind her with a start, and thence to the horse; so that the animal drew up to the edge of the road.

  “What’s the matter?” asked the man with the Southern accent. He turned his horse about and the third rider halted some distance ahead.

  It took a moment for Cordelia to think of something. “I need a drink. I’m very thirsty.”

  The Southerner weighed her request. He was not unlike her father in some ways—thin, gray-haired, a strong jaw and a straight nose—but the elements had worked longer (or harder) upon his features, and his skin was weathered and ruddy. He reached behind him and felt out a canteen from his saddlebags. Cordelia took the canteen suspiciously, opened it, brushed the rim with her palm, sloshed the water in it, smelled of it experimentally, then took a small sip. When this did not prove harmful, she assayed another drink, and then another, keeping each draft small and taking her time.

  It was the first time that he had stopped to look at Cordelia, close up and in daylight, and she felt uneasy when she passed the canteen back to him and saw his look of frank approval. She met his gaze without blinking and ended the uncomfortable moment with a stern “Thank you.”

  “Is there anything else?” he asked, with barely concealed irony.

  “Yes,” she said, as if trading small talk. “You can take me back.”

  He made a small sound, like a short laugh, then wheeled his horse about and led the small band on.

  As midday progressed, the tote road became a trail. The trees grew older and larger and further apart, and there were long slopes with little descent upon the opposite side. It was a hilly and glaciated country, with great boulders and shoulders of granite to skirt. At each corner and split in the trail, the Southerner stopped to be sure of the way. There were no blazes here, and several times he took a paper and a compass from a pocket.

  Cordelia was reminded of a story she had once heard of a fellow who was lost in the middle of Boston. I know where I’m going, went the end of the tale. I know how to get there. I just don’t know where I am. Perhaps she laughed, because the man glanced in her direction and tucked the compass back beneath his coat.

  If she did laugh, it was out of a giddy weariness. She no longer held herself so sti
ff between the arms of the man behind her. She had done her best to ignore his presence, despite the occasional bump against his broad form, the smell of sweat, and the sound of his breathing—somewhat labored with his size. Slowly she ceased to care. They had been riding since before dawn, and now it was mid-morning to be sure.

  Then the trail became a path, the nature of its direction more specific as it wound toward the top of a ledgy hill. One winding brought a low building in sight; a cabin, rough-hewn from logs, with no porch or front steps. The path stopped below the cabin door.

  As they drew closer, Cordelia could not help but take interest in the building. Its log walls were covered from sill to roof line in bas-relief carvings; primitive figures of animals and men engaged in myth-like struggles and dances, great trees spread out like the roots of life and filled with the simplified representations of apples and birds and squirrels.

  The window and door frames were carved into long fish, or snakes, or several surprised-looking bears perched on each other’s shoulders, or wolves hanging to one another’s tails. The front door presented a large rendering of a moose, sitting back on its haunches. Above the door was a sign that said: Moose Manor Kindley Wipe Your Feet!

  The inside of the cabin was cool and dark. The Southerner stepped in first and called a greeting, standing in the doorway. The sour-faced fellow stood by their horses. Cordelia could hear his stomach grumbling and she realized she was hungry herself. No answer came from within, and the Southerner told the sour-faced fellow to deal with the horses.

  There was one room with a thick-legged trencher, a stone fireplace and chimney opposite the door, and several chairs, including (surprisingly enough) a Boston rocker. There was even a shelf of books beside the chimney, tilted precariously. The walls within were dressed like those without.

  “Carved inside in the winter, outside in the summer,” said the Southerner in his drawly accent.

  “Who did?” wondered Cordelia, her curiosity getting the better of her.

  “Old man lived here. I don’t know his name. The old man of the mountains. It’s a hunting lodge now, or a spot to spend the night between places. Can you cook?”

  Cordelia was so sore and weary, the idea of even eating seemed like too much work. “A meal doesn’t come with the room?” she said.

  “There are some cots in the corner there,” said the man. “I’d shake them out first, but you might want to lie down a bit. Ernest here can scratch up something to eat.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to use our names?” said the big man.

  “Who’s to say that’s your real name?” asked the Southerner.

  “Oh.”

  Cordelia hardly heard this exchange. She staggered over to the cots in the corner, brushed at one of them two or three times, then rolled onto it and plunged into an exhausted sleep.

  When she woke, the sun had shifted to the other side of the cabin. It was no shock to wake up and find herself there; the whole ordeal had surged through her dreams, rushing and eddying around the images of loved ones and friends like an unwelcome flood tide. She did not feel much rested, and she thought it wise to feign sleep while listening to the comings and goings of her kidnappers.

  A fire had been lit; she could smell pitch and smoke and hear the snapping of sappy wood. The smell of cooking stirred her stomach into a growl. Barely peering past the rainbow of refracted light in her eyelashes, she could see Ernest peering into a pot that hung in the fireplace. The sour-faced man stood in the open doorway. The Southerner sat with his feet on the trencher, reading from a large blue book.

  “It says here,” said the thin fellow. “Every lineament of his body indicated strength. His stature was rather above six feet; his chest broad; his limbs sinewy, and remarkable for their symmetry. There seemed to be no useless flesh upon his frame to soften the prominent surface of his muscles; and his ample thigh, as he sat upon horseback, showed the working of its texture at each step, as if part of the animal on which he rode.”

  “Who is it?” asked Ernest, rather taken by this description.

  “Horse-Shoe Robinson, we are told,” said the reader, glancing at the cover of his book. “But that is not all. Listen to this. His was one of those iron forms that might be imagined almost bullet proof. With all these advantages of person, there was a radiant, broad, good nature upon his face—well, so there would be upon mine if I looked like that, and bullet-proof to boot!—the glance of a large, clear blue eye told of arch thoughts, and of shrewd, homely wisdom. Well, of course,” he added, looking up. “He’s from Virginia.”

  “I’m going out back,” said the sour-faced man.

  The Southerner took his feet down from the table and sat up. “What have you been eating? Apples out of season?”

  “A man does what he has to do,” answered the man. There was more humor in the thought than Cordelia would have credited.

  “Better watch the door,” said the Southerner to Ernest, feet back up, book once more raised.

  Ernest got up and stood at the door. Cordelia felt her stomach contract and wondered when dinner would be ready. Ernest was a brute, no doubt, but from the smells he knew how to cook. She thought of sitting up, but caught sight, beneath lowered lids, of the Southerner watching her from over his book. He seemed to drink her in, thinking about her the way a person thinks about a feast laid out before a hungry stomach. She shut her eyes, but found the blindness worse. She opened them slightly again and he was still watching her.

  An odd sound came from outside—a dull thump, as if a door had been pounded by a heavy fist. Cordelia’s eyes opened wide. The Southerner dropped his book and looked toward the door. “What was that?” he asked Ernest.

  “I don’t know.”

  The Southerner got to his feet. “What’s that?” he said again. Ernest frowned, cocking an ear. A muffled voice could be heard, like someone shouting down a barrel. The Southerner snatched up a shotgun and shouldered past the larger man. “You stay here.” He dropped down from the stoop and Ernest watched him disappear around the corner of the cabin.

  Cordelia was sitting up now, her mind spinning with hope and dread. “What are you cooking?” she asked.

  Ernest was startled. He peered into the dimness of the corner where she had lain down, his eyes blinded from looking out into the daylight. “A stew, I guess.”

  “It smells good,” she said, sounding cheerful. “Shall I go stir it?”

  “Yes,” he said, pleased that she didn’t seem angry with him for hitting her. “That would be fine.”

  Cordelia stretched carefully, taking note of all the sore spots. She walked stiffly to the fireplace and bent over the stew, stirring it slowly with the iron ladle.

  62 Tipping the Scales

  AT THE HILLTOP WHERE CORDELIA HAD BEEN SEIZED, JAMES EXPLAINED how their camp had been laid out. Several men in the party were guides, and in broad daylight it was no more work than a glance for them to pick up the trail first taken by the kidnappers, then by Dresden Scott and John Benning.

  From the brow of the hill, James’s unaided eye could see that the ground beneath Minmaneth Rock had been disturbed. “That’s the rock you were speaking of,” said the sheriff, pulling his mount up beside James.

  “Yes. Mr. Scott called it Minmaneth Rock.”

  “That’s it,” said one of the guides. He held a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the other side of the lake. “There’s been some digging over there.”

  “Yes,” said James, the expression in his voice vague with thought.

  “Something buried, you say,” said the sheriff.

  “Something my brother put there years ago.” James turned to the sheriff after a protracted moment of silence and found a host of curious faces. “I can only guess,” he said.

  “Something stolen?” asked the sheriff—smiling quietly, as at a co-conspirator.

  “Not in this century.”

  “And they took your daughter to find out where it was.”

  “We hadn�
�t a clue ourselves, until we heard the name of that formation.”

  “And taking her,” continued the sheriff, “had the added benefit of driving the rest of you away while they went to work.”

  “I’m almost surprised that Cordelia told them,” said James. “Though I am glad she was sensible and gave them what they wanted.” He only hoped that she was sensible enough to have given it to them quickly.

  The sheriff sent half a dozen men to the site, then led the rest of them down to the lake. Soon after they reached the place where Dresden Scott had seen deer sign mixing with the kidnappers’ trail, a rider from the excavation came up.

  “They’ve certainly dug something out of there,” he declared. “Must have been a dozen of them, though they didn’t like digging, I guess. Left every shovel and pick right where they dropped them.”

  “And where did they disappear to?”

  “Some of them into the forest. North. But there are tracks heading in this direction along the lake. A wagon as well. You’ll cross those tracks up ahead of you here.”

  The sheriff sent another half-dozen of his men to follow the diggers north; and while this detachment skirted the perimeter of the lake, he picked two other details—one to follow the chain of ponds and streams that led to the larger lakes in the west, and the other to head northeast to the Millinocket River.

  “Unless they plan to go all the way to Canada, they must be circling to get behind us. This may be the longest path to your daughter, sir,” he said to James, pointing at the trail leading down to the western end of the lake. “But it is also the surest.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said James.

  “Very good.” The sheriff wasted no more time in leading the pursuit along the original trail. “I trust, sir,” he said to James, as they rode together, “that we will meet with Dresden soon, and that he will have news about your Miss Underwood.”

  James said nothing—both praying for and dreading such a meeting.