by John Farris
"I guess so. I'm not sure what I heard. Maybe I was on the shortwave band and didn't know it. Could we go someplace else?"
"Sure. Where?"
"Dante's Mill isn't too far. It's a restored town, the way it was a hundred years ago, or something like that. There's a general store where they sell drinks and ice cream."
"Let's go."
He gave Marjory back the radio, which was behaving, and they took a marked nature path to the town, approaching by way of the little bluff overlooking the millpond. Weeping willows fringed the pond. In an open grassy area near the mill house people were sitting and sunning themselves, eating ice cream from the store. Duane and Marjory followed the footpath toward the cluster of town buildings a hundred yards west of the mill.
A slim girl in a halter top and smudged yellow short-shorts came out of the woods above them, skidding a little in her sandals the last few feet down to the path, causing Duane to stop suddenly and reach for her with a steadying hand. The girl was so dark it was as if the sun had dirtied as well as tanned her. Her smile was a replica of the necklace of shark's teeth she wore around her neck.
"Hey, thanks." She also had a portable radio, which she held protectively in both arms. She glanced at Marjory's radio, still smiling. Her eyes were almost perfectly round; a cast in one of them seemed to make it difficult for her to focus on whomever she was looking at. Also she was stoned. "Did you hear it, too? Man, I thought at first it was some really bad ganja, you know? But Wiley's my witness. That was before he got so bombed on Bud I couldn't move him with a fucking cattle prod. You know? Deke and Smidge, they've been out of it since like a week from Thursday. Hey, this is Saturday, right?"
"Right," Marjory said. "Hear what?"
"My name's Brittany," the girl said. "This year. Hey, glad to meet you guys. Hold this?" She thrust her large shiny radio at Duane, who already was carrying his box with the killing jars and carbon tetrachloride under one arm. "Is that a butterfly net? Cute. Listen, are you holding any good dope? What've you got? I'll pay you. I've got twenty bucks here somewhere." Brittany poked a couple of fingers beneath her halter top; after a lengthy search she came up with a twenty-dollar bill folded to the size of a spearmint Chiclet. She also left exposed to the air a nipple surrounded by suck marks. Duane turned around with a little shrug to Marjory until Brittany noticed the faux pas, muttered "Oh, shit," under her breath, and snugged the loose breast back into the knit top. "You didn't see that," she informed Duane, who shrugged again, guilelessly. "Twenty bucks enough?" Brittany asked, peering up at him with her gleaming sharky grin.
"I've only got one stick," Duane said. "You can have it. You don't need to pay me anything."
"Hey, thanks!" She was very quick to reinsert the compacted twenty into her top. "Who knows, we'll probably need this, something else goes wrong with the fucking woody. I should have known when I set eyes on it we wouldn't get all the way to fucking Chicago without major difficulty."
"Where're you from?" Marjory asked.
"You mean this week or last week? Last week I was in Sanibel. Next week maybe I'll be in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Isn't that nifty? My brother's part owner of a dairy farm there. I haven't seen Max in, Jesus, I don't know how many years. You tell me." She gave Duane an expectant look. He handed the portable radio back to her and reached into his shirt pocket for the other Saran-wrapped joint. Brittany accepted it with her free hand. "This is really great of you guys."
"Don't think anything of it," Marjory said. "I like your radio."
"Sure, it's a Grundig. Got it at the PX in Frankfurt. This is the one thing I won't part with no matter how tough times get. Not that I'm worried. I'm an Army brat. I know how to take care of myself. Wiley, well, he's not so bad when he's straight. I think I'll drop him when we get to Chicago, though. Call my brother for bus fare. I mean, can you imagine Wiley in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin?"
Marjory looked up at the woods, wondering where Brittany had left her traveling companions. "What was that you were saying about your radio? You asked me—"
"Yeah, oh yeah! If you heard it, too. What did you say your name was?"
"I'm Marjory. This is Duane."
"Well, Marj, talk about fucking creepy."
"It was somebody like, crying, you mean?"
"That, too. But I meant her. Over and over. Tuff. Come and help me. I need you, Puff.'"
"Puff?"
"Yeah, isn't that too fucking much? Maybe five people in the whole world ever called me that. Did you hear her, too? Am I wrecked or what?"
"Well—”
"Your radio's working okay. I'm afraid to turn mine on again, I kid you not. Hey, let's go down there by the pond and pass this joint around. Get to know each other better."
"What about Wiley?"
"He'll be okay where he is. Honestly, he's a lot of fun when he's sober. Plays great cocktail piano. The Holiday Inn in Mo Bay held him over for fifty-seven weeks. But that's what did it. I mean, how can you sing 'Yellow Bird' every night for fifty-seven weeks without truly fucking up your head?"
4
Brittany ("Why don't you call me Puff; I'm going to change my name again anyway") said she was nineteen but seemed younger to Marjory; maybe it was the chatter that fell on them like rain, and which seemed oddly disconnected with anything actually going on in the girl's head. Maybe it was her famished-waif look, as if she hadn't had a square meal lately. And whenever she looked at Marjory there was that lameness in one eye, as if her mind had taken a hard fall and couldn't get up. Puff seemed compelled to give them a full reading of her life to date. Her father had been one of those middling career officers in the Army who hadn't attended West Point. Also he was the kind of luckless gambler who would have bet on the Trojan horse in a two-horse race. There was some unpleasantness involving misappropriated commissary funds in Texas that had earned him a dishonorable discharge. Now he was in Mexico, or maybe Guatemala. Puff was inclined to blame her father for her lack of purpose in life, her footloose ways.
"Do you get along with your mom?" she asked Marjory.
"I did, but she died."
"Oh, tough break. Mine did too, when I was twelve. On the threshold of puberty, as it happens." Puff cast around for a comfortable spot, and sat down in the grass where there was some shade and a breeze coming their way. Thunderheads had appeared in the east, rumbling but far enough away so that it seemed unlikely there would be a shower. Ducks coasted on the placid millpond. Nearby a couple of small children were eating hot
"I'd go with you, but. You know. I'm just not feeling that great. Probably my blood sugar. Jesus, it's a scorcher today but I'm still cold. The hotter it is, the better I like it. Even in this weather I don't sweat. I wonder what Wisconsin is like. I'm probably making a mistake going there. Mount Horeb. Is that a hoot? Definitely not the sort of place where I can do my nails in church."
Marjory carried her radio in her left hand, and held Duane's hand as they walked up the rise from the mill pond toward the Dante's Mill general store. There were a lot of people in the village, wandering from the smithy and stable at one end of the street to the white frame church with its modest steeple at the other. Picnic benches circled the trunk of an oak tree in the churchyard: the oak's branches provided a full dusty canopy for the fenced cemetery.
"A couple of my relatives lived here," Marjory said to Duane. "You know those pictures in the parlor? Third old party from the left, the one with chipmunk cheeks and a crumb-catcher. I don't remember his name. My mother knew; she was the family historian. Funny thing about Dante's Mill. Now that Puff has me in the mood for ghost stories."
"What about Dante's Mill?"
"They all left one day. Seventy-four people. Men, women, children, just picked up and vanished."
"Why?"
"Nobody knows what happened to them. There's a plaque in front of the church with all their names on it. Rewards were offered; famous detectives investigated. Sherlock Holmes."
"Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character."
> "I know that. I mean the author, whatever his name was."
"Arthur Conan Doyle."
"I think he wrote a book about Dante's Mill. There's a commemorative grave in the churchyard, but nobody's in it. Anyway, I'm surprised you never heard of the place."
"Is that line for ice cream?" Duane asked, looking at the tourists packing the covered porch of the general store.
"Or the pottie."
"Looks like a good half-hour wait."
"Probably not that long. It's hand-cranked ice cream. What do you make of Puff?"
"Maybe she'll be gone when we get back."
"Yeah, that's what I was hoping, too. If she does split, you'll have to eat two ice creams."
"Chocolate? I'll break out. I always get a sore bump right here, next to my ear."
"You broke out already, when Puff dropped her top and flashed the bubby."
Jogs and smearing mustard on their sun-flushed faces. "God, we sure have a lot in common, Marj."
"Uh-huh," Marjory said, doubting it. Puff still had the wrapped joint between her fingers. Marjory wondered if she intended to smoke it there and glanced around uneasily, afraid of spotting someone she knew.
But Puff was looking at her radio in a brooding way.
"I ought to turn it on, find out if she's still there. But I'm afraid of what she's going to say next."
"Who?" Duane asked. He had plucked a long blade of grass and was tying it into knots, only using the fingers of one hand.
"My mother, who else? She's trying to contact me from beyond the grave. I mean, she called me Puff, didn't she? That was a family thing."
Duane looked at Marjory, then at the ducks on the pond while he absently continued knotting the blade of grass. Marjory admired his dexterity.
"I'd call my brother and tell him," Puff said. "But Max thinks I'm nuts as it is."
"Why don't we get some ice cream?" Marjory suggested. "How about you, Puff?"
"Ice cream? That's a fabulous idea! Now that I think about it, I'm really hungry. Where do we get ice cream around here?"
"Oh, the general store. It's over that way."
Puff, her Grundig radio between her legs, hugged herself and looked wearily back over one shoulder. "That far? I don't know, I'm really wrecked."
"We'll bring you a cone."
"You will? God, that is so nice of you! Chocolate, with, you know, lots of sprinkles? Two scoops." She dipped fingers into her halter top again. "Where'd that damn twenty go? I put it back, didn't I?"
"We'll treat," Marjory said hastily. Duane was staring at Puff as if waiting for her nipple, flat as a half-dollar, to pop out again. Marjory nudged him, hard. Puff stopped searching for her money and scratched the top of her breast instead, leaving livid streaks on her tan.
"I like ducks," she said, eyes on the pond. A slight childish smile came and went. She played with the necklace of shark's teeth. "I wouldn't wear these, but they're supposed to be lucky. The guy who makes them only had one leg, though. I wonder if a shark got the other one?" She yawned and lay back in the grass, giving her head a shake to loosen and fan her hair, which was several shades of color, from tawny blond at the temples to a russet with darker streaks that looked unclean. "I like kids, too. But not if I have to have one growing inside of me like a mushroom. Or a toadstool. Sometimes I think about that, and then I can't come. Bummer. Why don't you leave all of your stuff here, I'll watch it for you."
"Well, I think I'll take my radio, I like to hear music while I'm walking."
"Did not."
"Did, too. You wouldn't, would you?"
"Wouldn't what? You mean with Puff? Huh-uh. She's worse than a turpentined cat."
"Okay, I like you again."
5
They were on their way back to the pond when the screaming started.
Marjory looked at Duane and said, "Sounds like good ol' Puff."
"Who else do we know would say 'fucking' three times in the same sentence?"
A child began to wail. They hurried. Puff saw them coming down the slope from the village and waved frantically to them. She was below the spillway opposite the mill house, up to her ankles in the race. A few people, including the mother with the red-faced squawling child, had gathered on the bank behind her.
Puff pointed at something below the spillway. She had a rock in her other hand. "That's where he went! He took my radio! Isn't anybody going to do something? I want my fucking radio back! It cost a hundred fucking dollars, and I want it back!"
"Hey, Puff!"
"Hey, you guys! Come on, come on, he's in there, let's go get him!"
The mother of the crying child said to Marjory, "He went right by us. He almost stepped on Bubba. Scared us half to death."
"Who?"
"The man. The one took your friend's radio? He just up with it and ran—I wouldn't call it running. He couldn't go very fast. He went straight down to the dam there, and through the waterfall."
"He's hiding back there!" Puff yelled, jogging up and down in the shallows of the race. "He didn't come out! I'll bash his fucking head in! You better come with me, Duane. Here." She backed out of the cattails at the water's edge and handed him the rock. "You knock him in the head! I'll grab my radio. He's already got it wet! It's probably ruined by now."
"Here's your ice cream, Puff," Marjory said, looking at the curtain of water that fell ten feet from the top of the spillway. She couldn't make out anyone lurking behind the silvery curtain. "Maybe we ought to get some help. He can't go anywhere, can he?"
Puff took the ice-cream cone, hesitated, then handed it to the curly-haired boy huddled in fright on his mother's shoulder.
"Here you go, little boy. You eat it. I'm sorry I yelled so loud and scared you."
"Oh, look, Bubba, she's giving you a ice cream! With sprinkles on it. Now you say 'Thank you for the nice ice cream,' and don't get any on mama's good blouse."
"Thank you," the boy mumbled, taking his thumb out of his mouth.
Puff smiled edgily and looked at Duane. "Hey, you coming?"
"Yeh," Duane said. But he tossed the rock into the water.
Puff nodded. "He was just an old guy, from what I saw of him. A bum. He probably won't give us any trouble."
Marjory said, "Why would he run under the waterfall? That doesn't make sense."
"Let's go see," Duane said, and handed Marjory what was left of his own ice-cream cone.
"Maybe I'd better get some help," Marjory suggested. "There's always a sheriffs car or the Highway Patrol around on weekends."
"Wait a minute," Duane said. "I just want to have a look. If he's back in there hiding, then he can't get away."
"Watch out he doesn't pitch a rock at you."
"Yeh," Duane said, and went off around the edge of the race to the rocks at the foot of the spillway; Puff was behind him, a little unsteady on the wet rocks, twice grabbing his belt in back to keep her balance. Duane took her hand and they plunged through the downpour. Marjory could see them pressed against the spillway wall behind the waterfall, edging slowly toward the middle.
"This is scary," said the woman with the curly-haired boy. "I don't think those children should be doing that. I'll tell you what, we're leaving now, but I'll stop at park headquarters and inform them of what's going on over here."
"Thanks," Marjory said, keeping her eyes on Duane and Puff, who were now hard to see through the torrent. Obviously they hadn't come across the man who had taken Puffs Grundig radio; but how could anyone hide between the dam wall and the overflow anyway? By now they were only ten feet from the opposite bank and the foundation of the mill house, the slowly turning wheel. It was dark in that nook, where a storm-split willow drooped thickly over the pond and spillway, one branch rubbing against the blank west wall of the mill. But the acoustics were pretty good and Marjory heard their voices, although she couldn't make out what they were saying.
Then she couldn't see them any more, as if they'd stepped back into a crevice in the wall, and their voices sounded
hollow before fading entirely.
Marjory sat on the grass partway up the bank and waited. Some clouds hid the sun, and it was darker still where she'd had her last glimpse of Duane and Puff, who was proving to be nothing but bad news; Marjory had sensed she was some kind of hoodoo the moment she laid eyes on her.
What were they doing back there?
"Hey, Duane! Puff! Where are you?"
Not that she expected them to answer; but confirmation that they were no longer within earshot gave her a bad case of stomach flutters. She didn't want to leave, but no help had arrived.
A familiar horn honked three times on the road on the other side of the mill.
"Marjor-yy!"
Rita Sue sounded annoyed. Marjory, still keeping one eye out for Duane and growing more anxious by the minute, waved and then beckoned. Rita Sue didn't get the message. Boyce honked the horn of the Fairlane again.
"I can't—" Exasperated, Marjory picked up Duane's butterfly net and other collector's paraphernalia. She carried the stuff, along with her radio, up the slope to the wooden bridge that arched across the millrace. Glancing down at the waterfall from this elevation, she couldn't see much. There were no bodies floating facedown in the turbulence around the mill wheel. Duane and Puff could not have emerged at the other end of the waterfall where the willow hung low and climbed the slippery rocks to the walkway that surrounded the mill. She would have seen them from the bank. There were some people on the walk with cameras, but no Duane and no Flibbertigibbet. Damn it! They had simply vanished, along with the radio thief.
Boyce backed up alongside Marjory.
"Where've you guys been?" Rita Sue asked.
"In the woods."
"I'll bet that was a lot of fun," Boyce said.
"Shut up, Boyce." Preoccupied, Marjory dumped everything including her purse, into the backseat. Then she took her purse back and pulled out the flashlight she'd brought along. "Duane's missing. I don't know what happened to him. He's with some girl we met. Her radio got stolen. When the Highway Patrol comes, tell them—" Marjory shrugged. "I don't know what. Just tell them to stay here."