Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones

by Richard Gleaves

  “I miss you,” he whispered. She had started to fade. “Don’t go.”

  “Stay awake,” she said, her voice at his ear. “And forgive Zef.”

  “Forgive him?”

  “He’s as much a victim of his father as anyone. And he’s family.”

  She had almost disappeared now.

  “No. Stay.”

  “Can’t help it, Honey. I don’t know how to, yet. They don’t give you an instruction manual for being dead, you know, any more than they give you one for being alive.” Only her voice remained. “We make it up as we go, I guess.”

  “Eliza? Eliza? Take me with you?”

  “No. No. Stay awake, my love. Whatever life is, it’s worth fighting for. Wherever you are, even when it’s bad, it’s worth fighting for. And it has to be enough. It has to be.”

  He could feel her presence rising, receding. “Wait. Are you okay? What about the Horseman—can he—”

  “Shh. You just take care of yourself. Promise? Promise me you will.”

  “I promise. I love you.”

  “Likewise. And don’t worry about me.” Her voice became very thin, way off in the stratosphere. She sounded happy. “Guess what, Honey?”

  He wiped his cheek. “What?”

  “I can fly again.”

  Jason burst into tears as he felt her presence go. He cried for many long minutes. He was alone. Oh, he longed for her, he wanted her, he needed her. But she was right, as always.

  Whatever life is, it has to be enough.

  He wiped his face, shook himself awake. His body ached. His joints were stiff. He had to keep his mind active. He had to make it until dawn. He had to stay awake. Stay awake.

  He searched the trash pile. Was there any newspaper to read? Anything to keep him alert?

  The letter.

  He pulled the thick sheaf of pages from his backpack and spread them in his lap. He didn’t have to worry about getting them wet; they were encased in plastic. He took out the cell phone, used its screen for light, and read.

  April the 7th, 1865

  Andersonville Prison, Confederate State of Georgia.

  Dear Wife—

  I write to you from Hell, in the hope that I shall have a chance to send a line northward to God’s Land. We look for an exchange of most if not all who are here, yet I have been prisoner for six months and twelve days and I do not see hope for my return before next spring at the earliest. I pray that you and little Cornelius are well and that you have not suffered for provisions or clothing. If you are in need of money, write to Corwin in New York or to Lathey & Co. in White Plains. There is no use of your trying to get a letter to me for it would not be delivered even if received. My health has been poor but will soon improve. Save your kisses or reprimands for our reunion. I enclose a letter I have prepared for our son. Do not open it unless you have had word of my death. I do not expect to die, but I have seen men stronger than myself succumb to the horrors here.

  On the twenty-first, the tunnel was opened and two fellows escaped to the outside. They were paroled by gunfire. They lay face-down in the field beyond the south gate. I can see them from my sickbed. The grass is high, but my eye can search out the fallen fortunates by the congregation of crows.

  I have seen much from this royal perch. I have seen rebels racing lice, betting their confederate paper or rations on that disgusting sport. I have seen poor fellows rob the dead of clothes in order to keep from freezing. I have seen boys weak from hunger greedily devour beans so wormy and weevil-eaten that they skimmed maggots the whole time they cooked. The drummer thumps away each morning beyond my window, summoning the camp to give up its dead.

  Sometimes we have visitors from Atlanta. Fine ladies and gentlemen, just as we once were. These elegant notables look down at us poor wretches with such sympathy, such condescension. One slipped me a plug of tobacco, as if offering me Christian charity. If I could have summoned the fire to do so, I would have burned the man to ash and pissed on the cinders. Such is my hate for our fine southern brothers.

  I have thought much about my past life, my great ambitions, and the wrongs done me. My only joy is that my father precedes me to the grave. My only consolation is that the Van Brunt line persists. My only prayer is that our Cornelius shall rebuild what his wanton and foolish father has lost.

  See to it that he is tutored, as I was, in the ancient Dutch tongue of our family. The forgotten language has served us well. When he has learned to read it, and he is ready, give him the enclosed letter. Show him the sword his father brandished at Doctortown. Tell him how Dylan and his bummers destroyed the Altamaha railroad trestle and won some small measure of glory at least. Tell him to rise, to rule, to know that he is a Van Brunt—that his line was first in the New World.

  Teach him to look to family, as my Agathe taught me.

  Your Husband,

  Dylan Van Brunt

  Jason took a deep breath. He shivered and tucked his legs. He pulled his jacket over his head, plunging himself into darkness but for the square of light in his hand. He turned to the first page of translation and fell helplessly into the past.

  Into the Tarrytown of Brom Bones and Katrina Van Tassel…

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Dylan’s Tale: Part One”

  [Translated from the Dutch by: M. F. Dulles, Sage College of Albany]

  My earliest memory is of discovering my grandfather’s severed head.

  I was but five years of age at the time, and so the year would have been eighteen hundred and twenty-five. As an adult I have seen the clothes I wore that day, keepsaked by my mother, and so I can describe them with confidence: a coat of red wool, with black-braided trim and large white cuffs. I have held the shoes, also. They fit in my hand. They are blond leather, moccasin-like. Extraordinary that I could ever have been so small. Records will prove that the date was August 4th, 1825, but what child knows anything of the calendar? I knew only that father was busy with preparations for harvest, and that mother did not want me languishing inside. Had she realized yet that Old Baltus Van Tassel had gone missing? I do not know. In later years the subject was tabooed amongst us.

  I wandered the pumpkin field that hot afternoon, delighting in the explosion of glossy green leaves, the filigree of curling vines like the tails of pigs, the lumpy Jacks all abed beneath their canopies. I wandered from row to row, slapping their orange cheeks and waking them up. And then I came to the Red Pumpkin.

  Grandfather was no stranger to farm work and his skin was red as a savage’s. His nose, they say, was redder still when heated with drink and mirth. And so I thought I had found an odd beet-colored pumpkin amongst the vines. I saw the matted white hair and decided, sadly, that this pumpkin was a moldy one, so I kicked it away in disgust, causing the eyes of old Baltus to turn ’round and to stare up at me.

  I stood a moment, all confused. I could not conceive of a head with no person attached. But I had seen blood before. I had seen blood in the kitchen. I had seen blood in the stable. Blood I understood. And the blood of my grandfather cried out to me from the ground as Abel’s is said to have cried out to God when Cain spilled it thus. The blood cried out to me and I cried out to my mother, to anyone, to the world.

  Grandfather is dead. Grandfather is dead. Grandfather is dead.

  I screamed it. I screamed the words until someone’s arms found me and someone’s lips pressed my eyes closed with kisses. That night, as my mother and father prayed together downstairs, my sweet grandmother Agathe came to comfort me. I was her brave and clever boy, she said. She told me that the Headless Horseman had taken old Baltus. I had never heard of this ghost, but his name spoken in moonlight seemed to conjure him in my mind. My grandmother explained that the Horseman was one of God’s servants who rode through the night, doing His bidding, striking down sinners.

  “Your grandfather was a drunkard, my Dylan,” she whispered, “and that is why the Horseman punished him.”

  This I understood. This made sense to my child’s min
d. And this I accepted.

  The body was found, and reunited with the head. I watched the funeral proceedings without tears. Why weep when God’s will had been done? We should be happy, I thought, that a sinner had been taken from amongst us. I spied my mother weeping in the shade of the great ash tree and I told her as much. She struck me. She chased me afterwards with hugs and apologies, but the lesson had been learned. Agathe would tell me truths that others would not understand. Agathe would explain the world to me when my parents would not.

  If Katrina guessed who had put such an idea into my head, I do not know. If she ever quarreled with her husband’s mother in those days I did not witness it. Few dared quarrel with Agathe. The truth may be discovered, however, by implication: My mother and grandmother were ever afterwards at War, and I was the disputed territory. This was not a disagreeable situation in which to find myself. The missiles fired by the opposing combatants were not made of iron and powder but of gift-wrap and ribbon. Each side fired ponies and toys and tin soldiers, attempting to outdo each other, to win my allegiance and plant their respective flags upon the high ground of my heart. As I grew, this domestic war escalated and my fortunes improved. Agathe gave me my own slave, named Jonathan, to which my mother added two hunting dogs that answered to “Grasper” and “Keeper”. The three became my inseparable companions. You will know such dogs someday, my son. Though I have fought for the North, I do regret that Mr. Lincoln shall have denied you the company of a Jonathan.

  By the time I had reached the age of ten, I had become infinitely sensitive to the moods of the two women. When one side felt sure of my affections, I would begin speaking highly of the other, as a coquette might speak of a rival suitor to whet another man’s passions. When my mother angered and seemed ready to relinquish me to Agathe’s permanent dominion, I would find cause to break from my grandmother and rush into Katrina’s arms, confirming her worst opinions of Agathe and denouncing the old lady to her. When Agathe grew distant, I would gain her confidence with similar denunciations of my mother.

  This venal campaign of my own went unsuspected by the two, who grew ever more aggrieved by each other and solicitous of me. And, as they were women of some wealth and power in the world (Katrina was heiress to the Van Tassel estate and Agathe had built an empire by acquisition of the Fontaine quarry-land), my own situation became the envy of all the children in Tarry-Town.

  I became known as the Quarry Prince. I wore the finest clothes, dined in the finest manner. It was said of me that I carried in my belly the best of both hunt and harvest and that my buttons and braid made jealous the richest bridegroom. My apartments abounded with trifles and toys and amusements.

  Yet I was not an idle child. Father insisted that I hunt and fish and learn to farm. I learned to shoot as well. When the wild pigeons flew in the skies above Tarry-Town, I joined the throngs of boys, every rifle forthwith in requisition. Our spades rusted in the garden, our plows stood idle in their furrows. We rushed to the stubble-field with our guns to fill the Hollow with the echoes of shot and the drifting aroma of gunpowder. Let the word be given that the shad were ascending the Hudson, and we host of worthies would launch upon the river to stretch a spider-web of nets, to the great annoyance of the trade navigators. I was confident with reins and rapier and active in the services of our church. I have, in fact, inherited a goodly portion of my father’s renowned build and strength, though my hair is of my mother’s gold.

  So know that, despite my indulgent upbringing, I was never fat nor was I stupid. The one thing both Katrina and Agathe demanded, the one subject upon which they were united in mutuality, was that I should be an Educated Man. Though each woman loved my father (who they called Abraham, though he preferred “Brom”) they were both quick to admonish him for his rustic manner and lack of book-learning. His heir would be a scholar.

  I will not bore you, my son, with the details of my tutelage. Most of the facts that I learned in the eighteen-thirties have been overturned by now, as all facts are eventually overturned in this restless country of ours. My mother chose a schoolmaster for me who much resembled old Ichabod Crane of Irving’s tale. I wonder now what had prompted the selection. Had she indeed loved the man Crane? Your grandmother Katrina’s final words before her sad death gave me cause to suspect that she did. I shall come to that event in order.

  I despised my tutor, though I concede that his methods were effective. I do possess the scholarly bent that my benefactresses desired for me. Yet academic knowledge counts little in life. What matters is wealth, and power, and secret knowledge—not of things written in books, laid bare to the sight of any man, but of things in shadow, hidden to all but the initiated. The first such knowledge was passed on to me by my father. At his knee I learned this Old Dutch, the secret Van Brunt language in which I record these thoughts. Agathe too, guided my hand in the formation of this alien lettering. It was she who had first adopted it.

  “We are Dutch,” she would say. “We were here first.”

  She was quite particular about this fact. She often spoke of that green windy day on which Henrik Hudson had first sailed up the river that bears his name. To her mind, the American Nation was an interloper. The Dutch had conquered this land. WE had built New Amsterdam upon the island of the Manahatta. WE had brought the language of tolerance and republicanism to these shores. WE had stoked the fires of liberty in the new world. The English colonists who came after had merely stolen our ideas and outbred us, as they were a thieving and promiscuous race.

  In some things Agathe was extremely backwards-looking. She was most comfortable in the company of those hard-headed, hard-handed yeoman, descendants of the primitive Nederlanders. (She was rumored to take lovers from the ranks of these, men who would disappear after, who were said to be given to the pirates and spirited to other shores when she tired of them.) She resented all modern encroachments upon the daily life of Sleepy Hollow. In her day, the only communication with New York had been the market boat. By 1830, two steam-ships splashed and paddled daily from Manhattan to Tarry-Town. Sun-bonnets had vanished, replaced by French styles or the depredations of city milliners. Pianos played on autumn evenings. Simple farmers became bank directors, ruddy with claret and champagne and green-fisted with paper money.

  Although Agathe despised these changes, she did not hesitate to prosper by them. She was ever at the vanguard, as a matter of course, steering the Van Brunt fortunes where they would secure the greatest return.

  Katrina adored the new fashions. She kept her hair perpetually tied in ribbons. She sought out novels and developed a sweet tooth. My most vivid recollection of my Katrina is her love of honey on fresh bread. I would wake in the mornings to find her downstairs drinking bitter coffee and reading Jane Austen. She would kiss me in greeting and her kisses would stay with me until noontime, sweet and sticky and golden.

  She had no head for business, but kept her husband immaculately turned-out, whether he be at communion rail or board meeting. My father was splendid in those days, a head taller than any man in the room, the height of fashion, a handsome man of middle years with the world at his feet.

  Business boomed, and the people of Tarry-Town bowed to us in the streets.

  But they did not love us. Rumors persisted. I heard the name of Headless Horseman whispered. Irving’s tale was, by then, well known. The characters of Brom Bones and the beauteous Katrina were widely understood in town to refer to my parents, though few had the bad manners to mention the fact. The Legend lent us an air of mystery, as befits living characters from a story-book. It seemed to confer upon the Van Brunt family a right to rule in the region.

  Certainly, it was good for business. Many who came to the Van Brunt Quarry no doubt ventured there to meet Brom Bones. They were not disappointed. As I’ve said, my father was an impressive man.

  Yet behind closed doors the town whispered that my father’s wealth was ill-begotten. It seemed to them as though the Van Brunt fortune had come into being by a long line of fortunate de
aths. They whispered that the Horseman had first been seen in that region in seventeen-ninety-five, when he had supposedly beheaded two of Agathe’s neighbors with whom she and her husband Hermanus had a dispute. Another of the Horseman’s victims was James Van Brunt, Hermanus’ brother. James had dared challenge Agathe in her widowhood. And what of Ichabod? Had he not been the romantic rival of Agathe’s son? An obstacle to Brom’s fortunes? Ichabod had been frightened away, perhaps the only man to survive an attack by the spirit, and my father had married well in consequence.

  Mostly it was the death of Old Baltus that the villagers whispered about. Baltus Van Tassel had been a beloved figure in Tarry-Town. Many took note that, just before Baltus’ death, Agathe had been heard cursing a New York banker. She had plans to purchase the quarry outright from her shareholders but the banker had denied her a loan she required. After Baltus’ death, after Katrina inherited and the money transferred to Brom, the quarry was purchased straight away and the banker went missing.

  My father dismissed all these tales, calling them malicious. Yet more than once I saw him and my mother scanning Agathe’s face across the supper table, finding only a secret smile and a look of defiance.

  I found the rumors fascinating. I followed Agathe like a pup, waiting for her to cast some magic spell. And one day she did.

  The year was 1834. The month was December. I was fourteen. At the time, Agathe still lived in what had been Ackert’s Roost, or Woolfert’s Roost, the farmhouse of old Baltus. Agathe disliked the place and urged Brom to build her something in stone. The drafts had begun to pester her and she was already in her middle seventies.