Daniel Plainway - Or The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “Thank you,” she said, though he had to read her lips to catch it.

  “Jeram may come too,” he said, after a pause, but there was no response save for a renewed tongue-lashing from Elizabeth Willum.

  “You see, you’re not needed or wanted here,” said Parley Willum, “and the next time I see you on this path, I’ll count it a sign of trespass.”

  Daniel was going to ask Nell if that was it, or if she was sure, or something anything—that would give him reason to linger and her more time to think, but he could see, though she might want to go with him, there was nothing in his power to make her do so; asking again would only make the moment more painful. “Goodbye,” he said, and he made the long, heart breaking journey back to the road.

  It was in April, toward the end of a long and siege like winter, that Daniel saw Nell again for the last time. He had continued to come by the Linnett house, though for all intents and purposes it was already barren of life.

  Old Ian was a hulking shell, living in the parlor where a single fireplace barely drove away the chill. He seemed impervious to cold or hunger, and only occasionally was Daniel able to rouse him out of a hibernationlike stupor. Daniel could not interest the old man in coming to Thanksgiving dinner with him and Martha. He visited Ian at Christmas but never mentioned the day.

  But with warmer weather bound to come soon, Daniel hoped the old man might regenerate and come to life. Nell was not dead, after all, and it isn’t simply a hollow cliché to say, “‘Where there’s lie there’s hope.”

  But one April day at home Daniel looked out the study window from his desk and saw, coming through the cold rain, the herald who would dash hope. Jeram hadn’t the opportunity to knock before Daniel whipped open the front door and nearly pulled the boy inside. The lawyer had a hundred questions and demands for the young man but hardly got the first of them out before Jeram announced that Nell had just given birth.

  “Lord have mercy,” said Daniel. Then he took stock of Jerams pale face and realized there was more.

  “Dr. Bolster says she’s dying.”

  “Dr. Bolster! Why wasn’t I told?”

  “He’s been with her all night. I only dared come now myself.”

  “Lets go then,” said Daniel, and he grabbed his coat without a hat and hurried out the door.

  Jeram called after him, “You had better get the sheriff. My father said he’ll shoot you if I bring you back.”

  “I don’t want to take the time, Jeram.”

  “Mr. Plainway, I’m really frightened if you go down there alone.”

  “I am too, Jeram.” Daniel paused long enough to turn and consider the boys pale blue eyes, his too finely chiseled features, his slender build. “But you braved your father to come here, didn’t you?”

  The young mans nod was almost imperceptible. With no choice in the matter, Jeram had learned to be brave.

  “Then I take courage standing with you. Lets go.”

  Never had Daniel taken such a long journey, the fear of Parley Willum all but scattered by the storm of his fears for Nell.

  “Is that all it was?” he said aloud as he drove them along. “Why didn’t she come home with me?”

  “Its a boy, “said Jeram. The statement was a sad afterthought since neither he nor Daniel was really concerned about the child just then.

  Daniel was reconsidering what he knew about Nell and Jeram and thinking about her reckless summer with Asher Willum. Suddenly he understood why Asher had left town, why Jeram had married Nell, and why old Ian had signed the paper allowing it. “You’re a bit of a knight, Jeram,” he said simply.

  “I’m not anything I need to be, Mr. Plainway, “said the young man.

  “I would be proud to have a son like you, young man.”

  The path from the road to the Willum place was a challenge just to walk, but Daniel took the horse and carriage down it, not willing to waste time on foot and hoping that such an appearance would daunt Parley Willum just a little. He had only just pulled up before the house when Parley stepped up from behind an outbuilding with a shotgun raised to his shoulder and pulled the hammer back.

  “I guess your memory isn’t very long, Mr. Plainway, “said the man.

  “I guess you don’t know that I have been sent for,” said Daniel, hoping to throw the need of defense back in Willum’s lap. “Detain me, and I will have you up on charges of negligent homicide. Murder, Mr. Willum.”

  “Murder?” Parley looked at his son. “What nonsense have you been-”

  “If that girl dies because of your neglect, “said Daniel, “I will have you behind bars so fast you won’t have time to blink.” Daniel was letting his anger carry the conviction of his otherwise empty words.

  “Get in there then!” growled the man.”And the devil with you! And you,” he said to his son. “You can go with him when he leaves, you and that rich mans daughter and her brat!”

  They hardly heard him as they hurried up the steps; they burst into the house without a knock or permission. In a corner by the fire, where Dr. Bolster had insisted on carrying her, Nell lay among dirty, dark-stained sheets, gazing with such lifelessness that Daniel feared they were too late. The doctor, however, nodded when Daniel sent him a frightened look.

  “Nell.” Daniel hardly realized he had spoken.

  The young womans lips moved, as in a dream, but no sound left them. He felt a little life in her hand when he held it, and she gave him the quietest, weakest squeeze.

  “I’ve had twelve of them in that very bed,” said Elizabeth Willum from a doorway at the back of the room. “I don’t know what her fuss is with that measly thing.”

  Daniel ignored her, taking note for the first time of the wee creature at Neils breast. Her lips moved again, and he put his ear to her mouth.

  “Bertram, “she said.”After Daddy.”

  “Bertram,” said Daniel.

  “He’s a sweet child,” she breathed.

  The sight of tears in Neils eyes hit Daniel like a kick in the chest.

  “How will I know if he’s taken care oft” she asked.

  “Nell,” he said, his voice choking, “of course he’ll be-”

  “You’ll let me know,” she whispered. Tears poured down both her cheeks, and he wondered that she had the energy left in her to weep so. “You’ll let me know,” she said.

  “Mr. Plainway,” said Jeram, “I think I should get her grand father.”

  “] don’t think that is a good idea, Jeram,” said Daniel.

  “She would want him here, I know-just as she wanted you. And he’d want to be here. I know he would.”

  “I don’t know, Jeram-”

  “He was awfully nice to me the day I came for dinner.”

  “Yes, he was. “Daniel felt as if something weighty had been laid upon his chest, and he had trouble breathing. “I’ll go.”

  “No. You have to stay here. You’re like a second father to her, Mr. Plainway. You stay here. I’ll go.”

  Daniel considered this. “Let me write you a note,” he said. “Get me something to write with.”

  Dr. Bolster produced a pen and Jeram handed Daniel a copybook. Flipping through it in search of a blank page, he could see where Jeram had been practicing his writing, his spelling, and his grammar. He scribbled quickly:

  Your granddaughter has just given birth, and I fear she will not linger as long as her mother. If you do not come, and quickly, this will be the last communication you will ever have from me.

  Perhaps, he hoped, this will rouse him, and he signed the note.

  “Take the carriage,” he said, and Jeram scrambled out the door.

  Then Daniel felt another squeeze from Nell’s hand. He leaned close to her lips once again, and they brushed the side of his face like a kiss. “Every day,” she said below a whisper, “I thank God for you.”

  When her grand father appeared, she still had enough lie in her to know him and that he had received the baby from her like a gift. Daniel left them, hearing and se
eing nothing of what passed there.

  The doctor came over to tell him she was gone and advised that the child be gotten from the Willum household as quickly as possible. “We need to find a wet nurse. Mrs. Cutler over by the mountain has a baby three or four months old now, and a little extra money would help out over there.”

  Daniel hardly heard any of it but registered the man’s words on a peculiar level of consciousness he had rarely experienced before. Ian Linnett was standing before him with the baby in his arms.

  “Where is Jeram?” asked Daniel, something like ice touching his spine.

  “The boy?” said Linnett. “I never saw him.”

  Two days later Jeram Willum’s body was found among the reeds of Clemons Pond. Daniel’s note was not to be found upon him.

  35. The Last of the Wawenocks

  I’ll never understand why she did it, thought Daniel. He had been dreaming.

  The day dawned bright behind the heavy drapes of the room, so that knives of light pierced even the dark confines of his broken curtained bed. His breath was plain before him when he turned onto his back. He was not a young man to be adventuring over the countryside, and the rigors of the day before spoke in his muscles and bones so that he lingered for a while before braving the cold chamber.

  He stumbled into his clothes, wishing he had taken his bag from the sleigh when they walked off. Had anybody come after them? He doubted it, or they would have found their tracks or at least called upon nearby houses looking for them.

  The room where he had spent the night was of a completely different character now, though only slivers of day found their way around the perimeters of the dark hangings. The room itself was cleaner than Daniel would have credited, if there were only the five elderly sisters to tend to household duties: no dust, or cobwebs, or kittens beneath the rocker by the curtained window.

  But everything was nearly ancient and faded with age: the wallpaper (particularly where daylight leaked from behind the hangings), the carpet, which was once (no doubt) a deep red behind an oriental design of vines and flowers and switchbacks, the prints upon the wall, and the painting of a moonlit river above the bricked-up fireplace. Daniel suspected that nothing had changed since Father had died and perhaps since long before the man’s demise.

  He gazed around the room in search of his boots, then remembered leaving them outside the door. With a yawn he leaned into the hall for them and thought to search each boot with a hand before putting them on, smiling to find several wrapped sweets tucked into the toes. He peeked into the hall again-first at the heavily carved door across from his, then down the hall to Miss Burnbrake’s door. Her boots were gone, meaning, at least, that she was up and possibly that she was waiting for him downstairs. He heard the sound of plateware clinking below and realized that he was famished.

  By daylight he was able to raise the bed back up on its slats, and though there was a broken one, he thought the new configuration might hold a body. He would warn the sisters of it. He was not long getting downstairs, where he found a cheery fire in the parlor, and followed voices to the back of the house and the kitchen.

  “Good morning!” he offered as he entered the room, and the Pettengill sisters chorused a cheery greeting in return. They sprang from their chairs and bustled about, though everything was nearly done in the way of making breakfast. They had it all laid out before he temporarily declined in hopes of breakfasting with Miss Burn brake.

  “Of course!” shouted Lavona. “What could we be thinking?”

  “And here she is!” announced Larinda. “Oh, dear, you look lovely!”

  Charlotte Burnbrake looked no different from last night, unless she looked a little better rested, which was to say she looked lovely indeed. Daniel stood as she entered, and they greeted one another with a sense of awkwardness. The unexpected comradery of the day before seemed strange, even a little silly, in the morning kitchen with straightforward daylight streaming through the windows. Daniel was sorry not to sense the intimacy that had enveloped them so easily when the train was stopped, when they fled Mother Rose’s, and when the sleigh was overturned.

  “How are you this morning, Mr. Plainway?” asked Charlotte, and he thought there was not nearly the warmth in the address that there had been when she said good night some hours before.

  “Pretty well, I guess, Miss Burn brake,” he returned, feeling formal. “I trust you slept well.”

  “Thank you, yes,” she said.

  There were glances exchanged among the sisters, and Alvaid even pulled a sigh, as if some beloved verity had come into question.

  “What you need is breakfast,” said Lavilda, as if there really were some problem besides the practical light of day, and a good meal could solve most anything.

  Daniel was almost mollified by the presence of so much good food when he was so hungry, and Miss Burn brake herself looked ready to make a proper meal of it: toast and jam, rashers and pan-fried potato, eggs and biscuits and gravy and milk and coffee gathered like a week’s reserve. The sisters helped dish out the servings and never allowed their guests to touch a ladle or a serving fork. Daniel felt his courage rise with every ounce gained by his plate, and his wits gathered as well.

  He looked up at his fellow guest with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Was St. Nicholas good to you, Miss Burnbrake?”

  Perhaps he purposely caught her with her mouth full-she was very hungry-for she was first surprised and then amused at his question, but it took her a moment to answer, during which time the twinkle in his eye seemed to cast a like reflection in hers. “Yes,” she said, “he was very kind. I ate a chocolate in bed before I came down.”

  The thought made Daniel smile, and she raised one of her pretty eyebrows in either amusement or warning. “I should have done that,” he said quite sincerely.

  “I rather thought I was a child again,” she said, considering herself wise for having done it herself.

  The sisters were hugely amused by all this, not the least because they had played St. Nicholas at three in the morning (and giggled a great deal too, so it was amazing they hadn’t wakened their guests).

  But Daniel had looked absolutely sincere in his humor and goodwill, and had so cleverly refused the pragmatic light of day with his whimsical question, that Charlotte had been encouraged (however unconsciously) to lower the self-conscious bastion she had constructed.

  “I was in a third crash last night,” said Daniel.

  “Were you?” she said, a little bemused.

  “Yes,” he replied. “My bed fell,” whereupon he laughed at the cries of horror from the sisters. “It was a small thing after our previous adventures, I assure you,” he said.

  “And where are you going today?” asked Louella when he had explained what happened and the sisters had calmed down.

  “We each have people to meet in Hallowell,” said Daniel.

  “Hallowell!” said Lavona. “You didn’t say so when we were going on about Mother and Father’s elopement!”

  “It was quite a storm they blew up there,” said Charlotte.

  “Not as big a storm as they blew up later!” declared Lavona.

  “Oh? Did they?”

  “You would have thought so if you had seen the five of us running about the house!” declared Larinda, and her sisters joined in with laughter, and “Land sakes!” and “My, we were bad!”

  “But it was only the second storm in Hallowell’s history that bears speaking of,” said Louella.

  “Was it?” Daniel had so liked the tale of their parents that he hoped for another one like it.

  “What storm?” wondered Lavilda.

  “The storm that ended the Wawenocks, dear,” said Louella, and Lavilda remembered this with a reverse nod.

  “My word, yes,” said Larinda, “the Smoking Pine and all that.”

  “Smoking Pine?” said Daniel.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Plainway,”said Louella, “and it does smoke, I assure you, Father used to say.”

  “I’
ve seen it myself,”said Charlotte, “though I doubted what others told me when they brought me there. ‘It doesn’t always smoke,’ they said to me, and this sounded like a good hedge against the certainty that it wouldn’t. But that day a storm was on its way-which is said to be favorable for sightings of the pine’s smoke-and a sort of vaporous column did seem to be rising from the topmost branches. It was very strange, and I don’t believe I have ever heard a proper account of it.”

  “Oh, my,” said Louella. “It’s a sad story, really. It is a strange phenomenon, Mr. Plainway, and difficult to perceive for some people. The eye, you know, often wants to make still things move and to make other things to exist where they aren’t at all. Father used to say that a person might convince himself of what he saw simply by straining his eyes long enough, but Father was sure that he had seen it-trusted his own eyes, in fact, because he hadn’t been looking for it in the first place.”

  “And it is simply a vapor rising from the tree?” asked Daniel.

  “It is a disturbance in the air, a fluctuation. Have you ever seen the shadows the air itself can make against a building on a hot day? It is like that perhaps, though you might see it tomorrow, if you look, with snow on the ground and the north wind blowing. And it rides above a towering pine among a great grove, as many pines as people who lived on that spot before that other awful storm.

  “They were the Wawenocks, a tribe decimated by their own warlike nature, driven out of Pemaquid, and hunted like animals by the surrounding clans-the Passamoquoddies and the Penobscots and the Tarratines. But the Wawenocks came, in their ramblings, to Hallowell (known then as Keedumcook) and the banks of the Bombahook, which empties into the Kennebec. The great river teemed with salmon and bass, the Bombahook itself was a legendary trout stream, and the surrounding forests were filled with game.

  “The Europeans who had settled in those parts were alarmed to have this tribe of warlike reputation camping so close to their homes; but Assinomo, the chief of the Wawenocks, met with the elders of the local settlement and asked for land and protection, and though the Wawenocks had ended many another life with their slaughter, they swore never again to raise their clubs or notch their arrows, except in defense of the small against the large or the weak against the strong. ‘Even as water flows in the Bombahook,’ said the chief, ‘we shall surely smoke the pipe of peace,’ which words would prove prophetic.