Thoreau on Wolf Hill

by Oak, B. B.

  “Do the initials R E V mean anything to you?” Adam persisted.

  Micah shook his head adamantly and then slumped in his chair. “I am so weary. All I long for is sleep. Yet I cannot sleep. Whenever I close my eyes I see Kitty lying on the floor in all that blood!”

  “I will give you something to help you sleep,” Adam said. “But allow me to ask you a few more questions first. Were the doors of your house locked when you left for the town meeting?”

  “Yes. I am certain of it, for I checked the back door bolt three times to make sure it was in place before I departed. Kitty laughed at my concern. But in our entire married life I had never left her alone at night before. I locked the front door behind me and put the key in my pocket. I unlocked it upon my return.”

  “And when you went to the kitchen, did you unbolt the back door?”

  He shook his head. “At first sight of Kitty I knew she was horribly injured and immediately ran out the front door to fetch you, doctor.” His bloodshot eyes suddenly widened as he regarded Adam. “The back door was unbolted?”

  “Yes. Was your wife expecting a caller?”

  “She made no mention of it. The last thing my darling told me before I went off to the meeting was that she would be counting the minutes until I returned.” Micah covered his anguished face with his hands and moaned. “How I wish I had died with her!”

  Adam gave him a potion and led him upstairs to the chamber Mrs. Jasper had readied for him but could not induce him to use last night.

  I found the old widow in her kitchen, knitting by the stove. “How is Mr. Lyttle faring?” she asked.

  “Dr. Walker has put him to bed. You were kind to take him in, ma’am.”

  “Well, I could not let the poor soul spend the night in that charnel house, now could I? Constable Beers told me there was blood enough in the kitchen to drown in. But I reckon he exaggerated a mite.”

  “He does do that,” I said. “Indeed, he has been telling everyone in town that you espied the Night Stalker last evening.”

  “And so I did. Saw him through that very window.” She pointed with her knitting needle to the little window that faced her backyard. “His hair was black as the devil’s boots, and his face was white as chalk. It had an eerie glow to it. And when he paused to jeer at me through the window, he showed off a pair of fangs! Fangs that could slice open a woman’s throat in one fell swoop.” She swiped the tip of her needle across her own throat to demonstrate. “Well, I froze right here in my chair, for I thought he’d come for me! But then he gave me a jaunty wave and went on his way. Soon as I collected myself I ran out to fetch the constable. But it was already too late to save poor little Mrs. Lyttle. And now I understand why the Night Stalker did not harm me. He had already satiated his blood lust on her.” With a sigh and a shake of her head, Mrs. Jasper resumed her knitting.

  I retold her tale to Adam after we left the house and were walking across the Green together. Knowing Mrs. Jasper to be a sensible person, he could not understand why she would come up with such an outlandish story.

  “You think she fell asleep by the kitchen stove and dreamt it?” I said.

  “That’s very likely,” Adam said. “Or perhaps she really did see the murderer. A man she did not recognize and hence found strange in appearance. A friend of Mrs. Lyttle who had come from Boston, for instance.”

  “A murderous friend?”

  “Mrs. Lyttle was dressed in only a robe, with nothing beneath it, and in such a state of dishabille, who else would she open her door to but a friend? A very dear friend.”

  “Are you suggesting Kitty had a lover, Adam?”

  “I cannot help but think it a possibility.”

  “What if she just threw open the door to get a breath of fresh air,” I speculated, “and the demented killer, a complete stranger, was standing right outside by coincidence?”

  “Improbable,” Adam said.

  “No more improbable than Kitty Lyttle’s having a lover. You were not as well acquainted with her as I was, Adam.”

  “You knew her for less than two weeks.”

  “Enough time to know that she was deeply in love with her husband.”

  “Was she?” Adam looked up at the gloomy winter sky above the skeletal tree branches. “Did she love him as much as you once professed to love me, Julia?”

  I stiffened. “That I cannot say.”

  “Can you say if she had as fickle a heart? She might have met another man—on a ship, let us say—and fallen in love with him in short order, forgetting all about how deeply in love she supposedly was with another.”

  “You are being cruel to me with your sarcasm, cousin. And crass to the memory of a murdered woman. It is beneath you.”

  “Well, there you are,” he said. “At one time you could raise me up to heaven’s heights, Julia. And now you can reduce me to behaving beneath my own lowly self. What a range of influence you have over me.”

  “Stop this,” I commanded and came to a stop myself.

  He followed suit. “You are right. I must stop badgering you. What is done is done.”

  “And you must stop feeling so injured about it. What does it matter that I married another? I could not marry you!”

  “I did not marry another. I most likely never shall.”

  I wanted to scream at him, but we were on a path in a public common, so I lowered my voice instead. “You had better marry one day, you blockhead, else my sacrifice was all for naught. I want you to have a good, normal life, Adam. I want you to have children. I want you to have unrestrained sexual relations with your wife.”

  He glanced around. There was no one within hearing distance. “And is that what you have with your husband?”

  The question was risible, but I did not feel much like laughing. “That is none of your concern.”

  “Indeed it is not.” And with that he turned on his heel and went in the opposite direction, rather than back to his office.

  I continued on my way. We had tried to be careful not to draw attention to ourselves, but evidently we still had, for I perceived people strolling the Green look toward Adam and then toward me as the distance between us widened.

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Wednesday, December 15

  Henry came by Tuttle Farm early this evening, wanting to know if more information had surfaced concerning Mrs. Lyttle’s murder. Told him that her husband had confirmed to me that he’d secured both the front and back doors last night. Also related Mrs. Jasper’s description of the face peering through her window near the time of the murder. Neither of us believe she saw a supernatural creature, but we do believe she saw Kitty Lyttle’s killer. That Mrs. Lyttle had worked at the same theater that Chauncey Bidwell had frequented seemed to me to be no more than a coincidence, but Henry thinks it would be worthwhile to go to the Howard again and talk to Mrs. Perry. Told him I would do my best to go with him, but it did not seem likely I could find the time for another trip to Boston next week.

  Gran invited Henry to stay for supper and partake in the stew she had been simmering over the fire since morn. “Along with taters and turnips, there’s a brace of rabbits in my pot.”

  “How’d they get themselves into such a stew?” Henry, ever the punster, asked.

  Gran pointed to her trusty old flintlock hanging on the oak-beam lintel. “That’s how. I come from folk that like to return from a walk with supper swinging off the belt.”

  “I reckon we all come from such folk,” Henry said, “but I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals one day.”

  “What flummydiddle!” Gran took up her big wrought iron spoon, and I feared she was going to rap Henry’s noggin with it. But she dipped it in the pot hanging off the crane instead and took a taste. “Mighty flavorsome if I do say so myself.” She turned to Harriet, who was seated on the settle, pensively gazing into the fire. “Fetch me four bowls, my dear, so I can serve up suppah.”

 
; “Pray, no stew for me,” Henry said. “I lost my appetite for flesh during my sojourn at Walden Pond.”

  “I shall not partake either,” Harriet said. “When I conjure up images of dead little bunnies, it makes me want to weep.”

  Gran sighed. “Poor Harriet has been weepin’ all day, but it ain’t got a thing to do with my stew,” she told Henry. “The poor girl is most upset over last night’s killin’. She was stayin’ in town when it happened and ran back here this morn, soon as she heard the Green has become the Night Stalker’s latest huntin’ ground.”

  “When I conjure up images,” Harriet sobbed, “of that foul creature sinking his fangs into poor Mrs. Lyttle’s—”

  “Cease yer conjurin’, my girl!” Gran bade her. “Else you might summon up the very thing you most fear.”

  Henry nodded. “What we create in our minds, we find in our lives, Harriet.” He tilted his head. “Hark. Is that a carriage?”

  I heard nothing, but Henry hears as with an ear trumpet. Got up from the table with some reluctance, for I was salivating for Gran’s stew, and opened the back door. Sure enough, I did now hear the faint sound of horses’ hooves and the jingling of harness. Henry joined me, and we went round to the front of the house to look down the lane. Two huge amber eyes gleamed in the darkness as they came closer and closer. Of course I knew them to be carriage lamps, and in the next minute a phaeton with overlarge wheels came to a halt in front of us, a pair of black stallions snorting and stamping. A tall figure jumped down from the high seat and landed lightly in front of us. ’Twas Dr. Lamb, dressed for an evening in the city rather than a country visit.

  He removed his elegant top hat and swept it down to make a short bow to me. “Thank you for inviting me to call on you, Dr. Walker.”

  “I had expected you to call at the office,” I replied with more surprise than graciousness.

  “But you are here and not there,” he said as if to an imbecile. “Of course, if this is an inconvenient time for us to converse, I shall drive back to Boston directly.” His tone was now injured.

  “Your timing is perfect,” I said, regaining my manners. “We were just about to partake in supper, and if you do not mind simple fare served in a simple fashion, you are most welcome to join us.”

  “As Leonardo da Vinci once claimed, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” Dr. Lamb replied.

  “My friend here would claim the same,” I said.

  Dr. Lamb had paid Henry no heed until then. “Good Evening,” he said curtly, and Henry nodded curtly in return. It seemed they had taken an immediate dislike to each other at the Athenaeum.

  Gran came out, lantern in hand, to find out whom we were jabbering with. I introduced her to Dr. Lamb. She lifted up the lantern to get a good look at him, but the wind blew out the candle.

  “Will you kindly invite me into your home to dine?” he asked her.

  Gran did not respond. Thinking Dr. Lamb’s formal manner and dress had made her shy, I responded for her. “Gran is always eager to set another place at her table,” I assured him, “and in the name of Tuttle hospitality, I too invite you to enter my family’s humble homestead.”

  He bowed his acceptance, and we all proceeded inside. Once Gran was back in her kitchen, she became far more hospitable. She fetched a jug of applejack from the pantry and directed Harriet to get the gilt-edged glasses from the cabinet in the front parlor. When Harriet returned with them a short time later I observed that she had switched from her everyday apron to the lace-trimmed one she wears on holidays. She and Gran quickly covered the long oaken table with an immaculate homespun linen cloth and changed the candles in the pewter holders from tallow to beeswax. The trouble they felt obligated to go to for Dr. Lamb seemed to amuse Henry. He had never received such special considerations when he visited Tuttle Farm, but he was always treated like family. Dr. Lamb, on the other hand, was being treated like the exotic stranger he was. It is doubtful anyone had ever sat at Gran’s kitchen table dressed in white silk tie and waistcoat before.

  Dr. Lamb brushed aside all inquiries after himself beyond saying he had his medical practice up in Augusta.

  “You mentioned you had been to Plumford before,” Henry prodded.

  “I believe I said I was familiar with this area of the country, and so I am. But I have not been back in a good long while.” Ignoring the bowl of stew set in front of him, Dr. Lamb delicately picked up his glass of applejack and took a tiny sip.

  “Well, I reckon it looks the same to you,” Gran said. “Nothin’ much changes round these here parts.”

  “Everything has!” His dark eyes flashed. “All the abundance that made our lives so rich has disappeared.”

  “Or will soon enough,” Henry said, “if we do nothing to preserve what is left of the wilderness around us.”

  “It is already too late,” Lamb insisted and turned to me. “I am most eager to ask you more questions regarding the article you published.”

  “You published somethin’, Adam?” Gran said. “Concernin’ what?”

  “My experimentation with hypnotism.”

  “What in tarnation is that?”

  “Inducing a person into nervous sleep.”

  Gran narrowed her eyes. “Sounds like the devil’s own mischief.”

  Her reaction did not surprise me. Indeed, it was the reason I had never talked about my experiments, much less the article concerning them, to her. And I was not inclined to do so now. I went back to plying my spoon to my stew and said no more.

  But Dr. Lamb had become most loquacious. “Your grandson wrote a most fascinating commentary regarding hypnotism in a highly respected medical journal, Mrs. Tuttle. One of his subjects recalled being an Indian going to battle against other Indians in this area long ago.”

  “Well, fancy that!” Gran said. “Accordin’ to the local history I was taught in dame school, the Nipmucs was always fightin’ with each other like the savages they were. Not an Injun from that tribe left around these parts.”

  “So it seems,” Lamb said.

  Gran peered at him. “Except for your paleness, you have the look of an Injun yerself, sir. If you have such blood in you, I did not mean to cause offence. And if I did, I do beg yer pardon.”

  Lamb shrugged off her apology. “At any rate, this particular Indian I speak of killed two noble warriors. He downed the first one with a pink quartz ax that has great magic because of a blaze of black stone running through it. He killed the other by snapping his neck.”

  Gran cackled with glee. “That’s how to do it!”

  Henry and I exchanged a glance across the table. His expression reflected the amazement I myself felt.

  “Now tell me, Mrs. Tuttle,” Lamb continued. “Would you be familiar with the man your grandson hypnotized? He would be a dark-haired, powerfully built fellow, of my height or even taller.”

  “Can’t think of anyone tall as you right off,” Gran said. “But give me a minute to cogitate upon it.” She got up from the table to refill my bowl.

  “Why assume the man Dr. Walker hypnotized looks as you described?” Henry asked Lamb.

  Ignoring Henry, Lamb spoke to me. “Have I not assumed correctly, doctor?”

  “I am not at liberty to relate any personal information about my subject,” I said, making sure not to glance at Henry. “That is why he remained nameless in my article.”

  “Surely you can tell a fellow doctor his name,” Lamb said.

  I shook my head. “It would serve no purpose.”

  “Yes, it would,” Lamb persisted. “It would satisfy my curiosity.”

  “Hardly a sufficient reason to break a trust.”

  “You are most stubborn, Dr. Walker.”

  “You took the very words I was about to address to you right out of my mouth, Dr. Lamb.”

  We two regarded each other with like intensity. Rather, I tried to match the blazing gaze Lamb directed at me, but doubt mine equaled his in heat. All I wished to do was stare him down, but it seemed he wanted t
o incinerate me into a pile of ashes with the fire emanating from the depths of his black eyes.

  “I just recollected a feller taller than you, Dr. Lamb,” Gran said, returning to the table and plunking down a steaming bowl in front of me. “Solomon Wiley! Now there’s a dark-haired, strappin’ rogue who could twist a man’s neck easy as a chicken’s.”

  Releasing me from his vise-like gaze, Lamb gave Gran a tight-lipped smile. “Solomon Wiley, you say? Does he reside in Plumford?” Gran nodded.

  “He wasn’t the man I hypnotized,” I said.

  Discounting my protest, Lamb rose from the table and bowed to Gran. “Thank you for a lovely evening, madam.” And with that he was out the door. A moment later we heard the crack of a whip, sharp as lightning, and then the thunder of his stallions’ hooves as they sped him away.

  Henry, Gran, Harriet, and I regarded each other silently for a moment, but then Gran laughed and said, “Well, weren’t he a strange one?”

  “I am glad he is gone,” Harriet said, clearing away his uneaten bowl of stew and still full glass of applejack.

  “Why did you hesitate about inviting Dr. Lamb in?” I asked Gran.

  “I don’t rightly know. Just couldn’t make myself do it. ’Twas not my intention to be rude to yer friend, my boy.”

  “Oh, Dr. Lamb is not my friend, Gran. Until a brief encounter with him in Boston the other day, I had never laid eyes on him before. Same goes for Henry.”

  “Methinks I encountered him one time before that,” Henry said and gave me a look filled with meaning.

  A chill ran up my back when I guessed his meaning. “We will talk later.”

  “You two can talk all you want here and now,” Gran said. “Me and Harriet won’t perturb you. We got wimmen’s work to do.” She swung the crane and peered into the cast-iron stewing pot. “Not so much as a dent made!”

  “I did my part, Gran,” I said.

  “You always do, my boy. If there’s one thing I raised you up to be, ’twas a good eater. I just wish yer chum here weren’t so particular about his victuals.” She gave Henry a withering look, piled all the glassware and crockery on a tray, and whisked them off to the well room to do the washing up with Harriet.