by Van Reid
“Did you get that scar rescuing Nora?” asked Emily.
“Peter will be back,” said the parson, before the young man could respond.
Emily appeared satisfied with this. She sat at the table and watched them eat.
“How is Nora?” asked Peter, though he could almost believe the question implicated him somehow.
“She fell asleep,” said Emily. “Sussanah says that Mamma used to cry like that when Papa left for sea, but he takes her with him, now he’s a captain.”
This intelligence did not ease Peter’s heart. Rather than separate him from what happened on the river bank, the ensuing hours had obscured his memories of how it came to pass; the gaps in his recollection had filled with self-damning possibilities, and he began to place an increasing weight of blame for the unpleasantness upon his own shoulders. His self-accusation was not tempered by flashes of other feelings when he recalled Nora’s kiss, or when he experienced a physical memory of her body beneath his.
They avoided the parlor when they were finished with their meal, but came into the Captain’s den another way. The parson presented Captain Clayden with a bound and beribboned volume of Don Quixote, and refused any recompense for it. The Captain’s eyes lit with pleasure and anticipation, and clearly he would have liked to sit with the book then and there, and to leaf its pages lovingly. He laid it aside, however, and offered Parson Leach and Peter his hand.
“I’ve had Ebulon saddle a horse for you, Peter,” he said. Peter had no idea what to say, but stammered his thanks several times over. “Bring it back in your own time, lad. With a horse under you, you’ll be that much quicker coming to the next person’s rescue.” This last was said with humor, though not without a touch of real regard mixed with it. “I hope you find your uncle,” said the elderly fellow finally. He did not see them beyond his den, and when they left the room Peter thought that, if he looked back, Captain Clayden would already be ensconced in his chair, perusing his new and beloved book.
The temperature had dropped considerably since Peter came in that afternoon. Their breath puffed before them. The sun had set behind the western ridge some time ago, and the last glow of it underlit a bank of airy clouds. Stars had already broken through a blue-black canvas to the east. In the darkening yard, Ebulon Magnamous waited by Mars and another horse, which was called Beam for the streak of white across its otherwise brown forehead. The animal was a good deal smaller than Mars, but Peter felt she had a sturdy carriage and a steady gait as he moved her in a circle through the yard. He was not an experienced horseman, certainly not in a saddle, but he had always liked horses and he found riding natural enough. He begged a length of rope from Ebulon and with this tied his father’s hat and coat in a roll at the back of the saddle.
Peter could see the silhouettes of Emily, Sussanah, and Martha at the parlor window as he and Parson Leach bid goodbye to Ebulon. Mrs. Magnamous waved to the departing guests from the door, and they waved, in a general way, to the entire house as they left the yard.
Parson Leach led the way, past the barn and down a sloping pasture, across a gully and up again. They crossed a road and traveled, to the tune of a barking dog or two, by several houses. A steep ridge loomed against the retreating light, till it was like night itself approaching. When they reached a line of hardwood at the foot of the slope, the parson climbed down from Mars, and Peter followed him as they led their mounts among the trees. Half way up the ridge, they came to a brush fence and skirted it to the north till they reached a stile that the horses could clamber over. Then the slope steepened and by the time they achieved the top of it, Peter was all too glad to climb atop Beam again.
From the height of this ridge, the first light of the rising moon was visible over the rim of the east, but they left the pale light behind as they advanced into the shadow of the land. The parson drew Mars up at the next knoll, and Peter reined in beside him. Stretching a mile or so to the west, and a good deal further to the north, was a treeless progression of low hills, where the night wind could fan the grasses unhindered. Peter strained his eyes in the dimness, but understood that the fields were clear of stumps as well as trees; it was by far the largest, most immaculate expanse of pasture he had ever seen.
“It’s handsome, isn’t it,” said the parson. “But it’s nothing, I’ve been told, to the miles of treeless fields, west of the Ohio. They call them prairies.”
Peter had known the close attendance of the forests all his life, with only an acre here or there that had been cleared of stumps; he felt a little dizzy looking out over the rolling fields, as if he might topple from that knoll and fall head first into them. He hardly liked to think of the parson’s prairies; the very notion of them was overwhelming.
“They call this Great Meadow,” said Parson Leach, “and that crease running north to south is Great Meadow Brook. Beyond–though you can’t see it from here–is the Dyers River Valley, and the Sheepscott Valley after that.”
Peter did his best to discern what the parson was signifying, but it was difficult to tell the further swells of land from the sky. Stars came to life, even as they watched, and several other lights–the lamp in a window, or the flicker of a distant hearth–also prinked the darkness. The wind, moving among the grasses, made a sound unfamiliar to Peter, and it added to the sense of something remote to his previous experience.
“If we head north,” said the parson, “we’ll strike a track that will take us north and west, then, to a tavern where the New Milford folk will be meeting.”
Peter couldn’t have guessed that there was something like a single road between the coastal waters and the backcountry.
“This path we’re on now,” added the parson, “was tromped down by an old reverend in the days a gun was necessary to ward off Indians. He traveled between two parishes in his day, and its been known as Parson’s Path ever since.”
So, they nudged their mounts north, and in this expanse of field, Parson Leach slowed Mars’s natural pace so that Peter could comfortably keep up, astride of Beam. As their horses’ hooves realized separate cadences, Peter fell to wondering on the richness of these acres; how difficult it was, in Sheepscott Great Pond and the other backcountry settlements, to scrape enough feed from a few rocky acres to keep a cow or two, and maybe a horse over a winter. But here, he thought, was pasture for an entire village and more.
They came to the track the parson had spoken of and their speed increased. Peter saw a bluish light to his right, but couldn’t find it again when he turned his head. He nudged Beam up beside Mars.
“Something happened this afternoon, Parson,” he said.
“What did you say, Peter?”
“Something happened,” he said again, his own voice unnerving him a little in that open expanse. “This afternoon.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.” Peter wondered that the parson seemed uninterested.
But the parson was merely thinking, perhaps, for in another moment, he said, “To do with Nora?”
“Yes,” said Peter, a little startled, “to do with Nora,” and he wondered, Had she spoken to Parson Leach already?
“Did she tell you something, then?” asked the clergyman.
“No.” There was a silence that Peter found awkward. The parson moved Mars to more speed, and when Peter spoke again, his voice jounced with the gait of his mount, as if he were out of breath. “We went out of doors to eat–by the river, on a quilt.”
“So I was told. You’re learning of the prosperous folk.”
“We played some games,” said Peter, feeling bashful to tell the parson.
“Hide and seek, no wonder,” said the parson.
“Yes! That was one of them!”
The parson chuckled softly.
Peter frowned in the dark, and said, “While James was hiding, and the Clayden ladies went looking for him . . .” He hardly looked ahead of him as they rode and he talked. “Nora and I were supposed to be looking for him too.”
“Yes,” drawled the parson.
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br /> “Nora took me down to the river. . . well, I don’t want to put it. . .” Peter fell silent.
“You don’t want to put it in such a way that it sounds you’re accusing Nora of anything.”
“Yes,” said Peter, amazed how quickly the parson understood the situation. And what else did he understand?
“I’m not a priest, Peter,” said the parson, “if this is in the way of a confession.”
“I thought I might tell you something,” said Peter, hardly audible to his companion.
“Between you and God is good enough for me, my friend.”
Peter hadn’t thought of dealing with his conscience quite that way. There had been a great deal of confession at the few church services he’d attended, when people were encouraged to bare their iniquities before their neighbors, and most seemed ready-before God, the preacher, and the congregation–to shed themselves of the sins they had committed.
“Did she call on your affections, lad?” said the clergyman.
“Well, it might be . . .”
“It’s not a circumspect place, the bank of a river.”
“There was a hollow beneath an oak tree . . .”
Parson Leach said nothing, and Peter wondered if he had compounded the wrong by speaking of it.
“But she started to shake,” said Peter. “I’ve never seen anyone shake so–like a drunken fit.” They rode in silence for a while, then the parson pulled up. Peter drew Beam to a halt beside the clergyman, uneasy and a little frightened. “She kept pulling me toward her,” said Peter, “but she kept shaking worse and worse.”
“Why do you suppose, Peter, that she took you down to the river bank?”
After a moment, Peter said, “I thought, then, that she fancied me.”
“And now?”
“Perhaps she wanted me to stay with her. Perhaps she thought I would stay if. . . She frightened me, she shook so.”
“She was frightened herself, I venture. Frightened of Nathan Barrow, I think.”
“Of what he’d do, if he caught us?”
“Of what he’d already done, lad.”
Peter said nothing; if he had not understood enough to articulate this very thing, he had at least experienced it on some deep level of suspicion.
The parson turned his horse’s head west again and moved on.
Peter took a moment to orient Beam and catch up with him. “You never asked what happened.”
“Am I right in guessing, Peter, that, had anything . . . happened, as you put it, you wouldn’t have left the Claydens this evening.”
“No, I don’t suppose I would have.”
“Between you and God, Peter.”
“Yes, Parson.”
They had only ridden half a minute more before Peter asked, “Did you truly snatch a pistol from a man’s hand?”
“It doesn’t sound very likely, does it,” came the reply. “Careful, here.”
They had come to the bank before Great Meadow Brook, and looking down at the sparkle of water, Peter was conscious of their shadows leading the way. The moon had risen behind them and the track appeared as if lit by daylight in contrast. Looking back, he caught sight of that bluish light again, but this time he was able to locate it in the broad darkness of the Great Meadow.
“It’s a foxlight,” said the parson, when Peter pointed it out. “I’ve seen two or three tonight already. Look over there,” and he pointed to the southeast.
Peter saw a second blue flicker some yards away, like pale lightning kindling the ground. “Will-o-the-wisp,” said Peter.
“The same, if I am not mistaken.”
Peter felt an unprocessed sort of fear fill his chest.
“Those will be wet places, I warrant. I’ve read Count Buffon, who is a French naturalist and who observed foxlight over swamps and marshes, and connects them with unhealthy air.” Peter could well imagine them to be unhealthy, and said so, whereupon the parson chuckled. “I’ve chased them about myself, and never caught up with one, so I understand why people ascribe mystery to them. But there’s another light altogether,” he added, pointing due north.
Peter saw a tiny orange flicker in that direction and eventually decided that it was coming from the midst of trees on a knoll about a quarter of a mile away.
The parson led them down to the brook, which was not rushing this time of year, despite the recent rain, and after Mars and Beam had drunk a bit, they splashed across to the other side and climbed the bank. They continued along the track they had been following, which would eventually lead them past and away from the unexplained light to the north.
A mound of earth and granite, higher than its neighbors, rose up to their left, and the parson turned Mars aside to climb this. When Peter caught up with him, the parson had his spyglass out from beneath his cloak, and was training it on the grove to the north. “I am curious about that light,” he said. He lowered the telescope and passed it to Peter.
Peter peered at the light, but could tell little, watching it flicker past the trunks of trees. He was curious also, but didn’t know if that meant he wanted to inquire into its disposition. There was something peculiar about it, and though a light to wayfarers is generally a welcoming sight, this looked out of place among the lonely grove of trees in the midst of Great Meadow. It was October, after all, and no other season so compelled a person to believe in trolls and goblins.
But the parson had made a decision, and Peter was not ready to part company with him. The clergyman urged Mars back down the slope, and crossed their previous track when he came to it. Great Meadow Brook meandered to their immediate right, and they had to drift west to avoid its banks, further than they would have otherwise on such a line of sight. Once they splashed through some marshy ground and Peter half expected a ball of foxlight to rise up and meet them.
The fire in the trees looked more and more like a campfire as they approached it, though the parson remarked, half to himself, that whoever was camping was not far from habitation in any direction.
They finally came to a fence and searched some time for a stile or a gate. When a stile was found, the next few yards took them to the edge of the copse.
“I can’t imagine someone hasn’t heard us,” said the parson, and Peter agreed. The parson called out from the edge of the grove. Peter looked up, where the moonlight limned the crowns of several noble oaks, as well as the plumes of birch trees waving in the night wind. No answer was returned. The parson pursed his lips in a deliberate frown, and replied to the silence, “That is stranger still.”
Peter was making something of the firelight and its surroundings, by now, craning his head from one side to the other, peering through the trees. He thought he saw something move and that rudimentary apprehension fluttered through him again.
Having dismounted to cross the stile, Parson Leach handed his reins to Peter. He paused, for a moment, over his musket, but decided not to take it from its sheath.
Peter said, “I’ll go with you,” and he returned to the fence and looped Mars’s and Beam’s reins over the upper rail.
Parson Leach called out again. “Ho, there, by the fire! We’re coming up!”
Peter followed the parson to the edge of the trees, and to avoid being swatted by low branches and bushes, he allowed the man to advance a few steps before entering behind. Their progress sounded thunderous to the young man, or rather the parson’s progress did, for the clergyman was making no attempt to move quietly. Though it made little sense to creep along after announcing their presence, Peter found himself walking as silently as any woodsman tracking game. The wind came around for a moment and he smelled smoke and the hint of something cooking.
Parson Leach paused beyond the inner circle of trees and a voice came from somewhere inside the copse. “Come ahead, the both of you.” It was a cordial enough address–as much as anyone could ask, coming out of the dark–but the absolute confidence in knowing how many they were gave Peter pause.
“Peter,” said the parson easily.
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Peter followed the clergyman through the last of the trees, past a low line of thickets and into the midst of a rock-rimmed clearing. The fire they had seen had been built against a stray boulder near the center of the open space–a cheery enough blaze, with some long sticks propping a little kettle against the rock and over the flames.
The light from the fire glimmered against the trunks and limbs and clutches of remaining leaf, so that Peter had the impression of having walked into a room with walls and a lofty ceiling. Against the trunk of an oak, where roots had presented a convenient hollow–like that of the tree on the bank of the river that afternoon–there sat an elderly man with a pleasant enough countenance, a long white beard, and wispy white hair. He might have been a woodsman, or an old farmer, or a wanderer. His kit lay beside him–an ancient musket, a sack or two, a blanket, and some rabbit pelts. A short jug stood next to him.
“Are you hungry, then?” said the old man. “Did you smell the old man’s stew?”
“We’ve eaten well tonight already, thank you,” said the parson. “It was more curiosity that took us off the track. We saw your fire.”
“Yes, I am curious too,” said the fellow by the tree. “And old Pownal, here.” He nodded to indicate who or what he was naming, and the two men took note of a dog at the other end of the copse; the creature was as white in the chops and as venerable in the eye as the man, but it stood rigidly, with its back up and its head down. Peter heard a low note rumbling from the animal. “He smelt you half an hour ago,” added the old man, which Peter thought was an exaggeration.
“I couldn’t help wonder,” said the parson amiably, “what a person might be doing, camping here with so many houses nearby.”
“Are there?” said the fellow. “I don’t put much notice to houses. One of them yours?” There was an inflection to the man’s speech that Peter had never heard before, and it occasionally made the fellow difficult to understand.
The parson had no problem, however. “No,” he said. “My horse is my house these days.”
The old fellow laughed at this. The humor shook him a bit and Peter saw something move on his lap. The muzzle of a second musket, trained on them both, lay propped on one thigh, and when Peter scanned the ground within reach of the old man, he saw what looked to be the butt of a pistol peeking from one of the bags.