Faces in the Night

by Thomas Conuel

  James Brady had paused for a long moment back then, and Blake thought he had passed out from shock and loss of blood. But then James Brady continued in a soft, flat voice

  “You see it all starts at night, when you are wicked, wicked fucking scared. And then it just runs over into the whole day; your whole life out there. But I’ll tell you this. Nobody who hasn’t been out there can knock us. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be scared every bloody minute of the day and night.”

  James Brady had paused and coughed a wet racking sound. “You can’t go blaming us for a fucking thing unless you been out there in the dark too with shadows chasing you.”

  * * *

  PART XI: The Historical Society

  Chapter 56

  Katherine awoke the next morning from a dream--a vivid, sensory embrace full of images and voices that left her arms and legs tingling--the kind of dream that flashed through her mind like movie highlights, and made her think, at least on occasion, that she was gifted with a small but discernible amount of prescience.

  As far back as she could remember she had experienced insights through dreams—dreams that inevitably presaged an event. Like the time she dreamed of her father’s funeral months before he actually died, and how a stranger in a brown suit would come from all the way across the country, Los Angeles actually, to stand beside her father’s grave and bow his head silently for a long moment.

  And then when her father had died, after months of battling emphysema, a tall thin man who nobody had ever seen before showed up at his funeral—wearing a brown suit. “We worked together,” the stranger said that day when he spoke to her at her father’s graveside. “We worked for the government in the early days.” And that was how she had come to know that her father, before his career as a small-town newspaper editor and publisher, had been a CIA agent in Europe in the 1950s.

  Now, in this dream, she saw a priest. The vision connected to nothing she had experienced or ever could experience. A priest dressed in the clothing of colonial times on a horse in the woods; a great storm bursting over his head, lightning exploding out of the sky like a jagged flame; a massive tree falling across the horse’s back, the priest trapped and dying under the tree trunk his back broken, and a blue light spinning above his head.

  The priest, the horse, the woods, the storm, the blue light--there was something there she was supposed to understand, but she couldn’t figure out what. She lay in bed and gradually the vivid images of the dream floated away.

  Katherine rose and showered, and dressed. In the kitchen she made a cup of tea. She went outside where Blake and Hudson Richardson were standing drinking coffee on the porch.

  “How are you hon?” Blake asked touching her arm.

  “Are you OK now?” Hudson asked. “Do you feel better? I mean anyone can get scared and lost in those Quabbin woods.”

  Katherine looked at Hudson for a long moment. “I want to find out more about the early history of Quabbin,” she said finally. “I read a few books at the Jones Library, but I want more. Where can we go for that?”

  Hudson and Blake both squinted at her—puzzled.

  “Why?” Blake asked. “How does history come in here?”

  “I just had a strange dream,” Katherine said, “about a priest.”

  “A priest?” Hudson asked.

  “A priest dying in the woods when a big storm knocks over a tree,” Katherine replied. “And a blue light spinning around as he lay dying.”

  An hour later the phone rang and Hudson raced to get it. He grabbed the phone on the third ring.

  “Hello, Hudson. Father Phil DiMarco, returning your call.”

  The Whitaker Clary House in New Salem served as the main museum and headquarters for the Swift River Valley Historical Society. Built in 1816, by William Whitaker, a lawyer, shopkeeper, and member of the local militia who served during the War of 1812, the massive the massive two-story Colonial was an elegant home in its time heated by seven fireplaces built into two enormous chimneys and illuminated by lamps and candles.

  The home, located in the Quabbin watershed, had been taken during the construction of the reservoir by the Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission (MDC). Slated for demolition, the MDC reversed itself and later, in 1961 instead gave the house to the historical society for $1. A massive maple planted as a sapling near 200 years ago still stands in the front yard, and in a nearby barn, an antique fire engine from one of the lost towns, Dana, sits polished and resplendent among a room full of old tools rescued from the valley towns.

  Hudson had been here many times. The building was open every Wednesday in June, July, and August, and usually filled with a dozen or so former residents from the lost valley towns, and an equal number of younger members who came to listen, learn, and sift through the rooms filled with maps, pictures, and genealogical materials.

  Hudson and Katherine had driven from Amherst leaving Blake behind to tinker with his motorcycle. It was a warm June day and the cherry and apple trees in the front yards of Amherst had turned from barren wooden sentinels with crooked arms to leafy, sweet smelling ornaments on well-manicured lawns.

  Outside of Amherst, approaching New Salem, parts of Quabbin Reservoir could be seen in the distance—sky blue and immense, stretching away in the distance in a shimmer of heat. Katherine shuddered briefly as they passed an access road for the reservoir, remembering her encounter with the awful presence in the Quabbin woods.

  Hudson parked in the circular dirt drive on the side of the historical society’s house. Inside, it was bright and inviting. The doors were open and warm breezes stirred through the alcoves while sunshine from the June morning poured across the wide, wood-plank floors.

  The Swift River Valley Historical Society’s home was the opposite of most local museums and historical societies where a potpourri of musty artifacts struggle for shelf space with second-hand remnants, and the historical collection stops just short of being a garage-sale grab bag. The Swift River Valley Historical Society was not that way. It was a roomy, well-organized old house, full of carefully preserved records in long gray file cabinets and rescued treasures from four towns that no longer existed in Massachusetts.

  Hudson signed in and they strolled through rooms named after the lost towns—the Greenwich, Dana, Prescott, and Enfield rooms, upstairs there were more rooms, all packed with old books, pictures, clothing, and furniture from the Lost Valley. On the walls were watercolors by once prominent valley artists who in the past had turned their talents to painting local scenes, there were old photos framed in wood showing landscapes and houses from the lost towns, and there were small faded pictures of local residents who had posed for the camera decades before the valley was marked for destruction. In the map room downstairs was a pool-table size relief map of the Quabbin towns, and there they found Father Philip DiMarco.

  * * *

  Chapter 57

  Father Philip DiMarco sat at a large old oak table piled high with rolled up maps. He was dressed in Jesuit black—black, serious shoes, black pants, white shirt, black vest and white clerical collar, and looked almost exactly like the pictures Katherine remembered of him from “The Boston Globe” in the 1970s when Father Phil was a member of Congress and known throughout New England as the “Peace Priest.”

  Father Phil stood to greet his visitors and extended his hand. He looked each of them directly in the eyes for a full second and smiled. “You want maps?” he said. “Hudson tells me you want maps. I’ve got maps.” He smiled again, and threw his left arm out palm up and gestured toward the maps on his desk. An invitation. Katherine couldn’t help herself. She remembered that gesture so well—Father Phil in front of a crowd on Boston Common inviting the gathering to share in an obvious truth.

  “I remember you so well,” she said. “I remember all the old peace marches in downtown Boston, winding around the Common and you were there leading them.”

  “Ah, the good old days,” Father Phil said with a wide smile. “Those were
the days. I’m pleased you remember me, though. I loved being out front for peace in those days. Now I have a smaller stage. Now I have my maps of the lost valley.”

  Father Phil indeed had maps. He spent the next hour showing his maps. He had maps from all eras of the Quabbin Valley—maps that showed the area in the late 17th century when the valley was first settled and called Narragansett Township Number 4 by settlers who had fought in the Narragansett Indian Wars in 1675; maps that showed Greenwich, the first town incorporated from the township in 1754, and maps that showed Greenwich as it grew and subdivided into Enfield.

  He unrolled maps that showed Dana, located on the banks of the Swift River, and carved from the towns of Greenwich, Petersham, and Hardwick in 1801, and then Prescott, bounded by the hills of Mount L, Mount Russ, and Rattlesnake Mountain, the final valley town incorporated in 1822.

  Father Phil spread his maps on the oak table with sunlight streaming through the big 12-paned alcove window falling across his maps and face.

  “Some of these are old street maps—great details--streets of the lost Quabbin towns, and the churches, stores, mills, and homes. All here.”

  “So much life and local history, all gone,” Hudson said looking for something to say to show he was at least semi-interested in this trip to the historical society.

  “Here,” Father Phil said, “the Swift River Box Company.” He swept his finger across a map with blue and black lines and old-fashioned boxy lettering. “And here,” his finger circled briefly above he map and then descended, “ here you have the straw bonnet company in Dana, and over here the fruit farms in Prescott, and the Atkinson Tavern and North Dana Inn, all local gathering spots.”

  He paused. “I’m fascinated by the people in these towns, and I’m rambling on. But that’s not why you’re here. Is it? Tell me? How I can help you?”

  “I had a dream,” Katherine blurted out, feeling for a moment like she was in the confessional, and she was 12 years old again, telling old Father McGovern, the parish priest, about her bad dreams of laughing in the middle of Mass just when the priest held the Eucharist aloft from the altar. She shook her head. “A dream about a priest dying in a storm here, somewhere in this valley, a hundred years or so ago.”

  Father Phil sat back in his chair behind the big oak desk covered with maps and looked in silence at Katherine for at least 10 seconds. “Interesting,” he said, finally, folding his hands across his chest. “Dreams are always strange. But, you’re right. Your dream, that is. A Jesuit priest did die out here around the turn of the 19th century. And I’ve been looking into his death, myself. Interesting that you dreamed of something so similar.”

  “How did you get so interested in these old towns,” Katherine asked.

  “An assignment in exile,” Father Phil said with a broad smile and sparkle to his deep-set blue eyes. “I’m a Jesuit. Obedience is at the heart of our order—and service too. So here I am. Out here in the middle of nowhere. Father Hannigan, the Provincial of the New England Province, that’s our head Jesuit, asked me to take a look at an old, contentious bit of Jesuit history concerning the devil. If there really is a devil.”

  Katherine has been standing looking over Father Phil’s maps. Now she pulled a chair out and sat at the table next to Father Phil.

  “Is there a devil?” she asked. “I’m dead serious. Could a devil-like thing, some sort of evil creature we don’t understand ever live here on earth?”

  Father Phil looked at her for a long moment, and then unfolded his clasped hands and spread them out palms up. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “That’s what I’m now trying to figure out. Something has happened here, over the years, a presence of sorts. Something that drew two Jesuit priests here 150 years apart. I just don’t know what.”

  * * *

  Chapter 58

  “So many lost places and people, all in one spot,” Father Phil said. “A historical treasure chest in that way. A long tangled history here, all the way back to Colonial times, and then blank pages. A huge reservoir, but no people. But also, you feel it here; this is one of those rare hot spots--places where things happened that nobody ever figured out. History has those, you know—the backside of events. People and conflicts that we don’t remember. Lots happened here that we’ll never know.”

  “Hudson tells me you can locate the homes of most people who lived in the valley,” Katherine said.

  “Well, not the homes, but the cellar holes where the homes used to be.” Father Phil looked away from his maps and up at Katherine. Her shoulder-length blonde hair and tall, slender figure drew his attention, priest or no priest.

  “Of course. Not the homes, the cellar holes,” Katherine smiled. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I’m interested in the Durman family,” Katherine stopped as Father Phil let out a hearty laugh.

  “Lord have mercy. The Durmans.” Father Phil’s eyes sparkled with interest. “The Durmans. Now that family was a piece of work. And as I was just saying—the backside of history. Nobody knows their real story. Well, almost nobody. I’ve been studying them.”

  “You know of them, then?” Katherine asked.

  “Know of them,” Father Phil said. “Yes. Of course. They’re it when it comes to Quabbin legends.” Father Phil shook his head in mock exasperation. “People are always coming out here to the historical society and asking about Quabbin. What about ghosts? What about church bells ringing under the waters of the reservoir? What about all the bodies dug up and moved? What about this, what about that? And really, except for the Durman’s there isn’t much.”

  “Except for the Durmans?” Katherine asked.

  “Yup. The Durman’s. There you have some stories. The only real Quabbin ghost story that I know of.”

  “Do the Jesuits believe in ghosts?” Hudson asked, trying to make a joke.

  “As a Catholic priest; as a Jesuit, I can assure you that the Holy Church does not believe in ghosts,” Father Phil said, glancing at Hudson and then looking straight at Katherine. He gave her that slight, ironic smile, lips together in an expression that invited one to join in a small joke.

  “So why are you here?” Katherine asked. “Why is a Jesuit priest wasting away here in Central Massachusetts when the world is burning?”

  Father Phil’s smile opened, his lips parting for a brief instant. “The Catholic Church and the Jesuits in particular do not believe in ghosts,” Father Phil said. “Never have. Never will. But we do believe in the devil. And the devil takes many forms.”

  Katherine thought about this for a moment. “Can you take us on a hike? Take us on a Quabbin tour? Show us the spots? Show us where the Durmans used to live.”

  “First I’ll tell you a story,” he replied. “Explain to you how I came to be assigned to the back of beyond out here. The middle of nowhere, as you pointed out, out here while the world spins and burns and I could be useful elsewhere.”

  “The story of the curse?” Katherine asked.

  “Yes. The curse, and the Jesuits, and the blue stone.” Father Phil leaned back in his chair. “It goes way back, this story. Historic stuff that several generations of Jesuits have pursued. The Jesuits chasing evil through the ages.

  “It started way back with Sebastien Rale, a leader of the Jesuits in North America. We’re talking early Colonial history, here. A Jesuit named Father Baker collected original documents. I have some here still and some went to the Smithsonian. But Father Baker chased all the facts down, at least the ones he could, and left a 50-page manuscript summarizing his findings. And that’s where I come in. Good and evil. It’s supposed to be my field.” Father Phil laughed a booming laugh. “As if anybody can ever understand good and evil.”

  “And what happened?” Katherine asked.

  “What happened? An odd little coincidence happened. Father Baker vanished out here in the 1930s when they were building this reservoir. Turned up dead a week or so after he went missing. Father Baker was on his way to visit some distant relative of the Durman--Flanagan cl
an when he vanished.

  “And now we have a soldier killed in Vietnam 25 years ago. And his family name is the same as the family name that old Father Baker was so worked up about.”

  “Durman?” asked Katherine.

  “Durman married a Flanagan. That’s the boy who was killed in Vietnam 25 years ago. Flanagan.”

  “And,” Katherine said, “Old man Durman said he would return when the sun was in the right position in the heavens and a body found to suit him.”

  Father Phil nodded. “So the story goes.”

  “That’s the story I read. Read it in a book at the Amherst Library,” Katherine said. “But nobody ever figured out what it meant exactly.”

  “Yeah, that story’s got about as much credence as the new theory on dinosaur extinction I just read about in the National Inquirer,” Hudson interjected. “You know the latest theory about why the dinosaurs went extinct? Bounty hunters from Mars wiped them out. There’s irrefutable proof.”

  Both Katherine and Father Phil laughed, but Katherine felt a rush of annoyance with Hudson. It was easy to be hard-nosed and rational if you had never felt the presence of unexplainable evil, as she had on that previous evening on the Quabbin road.

  “It’s a coincidence that you’re here today asking about that story,” Father Phil said.

  “Why’s that?” Katherine asked.

  “Well we have the summer solstice coming up in just a couple of days--the one time in the year the sun is in perfect alignment between night and day, and the old curse said “when the sun was in the right position.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Katherine said.

  “Some professor over at the university actually did a thesis on the old legends and the summer solstice. That’s the only reason I know the theory,” Father Phil shrugged, and gave his small grin again.