A Stranger in the Kingdom (33 page)

Nor, Charlie was quick to point out, was the Kittredge boys' long record of bar fights, motor vehicle violations, moonshining, whiskey-running, and infractions perpetrated against the wild four-footed, winged and finny populations of Kingdom County any indication that they would go so far as to hold up a bank at gunpoint. And of course the reputation of Big Harlan Kittredge as a man who, for a modest commission, would burn down your barn for the insurance was only that—a reputation, based on rumor. After all, Charlie had already gotten him off the hook for just such a charge back in March.

So in the absence of witnesses who could identify the bandits, and since no trace of the stolen money ever did come to light (though Big Harlan and his younger brother Hen motored south to attend Hank Williams' funeral the following January and stopped in New York City on the way home, where they were reported to have spent thousands of dollars on booze and girls during a monumental twenty-eight day binge), the United States attorney who convened the inquest in St. Johnsbury that July simply didn't have a case he could take to a jury. Once again, as with the Ordney Gilson trial, Charlie's name was bruited about the state in the newspapers, and Kingdom County was reconfirmed in the eyes of the rest of Vermont as a place where any type of law at all was a joke—an anomalous fragment of a wild and wooly frontier generally associated with territory twenty-five hundred miles further west a century ago. And once again, Attorney Charlie Kinneson was something of an outlaw-hero in the eyes of almost the entire Kingdom.

The goings-on did preclude Charlie from any involvement in the smash-up derby, a fact that made him pretty ornery for a few days, but he vowed to win big the following summer, and I, for one, had no doubt that he would.

 

Now that the misunderstanding of Claire's nocturnal visit to my brother's trailer had been cleared up, Charlie and Athena Allen were on good terms again. They were even talking about getting married in the fall, though Athena said she wouldn't live in a trailer, especially one papered with cutouts of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield and smelling like a baseball clubhouse, and Charlie would have to get a place in the village first.

As for Claire, after Ida LaMott came to work at the parsonage, she began taking long afternoon walks out into the countryside. One day when she passed our place I trailed along behind her, partly out of curiosity to find out where she went on these solitary excursions and partly to have an opportunity to see her alone and warn her about Frenchy's designs.

Instead of continuing along the gool and crossing back over the river by way of the covered bridge, she headed up the twisty woods road into the gore. For a minute I actually thought she might be returning to Resolvèd's place. But she passed his lane with a single apprehensive glance toward the dilapidated old house and kept climbing up the mountain.

About halfway to the top, she ducked off the gore road and struck out along the burn toward the abandoned quarry. I was surprised to see that there was a pretty well beaten path here. Apparently she'd been coming this way regularly.

If Claire was going skinny-dipping, I didn't want to startle her when she was in the water. So as soon as she reached the quarry, where I'd discovered her the first morning she went to Resolvèd's, I hurried out of the woods and called her name.

“Nathan?”

“No, Claire, it's Jimmy Kinneson. I didn't mean to scare you.”

“Oh, by no means. You did not scare me, James.”

Claire waded out into the brook and began to wash her hair in the little falls that dropped over the lip of the quarry.

When she was through we sat together under the yellow birch tree at the corner of the granite ledge above the pool.

“So, James. You are having a pleasant summer holiday from school?”

“Yeah, it's been okay. How about you? You doing all right over at the Andrews'?”

“Oh, yes, I like it there very much, though of course now that Monsieur Andrews has hire Madame LaMott to keep house for him, there is really very little for me to do.”

“That reminds me of something, Claire. You know Frenchy LaMott? Ida's boy? You've got to watch out for him. The other day he offered to pay me two dollars to get you down under the old railroad trestle out of town, where he could . . . you know, attack you. If I were you I wouldn't go out on any more walks alone.”

“Bah! This Frenchy. Who is he that I should fear him? A dirty butcher's boy. He is the least of my worries. If he attempts an offense, he will wish he never heard the name Claire LaRiviere, daughter of Etienne.”

Claire looked off down over the tops of the trees along the burn. In the summertime from here, when the leaves were thick, you could just make out the top of the courthouse clock tower and the white church steeple. But the hills beyond and the varied greens of the farms and woodlots running up their sides stood out sharply under the clear blue sky.

“Your Kingdom is very beautiful, James, do you not agree? It is every bit as beautiful as the small farm of my Laurentian grandmother. And you and your mother and father and your brother, the first Monsieur Kin'son of the photograph, and Monsieur Andrew and Nathan too, you have all been very good to me. Do you know what I wish? I wish I could stay here forever.”

“Well, Claire, maybe you can. Maybe you can stay right here and go to school in the fall.”

“It would be a fine thing to think so, James. But that is out of the question. Surely the Resolvèd will not be in bed with the sick leg much longer. When the leg is well again, he will come looking for me and there is bound to be trouble—trouble Monsieur Andrew and Nathan must not be involve in. I must tell you that Monsieur Andrews, he is very good to me, like a father, but it is clear that he too wishes me to leave. Why else would he hire Madame LaMott to be housekeeper when I am already doing a satisfactory job?

“Also, there is the matter of Holly-wood and the movies. Do not imagine that I have forgotten that. After Etienne LaRiviere is get sick I am, promise him that I will someday be a famous star in the movies and put to good use all he taught me when we work together in the streets of Quebec. I will never break that promise to Etienne.

“Look, James. Here in my purse I have ten dollars. When I have twenty more, I will repay the Resolvèd for the bus fare he sends me and then I will save the sixty necessary for the ticket to Holly-wood, and be on my way. I do not expect it to be easy. But Etienne LaRiviere is train me well, and with hard work and a bit of luck, I will be a star yet. I am certain of it!”

“Claire, I wasn't going to tell you this. But my brother Charlie, he's already paid Resolvèd for that bus ticket, and Resolvèd took the money, too, to keep himself in Old Duke while his leg's in the cast. You don't need to worry about that.”

“Then I will repay Monsieur Charlie Kin'son!”

“You don't have to do that, either. Charlie wouldn't take your money if you tried to give it to him He feels sort of responsible for your being here, see, 'cause he helped Resolvèd write that letter to the magazine in the first place.”

“Is not his fault, James. I will repay him soon. Then I will go to Holly-wood if I must walk there. I am determined!”

“Well, if you are, I suppose you'll get there all right. But promise me one thing. If anything happens, anything at all, and you do decide to leave right away, meet me here first. I've got over a hundred dollars in the bank that I could get out and—”

“James, I can never take your money. But I will promise you this, that before I depart, when the time to depart comes, I will certainly not go without saying goodbye to you. This I promise. What is that?”

“What's what?”

“In the bush down the brook. You did not notice?”

I stood up and looked down along the alders. “I don't see anything.”

“I am sure I see the bush move, James, and a green flash.”

“I think we'd better get out of here, Claire. Resolvèd's ‘bad leg' isn't as bad as you might think.”

We headed quickly out around the alders where she'd seen the movement and along the path to the trace. We were both relieved to arrive there safely.

“I don't like that quarry much,” I admitted on our way down to the gool. “It gives me the jim-jams, like the cemetery at night. That first morning I met you up there after the big rain? I thought your slip hanging in the tree was a ghost! Pretty silly of me, I guess.”

“By no means,” Claire said solemnly. “It is well-known in the Laurentian Mountains that the terrible loup-garou, the creature with the body of a man and head of a wolf, frequently lies in wait in a tree for children who have strayed from home.”

Abruptly Claire twisted her oval face slightly, made her eyes go crazy, lifted a hand like a claw, and gave an eerie little howl. Effortlessly she had turned into the dreaded loup-garou of the wild northern forest. I jumped back, and she laughed.

“As a young girl visiting my grandmother, I am very much frightd of the loup-garou, and other ghosts besides. It is only right to beware of such things at that age. Then as I grow older I am find that men like the bad man who is come to live with my mother after my father dies and the man with one eye at the Paris Revue and even perhaps the Resolvèd, with his green shirt and Betsy, are more to be frighten of than the Laurentian were-wolf even.”

I walked Claire back down the gool and over the red iron bridge to the parsonage. Nat was sitting out on the porch, in behind the bittersweet vines, and he gave me a start.

“What's the matter, Kinneson? Did you think I was old Pliny's ghost?”

“Do not make jokes of James' ghost, Nathan,” Claire said. “In my grandmother's mountains there were many of them, all very real indeed.

“I go in now, eh? Thank you, James, for keeping me company this evening and walking home with me. Your father is out, Nathan?”

“He'll be back any minute,” Nathan said shortly. “There he is now—nope. It's just that weird bloke across the street.”

Elijah Kinneson, coming from the direction of town, turned into his walk and went fast up his steps and inside his tiny sexton's cottage.

“Well, then,” Claire said. “We will visit later, eh?”

I told Claire so long, but Nathan continued to sit out for a while, so I sat with him.

“Let me ask you something, Kinneson. Do you really believe in ghosts?”

“Well, to tell you the truth I don't always. But the funny thing is, I'm afraid of them anyway.”

He laughed. “I know how to break you of that.”

“You do? How?”

“Remember that tale you told me about old Pliny's bones coming here every year on the date of his suicide?”

“Sure. Everybody in town knows about that.”

“And if you can surprise the bones while they're walking, grab 'em, and bury 'em, his soul'll be put to rest? That's how it goes?”

“That's right.”

“Let's do it.”

“Oh, boy. I don't know, Nat. You really mean it?”

“Why not? If Pliny doesn't put in an appearance, well then you don't ever need to be afraid of ghosts again, right? You can write the whole tale off as a lot of crap. If he does show, why not do the old guy a favor and bury what's left of him? It can't be that hard just to grab him. If you ask me, those bones ought to be buried anyway. It's almost sacrilegious to have 'em hanging over there in the science closet like something in a museum. What's the date when they're supposed to walk?”

“August fourth. The same day as your dad's big celebration.”

“What do you say, are you game? At least it'll give us something to look forward to besides that stupid Old Home Day. Keep me from going crazy in this burg.”

I shrugged. “What the hell. I'm not scared if you're not.”

“Yes you are,” Nat said with a good-natured laugh. “Me too, a little. Let's do it anyway. We'll flip a coin to see who holds the lantern and who grabs him. Deal?”

I thought for a minute. Then I grinned. “Deal,” I said, already thinking how amused Charlie would be when I told him about our plans. Maybe he'd even join us, which would be just fine with me.

 

Except for the bank robbery, July was a welcome hiatus in an otherwise all-too-eventful summer. After the initial grumbling, plans for the big Old Home Day celebration were coming along swimmingly, as Reverend Andrews put it. Every day and again most evenings, committees met at the church or parsonage to plan the floats, skits, food, and entertainment booths, a big grudge baseball rematch between Charlie's Outlaws and the Memphremagog Loggers, and a Grand Historical Cavalcade and Pageant. With the exception of the commission sales crowd and Cousin Elijah Kinneson, who flatly refused to participate in the celebration because of the “gaming booths,” everyone in town was excited about Old Home Day, though Castor Oil Quinn and a few of the older people in the church periodically shook their heads and looked at the cloudless sky and perversely predicted rain.

And sure enough, on the evening of August third, as Mom and Dad and I were coming down out of the gore after listening to a Sox game on the car radio, it did begin to rain, first lightly, then a steady drenching downpour.

“Mister Baby Johnson!” Dad said, as we sat in the car in the dooryard, watching the rain stream across the windshield. “Wouldn't you just know. Well, now we're going to see what sort of stuff our minister friend is made of.”

As soon as we stepped into the kitchen, the phone rang. It was Reverend Andrews for Dad.

“Well, Walt,” Dad said into the phone, “you did the best you could with this one. We'll just have to start over again.”

Then the minister talked some more, and finally Dad said “All right, fine,” and hung up.

“That answers my question,” he told us. “It's supposed to rain hard all night tonight and most of the day tomorrow. He wants us to get on the horn right now and start calling everybody we can think of.”