Christmas Ghosts - Fiction River (5 page)

“There was—I thought I could see a light, in the distance.”

“Pretty far distance.”

“Yeah. Yeah, pretty far.”

“So you left your motorcar and hiked off in the snow because maybe you saw a light.”

He shifted, changing the position of his hands, his eyes flicking this way and that. “Look, ma’am—”

“Madeleine. Madeleine Love.”

“Madeleine Love. That’s pretty.” She didn’t answer, and he drew a noisy breath through his teeth. “I’m not crazy. No shell shock, nothing like that.”

“No?”

“I—the thing is, I—I thought I saw something. A man.”

“In this storm? Not likely.”

“I know. The whole evening is unlikely. In the extreme,” he added, and flashed his dimples.

Holland murmured, “Maddie. Give the poor sod a break.”

Madeleine released her breath, and hoisted the Peacemaker to lay it on the counter. In a low voice she said, “Holland, you’d better know what you’re doing.”

“What?” Peter said.

Holland chuckled, and she said, “Never mind. You might as well sit down, Peter Banister. There at the table. You could use something hot to drink.”

***

They ate fruitcake for breakfast, though Madeleine said it was too fresh, that it really should rest under a brandy-soaked towel for a while. When the slow dawn began to brighten the icy world outside, Peter helped Madeleine feed horses and goats, check hens’ nests for eggs, and scatter corn and scratch. They had to scoop snow off the water barrels, then break a layer of ice. While Madeleine filled water buckets for the stalls, Peter shoveled the path from the barn to the house, carving a walkway between four-foot walls of snow.

Madeleine gathered a basketful of warm eggs and carried it to the house. Peter brought the snow shovel in case the path filled up again. He left it leaning beside the kitchen door while they went in to shed their coats and boots.

Madeleine built up the fire in the stove while Peter worked the water pump. They wrapped up in quilts she brought down from upstairs, and dozed away Christmas Eve afternoon beside the stove. The phantom had disappeared, and Peter began to hope he had imagined it.

Darkness closed in early. Madeleine got up and began fussing in the kitchen. She said, gazing out into the dusk, “This is when I start to get scared.”

“You get scared at night?”

“I hate the dark. I used to creep into my brother’s bedroom at night. He fixed up a bed on his floor for me.”

“Nice brother,” Peter said.

“The best.” She was peeling potatoes and carrots, dropping them into a big saucepan.

“What happened to him?”

She glanced up at him, then down again to her cutting board. “Killed at Belleau Wood.”

He winced. “That was bad.”

“I heard that.”

“Couldn’t you have someone to help you out here?”

“Pop didn’t leave much money. People have to be paid.” She took a canister of flour from a shelf, and poured some out onto the counter.

“No other family?”

She shook her head. She had pinned up her thick yellow braid, and she looked charming, smudges of flour on her nose and forehead, milk-chocolate eyes glistening in the lamplight. “It was just the four of us.”

“And now it’s just you.”

She looked up from kneading biscuit dough on the board, and some complicated look flickered across her face. She said, “More or less,” and went back to her biscuits.

It wasn’t clear to him how she managed it, but they sat down to a Christmas Eve dinner of thick venison stew, fresh biscuits, and what was left of the fruitcake. While the stew was simmering, he told her about the fight with his father, about his weeping mother and his wide-eyed siblings. While the biscuits baked, she told him the story of losing her parents in the influenza epidemic. She said her brother never learned about his parents’ deaths, and at the moment she said it, the phantom rose briefly behind her, making Peter’s heart clutch. Madeleine’s cheeks suddenly flushed, and there was an odd little turn of her head. She didn’t say anything further.

After dinner, they went out once more to check on the animals in the barn. Madeleine, wrapped to the ears in her coat, said wistfully, “It’s nice to have company.” The snow had eased, but hard small flakes still drifted aimlessly through the darkness.

Peter gazed out into the empty white prairie, wondering at it. His own home was a forest of tenements and unpainted storefronts. “It’s so big here,” he said. “And clean.”

“Much better than in town,” she said.

“But lonely.”

“I have Hildy.”

The shepherd had decided, sometime today, that she liked Peter, and she submitted to being stroked whenever she came near him. “Great dog,” Peter said. “I like the horses, too. Bigger than the ones we had in France.”

Madeleine nodded. “Horses don’t get much bigger than Theo and Big Mike.”

“I’ve never worked with animals,” he said, though he was reluctant to admit it. He hoped she wouldn’t think less of him. He added, “I’m good with machines, though.”

“You work with machines?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you could rig a plow so a tractor could pull it?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think I could.”

***

Madeleine liked knowing someone else was in the house, and it was nice not to feel her anxiety rise as the light faded. Of course she didn’t really know Peter Banister, but Hildegard liked him, and that meant something. She gave him her parents’ old bedroom, bringing clean flannel sheets from the cedar chest and making the bed up fresh, with a pile of pillows and an extra quilt against the cold.

He stood in the doorway to say good night, properly shy, carefully respectful. Mrs. Torgerson would cluck like a hen over unmarried young people sleeping unchaperoned in the same house, but Madeleine didn’t give two pins for that. Mrs. Torgerson hadn’t spent six months with only a handful of animals for companionship.

It was magical, how different the house felt for the company. Her pillow felt softer. Her quilt was warmer. The creaks of the old house, the whistle of the wind in the eaves, all seemed friendly instead of alarming. Hildegard lay flat next to her as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

As Madeleine slipped gradually into sleep, she reminded herself that this reprieve was temporary. Peter Banister would repair his motorcar, and be on his way to wherever it was he wanted to go. But, just for tonight, it was lovely not to be alone.

It was sometime close to dawn when she jolted awake. The house was freezing, and gray light edged the mountains to the east. From the barn the hens were squawking wildly, and the goats bleated with panic. One of the Belgians whinnied, and something yowled in response.

Madeleine sat up, her skin crawling with terror. It was her worst fear come true. One of the big cats come in search of easy prey, her precious hens, her sweet goats. All she had left!

Hildegard was scratching at the bedroom door, yipping to get out, to get at the enemy. Madeleine’s heart fluttered in her throat, nearly choking her. She scrambled to get into her trousers and shirt. She had worn her socks to bed, and while she was still doing up buttons, she was on her way down the stairs. Hildegard scrambled ahead of her, claws clicking on the wood floor.

Peter was already in the kitchen, with his coat on, and his boots. He was opening the door, and she saw he had picked up the Peacemaker from the counter.

She said, “I’ll get the shotgun.”

“Let me go first.” He stepped out onto the doorstep.

The snow had ceased at last, leaving everything glittering in the pre-dawn light, as if the fields were dusted with diamonds. There was silence for a moment, and then another drawn-out cry, the hunting cougar, that made Madeleine gasp and press her hands to her mouth. Hildegard, deadly silent, dashed past Peter and on down the path he had shoveled.

“Peter! It’s a cougar! It’ll kill Hildy—” But Peter was already gone, flying at a dead run toward the barn.

Madeleine pulled on her coat, not bothering to fasten it, and seized up the Winchester from the gun rack. She checked that there was a shell in the chamber, thrust her feet into her boots, and dashed after Peter. She ran as fast as she dared on the slick snow, not wanting to slip and fall with a loaded gun in her hands. It seemed to take forever to reach the barn. She heard the chickens’ wild clucking, and she pictured them flapping frantically in their roost.

The cat could only get to them if it found its way up into the hayloft above the stalls. In summer that was impossible, but now the snow was drifted in great mounds against the sides of the barn. The cat could climb that slope, and reach the unglazed window leading to the hayloft.

The fury rose in the darkness, Hildegard snarling, the cougar hissing, the goats crying like frightened children. Madeleine, sobbing with fear, skidded around the corner of the barn, catching herself by grabbing the corner post. Peter stood at the foot of the snowdrift, feet set wide apart, the pistol in both hands.

In the half-light, the cougar was just a streak of tawny gold and black. It crouched at the peak of the snowy mound, from where the window into the hayloft was an easy leap. Hildegard was scrabbling against the snow, trying to climb. The cougar’s eyes glowed golden, and its ears were laid flat against its head. It screamed at Hildegard, showing a maw full of fearsome teeth.

Hildegard gave a furious bark, tried to leap, and fell backward down the hillock of snow. The cougar turned away, bracing itself to leap through the window.

Madeleine stopped sobbing. She forced herself to concentrate. In another moment, the big cat would be in the barn, in the midst of her goats and her chickens, and she’d have no chance to save them. She lifted the shotgun, with no time to aim, no time to brace herself. At the same moment, Peter pulled back the hammer of the Colt.

Madeleine fired the Winchester, and its kick sent her flying backward into the snow. Just as she landed, the Peacemaker barked a deep, ear-bruising sound. The Belgians whinnied alarm and banged their hooves against the walls of their stalls.

The big cat jerked up, its silhouette outlined against the snowfield, gold and beige and brown against silver-white, then crumpled. It slipped backward down the slope of snow, sliding out of sight. Hildegard charged forward, headed around the drift. Madeleine shouted, “No! Hildy, no!” but the shepherd was already gone.

Madeleine ran after the dog, but Peter’s long legs carried him faster. He reached the scene first, with Madeleine a close, agonized second. They found the shepherd poised over the big cat. The dog’s tail stretched straight out behind her, and her teeth were bared, ready to attack.

There was no need. The cougar was dead.

Hildegard nosed it, then stood back, looking over her shoulder for direction. The snow beneath the big cat’s head was stained with blood. The creature lay limp, head lolling, lifeless eyes staring up into the slowly lightening sky.

Madeleine said, “I missed.”

“I didn’t,” Peter said. “Head shot. At least it didn’t suffer.”

“Not many could have made that shot with a pistol. Certainly not me.”

His voice was as raw as the morning wind. “I’ve had more practice than I care to think about.”

“It’s sad,” Madeleine said, and she knew she was being obscure.

“Yeah.”

“But my animals . . .”

He gestured with the Peacemaker toward the cougar, lying peacefully now on the snow. “Is this what you’re afraid of?”

“Oh, this,” she said. “And a thousand other things.”

“But you came out here with that shotgun, even though you were scared.”

“My livestock is all I have left, Peter.”

“You’re a brave girl, Madeleine. Brave as any soldier.” He smiled at her, showing his dimples. Her stomach quivered in an unfamiliar way, and she had to duck her head to hide her blush.

In her ear, Holland gave a long, low laugh.

***

They decided the morning was too far gone to go back to bed. The sun glinted above the silvery peaks of the Mission Mountains, and blazed across the snowy prairie to usher in a brilliant Christmas morning. While Madeleine fed her animals, Peter shoveled the blood from the snow so it wouldn’t attract buzzards, then hauled the cougar carcass into a shed where Madeleine said it would freeze, and keep until she got around to skinning it. They went into the kitchen when these things were done. Madeleine washed her hands, pinned up her hair, and began cracking fresh eggs into a bowl. The phantom had reappeared, lurking in corners, grinning at Peter at strange times and making him fear Madeleine would think he was shell-shocked after all.

He was worrying over this when he heard her hiss, “Holland! Go away!”

Peter said, “What?”

She turned with the bowl full of frothy eggs in her hands. Her cheeks were flushed, and a loose strand of yellow hair tumbled over her forehead. “He keeps whispering in my ear.”

“Who?” Peter blinked.

She heaved a deep sigh, and set her bowl down. “You’re going to think I’m the one with shell-shock, but I suppose you might as well know.”