The Rejected Writers' Book Club (Southlea Bay) (16 page)

She disappeared down the corridor, Ethel following as they slammed the bedroom door shut.

Ronald didn’t skip a beat. He shouted after her, “No need to get your panties in a bunch, there, Frosty the Snow Queen. You’re not exactly my type.”

“I’m going back to bed,” I yawned, starting to feel tired again.

“I’m happy to stay out here and keep Ronald company,” said Annie cheerfully. “Would you like some stew, Ronald?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Lying in bed, I alternated between looking at the sheeted moose head and out the bedroom window, where fluffy cotton snow fell silently. What was I doing here in the back of beyond when I should be at home with my husband? I looked down at my phone again. Still no signal. I was now well and truly homesick, and my fear about not being in touch with Stacy was escalating.

The next morning, there was a soft rap on my door. It was Flora.

“Am I disturbing you?” she inquired.

“No,” I said, lifting myself up onto one arm and patting the edge of the bed, inviting her in. She perched like a wayward sparrow.

“I’m just a little blue,” she said after a long pause.

“You’re missing Dan,” I responded with a knowing smile.

“We’ve only known each other for a couple of days, but . . .” She appeared to be searching for the right words. “But now I feel lost without him.”

“Like the other half of you is missing,” I filled in the blanks.

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry; that’s normal.”

“Can I share something?” she asked gently. “I’m entertaining the thought of moving off the island.”

“Maybe to Portland?”

She nodded.

“I’m not making any major decisions yet, but for the first time in my life, I want something more than what the island can offer me. What do you think?” she asked, like a little girl.

“I think it’s a little bit early to be thinking too seriously. But if in five or six months’ time, things have progressed and you and Dan are getting further along in the relationship, I wouldn’t think anything will be able to keep you on the island.” I slid to the end of the bed. “Let’s get a cup of tea.” I patted her hand. She nodded.

We made our way to the kitchen, passing Annie and Ronald, who were sitting at the small table in the front room. We were just in time to see Ronald slam down a playing card, then jump to his feet excitedly, shouting, “Snap again!” He threw back his head and laughed a hearty belly laugh, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

I put the kettle on, and Flora climbed up onto one of the little black stools at the island just as Doris came in to make herself a drink.

“I saw Ronald Tramp is still here,” she said as she stomped around the kitchen. “I suppose I’ll be expected to feed him too.” She sniffed hard. “I only hope we aren’t here till spring. I only have enough food for a week or so. And he looks like the hungry type.”

Chapter Thirteen

A GHOST THAT EATS PIE

We moped around the next day, drinking tea and playing endless games of cards. As the afternoon wore on, Flora shared her favorite poems with me.

“I love to write them,” she informed me quietly as she opened the smooth leather cover of her journal, and handed it to me. “They help me say the things that are in my heart that I’m scared to say.”

Annie passed around photos of her dogs. All fifty of them.

“They are all adorable,” I admitted as I looked at their eager faces, shiny brown-button eyes, and lolloping tongues.

“And so much fun.” Annie beamed, her face alive. “That’s why I have to write about them; their little funny ways bring me so much joy each day.”

We also ate Doris’s creations. Cooking kept her busy, and that, in the process, also seemed to stop her worrying about her momma. Then at around four o’clock, without any warning, the lights went out and the fridge shuddered to a stop.

“Oh great,” snapped Doris. “As if things couldn’t get any worse, now the power’s out!”

We lit all the candles we could find and placed them around. As the evening drew in, we gravitated like moths to the fireside.

I was standing in the kitchen when Flora came back in. She’d been walking in the snow. Her cheeks were reddened from the cold. “It’s stopped snowing. I think we can leave tomorrow,” she announced.

Doris balked. “I doubt it. Good thing I managed to cook an apple pie earlier today, but as I haven’t learned how to cook over a candle yet, there’s only bread and a bunch of cold cuts for our dinner.”

Flora tried to rally us. “Let’s eat around the fire,” she suggested excitedly, like a child wanting to play a game. She ran to get a large woolen blanket from her room, laid it on the carpet, and then clustered candles together on the side tables.

“It’s just like a little winter picnic,” remarked Annie with delight as she settled down on the floor close to the fire to work on her latest project, a pair of thick woolen socks for Ronald.

His Highness at that particular moment was splayed out across the ugly gargoyle sofa, snoring loudly. Doris and Ethel brought in the supper and, as if on cue, like an old dog, Ronald stirred. “Is that food I smell?”

Doris placed meat, cheese, bread, and the apple pie on the table and fixed him with an icy stare. “Yes. Less than I thought, as I’m feeding more people.”

Ronald yawned. “I sense the ice maiden is unhappy with me. How ’bout I pay you for my supper?”

“Pay me,” Doris scoffed. “What a good idea.”

“That would be fine,” he said, scratching at something in his layers, then thrusting his hands into his pant pockets and pulling them inside out. “Unfortunately, I didn’t bring any copper with me. But I could entertain ya if ya like.”

“Oh, dear God. Tell me you’re not going to sing,” retorted Doris, horrified, as she handed out napkins. She made sure to give double the amount to Ronald, who just looked at them in bewilderment, then shrugged and stuffed them into his empty pockets.

“No,” he said indignantly. “I sing as bad as a pig in a noose. But I do tell a mean ghost story.”

“Oh, good!” said Annie, clapping her hands together. “I love ghost stories.”

“Do we have to?” implored Flora. “I would rather play cards.”

“Cards?” snapped Ronald, with disgust. “This ’ere story could save ya life, and you wanna play cards?” Then he added in an eerie voice, “You, my girl, would be the first to go . . . when he comes.”

Flora’s eyes widened. “What do you mean,
he
comes?”

“You’d ’ave to hear the story to know, won’t ya?” said Ronald, reverting to his normal voice and playfully popping a piece of cheese into his mouth.

“Come on,” I encouraged. “It’s going to be a long night as it is. We may as well enjoy a good yarn.”

Doris huffed again as she handed out the pie and sat down to listen. Ronald leaned forward to take a slice, and Doris slapped his hand. “Story first, pie after. If I think it’s worth anything,” she said sternly, her lips set in a tight line.

Ronald screwed up his nose and snatched up a candle from the table. Then, ceremoniously, in true storytelling fashion, he took his place in front of the odious fireplace, in which Annie had managed to coax a roaring fire into life. Throwing back his potato-sack cape and pushing away matted dreadlocks from his grimy face, he stood still, and his voice became quiet and intentional as he began.

“This terrible tale I’m gonna tell y’all were told to me by me granddaddy, his granddaddy, and his granddaddy before him. It’s told to every young’un along this side of the creek to warn ’em, so it never, ever happens again.”

Nervously, he started to pace back and forth, and his voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

“This house you are sitting in is part of this very story. If these walls ’ere could speak, they’d say . . .” He paused, stopped pacing, and darted his eyes about the room, then he raised his arms and splayed out his sticklike fingers, his voice building to fever pitch as he said, “Travelers beware! Beware! Beware!”

He paused for effect. All that could be heard was the quiet scraping of forks on plates. We were riveted.

As the fire danced and crackled behind him, he resembled an odd woodland sprite, his silhouette casting a mischievous shadow across the walls as he stood there. He took a deep breath and began.

“It happened all the way back in 1845, during the gold rush. It were a mighty crazy time back then, and the mountains out here were full t’ the brim with heaps of gold. So people came from all over, in droves like flies to shh—poop. They came to pan. One family that came up ’ere . . . were the Grants.”

Ronald stopped, and his wild eyes danced around us as if he were hoping that name would mean something to us. As no one responded, he tutted, and continued.

“Well, Thaddeus Grant built wheels for carriages, and he had’ta leave his home in Kansas because there were no water there, nothing, zip. It t’all gone and dried up.”

“I remember reading about that in school,” mused Annie, taking a mouthful of pie.

Ronald picked up his story. “If there be no farmers, then there be no wagons for ’im to fix. So one day, he just made up his mind, he did. He decided to follow ’em. Thaddeus packed up everything he owned and took his wife, Beth, and their two biddy children, Theo and Ruth, on that terrible, long journey to Oregon. He had to watch ov’r his shoulder for Indians as he went.”

Ronald started to pantomime a man packing and riding in a wagon, flashing his eyes from side to side as if he were keeping a look out. Flora clapped her hands together, obviously enchanted by the fun of it. Ethel just blew her nose, and Doris shook her head.

He brushed back a stray dreadlock. “He had planned to set up shop in Medford, but he never got there.”

Ronald stopped to take a deep breath for effect; then he pulled the candle close to his face so it illuminated his dirty, ragged, sandy-colored beard. His tone became measured.

“Oh, if only he’d kept going.” He looked across the room, above our heads, lost in that thought, and then ever so slowly he nodded his head.

This was quite a performance.

He snapped back into storytelling mode. “On his journey to Medford, Thaddeus was making his way over the top of the pass. It was an awful stormy night, and he and his family were badly in need of warming their bones in front of a roaring fire. Anyhow, as he rounded the mountain, suddenly outta nowhere a mudslide were upon ’em. His family were all a-yelling and a-hollering somethin’ awful as the wagon was battered and buffeted by all the mud and rocks, like.”

Ronald fought to control his imaginary horse as he continued.

“He rode the horse hard, pulling his carriage this way and more, ’n’ once he nearly wenna fell clear off of the side of the mountain.”

Ronald acted out pulling the horses hard left and then hard right before finally bringing them to an imaginary stop.

I let go of a breath. Ethel was perched on the edge of her seat like a squirrel about to pounce for nuts. Flora had pulled her blanket tightly around her shoulders, and she gripped a pillow to her chest. Even Doris seemed to be listening.

Ronald started again. “But Thaddeus were a-best of-a carriage drivers, and he saved all their lives. The only thing were-a broke was ’is wheel. They made camp for the night. In the morning, he set about fixing it. As he were-a working, another wagon came over the pass, struck a boulder, and cracked a wheel just like he had-a done. The driver was mighty happy to see a man that could fix ’em right up, right there on the pass, and Thaddeus saw it as a sign.”

Ronald became animated again and started to pace.

“He made up his-a mind that he was a-gonna work right here on the mountain. He set up ’is shop just a ways down here, and he did alright. There was plenty-a work for him, with folks hobbling up over the pass every five minutes. So much work, he had a pot of money, enough money, to build his wife a nice cabin up here on the ledge to raise their two young’uns in.

“Then it happened. November 1848, the night of the season’s first snow . . .” Suddenly, he leapt toward us, clapped his hands, and shook his bony fingers at us, shouting, “
Just like tonight
!”

We all jumped.

“Less of the dramatics,” warned Doris. “Or there will be no more pie!”

“Calm down there, starchy breeches. A story gotta have a little flare, ain’t it?”

He wrinkled up his nose and treated us all to another gummy grin. “Anyhow, that-a night, a family had been struggling on the last leg of their journey. They were good folks named Barnes—Thomas; his wife, Sophie; their young’uns.”

Ronald started to ride another imaginary horse. “The Barneses were just a-comin’ over the mountain, which was slick with ice, when their horse, it a-lost its footing and reared up, and the carriage cracked an axle. Thaddeus was in his shop and heard all the commotion, surprised anyone was fool enough to come over the pass that late in the season. Fortunately, as Thomas thought t’ hisself at the time, Thaddeus were there to help. It were mightily cold that day, so they moved Sophie and her young’uns up to this house with Beth and her children. Thaddeus looked at the wheel, but he got ’imself a-worrying ’coz he were running low on repair supplies. He hadn’a expected folks this late in the season. Thomas begged him to help, so Thaddeus did the best he could with what he had and patched it right up. But this is when this tale takes a darker turn.”

Ronald stopped, slowly taking a long drink of milk. All that could be heard was the crackle of the fire and the clicking of Annie’s knitting needles. I was flooded with feelings of nostalgia. There was something magical about a storyteller, even this ragged, foul-smelling one. It took me straight back to my childhood and a thousand fireside stories on the shores of Lake Tahoe, where my family spent every summer as I grew up.

“The repair had’da taken a couple of days, and a hard snowstorm blew in from a-nowhere as the Barneses started on’er their way. The snow fell deep around ’em, and the wind lashed at their-a carriage.”

Ronald started to pantomime shivering on a carriage ride.

“Suddenly, as the blizzard went an’ blinded him, that-a old wheel went and gave out again. That patch just wasn’t a-strong enough to hold up under that awful mean weather. The horses, they started a-panicking and a-running a-this way and a-that a-way. Thomas tried his hardest, but he couldn’t keep the thing together. The carriage broke loose of the horses and crashed onto its side, then ran right off’er the cliff. It rolled over and over all the way a-down that mountainside.”

Ronald threw himself to the floor and rolled himself over and over across the floor toward us, before stopping dead in front of the side table. When he reached it, he helped himself to a piece of ham on the plate Doris had laid out before jumping back to his feet and continuing.

“Thomas was a-flung from the carriage and were a-knocked out, like. When he came to ’is senses, he rushed to the bottom of the creek, but all of his family was dead. He climbed the mountain and hobbled back to Thaddeus’s house. Half-crazed with shock and grief, he banged upon the door, shouting that Thaddeus was gonna pay for the death of his family by the death of
his
own. Breaking down the door, he attacked Thaddeus with a spade. The men wrestled. Thaddeus managed to push Thomas back outside, and they fought like crazy men.”

Ronald wrestled back and forth with an imaginary opponent. Then he stopped to take a breath.

“Beth was a-awful frightened and raced to hide herself and the children in the barn. The men fought hard, but Thaddeus, bein’ a strong man, overpowered the likes of Thomas. But it were a-mighty dark by then, and neither of them saw a-how close to the edge they were a-fighting. With a last mean blow, Thaddeus struck Thomas, knocking him backward hard, and he tripped over a boulder behind him. Before either man could do a thing about it, Thomas went straight over a-that cliff, falling right down to the creek at the bottom. It was just too dark to go down that night, so the next day Thaddeus went down to look for Thomas’s body, but it was nowhere to be seen. He searched and searched, but no trace of that man were-a ever found. Well, Thaddeus found Thomas’s carriage and buried Sophie and her young’uns in a small church cemetery about five miles from here. And life went on, for Thaddeus’s family, as best it could. That is, until the following winter.”

Ronald took a deep breath and looked carefully at each one of us.

“It was the beginning of November and snow came mighty early that year, not unlike this-a year. It ’er came down thick and heavy that first day. Thaddeus was awful sad remembering the year before and that poor family that had perished. After that terrible night, he-a always kept a bunch of extra parts through the winter; he never wanted that awful thing happening t’ him again. Anyhow, Thaddeus had been out in the barn when the snow came, and no one knows for sure what the truth is, but this is the story that has been told.

“That first night of the snow, Beth was a-cooking supper in the kitchen when there were a-knock at the door. She had’a her hands full, so she asked her son, who was ten years olds, t’ open it. After he didn’t come back to tell her who it was, she went and saw the front door was a-wide open, and her boy was nowhere to be seen. But here is the oddest thing about this whole tale.”