The Winter People (5 page)

Sara’s eyes were wild, frantic. She hadn’t put on a coat, and stood shivering in her sweater and housedress. Snow sat in great clumps in her hair and on her shoulders.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her eyes moving over Martin’s soaked, muddy pants, his coat stained with fresh blood.

“The fox came back. Killed three hens. I tracked it down and shot it.” He raised his head high as he said this.
See what I can do? I can protect what is ours. I have the heart of a hero
.

“I skinned the fox,” he said. “I thought you might make Gertie a hat.”

Sara reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his coat, fingers working their way into the damp wool. “Gertie wasn’t with you?”

“Of course not. She was still in bed when I left.”

All Martin wanted was to go inside and change into dry clothes, have some breakfast and a hot cup of coffee. He had little patience for Sara’s need to have Gertie by her side at every second, for her near panic whenever the girl was out of sight for more than five minutes.

“She ran after you, Martin! She saw you out in the field and put on her coat to go meet you. She wanted to help you gather eggs.”

He shook his head. “I never saw her.”

“That was hours ago.” Sara’s gold-flecked eyes scanned the empty field. The snow had been falling steadily all day, the wind sending it drifting. All the tracks from the morning were covered over. Martin gazed across the yard helplessly, panic now rising.

There was no telling which way the girl had gone.

January 12, 1908

He searched the fields and woods for hours. The snow was letting up, but the air was bitterly cold, and the wind was blowing hard, creating great drifts and giving the yard and fields the appearance of a white sea with powdery waves.

How long could a child survive in weather like this? He tried not to let himself think about it, just trudged on, calling Gertie’s name. He hadn’t eaten all day or had so much as a drink of water. Desperation gnawed at his belly. His head ached, and it was becoming a struggle to think clearly through the rising panic. Most important, he knew, he had to remain calm for Sara, to convince her everything was going to be all right.

Sara stayed close by the house, in case Gertie returned. Martin could hear her, though. Even way up past the ridge, he could hear her desperate voice calling out, “Gertie, Gertie, Gertie …,” a strange chant behind the howling wind. His ears played tricks on him. He heard “Dirty, dirty, dirty,” then “Birdy, birdy, birdy.”

Martin’s head pounded. His bad foot throbbed from all the miles he’d gone, trudging along in his duck-foot snowshoes—lift, slide, lift, slide. No sign of the girl.

He stumbled, pulled himself up again.

Birdy. Birdy.

Dirty birdy.

He thought of the fox with the chicken in its mouth.

Dead birdy.

He thought of his little girl, following his footsteps up into the woods.

Dead Gertie.

He covered his ears with his mittened hands and collapsed into the snow. He was supposed to be able to keep his family safe, to fix things when they went wrong. And here he was, soaking wet, half frozen, a man who appeared to be in need of rescue himself.

“Gertie!” he screamed.

Only the wind answered.

At last, exhausted and barely able to put any weight on his ruined left foot, he headed back down the hill, toward the house, as the sun sank low.

As he shuffled across the field in his snowshoes, he spotted Sara coming out of the barn. Wrapped in a light shawl, shivering with cold, she walked in frantic circles around the yard, her voice diminished to a hoarse croak: “Gertie! Gertie! Gertie!” She had no gloves on, and her hands were blue, her fingertips bloody and raw—she picked at her skin when she was nervous.

He recalled those same hands clinging so desperately to Baby Charles, whose body was cold, his lips blue.

I can feel his little heart beating
.

If they lost Gertie, Martin knew it would ruin his wife.

She saw him and ran over, eyes enormous, hopeful. “Any sign?”

He shook his head. She stared at him a minute in disbelief.

He thought of the fox with its golden-rimmed eyes, how it had looked at him, through him, before he shot it.

“Martin, there isn’t much daylight left. Get the horse and ride to town. Tell Lucius and Sheriff Daye what’s happened. Gather people to help us look. Have them bring lanterns. Stop and see if the Bemises might have seen Gertie. She’s been over to play with their girl Shirley.”

“I’ll go right now,” he promised, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You go inside. Get warmed up. I’ll come back with help.”

He was so hungry, so thirsty. But to stop now, to go back to the house for even a cup of water, would be wrong. Not when his little
girl was out there, lost in the storm. He’d stop at the creek on the way into town. He’d hunker down and drink like an animal.

“Martin,” Sara said, taking his hands. “Pray with me. Please.”

Martin had never been a praying man. Sara and Gertie prayed each night before bed, but he never joined them. He went to church every Sunday with them, listened to Reverend Ayers read from the Bible. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God, just that Martin never believed that God might listen to him. With the millions of people who must be praying to him each day, why should God pay attention to Martin Shea in West Hall, Vermont? But now, desperate and running out of hope, he nodded, removed his hat, and bowed his head, standing in the snow outside the barn, Sara’s hands with their bloody fingers gripping tightly to his own.

“Please, God,” Sara said, voice hoarse. Martin sneaked a look at her; her eyes were clamped shut, her face was blotchy, nose running. “Watch over our Gertie. Bring her back to us. She’s a good girl. She’s all we have. Keep her safe. Please bring her back. If she’s gone, I …” Sara’s voice broke.

“Amen,” Martin said, ending the prayer.

Sara let go of Martin and walked off toward the house, head still bent down, lips moving, as if she was continuing her own private conversation with God, bargaining, begging.

Sliding open the door to the barn, Martin heard the animals letting him know he’d never fed them. The cow hadn’t been milked. She gave a mournful wail as he walked by her pen, but she would have to wait. He grabbed the saddle and was lugging it to the horse stalls when something caught his eye, stopped him in his tracks. His heart pounded in his ears; the saddle was heavy and awkward in his hands, now slick with sweat.

The fox pelt was gone.

Hours ago, he’d nailed it up against the north wall of the barn to dry. Then he’d stood back and admired his handiwork, imagined the hat Sara might make for Gertie.

He squinted at the empty wall.

Only it wasn’t empty.

No, something else hung there by a nail. Something that glinted
in the little bit of light coming in through the window. His breath caught in his throat as he stepped forward to see. The saddle fell from his hands.

There, nailed to the rough wooden boards, was a hank of blond hair.

Gertie’s hair.

His stomach cramped up, and he leaned over, retching.

His head felt as if it were being pounded between a hammer and an anvil. He gripped it in both hands, fingertips pressing into his temples.

He looked down, saw the blood on his clothing from skinning the fox.

“Martin?”

He swallowed hard and turned to see Sara in the doorway. She was walking toward him slowly. He jumped up, stood so that he’d block her view of the hair.

“What are you doing?”

“I was … getting the saddle.”

For the second time that afternoon, he prayed:
Please, God, don’t let her see the hair
.

He could not allow Sara to see the hair; it would destroy her. He had to hide it—throw it into the stream, where it would be carried away.

“Hurry,” Sara said. “It’ll be dark soon.” Mercifully, she left the barn.

Martin turned, hands shaking as he reached for the thick rope of blond hair. He pulled it loose from the rusty nail and shoved it into his pocket.

W
hen he had saddled the horse, he led her out of the barn, into the deep snow. It would be slow going, and he hoped they’d rolled the main roads by now.

It was possible, Martin told himself, that an animal had come into the barn and torn down the fox pelt. A coyote or a stray dog. But then he reached into his pocket, felt the thick hank of hair. He
could come up with no explanation for Gertie’s hair being on that nail.

“Martin?”

There was Sara again, waiting outside, just to the left of the open door, rocking back and forth, picking at the skin around her nails. Her eyes were wild and frantic. “You need to go inside, Sara. You’re not dressed to be out in weather like this.”

She nodded, turned toward the house, stopped. “Martin?”

“Yes?” A lump formed in his throat. Had she seen the hair?

“It’s because of the ring.”

“What?”

She was looking not at him but down into the snow at her feet. “The ring you found in the field. The one you tried to give me for Christmas. I know you still have it.”

She’d known all along that he’d held on to the ring. That he’d been too selfish to bury it as she’d asked. Now here he was, caught in his lie. He didn’t speak.

Sara’s breath came out in white puffs of steam. Her skin was pale; her lips were blue with cold. “You were wrong to take it. I warned you never to keep anything you unearth there. You must get rid of it, Martin. You must give it back.”

“Give it back?”

“Take it back out to the field and bury it. That’s the only way we’ll get our Gertie back.”

He stared down at her, blinking. Surely she couldn’t be serious. But her face told him she was. Sara had always been so strange about the field and woods, warning him to be careful out there, not to plow too close to the rocks, never to keep anything he unearthed. He’d thought it was old family superstitions, passed down. But this idea that Gertie was missing because he kept a ring he found out there—it was preposterous. Mad, even.

“Go do it now, before you go into town. Please, Martin.”

He remembered what Lucius had told him back when Sara had her spell after the death of little Charles: “You must never argue with a person experiencing an episode of madness. It will only serve to make matters worse.”

Martin nodded at Sara, clicked his tongue, turned his horse in the direction of the fields.

He rode out to the place where he’d found the ring—in the back corner of the far field, right up against the tree line. He dismounted, turned, and looked back toward the house, where Sara stood, watching, just a tiny shadow.

He took off his soaked mittens and reached into the right front pocket of his trousers. The ring wasn’t there. His fingers searched frantically. He patted his left pocket. Nothing. His left coat pocket held only a few shotgun shells. Then, in the right coat pocket, his fingers brushed against the coil of hair. He shuddered with revulsion.

The ring had to be there! He’d put it in his pocket this morning. He remembered checking it when he was out hunting the fox. It had been in his pocket then, he was sure of it.

Sara was still watching, arms crossed over her chest. She swayed slightly in the wind, like a piece of tall, dried-out grass.

Sweat coated Martin’s forehead in spite of the cold.

He reached back into the right pocket of his wool overcoat, felt the hank of hair curled like a soft snake.

Getting down on his knees, he started to dig with his fingers. He went as deep as he could with his numb fingers, until he hit a layer of crusted ice that he couldn’t break through. He kicked at the ice with the toe of his boot, kept digging. When he could go no deeper, he dropped the hair inside, refilled the hole with snow. Wiping his frozen hands on his trousers, he walked back to the trembling horse. She fixed him with a pitiful gaze.

“Did you do it?” Sara asked, when he rode by her on his way into town.

He nodded, but couldn’t look her in the eye. “Go inside and get warmed up. I’ll come back with help.”

Visitors from the Other Side The Secret Diary of Sara Harrison Shea