A Year on Ladybug Farm #1 (24 page)

Bridget gave her an incredulous look. “Cecile Burke, you’re the one who spearheaded a campaign to save an entire village in Africa! What do you mean, ‘we’re not the ones to do it’?”

Cici frowned uncomfortably into her wine. “African villages are a lot different than teenage boys camping out in your woods.”

“Well at least he has some place to camp,” Lindsay pointed out. “And he’s getting regular meals, thanks to Bridget, and a little cash for whatever. If we turn him in, who knows where he’ll end up?”

They thought about that for a while, and none of them liked the picture. Finally Cici said, “And what do you think is going to happen when winter comes? He’ll freeze out there in the woods.”

“We’ll have to talk to him before then,” Lindsay admitted. “But until then . . . couldn’t we just pretend we don’t know?”

The ladies were silent for a while, watching the shadows lengthen on the mountains while a fading sun speared streaks of orange through the naked, severed branches of the poplar tree. Already the lawn, which barely two weeks ago had been littered with debris, was cleared of brush and fallen leaves, and piles of hickory and poplar wood, neatly cut into two-foot lengths, awaited splitting and stacking. But the flower beds showed the neglect of the women’s late-summer preoccupation with preserving food, and the roses were badly in need of trimming. There were still pecans to be harvested, grapevines to be pruned and tied, and black walnuts littered the ground on either side of the drive—all of which would have been lost had not Noah mowed back the weeds that once hid them.

Bridget said, “He’s been an awful lot of help.”

And Cici added, “He certainly has been more reliable than I ever thought he’d be.”

“Of course his manners could use some improvement,” Bridget added.

“Not to mention his attitude,” said Cici. And she fixed a pointed look on Bridget. “Neither one of which are our responsibility.”

“He likes to draw,” Lindsay said, and when the other two looked at her she gave an embarrassed little shrug. “He had a sketchbook. I peeked. He’s really not bad. In fact, he’s pretty good. Okay, I know it doesn’t mean anything, and I know he’s a dropout and a runaway and a garden thief, and more than likely on his way to state prison by the time he’s twenty but . . . he likes to draw. That’s something, isn’t it?”

Bridget and Cici smiled, and leaned back in their chairs. The orange streaks in the sky grew purple, and finally gray. The shadows on the porch turned deep blue, and the air had a crisp, cool undertaste to it. The crickets and the tree frogs had retired to wherever it is such creatures go for the winter, and no birds sang after dark. The only sound was the creak of their rocking chairs, and from somewhere beyond the tree line, the warble of an owl.

Bridget said after a time, “I don’t think it’s just us. I think if everyone in America could watch their fruit grow from a flower and spend hours fighting the wasps for their berries there would be a lot fewer apples tossed out after just one bite, and everyone would make jelly.”

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Cici added. “If everyone had to pack up and carry off his own garbage like we do, we could solve the landfill problem in this country in less than a decade.”

“When you have to dig your own well,” Lindsay remarked sagely, “you don’t leave the water running while you brush your teeth.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that axiom.”

“It’s true though. It means no one wants to waste a precious resource, once they realize how precious it is.”

Everyone murmured agreement with that, and then they rocked in silence, snuggling down in their sweaters, and thinking about Noah in the woods.

The leaves took on hues of strawberry, lemon, and brilliant tangerine gold, the mountains burst into fiery colors almost overnight, and the cobalt days grew shorter—and colder—by the minute. The stack of hickory and poplar grew steadily higher by the back door as Noah spent his mornings splitting wood, and his afternoons dragging debris out of the dairy.

When the first dusting of morning frost stiffened the grass, Cici tried to light a fire in the fireplace and filled the downstairs with billows of blue smoke. Farley came to clean the chimneys of squirrels’ nests, and charged ten dollars.

Sam arrived to install the new fans for their air-conditioning system, which, to his utter delight, worked exactly as he had predicted, blowing an arctic breeze through every room of the house and sending the women squealing and scurrying for their coats. By way of apology, he helped them start up the antiquated wood-burning furnace, which, to everyone’s surprise, kept the big old house as warm, if not warmer, than a modern central heating unit.

As autumn blossomed, small offerings began to accumulate on the porch of the folly: a blanket, a warm sweatshirt, a pair of gloves, wool socks and—at Bridget’s insistence—a wool stocking cap. At first Lindsay had worried that, by leaving these things, however badly they might be needed, they would push Noah into running away again. But he never gave an indication that he knew who had left them, and they never revealed that they knew his secret. He wore the sweatshirt and the gloves without comment when the mornings turned frosty, but they never saw him in the cap.

Lindsay was faithful to her daily run, which almost always turned into a walk of sheer wonder as the woodland colors grew more and more outrageous. She started taking her camera, snapping photographs to help her remember the multitude of shades and tones and hues nature could produce. But even the high-quality digital capabilities of her camera couldn’t reproduce what she saw with her eyes. She promised herself she would set up an easel and capture these colors before they all faded away, but of course there was never time.

She had developed a circuit that meandered about a mile away from the house, along the trail that led past the folly, across the stream, up a hill beside a rusted barbed wire fence that was overgrown with weeds, through a tall stand of spruce, and around toward the house again. At that hour of the morning mist often still swirled through the trees, and as the sun gradually rose high enough to backlight the elm and maple leaves, they looked as though they were tipped in gold. Walking along with nothing to break the silence but the sound of her own breathing and footsteps crunching in the leaves, Lindsay often felt like she was in church.

She was returning to the house one morning a little before eight o’clock, thinking about how she used to hate getting up for her morning run when she lived in the suburbs, and how it had now become the best part of her day. She had just entered the darkest, quietest part of the woods, where tall, thick pines blocked out the sun and the carpet of needles underneath muffled even her footsteps, when suddenly there was a crashing sound behind her.

She started and whirled around, her heart thudding. She may even have let out a little cry. Then she gave a nervous little laugh at her own foolishness. There was still too much of the city in her, and what she had heard had probably been nothing more than a branch falling.

Except that it came again. A loud rustling, crashing sound in the undergrowth beyond the pines, irregular movement, but coming close. She thought about bears. She thought about mountain men with hunting caps and guns and small, mean eyes. She told herself not to be silly. She called out, scanning the dark woods, “Who’s there?”

Nothing responded. And suddenly the movement again, coming fast and to her right. Something big. Did they have mountain lions here?

“Hello?”

She could see bushes part, and a shower of yellow leaves fell from a scrub tree. She started backing away, quickly. She scanned the ground for a stick or a rock, something to throw. The crashing sound stopped.

It was probably that stupid dog, she thought, but she did not slow down. In fact, she shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and quickened her pace, and when the rustling in the undergrowth started again, stalking her, she ran.

She came around a curve with the rush of her own breath blocking out the sound of her pursuer, and suddenly the creature leapt out of the bushes to block her path. Lindsay screamed and stumbled backward; slipping on pine needles, flailing for balance, she hit the ground hard.

For what seemed like an eternity she lay there flat on her back, gasping like a beached fish, helpless and staring up into the eyes of . . . a deer.

It stood as tall as a small pony, with nobby little antlers sprouting from its head and puffs of steam issuing from its flared nostrils. It was so close she could smell it—a sweet, wild, gamey smell, which nonetheless was alien enough to make her heart beat hard. It looked down at her with its big brown eyes, wet black nose twitching. For the longest time, she couldn’t even move.

Then, abruptly, she sucked in a lungful of air, got her hands and heels beneath her, and scooted backward. The deer took a step toward her. She froze.

A deer. She didn’t know anything about deer. But it had horns—kind of—and it was bigger than she was, and wild animals were supposed to be afraid of people. This one didn’t look to be afraid of anything. Not daring to take her eyes off the creature, she swept her hands along the ground until they closed around a stick. It was a rather spindly stick, to be sure, and didn’t represent much in the way of defense, but it was better than nothing.

She got her feet under her, and slowly managed to stand. The deer watched her curiously. She backed away. The deer came closer. “Scat!” she cried, and raised the stick. “Go away! Shoo!”

The deer kept coming and she kept backing up. “I’m not kidding!” ’ she said. “Go on, get out of here.” And, because she didn’t really want to strike the animal, she threw the stick over its head, into the bushes, half expecting it to chase the stick like a dog.

But the distraction worked. The deer turned toward the sound of the stick striking the foliage, and trotted over to investigate. Apparently what he found was tasty, because he began stripping the leaves from the bushes. And while he was thus occupied, Lindsay hurried away.

She hadn’t gone a dozen yards before she heard hoof beats on the path behind her. She turned, jogging backward, to see the deer trotting after her. “You have got to be kidding me,” she gasped under her breath. She waved both hands and shouted, “Go away! Go home!”

The deer didn’t slow down. Glancing around desperately, she saw a tangle of vines and fallen trees to the right of the path. Quickly, she scrambled over and ducked down, hoping the deer would race past and be on about his business. The hoofbeats slowed. She heard the crunching of leaves with footsteps, and then silence. Cautiously, she peeked over the barrier . . . and looked straight into a pair of big brown eyes.

“I don’t believe this,” she said, breathing hard. “I seriously . . . do not . . . believe this.”

The deer thrust its nose forward in a nuzzling motion, and she shrank back. It took a bite out of a slender vine.

Lindsay eased over the deadfall, moving as slowly, and as quietly, as possible. “Good deer,” she whispered. The deer munched the vine, apparently oblivious. “Nice fellow. You just stay there.” She edged around the animal, not turning her back on it, and crept carefully back to the path. The deer did not look up.

And the minute she started down the path, the deer abandoned his grazing, and trotted over to follow her.

Lindsay stared at the deer. The deer stared back.

“I’m in a Disney movie,” Lindsay said, resigned.

The deer, somewhat to her surprise, did not respond. It simply followed her as she turned to make her way home.

 

 

Bridget was measuring the living room windows for draperies when the barking of the border collie alerted her to Lindsay’s return. She glanced out the window, saw Lindsay coming up the porch steps, and almost fell off the stepladder. Cici came from the workshop with an armful of quarter-round molding she had just cut for the sunroom, and saw the half-grown deer scramble up their back porch steps, while the dog stood in the middle of the yard, barking its annnoyance. The molding in her arms scattered on the ground. Noah, who was splitting wood at the hickory stump behind the house, paused in his work to watch the circus, and a slow grin spread over his face.

Lindsay tried to ease open the screen porch door, shouting, “Shoo! Shoo!” to the deer, who sniffed the floorboards with interest.

Cici bounded halfway up the steps, saw Lindsay trying to wave the deer back, and stopped short. “What in the world?” she asked.

Bridget came onto the screen porch from the kitchen. “Good heavens!” was all she said, and they stared.

Lindsay slumped against the screen door. “Can you believe this?” she demanded.

Cici backed slowly down the steps. “Not unless I’d seen it with my own eyes.” She dragged her gaze from the deer to Lindsay. “How did you . . . ?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Lindsay returned sharply. “It just followed me.”

The deer turned and wandered down the steps, coming within inches of Cici’s wide-eyed gaze, and began to nibble the azalea bushes. “It’s not afraid of me,” she said wonderingly.

“Or of the dog,” added Bridget.

Lindsay said, “It’s not afraid of anything.”

By this time Noah had wandered up, hands in pockets, to better observe the developments. The deer, losing interest in the azaleas, meandered a few feet away to help himself to the remnants of the half-shriveled apples that were left beneath the apple tree.

“Maybe if we go inside,” Lindsay said in a stage whisper, “he’ll go away.”

Cici came quietly up the steps. Lindsay opened the screen door, and the deer had bounded up the steps after them before the hinges stopped squeaking. All three women yelped with surprise and pressed themselves against the wall, and Noah doubled up with laughter.

“It’s just a little ole deer,” he said. “It ain’t gonna hurt you.”