The Road Home (18 page)

Read The Road Home Online

Authors: Michael Thomas Ford

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: The Road Home
8.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Just like Caroline Ayres wrote on the tree,” said Burke.
“It should be noted that the bride was given away by her father, Mr. Peter Woode,” Sam added. “We'll get back to that. For now skip ahead to 1911, when the same Mr. Peter Woode dies on December
23. Again, no cause given.” “Christmas was a grim affair that year,” said Burke.
Sam nodded. “It gets worse,” he said. “On December 24, a Mr. Calvin Wrathmore presented a claim of property ownership for the Hague farm to the town clerk, a Mr. Jackson Paltry. I found that little tidbit buried in the legal notices section.”
“Did it say on what grounds he claimed ownership?”
Sam shook his head. “No. But apparently he was successful.”
“How do you know?” asked Burke. “Because of Grandma McCready's spirited condemnation of the Wrathmore clan?”
“That and the fact that in 1920 the place burned down, killing Calvin Wrathmore and his wife, Edna. And guess who was fingered for starting the fire?”
“Freddie Redmond?” Burke joked.
“Peter Blackburne,” said Sam. “Son of Grace Woode and John Blackburne.”
“He was, what, all of twelve years old?” Burke said, surprised.
“Sixteen,” said Sam. “Apparently, the trial was the talk of the town for the week that it lasted.”
“And then they hanged him from the oak tree in the town square,” Burke said.
“They found him innocent,” said Sam. “He's Tanya Redmond's great-great-grandfather.”
“So he got the farm back, then.”
“No,” Sam said. “The farm passed to Olivia Wrathmore, Calvin and Edna's seven-year-old daughter. She survived the fire. It was Olivia who first accused Peter Blackburne of starting the fire. She said she saw him running away from the house.”
“The little liar,” Burke remarked.
“Maybe,” said Sam. “Maybe not. At any rate, she got the farm.”
“But apparently let it sit there,” Burke said. “I wonder what happened to her?”
“I can tell you what happened to her,” said Sam. “She left town, got married, and had a baby. His name is Gaither Lucas.”
“Is?” Burke asked. “You mean he's still alive? He must be a hundred.”
“He's seventy-seven,” said Sam. “And he lives less than an hour from here.”
Burke whistled. “Good detective work,” he said.
Sam gave a little bow. “Thank you. Now, what is it you have to share?”
Burke, who had forgotten about the photos, suddenly felt very self-conscious. Sam had unearthed actual information, while all he had was a wild idea based on some blurry pictures. But Sam was expecting him to say something, so Burke took a deep breath. “Do you believe in ghosts?” he began.
CHAPTER 19
T
he cemetery was remarkably well maintained. The grass was mowed, the headstones were mostly free of moss, and best of all, there were none of the tacky plastic flowers that so often litter such places. Even the oldest graves—the ones farthest from the front—were neat and orderly. The markers, worn from years of rain and bitter Vermont winters, nonetheless retained an air of dignity, which Burke found comforting. He tried not to think about the bodies that lay beneath their feet.
“Somebody sure takes care of this place,” he remarked as he and Sam wound their way through the rows, looking at the names on the gravestones.
“Remember the Ladies' Society that liked to throw those cakewalks?” Sam said. “They're still around, only now they tend the garden of the dead.”
“Cheery,” said Burke.
Sam smiled. “You like that? It's from a poem by Ruth Downing, Vermont's own Emily Dickinson. ‘Through hidden doors the darklings pass the living slumb'ring in our beds. They come at night the faceless ones who tend the gardens of the dead.'”
“Sounds more like Vermont's Stephen King,” Burke said.
“She supposedly held séances in her house,” said Sam.
“Can we not talk about ghosts right now?” Burke said.
“You're the one who brought them up,” Sam reminded him. “That's why we're here.”
Burke didn't reply. Sam was right. It was because he had told Sam about the ghost images in his photos that Sam had suggested making a visit to the cemetery.
“You still haven't said whether or not you believe in them,” Burke said.
Sam was quiet as they walked deeper into the area of the older graves. “I don't
not
believe in them,” he said.
Burke snorted. “Fence-sitter,” he accused.
“So you
do
believe in them?” Sam countered.
Before Burke could answer, the end of his crutch sank into soft ground and he stumbled. Sam reached out and grabbed him, but not before Burke had lost his grip on the crutch, which now lay on the ground while he balanced flamingo-like on one leg. Sam made sure Burke was steady before he knelt down to retrieve the fallen crutch.
“Well, this is spooky,” Burke said. “Look who we have here.”
Burke peered at the gravestone in front of which Sam was kneeling. He couldn't quite read the faded lettering. “Who is it?”
“Amos Hague,” Sam replied. “Born October 3, 1843 and died August 9, 1883.”
“He was almost forty,” Burke observed. “The same age I am.”
Sam was looking at the gravestone to the right of Amos's. “This is odd,” he said. “Thomas Beattie. Born March 11, 1850 and died August 9, 1882.”
“Beattie,” Burke said. “As in Tess Beattie?”
“I don't know,” said Sam. “Could be. And how weird is it that he and Amos died on the same day a year apart?”
“Is Tess here, too?”
Sam searched the headstones in the surrounding area. “Not that I can tell,” he said. “No Peter Woode, either.”
Burke was examining the headstones more carefully. Amos's was decorated at the top with a carving of a grinning skull that had wings on either side. Thomas's was marked with a simple row of three
X
s.
“Could you get the camera from my backpack?” Burke asked Sam. “I want to get some shots of these.”
Sam stood and unzipped the backpack Burke had slung over his shoulders. “Which one?” he asked.
“The digital one first,” said Burke.
Sam removed the camera and handed it to Burke. “Do you need me to do anything for you?”
Burke shook his head. “I've been practicing my one-handed method,” he joked. “But if you wouldn't mind standing by in case I decide to fall over, that would be great.”
Sam took up a position to Burke's right as Burke fussed with the settings on the camera. “This would be so much easier without these damn casts,” Burke complained.
“‘Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficult—'”
“Thank you, Mr. Bartlett,” Burke interrupted testily.
“Actually, it was Mr. Roosevelt who said that,” Sam replied. “Teddy, not FDR.”
“Just keep me steady,” said Burke.
He bent down as far as he could without losing his balance. He felt Sam's hand on the small of his back and relaxed a little. He knew he could trust Sam to catch him if he started to fall. With that worry gone, he began taking pictures.
“That should do it,” he said after shooting a dozen images. “Now I want to try it with the Hawkeye and the Yashica-Mat.”
Again, Sam assisted him, taking the cameras out and acting as Burke's bodyguard during the shooting. Burke was done within fifteen minutes, but even that amount of effort had tired him. “Do you mind if we leave?” he asked Sam.
“Not at all. I don't see Tess or Peter anywhere around here, anyway. Just the two boys.”
“Now we have another mystery to solve,” Burke said. “Who was Thomas Beattie, and why is he here?”
They made their way back through the cemetery to Sam's car. Once he was sitting down, Burke felt better. He couldn't wait to get his casts off and tried not to think about how much longer he had to have them on. He distracted himself by trying to puzzle out who Thomas Beattie might be.
Then he remembered the picture he'd found in Jerry's collection, the one that was labeled as possibly being of Amos Hague and Tess Beattie. There had been that second, unidentified man. “Maybe it's Thomas Beattie,” he said aloud.
“Maybe who is?” said Sam as he started the car.
Burke told him about the photograph. “Now that I think about it, the guy and Tess do sort of look alike.”
“We can look him up back at the library,” said Sam.
As they drove, Burke took the digital camera and reviewed the pictures he'd taken. Not a single one showed any ghostly figures. He wondered what would appear on the film in the cameras. He was anxious to develop it.
“I need to shoot at the farm again,” he told Sam.
Sam nodded. “By the way,” he said, “I think you should do something with these photographs.”
“Like what?”
“Show them,” Sam elaborated. “They're really beautiful. I think they'd make a great show. You can call it the Ghosts of War, or something like that.”
Burke laughed. “Yeah. They'd just
love
that in New York.”
“Who said anything about New York?” said Sam. “I'm talking about here.”
“Here? Where would I do a show here?” Burke said.
“I can think of half a dozen places,” said Sam. “The library, for one. It would be a great local interest thing. But what I'm really thinking is that you should do it at my friend Colton's gallery in Montpelier.”
“Gallery?” Burke said. “What kind of gallery?”
“
Art,
” Sam said. “What kind do you think?”
“I don't know. It just never occurred to me that there would be a real gallery up here.”
“Oh, it isn't a real one,” said Sam. “He just sells cross-stitch samplers and finger paintings of maple trees. But they're
really
good.”
“You know what I mean,” Burke said.
“Sure I do,” said Sam. “You mean that we can't possibly have any real culture up here in the sticks. Your big cities have the monopoly on real art.”
Burke shrugged. “Well, we do.”
“We?” said Sam.
“I'm just saying, I don't see myself doing a photography show here,” Burke said testily. “I'm sorry if I insulted the artistic community of Vermont.”
Sam looked at him. “You're a real snob, you know that?”
Burke, taken aback, objected. “I am not.”
“Yes, you are,” Sam insisted. “You really think things are only worthwhile if people in New York or Boston or wherever say that they are. Isn't it enough if
you
think they're worthwhile, or if someone like me thinks they're worthwhile?”
“It's not the same thing,” Burke argued. “If your mother likes your drawing of a duck and hangs it on the refrigerator, that doesn't mean it's good.”
“Snob,” Sam said.
“Stop saying that!”
“I will,” said Sam, “when you stop being a snob.”
Burke, annoyed, settled into a resentful silence. He hadn't expected such an attack from Sam. He'd thought they were friends. But now Sam was lecturing him as if he were a child.
Where does he get off being so high and mighty?
he thought.
Unexpectedly, it began to rain. As the first drops hit the windshield, Sam turned on the wipers. Within a minute they were working overtime, sweeping the water from the glass as it relentlessly battered the car. Burke watched it running down the window beside him.
“I'm sorry,” Sam said after a few minutes.
Burke grunted.
“I'll take that as an acceptance of my apology,” said Sam.
Burke nodded. “Don't worry about it,” he said.
“It's just that I think you're overlooking a great opportunity,” Sam continued. “Think about it?”
“Sure,” Burke said. He had no intention of considering doing a show, but he feared Sam wouldn't shut up about it if he didn't at least pretend he would.
“I'll mention it to Colton,” said Sam.
Please don't,
Burke thought.
“Actually, let's have dinner,” Sam said brightly. “I'll invite a couple of people. Would you want to do that?”
Burke absolutely did not want to do that. The idea of talking about his work with people who probably wouldn't know an Arbus from an Ansel Adams was not his idea of a pleasant evening. But he found himself nodding and saying, “That would be nice.”
“By ‘nice' I assume you mean ‘excruciating,'” Sam replied. “But I'm holding you to it. How about this Friday?”
“I'll check my appointment book,” Burke said.
Sam coughed, and for a minute Burke thought he heard him utter “Snob” under his breath, but when he looked over, Sam was only watching the road.
“You know, there's nothing inherently virtuous about living in the country,” Burke said. “Some people might even say your attitude about cities is reverse snobbery.”
“True,” Sam admitted. “But I would argue that there's a difference. People who look down on us poor country folk usually won't admit that anything worthwhile can come out of here. We, on the other hand, admit that occasionally something good can come out of a city.”
“What's wrong with cities?” Burke asked.
“Nothing,” said Sam. “If you like crowded, noisy, dirty places that cost way too much to live in. How did Thoreau describe them? Right. ‘Millions of people being lonesome together.'”
“Snob,” Burke said.
Sam laughed. “I'm just playing with you. Cities are fine. I'm happy to visit them. I just don't want to live in one.”
“Because they're crowded, noisy, and dirty,” Burke said.
“Well, yes,” Sam said. “At least to me they are. I'm sure other people find them beautiful and stimulating.”
“I do,” said Burke. “They're alive.”
“Meaning places like Wellston and Sandberg are dead?”
“More like asleep,” Burke said. “Or afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” said Sam.
“Changing,” Burke replied. “Anything new. I don't know. Don't you ever feel like you're just standing still?”
As Sam seemed to consider the question, Burke listened to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. It was pleasant being inside the car, racing through the storm, as if they were in a protective bubble. For some reason it made him sleepy, and he closed his eyes.
“I don't know about standing still,” Sam said, his voice quiet beneath the drumming of the rain. “Sometimes I think it makes it easier to make excuses for why you haven't done certain things.”
Burke started to respond but found that he couldn't. The rain was lulling him to sleep. Sam's voice seemed to be coming from far away, and the rhythmic
wush-wush-wush
of the wipers drowned it out until it became just a whisper.

Other books

Delayed Penalty by Stahl, Shey
The Observations by Jane Harris
Jane Austen Made Me Do It by Laurel Ann Nattress
Package Deal by Chegri, Chris
A Death in Valencia by Jason Webster
Ask No Questions by Elyot, Justine
Redheads are Soulless by Heather M. White
Family Scandal by Lowe, Ebony
Singe by Ruby McNally