Otherworldly Maine by Noreen Doyle Read Free Book Online Page B

how.”
    â€œHypnotized me, likely. Adelaide, it all happened the way Harp told it. I heard the thing, too. If Harp is ready for the squirrels, so am I.”
    She stared hard, and sighed. She likes to talk, but her mill often shuts off suddenly, because of a quality of hers that I find good as well as rare: I mean that when she has no more to say, she doesn’t go on talking.
    I got up to Ryder’s Ridge about suppertime. Bill Hastings was there. The road was plowed slick between the snow ridges, and I wondered how much of the litter of tracks and crumpled paper and spent cigarette packages had been left by sight-seers. Ground frost had not yet yielded to the mud season, which would soon make normal driving impossible for a few weeks. Bill let me in, with the look people wear for serious illness. But Harp heaved himself out of that armchair, not sick in body at least. “Ben, I heard him last night. Late.”
    â€œWhat direction?”
    â€œNorth.”
    â€œYou hear it, Bill?” I set down the basket.
    My pint-size friend shook his head. “Wasn’t here.” I couldn’t guess how much Bill accepted of the tale.
    Harp said, “What’s the basket?—oh. Obliged. Adelaide’s a nice woman.” But his mind was remote. “It was north, Ben, a long way, but I think I know about where it would be. I wouldn’t’ve heard it except the night was so still, like everything had quieted for me. You know, they been a-deviling me night and day. Robart, state cops, mess of smart little buggers from the papers. I couldn’t sleep, I stepped outside like I was called. Why, he might’ve been the other side of the stars, the sky so full of ’em and nothing stirring. Cold . . . You went to Boston, Ben?”
    â€œYes. Waste of time. They want it to be something human, anyhow something that fits the books.”
    Whittling, Bill said neutrally, “Always a man for the books yourself, wasn’t you, Ben?”
    I had to agree. Harp asked, “Hadn’t no ideas?”
    â€œJust gave me back my own thoughts in their language. We have to find it, Harp. Of course some wouldn’t take it for true even if you had photographs.”
    Harp said, “Photographs be goddamned.”
    â€œI guess you got to go,” said Bill Hastings. “We been talking about it, Ben. Maybe I’d feel the same if it was me. . .! better be on my way or supper’ll be cold and the old woman raising hell-fire.” He tossed his stick back in the woodbox.
    â€œBill,” said Harp, “you won’t mind feeding the stock couple, three days?”
    â€œI don’t mind. Be up tomorrow.”
    â€œDo the same for you some time. I wouldn’t want it mentioned anyplace.”
    â€œHarp, you know me better’n that. See you, Ben.”
    â€œSnow’s going fast,” said Harp when Bill had driven off. “Be in the woods a long time yet, though.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t start this late.”
    He was at the window, his lean bulk shutting off much light from the time-seasoned kitchen where most of his indoor life had been passed. “Morning, early. Tonight I got to listen.”
    â€œBe needing sleep, I’d think.”
    â€œI don’t always get what I need,” said Harp.
    â€œI’ll bring my snowshoes. About six? And my carbine—I’m best with a gun I know.”
    He stared at me a while. “All right, Ben. You understand, though, you might have to come back alone. I ain’t coming back till I get him, Ben. Not this time.”
    *    *    *
    At sunup I found him with Ned and Jerry in the stable. He had lived eight or ten years with that team. He gave Ned’s neck a final pat as he turned to me and took up our conversation as if night had not intervened. “Not till I get him. Ben, I don’t want you drug into this ag’inst your inclination.”
    â€œDid you hear it again