Daniel Plainway - Or The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League Page 6

  Another round of handshakes began, joined by Eagleton and Ephram; Frederick Covington thought he must have shaken Ephram’s hand five times and could foresee doing so several times again before the night was out. The thought made him laugh.

  “High tide tomorrow morning at five-fourteen,” said Thump at a juncture that did not strictly call for this information. Weather prognostication and the exact moment in time (eight minutes past seven) were also repeated by Eagleton and Ephram, to the mystification of Mister Walton’s guests.

  Eagleton had no more than sat down (again) when he announced, “I met a dog outside the restaurant.”

  “As did I!” exclaimed Ephram, somewhat astonished at this coincidence.

  “A dog!” stated Thump. He nodded emphatically, and after some discussion (which was so involved that others at the table had not the heart to break in) they decided that they had all seen the same dog, and this appeared to raise the coincidence (in the Moosepathians’ eyes) to the altitude of the near miraculous.

  “I suggest the pine bark soup,” Mister Walton was saying, “for anyone starting with a hearty appetite. There are three kinds of freshwater fish in it!”

  “I wonder what her name is,” said Thump about the dog. Among his friends, his questions were known for their gravity.

  “Moxie,” said Frederick Covington finally. He happened at this moment to be lifting his water glass for a drink.

  Thump directed his attention to the clergyman and thought about this. He knew that Moxie was a beverage-a nerve tonic, actually-sold at soda fountains and advertised in the Portland Courier with the picture of a man pointing assertively and declaring, “Drink Moxie!” (Thump had actually tried the drink once and liked it very much two or three weeks later.) The word had also recently come to mean “indomitable pluck and spirit,” and now Thump thought it was being used as a toast, which he liked very much. He raised his own water glass to Mr. Covington and said, in his deep voice, “And to you, sir!”

  “Moxie!” said Eagleton, who raised his own glass.

  “Moxie!” said Ephram, following suit.

  Mister Walton thought he heard a bark from outside.

  5. The Hat and the Hack

  “That creature is better dressed than you are,” said Pearly Sporrin, of Sporrin’s Livery, on the western end of Commercial Street. He stood in the gateway, the stem of his pipe half an inch from his lower lip, and observed Charley Hatch’s horse and rig in the lamplight.

  “It’s none of my doing,” said Charley Hatch, leaning forward in his seat to eye the object in question. He had made no move to detach the hat from Violet’s crown since discovering it that afternoon but continued to view the homburg with vague suspicion. “I turned to shake the leads, and there it was.”

  “What? Did she grow it then?”

  “For all I know.”

  “She’ll be a hat factory next.” Pearly patted the animal’s muzzle. a breath of cold wind blew from the harbor; Pearly could glimpse the glint of light upon water between the buildings across the street. “Better than a glue factory, isn’t that so, girl?” he said to the horse.

  “What do you have there, Charley?” asked an aged fellow, stepping from the stable.

  A Charley didn’t immediately answer, Pearly spoke up. “He’s foolish about that nag of his, Doc. Bought her a hat. It’ll be a dress and petticoats tomorrow.”

  “That’s a pretty fine hat,” said the shaky old fellow as he approached the horse and cab.

  All that anyone knew about Doc Brine was that nobody knew if he was a doctor of anything, but he could cure a sick horse as surely as any man in the city. He had been seeing some poor creature inside; now, as usual, he was in need of a drink. He had a way of laying hands on a horse or a dog, or even a cat-why, he’d cure a cat, if you asked him!-and that animal would let him do anything he needed to bring it to health. It took the stuff out of him, though-that’s what he’d told Charley once-and he always needed a drink afterward. Someone had told Charley that Alexander Brine had been a horse doctor during the war and that he’d had to put so many disabled creatures down that it had ruined him.

  “Don’t know where it came from,” said Charley about the mysterious hat. It was a nice hat, but he was not overfond of it. a body couldn’t trust such a thing. He’d learn to wear that hat and learn to like it, and someday it would just up and be missing as quickly as it had appeared.

  “How’s the bay?” asked Pearly.

  “Terrible congested,” said Doc. “I got her up and moving. Only thing for it. Up and moving.” Clearly whatever he had done, it had cost him. He was shaking badly, and Pearly knew that the owner of the bay was not at hand just now to pay the old man.

  The liveryman fished in a pocket and came up with a coin. “I’ll talk to Mr. Cleaves in the morning,” said Pearly. He laid the coin carefully in Doc’s palm so that the man would not drop it.

  “Wish I had another of these,” said the old man to the horse, waving the coin before him. “I’d buy that hat from you.” He reached up to scratch her nose. Old Doc Brine didn’t own a hat, and the few gray hairs left to him could hardly warm his head on a night like this. He thought no more about it, however, and wandered off in the direction of the nearest tavern, where cheap beer (or any beer) was sold against the law of the state.

  The streets were shiny with snowmelt, and the sidewalks were spotted with white. Lamps and lighted windows along the street made halos in the low-lying bank of sea smoke that crawled from the harbor. The foggy atmosphere made strange shadows, and looking after Doc Brine as he moved against the light from a store, Charley and Pearly could almost swear they saw his bony form through his clothes. He shook, and he looked cold, even if Charley Hatch did know it was the demon shakes.

  “Doc!” said Charley, and he leaped down from the cab. He was not a young man himself, but he was spry, and he snatched that hat from Violet’s brow and hurried after the old fellow. “Doc,” he called again, “you could use this a good deal more than Violet. If she wears that thing, she can’t see out the corner of her eye. It makes her nervous.”

  Doc Brine laughed. “What? No, Charley, I was just having fun, is all.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Charley, and he thrust the hat at the old man. There was a brief impasse; then Charley said, “You got Violet back on her feet a couple years back, Doc. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Yes, but you paid me, Charley.”

  Charley Hatch laughed under his breath. “Violet didn’t. It’s her hat, you see.” And he and Doc both laughed when Violet let out a sudden nicker.

  “Well,” said Doc Brine, “if she insists, I won’t insult a lady.” With obvious pleasure he took the hat and placed it on his head. It was a little large for him, but all the better to cover his ears on a cold night.

  “If your feet are cold, put your hat on,” observed Charley. “That’s what my old pop used to say.”

  The peculiar thing was, Doc looked as if he’d lost the shakes; he stood before Charley like any other man, almost festive with that homburg on, and he took a deep, steady breath. “Thanks, Charley. It sure is a nice hat,” he said. “My toes are warming already.” But the truth was, his heart was a little warmed.

  “Merry Christmas, Doc,” said Charley. They both were old enough to remember when the old folk-the old Dutch folk-celebrated St. Nicholas Day on the sixth of December, only three days hence.

  “Merry Christmas, Charley,” said Doc Brine.

  Feeling a little awkward, Charley scuffed back to his horse and rig and proceeded to lead them through the gate and into the stables.

  Leaning against the gatepost, Pearly Sporrin let out a puff of smoke from his newly kindled pipe.

  Doc Brine had not shuffled very far down Commercial Street before he met and greeted several people he knew, including the matronly figure of Dotty Brass, who ran a house on York Street that Doc had neither the money nor the inclination to patronize. He had cured her cat a year or two ago, and she gave him a sweet smile
and happy regards as she hurried past. He tipped his new hat and breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone; he was a little afraid of her and her establishment.

  He had just turned back to recommence his progress down Commercial Street when he caught sight of a dissolute-looking fellow who stood in the recessed doorway of an abandoned storefront. The old man took two or three furtive glances before he stopped again and said, “Is that you, Lincton?”

  “Good evening, Doc,” said the man in the doorway. He stepped down to the street, and Doc Brine could see he was in a bad way. Lincton was a young fellow, not yet twenty-five years old, who had until recently worked on the wharves, landing cargo. a injury had left him without work, and he had become a common sight lately walking the streets.

  Lincton wasn’t the young man’s real name; his father, Jacob Washington, an imaginative and zealous veteran of the War Between the States, had christened the boy Lincoln N. The middle initial stood for nothing but itself and served only to unite his christian and surname in a sort of patriotic prayer whenever they were pronounced together. The boy was not very old, however, before some wag decided to shorten the whole moniker The first syllable from one president and the last syllable from the other were combined, and the young man was dubbed Lincton, a nickname that adhered.

  Doc Brine was already fingering the coin in his pocket when Lincton came out of the shadows. The hat on the old man’s head was still working its warmth, and the look of hunger in the young man’s eyes touched his conscience; here was a fellow in need of a sustaining meal. These days Doc could get by on crackers and canned herring, with the occasional bit of beef thrown in. Young folk, he told himself, required more.

  “No work yet?” asked the old man. He suspected that Lincton had given up the search in a stupor of hunger and cold.

  “I think the foot is getting better,” said Lincton, though his limp was as pronounced as ever.

  “You need a meal, young man,” said Doc Brine, and before the other could reply, he had taken the single coin from his pocket and pressed it into Lincton’s hand.

  Lincton hardly registered the gift at first but stood in the wet street while Doc hurried off in awkward silence. Finally the young man blinked at the coin, which glinted dully in the gleam of a distant lamp. “Thank you, Doc!” he shouted. He could not see the old man, but he heard a response rise from the shadows.

  Lincton was not a drinking man; but living along the wharves, a person learns quickly where a drink can be had, and contrary to his natural disposition, this is where he took himself. He had enough in the one coin for three pints of watery beer. In his rickety state, however, even this dilution instilled a sense of false courage. He began to contemplate his late father’s government-issued navy Colt, lying cold and heavy beneath his threadbare coat.

  6. The Covington Goal

  “But the hat was not to be found,” said Mister Walton when he and Sundry had finished telling how they happened to meet with Mr. Seacost and the Covingtons that evening.

  “It was quite a hill,” allowed Sundry.

  The charter members could hardly get their imaginations past the point in the tale at which the toboggan had been commandeered.

  “It’s tremendous!” said Ephram. The meal before him and his attendant appetite were all but forgotten; even Mister Walton’s lack of a hat vanished in Ephram’s mind before the vision of the grand fellow standing at the bow of the runner and pointing onward, like Washington crossing the Delaware.

  “I’ve never ridden a toboggan,” said Eagleton. “And I would very much like to meet these fellows who came to your assistance,” he added. “Durwood, Waverley, and Brink. The Dash-It-All Boys!” He liked the ring of the name.

  Thump had ridden a toboggan-once. (Or had it been a sled?) At any rate, he had been a lad then and had slid down a short slope and run into a stone wall. His mother had called him in. Gazing over his empty plate, he felt nostalgia for this otherwise forgotten moment.

  “I am sorry we did not meet you at the top of the hill,” said Isabelle, who thought the adventure sounded gay.

  “Good heavens!’said Mr. Seacost, who was trying to imagine himself on a toboggan.

  “It is a fine season, there is no doubt,” said Mister Walton. He looked out the restaurant window and admired the snowy scene as it was illumined by lighted lamppost and carriage lantern. “And in these days, particularly, when we anticipate Christmas and the Yuletide blaze, there is a delectable sense of mystery in the air.”

  “Mystery!” said Eagleton in a hushed tone. He had always sensed something about Christmas, beyond the obvious religious and secular festivities, but he had never realized that it was simply mystery.

  “We tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve,” said Sundry about his own family tradition.

  “It is a British custom that you may be following, sir,” suggested Frederick Covington. “Mr. Dickens himself put it to good use. The Christmastide has traditionally been rife with spirits.”

  “And the animals speak at midnight,” said Isabelle, with childish delight in her eye.

  “I wish now that I had gone to the barn to hear them,” said Sundry.

  “The genuine mystery of Christmas,” expressed Frederick, “is that no one can partake of it all. Some of its prettiest pleasures are those that just graze our fingertips.”

  “But Mister Walton will try his best,” said Isabelle, for she had gotten the cut of the portly fellow and thought he was a man who could keep Christmas well.

  “Well, I have the toboggan behind me now,” he admitted with a happy smile. “But there are many pleasures to be had when snow flies.”

  “I suppose we will be up to our waists in snow soon enough,” said Isabelle, looking to her husband.

  “My wife,” explained Frederick, “is referring to our ultimate destination, which is Skowhegan.”

  “Are you expecting more snow than elsewhere in Skowhegan?” wondered Mister Walton.

  “More snow in the woods than on the streets,” said Isabelle. She was clearly having fun at her husband’s expense, but Sundry, in particular, wondered if Mrs. Covington’s energy and badinage was a means to cover something deeper-or even troubling.

  “Is it a sporting expedition then?” asked Mister Walton.

  “Sport of sort,” she replied.

  “I told you, Toby, that Frederick is pursuing his own hobbyhorse,” said Mr. Seacost.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I am on a very important point of business,” said Frederick with a glint of humor.

  “My husband has been making it his business,” said Isabelle, “to preempt Columbus’s claims of discovery.”

  “Frederick’s specialty of study,” continued the older clergyman, “outside of his seminary concerns, is Old Norse.”

  “The Vinland Saga!” declared Mister Walton. The thought obviously pleased and excited him, and Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were accordingly fascinated, though they were not sure yet about what.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Frederick with a smile. He could not hide his delight in knowing a fellow enthusiast.

  “And you have found proof of Viking presence in the New World?” wondered Mister Walton.

  “I have been called on several times to identify an artifact or to translate supposed runes.”

  “You are the expert then.”

  “I am the ‘great disprover,’ Mister Walton,” said Frederick, with his distaste for this self-imposed title showing clear upon his face.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “For myself, the Vinland Saga is proof enough-its descriptions of geography, of nature, of the native peoples.”

  “Skraelings, they called the people,” said Mister Walton, refreshing his own memory.

  Frederick nodded. “But it is important that I be harder on the evidence than anyone, if you understand.”

  “Of course. There are those waiting to ridicule any claim.”

  “You understand the problem then and the delicacy with which I must approa
ch any possible evidence.” Frederick sighed a little, for it was a subject of some dearness to him. “If there is any question-and so far there has always been, at the very least, a question-but any question at all, I must say no.”

  “It isn’t easy for him, is it, dear?” said Isabelle, and there was a very real sympathy (and again, a little trouble, thought Sundry) beneath her soft smile.

  “So you are going to Skowhegan,” said Mister Walton, who himself sensed more to this story than was readily told.

  “We will make a short stop at Augusta,” said Frederick, “where the man who found the artifact has photographs of it. He discovered it in the woods near Skowhegan last summer but only recently got around to finding out who might tell him something about it. The artifact is too large to remove from the site, and he has no desire to return to the place where he found it while snow is on the ground. There is, as it turns out, some urgency to my mission, and I wish I had another contact in Skowhegan. Maps and directions are all very good, but it is better to have someone who knows the territory and whom you can trust.”

  “I know someone in Skowhegan!” said Mister Walton. “Someone who certainly knows the woods nearabouts, for he is a great hunter and fisherman.”

  Frederick Covington’s expression brightened with this declaration. “Would he have any interest in such a harebrained business?” he wondered.

  “I wager he would,” said Mister Walton, amused by the clergyman’s phraseology, “once it was properly explained. I could write a letter of introduction, or”-and here Mister Walton’s own aspect glowed with sudden inspiration-“or we could go with you!”

  “What a capital idea!” declared Mr. Seacost. “Frederick, you would have the benefit of two experienced adventurers, I promise you.”