“No doubt avoiding that man’s speech,” said Louise.
“Beg your pardon?” asked Jason. He followed the tines of Louise’s fork where she indicated, and added, “Oh.”
Nils Bergstrom had arrived. He wore a light summer jacket and a hunting cap, and he’d climbed onto a table in the middle of the crowd. He wavered on his feet, and Louise commented disapprovingly: “He looks drunk.”
Bergstrom might have been drunk, but if so, he wasn’t drunk in the way that Jason understood a man could get: first too familiar, filled with great love, which could change in an instant to a fountain of murderous rage. Bergstrom seemed to move too easily, his arms swung too slowly.
If he spoke, Jason might have been able to tell from that. For drunk men in Jason’s experience couldn’t quite say anything without stumbling and slurring. But it wasn’t speech that came from Nils Bergstrom’s open mouth.
“Is he whistling?” whispered Louise, and Jason shook his head.
“Mouth’s wide open. Maybe it’s some of those folk.”
Jason pointed now, at a couple of men at a table nearer Bergstrom, who were standing up now and swaying as well. Jason could hear the tuneless whistling and soon placed it. His eyes flickered shut, and he stood in the quarantine, before a great pair of barn-board doors—doors that were shut for now, but from which a terrible light might emerge… .
The whistling stopped.
“Is that your aunt?” said Louise, and Jason opened his eyes.
“It is,” he said.
Germaine Frost took Bergstrom by the arm, and helped him down from the table. Bergstrom shook his head as she patted his shoulder, and led him back toward the house.
“It would seem that she saved the day,” said Louise.
With shaking hand, Jason lifted his fork and dug into his mashed potatoes. They were like paste in his mouth, but he made himself swallow them. A fellow could see spectres in all sorts of places, even hear them, in a woodsman’s whistle.
“Why don’t you tell me about the Harpers?” he said finally, and Louise laughed.
“What an excellent idea,” she said.
“Well,” said Ruth Harper some time later. “Aren’t you two a pair?”
Jason looked up. Ruth stood behind and between the two of them. She held a dark wooden box under one arm and rested her other hand on Louise’s shoulder. Louise started at her school friend’s touch, like she’d been accused of something.
“Oh yes,” said Jason. “I have been learning all sorts of things about the Harpers from Miss Butler.”
“Have you now?” Ruth gave Louise a light slap on her shoulder. Jason winked at Louise—shocking her, and shocking himself a little bit. Seeing Dr. Bergstrom finally, in full inebriation seemed to have stoked Jason’s confidence. Maybe past what was reasonable.
If that were so, Jason had no problem with it. A few minutes ago, as the table was clearing and the other guests went off to join games that Mr. Harper had organized nearby, the notion had alighted on Jason: he was taking pleasure at the picnic. His aunt, the doctor—his dead mama’s ghost—the horror in the quarantine—all of that was tucked away. This was more pleasure than he had ever expected to see.
“For instance,” said Jason, but before he could continue Ruth interrupted.
“You can tell me everything another time,” she said. “For now—I’ve something I want to show you. Come.”
Jason stood up, but when Louise tried to stand, Ruth gently pushed her back down. “I think you have had enough excitement for today. Jason—come with me. We shall have a walk in the orchard. Would you carry this?” She handed Jason the box, and he took it. It was heavy—Jason guessed whatever was inside was made of iron. But he could not tell what it was.
He hefted the box under his arm, tipped his cap to Miss Louise Butler, and followed Ruth Harper through the crowd. He was grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care and figured he couldn’t do anything about it if he did. That grin stayed with him—when they ducked through a group of workers to avoid drawing Mr. Harper’s attention; when they hurried past the horseshoe spike and down a row of blossoming apple trees, over another rise and to a quiet place beyond.
It stayed on him right up until the moment that he opened the box, and found the gleaming silver Colt six-shooter nestled there, resting up in its blood-red bed of velvet.
20 - The Secret Terror
“No one knows,” said Ruth Harper, rocking from one foot to the other and grinning madly in the dappled sunlight of the orchard. “Not even Louise. Especially not Louise. I purchased it in Chicago—it belonged to Calamity Jane!”
Jason held the gun in two hands. It was a Colt Single Action Army revolver, and although it was nickel-plated with a fine walnut grip, it showed its age. The barrel was nicked in two places and the finish on the wood was worn where the heel of a hand would touch. Jason flicked the magazine open and sighed. At least it wasn’t loaded.
“The ammunition is in a little compartment in the box,” said Ruth.
Jason flicked it closed and held it at his side, pointed to ground. “How much did you pay?”
“Twenty-nine dollars,” said Ruth.
“That seems dear.”
“I know,” said Ruth. “But it came with the box—and a certificate.”
“Have you fired it?”
“No.”
“That’s one reason nobody knows you got one, I guess. These things make a racket.”
“Like thunderclaps,” said Ruth.
“Although it looks like you could,” said Jason, sighting along the barrel. “Gun’s old, but it’s been cared for.”
“Would you like to?”
Jason looked up. Ruth had moved off to the base of an apple tree. It was too early in the season for apples to grow, but she must have had one in her pantaloons, because she was buffing it on her shirt now. She stood straight against the tree, and put the apple on her head so that it balanced.
“The bullets are in the box. A compartment near the hinge,” she said.
Jason gawked.
“Oh come along,” said Ruth, rolling her eyes in such exasperation that the apple nearly fell. “You can deny all you like. But I see how you handle that iron.”
“Iron?”
“Gun,” she said, and took the apple from her head. “It’s quite clear to me that you are simply being obstinate.”
“Obstinate, huh?” Jason let the gun dangle at his side.
“Obstinate. As Jack Thistledown’s true-born son, you should have no difficulty shooting the apple from the top of my head,” she said, and made her finger into that pantomime of a pistol again, pointed it at the apple in her other hand, and bent her wrist like she fired it. “You’ve got shooting in your blood. It is a eugenical fact.”
Jason looked at her. He drew a breath and counted a few before talking.
“First thing,” he said, “I have not shot one of these before. I’ve seen them. And I’ve seen them shot. So the one eugenical fact is this: if I tried to shoot the apple from your head, more than likely I’d shoot the eye from your socket. Then you’d be dead and I’d be in dutch.” Jason flipped the gun around in his hand so he gripped it around the barrel and the magazine, and presented the grip to Ruth. “This is a fine enough ‘iron’ you bought yourself—though I don’t guess it came from Calamity Jane or anyone else famous. You got the certificate?”
Ruth took the gun. “In my room.” She said it sullenly. “You know, everyone is convinced that your father was Jack Thistledown.”
She whirled then, raised her arm and pointed the gun at Jason.
“Ha!” she said. “See? Your nerves are steel. You did not even flinch!”