Must the Maiden Die (21 page)

At last, with noisy flapping wings, the crow
hopped up onto the barrel. It perched there, and began pecking at
the barrel's closed lid with its stout black bill, all the while
making harsh cawing sounds. When she took a few steps forward,
the crow flapped to the ground and again stood as if waiting. The
girl lifted the lid and found the barrel more than half-filled with
dried corn. She scooped up some kernels to scatter on the ground,
but since the bird seemed so fearless, she slowly bent down and
opened her hand.

The crow, with no hesitation, hopped forward
to pick each kernel from her palm. When her hand was empty, the
bird lifted on its shining wings and was gone. But it came back
again and again. The man Gerard must have fed the crow, she had
thought, else how could it have known where the corn was stored,
and have been so trusting as to eat from her hand? And the dog had
paid the bird no mind, because he must have come to expect it.

Now, after the crow had spread its
wedge-shaped tail and iridescent purple-black wings to again take
to the sky, the girl picked up the tin cup of spicy, boiled
sassafras tea she had made from dried bark. She had found the bark
stored in a jar on a shelf in the cabin, along with clusters of
arrow leaf tubers that grew at the edge of marshlands. After she
had fried the tubers over the man Gerard's fire pit, she had
covered them with the lid of a tin pot to smother the smell—the
potato-like smell that made her think of the kitchen where she had
worked. The kitchen and the room across from it where she had
slept. The thoughts brought back the half-formed memory of a
knife's bone handle held in shadowy darkness. Was it from the knife
blade that the blood on her hands had come?

She shook her head, trying to remove the
memory. The dog stared up at her; then, as if he knew she was
afraid, scrambled to his feet to put his muzzle in her lap. When
she bent down to press her forehead against his, she wished that
she could tell the dog how grateful she was for his nearness and
for the watch he kept. He could not guard against memories, but
there were other dangers.

Sometime earlier, when the rain had first
begun to slack some, she had left the cabin and dug mud worms to
bait the hook of a fishing pole she found propped against a cabin
wall. Then she had carried the pole and a tin pail to the edge of
the marsh. In a short time she had hooked a dozen small bluegills.
On the way back to the cabin, the dog suddenly stopped dead in his
tracks.

The ruff on his neck rose. She heard a faint
buzzing sound, but before she could see what was making it, the dog
jumped in front of her and, barking sharply, began lunging at
something in the marsh weeds. A moment later a rattlesnake, big
around as her ankle, slithered off into the tall grasses. The dog
chased it a short distance. When he must have judged the snake to
be no further threat, he came trotting back to her with his
feathered tail switching back and forth.

She had knelt down to bury her face in his ruff,
wanting to tell him what a fine dog he was, but the words would not
come out. They could not get past her throat that felt as if it
were packed with moist wool. The feeling had been there for a long
time. She knew it was there so that she would not speak.

Never talk of this. Never speak of it, or
great harm will come to you
.

She had wrapped her arms tightly around
herself, trying to shut out the voice.
Never talk... never
speak. ..

Now the dog gave a high-pitched bark and
went dashing to the water's edge, his tail sweeping behind him like
wind that made the tall grass flatten. A canoe had appeared, making
its way across silver-streaked water toward the girl and the
dog.

The man Gerard pulled the canoe up on land
and stowed the paddle, and all the while the dog jumped around him,
barking joyously. The girl, standing apart from them, watched as
the man stopped to stroke the dog's head, saying, "Yes, Keeper, I'm
back now. It's all right, boy."

She thought she should try not to fear this
man. He had not hurt her when he could have. He had helped her when
he didn't have to. Not all men were dangerous, she knew that. One
man had already taught her that some men did not have to be feared.
And this man Gerard, who treated his dog with respect and taught a
wild bird to trust him, might be safe for her to trust.

But when he came toward her, a newspaper
tucked under his arm, she took a step back. He stopped, and said,
"Were you all right here?"

His eyes did not look fierce now, but he
wore an expression that she did not understand. He stood very
still, looking at her, and she saw something sorrowful come into
his face. It made her less afraid. And he said again, "Were you all
right?"

She would try to trust him. She looked at
the dog, and then she nodded.

He nodded back at her, then sniffed the air
and turned toward the fire pit. "Something smells good. The arrow
leaf tubers—did you cook them?"

She pointed at the covered pan beside the
pail of cleaned bluegills ready to be fried.

"You waited for me to come back?" he asked.
"Haven't you eaten anything at all?"

She went to the corn barrel, lifted the lid,
and pointed to the sky. And then he smiled at her. His smile made
her feel like the crow must when it lifted on its shining wings,
and she wanted to trust Gerard.

"So Crow was here," he said, still smiling.
"The little beggar. But I hope you had more to eat than dried
corn."

She went to the fire pit, and with a stick
of green wood she stirred the coals until they glowed. The fish
would fry quickly.

***

They ate sitting on the birch log, now and then
feeding pieces of fish to Keeper, and tossing kernels of corn to
keep Crow at bay. When they had finished, Gerard said to her, "I
found out some things in Seneca Falls today. Your name is Tamar,
isn't it? Tamar Jager."

She inched farther away from him.

"Why does that upset you—my knowing your
name?"

She wasn't sure she knew why.

"The newspaper says that you were indentured
to the Brant family—the Roland Brant family. Is that true?"

She started to get up from the log, but he
reached out and took gentle hold of her arm. "You don't have to be
frightened of me," he said. "You know that, don't you?" He let go
of her arm then.

She thought about the dog and the crow, and
she sat down.

"The paper says that the Seneca Falls
constable is searching for you. Did you know that?"

She looked at him and shook her head,
reaching for the paper. He held it away from her, saying, "You can
read?"

When she nodded, he said, "You'll have the
paper in a minute. But first, I want to ask you something. And no
matter what you answer, it will be all right, just as long as it's
true. I need the truth, so I can help you. Do you understand?"

What truth did he need and why should he
help her? But she nodded at him, so he would know she understood
about telling the truth. It seemed important to him, so she looked
straight at him and nodded again.

He watched her closely as he said, "The
night before last, someone killed Roland Brant. I need to know if
it was you who did it."

The ground under her feet suddenly seemed to
be churning, throwing up small black specks that swam before her
eyes, and the moist wool in her throat was growing so big that she
couldn't breathe. Her fingers clawed at the log she sat on, and she
started to fall forward.

Gerard caught her shoulders and pulled her
back onto the log. After that he got into a crouch in front of her.
"Tamar, I don't care if you killed Brant. I just wanted the truth.
But you didn't even know he was dead, did you?"

Shaking her head back and forth, her hair
whipping across his face, she grabbed her throat with both hands,
pulling at her skin so there would be room for air.

Gerard took her hands from her throat and
held them in his, saying, "Don't be afraid. It's all right." He
reached out and stroked her hair as he had stroked the head of the
dog. He kept saying it was all right, but how could it be? The man
Brant was dead.

"It's damp out here," Gerard said at last,
"and you're shivering. We'll go inside and I'll make a fire in the
wood-stove. Then I'll tell you about Roland Brant."

He pulled her to her feet and led her toward
the cabin. The dog bounded ahead of them, still happy, still
trusting the man.

It seemed strange to her that once inside
the cabin she had felt safer. And she was warm again. Gerard had
wrapped a blanket around her and fired the woodstove, and they sat
on a wooden bench in front of it. He had handed her the newspaper,
then lit an oil lamp so that she could see to read.

Now, as she gave the paper back to him, she
was afraid again. She must have shown it, because he took the paper
away and said, "I don't think you killed Brant, Tamar. If only
because you looked so stricken when I told you. But something
happened to make you run away. That's what you were doing, wasn't
it, when I found you last night? Running away?"

She didn't know, and when she tried to
remember, all that came to her was the darkness and the knife. The
newspaper said that Roland Brant had been stabbed. Did she only
dream his death—or had she actually stabbed him? She put her hand
to her throat, wishing she could describe these questions to
Gerard. She tried to tell him with her eyes, but she knew that he
couldn't understand.

"There were hoof prints on the earth when I
found you, near where you were lying," he was saying. "Were you on
a horse?"

She nodded. She had been on a horse, but
couldn't remember why. She gazed down at her hands, afraid that the
blood might appear again, then looked up at Gerard.

He got to his feet and went to take down the
guitar she had earlier seen hanging on the wall. She had heard a
guitar played before, and it had seemed like magic—the music that
suddenly came from strings that had been silent until someone's
fingers made them sing.

Gerard played the guitar with the dog Keeper
lying at his feet. The music was soft and it made her feel quiet
inside, as if she were asleep but could still hear it. And she
tried not to think about remembering.

She didn't want him to stop playing, but he
stood the guitar against the bench, and then he asked her, "Do you
feel safer now?"

She nodded.

"Good," he said, going to stand in front of
the stove, "because I want to tell you a story."

Her eyes went to the books on the shelves, but he
said, "No, this is a real life story. About a man who worked hard
all his life. The man had a wife and a son, and he took care of
them—by making the things that make music."

Gerard smiled then, but she thought his eyes
looked sad.

"The man built string instruments," he went
on. "He made that guitar I just played. And he built banjos and
dulcimers and even harpsichords. Do you know what they are?"

She knew. There was a harpsichord in the
music room of—but she didn't want to think about the house. She
nodded so Gerard would tell her more.

"This man had a factory where he made the
instruments. It stood down along the canal in Seneca Falls. One
day, about six months ago, this man discovered the mortgage loan he
had obtained from the bank—a loan to build the factory—had been
sold by the bank to another man. And this second man wanted the
factory for himself. He told the first man to pay him the money
that was due, or he would take possession of the building. The man
who made instruments didn't have enough money to do that. He'd
fallen a month behind in the payments because his wife was sick,
and he had needed the money to pay for her treatment and medicine.
He told the other man about this, but the man said, 'That's just
too damn bad!'"

The girl was watching Gerard, and she saw
his eyes begin to glisten. She had never seen a man close to tears,
and it made her own eyes fill. She thought she knew who the first
man was, since Gerard had his guitar. He must have seen that she
knew, because he came and sat down beside her on the bench.

"So my father lost his factory," he said,
"and then he couldn't work. And my mother, without money for
medicine, died shortly after that. I wasn't here. I had a
scholarship to a university in Ohio and I was there. I didn't know
anything until a telegram came, telling me that both my parents
were dead. On the night my mother died, my father shot
himself."

Tamar felt tears washing down her face. She
wished she could say something to Gerard, but all she could do was
put her hand beside his on the bench. He picked up her hand and
held it, and even though her heart was hurting for him, she felt
like the bird lifting into the sky.

Gerard put down her hand when he got to his
feet and went to stand by the stove. "I didn't go back to the
university," he said, and now his voice sounded more angry than
sad. "I live out here, alone, because I've been afraid that
otherwise I might kill someone before I was ready to do it—the man
who took my father's factory and his life. Do you know who that man
was, Tamar?"

She felt herself go cold with fear.

Gerard's voice was tight and his eyes fierce
again when he said, "It was Roland Brant."

He impaired his vision by holding the object
too close [said Dupin]. He might see, perhaps, one or two points
with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight
of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too
profound.

—Edgar Allan Poe,
"The Murders in the Rue
Morgue."
1841

Glynis perched on the edge of her four-poster bed,
once more reading the note which had been left on her night table.
What was she to tell her sister Gwen? That question disturbed her
almost as much as the note's contents. She had already been
sufficiently disturbed that day by the various disclosures at the
Brant house.