The Siren's Tale (15 page)

“
Nonsense!” said Nicholas. “That is sheer rot!”

Shortly thereafter, Sam, the apprentice
gunsmith, knocked on the door. Sam's head and neck looked as though he had been in a sword fight from the morning’s barbering. “Ma’am, my mother needs some lard for pies she’s making, if you don’t mind obliging us with a cup or two. And I also need a strong rope, the longer the better. I s’pose you have heard what has happened?” 

“
Yes, Sam. Half the town has been here telling us. But what do you need the rope for? I hope Widow Brown's not planning to hang Miss Vye after piercing her,” she said drily.

Nicho
las frowned at his mother. “It is no laughing matter.”

“
Well, no, but more bad luck for her family,” said Sam. “A bucket has got stuck in the well, and Captain Vye is not there. Some of us offered to help out the beauty on the hill, after all she has been through today.”

Sam scratched his head; his expression was puzzled. There was another part to the story he wasn't about to tell anyone. He had felt a strange compulsion to come all the way to the Grange, though other ranches were closer, to seek the items he needed. The thought had taken him over while talking to Cassandra
Vye herself. She had looked him in the eye, and the idea suddenly popped into his head. He had obeyed the compulsion, but now it perplexed him, as he normally found the Widow to be quite terrifying.

Mrs. Brighton
said briskly: “Why Sam, you see more in Miss Vye than most do. From what I have heard, she is much too idle to be considered a beauty. Beauty is as beauty does, and good, useful girls do not get accused as witches, even in Alta.”

“
That proves nothing either way,” said Nicholas.

“
Well, well, I don’t understand such things myself,” said Sam, withdrawing hastily from the debate. “And now I will trouble you for the rope, long and strong as you’ve got. We have three cart-ropes down there already, but they won’t reach to the bottom of that well to get the bucket. We need the longest you can spare.”

“
Help yourself,” said the Widow. “I will go fetch the lard.”

After Mrs. Brighton left the room, Sam said in a whisper to Nicholas:
“Join us if you like, Master Brighton, and you can see the beauty on the hill for yourself.”

Nicholas felt the need for a close friend
, someone he could talk to about his hopes and dreams. Such was his thinking as he made his way to Mill's Creek on Teddy, his horse. He was also wondering whether Sam's “beauty on the hill” would turn out to be the pretty actress he had met backstage on Thanksgiving Day. However, for his tastes, Sam himself was the beauty, with his rippling muscles and plain, honest features.

At the side-e
ntrance gate to Mill's Creek, Nicholas stopped to admire the stone house. He found its rough-hewn lines pleasing to the eye.

He looked over to where half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the mouth of the well, holding the lo
ng rope. It passed over the well-roller into the depths below. With a smaller rope tied around him and made fast to one of the hitching posts, Fairwell leaned over the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope that went into the well. Nicholas stood there for a moment, admiring their rustic physiques; here were the native sons, his people. His heart swelled with pride, while his pants swelled with a call he must ignore in this setting.

“
We got something,” said one of the haulers. 

“
Then pull steady.”

They gathered up more and more, until a dripping into the well could be heard below with the increasing height of the bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled in.  

“We have it only by the edge of the hoop,” cried Fairwell. “Steady, for chrissakes!”

They pulled until the wet bucket appeared about two yards below them, a dead weight. Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz went the wheel, and the two foremost haulers fell backwards, skinning shins and knuckles. The scattered noise of the falling bucket hitting the sides of the well could be heard, until there was a thunderous bang as it hit bottom again.

“Damn that bucket!” said Fairwell. “I am stiff as a bull’s balls from stooping so long.” He stood up and cracked his joints.

“
Rest a few minutes, Harry,” said Nicholas. “I will take your place.” 

The men exchanged
skeptical looks as Nicholas knelt by the well and leaned over the opening. “He will get his fancy shirt dirty,” muttered one, “if he don't fall in.”

“
Oh, please tie a rope round him. It is much too dangerous!” called out a woman's voice from somewhere above them.

All eyes turned upward. Cassandra Vye had been playing her zither at a casement window on the second floor. Her hair was the same blazing color as the sunset. Nicholas shaded his eyes and looked searchingly, but she had already disappeared within.

What a lovely sound
she made on that instrument, he mused, and how thoughtful she was, to be concerned about his safety.

Then
Fairwell roughly shoved Nicholas aside and took back his place.

I came out to view the men's progress with retrieving the water bucket. White grins appeared in all the dirty faces encircled around the well. There was no way for them to know I had scorched the rope with my eyes and made it fall in.

“
Will it be possible to draw water tonight?” I inquired. Meanwhile I was looking at Nicholas, who stood apart from the others and was gazing out into the distance. He was quite a contrast to them with his clean skin, white shirt, and white hat.

“
No, miss,” said Sam. “The bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. We can do no more tonight. We will leave off and come back tomorrow.”

“
Well, good day to you then. I do thank you.”

Truly I was disappointed, having not expected the bucket to be damaged by the rescue efforts
. Now indeed I would have no water, but I quickly devised another plan to keep my target in my sights. I waited until Nicholas Brighton came forward to bid me goodbye.

“
No water after all that,” I murmured, for his ears only.

“
I can send you up some from the Grange,” said my white knight, lifting his hat. “Nicholas Brighton, at your service, Miss Vye.”

We gazed at each other. It was as if a pale sunset had transformed
into blazing noon.

“
Thank you, but that seems like a lot of trouble, Mr. Brighton.”

“
But if you have no water?”

“
Well, it is what I call no water. My grandfather calls it water enough, what we have yonder in the pond. Do you mind taking a look?”

I moved quickly away from the retreating men,
and Nicholas followed me. When I reached a corner of the banked enclosure where there were steps for mounting more easily, I sprang up lightly. Ascending behind me, Nicholas stopped and took note of the large circular burnt patch at the top of the bank overlooking the pond, where the signal fire for Curly had been set.

“
Was there a bonfire here?” he said. 

To distract his attention,
I picked up a small stone and tossed it in the pond. Ker-plunk. “Grandfather says he lived on the sea for twenty years with water twice as bad as this. He considers it quite good enough in an emergency. He didn’t even bother waiting for the bucket brigade to arrive before he went off to Bulette.”

Nicholas
had the pleased look of a man about to educate a useless woman as to the realities of a situation. I smiled naively and came closer, looking up into his hazel eyes. 

“
Well, as a matter of fact, there are no impurities in the ponds this time of year. It has only just rained, and it is too cold to have formed scum. The water is safe to drink.”

“
I am managing to survive in a wilderness, Mr. Brighton, but I simply cannot drink water from a pond.”

He looked toward the well, which w
as now deserted, all the men having departed.  

“
The Grange is a long way to go for a drink of spring water. I’ll try to get you some myself from the well, if you have a pail.” He went back down to the well and called back. “Yes, I think I can get it by tying on this small pail.” 

I walked until I
stood close beside him, my breath falling on his neck. I looked down into the well and murmured, “It is too much trouble.”

“
I don’t mind the trouble at all,” he said. “But I will need your help.”

He fastened the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel, and let the rope
slip through his slim, white hands. Before the pail had gone too far, he checked its downward progress.

“
I must make the other end fast, or we’ll risk losing it all,” he said. “Can you hold this end for a moment—or shall I call your servant?”

I
t was hardly a moment to yield a rope or anything else connected to Nicholas Brighton to someone else. I said, “I can hold it.” 

He placed the rope in my
hands and went to search for the other end.

“
May I let it slip down a bit? It’s very heavy.”

“
It will get much heavier, and you may lose it.”

I
had begun to pay out too much already, as I had my own plan in mind. While he was still tying, I cried out, “I can’t stop it!  Help me!”

Nicholas ran back to my side and attempted to
check the rope’s slide by clumsily twisting the loose part around an upright post. Meantime, I simply willed the pail to halt in its descent. It stopped with a jerk, and he ran to me. 

“
Are you hurt?” he asked anxiously, his eyes dewy with sympathy.

I shrugged. Sirens have a high tolerance for pain, and I felt nothing, but a bloody hand was part of my act to draw in this chivalrous man. I opened my
hands. One was bleeding; the rope had dragged off the upper layer of skin. Nicholas was instantly beside himself with concern.

“
You have hurt yourself. You should have let go. Why didn’t you?”

I wound my hand in my handkerchief. Then I
gazed up into his eyes and delivered my best line. “I was dazed. This is the second time I have been wounded today.”

“
Oh yes, I have heard. I blush for my native town. Was it a serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?”

“Oh please, will you call me Cassandra?”

“Happily, if you will call me Nick. Were you seriously hurt?”

“I suppose my feelings were hurt more than anything else. I felt something sharp pinch the back of my neck. Then I saw Widow Brown standing before me. Her eyes were wild, and she was shouting curses. I screamed and fell down in a faint. That is all I remember until I woke up in Doctor Huddleston’s office.”

What I did not
say was that at the instant the pin pierced my neck, I had another vision of my lover lying dead at my feet. It was that terrible, haunting vision, not the pierce of the hatpin, which had made me faint.

“
Thank God you were not mortally wounded.”

“
The old woman is a menace to society. She and others like her are the ones who should be shunned by the community, along with those who countenance such crimes.”

“
I could not agree with you more.”

There was
an abundance of sympathy in Nicholas’s tone. I drew up my hair and turned my head to the side to let him investigate the puncture wound on my neck.

“
There it is,” I said, putting a finger against the wound. I thought he might kiss it. That was what Curly would have done. Instead, Nicholas continued to harp on the Widow Brown's evil-doing.

“
It was heinous of the woman. Unforgiveable.”

“
I wished the hag dead afterward,” I said frankly.

“
Surely Captain Vye will want to prosecute on your behalf.”

“
He rode over to Bulette to inquire. There are more law abiding folks over there, apparently, than there are in Alta.”

Nicholas seemed abou
t to object, then said nothing.

“
Perhaps I am in the wrong and deserve my terrible reputation,” I said, looking up into his face with swimming eyes. “I must seem strange to a native such as you.”

“
Of course not! And you didn’t wake up until Doctor Huddleston’s? That is a long time to be unconscious.” 

His
sympathy was gratifying, and yet his response was different from what I expected. There was something abstract in his ardent expressions of outrage against my persecutors and concern for my health. His next question was more of the same.

“
Is there anyone you can talk to about it? A friend?”

“
Since I got here I have kept to myself. I suppose I will have to continue to be a hermit. Church is the only place where women are able to gather during the long winter. I do not have a single friend here, as I can't abide superstitious people.”

I gazed at him intently, but his eyes and thoughts had gone elsewhere.

“Superstition is erased by humanistic enlightenment,” said Nicholas, as stiffly as though he were speaking from a textbook. His voice was eager as he added, “I have come home to clear away some of the cobwebs that make the natives blind to the pain of strangers. Would you like to help me? By first-rate teaching, we might benefit them and ultimately everyone who lives here.”

“
I have little love for those here,” I said honestly. “Sometimes I quite hate them.”

“
You have reason to. Still, I think if you heard my educational scheme you might like it. There is no use in hating people. If you hate anything, you should hate ignorance.”

“
I will be glad to hear your ideas at any time, Nicholas.”

The natural thing was for us to part, but still we
lingered.  

“
We have met before, Cassandra.”

“
Really? I do not recall it.”

“
But I may think what I like.”

“
Yes.”

“
I think you are lonely and frustrated here, Cassandra.”

“
You are right. I cannot stand this place except in the summer.”

“
Truly?” he said. “To my mind this is the most exhilarating and strengthening spot in the world. I would rather live here than anywhere else, even in winter.”

I looked
upon the bleak prospect of Alta Mountain and fleetingly attempted to adjust my view to the white knight's. I loved other mountains, those that were pink or green. “It is a fair place for artists, I will admit, but I have never known how to draw. I have other skills.” I was looking up at my bedroom window, where I had left my zither behind.

“
I believe many have been inspired to draw our distinctive landmark out on Hatter’s Field, the Hat we call it. It has magic charms, so the Indians say, like Devil’s Tower. Do you ever go out to see it?”