Authors: Anne Carlisle
As we approached the rendezvous spot in grandfather's gig, I said to Horatio, “Tell it back to me, Dode. It is very important you do exactly as I say.”
“
I am to leave you off on that walking path so you can meet up with a friend who is going to drive you to Casper tonight. I am not to follow, only wait. If anyone comes by, I am to say my horse threw a shoe, and I am waiting on a friend to get me to the Hat.”
“
Good. What else?”
“
I am to listen for a signal. If I hear a whistle, then I am to leave the gig where it is and walk back to Mill’s Creek. You and your friend will transfer your belongings and then you will be safely on your way. I can come back and get the gig before the captain gets up in the morning. But, if I don’t hear a whistle, that means the plan has changed, and I am to wait here for you, even if it takes you all night to come down the hill.”
“
You are a quick study, Dode. It is perfect, word for word.”
Horatio
said there was something he needed to tell me about, but I said there was no time. “But miss—” he began.
“I don’t want to hear another word. I am entitled to spend a few days shopping in Casper with a girlfriend, am I not? Besides, I have grown sick of having only male company, day after day.”
He looked so crestfalle
n, I immediately regretted my cruel joke. I ruffled his mop of carroty hair.
“
I was kidding, Dode. You have been such a good friend, the best, and I don’t know what I would have done without you. Are you still with me, my brave knight? Will you do exactly as I have asked you?”
“
Always, Miss.”
I swung down
from the gig. With Horatio watching, I walked up the path and then went into a dip in the hillside that created the hidden grove. It was impossible to be seen either from on high or from the valley. Until this point, I had felt confident I knew what I was doing. Now my gut feeling told me that something dangerous was hovering, an evil force just waiting to come down upon me with full force.
For the first time since I heard Drake's signal, I had a serious doubt. Had I been wise to include my former lover in my plan for escape?
F
ive minutes after Cassandra disappeared into the lovers' grove on Hatter's Field, Horatio heard someone else coming along the road. Shortly thereafter, Caleb Scattergood pulled up beside him in his van.
“
Good evening, sir,” said Horatio politely.
“
Why, if it isn’t Admiral Nelson,” responded Caleb jovially. “What brings you out on a night like this?”
“
First Fire Night,” he said. “Horse threw a shoe. Luckily, a friend was to meet me here tonight before going to the Hat. He should be along shortly.”
“
Kinda late for that, isn't it? Quite a load you have in there,” said Caleb, surveying the trunks in the gig with curiosity.
“
Uh huh.”
“
Well, I don’t suppose you have seen anyone go into the grove by the old well-house, have you?”
“
Me? No, sir!”
“
I have a friend, too, I am supposed to meet him up there.”
“
Well, I wouldn’t go up there, if I was you, sir.”
“
Really? And why is that?”
“
Well, it is like this, sir. I heard tell there is a ghost lurking around the Hat, a bad one, all covered in black blood. Thomas Hawker told me all about it.”
“
Well, thanks for the tip, Admiral. I’ll be sure to be on the lookout.”
Whistling, Caleb clucked at this horses and
moved his van up the hill beyond where Horatio’s gig was. He jumped down off the van and disappeared into the same hole that Cassandra had gone into, much like the White Rabbit in pursuit of Alice.
Hora
tio was biting his nails. No such eventuality as this had been covered in Miss Cassandra’s instructions. Every time he came up this way, he got into trouble by running into this same cheerful man. What a nuisance, and yet Horatio admired the ice man mightily. In the space of only one year, he had become a district success story. He would hope to follow such a model in his own life.
Caleb found his way into the lovers’ grove unobserved. As in the past, he hid himself behind the well-house. Before five minutes elapsed, he saw Drake’s carriage slowly pass along the higher road. Minutes later, Drake himself appeared on foot in the clearing.
While Caleb watched from his hiding place, Drake took a manly stance in the middle of the clearing, arms crossed over
his breast like Napoleon Bonaparte.
The cad
was preening, but for whom? Caleb thought he knew. Sure enough, arising from the holly bushes like Venus from sea foam was the tall form of Cassandra, draped in muted traveling clothes.
She called out softly.
“I am here.”
“
Over here, Cassandra” Drake responded.
They walked toward each other slowly, meeting in a spot where the full moon created a luridly lit stage.
The wind was so strong they were both swaying and struggling to stand.
“
Darling!” he said, extending his arms.
Instantly Cassandra shied away.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“
Please, Curly,” she said in a hurried, but firm tone, “I’m not your darling or your sweetheart. I beg of you, don’t construe this as anything other than what it is, my escape from here, and mine alone.”
“
Don’t our past love mean anything to you?”
The thunder was rolling in waves
across the mountainside, drowning his voice.
“
What?” she called out over the booming sounds.
“
DON'T OUR PAST LOVE MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU?” he bellowed.
There was a sudden stil
lness, so his words rang out loudly. Caleb could hear him from the well-house, as could Horatio on the road below.
Horatio was
thinking he would not wait much longer, no matter what his mistress had told him. If he did not hear a whistle very soon, he would go to her rescue.
Caleb was thinking
of Clare and her baby, whose future happiness now seemed to depend once more on Cassandra's willingness to do the right thing. He shook his head in dismay and wished he had gunned down Drake months ago.
Cassandra was struggling to kee
p her composure and a hold on her plumed, black velvet hat against the crushing wind.
“
Your help with no strings attached,” she cried, “is what I am counting on! Nothing was promised on my side!”
The wind was so strong it was impossible for her to keep a steady stance and stare into his eyes long enough to power him into the proper frame of mind.
“Come, dear, my carriage is just up the hill. Let’s fly away.”
His last words went unheard, as the thunder boomed loudly in quick succession.
“I’ve brought two trunks,” she shouted at Drake over the noise, “in the gig down below. Will you go down with me, after I signal the boy to leave?”
He shrugged, having heard only a few words.
She tried to whistle to Horatio, but the wind was too strong.
The
powerful wind, coming up again suddenly, smashed directly at Cassandra and lifted her off her feet. She grasped her traveling cloak more closely around her.
There was a terrible
c-c-r-r-r-a-a-c-c-k-k-k
of thunder and the grove immediately lit up with bolts of blue lightning, as though St. Elmo himself was staging the show. The lightning crackled and spit, humming like a live wire and spinning through the air, aiming 50,000 volts directly at the two people standing in the grove.
Cassandra instinctively flashed her fingers, made a fist, flashed them again, and disappeared.
W
ith a look of amazed surprise upon his face, Curly Drake fell down backwards, dead as a stone.
As the thunder receded, the lightning
diminished to a flickering in the east. Caleb crept out from his hiding place. He saw Drake on the ground and Cassandra standing over him, white in the face and motionless as a statue. Cassandra's wet traveling cloak gave off puffs of vapor.
Approaching cautious
ly, Caleb was startled by something else he saw. Cassandra's hood had fallen off and her red-gold hair was streaming down in a loose coil. Along the part in her hair, there was a white streak. It had the jagged shape of a lightning bolt; he knew for a fact it had not been there before.
Coming up beside Cass
andra, Caleb pulled her hood back on and held her by her shoulders. She was speechless and shuddering uncontrollably, in shock.
“
Let me help you, Miss Cassandra,” he said. “I will drive you to Casper in my van, if that is your wish. We will move your trunks into it now. I have money with me, enough to get you to where you are going. You are welcome to it. All I ask is that no one besides us here tonight ever knows Drake's involvement in what was planned.”
“
Why should you do that?” Cassandra said wonderingly.
“
Because we humans all need help from each other from time to time. But he—” he gestured toward the corpse on the ground, “—is beyond our help and our judgments now. God have mercy on him. Come with me, dear.”
He led Cassandra down to where Horatio was waiting. She stood there numbly as the man and the boy quickly loaded her belongings into the ice man’s van. Horatio was given
strict instructions to rouse the coroner from his bed and return to the scene with him.
The tall lad
left with a lingering look backward at his lady love, wondering if he would ever see her again.
Cassandra turned her large, dazed eyes at Caleb as he prepared to go.
“I am sorry to leave you alone,” he said to her. “But I must go to Mrs. Drake and tell her what has befallen her husband. I'll be circumspect, you can count on that. Wait here in my van. I’ll be back within the hour. You may then direct me as you will.”
“
I understand. Please make sure Clare is all right, then return as quickly as you can.”
The smell of ozone
hung heavily in the air from the fatal lightning strike. Several nearby trees had also been knocked down, but the vehicles and horses were unharmed.
Caleb made a bed for Cassandra in his van, much as he had done for Clare
in a smaller vehicle on the road from Corinthus, exactly one year ago. Shuddering, Cassandra lay down in the warm bedding provided. She was suffering from the onset of shock, but her strong constitution was already rebounding.
After she was settled,
Caleb unhitched a horse and trotted toward the inn.
The
meeting with Clare at the Plush Horse was mercifully brief. She fainted straightaway. Caleb was loath to leave Clare's side, but having given his word to Cassandra, as soon as Clare had revived, he left her in Diane's capable hands.
When he returned to the Hat, he saw the corpse was still there, awaiting the coroner's arrival. He shook his head, then looked into the van, where Cassandra was still sitting up, in the same position he had left her. She signaled her readiness to depart. He re-hitched his horse to the wagon, which carried both Cassandra and her worldly goods.
Soon they were beyond Alta, flying southwest along the road that began at Hatter's Field. In the dust of their departure lay the town, some natives keeping vigil through the night while one of their sons—although not a native—lay in his front parlor with the Angel of Death as his fair companion in escape.
Except the dead man, nobody would have any rest
that night. The neighbors were pouring into the saloon, settling in for the wake, as the news whipped around town about the lightning strike out on Hatter's Field and the innkeeper's death. Mayor Hawker solemnly greeted mourners at the door of the inn, taking on the role of mourner-in-chief.
No on
e knew Cassandra had been at the Hat with Drake except for Horatio and Caleb, and only Caleb knew the full story.
When Cassandra
turned up missing the next day, Widow Brown proclaimed Satan's whore had vanished into thin air after killing both her mother-in-law and her lover.
The village was supposedly clean again, now the accursed
witch was driven out. When Widow Brown stood up in church and made her claims of a supernatural victory over evil, no one dared contradict her. Nicholas Brighton and Captain Vye no longer went to church, and there was no one to defend Cassandra's reputation among the fearful flock.
Clearly I was damned. As we sped toward Casper, my thoughts turned to the afterlife, where my lover now rode his black horse into an eternal sunset.
When it was my time to depart the earth, would I see Curly again? Or would I encounter in Heaven a closed door, like the one Widow Brighton had met at my cabin? That, I supposed, would be a Christian's interpretation of a siren's rightful fate in the hereafter
.