Authors: Thomas Cater
“Violet, this is Charles Case; he’s buying the Ryder
house.”
She offered a hand, lightly scented with flour and
salt, a touch of hand cream and dish soap, very fragrant overall. She was
attractive, but the look on her face suggested she was coming unraveled by the
monotony of homemaking, which weighed heavily on her.
“So what do you think of the Ryder mausoleum?” she
asked, giving my wardrobe a casual but curious glance.
“It’s a fine house…tomb,” I replied.
“It is that,” she said. “Did you go in?” she asked,
hopefully, as if one incident might break the chain of strange events
surrounding the place.
“No, I didn’t,” I said.
“What stopped you?” she asked in a way that encouraged
what I suspected to be a challenge.
“He cut his ear,” Virgil said.
She tried to wound him with one of the sabers flashing
in her eyes.
“Is it serious?” she asked, holding a verbal blade to
his throat.
“No,” I said, “I may have snagged it on a thorn.”
“Good,” she said, sheathing her weapon in a smile.
Virgil shuffled quietly out of the kitchen into the
dining room and returned with a newspaper. Violet’s eyes and attention shifted.
“You must tell me everything that happened, Mr. Case,”
she said, while laying a plate and silverware at the child-abandoned table, “Every
exciting detail. I’m a collector of bits and pieces of arcana about the Ryders.
My mother was acquainted with Elinore and her father did business with Samuel
Ryder. He was reputed to be a powerful man, but he didn’t spend much time at
the house on Scary Creek. He spent most of his time in Washington DC.”
“Is your mother still alive, Mrs. Stamper?” I asked.
“Very much so, Mr. Case, but please, call me Violet
and I’ll call you Charles,” she said.
“I will, and I hope I’ll have a chance to meet your
mother. I’m anxious to find out all I can about the Ryder House.”
“So you do intend to buy it?” She asked.
“Yes,” I replied relieved.
“I never thought I’d see the day anyone but a Ryder
would live in that house,” she said, removing a bowl of steaming vegetables
from the range.
“Are there anymore Ryders left?” I asked.
She shook her head and lowered her eyes.
“They’re all dead and presumably buried,” she said, while
tossing some life into a slightly wilted green salad.
“Not on the property, I hope,” I joked cryptically.
She smiled a little too expansively, as if she were
testing my equilibrium.
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s where most of them are,” she
said, “just beyond the house. The family plot is a little overgrown right now,
but I think you can still see it; it has a wall around it.”
“Like the wall surrounding the house?” I asked fearing
even more complications.
“Yes,” she said, “but it’s much smaller, only two or
three feet high.”
I stared curiously at Virgil. Violet intercepted the
communication.
“What’s going on? You two are not telling me
everything,” she said.
“It’s the wall, Violet,” Virgil
replied
. “For
some reason, it’s come up several times in the conversation today. Do you know
anything about it?”
She deliberated for a moment; a knife poised over a
well-done rump roast, and then motioned me toward the table.
“I don’t know when it was built, but sections of it
have always been there. When they renovated the state hospital, they also
repaired the wall. Elinore’s father was the superintendent at the time. Later,
he became chairman of the board.”
I could no longer restrain myself. “He was the
superintendent of the mental hospital?”
“Yes,” she replied, “is that important?”
She sat at the opposite end of the table, picked up a
fork and made a motion for all to eat.
“He wasn’t a stockholder in the old bank, was he?” I
asked, making short work of the beef.
Her eyes studied the texture of the potatoes, dismissed
the occasional lump and cold spot, and replied, “Yes, I think he was.”
My enthusiasm was now beyond restraint. “Is there a
chance, Violet, you might know the name of the man who built the wall?”
Her lips pursed and her eyes filled with deliberation.
“Fraid not,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Mother might know, but I doubt
it. She’s eighty-five years old and has a hard time with names
, un
less she’s
written them down, which she is always doing. There are notes and memos she’s
written lying all over the house, and she never throws anything away.”
Her eyes brightened. “Written it down! Yes! Why didn’t
I think of it before? There is an old history book at the local library by
Henry Morgan, a descendant of one of the state's first families. It’s one of
those thick privately bound typewritten books with only one copy in existence. He
wrote the book in the early 1940s and mentioned the Ryder family, especially
Elinore.
“She was a very attractive lady when she was young, so
he says, but she went a little crazy as she grew older. I guess it was because
of her eyesight and living out there on Scary Creek. They say her father
rebuilt the wall to keep her in, but I think he built it to keep out others. You
can go to the library tomorrow and look at the book. I’m sure it will help you
in your search for…what is it you’re looking for, Charles?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. Not only did it call
into question my present circumstance, but also the questionable premise of my
life. What was I looking for: a house, a home, an investment, a warm and
friendly place to die, a change of pace, a place to hide, to escape from the
past, the present, the future, others, or me? Was I really looking for
something, or was something looking for me?
“I don’t know how it involves me, but I wouldn’t be
here if it didn’t. After all, whatever is out there, we will be spending the
rest of our lives together.”
I tried to laugh but no one found my explanation even
remotely humorous, and the expression in Virgil’s eyes was not the least bit
sympathetic.
“Are you married, Charles?” Violet asked, as she
carved
the slab of
beef.
“Yes and no,” I said, “I’m being divorced.”
“Do you intend to live in the house after you buy it?”
“Yes, but I plan to travel, too, though I don’t know
where.”
I felt absurd and laughed at myself
again
. Her
manner was unshaken.
“And what do you intend to do for water?”
The question nearly created a vacuum in the room. All
the wisdom of two able-bodied men sucked down and out through the prophetic foresight
of one homemaker.
“I beg your pardon?”
Violet’s gaze traveled back and forth across the
table, as if she could hardly believe the impracticality she was witnessing.
“Virgil, don’t tell me you haven’t told Charles about
the water problem?”
“What water problem?” I asked.
Virgil kept his face and eyes averted toward his plate
while he cleared his throat.
“I did forget to mention one little problem,” he
continued.
“One little problem?” she said with a mocking voice
and smile, while she steered another fork full of mashed potatoes toward her
mouth.
“I guess this is a good time to mention it,” I
replied.
He cleared his throat again and focused his eyes on a
glass of water smudged with children’s greasy fingerprints.
“The water out there is no good,” he said.
An uneasy silence joined us at the table. I could hear
and feel blood pounding in my neck, ears and brain. Violet stopped chewing and
waited for my response.
“Well, can it be fixed?”
Virgil swallowed hard. “It’s been bad a long time.
They tried to fix it once, but no luck.”
“Who tried and how long ago?” I asked.
“The Ryders … and a long time ago.”
“That long?” I asked.
Virgil nodded, shoved a slice of bread into his mouth
and chewed listlessly.
“So what’s wrong with it that it can’t be fixed?” I
asked, trying to avoid an impending hemorrhage.
Violet had endured silence before, but I could see it
was something she did not encourage, so she broke in. “It’s black,” she said,
“and it smells awful!”
The pain traveled deep into the very core of my being.
The house I had just contracted to buy was without water
, and
a man I
believed I could trust had betrayed me, and for what, a lousy
six
percent
commission?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “A creek runs by the
house and there is such an awful lot of land.”
Virgil placed the fork on his plate and wiped gravy
from his lips. The words he was preparing to deliver I hoped would show me how
to eliminate, or at least contend with the problem.
“There have been a dozen wells dug out there,” he
said. “They’re good for a few days, but then they all go bad, black and
smelly.”
“What causes it?” I asked. “Why can’t something be
done?”
“The odor, we think, comes from sulfur in the water. Did
you ever smell rotten eggs? Well, it smells like that only worse. Normally
sulfur water would be good for you, despite the smell, but this stuff is black
and were not sure why. It could have something to do with the coal, but no one
seems to know.”
“What did the Ryders do?” I asked.
“It wasn’t always bad,” he replied. “It happened
later. Most people out there dip water from the creek or buy bottled water.”
“The water in the creek is all right?”
“Good enough,” he said, “if you boil it.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, nursing doubts.
Virgil thought so too. He stopped sucking air through
his teeth.
“These things have a way of reversing themselves,” he
said in his most conciliatory tone. His words, however, came too late to make a
difference.
Violet pushed away from the table. “Let’s have coffee
in the living room,” she said, brushing crumbs from her lap. “I just thought of
something that might interest you, Charles.”
“I don’t know if I can stand any more revelations
tonight,” I said.
“Relax,” she replied. “What I have to say may help.”
I would appreciate a single lumen of light on the
problem. I could not help but wonder about the market for bottled ‘black
water,’ or if it could be used for utilitarian purposes, such as flushing a
commode.
We wandered into the living room amid speculations of
subsidized water and sewer projects materializing in the not too distant future
that would put Elanville back on the economic map and command higher real
estate values.
We settled into padded furniture facing a fireplace
with gas logs that crackled like a real wood fire. Violet poured creamy brandy
and coffee into cups and passed them around. What the fire did for the flesh,
the brandy accomplished for the s
pirit
. She topped her cup off with a squirt of whip cream
from an aerosol can and crawled into the narrow space in Virgil’s chair.
I felt a little envy at the sight of that domestic
scene, but he seemed somewhat reluctant to appreciate it or her. Virgil sipped
his drink. I began to suspect that I had worn my welcome as thin as a pair of
old polyester pants when Violet spoke.
“Do you remember Amy Taylor, the black lady who used
to care for Elinore? She still lives in the alley behind the elementary
school.”
Virgil’s interest had piqued long ago. “I’d forgotten
about her,” he said, sounding very tired.
“So has everyone else,” Violet said, eyebrow arching
in disdain. “Her mother took care of Elinore for a few years, and when she
died, Amy took over. She’s bed-ridden now, but her grandson keeps me posted on
her health.”
“
Do you think
she’s well enough to have visitors?” I asked.
“We can always try,” Violet replied. “She can only say
no.”
Crawling out of her nest, she thumbed through a thin, pint-sized
phone book. “Only one Amy Taylor here,” she said. “It’s got to be her.”
She dialed, got an answer and introduced herself. The
listener was patient, cooperative, politely indulging her every word. He agreed
to a meeting. She laid the phone back in its cradle.
“Your luck has changed, Charles. Her grandson said 'she’s
feeling fine and would enjoy the company'. The Ryders are her favorite topic of
conversation and if we come right away, we might catch her between naps.”
It was no easy task giving up the comfort of the fire
and the brandy to delve more deeply into the cold gray past of the Ryder
family. I felt once more like a warrior summoned to an unpopular battle. To
ensure his commission, Virgil, too, felt an uneasy need to respond. We stirred
half-heartedly into action.