The Winter People(4)
Every spring, Martin plowed up enough rocks to build a silo. But it wasn’t only the rocks that came up—he’d found other things, strange things, out in the north field, just below the Devil’s Hand.
Broken teacups and dinner plates. A child’s rag doll. Scraps of cloth. Charred wood. Teeth.
“An old settlement? A dumping ground of some sort?” he’d guessed when he showed Sara the artifacts.
Her eyes darkened, and she shook her head. “Nothing’s ever been out there, Martin.” Then she urged him to bury everything back in the ground. “Don’t plow so close to the Devil’s Hand. Let that back field lie fallow.”
And he did.
Until two months ago, when he found the ring out there, glowing like the halo he sometimes saw around the moon.
It was an odd ring, hand-carved from bone. And old, very old. There were designs scored into it, a strange writing Martin didn’t recognize. But when he held it in his hand, it seemed to speak to him almost, to grow warm and pulsate. Martin took it as a sign that his luck was about to change.
He brought the ring home, cleaned it up, and put it in a little velvet bag. He left it on top of Sara’s pillow on Christmas morning, nearly beside himself with anticipation. There had never been money for a proper gift, a gift she might truly deserve, and he couldn’t wait for her to see the ring. He knew she was going to love it. It was so ornate, so delicate and somehow … magical—a perfect gift for his wife.
Sara’s eyes lit up when she saw the bag, but when she opened it and looked inside, she dropped it instantly, horrified, hands trembling. It was as if he’d given her a severed finger.
“Where did you find it?” she asked.
“At the edge of the field, near the woods. For God’s sake, Sara, what’s the matter?”
“You must take it back and bury it again,” she told him.
“But why?” he asked.
“Promise me you will,” she demanded, placing her hand on his chest, gripping his shirt in her fingers. “Right away.”
She looked so frightened. So strangely desperate.
“I promise,” he said, taking the ring in its bag and slipping it into his trouser pocket.
But he hadn’t buried it. He’d kept it hidden away, his own little good-luck charm.
He stood now, ring carefully tucked into his pocket, and walked over to the window. In the half-light of dawn, he saw it had snowed all night. That meant shoveling and hitching the roller up to the horses to make the driveway passable. If he got that done early enough, he’d get his rifle and go out into the woods to do some hunting—the fresh snow would make tracking easier, and with snow this deep, the deer would head where the woods were thickest. If he couldn’t get a deer, maybe there would be a turkey or grouse. A snowshoe hare, even. He pictured Sara’s face, lit up at the sight of him carrying in fresh meat. She’d give him a kiss, say, “Well done, my love,” then sharpen her best knife and get to work, dancing around the kitchen, humming a tune Martin never could name—something that sounded sad and happy all at once; a song, she’d tell him, that she learned when she was a child.
He shuffled down the narrow stairs to the living room, cleaned out the fireplace, and lit a fire. Then he started one in the kitchen stove, careful not to bang the iron door closed. If Sara heard him, she’d come down. Let her rest, warm and laughing under the covers with little Gertie.
Martin’s stomach clenched with hunger. Dinner last night had been a meager potato stew with a few chunks of rabbit in it. He’d ruined most of the meat with buckshot.
“Couldn’t you have aimed for the head?” Sara had asked.
“Next time, I’ll give you the gun,” he’d told her with a wink. The truth was, she’d always been a better shot. And she had a talent for butchering any animal. With just a few deft strokes of the knife, she peeled the skin away as if slipping off a winter coat. He was clumsy and made a mess of a pelt.
Martin pulled on his wool overcoat and called for the dog, who was curled up on an old quilt in the corner of the kitchen. “Come on, Shep,” he called. “Here, boy.” Shep lifted his great blocky head, gave Martin a puzzled look, then laid it back down. He was getting older and was no longer eager to bound through fresh snow. These days, it seemed the dog only listened to Sara. Shep was just the latest in a line of Sheps, all descended from the original Shep, who had been chief farm dog here when Sara was a girl. The current Shep, like those before him, was a large, rangy dog. Sara said the original Shep’s father had been a wolf, and, to look at him, Martin didn’t doubt it.
Dogless, Martin opened the front door to head for the barn. He’d feed the few animals they had left—two old draft horses, a scrawny dairy cow, the chickens—and collect some eggs for breakfast if there were any to be had. The hens weren’t laying much this time of year.
The sun was just coming up over the hill, and snow fell in great fluffy clumps. He sank into the fresh powder, which came up to his mid-shin, and knew he’d need snowshoes to go into the woods later. He plowed his way through, doing a clumsy shuffle-walk across the yard to the barn, then looped around back to the henhouse. Feeding the chickens was one of his favorite chores of the day—he enjoyed the way they greeted him with clucks and coos, the warmth of the eggs taken from the nest boxes. The chickens gave them so much and asked for so little in return. Gertie had given each bird a name: there was Wilhelmina, Florence the Great, Queen Reddington, and eight others, although Martin had a hard time keeping track of the odd little histories Gertie created for them. They’d had a full dozen before a fox got a hen last month. Back in November, Gertie made little paper hats for all the chickens and brought them their own cake of cornbread. “We’re having a party,” she’d told him and Sara, and they’d watched with delight, laughing as Gertie chased the chickens around trying to keep their hats on.