Frank Tuttle - The Banshee's walk

I wiped fresh blood from my chin and pondered my reply.

I don’t generally like to talk shop with the hired help until I get them all in the same room. That way they hear the same thing, and I eliminate the inevitable wild rumors that fly when private conversations get retold a few dozen times.

I gave Gertriss a sideways glance that I hoped meant here’s an old finder’s trick.

“Too soon for me to have much of a reckoning,” I said, amiably. “But you live there. You see everything, hear everything, know everybody.” I tilted my head just so, furrowed my brow with just the right mixture of interest and concern. “Why not tell me what you reckon is going on?”

Marlo laughed. “Now what makes you think an old dried up road apple sech as me knows anything ’bout the goins’on in that there House?”

“You’ve got a good pair of eyes and a sharp pair of ears. I bet you knew about the stakes on the grounds before the Mistress did.”

That made sense. It would be a gardener or a stable boy or a driver who found the first surveyor’s stake. I doubt Lady Werewilk, or any other Lady, did much traipsing around in the weeds as a part of her daily routine.

Marlo chuckled and turned back toward the road. “It were Skin what found them first stakes,” he said. “Dern fool didn’t know what they was. Brung ’em in for kindling-wood.”

“Skin?”

“He keeps the bees,” said Marlo. “I reckon Skin might be a bit tetched. In the head, you know. But he’s a deft hand with them bees.’

“How long ago did he find the first stakes?”

“Reckon it were the first of the month. Yea, that would be right, it were payday.”

I shot Gertriss a look. Lady Werewilk had put the discovery of the stakes only two weeks past-as usual, the communication between masters and servants was showing a few holes.

Gertriss nodded, understanding.

“How many times since then?”

“Damn near every other day,” grumbled Marlo. “Never in the same place, you understand. Sometimes here, sometimes there. Onced they was right in the middle of Skin’s beehives. I thought he was gonna bust a gut, made him so mad, them messin’ with his bees.”

I nodded, went quiet while Marlo urged his ponies in and out of a ditch with a series of grunts and foot-stomps.

“Lady Werewilk said she’s had people out at night watching the grounds,” I said, once we were back on the road. “Why do you think no one has ever seen the surveyors laying the markers?”

“I reckon they’s awful sneaky,” said Marlo. He spat. “We’s housekeepers n’ cooks and one daft beekeeper. Ain’t a soldier in the lot. No, sir. And this be the Banshee’s Walk.”

Gertriss poked me. I nodded since Marlo couldn’t see. I knew we’d both come to the same conclusion-Lady Werewilk might well have ordered her staff to walk the grounds at night and keep watch, but the only walking they’d likely done was well within their doors, and the only watching they’d done was between naps and from behind their windows.

“I wonder why it’s called that? Banshee’s Walk, I mean. No such thing.” I let the wagon roll over another bone-jarring bump. “Is there?”

Marlo snorted. I watched him look around, watched him gauge the distance between us, the kids and Gefner, who were lagging a good thirty paces behind the wagon and were well out of easy hearing.

“You can think what e’re the Hell you want,” said Marlo. “I know you city folk don’t hold no truth to old stories or old pony-masters. But I’m gonna tell you, you and your lady friend, that there’s more than just big old trees out here in these woods.” He raised his hand in protest, though I’d not said a word. “Now I ain’t sayin’ there’s banshees. I ain’t saying there ain’t, neither. I’m just sayin’ that people ought not to think that everywhere in the world is just like it is back there in that city, ’cause it ain’t.”

“I’ve been a lot of places,” I said, after a moment. “I’ve seen a lot things that people said I wouldn’t see. And one thing I never do is ignore what the people who live in a place say about a place.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.” Marlo gruffed out a laugh to show, I suppose, he meant that as a compliment. “You just remember what ol’ Marlo told ye if you take a notion to go out of doors after dark. Might be more’n wild boars to worry about. Might be worth a damn sight more’n you’re gettin’ paid.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Marlo spat again, feigned a sudden interest in the road ahead.

I got nothing out of the rest of the crew. The skinny kids, Scatter and Lank, were stable boys who tagged along ostensibly to help with bags but were actually out to escape a morning shoveling the stables while sneaking gulps out of the bottle of still-brewed whiskey they utterly failed to hide. The other adult, Gefner, had introduced himself as a carpenter and hadn’t said a word to us since, although he was verbose enough with Scatter and Lank. I caught enough words on shifts of the wind to guess the topic of conversation-women-and gather that Gefner had quite a few opinions on the subject. I hoped Scatter and Lank had better sense than to take Gefner’s words at truth, though I doubted it.

Aside from Marlo’s dire warnings of supernatural ne’r-do-wells in the woods and Gertriss beginning to dab at my wounds with one of my own clean white socks, the ride grew uneventful. An hour passed and I finally settled into a rhythm, swaying and bobbing with the wagon, watching the shadows, seeing them once again begin to tumble and dart and wave.

Gertriss pinched me hard on the side of my leg. Her eyes were wide as saucers.

“What the Hell?” I batted her hand away.

Her eyes weren’t looking at me but out into the leafy murk.

“Mister Markhat,” she whispered. “I saw a woman, up in that tree.”

Marlo heard, turned, his eyes bright and sharp.

“Hush,” he barked. “Missy, you hush, and you hush now, you hear me, or so help me Angels you’ll be a walkin’ all the way to the House.”

“The lady won’t be walking anywhere,” I said. I meant it. “What did you see?”

Gertriss swallowed, stared. “It’s gone.” She swallowed. “I reckon my eyes were playin’ tricks on me.”

Marlo grumbled something. And behind us, the dogs began to bark and snarl, and I heard Scatter, Lank and Gefner break into a sudden determined run.

I whirled, but all I saw were three chagrined looking men being easily outpaced by the dogs, who overtook them and then overtook the wagon and ran quickly out of sight, tails tucked, fur on end, paws flying.

“Anything back there?” I yelled.

“Thought we heard a boar,” said Scatter. His long greasy hair hung down over his face.

“Boar my ass,” began Lank, who caught a boot to his shin by Gefner for his troubles.

“Boar,” said Gefner. “Reckon we’ll stick a might closer.”

Scatter cussed and muttered something uncomplimentary, but didn’t expand on his thoughts at that moment.

And Lady Werewilk would never hear a word of any of this, at least not from her staff. I wondered how many other things she’d not been told. I suspected there were more than a few.

I tried, but couldn’t pry anything else out of them. Gertriss all but moved into my lap. The shadows tumbled and capered, and until I slid my hand in my rucksack and found Toadsticker’s smooth hilt I heard the whispers begin anew.

“I know you think I’m crazy, Mr. Markhat, but I swear that’s what I saw.”

Gertriss spoke in a whisper, but Marlo heard anyway. He might have had something to say in rebuttal, but I decided Toadsticker’s blade needed a bit of polishing and he swallowed his words with a grunt.