Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

Ruth listened intently to the little voice that spoke into her ear through the tiny portable telephone box, pressing it with one hand as the other turned the wheel that directed her horseless carriage. Sitting next to her was Phillips, the old jeweller, who wore a look of some distress but did not speak, lest his companion miss a single syllable of the crucial intelligence she was being tendered.

“Twenty minutes at the most,” said Ruth, and then she closed the tiny telephone upon itself and placed it into a recessed tray, which had been moulded between the two front seats of the carriage.

“Angela’s spotted the boy?” asked the old jeweller, his troubled brow overlying a scrutinising gaze. “Is he all right?”

“He’s at the Reptilarium. My guess is that he went there looking for Rugg.”

“Who the hell told him about Rugg?”

“I have no earthly— Look, Newman struck Caldwell. Caldwell was trying to take him away. Newman hit him in the head and got himself free. Of course, Newman Trimmers isn’t the only creature at large at the Reptilarium right now.”

Ruth Wolf pressed her foot upon the board that made the carriage go faster — a great deal faster.

Gus hesitated, even though there was a bit of carpeting under his feet that said, “Welcome.” Yet it would be the first time that he had ever spoken to an Outlander and he wasn’t certain how he should appear to him or her, or even what he would say. There had been a moment perhaps an hour earlier when Gus had come very close to speaking to a different Outlander— one who in great likelihood would have been quite unfriendly to him. The uniformed man was tipped back in a chair and sleeping within a little guardhouse near the gate that admitted and released one from the fenced compound through which Gus had descended the Northern Ridge. There was no lock on the gate and it was easy for Gus to open it and close it quietly behind him, with the man in the guardhouse snoring away undisturbed.

Gus pulled the framed miniature of his son from his knapsack, and even though it had been painted a full two years earlier, it remained a serviceable and most flatteringly remarkable likeness of the boy. Now he held the miniature in one hand and left the other hand free to curl itself into a fist for the purpose of rapping upon this Beyonder’s door.

The house was one of the two buildings that he had seen in the distance from the top of the ridge: a farmhouse. Once he had reached its grounds he could see, as well, the barn, which stood behind it, and the five or six cows that chewed the grass in a small adjoining paddock. Except for the unfamiliar construction of the house (there was a great amount of bright orange brick that gave the dwelling somewhat of a citrus look) and the strange slope of the roof of the barn, this could very well be a Dinglian farmstead, and it was for this reason that he had fixed his courage to approach it first to enquire about his son.

Gus, though set to knock, did not have to, for at that very moment, the inner door creaked open, and there before him stood a woman in perhaps her late sixties. She glared at Gus through the outer door, which was largely constructed of wire mesh. She brandished a small cast-iron skillet — an obviously improvised weapon of defence.

“What do you want?” sought the woman in a harsh and suspicious tone. “Why are you standing at my door? Are you putting literature in my door?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you leaving me a tract?”

“No, kind woman. I have come only to ask you a question.”

“I accepted Jesus as my personal saviour when I was fourteen. There. I’ve answered your question. Go spread the good news somewhere else.”

“Who is it, Mama? Who are you talking to?” Gus couldn’t see the second speaker, whose voice sounded more youthful, for the suspicious older woman fully blocked his view into the house.

“Nobody. Go back to your book!” barked the brusque woman over her shoulder.

Now Gus could hear a series of thumps as the other person within the house moved haltingly to the door. From over the older woman’s shoulder, a young woman wearing curling-framed spectacles, her hair pinned severely to the top of her head, shewed Gus a friendlier look than did her elderly companion. “Hello,” she said. “Mama, let the man in. He wants to sell us something and we’ll listen.”

“We’ll do nothing of the kind!” snapped the older woman, adjusting her grip upon the skillet. “We don’t know what he wants.”

“Well, then ask him, Mama.”

The young woman’s eager look became ever the more anticipatory. She began to bob a little up and down as if she were stretching herself upon tiptoes and then down again by turns.

“So what do you want?” asked the old woman of Gus, without retiring her sullen, probing visage.

Augustus removed his cap in deference to the two women standing before him. “Begging your pardon, kind woman, I am looking for my son. He has gone missing for over ten days and we are fearful that something terrible has happened to him.”

Augustus held the miniature likeness out for the women to see.

“That’s him ?” asked the old woman, peering through the wire mesh.

“Yes, madam,” said Gus. “He’s gained two years since this likeness was put down.”

“I don’t usually see too many boys around here,” said the older woman, softening a little in her address.“You’re probably looking in the wrong place.”

The younger woman now whispered something into the ear of the older woman. The older woman replied in a full voice: “Absolutely not, Annette! Those Milanos have to last until I can get back to Wegman’s.”

“He can have mine,” the young woman replied in an urgent undervoice. “Let’s have him in for tea and Milanos, Mama, please.”

The older woman shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for company to-day, Annette, and you are perfectly free to leave this house and see whoever you want. You aren’t a prisoner here. There are plenty of people who have overcome their agoraphobia when they finally decide to set their minds to it. And they have gone on to live rich and productive lives.”

The younger woman began to sniff, her eyes to tear up.

The older woman sighed. “What’s your name?” she asked Gus.

“Augustus Trimmers.”

“Where’s your car? I don’t see it.”

“Car?”

“Did you come on foot?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been looking for your boy?”

“Since early this morning.”

“Your son’s been lost for ten days and you’ve just now started your search? What kind of father are you? Where do you live?”

Gus turned and pointed. “On the other side of that ridge.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Another one of those. Annette, he’s all yours. Another mooncalf you can put into your bizarro-land scrapbook.” The woman stepped aside to allow her daughter to open the door. Gus could see now with a full view that the young woman wore harnessing metalwork upon each leg. Perhaps, he thought, the metalwork helps her to walk better.

“Meet my nutty daughter Annette. You’ll have a delightful time together. I’ll be in the barn.”

Annette held open the door with the wire-mesh so that the older woman could leave and Gus could enter. Annette was most welcoming. The bit of rubber carpeting upon her porch, which confirmed the sentiment, must certainly have been placed there by her very own hand.